Wednesday, 10 June - Among the hounds of love

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 10 June. In your Squiz Today…

• Another artificial intelligence giant is going public

• Squiz Kids’ Newshounds program is rolled out across South Oz

• And celebrating 70 years of Aussie television… 📺

🎧 Listen to the podcast

🤓 This email will take you 5 minutes to read

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

Squiz the Weather

We need a quick favour

If you’re looking for news specifically about finance and the economy, where do you go? We’ve been partnering with CommBank Newsroom to find out and we need your help please. Seven quick questions, 2 minutes max. Your answers help us keep doing what we do. A big thanks in advance for having our back.

Squiz Sayings

Said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman this morning, announcing the crew of 2027’s Artemis III, the follow-up mission to April’s Artemis II. The astronauts will be returning to the moon in style - their spacesuits have been designed by Prada. Miranda Priestly approves… 

All about artificial intelligence

The Squiz

OpenAI - the company behind ChatGPT - has become the latest major tech company to announce plans to go public on the US stock market, following in the digital footsteps of Anthropic and SpaceX. It’s expected to be one of the highest valued market debuts in history, as regular investors get a chance to have a stake in the growth of artificial intelligence. But as the share market gets excited, there are calls here in Oz for these companies to pay their fair share of tax…  

Why are they so valuable?

It’s a good question, because OpenAI was recently valued at over a trillion dollars Australian, which would make it one of the highest-valued companies in the world (and Anthropic is valued even higher). Those who believe in the value of AI think it’s an economic game-changer because it can replace work previously done by humans, making it cheaper and more accessible. And then there’s the potential of what we don’t know it can do yet - one researcher described it as “the new electricity” in terms of its significance. But not everyone’s so bullish about how much these AI companies are worth - some experts have raised questions on whether OpenAI makes enough revenue from its products to warrant the big numbers being thrown around, especially given the amount it’s planning to spend on AI infrastructure, like data centres…   

Oh yeah - some of those are being built here… 

Yep - for AI to operate, it needs massive computing power, which means it needs data centres to provide it. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and, yep, OpenAI - have all announced plans to build these centres in Oz, in deals worth several billions of dollars. Yesterday, independent Senator David Pocock said any company planning to build the centres in Australia should be taxed accordingly - warning that “we’ve watched foreign-owned companies extract enormous value from Australian resources before while finding ways to minimise the tax they pay here.” As for what’s next, while OpenAI’s plans to go public don’t have a date yet, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is doing so on Friday - and Commbank’s trading platform has reportedly been struggling to keep up with the demand to get involved. We’ll find out what the market thinks it’s worth soon enough…

Impact that stretches further

When you think of mining, on-site work is probably what comes to mind, but there’s more to it than that. One example is the BHP FutureFit Academy in Perth, which trained more than 525 apprentices, trainees and employees in the 2025 financial year. It's an accredited training pathway that’s making a real difference in shaping Australia’s future workforce.

Squiz the Rest

Dealing with the aftermath

Hundreds of aftershocks have shaken the southern Philippines following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday morning. The quake hit Mindanao Island, leaving at least 37 people dead and more than 480 injured - but authorities say those numbers will likely rise. Emergency workers are still trying to reach cities and towns on the coast, where buildings have collapsed or been buried in landslides, and reports say large parts of the island have been left without power. Around 2,000 homes and 6,000 schools are damaged - science minister Renato Solidum said many students survived because they were at assembly and “were lucky to be outside”. He said the area has experienced strong earthquakes before but “this is one of the strongest”. 

A step to the right

In a bid to beat Labor at the next federal election, new Liberal Party President Tony Abbott says he’s prepared to back a preference deal with One Nation - and Coalition leader Angus Taylor hasn’t ruled it out. The Libs and the Nationals are currently wrestling with One Nation’s rise in popularity, with several recent polls placing it as the most popular party in the country. A preference deal means the Coalition and One Nation would place each other highly on their how-to-vote cards at election time - like they did at the recent by-election in Farrer (which One Nation won). The idea of a federal deal has some moderate Libs alarmed - they say it could make it harder for the Coalition to win back city seats from ‘teal’ independents and Labor. Nothing’s set in stone yet, so we’ll see what happens…  

