Midfielder Leticia McKenna has bagged a brace to bolster her case for a first FIFA Women’s World Cup call-up as the Matildas overcame Haiti 7-1. 

Fresh off a humbling 4-2 defeat to powerhouses Germany and without Arsenal star Steph Catley (managed), Australia got their World Cup preparations back on track in Chambly, France on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT).

McKenna was the spark, as she produced two classy first-half strikes before an own goal by Haiti defender Kethna Louis, and goals to Caitlin Foord, Daniela Galic, Clare Wheeler and Holly McNamara completed the victory. 

The Nottingham Forest midfielder has now secured three goals in four national team apparances, adding a selection headache for coach Joe Montemurro. 

When the Matildas mentor was asked if he thought his team was ready for next year’s World Cup, he laughed and said “no”. 

“We need time … It’s probably more about selecting the squad because now we’re starting to build a big roster of players, and I need more time to make a decision on who I can bring,” Montemurro said. 

“It was a good window for us. We played against Germany … We felt that we were not far, and we know the areas where we need to fix.”

Along with McKenna, the Australians midfield produced a masterclass as Alana Murphy dispatched a crafty pass to set up Galic while Wheeler had an assist and goal. 

“I was a spectator in 2023, and I loved watching the group. It only made me hungrier to want to be a part of it,” McKenna said.

“So to be in a position to potentially be selected is amazing.

“I’m loving it (the Matildas) so far. There’s obviously a lot of talent. It’s great exposure for myself and (I’m) just growing.” 

Questions had loomed over captain and star striker Sam Kerr’s fitness after she complained of ankle soreness following the German clash, but she was also influential, playing a big role in two of the goals. 

The rousing victory helped the Matildas firmly keep their No.15 world ranking, which currently puts them in pot two out of four for the World Cup draw, meaning a mathematically better chance for a more favourable draw.

It wasn’t a smooth-sailing win for Montemurro’s players though, as their first-half defence looked timid when their Caribbean opponents employed their counterattack, but they utterly dominated the second half as Haiti’s wheels fell off. 

It took just 80 seconds for the Matildas to draw first blood when Wheeler cut the ball back to McKenna, who produced a sublime one-touch strike into the roof of the net. 

But moments later, Haitian midfield star Melchie Dumornay tucked the ball into the bottom right corner to equalise. 

On the stroke of halftime, McKenna re-established the Australians’ lead when she pounced on a loose ball in the box and buried it in the bottom left corner. 

In the 53rd minute, Foord poked the ball to Kerr, who steered it goalwards and found the foot of Louis. 

The sparkling Foord-Kerr combination wreaked havoc again when the Arsenal winger scored before substitute Galic found her first international goal. 

Wheeler added her name to the scoresheet when her cross bound for Foord snuck into the bottom left corner before McNamara iced the game. 

World stocks ‌have dipped as renewed AI concerns hit high-flying chipmakers, driving investors to the safety of government bonds as tech-heavy stock markets in Asia and the United States felt ‌the brunt of the sell-off.

Reports of progress by Chinese memory chip maker CXMT fuelled concerns about increased competition from China’s AI players, while Broadcom CEO Hock Tan likened some of the flows ‌into the broader AI sector to “casino gambling”.

The MSCI’s main world stocks index dipped 0.14 per cent on Tuesday, while its broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell more than two per cent to its lowest level since late July, led by the region’s AI chipmakers.

Investors have ridden the AI wave in the past four years as massive spending powered corporate profits and economic growth, although worries over concentration risks and whether a payoff will come soon enough have weighed.

South Korea’s KOSPI, a market at the heart of the global AI boom, sank ‌more than five per cent, in ‌its sharpest one-day drop since ⁠mid-August.

Samsung fell 7.4 per cent and SK Hynix dropped 10 per cent. 

Taiwan’s TSMC declined 1.8 per cent, while AI investor SoftBank was eight per cent lower.

US Nasdaq ​futures fell 0.5 per cent, with memory chipmaker Micron Technology down 2.5 per cent in premarket trading and Nvidia dropping 0.6 per cent.

