Australia Post’s boss has denied misleading a government committee by withholding plans to close scores of post offices, arguing they were in an “embryonic” stage.

In a heated hearing, chief executive Paul Graham said the leaked plan was a framework and wasn’t activated when he gave evidence to a hearing in May, and remains unactivated.

“I could talk about a hundred things that are in embryonic stages or ideas … that aren’t formal,” he told the Senate committee in Canberra on Wednesday.

The business case to “re-imagine” the post office network and licence arrangements was leaked in June, outlining potential plans to reshape Australia Post’s retail network, including shutting up to 36 metropolitan outlets in NSW and Victoria.

It also reportedly discussed pushing regional operators to give up their perpetual licenses as part of a “format conversions strategy”.

This often involves cutting services, relocating them to other businesses, or reducing outlets to parcel agencies or lockers.

The head of the government-owned letters and parcels business said his goal was to always be open and transparent, adding there’s no program currently in place to close down post offices.

“I was asked the question: Was there an active program?” Mr Graham said about his comments in May. 

“And in my understanding of what an active program is, my answer was correct: there was no active program.”

Under parliamentary privilege, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson, who uncovered the document, accused Mr Graham of misleading the upper house.

“I didn’t use the words ‘active program’; you did, Mr Graham,” she told him.

“You deliberately deceived our committee by using those sorts of tricky words.”

Post office licensees were largely kept in the dark about the plans and frozen out of consultation, their peak body said.

“We’ve got a leadership team that is focused on shrinking the network to meet the current business, rather than growing the business to fill this network,” Licensed Post Office Group chair Scott Etherington told the committee.

Post office closures were a death knell for small communities and businesses, as was the slow erosion of their services, he said.

“It’s absolutely critical for the economic survival and for the people who live in those communities that they have a full-service post office in that community,” Mr Etherington said.

He also called out Australia Post’s “voluntary” payment schemes, which provide support to struggling licensees who sign a fixed-term agreement and give up their permanent licenses.

“When I walk up to a man in the desert dying of thirst with a glass of water and I say, ‘It’s completely up to you whether you choose to take this glass of water,’ most people would say that’s not really a voluntary choice,” he said.

“And that’s exactly where we are.”

The licensee group wants a review of the financial viability of a services-led post office model and an immediate pause of the “reimagined” post office program.

Apple is unveiling its latest generation of iPhones, widely expected to include a foldable version, at an event headlined by new CEO John Ternus.

Ternus took over from Tim Cook on September 1.

Many of Apple’s biggest rivals, such as Samsung, Motorola and Google, have already come out with foldable smartphones. But Apple is not one to rush on new technologies.

“The foldable launch is straight out of Apple’s playbook: Wait for the product to work out its kinks and for the market to offer glimpses of viability, then enter and shape the category,” said Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee.

“The difference is that foldables still represent a minuscule share of the smartphone market. The test of Apple’s ambition will be whether it can expand that niche into a meaningful new segment.”

Compared with earlier generations, the iPhone 18 likely will cost more due partly to a global memory chip shortage. The iPhone 17’s price ranges from $US799 ($A1,106) to $US1,999 ($A2,767) depending on the model.

Earlier this year, Apple unveiled artificial intelligence advances, including upgrades to its Siri assistant, emphasising a focus on privacy and day-to-day use as the company tries to catch up with rivals on AI.

The keynote address for Ternus at the tech giant’s headquarters in Cupertino, California on Wednesday, will set the tone for his vision of Apple’s future, Chatterjee said.

“John Ternus inherits perhaps the most successful consumer technology juggernaut in modern times. That is both a boon and a burden for him. Tim Cook’s perfected execution, scale, and monetisation set a high bar, and Ternus must extend that run,” Chatterjee said.

“But he must sustain that momentum while positioning Apple to disrupt itself in the near future, when the iPhone, or any smartphone for that matter, will cease to be the consumer’s primary conduit to the world.”

Last year’s iPhone 17 lineup, which included a new ultra-thin model, has been selling well. That generation saw a new slimmed-down model that adopted the “Air” name that Apple already used for its sleekest iPads and Mac computers.

