European stocks have risen, extending a global equity rally as investors turned more optimistic ‌before earnings season, while easing pressure in longer-dated bonds and lower oil prices helped calm markets after last week’s fixed-income turmoil.

The euro rose 0.2 per cent to 1.1239 on Tuesday morning after sliding ‌to a 17-month low overnight, although concerns about the euro zone’s fiscal outlook persisted.

A sell-off in French bonds triggered by last week’s unpopular budget proposal showed signs of spreading across the euro ‌zone at the start of this week. 

Political uncertainty also increased after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called a snap election on Monday.

Bond markets stabilised on Tuesday. 

France’s 10-year bond yield fell nine basis points to 4.77 per cent after surging to its highest since the 2000s last week. 

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential election, said she wanted to cut France’s budget deficit to three per cent by 2030.

“European sovereigns have had a little bit of pressure coming off and France is looking in a better position overnight,” ‌said James Klempster, ‌deputy head of multi-asset at Liontrust ⁠in London.

“On the one hand you’ve got quite material pressure being felt on the government bond side. But ​elsewhere the corporate side of things actually don’t look too bad. You’ve got companies whose earnings remain very robust. We’re getting into the earnings season fairly soon, expectations for that are pretty high.”

The pan-European STOXX 600 rose one per cent, its third straight session of gains. 

Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures added about 0.2 per cent after a technology-led rally lifted the Nasdaq to a record close on Monday.

Third-quarter earnings season begins next week. 

Goldman Sachs estimates consensus forecasts imply 27 per cent growth in S&P 500 earnings, with more than half that coming from companies benefiting from AI ⁠infrastructure spending.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company and a bellwether for the AI trade, rose ‌one per cent in premarket ​trading, putting it on track for a market value of about $US5.8 trillion ($A8.3 trillion).

Brent crude fell 0.4 per cent to $US99.91 a barrel after dropping 1.9 per cent overnight as resilient Middle East crude exports and a ​G7 emergency stockpile ‌release eased supply concerns, though ongoing security risks in the region limited losses.

Most Asian markets rose. Japan’s Nikkei gained 1.1 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added ​0.7 per cent, while South Korean shares fell nearly one per cent after reopening following a holiday.

Although the bond sell-off showed signs of easing, sovereign yields remained near multi-year highs as investors grappled with persistent inflation and debt concerns.

The premium investors demand to hold French 10-year bonds over safer German debt narrowed to 129.79 bps ​after ​widening last week to its highest level since the euro zone debt ​crisis in 2011.

German 10-year bond yields, the euro zone benchmark, dropped 5 bps to 3.44 per cent.

Long-dated US Treasury yields also eased after touching fresh 24-year highs overnight. 

The 10-year yield fell 3 bps to 5.2815 per cent, while the 30-year yield dropped 2.8 bps to 5.6356 per cent.

Yields have risen sharply even as markets scaled back expectations of a Federal Reserve rate increase  following a soft US jobs report and policymakers’ calls for more evidence before further tightening.

The dollar weakened broadly ​against most major currencies. 

The dollar index fell ⁠0.16 per cent to 101.99 after rising 3.5 per cent during the past month.

Spot gold rose 0.3 per cent to $US4,152.97 an ounce.

America’s largest artificial intelligence companies have been upfront about their desire to use Australian creative content for the training of models without having to abide by copyright rules. 

Major tech companies were using the US as their base for training AI because copyright was less regulated and less complex than Australia, a government inquiry was told on Tuesday. 

But companies including Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic want a workaround to Australia’s stringent laws so their platforms can be trained on local content. 

“If we have to move to an opt-in where we have to go out and get prior authorisation from everyone, then I just can’t see how AI development can happen,” Google government affairs manager Roxanne Carter said, arguing AI training was in the public’s interest. 

Independent senator David Pocock said companies were able to treat content how they wanted, often requiring creatives to prove they had copyright protection if they did not want it picked up by AI platforms, because of ubiquitous and unfettered power. 

“Because you’re big, because you’re powerful, because you’ve got President (Donald) Trump on your side, you’re dictating terms to every single Australian,” he said. 

