For almost 40 years, Paul Kahlert has watched new generations of truck drivers learn from their parents about how to move produce and crucial supplies across the country. 

They have been lifelines for small towns, which often rely on road trains for their food, clothes and school supplies. 

Now, Mr Kahlert is seeing multi-generation businesses put their trucks up for auction. 

“Second and third generations can’t afford to look up the hill and see that their parents are struggling,” said the chief executive of All Purpose Transport, which employs more than 400 people.

Mr Kahlert is one of the growing number in the transport industry urging the federal government to reintroduce a fuel excise cut. 

Diesel cost an average of $2.86 cents a litre in capital cities on Wednesday, up 18.9 cents from the week prior, ACCC data showed – and it’s expected to worsen. 

“From now until Christmas is the peak period for the transport industry,” Mr Kahlert said, warning demand would put more pressure on prices. 

At the same time, oil will likely become more expensive for the next six months during the European winter, when demand for heating homes and businesses surges. 

The rising costs are contributing to an almost universal expectation the Reserve Bank of Australia will hike interest rates on Tuesday to the highest level in 15 years.

The federal government has essentially ruled out cutting the fuel tax again, which gave motorists  32 cents a litre relief at the start of the US-Iran war.

The government was “very clear” the excise cut was temporary, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.

“We did extend it a bit so it gradually returned to more normal levels, but we are not going to respond to every daily movement on the world oil price,” Mr  Bowen told ABC in mid-September.

Focus had shifted to more permanent cost of living help through the tax system, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said on Monday. 

Economists have warned against reinstating the tax break, because it would ultimately worsen inflation. 

But Mr Kahlert disagreed, instead favouring a coalition plan for a new cut, as he pointed to more immediate impacts. 

“The government can argue that they are getting more revenue and more tax, and therefore their returns are better, but from an operator’s perspective, they are having to find that cash in their business,” he said.

He joined colleagues from Queensland and Australian trucking groups to call for immediate relief. 

“Members are doing everything they can to keep freight moving, but they cannot keep financing sharp fuel increases on behalf of the rest of the supply chain,” Queensland Trucking Association chief executive Gary Mahon said. 

The federal government was contacted for comment on Friday.

Oasis fans have begun to receive the first ticket codes for the band’s 2027 tour.

As part of Oasis Live 27, the group will play 42 shows in Scotland, England, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Italy, the United States and Ireland.

Fans were asked to pre-register by 4pm UK time on Thursday September 17.

They will be sent a unique, non-transferable code to access an allocated on-sale window.

In the UK, ticket sales will take place on September 25, 26 and 27, with three selling windows each day.

Fans will be informed directly which window they can access, and at what time.

The band have told fans to be wary of scammers attempting to impersonate Oasis or their ticket partners.

“Please do not accept a code that is not sent by oasis@openstageit.com,” they said in a statement.

Demand for the tour has been so great that Oasis added four extra dates, including two at Knebworth, England, on September 25 and 26, where they famously played two concerts in August 1996 to an audience of more than 100,000 fans each night.

The band reunited last year for their Live 25 tour, which sold out within minutes of tickets going on sale, and was estimated by Forbes to have generated more than 293 million pounds ($A553 million) in revenue.

The reunion came after a long-standing feud between Noel Gallagher and brother Liam when the band split in 2009 – reportedly prompted by a backstage brawl at the Rock en Seine festival in France.

The Australian share market has fallen to a three-month low as oil prices and bond yields both moved higher and domestic interest rates looked to soon join them.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index on Friday fell 37 points, or 0.43 per cent, to 8,665, its lowest level since June 11, while the broader All Ordinaries dropped 51.4 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 8,845.6.

The ASX finished the week down 0.8 per cent, its fourth straight week of losses, and is also now down 0.6 per cent since the start of the year.

Overnight, a military adviser to Iran’s leadership said that further attacks by the US and Israel could prompt the Islamic Republic to expand the war as far as the Indian Ocean, sending Brent crude to an eight-day high of $US106 a barrel.