Sniffing out media literacy in South Oz

It was an exciting day yesterday here at Squiz HQ, as the Malinauskas Government has announced a 4-year funding deal for Squiz Kids’ Newshounds program. Newshounds is Australia’s most trusted media literacy resource for primary school kids, and it’ll be rolled out to all primary schools across the state. That makes South Oz the first state in the country to treat media literacy as an essential life skill - as our very own Newshounds Director Bryce Corbett put it, “In a digital age, learning to think critically about what they see online is just as important a life skill for primary school kids as reading, writing and arithmetic.” To find out more about Newshounds, click here - but no need to Stop, Think and Check this one - Squiz-E the Newshound says it’s legit…

Barbeques no more

Your local Barbeques Galore franchise is likely on the way out, after the company announced yesterday that a planned rescue deal didn’t come off. The retail chain with the red and white logo began in the 1970s but has been struggling in recent times - it entered voluntary administration in February, and hasn’t been able to find a buyer. That means its 500 current staff will likely be made redundant, and it’ll be closing 62 of its stores over the coming weeks, with 27 franchises also in doubt. If you’ve got a gift card lying around somewhere, you need to get cracking - they’ll only be honoured up until 30 June. But be warned… You have to spend $2 for every $1 of value on the card. In its honour, we’ve been rewatching this ad from 1987, with the mandatory catchy jingle… 

Strewth, that’s a tough job

In September, it’ll be 70 years since Bruce Gyngell said “good evening” and welcomed us all to television - and to celebrate, TV Week is asking for your thoughts on the 70 Best Oz TV shows of all time. To help out, the magazine has whittled down a shortlist of 140 shows to pick from - everything from cop dramas like Blue Heelers to comedies like Kath & Kim to national icons like Play School. You can even submit your own suggestion, if you’re unhappy with the exclusion of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, or It’s a Knockout... Voting is open until Sunday 21 June, and the full results will be revealed at the Logie Awards on Sunday 16 August. Time to pick a show that’s noice, different, unusual… 

Apropos of Nothing

Mary, the Tassie devil who escaped from her enclosure on the Gold Coast last week, is still missing despite being spotted on a security camera. She’s left rescuers some signs, but they say the 2yo is “quite elusive” and giving them a devil of a job to catch her…

A record number of octopuses have been spotted by researchers in the UK due to warming waters. This sudden increase in numbers is known as a ‘bloom’, and it’s having an impact on local fishers because they’re such good predators (aka competition)…

And birdwatchers in the West are in a flap over a rare black-headed gull that’s been spotted in the city of Geraldton. Some have made the 400km-plus trip from Perth to see the bird, which has only been spotted a dozen times in Oz before now. That’s commitment… 

Squiz the Day

7.00am (ACST) - Breakfast event with astronaut and Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg to officially open nominations for the 2027 Australian of the Year Awards - Adelaide 

9.00am (AEST) - The Global AgInvesting conference begins, with the theme Cultivating Connections in Agriculture, Timber, & Natural Capital Investments (until 11 June) - Brisbane

9.00am (AEST) - Power and Water summit on sustaining data centres (until 11 June) - Sydney  

10.00am (AEST) - High Court judgment for Safwat Abdel-Hady, who is seeking compensation for the time he spent in immigration detention after his visa was cancelled on character grounds. The outcome could determine whether the federal government is legally liable to pay compensation to other non-citizens, High Court of Australia - Canberra 

12.00pm (AEST) - Australian cycling team named for Glasgow Commonwealth Games - Brisbane

12.30pm (AEST) - Dr Andrew Leigh MP, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury will address the National Press Club on 'Rebuilding Trust: The Future of Australia’s Charities and Community Life' - Canberra

12.00pm (ACST) - South Australian Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis will deliver a 2026 budget address - Adelaide 

1.00pm (AEST) - State funeral for AFL player/coach and FightMND co-founder Neale Daniher, MCG - Melbourne, and the funeral will be available to livestream for those unable to attend

5.00pm (AEST) - ACT Treasurer Chris Steel to present the 2026/2027 budget - Canberra

ABS data release: Industrial disputes, March 2026; Research and experimental development, 2024-2025 financial year; building approvals, April 2026 

International Day for Dialogue Among Civilisations

National Herbs and Spices Day

A birthday for comedian Bill Burr (1968), actor Elizabeth Hurley (1965) and model Kate Upton (1992)

Anniversary of:

• the first victim of the Salem witch trials being hanged for witchcraft in Massachusetts (1692)

• the Myall Creek Massacre, which saw 28 Indigenous Australians murdered (1838)

• the birthdays of Prince Philip (1921) and actress Judy Garland (1922)

• the launch of the Spirit Rover, beginning NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission (2003)

• the death of musician Ray Charles (2004)