Microsoft executives warned the inquiry a lack of clarity over fair use and copyright obligations could drive big tech away from investing in the nation, leaving Australia in the lurch as the US and China continue to fight for tech supremacy. 

“We see your copyright laws as providing a high level of uncertainty about the ability to engage in the training processes that are necessary to train a model,” the company’s innovation boss Jordan Gimbel said. 

The government has repeatedly called for tech capability and sovereignty to be developed in Australia, placing AI at the centre of productivity policy.

But most of the companies have refused to enter into copyright deals with creative agencies, leading to minimal protection for the work of Australian artists. 

Several told the inquiry it was too difficult to get approval to use individual pieces of content. 

“We are not asking Australia to do anything specifically for consideration,” OpenAI head of economic policy Adam Cohen said.

Representatives of artists, musicians, authors and journalists, including the ABC, earlier told the inquiry AI scraping without compensation posed an existential threat to creatives’ livelihoods, calling the companies thieves.

The inquiry heard about possible future security threats as OpenAI tries to clean up the mess caused by one of its agents autonomously accessing Medicare statistical data in June.  

The company’s chief strategy officer Jason Kwon faced a grilling from a parliamentary committee about how his team handled the breach and why Australia was not informed until months after it occurred. 

“The process by which people became aware of this incident inside our company could have been much better and we want to make sure that something like that does not happen again,” Mr Kwon said.

“We wanted to understand more of the facts before we spoke to the impacted parties.

“I think we have learned our lesson that it is better, even with partial information, to let parties know that something has occurred and to also make sure that we’re going through all the right channels.”

On Friday, OpenAI informed the government of another break-in, this time to a NSW parks and wildlife website in June, with Mr Kwon pledging to more diligently keep authorities in the loop.

He could not confirm to the inquiry whether the agents could autonomously hack into and control high-security infrastructure, such as a gas plant.

“It’s going to depend on the safeguards and the infrastructure and the security controls that that particular company or provider has in place,” he said.

The tech giant will inject independent expertise into its own Australia-based task force on AI safety which is expected to wrap up by the end of 2026. 

The government has maintained that OpenAI is working closely with it to rectify issues, but the $US850 billion ($A1.2 trillion) company has been criticised by politicians across the board. 

An Australian Defence Force member who died in a military training accident is being remembered as a mate who “would give you the shirt off his back”.

Father of two young children Corporal Brendan Hannam was killed during an exercise at the Mount Bundey training area in the Northern Territory on Monday evening.

The 28-year-old was survived by a partner and two young children, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Susan Coyle said.

“It is with deep and profound sadness that I can confirm we lost one of our soldiers yesterday,” she told media on Tuesday.

Cpl Hannam was described as a “much-beloved junior leader”.

“He has served and sacrificed on two operational tours to Afghanistan in 2019 … and also he trained Ukrainians with the British armed forces,”  Lieutenant General Susan Coyle said.

“His mates tell me he would give the shirt off his back … and the thing he’ll be most remembered for is the love and support he had for his partner and his kids.”

Cpl Hannam was a member of the 5th/7th army battalion based in the NT.

He was a passenger in a troop-carrying vehicle when the incident occurred.

Five other soldiers were injured, with two in hospital in Darwin in a stable condition and the other three being cared for at nearby Robertson Barracks.

The Mount Bundey area, about 120km south of Darwin, is used for Australian and US forces training, including live-fire exercises.

NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro offered condolences to Cpl Hannam’s family.

“The support of our entire community is there for all of our service personnel who will be feeling this loss immensely,” she told reporters in Darwin on Tuesday.

NT emergency authorities assisted with two medical evacuations to Royal Darwin Hospital by helicopter at 7.30pm local time on Monday.

A further three people were medically evacuated by plane two hours later.

NT police have sent personnel to the training facility to help with investigations into the death.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the nation’s thoughts were with the family and friends of the killed soldier and his injured colleagues.

“There are no safe or easy days for those who serve in our country’s name,” he said in a statement.

