Thursday, 10 September - Have you seen the little piggies

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 10 September. In your Squiz Today…

• The PM is under pressure over pork barrelling in his electorate

• Vale Blanche D’Alpuget

• And Apple goes retro…

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🙋🏻‍♀️ This newsletter was written by Anna Pykett, Larissa Huntington, Andrew Williams and Sophie Felice

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said one of the directors of the film Oasis: Don’t Look Back In Anger, describing the moment Noel and Liam Gallagher reunited in Paris after 16 years for their Alive 25 tour. If you want to know what happens next, the film is out today in Oz cinemas…

New Pork state of mind

The Squiz

You might be seeing some headlines around PM Anthony Albanese and a golf club, but it’s got little to do with his putting game... He’s facing questions about a $6 million grant awarded to the Marrickville Golf Club in his electorate - a club he’s an honorary member of. But the membership isn’t declared in his personal register of interests, and it’s led to his government being accused of pork barrelling.

We’re not bacon it up…

If you’ve never heard the term, pork barrelling is when governments use taxpayer money to fund local projects to win votes in that area - for example, by improving sports facilities like change rooms for footy clubs. In this case, the grant was given under the federal government's invitation-only $560 million Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program. The way it was conducted has come under scrutiny after the Centre for Public Integrity found that more than 73% of the funding went to Labor-held seats or marginal electorates. The government has gone on the defensive, saying it’s got the right to deliver on promises made at election time. But there are still a lot of questions flying around about fairness. As for the PM, he refused to apologise and said he didn’t know he was an honorary member of the golf club. He said he’s a tennis player, not a golfer, and gave the ABC a serve about its reporting…

What’s the state of play?

The Coalition was quick to jump on it, noting that back in 2020 during the sports rorts scandal, Albanese called for the resignation of then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie when it came out she'd approved a $35,980 grant for the Wangaratta Clay Target Club but didn’t disclose she held an honorary membership. He was Labor leader in opposition at the time, and said: “It fails the pub test. It fails every test”. In parliament yesterday, he copped a grilling over the grants program, fending off accusations that Labor’s trying to buy votes. As for what’s next, the matter’s been raised with the National Audit Office (which checks the government is spending taxpayer money fairly), and some independent MPs including Monique Ryan and Helen Haines have renewed calls for more transparent grant processes.

Moving towards financial independence

Recognising financial abuse can take time because it often happens gradually and behind closed doors... For many people, understanding the signs is the first step, but they don't have to do it alone - information and support exists, whether it’s for themselves or someone they care about. CommBank’s Next Chapter program partners with specialist community organisations to provide free and confidential support, helping people take steps towards long-term financial independence and recovery - even if you don’t bank with them.

Squiz the Rest

And speaking of barrels…

Oil barrels to be specific… The oil price has jumped back over US$100 a barrel (A$138) for the first time since July, after an escalation of the war in Iran. The US and Iran have continued to strike each other overnight - the US says it’s destroyed 5 Iranian oil tankers and Iran says it’s attacked 2 US ships and an American base in Jordan. On top of that, the Houthis, the Iranian-backed rebel group in Yemen, have been going after cities and key oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. As a general rule, the more unrest there is in the region, the higher oil prices are, given that almost a fifth of the world’s oil supply went through there before the war began. And more expensive oil likely means more expensive petrol, a rise in inflation, and the chances of an interest rate hike when the Reserve Bank meets on 28/29 September.

Vale Blanche D’Alpuget

The Australian writer and wife of former Labor PM Bob Hawke died on Tuesday from influenza at 82yo. She won multiple awards for her novels and essays, but she was most famous for the best-selling political biography about her second husband, which bagged her the NSW Premier's Award. In an interview last year, Blanche said she was "cancelled before cancelling was a thing" for her affair with Hawke, which started years before he divorced his first wife Hazel, and led to criticism from the public. Her family said she’d be remembered as someone “who took delight in living”, and that they’d miss “her force, humour, and curiosity”. She asked them to share her final message, which was that “our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another”.

