Wednesday, 3 December - Better the devil you know

December 03, 2025

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 3 December. In your Squiz Today…

  • Defence ministers from PNG, Indonesia and Oz will catch up in Port Moresby today

  • It’s crunch time for Tassie’s AFL dreams

  • And the First Lady’s White House decorations are back in the spotlight…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

"I love playing for Australia - this is my happy place.”

Said Matilda Hayley Raso after scoring in the second half to seal a 2-0 friendly victory over New Zealand in South Oz last night. The win also featured the successful return of superstar Sam Kerr to the starting side, so it was a pretty happy place to be for Tillies fans as well…

A key three in PNG

The Squiz

There's a notable meeting happening in Port Moresby today - the Defence Ministers of Oz, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia will come together in the PNG capital to kick off a new annual trilateral chat. The 3 countries have recently engaged in a flurry of defence treaties: PNG and Oz signed the PukPuk Treaty in October, and Indonesia and Oz are expected to sign off on a new treaty of their own early next year. But that doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and rainbows today - Indonesia have raised a few questions about the Pukpuk that this meeting is designed to answer, and then there’s also the live issue of West Papua…

Hang on, let me get my bearings…

Here’s a map for you: West Papua is a province of Indonesia on the western side of the island of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea is on the eastern side). The province has been fighting for independence from Indonesia for decades, with accusations of human rights abuses in the region as violence has increased over the course of 2025. Papua New Guinea's Defence Minister, Dr Billy Joseph, says his country is worried that the violence could cross the 820km border that divides the island of New Guinea between PNG and Indonesia. Joseph says he respects Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua, but if the fighting crosses into PNG, it becomes a serious issue for them, so PNG is proposing a 10km buffer zone along that border, which might come up today… 

Well, I assume that’s all the PNG news floating around…

You’d think, but as Tim Shaw from the Demtel ads used to say, there’s more… National carrier QANTAS says it’s going to start flying between Sydney and Port Moresby again in March 2026, around a year after packing the route in. The airline says the change of heart is due to the entry of the PNG Chiefs into the National Rugby League in 2028, which it says is already leading to more demand for travel between the 2 cities (there’s already a daily flight between Port Moresby and Brisbane). As you might remember, the Chiefs aren’t just a team - they’re a $600 million investment into PNG by the Australian government, with part of the deal being that PNG wouldn't agree to certain security deals with China as the 2 countries battle for regional influence in the Pacific. It's all connected… 

The skincare ingredient that sounds weird but works wonders

Spring 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

Scrutiny grows over US strikes

The White House has defended decisions to carry out multiple strikes on at least one suspected drug boat, after critics and US lawmakers questioned its legality. The US has attacked about 19 boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September, killing around 80 people - mostly Venezuelans. This particular one is being called out after reports said US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the second strike to “kill everybody” who had survived the first. Hegseth denies that, but says he did authorise a US Navy Admiral to carry out the strikes. George Washington University law professor Laura Dickinson says many legal experts believe the ​​killing of survivors could be considered “murder outside of armed conflict”. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have launched investigations.
*For more on the US-Venezuela conflict, we’ve done up a Shortcut…

In a nepo-tizzy

A review of political appointments in recent governments (unofficially dubbed the “jobs for mates” report…) has slammed the trend of giving plum board jobs to friends/political allies. Lynelle Briggs, a former public service commissioner, led the review - and said too often, appointments have “looked like forms of patronage and nepotism that should have no place in modern Australian society”. She also said, aside from eroding public trust, the current processes “do not always provide the best person for the job”. Briggs made 30 recommendations - although Public Service Minister Katy Gallagher (who the Coalition has criticised for lengthy delays in the report’s release…) says not all of them will be adopted - which integrity experts say isn’t good enough.

More problems for Optus

Another week, another issue for our second-largest telco… The company says about 470,000 Samsung devices using its network might not be able to call triple-0. That's a "worst-case scenario", Optus says, but it's been testing phones and believes software updates will fix the "vast majority", - while Samsung reckons devices more than 7 years old might need to be replaced. It follows reports that thousands of older Samsung devices have had similar issues with the Vodafone network… The telcos are obligated to notify customers when they’re unable to connect to triple-0 - although our communications regulator is currently probing 2 alleged breaches of those laws. You can expect to hear more about this - the Senate inquiry into the deadly Optus triple-0 outage has a hearing next week.