“This sad incident is a terrible reminder of what families take on when their loved one bravely puts on our nation’s uniform.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles said Cpl Hannam was “always thinking about his comrades and others”. 

“And I know that for him, the greatest love in his life was his partner and his two children,” Mr Marles said.

Federal Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh also extended his condolences to the fallen soldier’s family.

“We also have been making sure our training systems are fit for purpose and the training is conducted in the safest way possible,” he told the ABC.

It was recognised there were unique circumstances when it came to defence force training and there were high levels of risk, he said.  

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the incident was another tragic reminder defence personnel were putting their lives on the line even when they were not on a mission.

The coalition wished the five soldiers injured in the incident a full and swift recovery, Mr Taylor added in a joint statement with opposition defence spokesman James Paterson.

The death comes months after an Australian Defence Force member was killed in a training exercise in Jervis Bay.

Warrant Officer Class Two Lachlan Muddle, a Special Air Service Regiment operator, died after colliding with a fellow soldier during a parachuting exercise.

In October 2025, a soldier died and two others were hospitalised after a truck rolled over during an army training course.

Jack Fitzgibbon, the son of former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon, died in March 2024 after a parachuting incident at the Richmond RAAF base outside of Sydney.

Angus Taylor has pledged to “regain control” of Australia’s borders, unveiling sweeping cuts to the migration system in a bid to stem the flow of votes to One Nation.

The coalition would reduce net overseas migration from its annual level of nearly 300,000 people to about 100,000 in the first year if it won the next election, the opposition leader announced on Tuesday.

Net migration would then settle at 160,000 per year after four years, below Labor’s annual target of 225,000.

Mr Taylor said his policy represented the biggest cut to migration in Australia’s history, although his target is still higher than the net negative migration during COVID and One Nation’s goal of 130,000.

The rise of Pauline Hanson’s party in the polls has hollowed out the coalition’s voter base and brought immigration to the fore in political discourse.

The coalition’s plan echoes parts of One Nation’s proposal, including requiring most visa applications to be made offshore in an attempt to curtail so-called “visa hopping”.

As a result, bridging visas would be virtually eliminated.

“We will regain control of our borders, we will regain control of immigration in this country, and we will ensure that immigration policy is in the interests of our great country and no one else,” Mr Taylor told reporters in Sydney.

Reducing net migration would largely be achieved by cutting the stock of temporary visa holders – excluding New Zealanders – by about 650,000 over four years.

Under Labor, Australia had become a guest-worker economy, Mr Taylor said.

“Australia should be a home, not a hotel,” he said.

The brunt of the cuts would be achieved by abolishing temporary graduate visas, with some exceptions for health and education students, PhDs and regional universities.

That would effectively close off the pathway for foreign students educated in Australia to enter the workforce, migration policy expert Abul Rizvi said.

“We have significantly relied on students … as a pipeline for skilled migrants to Australia,” he told AAP.

“There is merit in tightening that pipeline because it’s been abused, but virtually abolishing the pipeline is … quite silly.”

Student visas would be cut by 72,600 by 2031/32, which would be achieved by limiting their abilities to bring family members.

Opposition immigration spokesman Jonathon Duniam said he was confident the university sector could manage the reduction in lucrative foreign student fees.

“In some universities … you see a majority or near-on majority, at least half of the student population being international students; that’s not what public universities were built for, and that needs to change,” he said.

The plan would boost the federal budget by about $260 million, according to undisclosed coalition estimates produced with the help of the Parliamentary Budget Office.

Mr Taylor said the cuts would have a positive impact on the economy by better targeting the skills Australia needed and bringing in more skilled workers.

Business Council chief executive Bran Black welcomed the focus on high-skilled migrants and efforts to reduce the construction worker backlog, but questioned the impact on the economy.

“We must avoid a race to the bottom based on an arbitrary migration figure that could hurt Australia’s economy while worsening the skills shortage,” he said.

Working holiday maker visas, highly relied upon by farmers and regional communities, would be cut by 23,700.

A new skilled visa class for major projects, capped at 15,000 a year, and a new agriculture visa would also be introduced.