AI has reached critical maths

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI has set various chatbot minions on a major maths problem - and solved it in 88 hours. We don’t have anywhere near the word count (or, let’s be honest, the maths knowledge) to try and explain the problem, but it’s something to do with the way fluids move, and mathematicians have been trying to prove their solutions for it for about 90 years. OpenAI reckons it’s cracked a version of it, though, thanks to a new model they’ve been using, which it says is a bit of a maths whiz. That model is one the company only uses internally - at this point, at least. One note of caution - the Clay Mathematics Institute, which offers prizes for solving tricky maths problems like this one, hasn’t verified the solution yet. 

Are you ready for some football?

But not the local type - we're talking gridiron, or American football. The National Football League is the most profitable sporting league in the world, and it's kicking off this morning with a Super Bowl rematch between champs the Seattle Seahawks and not-champs the New England Patriots. You can watch it on Disney+ at 10.20am AEST today, and then tomorrow we're getting in on the action with the first-ever regular-season NFL game played on Aussie soil. It's the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers at the MCG - at the slightly inconvenient time of 10.35am AEST on a school day. That hasn't discouraged fans, though - the game is a sellout with 100,000 people expected to rock up. If you haven't got a ticket, you can watch on Channel 7 and 7Plus. 

Everything fold is new again

In its first product launch under shiny new CEO John Ternus, the tech company has announced its new batch of products. And there was a bit of pressure - with Apple seen by experts as having fallen behind a bit in the AI race, this morning’s event was described as "the most-anticipated day in Apple's recent history". Ternus' first cab off the rank was the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, which comes in a new burgundy colour and will set you back over $2,000 in Oz. There were also upgrades for its existing AirPods and Apple Watch, with a big focus on AI integration throughout - but the big thing fans were watching out for was a foldable device. And Apple didn't disappoint, launching iPhone Duo, which looks a bit wider and more rounded than other foldables on the market. It'll set you back a fair bit of folding too - it's likely to go for at least $3,000 here, and will be on sale in October.

Apropos of Nothing

For its 29th season, the satirical animated show South Park is returning as South America… After US President Donald Trump has tried to rename a gulf, a lake and a state, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone followed suit. No need to rename their other creation… 

A new study has found that flushing toilets release a cloud of potential pathogens into your bathroom, even when you close the lid. Researchers say it’s probably still best to close your toilet lid and that if you’re healthy, you’re probably fine. We guess you can flush and run… 

And the US Open tennis tournament has had its latest-ever finish, with American Ben Shelton defeating Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz at around 3.30am local time in New York. That’s about the same time we get up in the morning… 

Squiz the Day

6.00am (AEST) - US President Donald Trump will be speaking at the Republican Party’s midterm election convention which kicks off today (until 11 September) - Dallas

10.20am (AEST) - The 2026 NFL season begins Seahawks v Patriots - Seattle, watch on ESPN on Disney+

12.30pm (AEST) - Global CEO of the Asia Society and former PM Kevin Rudd will address the National Press Club on 'Navigating Australia’s Future in an Uncertain World' - Canberra, watch on ABC iview 

The PM Literary Awards winners will be announced across 6 categories: fiction, non-fiction, young adult literature, children’s literature, poetry and Australian history - Canberra

New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2027 begins (until 15 September) 

Darwin International Film Festival begins (until 20 September) 

Practical Magic 2 and Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger are released in Aussie cinemas

Desert Mob (until 25 October) - Araluen, NT

R U OK? Day 

World Suicide Prevention Day 

Birthdays for Feliz Navidad singer José Feliciano (1945), actor Colin Firth (1960), Jack Ma (1964), ballet dancer Misty Copeland (1982), and Aussie soccer star Sam Kerr (1993)

Anniversary of:

• the release of Nirvana's single Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)

• the debut of The X-Files (1993)

• SpaceX's Polaris Dawn launching, ahead of the first private spacewalk (2024) 

• the only Presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris (2024)

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