Tuesday, 30 September - Birds of a feather

Good morning, it’s Tuesday, 30 September. In your Squiz Today…

• Optus is forced to explain another triple-0 fail

• Netanyahu and Trump share their latest plan for peace in Gaza

• And Kiwis pick their (other) fave bird… 🐦

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Squiz Sayings

Said music icon Dolly Parton after cancelling some upcoming Las Vegas concerts for some medical procedures she needs. Dolly says she’s been dealing with some health issues, but she’s got no plans to stop performing - what a way to make a livin’... 

From bad to worse at Optus…

The Squiz

The week hasn’t started well for Optus with a new investigation into more failed triple-0 calls in regional NSW. Our second-largest telco was already in focus yesterday with the CEO of its Singaporean parent company Singtel, Yuen Kuan Moon, in Oz to answer questions from Communications Minister Anika Wells after a deadly outage a fortnight ago. And now, problems with the Optus phone tower at Dapto in the Illawarra region leave Moon and Optus CEO Stephen Rue facing more please explains.

There’s been another outage?

Yep… It happened between 3am and 12.20pm on Sunday. A company spokesperson yesterday confirmed the tower issue, but didn’t give many more details. Whatever the cause, it led to at least 9 failed triple-0 calls near Wollongong on the NSW South Coast - and yesterday, Optus said it has checked with each caller and they’re all ok. But as you might imagine, NSW Premier Chris Minns is not happy… He said the outage was “clearly unacceptable” and that the state “deserves full and transparent information” from the telco about what went wrong, “including when emergency services and the telco authority were notified”. 

When’s the meeting with Minister Wells?  

That’s going ahead today, with Moon, Rue and Optus Chair John Arthur all attending. Along with the latest outage, they’ll be discussing what went wrong 2 weeks ago, when a technical failure during routine service upgrades caused a catastrophic triple-0 outage blocking more than 480 emergency calls in Western Oz, South Oz, and the Northern Territory. It’s been linked to at least 4 deaths and prompted an investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. But the Coalition is pushing for more… Their Communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh wants an investigation into the broader emergency call system, saying Wells “has in her powers to immediately investigate the triple-0 network as part of the Telco Act”. 

The skincare ingredient that sounds weird but works wonders

Winter does a number on the skin, and for many of us, regular moisturisers just don't cut it. Enter Bescher Beauty's Sea Cucumber Collagen Glow Toner: it's packed with marine collagen, native botanicals, and hyaluronic acid that work together to deliver results. The proof? It sold out in 6 days after building a 35,000-person waitlist. Now it's back in stock, and if winter skin is the bane of your existence, it might be worth trying something that thousands of people couldn't wait to get their hands on. You can check it out here. 

Squiz the Rest

Planning for peace in Gaza

US President Donald Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu say they’re “very close” to ending the war in Gaza while announcing plans for a post-war 'Board of Peace' to oversee the strip. After a meeting between the 2 leaders at the White House, Trump shared a 20-point plan which involves Gaza becoming a deradicalised, demilitarised zone that isn't a threat to its neighbours, and the "immediate release" by Hamas of all hostages. During the meeting, Netanyahu apologised to Qatari PM Mohammed al Thani for a strike on Hamas’ base in Doha earlier this month. Details are still coming, but Trump says the new peace board would be headed up by him with support from other leaders including former British PM Tony Blair… He says leaders in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are all in - but, crucially, Hamas is yet to approve the deal, so watch this space…

A budget buffer

The Albanese Government released its final budget numbers yesterday for the financial year just gone, and the short version is there’s a lower deficit than previously predicted - $10 billion, down from the initial $28 billion - but plenty more deficits still in our future. Treasurer Jim Chalmers was happy with the numbers - he called it “the biggest-ever positive improvement… in a single parliamentary term”. Chalmers pointed to high employment (more people working equals more people paying income tax) as being a factor behind the rise, but the Coalition wasn’t impressed - leader Sussan Ley says Team Albanese is spending too much and the amount of debt in our future is still a big worry. Fixing that problem was a big topic of discussion at the Economic Roundtable in August, but how it’ll be done is still TBD…

A big deal is in the works… 

…for major gaming company Electronic Arts to be bought and taken private for over $80 billion. EA makes video games like The Sims and EA SPORTS FC (which you might know as FIFA), and it announced overnight that the buyers include the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, Affinity Partners, which was founded by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Silver Lake, an investment firm that’s reportedly also eyeing off a deal for TikTok. The deal still needs shareholder approval to go ahead, but if it does, it’d be the biggest buyout of a publicly traded company (aka one you can buy shares in) by private equity firms - beating the purchase of US power company TXU back in 2007. And once the deal gets done, shareholders will be paid about $320 a pop - not a bad payday…  