The humanitarian intake would be halved to 10,000 per year, while family reunion visas would remain unchanged.

Senator Hanson said the major parties created the migration mess and could not be trusted to fix it.

“The coalition has turned up late to the grand final after both teams have headed back to the change rooms, waving a photocopy of One Nation’s immigration policy,” she wrote on X.

Labour costs and a skills shortage are among the key pressure points for regional businesses as confidence in the economy drops, a report says.

The South Australian Business Chamber 2026 Regional Voice report released Tuesday shows regional business operators are being squeezed by cost pressures relating to wages, energy, insurance and regulation on one end, and by workforce constraints on the other.

The biannual report comes from a 2025/26 survey of regional businesses across the state’s southeast right through the Mid North areas of Whyalla and the far west Eyre Peninsula.

Labour costs remained the top issue for regional businesses employing between one and 199 workers and was one of the top issues for 70 per cent of businesses across the state.

In the Eyre Peninsula, a region with a rental vacancy rate at 0.63 per cent in its more populated areas, one business linked a lack of housing to their access to skilled workers.

Skills and labour availability came in second at 56.5 per cent followed by energy costs and regulatory compliance.

Chamber chief executive Andrew Kay said the report revealed a declining outlook in almost all areas.

“It’s clear that beyond the message around labour, that generally all the indices on the report are down on the previous two years, if not, stagnant,” he said.

“They’re telling us effectively that to get workers to take on roles within the regional businesses, they need to pay them above what they would generally pay for the same role in greater Adelaide.”

Skilled migration remained a major workforce option with more than a third of respondents currently or previously employing a skilled migrant, with 28.9 per cent of businesses open to doing so in the future.

Recent cuts to Australia’s net overseas migration intake have mounted more pressure on regional industries, in particular farmers who rely on seasonal work and part-time roles during harvest.

As part of the federal government’s changes, the number of working holiday makers looking to extend their stay for a second year will be capped at 45,000, down from 57,000 this year.

The coalition on Tuesday announced a plan to cut migration to 160,000 per year for at least four years, echoing parts of One Nation’s proposal by cutting the stock of temporary visa holders.

Mr Kay said the debate had resulted in a hit to the workforce supply for regional businesses.

“There’s no question that trying to strike the lowest migration number in political discourse doesn’t serve our regions well,” he said.

The world’s biggest climate event should not become “another talk shop” while Pacific nations struggle to survive rising sea levels and intensifying natural disasters.

Tuvalu climate change minister Maina Talia issued the warning to a delegation of world leaders visiting the small island nation on Tuesday as part of the pre-COP31 event in the Pacific.

Fourteen world leaders from nations including Australia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Mauritius visited Tuvalu for the event despite persistent rain that curtailed some plans.

The event was designed to show leaders the impacts of climate change firsthand in one of the world’s lowest-lying nations, where land sits an average of two metres above sea level.

The tour was scheduled a month before the United Nations’ Conference of the Parties climate talks in Turkey, where Australia will host negotiations.

But the headline event would need to deliver genuine climate commitments and action, Dr Talia told attendees, including work to phase out fossil fuels and keep 1.5 degrees of warming within reach.

“COP31 cannot be another talk shop or debate over ideas. Our discussions here in Tuvalu and Fiji must deliver strategic action,” he said.

“We must transform how COPs have operated for the past 10 years.”

COP31 discussions should also include commitments for more grants to endangered island nations, Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo told leaders, as their communities were suffering an unfair burden.

“Why should countries like Tuvalu take on more debt to protect ourselves from a climate crisis we did so little to cause?” he said

“Climate finance must not push vulnerable countries deeper into debt simply to survive.”

Representatives from 30 nations arrived on the nation of nine islands and atolls early on Tuesday for a traditional welcome ceremony, followed by a brief visit to one of the sites being built by the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project.

The multimillion-dollar program is reclaiming coastal land over four sites, with a goal to add more than 20 hectares that are safe for habitation by the end of 2026.

The land would be built six metres above the reef flat to ensure it would resist even the highest tide of 3.2 metres, project manager Alan Resture said, and would be used to accommodate housing, schools and hospitals.

