Thursday, 3 September - If I could turn back time

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 3 September. In your Squiz Today…

• An independent report into the Telstra outage is released

• More Aussies have been found alive in Nepal

• And creating sneeze-free puppies…

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

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Aussie endurance athlete Phil Gore, who ran 6.71km every hour for an entire week with the help of some old-school fast food. The 40yo firefighter from Perth got no more than 15 minutes of sleep at a time, but raised $285,000 for charity. He’s definitely earned fries with that…

A timely report

The Squiz

Telstra has released the findings of an independent review into its 8 July network outage, which caused mayhem when millions of people were cut off from mobile services. Consulting firm Technology Audit Partners found that the telco didn’t have enough engineering staff and didn’t treat its timing system - which triggered the network failure - as a priority. Yesterday, Telstra CEO Vicki Brady said the outage “should not have happened”, adding “We let our customers down and we fell short of what Australians rightly expect from us”.

Wind it back a bit…

That's what Telstra's network digital clock did on the day of the outage - right back to 2006. As a reminder, the 12-hour glitch left millions of people without mobile service and failed to connect around 600 emergency calls to Triple Zero. As well as that, heaps of businesses were unable to process payments, and public transport was also affected. But back to the clock... The report put the outage down to a software upgrade not being done on a global positioning system (GPS) card (that's a piece of hardware which keeps the exact time using info from satellites). The phone network runs off this to stop signals from overlapping. Because it hadn't been updated, the card hit a limit and reset to 20 years ago - so when timestamped calls came through as 2026, the system saw them as errors and blocked about 45% of the network.

What else was in the report?

There was a lot of focus yesterday on the fact that 2 engineers who knew how to fix the problem had worked overnight and were getting “mandatory” rest when the system crashed. On that, the report found Telstra had "too few engineering staff" and "insufficient expertise" to support its time system. The telco says it's added expert staff to that team and introduced additional monitoring and alarms to prevent a repeat incident. In terms of the hardware, a Senate inquiry in July heard that the company was warned about the risk back in January but didn’t outlay the $30,000 to upgrade it. Telstra has already paid out $1 million to customers after the outage - but an Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation is underway, and it could be fined up to $30 million for breaching emergency call service laws.

The catch in AI’s economic promise

Your average economist will tell you that productivity and innovation are key planks of a strong economy, and AI could help with both… But many experts are also warning that it needs to deliver meaningful social gains at the same time. That’s why leaders from across Australia are gathering in Sydney this October to understand why businesses need to balance AI’s potential with its social risks, and what's next for productivity, regulation, and the way we work.

Squiz the Rest

More Aussies found alive in Nepal

As of this morning, the number of Aussies missing after last week’s catastrophic flash flood is 38. Details are scarce, but we know that 3 people were found outside the flood zone, another was found in Nepal, and one in Tibet. It comes after 25yo Cara Severino was confirmed safe on the weekend. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has received more than 800 calls from people worried about their loved ones in the region. It says 18 staff have travelled to Nepal, while emergency aid from Oz was due to arrive yesterday. The death toll has now risen to more than 1,060 people, with over 4,400 missing. Foreign Minister Penny Wong says many areas are “still difficult to reach” and that “as each day passes, our grave concerns for those still unaccounted for inevitably grow”.

Turn off the algo, Albo

Consent educator Chanel Contos is calling on the Albanese Government to make our social media algorithms opt-in as a way of targeting sexual violence and misogyny in Oz. To explain: at the moment, when you're scrolling through Insta or TikTok, you're shown what the tech companies decide you can see, and increasingly that's content from accounts or people you don't follow. At the National Press Club yesterday, Contos said that means young men are often exposed to misogynistic content online, even if they don't seek it out - and it's fostering extremist, harmful views that can lead to sexual violence. She wants to switch the algorithm off by default, so we choose to sign up to it - and the government says it's looking at the opt-in option. 