Our cricketers take to the stage

The Aussie women will be gunning for their 8th title and second in a row as the Women’s Cricket World Cup gets underway this week in India and Sri Lanka. This is the One Day International (aka 50-over) format of the game, and the 2 host countries will be opening proceedings by taking on each other at 7.30pm AEST tonight. Tomorrow the Aussies get their turn with a game against New Zealand - and with players like Phoebe Litchfield, Ellyse Perry, Alana King and captain Alyssa Healy in the line-up, they’ll go into the tournament as strong favourites. You can see the full schedule of games here all the way up to the final on 2 November - and this year the whole tournament is available to stream on Prime Video. Go the green and gold… 
While we have you… Yesterday we said the NRL Grand Final is on Saturday night. It’s on Sunday night at 7.30pm AEST, following the NRLW GF at 4pm AEST. Soz, and hope you didn’t book a flight to Sydney based on that info... 

The Kiwis pick their (other) fave bird

A super-quick falcon called the kārearea is this year’s winner of the annual Bird of the Year poll run by our friends across the ditch - taking out over 20% of the 75,000 votes. The kārearea is actually New Zealand’s only falcon, and it ain’t to be messed with - it can fly over 200km an hour and is known to eat other birds. It’s a high achiever - it also won back in 2012 - but it’s also a threatened species, with only about 5-8,000 left in the wild. It took out the 20th edition of the competition, which hasn’t always been smooth sailing - a bat was a controversial choice in 2021 (due to not being, y’know, a bird) and UK comedian John Oliver helped get the pūteketeke over the line in 2023. For Aussies, our time to shine is coming soon - The Guardian’s biennial Bird of the Year poll gets underway next week. 

Apropos of Nothing - Showbiz edition

Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny has been announced as the headline act of next year's Super Bowl halftime show on 9 February - one of the most-watched annual events in the world. And shortly after that, he'll be heading our way… 

Also heading our way to perform at the NRL/NRLW grand final is US singer Teddy Swims, but he’s just had to cancel planned shows for Hawaii as his doctors have "not cleared me to sing". No news yet on his GF appearance on Sunday though - fingers crossed… 

And 20 years after their last appearance, the Simpson family is heading back to cinemas - The Simpsons 2 was announced overnight and will be released in July 2027. With all the superhero movies at the moment, trotters crossed for a Spider-pig origin story… 

Squiz the Day

9.45am (AEST) - The National Gallery of Victoria will announce its 2026 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition - Melbourne 

10.00am (AEST) - A judgement will be delivered in the class action case against NSW Police over the alleged unlawful strip-searching by police at music festivals - Sydney 

12.00pm (AEST) - The Brisbane Lions will hold a community celebration in Queens Gardens to celebrate the club’s back-to-back AFL premierships - Brisbane

1.00pm (AEST) - Melbourne Fringe Festival begins (until 19 October) - Melbourne

1.30pm (AEST) - Athletics: Day 4 of the World Para Athletics gets underway - Delhi, India

12.30pm (AWST) - Childhood brain cancer researcher Jacob Byrne will finish his 30th marathon in 30 consecutive days, marking the end of his fundraising campaign Big Run for Little Brains with The Kids Research Institute Australia - Perth

2.30pm (AEST) - The Reserve Bank of Australia will hand down its latest decision on interest rates - Sydney 

7.00pm (AEST) - Opening night of the new Australian production of the Tony Award-winning musical RENT at the Opera House - Sydney

7.30pm (AEST) - The Women's Cricket World Cup begins with the first match between the tournament’s co-hosts, India and Sri Lanka - Guwahati, India, watch free on Prime Video

Hundreds of senior US generals are set to attend a meeting at the Pentagon led by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and US President Donald Trump - Virginia, US 

ABS data releases: Building Approvals, Australia, August 2025; Deaths due to acute respiratory infections in Australia, August 2025

🇧🇼 Botswana’s National Day

International Podcast Day - and hey, we just so happen to have our own

Birthdays for actor Fran Drescher (1957) and dancer/actor Maddie Ziegler (2002)

Anniversary of:

• anaesthetic ether being used for the first time by American dentist Dr William Morton (1846)

• the death of US actor James Dean (1955)

• the premiere of the animated TV series The Flintstones (1960)

• Russia’s intervention in Syria, which enabled former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to reconsolidate his control over the country (2015)