Australia’s largest shipbuilder has confirmed it received an offer from an investment firm to buy its entire US operations.

Wildcat Infrastructure – a US company backed by a family of private investors – had made an offer between $US1.3 billion and $US1.4 billion to buy Austal’s shipyard in the US state of Alabama, the Perth-based company said.

“The board and its advisors will consider the transaction made by Wildcat,” chief executive Paddy Gregg said on Wednesday.

His message came after Austal paused trading in its shares, minutes before the market opened.

The halt was in response to a report published in The Australian speculating on a Wildcat’s offer.

It’s the second approach in a month for Austal’s US security-critical arm, which is its biggest revenue generator.

The shipyard builds combat vessels and Virginia-class submarines for the US Navy and was responsible for more than three-quarters of Austal’s 2025 revenue of $1.8 billion.

The South Korean multinational Hanwha put a non-binding offer between $US1.1 billion and $US1.2 billion on the table in August.

At the time, Austal’s board told shareholders – including Hanwha, which holds 19 per cent – that the proposal required further evaluation.

It is unclear if a formal bidding war will ensue after Wildcat’s non-binding proposal.

However, Austal’s shares spiked by more than six per cent after it resumed trading on Wednesday.

The stock was up more than five per cent at $4.60 in early afternoon trading.

In August, Austal reported a 2025/26 net loss of $53.6 million, after booking a large item related to an “onerous contract” at the US business, which was denied relief by the US war department.

The Wildcat offer also comes amid a rift between Washington and Seoul.

US President Donald Trump took to social media and lashed out at South Korea for not providing military assistance with the ongoing Middle East conflict on August 17.

Joint military exercises between the two countries’ naval forces were then cut short days later.

Austal may not reveal its verdict on Wildcat for another four weeks after the would-be predator asked for that time to conduct further due diligence. Hanwha is doing the same.

Austal is Australia’s largest defence exporter and its first ASX-listed shipbuilder.

With shipyards in Australia, the US, Philippines and Vietnam, it has delivered both defence and commercial vessels to about 60 countries.

Australia’s share market is falling again as oil prices head toward a worrying milestone, after the US-Iran conflict escalated to concerning new fronts overnight.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was down 18.2 points by midday on Wednesday, or 0.2 per cent lower, to 8,902.6, as the broader All Ordinaries dipped by 18.6 points, or 0.23 per cent, to 9,093.2.

The fall comes after the benchmark had its worst session since early June on Tuesday, when it tumbled to six-week lows.

Brent crude is approaching $US100 a barrel for the first time since late July, rising for a fourth straight session as the war continues to spill across the Middle East amid reports of Houthi attacks on Saudi energy facilities and US launches on Iran’s Kharg Island.

“That’s weighing on market sentiment and putting downward pressure on stocks, especially cyclical sectors sensitive to growth and inflation risks brought by rising oil prices, along with non-yielding assets like precious metals,” Capital.com senior market analyst Kyle Rodda said.

Local energy stocks surged, with the sector up 1.6 per cent, led by oil and gas giants Woodside and Santos, while refinery operators Ampol and Viva Energy also lifted.

Rebounds in mega miners BHP and Rio Tinto helped boost the raw materials segment by more than one per cent after London copper futures traded at record highs for a second day.

Fortescue also advanced as iron ore futures hovered near $US100 a tonne, while precious metals sold off on fears the US Federal Reserve will hike the US funds rate next week.

The local gold sub-index dropped 1.8 per cent as the yellow metal traded at $US4,377 ($A6,063) an ounce despite the commodity clawing back some losses in early trade.

Australia’s financial sector continued to act as a barometer for the stormy economic outlook, dropping 1.3 per cent and tracking with losses in the big four banks and major insurers.

CommBank shares fell 2.3 per cent to $155.15, effectively wiping out two weeks of steady gains in the past two sessions.

Housing-market concerns continued to weigh on confidence, as hawkish comments from Reserve Bank officials on Tuesday prompted some to brace for an interest rate hike when the bank makes its next decision on September 29.

The consumer staples and discretionary spending sectors fell 0.3 and 0.5 per cent, respectively, after tumbling on soft August business and consumer confidence data.