Interactive Brokers senior economist Jose Torres said that the higher oil prices were sparking share market turbulence, as investors feared they would fuel above-average inflation. 

Meanwhile, Australian government bond yields were close to surpassing last week’s 15-year peak, tracking similar moves overseas, as investors demanded higher returns for holding government debt.

What some have described as a bloodbath in the bond market has been putting pressure on equities, as higher returns from bonds make riskier assets less attractive.

Nine of the ASX’s 11 sectors finished lower, with financials and consumer staples higher.

The tech sector was the biggest mover, dropping 1.7 per cent, as Xero fell 2.8 per cent, Wisetech Global dropped 2.3 per cent and NextDC retreated 1.8 per cent.

The consumer discretionary sector declined 1.4 per cent amid firming expectations that the Reserve Bank will raise interest rates next week.

Eagers Automotive dropped 4.7 per cent, JB Hi-Fi retreated 2.8 per cent and Nick Scali subtracted 3.7 per cent.

Netwealth was the biggest loser in the ASX200, slumping 8.2 per cent to a two-and-a-half-year-low of $17.02 as the portfolio administration company was hit by a class action filed in connection with the collapsed First Guardian super fund.

Netwealth said it had already paid $101 million to affected members and would defend itself from the lawsuit.

Elsewhere in the financial sector, all of the big four banks finished higher. 

CBA gained 0.6 per cent to $150.83, NAB rose 1.0 per cent to $38.54 and both Westpac and ANZ advanced 1.1 per cent, to $34.49 and $37.84, respectively.

In the heavyweight mining sector, BHP dropped 0.5 per cent to $60.72, Fortescue retreated 2.3 per cent to $16.37 and Rio Tinto lost 1.0 per cent at $164.85.

Meeka Metals dropped 25.9 per cent to 10 cents after the WA gold developer raised $40 million from institutional investors at a similar valuation.

The Australian dollar was changing hands for 70.24 US cents, from 70.35 US cents at 5pm on Thursday.

ON THE ASX:

* The S&P/ASX200 dropped 37 points, or 0.43 per cent, to 8,665.

* The broader All Ordinaries fell 51.4 points, or 0.58 per cent, to 8,845.6.

One Australian dollar trades for:

* 70.24 US cents, from 70.35 US cents at 5pm AEST on Thursday

* 111.03 Japanese yen, from 111.45 Japanese yen

* 61.70 euro cents, from 61.78 euro cents

* 53.11 British pence, from 53.12 pence

* 123.98 NZ cents, from 123.97 NZ cents

Australia can punish hackers if they have intent – and a heartbeat.

Thus, the rogue AI agent that broke into a Medicare website might be out of the law’s reach. 

The world’s first known breach of a government platform by an off-the-rails OpenAI agent in June was revealed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at a press conference in New York on Thursday, Australian time.

The government is determined to punish the tech giant if possible, convening a task force to examine its legal options and explore refurbishing the law, public software and relationships with AI firms.

But a bot infiltrating systems while off its master’s leash only meets some of the thresholds for criminal hacking, Monash University AI legal expert Aashish Srivastava told AAP on Friday.

“It’s an unauthorised access …  but the second thing that they need to actually prove is that whether there was some kind of intention or knowledge on part of the hacker,” he said.

“You would have to look into whether the people who are in charge of OpenAI have been reckless, whether they were aware that if they give this type of instruction there was a possibility that it may go rogue … so it may be difficult.”

The model involved in the June breach was researching public medicine funding and had not been directed to hack, an OpenAI spokesperson said in a statement released on Thursday.

The company discovered the transgression in August but kept Canberra in the dark until September 10, when it emailed a notification to a generic Australian public service inbox.

Mr Albanese expressed his disappointment about that process during a phone call with OpenAI boss Sam Altman on Thursday.

If current laws could not touch the tech giant, they would need updating, Environment Minister Murray Watt said on Friday.

“If it’s not possible, then clearly that indicates that we need to change Australian laws,” he told Seven’s Sunrise program.

