Thursday, 6 August - Miss you in the saddest fashion

Good morning, it’s Thursday, 6 August. In your Squiz Today…

• Immigration Minister Tony Burke has postponed a National Press Club speech on migration cuts

• We’ve had some patchy NAPLAN results

• And 6 years of work leads to a win in the Miles Franklin… 📚

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

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Aussie actress Naomi Watts to Spider-man: Brand New Day star Tom Holland in an Instagram post congratulating the team behind the movie. Watts played Holland’s Mum in 2012 movie The Impossible, which made just a tiny bit less than Spider-man’s $1.05 billion and climbing…

A speech from Burke needs work

The Squiz

Normally we try to give you a heads-up on what’s going to happen at The Squiz, but this time we’re telling you what isn’t… Immigration Minister Tony Burke was supposed to be giving a speech to the National Press Club this afternoon, where he was expected to announce the Albanese Government’s plan to cut migration numbers. But late Tuesday night, his speech was postponed - and over the course of yesterday, we found out a bit more about why…

Give me the background…

In the years after the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia’s migration numbers spiked. In 2023, our net migration count (aka the number of people who come into Oz to live minus the number who leave) peaked at over half a million people. It’s come down since then to around 300,000 - but that’s higher than the government wants it. And it’s much higher than the Coalition and One Nation would like - especially Pauline Hanson’s party, which has always had migration as its signature issue. It argues that too much migration is a threat to social cohesion and puts pressure on our housing system and infrastructure. Burke’s announcement today was expected to be a heavy cut to our migration numbers, in a policy in part designed to take the wind out of One Nation’s polling sails…

So what went wrong?

The official line from the government is that the details of Burke’s announcement needed more time in the oven - so the speech was delayed and they’re looking for a new window. Burke was expected to announce measures like preventing family members of Aussies from applying for family visas while they’re here on holiday, and a limit on those seeking humanitarian visas to be able to work while their cases are reviewed. Those proposals have alarmed some - like Asylum Seeker Resource Centre deputy chief exec Jana Favero, who says “Australia deserves better than politicians looking for someone to blame instead of delivering real solutions”. And reports say the delay was about more than just details - it’s also a ploy to wait until Prime Minister Anthony Albanese returns from leave  (tomorrow, as it happens) so he can help sell the policy once it’s official. When that will be, though, is TBD…

Squiz the Rest

Raising the alarm over Iran

The human rights chief at the United Nations says executions are on the rise in Iran, with at least 56 people put to death on national security-related charges since March. In a statement overnight, UN High Commissioner Volker Türk said 27 of those were likely related to the massive protests that happened in January, and there are over 100 people at risk of execution on similar charges. The UN also warned that many of those have not received a fair trial, and Türk called on Iran to halt all executions and abolish the death penalty. While the Iranian government hasn’t directly responded, it’s said in the past it only executes people in severe cases. According to human rights group Amnesty International, it executed at least 2,159 people last year - the second-highest number in the world after China.

Calling for more mobile coverage

After last month’s Telstra outage caused havoc for public transport, businesses, and the Triple Zero system, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will conduct an inquiry into whether telcos should be forced to sell access to their networks, especially in the bush. It’s called mandated domestic roaming and it’d allow mobile customers to automatically connect to another service if theirs drops out. Telstra (which has the biggest network in Oz) isn’t on board - it reckons regional Aussies would be worse off because there’d be less investment in infrastructure and increased congestion. But smaller telco TPG, which owns Vodafone, says it’d mean more coverage and stronger competition. Communications Minister Anika Wells said she looks forward to hearing the different views. And with the inquiry set to take a year, there’s plenty of time to hear them…

Classroom for improvement

Results for the annual NAPLAN tests are in for the nation’s kids, and they show that one in 3 students aren’t meeting standards in reading, writing and numeracy. NAPLAN tests students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 to give a check on the health of the education system and give parents a gauge on how their children and school are performing. This year, 1.2 million children sat the tests, and the results published yesterday show that reading scores for years 5, 7 and 9 were below last year, although those groups showed some improvement in maths. Education Minister Jason Clare acknowledged the reading results “show we still have real challenges” but said in schools “using explicit teaching methods, including phonics, and small-group tutoring … results are going up and up”.

One small dent for man

We don’t often hear about man-made objects crashing into the moon, but that’s what scientists believe happened yesterday afternoon after the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched in January last year, veered off towards the moon on an “unintentional” collision course. It’s the size of a bus and it’s thought to have hit just after 4.30pm AEST, travelling at more than 8,600 km/hr (7 times the speed of sound). It struck an area known as Einstein Crater - but even though the force of impact caused an explosion equal to what 3 tonnes of TNT might do, we didn’t see much from Earth because that side of the moon was lit by the sun. Still, scientists were watching closely - though it could take a while before we see any images. Experts say it was never a danger to Earth - but it will leave a new crater. We wonder if it’ll be named Elon…?

Continuing a brilliant career

Author, poet and rapper Omar Musa has taken out this year’s Miles Franklin Award - our most prestigious literary prize. He’ll pocket $60,000 for Fierceland, which follows 2 siblings who head back to Malaysian Borneo to deal with the legacy of their late father. It’s Musa’s second novel and it took him 6 years to write, but it sounds like it was worth it… judges called it a “tour de force set against the destruction of Borneo’s rainforests.” The Miles Franklin Award is a long-running annual tradition - it was first awarded in 1957, after it was set up in Franklin’s will. And while we’re on the topic, a heads-up - her famous 1901 novel My Brilliant Career is getting a new 6-part TV adaptation, 125 years after it was first published. That’ll drop on Netflix on 13 August.

Apropos of Nothing

Budget airline Jetstar is making a change to its carry-on rules - beginning in February, using the overhead locker will cost you money and free carry-on has to fit under the seat in front of you. That’s the bad news - the good news is you might not have to go halfway down the plane to find a spot for your bag… 

An organ in eastern Germany has been playing a piece of music for 25 years. And it’s not even close to done - the John Cage Organ Project is aiming to play the track for 639 years. Imagine the encore…

And not to be outdone by its lunar competitor, the sun is attracting some headlines of its own - with new images published overnight showing its surface in more detail than ever before. The really high-res ones look oddly delicious - like honeycomb ice cream…

And just finally, it’s a fond farewell from everyone at The Squiz to our wonderful, long-time Squiz Today host Alice Dempster. You’ve been reading her writing in this newsletter for years, and she hosted her last episode of the podcast this morning. You can listen to that here - we’ll miss you, Alice…

Squiz the Day

10.00am (ACST) - Cricket: Men's 3-day tour match, Australia v Bangladesh (until 9 August) - Darwin 

Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (until 9 August) 

ABS data release: International trade in goods, June 2026

Massive Attack will begin their first Australian tour in 16 years tonight - Brisbane

News Corp will publish its financial year results (and so will online real estate platform REA Group)

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Australian Energy Regulator will hold a conference on energy security and data centre planning (until 7 August)

AFL Round 22 and NRL Round 23 commence

A birthday for actress Michelle Yeoh (1962)

Anniversary of:

• the HMS Roebuck, captained by William Dampier, lands at Shark Bay in Western Oz on the first British scientific expedition to Australia (1699)

• the US dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in Japan, killing more than 70,000 (1945)

• the World Wide Web becoming publicly available (1991)

• Curiosity rover landing on Mars (2012)

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