Health care stocks underperformed the bourse, dropping 1.4 per cent, as CSL traded ex-dividend to fall to $171.19, but leaving its nearly 90 per cent rally since June largely intact.

In company news, Metcash shares dipped after the IGA and Celebrations owner flagged ongoing challenging conditions in a trading update.

Shares in shipbuilder Austal sailed almost seven per cent higher after the company confirmed a non-binding takeover offer from Wildcat Resources for its US business of up to $US1.35 billion ($A1.86 billion).

The Australian dollar was buying 72.23 US cents, up from 72.11 US cents at 5pm on Tuesday, its highest price since mid-May.

The second wife of Bob Hawke and celebrated biographer Blanche d’Alpuget has died aged 82 following complications from influenza.

D’Alpuget’s family confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that she died on Tuesday, saying she wrote and lived entirely on her own terms.

“We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure,” the family said.

The family also shared a final statement from the celebrated writer and giant of Australian public life for decades.

“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another,” she said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia had lost “a true one-off”.

“As a writer, she was at home in fiction as she was in non-fiction, working in each realm with a keen eye for every telling detail that opened up the humanity of her subject to her readers,” he said in a statement.

“Blanche’s novels were compelling works of verve and originality, and her biographies comprehensive and definitive – most famously those she wrote of Bob Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband.

“It is so fitting that Blanche’s final message to us all is this: ‘Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another’.

“Our hearts right now with her family and all who loved her. “

D’Alpuget is survived by her son, artist and sculptor Louis Pratt; her daughter-in-law, Brianna; and her granddaughter, Sienna.

Earlier in her life, d’Alpuget lived and travelled in Indonesia, Malaysia and Europe with her first husband, diplomat Tony Pratt, with whom she had her son, Louis. 

D’Alpuget married Bob Hawke in 1995, sharing almost 24 years with him until his death in 2019.

New Zealand will let wealthy visa applicants count investments in ‌approved funds backing build-to-rent housing from December, tapping foreign capital to help fund ‌new long-term rental homes.

The centre-right National Party-led government has progressively loosened New Zealand’s Active Investor Plus visa since relaunching it in April 2025, cutting the minimum investment ‌for its ‌Growth ⁠category to NZ$5 million ($A4.1 million) from NZ$15 ($A12) ​million, shortening the required investment period to three years from four, and widening the range of eligible investments.

Applicants in the Growth category won’t be able ⁠to invest directly in ‌build-to-rent ​projects, with money required to go through approved ​managed funds. Investors ‌and their family members will also be barred ​from living in a development financed by their investment, the government said.

Changes to the ​scheme ​designed to attract ​wealthy foreigners come as the South ‌Pacific nation of five million experiences record net migration and weak economic growth.

Other changes to the Active Investor Plus visa include eased English-language requirements ​for some applicants and expanded philanthropic investment options.

The United States has banned a broad swathe of Canadian alcoholic beverages, ‌motorcycles and dairy products, sharply escalating an already acrimonious trade spat.

The import bans, which go into effect on September 29 and were published on the White House’s website, came after Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on US goods ‌took effect after midnight on Tuesday.

Those Canadian levies themselves followed 50 per cent tariffs that the United States imposed on some $US20 billion ($A28 billion) of Canadian goods in August, after several rounds of negotiations collapsed. 

The breakdown has widened a rift between the longtime allies, both of ‌whom have blamed the other for the failed talks, and spurred Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to urge a further shift away from the country’s biggest trading partner.

“We have everything we need to pivot and prosper,” Carney said on Tuesday in a video posted on YouTube after the tariffs came into effect.

“That pivot will come at a cost. There’s always a cost to action. But it doesn’t come close to the cost of standing still,” he said.

Ottawa designed the retaliatory measures to put economic and political pressure on Washington, Canadian government officials said, and the tariffs are expected to hit sectors in some competitive states such as Michigan and Ohio, ahead of US midterm elections in November.