European stocks bucked the trend, helped by limited exposure to the tech sector as well as a drop in oil prices. 

The pan-European STOXX 600 rose 0.5 per cent to a one-week high.

“Markets have become increasingly aware of the fact that the chip industry, especially on the memory side, is ultimately a cyclical industry,” said Julien Lafargue, chief market strategist at Barclays Private Bank.

“People were potentially expecting the sector to remain undisrupted maybe for another couple ⁠of years. It looks like the news overnight means that maybe this timeline has to ‌shrink and the competition ​could be more fierce as soon as next year.”

The benchmark 10-year yield dipped to 5.193 per cent, inching away from the 24-year high of 5.364 per cent it hit ​last week.

A toxic ‌mix of inflationary pressure from elevated energy prices and worries about ballooning government debt has triggered several bouts of bond sell-offs in recent weeks, pushing borrowing costs to ​multi-decade highs across the globe.

Traders are ​awaiting ​US inflation data on Wednesday for clues on the Federal Reserve’s policy ​path. 

They are pricing in an 80.6 per cent chance that it holds rates steady later ‌this month, up from 51 per cent a month earlier, the CME FedWatch tool showed.

Investor attention will also be on US bank earnings this week to get a gauge on the impact of the recent surge in Treasury yields on deal-making, lending growth and funding costs.

Four of the six largest US lenders – JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo – will report results later in the day.

Oil prices eased as traders assessed supply risks from attacks on Saudi Arabia while weighing the prospect of additional diesel supplies ​from Russia. 

Brent crude futures dipped 1.7 per cent to $US104.78 per barrel, holding just below a two-week high touched a day earlier.

The dollar eased from 18-month highs, along with ​a drop in yields and oil prices. 

The ⁠euro last bought $US1.1182, while the Japanese yen was at 157.97 per dollar.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has urged Labor to keep pursuing difficult economic reforms to counter the threat of One Nation.

While the fortunes of Pauline Hanson’s party continued to climb since the May budget, in which Dr Chalmers expended significant political capital to enact Labor’s long-held tax agenda, reform was essential to Labor’s response, he said.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Australia Institute in Canberra, Dr Chalmers told the left-leaning think tank’s audience hoping the far right went away or imploded was not a viable strategy.

“Perhaps a key mistake made by parties of the left is that in their defence of democracy and institutions they’ve also inadvertently become the party of the status quo,” the treasurer said on Tuesday. 

“We are not making that mistake. We are reforming the status quo in tax and housing and in other ways, in the interests of working people.”

In a year, One Nation has gone from being the preferred party of about one in 10 Australians to about three in 10, according to opinion polls.

Dr Chalmers said Labor could win back disaffected voters not with “smug moral superiority”, but by making a positive tangible difference to people’s lives.

Within the next year, changes to negative gearing, capital gains tax and the taxation of trusts would be legislated and bedded down, inflation was projected to ease and real incomes would be growing again, he said.

By contrast, One Nation’s superannuation policy would decimate Australians’ retirement savings, their wages policy would shrink pay packets, their unfunded commitments would blow a hole in the budget and their migration cuts would smash the economy, Dr Chalmers said.

Ealier on Tuesday, Senator Hanson said no business would be deprived of skilled workers under a One Nation government.

She plans to slash temporary migrant numbers by 750,000 over three years, then cap net overseas migration at 130,000 a year.

That target risked triggering a “deep recession”, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said when the policy was announced in September.

But Senator Hanson was keen to smooth things over with the business lobby.

“We are not going to hold back any business that requires skilled labour to come into the country – we’re not attacking that,” she told ACCI’s business leaders’ summit in Canberra on Tuesday. 

The anti-immigration party is alone in wanting to turn away skilled workers’ partners and dependants, who make up more than half of that visa category’s roughly 130,000-strong intake.

“No more Uber drivers, no more tax accountants and all this rest of it that we don’t need,” Senator Hanson said during Tuesday’s summit. 

