Wednesday, 5 November - Ride like the wind

November 05, 2025

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 5 November. In your Squiz Today…

  • The Reserve Bank keeps interest rates on hold

  • Vale Dick Cheney

  • And an Aussie duo wins the Cup…

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

"I cried when I first found out, and probably for a few months after it as well."

Said football superstar David Beckham, after learning he’d been included in the King’s Birthday Honours. He was knighted by King Charles overnight, and it means he’ll now be known as Sir David Beckham, and his wife becomes Lady Posh Victoria. Arise, Sir Becks…

Holding our interest

The Squiz

After a shock bump in inflation last week, the Reserve Bank of Australia hasn’t pulled any surprises and kept interest rates on hold at 3.6% yesterday. That was the popular prediction going in, and it wasn’t a tricky call - RBA Governor Michele Bullock said the board didn’t even consider a cut on their way to a unanimous decision. And while the RBA did say that the unexpected jump in underlying inflation was “due to temporary factors”, it has also predicted that it’s going to stay a little higher than expected next year - so there are heavy doubts about another one anytime soon…  

What’s that about higher inflation?

Yes, that pricked a few ears up… The RBA regularly updates its inflation forecasts, and the latest update has higher numbers almost across the board next year. As an example, in August the bank was predicting headline inflation in June 2026 to be 3.1% - it's now upped that to 3.7%, with an identical jump in the underlying inflation rate, or trimmed mean. But Bullock says she's still confident it will come down over the long term. During her press conference, the Governor was asked why the RBA was caught on the hop by last week's inflation spike - it was predicting less of a jump before the figures came in. In response, Bullock said the bank was "alert to the risk that we have misjudged the gap between demand and supply".

OK, so what happens next?

If there is a rate cut next year (and it’s far from a lock), it’s unlikely to be early - most predictions range from mid to late 2026. The Aussie stock market was already having a bad day, and the RBA news didn’t help - it finished down by 0.9% and is at its lowest point in almost 6 weeks. In the face of all this, Treasurer Jim Chalmers stressed that Oz isn’t alone - he says “Inflation ticked up in September for every major advanced economy”, while Coalition Treasury spokesman Ted O’Brien said the Albanese Government was driving inflation up by spending too much. As for the RBA, it's got one more of these decisions to go for the year - that's on 9 December, but don’t expect a rate cut under the tree… 

Your holiday shop just got 10 times better

Skincare, perfume, gifts, whatever - Lotte Duty Free has 10x Qantas Points on online orders right now. Which means that the holiday shopping you were lining up is now working a lot harder for your next getaway. You can order from home or swing by any Lotte Duty Free location for the same duty-free prices - either way, the points stack up fast. Find out more here.

Squiz the Rest

Security’s in the spotlight

Aussie spy boss Mike Burgess has warned that there’s a “realistic possibility” that at least 3 foreign nations are “willing and capable” of carrying out an assassination on our soil - and he said they’ve been “put on notice”. Giving the Lowy Lecture last night, Burgess said Oz "has never faced so many different threats, at scale, at once". He said one of the biggest was from foreign countries and groups, including neo-Nazis, Islamist political groups, extreme anti-Israel activists, and Russian trolls, trying to stir up social division. And without naming names, he said foreign governments had tried to recruit Aussies to get inside info on our economy, critical minerals and the AUKUS security pact. Despite all of that, he said we're ready for the challenges, saying "We can and should have confidence in our ability to respond”.

Vale Dick Cheney 

The former US Vice-President died from complications of pneumonia and cardiovascular disease at 84yo. Cheney had a long political career, which began as an aide to President Richard Nixon in 1969 and included 6 terms in Congress. In 2000, George W. Bush picked him as his running mate for his successful Presidential campaign, and that meant he was in office for the September 11 terror attacks in 2001. Along with Bush, he drove the US response - the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which made him a highly controversial figure in the US. In his later years, Cheney was a vocal critic of the current US President, whom he called a "coward" over his refusal to accept the 2020 election result. Ex-President Bush paid tribute to Cheney this morning - he said the VP’s death is “a loss to the nation and a sorrow to his friends”. 

Tech titans team up

OpenAI has signed a massive deal - worth more than $58 billion - with Amazon Web Services to run its AI products (including ChatGPT...) using Amazon data centres. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s boss, says “scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute” (he means this stuff…), and this deal gives them what they need. It’s part of his plan to invest $2.1 trillion in AI infrastructure - which has raised eyebrows, given OpenAI’s annual revenue is only around $19 billion. Altman’s brushed off concerns, but banking experts have warned reliance on US private credit markets feels uncomfortably similar to what went down before the 2008 financial crisis... And while we're talking tech, Reddit and Kick are now on the list of social media platforms soon to be off-limits to our under 16yos, starting 10 December.

