For much of the past two years, Justine Sless has been a hair’s breadth away from not being able to cope financially.

After being made redundant at 57 with a mortgage still to pay, the Melbourne-based author and Australian School of Comedy creative director found herself choosing between paying her bills or buying food.

“I was in this position where potentially I could lose my house, because I’m that demographic. I’m a woman over 50 and I’m divorced,” she said.

“It doesn’t take much when you don’t have a regular income to tip things.”

She’s among a record number of households that have turned to financial helplines in 2026 as high inflation and rising interest rates leave little room for people to pull back on spending.

Economists predict another rate rise in the coming week after September’s headline inflation rose to 0.8 per cent in the month, taking the annual inflation rate to 4.3 per cent.

A recently released report by the Consumer Action Law Centre noted the National Debt Helpline has experienced record demand in the current year.

More than one-third of its clients were either working or self-employed.

“Financial counsellors are increasingly hearing from people who never expected to need help: workers, families and small business owners who are struggling to meet the rising cost of everyday essentials,” Financial Counselling Victoria chief executive Zyl Hovenga-Wauchope said.

Ms Sless said her decision to reach out to friends, family and finally a financial helpline didn’t come without pain and shame.

But it also saved her life, she said.

“Cost of living is like a blanket statement, there’s lots of nuance and a lot of pain for people to have to access relief or even admitting to yourself there is a problem,” she said.

“I see my property as an asset that is there to protect me, rather than me being the slave to the mortgage, but that is only due to the work that financial counsellors have done.”

Fifty-three year old Paul Broadway begrudgingly launched a GoFundMe campaign as a last resort when he saw all his savings chewed up within four months of being unemployed.

“It took me three months of blood, sweat and tears to find jobs and I applied for no less than about 500,” he said.

“Most of my bills had been put on hold, so that was a little bit of a relief.

“But just thinking, am I going to get next month’s rent? That was my main concern.”

During that period, Mr Broadway’s fuel costs climbed 40 per cent into triple digits for the first time, while higher food costs put more pressure on his tight budget.

“I finally got Centrelink, but a whole month of Centrelink barely covers my rent, so it left nothing for food, nothing for other bills, nothing for petrol,” he said.

Falling behind on monthly bills became the fastest growing reason for Australians seeking help through GoFundMe as households look for alternative ways to raise critical funds.

Google parent Alphabet has missed Wall Street profit ‌and revenue expectations, and AI spending accelerated its cash burn, sending its shares down more than 10 per cent in extended trading.

Capital expenditures, driven by AI, will increase significantly ‌in 2027, said Chief Financial Officer Anat Ashkenazi, adding this year’s capex forecast was unchanged.

Ashkenazi said she also expected near-term margin pressure from the use of third-party cloud capacity.

The tech giant reported negative free cash flow of $US9.07 billion, compared with analyst expectations that it would come close to breaking even, according to data compiled by LSEG.

The third quarter results reflect the huge costs of the AI buildout, with investors in the sector concerned both ‌by potential overspending and the ‌risk of falling ⁠behind rivals by not spending enough.

The quarterly cash burn is an increase from $US5.9 billion in the ​prior quarter, which was the first time the company went into the negative in its 22-year history as a public company.

Alphabet’s cash burn was driven by spending to boost cloud capacity and fund AI research. It reported a $US7.66 billion operating income loss in “Alphabet-level activities,” which it said primarily reflected expenses related to AI research and development.

The tech giant’s total revenue for the third quarter was $US127.6 billion, short of analysts’ estimate of $US128.2 billion, according to LSEG data.

The ⁠revenue miss was caused by Google’s core advertising business that reported $US82.01 billion in revenue, ‌about $US1.41 billion short ​of expectations.

Net income available to common shareholders fell 25 per cent to $US26.17 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $US2.67 missed Wall Street targets of $US3.02.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement the quarter was strong and that the company is “now on a half-trillion dollar revenue run rate.”

