Wednesday, 7 October - Here in my car

Good morning, it’s Wednesday, 7 October. In your Squiz Today…

• Marking the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks

• It’s the Coalition’s turn to unveil its migration plan

• And the Philadelphia parallel parking comp… 🚘

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

Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

Said Mayor of Narrabri Shire Darrell Tiemens about plans for Australia’s next big attraction - a giant pink slug in honour of the endangered Mount Kaputar variety. We’ve never tried to cuddle a platypus, or a slug, but we’d pull over for a selfie with either…

Remembering October 7

The Squiz

Today marks 3 years since the terrorist group Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw 251 more taken hostage. Israel will mark the occasion with a nationwide moment of silence, as well as memorials and protests from the families of those who were killed or taken hostage in the attacks. This year, the day is taking on added political significance in Israel, as the attacks and the war that followed - in which Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 74,000 Palestinians have been killed - are playing a major role in Israel’s upcoming national election on 27 October.

What’s happening in the region now?

US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire in October last year, and all the hostages, living and dead, have since been returned. But there’s ongoing violence in the region, reconstruction in Gaza hasn’t started yet, and plans to permanently end the war have stalled. The main sticking point is that Hamas won’t give up its weapons until Israel pulls back from Gaza, and Israel won't withdraw until Hamas disarms. That deadlock is an issue in the upcoming election, which analysts say will be a referendum on how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handled the Hamas attack and the war that followed. According to the polls, his main challenger in that election is former Israel Defence Forces chief Gadi Eisenkot, whose son died in the war. Following reports that Netanyahu was warned that Hamas was planning an attack, Eisenkot called him “unfit” for office. Netanyahu denies the allegation, calling it an “absolute lie”.

What’s happening here in Oz?

Members of the Jewish community in Sydney will be gathering at 6.29am, which was the moment the attacks began in Israel. They’ll mark the occasion by sounding a shofar - an ancient musical instrument made from a kosher animal’s hollowed-out horn. But in both Sydney and other places around Australia, the locations of the ceremonies will be kept private, due to safety concerns after the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach on 14 December last year. Pro-Palestinian vigils are also planned for Sydney, Wollongong and Melbourne - organisers of the Sydney vigil say it's to mark Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza following the attack. NSW Premier Chris Minns called the timing of those events “obscene”, but said court rulings make it very difficult to stop them from going ahead, as long as they stay in one place.

Down to the wire

Copper is having a moment right now. Electric cars, solar panels, data centres, the power grid - none of it happens without copper, and as the world electrifies, it's going to need a lot more of it. Demand is tipped to go from about 34 million tonnes a year now to around 50 million by 2050. BHP is the world's biggest copper producer, and it's working on how to help meet the expected growth in demand. Discover how it's happening now at BHP.

Squiz the Rest

An Australian soldier has died in the Northern Territory

Corporal Brendan Hannam, a 28yo father of 2, was killed and 5 other personnel were injured during a training exercise at Mount Bundey Training Area on Monday afternoon. Reports say it happened when the military vehicle they were travelling in rolled. The 117,000ha facility is around 130km south-east of Darwin, and it’s used by the Army and allies for live-fire training. It’s not the first time there’s been a tragedy at the site - 25yo Army Private Jason Challis died during a live-fire training exercise back in 2017. The Territory’s Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro offered her condolences to Hannam’s family, along with Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Matt Keogh and PM Anthony Albanese, who said: “There are no safe or easy days for those who serve in our country's name”.

Turns out they do need an education

The French Government says around 250,000 people took part in protests across France yesterday, demanding more funding and better resources for schools. This started as a demonstration in support of teachers striking at a high school in Paris, but over the last 3 weeks it’s snowballed across the country, and in some places turned violent. More than 200 students have been injured - including a 15yo boy who lost his hand after reportedly picking up a police grenade, and another who’s lost the use of his eye. Teachers and police officers have also been injured, and more than 6,000 people have been arrested. One union says 2,000 high schools are shut, and this morning French President Emmanuel Macron is holding an emergency meeting to figure out what to do about it.