One Nation treasury spokesman Barnaby Joyce, a former tax accountant, said he would be happy to debate Dr Chalmers.

He said the party in government could speed up skilled worker visa processing for businesses in need. 

“If there is a demand, we’ll actually expedite that process,” he told the business leaders.

“But this superfluous idea that someone comes out and they bring seven family members … it’s just untenable.”

Senator Hanson also floated opening more regional training colleges to steer some young people away from university.

“I want to start the apprenticeships scheme again. I want to start up TAFE colleges, agricultural colleges,” she said. 

“A lot of these kids shouldn’t be in universities … taking up a debt that the taxpayer is responsible for.”

The Queensland senator has labelled higher education institutions “visa factories” and pledged to cut foreign student places from 590,000 to 350,000, as well as almost eliminate graduate visas.

The Nationals leader Matt Canavan earlier told the conference targeting net overseas migration was “ridiculous”.

Senator Canavan slammed the single-minded pursuit of the closely watched figure a week after the opposition headlined its migration policy with a plan to temporarily cut net migration to 100,000 a year, and then 160,000 long-term. 

Australia’s increasingly complex policy and regulatory settings are making investment decisions difficult, the head of Telstra says. 

Well-targeted regulation had an important role, but would not alone deliver the higher quality or resilient services that underpinned Australia’s productivity, Telstra chairman Craig Dunn told a shareholders’ meeting. 

As an example, Mr Dunn cited calls for mandatory roaming, which would require mobile operators to offer service to other networks’ customers when they moved outside their provider’s footprint.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched a 12-month inquiry on the issue in August, with submissions due in November.

The goal is to improve service for Australians living in remote and rural areas, but Mr Dunn said it risked doing the opposite.

“Mandated roaming does not build a single new mobile tower or extend coverage into areas where no network exists today,” he told the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday.

Telstra has spent $3.8 billion on its mobile network in regional and remote Australia over the past five years as part of a broader strategy that allows the telecommunications provider to differentiate on coverage.

Mandatory roaming risked slowing investment, Mr Dunn said.

“New regulation must be judged by the incentives it creates and not by the intentions behind it,” he said.

The annual meeting took place against the lingering backdrop of a nationwide Telstra outage in July, which knocked out services for most of a day.

The company knew it had let customers down with the network failure, chief executive Vicki Brady told shareholders.

An external review by Technology Audit Partners found the disruption was primarily the result of Telstra not treating network timing as a critical capability requiring the highest level of oversight.

The outage began in the early hours of the morning after a planned change to a timing chassis in Melbourne triggered rolling network failures when an incorrect internal date was set.

Ownership for network timing issues wasn’t sufficiently defined and there was insufficient technical expertise on hand to deal with the problem when it arose, the report found.

“We accept the findings, we’ve taken immediate steps to strengthen our network and that work continues,” Ms Brady said.

“Our commitment is to use what we have learned to make our services even more resilient and reliable for our customers.”

The outage sparked a Senate inquiry and an ongoing investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

In response, Telstra’s board reduced Ms Brady’s pay package by $607,000 for 2025/26, taking her total compensation to $6.8 million.

It also docked the short-term incentive pay of nine other senior executives by a total of $1.3 million.

Telstra received about 33,000 complaints or requests for redress as a result of the outage and 99 per cent had been dealt with at a cost of about $1 million, Mr Dunn said.

One shareholder said the company had been doing well before the outage and sounded sympathetic about what had happened.

“It’s like you did enter the 400 metres of the Olympics and crossed the finish line to win gold and then tripped up and broke your leg,” she said.

“It’s a bit unfortunate.” 

Long-time Telstra investor Peter Stump faulted Mr Dunn for not appearing alongside chief financial officer Michael Ackland during the outage, which occurred while Ms Brady was away on holiday.

“Nobody’s crucifying Vicki because she’s entitled to have a bloody holiday, for God’s sake,” Mr Stump said. 

“But you, as the chairman of this company, should have stepped up.”

Telstra shares finished Tuesday down 0.2 per cent to $4.64.