“Our deep, full stack approach is driving momentum across the business,” he said, pointing to the 25 per cent revenue growth year-over-year.

Pichai also said the Gemini app, its artificial intelligence assistant, has reached one billion users, which makes it the fastest-growing product in Google’s history. 

Revenue at Google Cloud exceeded estimates and more than doubled to $US30.71 billion in the third quarter ended September 30, but was not enough to make ​up ​for the ad-side performance.

Cloud chief Thomas Kurian said sales of Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which compete with Nvidia’s GPU chips, had become a meaningful contributor to his business unit.

The third-largest cloud services provider globally, behind Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure, Google Cloud has continued to expand enterprise commitments, supported by multi-year cloud and AI infrastructure deals across cybersecurity, retail and financial services.

with AP

The Federal Reserve has kept its key rate unchanged at about 3.9 per cent despite elevated inflation while providing little hint about the US central bank’s next moves.

“Inflation remains elevated,” the Fed said in a statement released after its two-day policy meeting.

Holding off on an increase will allow “the accumulation of more information” that will help determine what policy the Fed should pursue “to ensure a timely return of inflation” to the central bank’s 2.0 per cent inflation target, the statement said.

The Fed, led by chairman Kevin Warsh, raised its benchmark rate last month for the first time in three years, defying US President Donald Trump’s demands for rate cuts, in an effort to get inflation back to its 2.0 per cent target in a “timelier” manner.

The Fed is tasked by Congress to combat inflation, and it does so by lifting rates to slow borrowing and spending and cool price increases.

Two Fed officials dissented from Wednesday’s decision, with Fed governor Lisa Cook and Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland president Beth Hammack voting in favour of hiking rates by a quarter point.

Australia’s high inflation rate has many fathers.

There’s Donald Trump, whose war on Iran, alongside Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pushed up fuel prices almost 24 per cent over the 12 months to September.

Then there’s the tech titans, such as Dario Amodei and Elon Musk, who are throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at the artificial intelligence investment race and pushing up prices for tech components, driving a 15.5 per cent surge in games consoles and other leisure items.

And then there’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who is contributing to domestic inflation through the highest levels of government spending in 40 years, excluding COVID-19, according to his political opponents.

The consumer price index climbed from four per cent to 4.3 per cent in September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday.

Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock said while the Middle East oil shock and the AI boom were compounding the inflation problem, “we still see inflation arising from domestic capacity pressures”.

Dr Chalmers acknowledged the government had a role to play in bringing down inflation, but insisted growth in private demand was having a much greater impact on the break-out in inflation.

But the treasurer has also made a positive impact on inflation, through his contentious curbs to property investor tax breaks in the May budget.

Australia’s deepening housing downturn, which is on track to be the largest on record, has been exacerbated by the changes to negative gearing and the capital gains discount on established homes.

While higher interest rates were the main contributor to the housing slump, the tax changes were structurally lowering investor demand for housing and adding to the cyclical factors at play, Treasury department secretary Jenny Wilkinson told a Senate estimates hearing.

House prices are not tracked by the ABS in its inflation read, but the cost of new dwellings is one of the largest components of the consumer price bucket.

Because of lower demand for housing, builders have had to increase discounts and promotional offers, leading new dwelling prices to remain unchanged in September despite rising construction costs.

Housing was “pretty well behaved”, NAB chief economist Sally Auld told AAP.

Rents were up a modest 0.2 per cent in the month, broadly consistent with their recent run rate, she said.

“So it doesn’t feel like we’re getting adverse inflationary effects from what’s going on in housing.”

Together, rents and new dwelling prices amount to about one-sixth of the total consumer price basket.

Falling dwelling prices were providing Australian homebuyers a rare improvement in housing affordability, said Housing Industry Association senior economist Tom Devitt.

The HIA’s Affordability Report, released on Wednesday, showed a 3.6 per cent increase in affordability in the September quarter.

But affordability was still 5.4 per cent worse than a year earlier and would likely worsen once the cyclical downturn ended, given Australia’s chronic supply shortfall remained unresolved, Mr Devitt said.