The government’s new task force first met on Thursday and is expected to report in a matter of weeks.

Even if they escaped prosecution this time, Dr Srivastava said tech giants were running out of chances to bring their wandering bots to heel. 

“You can’t say in the future they (OpenAI) are not aware that these type of things happen, so to some extent they should be responsible that their program can go rogue,” he said.

“If they were doing experiments, they were aware.”

Out-of-control agents have perpetrated a slew of breaches this year, most notably in July when another OpenAI model hacked AI firm HuggingFace, believing it had the answers to a test.

Keeping the breach under wraps for months also ran the risk of OpenAI falling foul of shareholder disclosure requirements, Dr Srivastava said.

The timing of Mr Albanese’s announcement has also fuelled speculation about whether it was politically calculated to boost Labor’s posture on AI security and Australia’s international clout.

It came days after the prime minister joined 21 other world leaders issuing a statement in support of stronger AI guardrails at the United Nations on Tuesday, Australian time.  

The prime minister also used an address to the UN General Assembly on Friday to call attention to AI’s potential dangers, alluding to the Medicare hack.

Deputy opposition leader Jane Hume said the prime minister risked overcorrecting by pushing back too hard on the technology.

“You actually need AI to fight AI,” she told Sunrise.

“This should hasten, if anything, our move over in the US to less finger-wagging and Trump one-upmanship, and more about embracing these AI companies.”

US President Donald Trump has called pleas to rein in AI a “globalist scheme” that would cause America to cede ground to China in a vicious tech race.

Mr Albanese has brushed off claims he timed the hack disclosure politically, saying the government needed time to gather facts and determine whether personal information had been compromised.

US President Donald Trump has welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House for a lavish summit that was heavy on symbolism but light on substance, with ‌no sign of breakthroughs on thorny issues such as AI, trade, Taiwan and the war with Iran.

The two leaders and their wives attended a state dinner, a black-tie affair of sesame-crusted sea bass and a guest list heavy with tech CEOs.

Outside the gate, a ‌group of loud protesters shouted slogans like “China out of Hong Kong” that were clearly audible to the leaders as they posed for pictures on the red-carpeted White House steps.

In his dinner toast, Trump said he and Xi “both understand we represent different systems but the ties between our ‌people endure and we’ve never gotten along better.”

Xi said he and Trump had in-depth discussions and reached “common understanding on many issues” that provided “new strategic guidance for China-US relations.” He did not elaborate.

“China and the United States must act as responsible major countries,” he said, calling for “a new approach for major countries to get along with each other.”

The guest list for Thursday’s state dinner included CEOs such as Apple’s Tim Cook, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.

Xi noted in his toast that “President Trump has pledged to make America great again” and that “China is committed to achieving great national rejuvenation.”

“These two goals are both ambitious and can surely be mutually reinforcing,” he said.

During a bilateral discussion in the afternoon, Xi urged the US to oppose “Taiwan independence,” according to a readout from the official Chinese news agency – addressing one of the thorniest issues between the two countries. 

The White House has not yet provided its own summary of the talks.

Xi had been expected to press Trump this week to halt arms sales to Taiwan. Following his visit to China in May, Trump said he was holding in abeyance an arms package to Taiwan worth some $US14 billion and called it a “very good negotiating chip.”

That move left some US allies in Asia and even some of Trump’s fellow Republicans concerned that he may be tempted to soften Washington’s support for Taipei in exchange for economic wins. China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has not ruled out using ⁠force to gain control over the island.

The summit between the two leaders came shortly after Trump forcefully defended his use of military power in a ‌speech at the UN earlier this week, ​suggesting he could “annihilate” Iran. 

He took a strikingly different tone with Xi on Thursday, reflecting a power balance that has shifted toward the Chinese leader after a trade war that ended with a US climbdown on tariffs.

In remarks after Xi’s arrival on Thursday, ​Trump said the two powers had made strides on trade since his trip to China in May.

Somewhat more pointedly, Xi said the two countries’ interests were deeply intertwined and competition between them should be ​a “healthy one.” 