All the resolutions put to the shareholders’ meeting passed.

Businesses will get a chance to air their grievances over Labor’s proposed tax on discretionary trusts, which they warn could set them back billions of dollars in restructuring costs.

In a bid to placate the business community by offering a workaround for small firms to dodge the new tax, the government has inadvertently put the Greens offside.

Greens economics spokesman Nick McKim said the minor party would move for a Senate inquiry to examine the carve-out, fearing that it would let people with trusts off too lightly.

“In classic Labor fashion, the government has managed to water down its own position before the legislation has even reached parliament,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“These reforms appeared to be mildly positive when they were first announced, but there is a real risk that Labor’s political cowardice is transforming them into yet another missed opportunity.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers is set to introduce the legislation on Wednesday but now has no prospect of seeing it passed until at least late 2026, given the Greens’ insistence on an inquiry and the coalition’s wholesale opposition to the proposal.

Dr Chalmers announced the plan to impose a 30 per cent minimum tax on trusts in the May budget, arguing the rapid growth in the use of legal structures by wealthy Australians was subverting the tax system and placing a greater burden on workers.

“The reason that we are dealing with this is because the flexibility provided by trusts can allow some Australians to plan their tax affairs in ways that aren’t available to most workers and to most families,” he told Question Time.

But business groups argue trusts are used for legitimate reasons by many employers, including to protect their assets and arrange succession planning.

Wilson Asset Management and accounting body CPA Australia estimate the 210,000 business trusts Treasury expects to be affected could face between $8 billion and $13.3 billion in advice and restructuring costs.

Stamp duties levied by states on transferring property or other assets could add billions more to the bill.

The impost is another hit to small businesses already livid with Labor over higher capital gains taxes, a ban on card surcharges and the rising cost of doing business.

Australian Retail Council chief executive Chris Rodwell said piles of red tape and complex workplace regulations were making it impossible for small business owners to innovate.

“In the general retail industry award, we have one of the most absurdly complex documents you could possibly imagine,” he told the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry business leaders summit in Canberra.

“You’ve got 994 different pay rates across 94 different pages.

“If we genuinely think that we’re creating some kind of a simplicity in the framework by which small businesses operate, we’re kidding ourselves.”

Social media platforms that broadcast a livestream of a US military execution risk damaging their reputation, the prime minister has warned, as the government is urged to minimise casual exposure of the harmful content.

Australian social media users, whether they want to or not, could be witness to the death of Nidal Hasan by firing squad in early December following the Trump administration’s pledge to livestream proceedings.

Following calls from federal politicians and civil society to intervene, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was no easy lever to pull to stop Australians from accessing the content.

“I find the idea of live streaming the death of anybody completely abhorrent. We should do whatever we can to stop that occurring,” Mr Albanese told ABC TV on Tuesday.

“Anyone broadcasting this will damage their own reputations as well.

“They have a social responsibility here to do the right thing and certainly we will do whatever we can.

“These things are not just as simple as turning off a light switch, and we will do what we can to shut it down.”

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the government remained opposed to the death penalty and agreed it would be deeply distressing for anyone to see the footage.

“We believe that platforms do have a responsibility to meet these expectations,” Senator Wong told the upper house during Question Time.

The nation’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has said she has no power to stop the video from being shown domestically, instead calling on social media platforms to halt it. 

It comes amid a backdrop of broader online safety conversations in Australia, as the government hopes to pass its long-awaited digital duty of care bill this week.

Greens leader David Shoebridge said he would welcome efforts to pass the bill before the end of the parliamentary year to set rules for platforms before the livestream occurs.

Blocking the video faced multiple hurdles, RMIT innovative interactive technologies expert Dana McKay said.

“AI (detection) is tricky because we have a lot of content that looks kind of like this that we do accept socially. Movies and shooter games,” Dr McKay told AAP.

“It will also spread across the internet …all these news organisations, all these video hosting sites, all these individuals with social media accounts who can host the video as well.”

She said the fact it will likely be broadcast through federal US channels has created a “bizarre situation”.