British finance minister John Healey ‌is set to announce a cautious budget plan as he tries to avoid piling more bond market pressure on the new government of Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Banks, gambling firms and online ‌marketplaces such as Amazon and Temu are expected to be hit with higher taxes. 

That would help to pay for support for poorer households facing high energy bills and to freeze fuel duty for drivers.

Healey says he wants to give Britain “a bit of breathing space” from the impact of the Iran war that is pushing up inflation.

“This budget is about getting through this difficult moment. But it’s also about putting Britain on a future path, a better future path,” he said in a statement.

His first budget – due to be announced in parliament on Wednesday – will detail how the government plans to give regional mayors more control over tax revenues, part of Burnham’s devolution push.

Separately, more than Stg20 billion ($A38 billion) in extra ‌support will go to state ‌finance institutions to spur investment ⁠in artificial intelligence, defence and green energy by the early 2030s.

On entering Downing Street in July, Burnham promised “the biggest changes in the ​last 40 years”, including a bigger role for the state in the economy.

But Healey’s options are limited by the surge in borrowing costs for governments around the world including Britain, where investors remember the 2022 “mini-budget” of former prime minister Liz Truss and the ensuing bond market meltdown triggered by its unfunded tax cuts.

After big tax and spending increases in the two budgets of the previous finance minister Rachel Reeves, Wednesday is being framed as a “steady as she goes” moment for Britain’s economy, which has so far withstood the Iran war energy price shock.

In an attempt to ease some of Reeves’ big tax hit on employers, Healey has said he would reduce paperwork for businesses to ​save them Stg800 million ‌a year.

Bigger policy changes – including how to fix the inflation hit to public spending – are likely to have to wait for a 10-year plan that Burnham has said he will announce ​later in 2026 and a broad spending review in 2027.

But Healey is under pressure to say now how he intends to pay more for defence – an issue that caused him to quit as defence minister in June in a move that hastened Keir Starmer’s resignation as prime minister.

Healey’s biggest hope is for an end to the Iran ​war, which would lower the government’s bill for servicing Stg3 trillion of public debt. 

A Melbourne Cup Day rate hike is odds-on after another hot inflation reading pushed the Reserve Bank’s patience to the limit.

The RBA’s preferred measure of core inflation – the quarterly trimmed mean – climbed one per cent in the three months ended September, the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed on Wednesday.

While that was in line with economist expectations, it exceeded the central bank’s forecast for a 0.8 per cent increase.

On an annualised basis, the quarterly trimmed mean rose from 3.6 to 3.7 per cent, higher than expected.

“This is an ugly number for the RBA and significantly strengthens the case for another rate hike next week,” senior investment strategist at ETF provider Global X Marc Jocum said.

Bond market pricing for a November rate hike climbed from about 60 per cent ahead of the release to above 80 per cent, Mr Jocum said.

Economists at NAB and Commonwealth Bank changed their rate bets from a hold to a hike, joining colleagues at ANZ and Westpac.

The turnaround in rate expectations in recent weeks has been driven as much by data as the RBA’s response to the figures.

While inflation was too high, it was broadly in line with what the RBA was expecting, deputy governor Andrew Hauser said, appearing alongside governor Michele Bullock and other central bank officials at a Senate estimates hearing as the data was published.

The inflation readings followed jobs data that showed the labour market softening faster than the RBA expected.

Despite that, Ms Bullock told the hearing the labour market seemed tighter than the RBA previously judged.

That showed the central bank was rethinking how hard it would have to hit the economy to bring inflation down, NAB chief economist Sally Auld said.

“That sort of tells you that actually, maybe getting to five per cent is not enough on unemployment. We might have to get to five and a half,” Dr Auld told AAP.

“And if that’s the case, financial conditions have got to be tighter to get that extra slowing in growth to push the unemployment rate up.”

That’s bad news for Australian households already turning increasingly to cheap mince to cope with the rising cost of living, as Woolworths chief executive Amanda Bardwell told shareholders during a quarterly earnings call on Wednesday.