The Coalition’s plan for migration

Coalition leader Angus Taylor unveiled his party’s immigration policy yesterday, proposing to cut net overseas migration - the total number of new migrants minus the number of departures - by two-thirds for 2 years, and reduce the number of temporary visa holders by 650,000. Despite cutting temporary visas by a third, Taylor reckons it’s all budget neutral, thanks to an increase in temporary skilled visa holders, who pay more tax - though the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the cuts would hurt our economic growth. As for where this policy sits, the Coalition’s plan cuts more than the Albanese Government’s proposal, but not as much as One Nation has suggested. Taylor is under pressure to improve the Coalition’s polling and shore up his own support as leader, so we’ll see if this moves the needle…

Vale Richard Morecroft

The longtime ABC newsreader died yesterday at 70yo, following a cancer diagnosis. If you caught the ABC’s NSW 7pm bulletin pretty much anytime in the 1980s/90s, you were likely very familiar with Morecroft’s face - he presented it for nearly 20 years. Morecroft moved here from England as a 10yo and studied English and drama before settling into radio presenting, getting a job with the ABC and eventually taking over the NSW bulletin in 1983. Nationally, game show fans might also know him as the presenter of Letters and Numbers on SBS (our version of the UK’s Countdown), which ran for a few years in the 2010s. ABC journalist Leigh Sales paid tribute last night - she said when she started as a junior reporter, he “went out of his way to welcome me” and called him “an absolutely divine human being”.

A tight competition

We hear that a lot in sport, but Saturday’s parallel parking championship in Philadelphia took it to the limit. In front of judges and a crowd of hundreds, 14 drivers took turns in increasingly testing situations, reversing into tight spaces with millimetres to spare - no cameras allowed. The comp was organised by Adam Wodka, commissioner of the Philadelphia Parallel Parking Association, who started it after lamenting the frustration of nailing a good parallel park and no one seeing it. And it’s no novelty - it joins comps in 4 other US cities. Honours went to Mr Zucca in a 2012 Mazda 3 hatchback. He took home US$76 (the cost of a parking fine in Philly) and a trophy made from a piece of street curb.

Apropos of Nothing

Belgian-born physicist Professor Francis Halzen has won the Nobel Physics Prize for work on a telescope at the South Pole that can detect ‘ghost particles’ from space, allowing scientists to shed light on the distant universe. Ice work if you can get it…

An island in Finland is looking for someone to sniff the air to verify its claim that it’s the best-smelling destination on Earth. You don’t need any formal scent-related experience (don’t know what that would entail), and you can apply on TikTok because it’s 2026… 

Uni students from around the world have competed in this year’s Australian Universities Rocket Competition at a remote sheep station in NSW. The rockets take at least a year to build, with some parts made by the students. Everybody stand back… 

Squiz the Day

6.30am (AEDT) - The Executive Council of Australian Jewry is hosting a dawn service to mark the third anniversary of Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel - Sydney

9.00am (AEDT) - NSW Preventive Health Summit (and 9 October) - Sydney 

10.00am (AEST) - The Australian Space Agency and Roo-ver team will unveil the new model of Roo-ver, which is Australia's first lunar rover - Brisbane

10.00am (AEDT) - High Court judgment in MACH Energy's appeal against the NSW Court of Appeal's ruling that put a stop to the 22-year extension of its Mount Pleasant open-cut coal mine - Canberra 

10.30am (AEDT) - Cricket: Sheffield Shield round one Victoria v South Australia (until 10 October) - Melbourne, watch on Kayo 

12.30pm (AEDT) - Founder of Go Gentle Australia Andrew Denton will address the National Press Club on 'Voluntary Assisted Dying: From Revolution to Real Access' - Canberra, watch on ABC iView 

5.00pm (AEDT) - Father Paolo Benanti and Dr Andrew Leigh, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition and Charities and Treasury, will address the National Press Club on 'Artificial Intelligence and Technology Ethics Forum' - Canberra, watch on ABC iView 

8.45pm (AEDT) - Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced - Stockholm, watch the livestream on YouTube 

ABS data release: building activities, August 2026

Birthdays for Australian writer Thomas Keneally (1935), Russian President Vladimir Putin (1952), cellist Yo-Yo Ma (1955), Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke (1968), and Aussie comedian Tim Minchin (1975)

Anniversary of:

• the establishment of KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines), the world's oldest airline (1919)

• the birthday of Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town/human rights activist Desmond Tutu (1931)

• News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch and executive Roger Ailes launching Fox News (1996)

• the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan (2001)

• the launch of Spotify (2008)

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