“The two months notice is good because it does give us some time to figure out what we are asking of social media companies and Google and all of these these big platforms,” Dr McKay said.

The public execution has been ordered by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, one of President Donald Trump’s closest colleagues.

Mr Trump has said he’s still considering whether the US will livestream the execution of Hasan, a former army major and physician who was found guilty of killing 13 people on a military base in 2009.

Online safety advocacy group Digital Rights Watch has slammed the lack of action from all stakeholders and urged eSafety to learn from previous incidents.

The commission was granted emergency powers to notify platforms to remove harmful content in the wake of the Christchurch massacre in 2019, which was livestreamed on Facebook.

“There’s a good chance that video of the execution would count as class 1 material … eSafety already has powers to demand the removal of such content, and they should be using them in this instance,” Digital Rights Watch head of policy Tom Sulston told AAP.

Representatives from social media giant Meta declined to comment on the matter.

The revival of mining at Australia’s largest tungsten deposit has resulted in a government windfall of $75 million and the creation of a regional “future fund”.

However, a prominent workers’ union has labelled the fund a political stunt arriving at the same time as widespread public sector job cuts.

The mine on King Island in Bass Strait reopened in 2023 after the Tasmanian government helped prop up operations with a $10 million loan that was converted into shares.

The government on Tuesday revealed the shares were now worth $75 million.

Some $20 million will be put into a fund to boost regional resilience, $5 million will go towards King Island’s school and $50 million will pay off state budget debt.

“Our expectation … was to see the revival of the mine and for us to recoup the funds,” Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff told reporters.

“It has exceeded expectations.”

The shares are expected to be sold off gradually, with Mr Rockliff saying it was not the government’s role to hold mining shares.

Used for a variety of purposes including to make drills and milling cutters, tungsten is classified as a critical mineral by the Australian government.

The state government has forked out substantially in recent years to keep mines and smelters afloat.

It loaned an additional $7.5 million to the tungsten mine, owned by Group 6 Metals, in 2025 and provided half of a $200 million package to Rio Tinto-owned Bell Bay Aluminium in October.

Tasmania also contributed $7.5 million towards a June 2026 funding package to keep Nyrstar’s Hobart smelter alive.

The fund will support communities experiencing significant economic disruption and help regions respond to major industry change, the government says.

However, the Community and Public Sector Union said the announcement could not be reconciled with the government’s plan to cut public sector jobs.

The government wants to cut about 1800 jobs over five years to address ballooning debt, which sat at $6.5 billion in June.

“(The) regional fund is little more than a stunt,” union general secretary Thirza White said.

“You cannot claim to be strengthening regional Tasmania while cutting the very workforce that helps regional communities attract investment, support local businesses, develop industries and respond to economic challenges.”

Australia’s largest egg supplier has been accused of engaging in “cartel” conduct, scrambling market competition and potentially inflating the price of a national breakfast staple.

The consumer watchdog on Tuesday launched Federal Court action against Sunny Queen and 11 other egg producers and suppliers, alleging serious anti-competitive behaviour.

The companies allegedly shared information about future egg production and agreed on a common method to price eggs since at least October 2020, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s legal filing.

They are also accused of coordinating cullings during periods of perceived oversupply and declining wholesale prices.

Sunny Queen is alleged to have come to an agreement with a rival in January 2021 for the supply of its best produce.

Under the agreement, the rival could supply up to 15,000 dozen free range eggs per week to other buyers, but it was barred from selling to Sunny Queen’s major retail customers Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, Metcash or Costco.

“The relevant market or markets are highly concentrated, with few large suppliers of shell eggs and significant barriers to entry and expansion,” the watchdog’s legal document said.

“The arrangements brought together substantial volumes of eggs that could otherwise have been supplied independently.

“Those arrangements substantially reduced the competitive rivalry that would otherwise have existed between the respondents.”

Anti-competitive conduct can inflate prices at the check-out and decrease consumer choice, the commission’s chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

“We are committed to protecting competition in fresh food supply chains so Australian consumers receive the benefits of businesses competing on price,” Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.