“What we are doing here has shown to the world that adaptation is not a dream,” Mr Resture told AAP.

“Our leaders are working tirelessly to make sure the people of Tuvalu remain safe from all the … adverse impacts of climate change and sea-level rise.”

The event was the first official visit to Tuvalu for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who said the project showed what actions could be taken to adapt to existing global warming while planning to avoid greater impacts.

“It was a reminder as well that we can’t afford to just deal with adaptation, as important as that is,” he said.

“We need to deal with the fundamental issue of the rising emissions and the need to keep 1.5 degrees very much on the table.”

Australian shares have clocked a third straight session of gains, as easing oil prices and confidence in the US market lifted investor sentiment.

The S&P/ASX200 gained 49.3 points on Tuesday, up 0.57 per cent, to 8735.7, as the broader All Ordinaries gained 44.3 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 8903.5.

Real estate stocks and miners led nine of 11 local sectors higher after weeks of selling pressure, while IT stocks dropped more than three per cent and consumer staples traded just below break-even.

The Australian dollar is buying 69.70 US cents, up from 69.41 US cents on Friday at 5pm.

Small business owners need help – not regulation – to battle growing cyber threats, industry groups say. 

Business representatives addressed a cybersecurity inquiry at small and medium-sized enterprises in Canberra on Tuesday, as threats from artificial intelligence-assisted criminals continue to grow.

Plain-spoken government guidance and tax-breaks for security improvements could help protect entrepreneurs, policymakers heard.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry called for fewer regulations to ease business owners’ workloads. 

Digital policy lead Ross Creelman said the problem was not a lack of cybersafety awareness. 

“It is a capability and capacity problem,” he said. 

“Our objective should be to help small businesses become more cyber resilient, rather than simply giving them more cyber reporting obligations.” 

Labor MP Basem Abdo asked if the chamber considered mandated standards would protect suppliers and customers. 

Mr Creelman said the desire for cybersecurity protections came from the realities of business.

“The biggest cost of non-compliance is not coming primarily from the government,” he said.

Any minimum requirements for small businesses must reflect an understanding of existing pressures on smaller businesses, he suggested. 

Small businesses fall outside of many of the existent cyber-security standards upheld for companies of specific sizes and sectors. 

But security is one of the most significant issue facing Australian businesses, Canberra Business Chamber CEO Greg Harford said. 

The Australian Signals Directorate, overseeing national cybersecurity, estimated the average cost of cyber incidents to small businesses in 2024-25 was $56,000 – up 14 per cent year-on-year.

About 79 per cent of business owners surveyed by the Council of Small Business Organisations feared they would not survive a cyber attack. 

The council’s chief executive Skye Cappuccio called for specific, plain-language guidance on safe AI adoption as a matter of urgency.

Chief operations officer William Harris said the government should back incident response initiatives to support business and not-for-profits during crises. 

The council also urged the government to provide “plain-language” security baselines, government services and guidance on safe AI use.

It requested help in establishing industry associations as intermediaries for cybersecurity information. 

Mr Creelman further suggested the government could expand instant asset write-off benefits to intangible cyber-security capabilities. 

Any write-offs could be pinned to the Australian Signals Directorate’s “Essential Eight” mitigation strategies for cyber threats.

The council on Tuesday also repeated calls for the government to restore funding for an axed Cyber Wardens security training program, free for businesses.

It ceased operating after funding was not extended in the latest federal budget.

The house select committee inquiry into small-to-medium business cyber security continues to examine existing practices and business’s needs. 

Australian households are the most persistently pessimistic they have been since the early-1990s recession, after a fourth Reserve Bank rate rise.

Following the RBA’s decision to lift interest rates to the highest level since 2011, confidence among Australian consumers plunged about 20 per cent, according to the Westpac–Melbourne Institute consumer sentiment index on Tuesday.

The overall survey, conducted between September 28 and October 1, showed the index dropped by 4.7 per cent to 80.4 in October – the worst level since the outbreak of the Middle East conflict in early April.

But for respondents surveyed after the RBA call on September 29, the index dropped to 67.2 – the lowest level since the late 1990s.