US companies were welcome in China, he said, adding that he hopes “Chinese companies are treated fairly here in the United States.”

The summit, Xi’s first visit to Washington in more than a decade, is the second meeting this year between ‌the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies.

For Trump, who relishes ceremony and prizes his ties with powerful leaders, the visit is as much a matter of national prestige as an opportunity for high-stakes diplomacy.

But Trump and Xi’s remarks were not carried live by any US television networks, which refused to provide footage in protest of the White House’s ban of CNN, MS Now and Politico.

During his comments on Thursday, Xi said both countries must “ensure that the development of AI is always under human control.”

Analysts say intense competition between the two powers in AI is likely to limit the scope for anything beyond symbolic agreements.

with Reuters and AP

The prime minister has issued a call to world leaders to work together to confront growing issues of unchecked artificial intelligence and climate change.

In his address to the United Nations in New York on Friday, Australian time, Anthony Albanese laid out the case for reining in artificial intelligence through additional safeguards.

At a time when the global order was being tested and trust in institutions like the UN were on the decline, the prime minister said it was critical for countries to work together.

“Whether it is climate change or artificial intelligence, there is always the temptation to say that our generation is being confronted by issues our predecessors could not have imagined,” he told the UN General Assembly.

“But for all the transformation the past eight decades have brought, the fundamental stakes have not changed.

“We can rise to meet these new challenges now. We can reaffirm our national sovereignty and our shared humanity … but we can only do it together.”

The speech came a day after it was revealed an Open AI agent hacked into a Medicare statistics website, leading to concerns about the technology.

Mr Albanese said the emerging tool was evolving at a “furious pace”.

“The technological development that must now be the subject of discussion is artificial intelligence,” he said.

“(The Medicare hack) is unacceptable, and it is why Australia has been leading the way in establishing Australian standards for AI.

“Standards to ensure AI will work and deliver for people, not the other way around. We can’t ignore AI or prevent it.”

Mr Albanese was among more than 20 signatories of a joint statement calling for more safeguards to be put in place on AI, which was put out on Tuesday, Australian time.

It was a stark contrast to US President Donald Trump’s speech to the UN, who rejected calls by nations to rein it in.

A significant portion of the speech was used to make the case for Australia securing a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Australia is seeking a two-year term on the council in 2029 and 2030, with intense lobbying happening on the sidelines of the UN.

A vote is not scheduled to take place until mid-2028.

Mr Albanese said Australia would elevate the perspectives of middle powers and smaller nati

“We understand the UN mission cannot be entrusted solely to the great powers, or the biggest countries, or even the loudest voices alone,” he said.

“Nor can it be sub-contracted to the world’s richest companies or dictated by the pace of technology.”

The prime minister also argued the UN needed to adapt to meet modern times.

“Clearly, the multilateral system we have all known and benefited from is under immense strain,” he said.

“To protect the peace, to create a world of human dignity, to do justice to the UN’s mission, we must embrace change and reform.”

One year on from Mr Albanese touting Australia’s world-leading social media ban for under-16s, he provided an update to the UN on how the measures were progressing.

“Australian parents spoke to world leaders about their campaign resulting in our nations’ social media ban for under 16s,” he said

“Those parents channelled their personal grief into a powerful call for global action, and the world has answered.”

Since the ban came into effect in December, more than 20 countries have unveiled their own measures to limit social media access for teenagers.

Mr Albanese also raised the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024 while working in Gaza, in his address.

He praised the work of Australia and eight other countries to set up a declaration for humanitarian worker protection.

“That declaration outlines practical measures to ensure stronger accountability, safer access, and better protection for aid workers operating in conflict zones,” he said.

“Again, listening, partnering, protecting. Australian values at work.”

Anthony Albanese’s government stands accused of tick-and-flick responses and ignoring issues stacked in a growing pile of unresponded parliamentary committee work.

Dozens of detailed reports, put together by parliamentarians serving on committees, are sitting in the government’s in-tray.