“These proceedings are a reminder that businesses must make their production, supply and pricing decisions independently.”

The watchdog also alleged that Sunny Queen’s major suppliers, who held shares in the company, arranged to buy a Queensland poultry farm in 2021 to prevent it being used by any competitors.

The farm at Yarranlea, near Toowoomba, had not been “used productively” by the companies by mid-2023, the legal document alleged.

In a statement, Sunny Queen said it denied the allegations and would defend the case.

“Sunny Queen was founded by Australian farmers and has been supplying Australian families with eggs for more than 50 years,” the statement said.

“Over those five decades Sunny Queen has earned a reputation for ethical farming and consumer practices and remains committed to adhering to these high standards.”

The watchdog is seeking penalties, injunctions and other costs and orders.

Australia’s share market has trimmed some early losses for a flat finish despite a drop in mining and tech stocks, as financials lifted ahead of US bank earnings later in the week.

The S&P/ASX200 rose 0.7 points on Tuesday, up 0.01 per cent, to 8783.9, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 15.5 points, or 0.17 per cent, to 8921.5.

The local market’s relative underexposure to advanced technology stocks helped it outperform most of its regional counterparts, with South Korea’s KOSPI tumbling more than six per cent and the NIKKEI down 1.2 per cent by 4pm AEDT.

Despite copper prices holding relatively steady, the repricing of AI optimism appeared to hit mega miners BHP and Rio Tinto, which tumbled along with lithium and rare earths producers such as Liontown, PLS and Lynas.

The Australian dollar is buying 69.60 US cents, down from 69.77 US cents on Monday at 5pm.

Labor and the coalition are defending government input on recommendations from an independent inquiry into artificial intelligence before they were released, as Australia continues to grapple with the approach to big tech. 

A bipartisan inquiry into AI presented early advice to the prime minister via an open letter on Tuesday, ahead of its official report in November. 

The letter urges the government to examine and change copyright settings to ensure Australian creators are paid and can maintain control over their work. 

More investment in critical AI infrastructure to bolster the nation’s digital sovereignty is recommended, along with increased oversight of government systems to quell data-breach concerns. 

A lengthy set of suggestions contained in the letter, taking up more than six pages, will be considered by the government. 

The committee’s deputy chair, Liberal senator Jonno Duniam, defended input from both the government and coalition before the letter was sent. 

A copy marked with notes from a senior government adviser, seen by AAP, was circulated to the committee. 

“I wrote the letter,” Mr Duniam told News24. 

“It was replete with typographical and grammatical errors, so I’m pleased others picked it up,” he said, noting he would be “concerned” if government ministers were not interested in it. 

While not all of the committee agreed with the overall approach, it had reached consensus about the letter, the committee chair and Labor MP Jo Briskey told reporters on Tuesday. 

But independent senator David Pocock said he was worried government officials had too much input into the letter.

“I am concerned that markups on the documents show the recommendations were pre-vetted by an adviser in the prime minister’s office and there was no time for changes to be considered by the (committee) chair,” Senator Pocock told AAP. 

“I am increasingly concerned that the work of this committee is being used to serve a political purpose rather than provide genuine parliamentary scrutiny and policy input.”

Ms Briskey insisted the committee was continuing to work independently. 

“I’ve been really enjoying the collaborative approach across government and opposition, as well as the cross bench,” she said. 

“This is about getting above politics and making sure that we’re providing something really meaningful for the parliament to consider as we chart our course forward in AI.”

There are broader issues at stake for the committee, too.

The Australian Recording Industry Association rejected suggestions from the inquiry that copyright laws were insufficient for stopping AI companies from using creatives’ work without credit. 

”Australian copyright law gives creators control,” ARIA chair Annabelle Herd said.

”It is the only thing standing between major American AI companies and unchecked access to the world’s content right here from Australia.”

Senator Duniam warned the government had limited time to act on recommendations if Australia wanted to pursue AI sovereignty on its own terms, instead of being dictated to by big tech or foreign powers.

The committee is due to file a full report by November 30.