Gabriel Brunet, spokesperson ‌for Dominic LeBlanc, Canadian minister responsible ‌for bilateral US trade, said: “Canadian and ⁠American officials have maintained ongoing discussions on a range of issues, although formal trade negotiations are not taking place at this stage.”

Ottawa’s counter-tariffs cover some $US20 ​billion of US goods, with duties ranging from 15 per cent to 50 per cent across products from steel and furniture to clothing and electronics.

While the new tariffs affect a small amount of exports compared with total trade between the US and Canada, some analysts worry the standoff could destabilise the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the free-trade pact that succeeded NAFTA. Together they have underpinned commerce across North America for decades.

Trump’s social media posts, which targeted Canada over the long ⁠holiday weekend, continued into Monday when he attacked Canada’s procurement policies.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump directed the General Services ‌Administration to “REMOVE Canadian-origin products from GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules unless Canada restores full and fair reciprocity for American Farmers and Companies.”

On Monday, Trump said Canadian private jet maker Bombardier would no longer be allowed to sell its planes in the US unless it started manufacturing in the country, ​without saying whether an official government order would follow. The company’s shares opened down more than six per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The Bombardier post followed another Trump post where he shared a map of North America draped in the US flag, including Canada and Mexico.

He also shared an AI-generated image reviving a running jab at Carney, calling him “Governor,” a reference to his repeated taunt that Canada should become ​the ​51st US state.

Trump’s tariffs hit sectors including wine, ​furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment, covering $US20 billion, or five per cent, of Canadian exports to the ‌US.

with dpa

The prime minister has defended an invitation-only, $560 million grant program that a report found disproportionately favoured Labor seats, including in his own electorate.

A report from the Centre for Public Integrity found Labor-held seats pocketed almost three-quarters of the $560 million allocated under the Major and Local Community Infrastructure Program.

Among the grants handed out was $6 million for the Marrickville Golf Club, which falls in Anthony Albanese’s inner-west Sydney electorate of Grayndler. It was also revealed the prime minister is an honorary member of the club.

But the prime minister said the money for the club was needed.

“It is on a flood area by the Cooks River, when it rains and there’s flooding, raw sewerage goes into the Cooks River. That’s what it’s for, for fixing that,” he told ABC TV on Wednesday.

“I make no apologies for my electorate being serviced by me as a good local member.”

Mr Albanese said the honorary membership, which has not been declared, was issued by the club 15 years ago without his knowledge.

“I don’t play golf. I’m a tennis player rather than a golf player, and like a lot of organisations in my seat, a lot of clubs, local community-based things, they say, ‘oh, we’ll give the local member honorary membership’,” he said.

“I haven’t been in there for years. I used to walk my dog along the path, as lots of people do, because it’s a community club.”

The golf club funds was among three grants given to projects in Mr Albanese’s electorate, including a women’s health centre and a domestic violence shelter.

In opposition, Labor heavily criticised the coalition government’s community sport infrastructure scheme, which party representatives said unfairly favoured coalition-held seats.

That controversy, which became known as “sports rorts”, led to then-sports minister Bridget McKenzie resigning from cabinet after she failed to disclose membership of a gun club that received funding.

Independent MP Helen Haines, whose regional Victorian electorate of Indi was among the 45 that did not have a project invited to apply for the grant, criticised the scheme.

“This was pork barrelling by design, which makes it quite different actually to sports rorts, which was pork barrelling by deception,” she told ABC TV.

“We’ve got two methods but the same outcome.”

Education Minister Jason Clare said the grants program was a way to keep election promises.

“If you’re in an election campaign and you make a promise as the local member, people expect that you’ll deliver on it. And that’s what this fund does,” he told ABC TV.

“This is probably as old as ancient Greece. Good politicians know that you don’t necessarily win elections by having a chat on the telly. You do it by having a chat on the front door of people’s homes and meeting people where they are.”

Flights at major British airports have been disrupted by a technical fault at air traffic control provider NATS, the ‌latest in a series of failures that renewed questions about the resilience of Britain’s aviation infrastructure.

The cancellation of hundreds of flights and delays to hundreds more renews scrutiny of NATS three years after a flight-plan processing failure caused even more ‌widespread disruption.