While the trimmed mean was the focus of the Reserve Bank, prices paid by everyday Australians climbed from four per cent to 4.3 per cent in the 12 months to September.

High fuel prices, which rose 9.4 per cent in September, were the primary driver of the jump in headline inflation, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

He said the government could do more to help take some steam out of the economy, promising more savings measures in the December mid-year budget update.

“We take responsibility for government policy when it comes to the fiscal settings and when it comes to managing the budget in a responsible way in the face of this inflation challenge, which is persisting longer than anyone would like,” he said.

While the Middle East conflict was driving up price growth, inflation in parts of the economy less exposed to commodity prices and more exposed to domestic capacity pressures was picking up speed.

Market services inflation – things like insurance and hairdressing – crept above four per cent for the first time since late 2025, Deloitte Access Economics partner Stephen Smith said.

“In other words, price growth in parts of the economy not directly exposed to the effects of the Middle East conflict remains uncomfortably high,” he said.

Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson said the government was forcing the RBA’s hand to raise rates by driving up underlying inflation.

“I know the treasurer likes to come up with excuses. Well, Australians can’t pay their mortgage with your excuses, Jim,” he said.

Rio Tinto’s board has proposed massive hikes to its chief executive’s remuneration package, as miners scramble to compete for top talent with surging pay at defence, aerospace and energy transition firms.

According to four people familiar with the matter and documents seen by Reuters, Simon Trott’s target remuneration package could surge by 56 per cent to a whopping £9.8 million ($A18.57m).

An investor presentation shows the world’s second-biggest listed miner’s peer benchmarking group — the list of companies it compares itself to when calculating executive compensation ranges — has been expanded to include energy giants Chevron and ExxonMobil, GE Aerospace and others.

Former West Australian treasurer Ben Wyatt, who chairs Rio Tinto’s remuneration committee, said the miner was consulting investors ahead of a policy update. 

He said Trott’s fixed pay would remain unchanged but incentives tied to multi-year business outcomes and shareholder returns would be adjusted.

“This is designed to drive business performance in the interests of shareholders, support the delivery of Rio Tinto’s long-term strategy, and attract and retain strong leadership in a competitive global market,” Wyatt said in a statement.

Appointed in July 2025, Trott delivered a 43 per cent jump in first-half underlying earnings this year while pursuing restructuring and asset sales.

Reflecting a compensation overhaul weighted ⁠to performance, Trott’s maximum remuneration is proposed to jump 63 per cent to £18.3m ($A34.6m), the documents show.

Under the plan, his short-term incentives will rise to a maximum ​of 300 per cent of base salary, from 200 per cent, while long-term targets will jump from 500 per cent to 900 per cent.

If approved by shareholders at next year’s annual general meeting, Trott’s new package will apply to the next three years of his compensation and place him just under the median of the 19 companies the miner considers ​peers.

According to data from proxy advisory services firm Glass Lewis, ExxonMobil boss Darren Woods, who earned $US33m ($A47m) in 2025, tops the list.

Canada’s Agnico Eagle Mines and US miner Freeport-McMoRan were the highest-ranked mining companies in the peer group.

If given the green light, Trott’s pay increase will put him among the top tier of Australian chief executives and ahead of rival miner BHP’s Brandon Craig.

Craig’s remuneration is expected to be around $US10m ($A14m) and is capped at just below $US13m ($A18m).

Some Rio Tinto investors told Reuters they were concerned the proposal could fuel salary inflation among top Australian mining executives and, amid a cost-of-living crisis, reflect poorly on the company.

Australia’s share market has thrown away an early lead after an upside inflation surprise had markets betting on a Melbourne Cup interest rate hike.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 2.8 points on Wednesday, down 0.03 per cent to 8847.3, as the broader All Ordinaries rose 2.6 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 8971.4.

A morning rally for the top-200 turned to dust after higher-than-expected September inflation figures prompted interest rate markets to brace for an expected Reserve Bank rate increase on Tuesday.