That was broadly in line with the weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer survey, which fell about five per cent to 67.1 points.

Sentiment has been extremely weak for the longest period since the “disastrous” recession of the early 1990s, Westpac’s head of Australian macro-forecasting, Matthew Hassan, said.

“Australian consumers remain stuck in a cost-of-living nightmare that seems to have no end in sight,” Mr Hassan said.

“The latest RBA move looks to have badly rattled consumers. Responses over the course of the survey week show a very sharp deterioration after the decision was announced.”

Assessments of family finances and buyer sentiment were the biggest categories impacted.

Expectations about the economic outlook fell less sharply, but assessments about the economy in the next five years were back to lows not seen since August 2020, shortly following Melbourne’s second lockdown and before JobKeeper subsidies were expanded.

AMP economist My Bui said the the decline was unsurprising following the September rate hike and amid rising fuel prices.

“On our calculation the weekly petrol bill for a typical Australian household has gone up by $20 versus the beginning of the year,” she said.

“The worry with declining confidence is that it tends to correlate with household spending on a per capita basis: the downtrend in confidence over the past twelve months suggests consumption per person will likely fall further into contraction this year.”

Given rising borrowing costs, mortgage holders were the most pessimistic home ownership sub-group, at 77 index points.

Those who own their home outright experienced the largest decline in sentiment in the month, as the housing market downturn extended for a sixth month.

Renters were the most optimistic, unchanged at 84.8 points.

Fears of job losses are rising as well, with unemployment expectations ticking up 1.9 per cent higher, Mr Hassan said.

But there are still signs the labour market is holding strong.

“The one positive for households is that job vacancies have increased to a two year high of 122 points, which accords with business sentiment expectations of positive employment growth,” said Citi analysts Josh Williamson and Faraz Syed.

Home buyers are holding off to see where the falling Australian housing market lands as high interest rates, stubborn living costs and federal tax changes weigh on valuations.

After a strong financial year of loan growth at People First Bank – Australia’s largest customer-owned bank – demand has begun to soften, chief executive Steve Laidlaw says.

“I think absolutely people are holding back in terms of potential purchases just to see where the market lands, and of course, it’s creating some hesitancy potentially on the sell side as well,” he told AAP.

“Potentially, you’re talking about a 10 per cent reduction in housing prices, and I’ve read others are saying potentially 15 per cent.

“I suspect it won’t be as pronounced as that.”

House prices have fallen 6.4 per cent in 2026, according to property data firm Cotality, dividing aspiring first home buyers, property investors and some new owners with loans worth more than their houses.

The Reserve Bank of Australia last week increased the official cash rate to 4.6 per cent, its highest level in 15 years.

Bigger banks have passed the rise on to customers in the form of higher mortgage rates.

“For many borrowers, I think this is the first time they’ve experienced rates at this level with the potential for another rate rise, and some are saying potentially two,” Mr Laidlaw said.

“I would expect there to be some pressure around credit, and people in some sort of repayment distress, but the bank is very well prepared to support customers experiencing some of those challenges.”

While shrinking home loan demand and limited growth were weighing on major bank valuations, Mr Laidlaw said People First’s challenger status left it well-positioned to weather the current market headwinds.

“We can often perform better than the general market off of a smaller base, so if there is some moderation in terms of lending growth, we can certainly manage that,” he said.

People First handed down its 2025/26 financial results on Tuesday, which showed its bottom-line profit rose by roughly a 10th to $48.7 million in the year ended June 30.

Total loans and advances grew eight per cent to $22.8 billion, while total assets expanded seven per cent to $27.1 billion as the bank added 36,000 new members, taking its ranks to 750,000.

“We’ve only got the one stakeholder, so we don’t have that tension between shareholder expectations regarding profits and dividends,” Mr Laidlaw said.

“We can put our entire focus into our customers with good rates and strong levels of service, but also do the right thing by the communities in which we live and work.”

Formed when Heritage Bank and People’s Choice Credit Union merged in 2023, People First Bank now has joint headquarters in Adelaide and Toowoomba.