As passengers waited for information in departure halls across the country on Tuesday, airlines questioned whether the country’s air traffic control system was fit for purpose.

NATS said at 1834 GMT (4:34am AEST Wednesday) the issue, which had impacted its flight data processing system, had been resolved. It had earlier said that “safety was not compromised”.

“Recovery from today’s system issue has taken longer than we had hoped. Our system issue is now resolved, we are operating normally and working as hard as possible to clear the backlog of flights,” NATS said on X.

The traffic control provider later said in an update that it would take time to recover from the disruption, adding that “this has ‌been a very complex ‌recovery and has created difficulties for the ⁠whole aviation network”.

CEO Martin Rolfe told Sky News that NATS hadn’t “fully done the investigation” to find the reason behind the technical issue that ​caused the disruption.

“We don’t have an idea yet of exactly what went wrong,” Rolfe said.

Close to a thousand flights were disrupted, including to and from the largest UK airport, Heathrow.

Heathrow said arrivals to the airport had been suspended for the remainder of Tuesday, and while departures had resumed, the disruption was expected to continue.

Data on flight-tracking platform FlightAware said some 490 departures were delayed at six airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, London City, Luton, Edinburgh and Bristol as of 1518 GMT (1:18am AEST Wednesday).

Some 525 arrivals at those six airports were either cancelled or delayed, the website data shows.

At Heathrow, 38 of 661 scheduled arrivals had been ⁠cancelled or were unable to operate, according to aviation analytics company Cirium. British Airways was the most affected carrier at the ‌airport, cancelling 16 of 333 ​scheduled departures.

“The severity of the issue means there will be a significant knock-on impact for customers and colleagues,” British Airways said in a statement.

Britain’s aviation regulator said it would expect NATS to share a full report of the incident.

with AP

When conveyancer Shelley Baker asked her client a standard question on settlement day, she didn’t expect it to save them nearly $200,000.

Ms Baker, who works for Nest Legal in Melbourne, casually asked if the seller had provided their bank details to the real estate agent.

The seller said no, despite the fund transfer being just hours away.

“That immediately raised some concerns for us, so we asked the client to call the real estate agent immediately to confirm and provide their bank account details,” Ms Baker told AAP.

“Someone pretending to be our client had already emailed bank account details to the agency.”

Worse still, the scammer had called that morning to chat to agency staff, mentioning the transacting parties, the property address, nearby landmarks and even their favourite local cafe.

“Thankfully, because our client had called, we were able to stop that transaction from taking place, probably about two hours before settlement was due,” Ms Baker said.

“Which resulted in around $200,000 not going to a scammer.”

While many scams depended on intercepting emails, fraudsters are increasingly mining social media for buyers and sellers, or using artificial intelligence to draft professional-looking communications and clone voices.

“The traditional warning signs people associated with scams are no longer always present,” Ms Baker said.

A recent survey from property settlement company PEXA found more than two in five Australians couldn’t detect any scam markers in a test email.

A staggering 99 per cent couldn’t spot a fraudulent email address even when told the document was a scam.

Property settlement scams are listed by Scamwatch as payment redirection scams.

They cost Australians $166.8 million in 2025, up more than nine per cent from 2024.

In response, auctioneers often take deposits at the property after the auction, while conveyancing firms and real estate agents increasingly use secure platforms with multi-factor authentication like PEXA Key or Securexchange for settlement transactions.

On the buyer and seller side, the prevention measures were decidedly low-tech.

“It doesn’t matter what you get in writing, ring up and verbally confirm those details using a number you saved on your phone,” Ms Baker said.

“Walk into the real estate agent, speak to the receptionist, Google the firm on online, and grab the contact details that way.”

Discussing exactly what to expect was also key, PEXA chief information security officer Graham Fairley said.

“Having those conversations up front and agreeing around that communication with your conveyancer or a property professional is really a worthwhile approach,” he told AAP.

Any efforts to rush the transaction should be viewed with extreme caution.

“Be mindful of the sense of urgency within that is contained within the comms itself,” Mr Fairley said.

“Property professionals won’t be injecting a sense of urgency – it is not the standard way of communicating.”