The best-known example in recent years was the “You win some, you lose more” report on gambling harm led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.

While that received a government response in May – more than 1000 days after it was tabled – others are waiting even longer.

Alan Hewitt, president of the one-man Australian Public Interest Alliance, calls the pile the “Too Hard Basket” and has has set up a tracking website of the same name following the inaction.

As of this week, he counts 79 reports across a wide range of issues waiting, with all but five ballooning past recommended response times.

That includes a landmark reform for a human rights act – recommended in May 2024 – and other issues including modern slavery, financial abuse, and misuse of public funds.

Mr Hewitt takes issue with the wait times and a tactic to sidestep substantive responses.

“The government is supposed to answer (reports) within a set time: three months for the Senate, six for the House,” he told AAP.

“Since 2022, 263 of the 634 responses tabled have instead closed the report with the same sentence: given the passage of time, ‘a substantive government response is no longer appropriate’.

“That isn’t an answer. It’s a cop-out.”

One such response was tabled in April in response to a 2018 probe into the use of au pairs by Peter Dutton while home affairs minister.

Assistant minister Patrick Gorman defended the language, saying the coalition government should have dealt with it but “failed to respond to this report and hundreds of others”.

In its response, the government effectively overlooked the key recommendation of the committee: to compel ministers to declare if they made interventions on visa matters within guidelines or not.

Mr Hewitt, who volunteers for WA teal independent Kate Chaney, said committee work deserved better.

“The fix is simple: answer each recommendation, even if the answer is no,” he said.

“MPs and senators spend months taking evidence from the public on hard problems. That work deserves a yes or a no, not a sentence that says nothing.”

In other cases, it’s clear policy work is happening, but not necessarily aligned with a report.

In April 2025, in its “no time to waste” report, the environment committee recommended minister Murray Watt pursue a “circular economy act” to improve waste management and recycling.

Since then, Senator Watt has worked with state ministers on a circular economy roadmap, and regulations, but not law reform.

Mr Gorman said the government respected the lawmakers who served on committees and members of the public who submitted to them.

“It is appropriate that where significant policy matters are raised that ministers and their departments take the necessary time to consider these responses,” he said.

Unanswered committee reports do not always mean inaction.

Sometimes the caravan simply moves on.

The longest unanswered report in Mr Hewitt’s database – a 2014 report on freedom of information – is a case in point.

That report, put together by six senators who all no longer serve in parliament, does not require a response as it was linked to a dropped Tony Abbott-era plan to axe the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

The latest Intergenerational Report, the triennial roadmap of the Australian economy’s next 40 years, contains a stack of numbers.

But one number came in for greater scrutiny than the others: 1.2 per cent.

That’s Treasury’s assumption for how fast productivity will grow each year on average over the next four decades, on which almost every other economic figure in the report was based.

While 1.2 per cent is not particularly strong compared to previous decades and the artificial intelligence boom is expected to provide an uplift, productivity growth has only averaged 0.3 per cent over the past decade.

Especially compared to the Reserve Bank’s productivity assumption of 0.7 per cent over the medium term, Treasury’s estimate was criticised by a chorus of economists for being overly ambitious.

“It certainly seems to us like an unrealistically optimistic assumption,” HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham told News24 on Thursday.

“We are not building enough housing. We haven’t got enough cheap energy. We haven’t got enough infrastructure.

“How is AI going to solve all those problems?”

But Westpac’s Luci Ellis, a former chief economist at the central bank, said the RBA’s forecasts might be overly gloomy.

“The RBA’s assumptions implicitly require a repeat of the factors that dragged recent productivity outcomes down, despite strong global investment, policy changes domestically and the possible benefits of AI,” she wrote in a research note.

The RBA also diverges from Treasury in its assumptions for workforce participation and full employment, which is the same as saying the lowest unemployment rate the economy can sustain without pushing up inflation.

“Together, the three RBA assumptions imply weaker growth in supply capacity and thus more inflationary pressure for any given level of demand,” Dr Elllis said.

“If every one of your assumptions seems individually plausible, but all skew in the one direction, it starts to look like a pattern.