Nuthin but a GDP thang

The Oz economy had some unexpected news yesterday - our gross domestic product (GDP) outdid predictions in the 3 months to June, growing 0.4% during the quarter. That meant the annual growth rate was 2.1% - slightly above the forecasts of most economists and the Reserve Bank. Treasurer Jim Chalmers was celebrating - he said that annual growth in Oz was “as strong or stronger than every major advanced economy”. But Coalition Treasury spokesman Tim Wilson was ready with the cold water, saying: "While the Treasurer is fist-bumping the air, small businesses are going to the wall, and real wages are going backward with household budgets". Speaking of, households might be in for a tighter squeeze soon, with some analysts saying the economic growth may lead to an interest rate rise when the Reserve Bank next meets on 29 September. 
*And if too much finance isn’t enough, we’ve got a couple of Squiz Shortcuts that can provide a bit more context - here’s one on interest rates, and this one looks at why our national debt has reached $1 trillion…

A map app scrap

You may have noticed there’s a bit of a tussle going on at the moment between the US and Canada over Lake Ontario - the smallest of North America’s 5 Great Lakes. Following a spat over tariffs, US President Donald Trump decreed last week that Lake Ontario - which sits on the border between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York - be renamed Lake America, though he hasn’t explicitly explained why. Experts reckon it’s to annoy Canadians - which it’s definitely done - especially after Google Maps and, yesterday, Apple Maps, both officially changed the name for US users. But one app, MapQuest, has refused to follow Trump’s directions - and it’s promptly become the most-downloaded app on Apple's app store. 

Hypoallergenic hound hopes

If you’re allergic to dogs, pet ownership may be on the (distant) horizon thanks to some genetically modified beagles. Researchers at Kindred Companion Sciences used a scientific technique called CRISPR - a gene-editing tool that can cut DNA at a precise spot so it can be disabled, repaired or rewritten - to produce pups that don’t make allergens. They disabled the Can f 1 gene responsible for producing those allergens in a beagle’s skin cells, cloned them - and used the DNA to create beagle embryos. The result: puppies Alfie and Bailey. The hope is that in future, hypoallergenic dogs would be able to breed normally without passing on the problem gene. But before you bin the tissues and sign up, they’re not for sale yet - the pups’ health must be monitored so regulators can ensure the science is pawfect… 

Apropos of Nothing

Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation of The Odyssey was cited by Christopher Nolan as an inspiration for his film, is set to embark on a complete re-translation. Wilson was highly critical of Nolan’s film, but her decision to take it from the top pre-dates the movie… 

A floating forest island about half the size of an AFL field was spotted on a lake in British Columbia, Canada, before drifting 30km away and eluding detection for another 3 weeks. It’s one thing to lose your keys, but it’s quite another to lose a whole island… 

And an 18yo creator named Sam Andrews is going viral for listening to (or some may say enduring) the full catalogue of renowned noise artist Merzbow. Merzbow’s noise includes hours of single-frequency sounds, which Andrews describes as “like tinnitus”. Fun…

Squiz the Day

10.00am (AEST) - A 2-day sentencing hearing begins for Molly Ticehurst’s killer Daniel Billings - Orange

Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners announced 

Start of Sydney Contemporary Art Fair (until 6 September) 

ABS data release: recorded crime - victims, 2025; assets and liabilities of Australian securitisers, June 2026; international trade in goods, July 2026 

NT Resources Week (until 3 September) - Darwin

The Gentlemen season 2 drops on Netflix 

🇦🇺 National Flag Day, marking the 125th anniversary of the Aussie flag first being flown (1901)

Armed Forces Day in Taiwan

World Skyscraper Day

Anniversary of:

• the signing of the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolutionary War (1783)

• Britain declaring war on Germany after its invasion of Poland (1939)

• Chris the Sheep breaking the world record for biggest shorn fleece 40kg near Canberra (2015)

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