Rate-sensitive sectors such as consumer cyclicals, industrials and utilities sold off, while rebounding miners and tech stocks helped limit the damage as strong chipmaker earnings added fuel to the recently reinvigorated AI and copper narrative.

“Whilst inflation came in only modestly above expectations, the interest rate markets have moved to the belief now that on the third of November we’re going to get another rate hike,” Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston told AAP.

“It looks pretty clear that they’re going to (hike), and I think we’ve got to prepare ourselves for that to happen.”

BHP and Rio Tinto tracked the broader market backdown to trade slightly better than flat by the close, while gold miners and critical minerals producers clung onto most of their recent rebounds.

Energy stocks bled lower despite oil prices firming during the session, with Brent crude trading at $US115.60 a barrel after the latest attack on a Saudi Arabian refinery.

Westpac and CommBank were the best of the big four, up more than 0.6 per cent each, while interest rate gloom hung heavily over insurers.

The consumer cyclical segment was one of the worst performers, down 1.5 per cent, as the traditionally defensive consumer staples sector dipped 0.7 per cent despite a positive trading update from Woolies.

In company news, Star Entertainment remains in a trading halt after being hit with a $260 million fine for anti-money laundering breaches.

NextDC rebounded by almost a tenth after it released a balance sheet and compliance update to assure investors its debt position is secure, after project delays hammered its share price last week.

The Australian dollar is buying 70.32 US cents, up from 70.22 US cents on Tuesday at 5pm, as bets narrowed on an incoming cash rate increase.

Among the RBA’s concerns were a risk inflation could become embedded in the economy through price growth expectations, Betashares chief economist David Bassanese said.

“If business(es) expect higher inflation to persist, they’ll be more likely to accept cost increases from suppliers and workers and feel more able to pass that on through price increases,” he said. 

“Getting inflation back down again might then require an even harsher economic downturn, if not outright recession.”

ON THE ASX:

* The S&P/ASX200 lost 2.8 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 8847.3

* The broader All Ordinaries advanced 2.6 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 8971.4

One Australian dollar trades for:

* 70.32 US cents, from 70.22 US cents on Tuesday at 5pm AEDT

* 110.99 Japanese yen, from 110.75 Japanese yen

* 63.24 euro cents, from 62.89 euro cents

* 62.91 British pence, from 52.67 pence

* 125.37 NZ cents, from 123.34 NZ cents

A glittering casino overlooking an iconic harbour where high rollers bet dirty money has been hit with a $260 million fine for turning a blind eye to potential money laundering.

The Star Entertainment Group was penalised in the Federal Court on Wednesday, four years after financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC launched legal action against the company.

The agency previously argued a $400 million penalty was necessary to punish what it said were “manifest failures” at Star.

But the stockmarket-listed company, which has a market value of $763 million, argued any penalty over $100 million would send it into liquidation.

Justice Cameron Moore determined a $260 million penalty was appropriate for the significant harm Star’s conduct has caused. 

“In effect, Star put profit ahead of compliance and did so on a large scale,” the judge said.

Star will have 19 months to pay the fine in four equal instalments, with the first payment to be made within 28 days of judgment. 

The watchdog’s chief executive Brendan Thomas said the penalty reflected the severity of the breaches. 

“AUSTRAC will not tolerate companies putting profit over their obligations to the Australian community,” he said in a statement following the judgement.  

Mr Thomas said Star exposed Australia’s financial system to potential harm by allowing high-risk money to be pumped through its casinos. 

The company’s value has cratered since casino watchdogs began probing its operations in late 2021, when shares traded at $3.70.

Shares in the casino giant closed at 13 cents on Tuesday.

It is in a trading halt for up to two days to give management time to publicly address the fine’s impact on the business.

The court previously heard one man was allowed, alongside many other high-risk gamblers, to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars through the casinos, despite his known criminal links. 

These concerns fell on deaf ears of senior management who failed to impose adequate anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism-financing controls, it heard. 