“The thumb on the scale is unlikely to be intentional, but it does suggest the likely direction of future surprises in the medium term.”

The Intergenerational Report estimated the stable-inflation unemployment rate sits at about 4.25 per cent.

But RBA governor Michele Bullock told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia on Tuesday that she thinks the jobless rate needs to be somewhere between 4.5 and 5 per cent to ease pressure on inflation.

The unemployment rate edged up to 4.6 per cent in August, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed on Thursday.

While some tightness was coming out of the labour market, it was not enough to deter the RBA from hiking interest rates next week, Mr Bloxham said.

“With inflation still above target and the risks now tilted to the upside on inflation – partly due to global developments – we expect that the RBA is now more focused on seeking to get inflation back to target soon, than on its full employment mandate,” he said.

Australians are willing to cut back their spending in record numbers to afford a property, affirming the ongoing value of home ownership, new data shows.

More than 75 per cent of residents were willing to cut their spending back to afford a home, a Cotality survey released on Friday revealed. 

Australians were more likely to do so than their Canadian, US and UK peers, for whom the figures sat below 70 per cent.

The percentage was higher for Gen Z Aussies than any other age group.

Levels of discretionary spending, like eating out, owning a car, and even moving from the family home into a sharehouse, have dropped among young adults in recent years. 

The number of 26-to-29-year-olds living with their parents climbed from 19.6 per cent in 2012 to 21.9 per cent in 2024, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey revealed on Thursday.

Young men were almost 10 per cent more likely to be staying home than women. 

But it wasn’t just first-time buyers making significant financial sacrifices to climb the ladder.

Millennials – the largest buyer cohort in the world – are readily forgoing small luxuries to afford homes large enough for their families.

Prospective buyers were selling their second car or putting off holidays while their children were young, Capital Buyers Agency owner Claire Corby said. 

“For many, it’s around delaying things like going away, or reducing things like dinners out,” she said. 

“People are leaving where they want to live and buying in cheaper markets.”

Most Australians would not be persuaded to participate in the housing market until mortgage interest rates hit a 4.9 per cent average, the data revealed. 

The average rate for an owner-occupier in August 2026 was 6.3 per cent, meaning the market is likely to stay quiet for some time and allowing bold buyers to swoop in.

“People are being conservative and cautious,” Ms Corby said.

“A lot of it is about personality.”

Only a quarter of Australians reported they could feel financially comfortable while paying up-front housing costs, and just 26 per cent said they could cover monthly repayments without changing their lifestyle, the Cotality survey showed. 

Ms Corby said it was important for buyers to consider what a property needed to do for them within a certain duration and work backwards.

She spoke with clients who were not willing to stretch their mortgage ceiling given the volatility of rates. 

Talks to secure a funding lifeline for a major property developer have fallen through, as administrators lay off more than 100 workers.

Insolvency advisory Teneo announced on Wednesday property developer Bathla Group had run out of cash after securing $4.7 million in short-term funding.

It left the administrators little choice but to halt work at 13 construction sites, after discussions with lenders for longer-term funding failed to yield results.

It is understood about 125 workers have been stood down, with only 67 employees retained to help continue the administration.

Administrators were given a 12-month reprieve by the NSW Supreme Court on Friday to complete unfinished projects by September 13, 2027.

Without funding, however, the focus will now switch to working with lenders for an orderly sale of Bathla Group’s subdivision and land bank sites.

The company, one of Sydney’s largest residential developers, entered voluntary administration in late August after the NSW government declined to bail it out.

It stood down more than 200 staff and halted a number of construction projects earlier in September after it entered voluntary administration on August 25.

Bathla owes $3.4 billion to creditors, including $3.08 billion to secured lenders, $130 million to unsecured lenders, $145 million to the tax office and $4 million to employees.

According to Bathla’s website, the group has 20,000 apartments and 7000 dwellings in its delivery pipeline, comprising a significant share of the NSW government’s target of 75,400 new homes a year for five years until 2029.