An all-Aussie duo…

…took out yesterday’s Melbourne Cup, with South Australian Jamie Melham becoming the second female jockey to win the $10 million race - riding the only Oz-bred horse in the running, Half Yours. It was 10 years after Michelle Payne’s historic race, so serendipitous might be a good way to describe it… Melham/Half Yours are iconic for another reason: they also won last month’s Caulfield Cup, making her the first female jockey to win both. She paid tribute to her late grandfather afterwards, saying “he’s up there opening those gaps for me because I needed a few gaps open”. You can watch a replay here - Goodie Two Shoes was runner-up, and Middle Earth was third. And as always, there were plenty of iconic fashion moments off the field - here’s a gallery to scroll through.

Some Choice words for the corporate sector

The consumer advocacy group is back with their annual awards for all things dodgy, the Shonky Awards, and for their 20th edition, they've put Commonwealth Bank in the spotlight. CommBank 'won' the 'award' for charging low-income customers excessive fees and then, in Choice’s view, dragging its feet on refunding those customers. It’s the bank’s fourth appearance, earning it the honour of the most Shonky awards ever. Also in the gun - online retailer Temu, particularly around its fast-fashion work, the Handy Heater Turbo 800, a plug-in heater that didn’t do either of those things, and HCF for “a price rise in disguise” on one of its insurance products. You can see the full list here, and the sigh of relief you can hear is every other Oz company thanking their lucky stars they aren’t on it…

Apropos of Nothing

As the men’s Ashes approaches, keep an eye on former Test mainstay Marnus Labuschagne - after being dropped from the team, he’s hit a rich vein of form in the domestic leagues and is now the favourite to partner Usman Khawaja as the Aussie openers. Just 16 days to go… 

Keep an eye out for the biggest supermoon of the year tonight… It’s known as the ‘Beaver Moon’, and here’s a guide to the best time to see it depending on where you are in the country. And if you miss the Beaver Moon, there’s only one word to use… Dam… 

Martha Stewart has relaunched her first cookbook Entertaining from 1982. It’s been out of print for years, but a couple of docos about her have stirred up interest among Gen Zs, prompting the reprint… No word on whether her mate Snoop’s favourite brownies are in there…

Squiz the Day

8.25am (AEDT) - The winner of the UK’s Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction will be announced at BMA House, with Helen Garner as the sole Aussie nominee - London, UK, catch the shortlist here and stream the ceremony live on YouTube

9.00am (AEDT) - The Australian Education Union will hold a press conference at Parliament House to release the Investing in Australia’s Future report for 2025, which outlines reforms and investment needs - Canberra

9.20am (AEDT) - The Royal Flying Doctor Service will land a full-size aircraft simulator on the front lawns of Parliament House as part of National Rural Health Month, with Governor-General and RFDS patron Sam Mostyn to give an address - Canberra

9.00am (AEST) - The Art of Banksy: Chapter 2 art exhibition will make its world premiere at Brisbane’s Queen Street Mall - Brisbane

10.00am (AEDT) - Foodbank Australia CEO Kylea Tink will be joined by MPs and volunteers at Parliament House to launch the Hunger Report 2025, which calls on the government to introduce a National Food Donation Tax Incentive to redirect food from landfill to those in need - Canberra 

11.15am (AEDT) - The Australian Human Rights Commission will hold a press conference at Parliament House to call for a national inquiry into workplace racism, led by Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman and ACTU President Michele O’Neil - Canberra 

11.30am (AEDT) - ASIC Chair Joe Longo will address the National Press Club on "Open for opportunity: Taking charge of the future of our financial markets" - Canberra

6.15pm (AEST) - Cricket: Australia take on India in the 4th T20I at People First Stadium - Gold Coast, watch on Kayo 

ABS data releases: Selected Living Cost Indexes, September 2025; Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation, Australia, 2024-2025 FY

Loy Krathong - a festival celebrated on the night of the full moon of the 12th month of the Thai lunar calendar, dedicated to the Goddess of Water

Guru Nanak Gurpurab - the birth of Guru Nanak Sahib, the founder of Sikhism and the first Sikh Guru

Birthdays for singer-songwriter Art Garfunkel (1941), media personality Kris Jenner (1955), singer Bryan Adams (1959), actor Tilda Swinton (1960) and musician Kevin Jonas (1987)

Anniversary of:

  • Guy Fawkes’ failed plot to blow up King James I and the British Parliament (1605)

  • the launch of the Monopoly board game by the Parker Brothers (1935)

  • Franklin D Roosevelt being re-elected President of the United States for an unprecedented third term (1940)

  • the release of the Paradise Papers, a collection of 13.4 million files that exposed members of the global elite and their investments in offshore tax havens (2017)