Swinburne governance expert Helen Bird said the giant fine was a good start for what accountability looks like after years of controversy.

“If you are susceptible to fines of that size, you need to ask yourself whether you can run the business without breaching the law,” she told AAP.

“It’s a little vexed, where you feel like the result is unsatisfactory because you’ve got the corporation, but you haven’t gotten the major decision makers.”

She also questioned whether Australia’s market was large enough for two major casino chains operating – after Crown was fined $450 million in 2023 for similar breaches.

Justice Moore said there were significant differences between both cases and that it was not useful to compare.

Star had already been sanctioned through licence suspensions and other penalties for offending over the same period, the judge said. 

“It is not a case of business as usual for Star,” Justice Moore said.

“Star has already paid a significant price for the contravening conduct.”

US gaming giant Bally’s Corp saved the business from administration in April 2025, allowing its chair Soo Kim to step up to the same position at Star.

Speaking at the group’s annual general meeting on Tuesday, Mr Kim predicted that the “fire is out” and it was time for the company to start rebuilding. 

The vast majority of customers weren’t involved in malfeasance or unwanted behaviour and the company should welcome them, Mr Kim added. 

Star’s ex-head Matthias Beikir was fined $700,000 in June for failing to inform the company’s board of suspicious conduct committed by Chinese junket operator Suncity in 2018 and 2019.

In the same month, Star Sydney was hit with $10 million in fines for regulatory breaches, including exceeding gaming time limits and failing to properly vet patrons for links to criminal and terrorist activity.

The billionaire founder and flamboyant leader of a major mining group has implored Australia to produce its own power from renewable energy, in part to free the country from dependence on “serious fruitcakes” like Donald Trump.

Fortescue executive chairman Andrew Forrest told the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday that the cost of doing nothing was being dependent on the actions of fruitcakes on the other side of the world. 

“I know I’m being really blunt here, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr Forrest said.

But Mr Trump deserves the title of “serious fruitcake”, Mr Forrest said, because in his desperation for Russian diesel fuel he even blamed Ukraine for Russia’s invasion. 

“That fruitcake happens to control your shareholder value, happens to control your ability to live normal lives and to send your kids to school,” Mr Forrest said.

“So I’m saying that’s enough, Australia … let’s get off it.”

Continuing to rely on oil, gas and diesel isn’t conservative, sensible or moderate, Mr Forrest said. It’s just lazy, and only appeals to people’s lack of education.

Fossil fuels may be the “one we know” but they have been hurting people for decades, and leaves their ability to put bread on the table totally outside their control. 

Fortescue has been embarking on a massive electrification program in the Pilbara, powered by large-scale solar generation and on Wednesday announced it had signed its first external customer.

Under the 20-year deal, Fortescue will supply green power to PLS Group’s Pilgangoora lithium mine southeast of Port Hedland, in a move that PLS says will lower its operating costs once it commences in 2029. 

“This, for us, creates a new long-term revenue stream for Fortescue, and there’s room to do much, much more,” Fortescue Metals chief executive Dino Otranto told the meeting. 

“Business across the Pilbara needs cheap, reliable power, and the green grid gives them another option.”

Fortescue already is using its green grid to power electric excavators, drills, loaders and graders across all of its sites, he said.

“They already are, they can, and they’re already outperforming their diesel counterparts,” he said.

The company has its first 240-tonne electric haul truck at a “secret location” close to the airport and it will be sent to the Pilbara within weeks.

Fortescue has spent four years building the infrastructure needed to operate electric haul vehicles and testing them in real operating conditions.

“What we’ve learned gives us confidence that an electric fleet will cost less to own and operate than a diesel fleet, and that’s using today’s technology,” Mr Otranto said.

BHP chief executive Brandon Craig told his company’s annual general meeting last week that the company had been testing a 220-tonne electric haul truck in the Pilbara but found it needed recharging every few hours. 

“People are saying that these (electric) trucks work. Unfortunately, they don’t, otherwise we would have them,” he said.