A high-stakes debate begins…

…in the Tasmanian Legislative Council today on a final vote for the proposed Aussie Rules stadium in Hobart’s Macquarie Point. It’s an issue that has been splitting the island down the middle for months now: many Tasmanians want their own AFL team, the Tasmanian Devils, which is due to enter the comp in 2028. But the AFL head honchos say that for the team to go ahead, the state must build a new stadium. And there are many other Tasmanians who say the proposed 23,000-seat stadium is in the wrong spot, and/or the estimated $1.13 billion it’ll cost would be better spent elsewhere. The final call is in the hands of the 15 members of the state’s Upper House, and they’re expected to make that call on the stadium - and the team - by the end of the week. It’s a devilishly difficult one to pick…
*If you’d like more background into the debate on the Tassie stadium, good news - we’ve got a Shortcut to that…

Getting in the spirit of things…

With US President Donald Trump’s first year back in the White House drawing to a close, it’s First Lady Melania Trump’s time to shine… She’s unveiled the 2025 White House Christmas decorations, themed ‘Home Is Where The Heart Is’ to “illuminate the heartfelt character of America within the People’s House”. It took dozens of volunteers a week to put up 51 Christmas trees, 213 metres of garland, 7,620 metres of ribbon and 10,000 decorative butterflies (all of which you can see here). Then, there are the portraits of George Washington and President Trump made out of Lego… You may recall that the First Lady's decorations have gotten attention in years past for being, er, unusual and/or spooky - but this year, she’s stuck with a more traditional colour scheme of red, green and some blue…

Apropos of Nothing

After revealing plans to acquire luxury fashion brand Versace back in April, fellow luxury fashion brand Prada announced overnight that the $2.2 billion deal is officially done - and, we hope, signed off with a very stylish pen… 

First, we had the French crown jewels stolen in the Louvre heist; now, we have the theft of an 18-karat Fabergé x 007 Special Edition Octopussy Egg Locket. A 32yo man was arrested in an Auckland jewellery store after swallowing the $33,500 piece. It’s a lot to digest…

Easier to digest (as easy as marmalade…) is that a new musical adaptation of Paddington is pulling in rave reviews in London’s West End. According to one critic, Paddington the Musical is a “funny, feel-good, family-friendly musical” - that’s high praise…

Squiz the Day

9.30am (AEDT) - The High Court will deliver a judgment on the appeal by Melbourne doctor Seyyed Farshchi, who was sentenced to 18 months in jail for using deportation threats to force a refugee to work - Canberra 

10.00am (AEDT) - A debate will take place in Tasmania’s upper house before a vote on the proposed Macquarie Point Stadium - Hobart

10.15am (AEDT) - The Federal Court will hand down a judgment on Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal of a finding that he was not defamed in reports that he sexually assaulted Brittany Higgins in Parliament House - Sydney

10.30am (AEDT) - Life Saving Victoria will release its 2024-25 annual Drowning Report

10.30am (AEDT) - Poker machine group Aristocrat will hold its annual Sustainability Disclosures Market Call to discuss responsible gaming and governance - online

11.30am (AEDT) - Minister for Communications Anika Wells will address the National Press Club on "The Albanese Government’s world-leading social media minimum age law" - Canberra

7.15pm (AEDT) - Kendrick Lamar starts his Aussie Grand National Tour - Melbourne

Deputy PM Richard Marles will be in Papua New Guinea for the inaugural trilateral defence meeting between Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia

ABS data releases: Tourism Satellite Account, 2024-25; Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September 2025; 

Nominees for the Spirit Awards and the National Board of Review Awards will be announced as the (very, very long) lead-up to the Oscars begins

A birthday for actors Brendan Fraser (1968) and Amanda Seyfried (1985)

Anniversary of:

  • the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat, where miners protested unfair mining licenses and swore allegiance to the Southern Cross flag (1854)

  • the deaths of author Robert Louis Stevenson (1894) and painter Pierre Auguste Renoir (1919) 

  • the birthday of Ozzy Osbourne (1948)

  • Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George H W Bush certifying the ending of the Cold War at the Malta Summit (1989)

  • the very first text message being sent (1992)