Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump have greeted each other at the US president’s welcome reception for world leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly.

The prime minister and Mr Trump came face-to-face after Mr Albanese arrived at the evening event in New York with fiancée Jodie Haydon on Wednesday (AEST).

Earlier, a formal sit-down was locked in for the pair following months of speculation and several phone conversations between the two leaders.

About 145 leaders and their partners lined up for hours to get a picture with Mr Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.

During a press conference on the sidelines of the UN meeting, Mr Albanese confirmed the October 20 talks would take place at the White House.

Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, told those attending a speech by the prime minister about investment that the government was “delighted” at the confirmation.

Much earlier in the day, Mr Trump delivered a combative 56-minute speech on the floor of the UN, arguing for lower levels of global migration and a turn away from policies to combat climate change.

He also strongly criticised moves by allies, including Australia, to support a Palestinian state.

Asked about Mr Trump’s address, Mr Albanese said it was good to hear his views.

“It was a great privilege to be at the United Nations this morning to hear President Trump and other leaders … put forward their perspectives,” he told reporters.

US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said his nation had “strong disagreement” with the countries he described as calling unilaterally for a Palestinian state.

“It is having the opposite effect of what I think these countries want … they want to see an end to (conflict in) Gaza. This is prolonging it,” he told ABC Radio.

“The number of countries have decided to jump on this wagon, I just don’t know what they expect they’re going to get from this other than more turmoil.”

Former foreign minister Bob Carr said recognition signalled “equal humanity” for Palestinians as the same basis of respect given for Israelis.

“The message is, to Israel, stop the genocide, a brazen breach of the convention, and stop the settlement expansion on the West Bank,” he said.

The prime minister missed out on a formal meeting with Mr Trump as Australia was left off the president’s official schedule for the UN session.

The opposition had been critical of the prime minister’s failure to secure a meeting with the US president.

During his speech at the event hosted by Australia’s Macquarie Group, Mr Albanese showcased the nation to global investors, focusing on Labor’s multibillion-dollar suite of “future made in Australia” policies.

Mr Albanese might also brush past Mr Trump at October’s APEC and ASEAN summits in South Korea and Malaysia.

A $150,000 fine levied against the ABC is intended to encourage employers to hold strong against boycotts, public shaming and cancel culture.

The penalty was imposed on Wednesday against the public broadcaster, which breached workplace law when it sacked journalist Antoinette Lattouf from her casual role on ABC Radio Sydney’s Mornings program in 2023.

The organisation “surrendered” to a co-ordinated email campaign against Lattouf by pro-Israel lobbyists and sacrificed her for spurious reasons, Justice Darryl Rangiah found.

The journalist shared a post relating to the conflict in Gaza and was unlawfully terminated for her political opinion.

Justice Rangiah said a large penalty was required because the ABC would likely be subject to the same kinds of pressure over different issues in the future.

“(Mass) communication through social media has given lobby groups from all sides of the political spectrum increasing power to engage in campaigns of boycotting, public shaming and cancelling of businesses and organisations,” the Federal Court judge wrote in his decision.

“It is necessary to set the penalties at a level calculated to deter not just the ABC, but other employers, from dismissing their employees in such circumstances.”

In removing Lattouf from the air without giving her the chance to defend her actions, chief content officer Christopher Oliver-Taylor blithely ignored the risk the ABC would contravene the terms of its enterprise agreement, the judge said.

Mr Oliver-Taylor did not consult with human relations or the legal department.

Instead, he sacked her to “beat a story” due to be published by The Australian about Lattouf’s employment, the judge found.

Ita Buttrose and David Anderson, then the broadcaster’s chair and managing director, had both expressed displeasure at Lattouf’s hiring.

But the final decision was Mr Oliver-Taylor’s alone, Justice Rangiah found.

The ABC was in a difficult position, caught between the lobbyists’ campaign and Lattouf’s decision to share an Instagram post saying starvation was used as a “tool of war” in Gaza.

However, the judge said its conduct was still particularly serious.

“The ABC’s response was to surrender to the lobbyists’ political campaign by sacrificing Ms Lattouf,” he said.

The ABC was “a trusted, respected and cherished part of the Australian cultural fabric” that ignored its obligations of independence and integrity, Justice Rangiah said.

It was also required to maintain high employment standards as a public organisation.

“The ABC let down the Australian public badly when it abjectly surrendered the rights of its employee Ms Lattouf to appease a lobby group,” the judge said.

The ABC defended the case but showed contrition after its loss.

But that contrition was undermined by a failure to investigate the source of a leak of internal information to The Australian about Lattouf’s termination, the judge said.

Lattouf called for a $350,000 fine, while the ABC argued it deserved to pay no more than $56,340.

The $150,000 is due to be paid to the sacked journalist and comes in addition to the $70,000 in damages she was previously awarded.

The broadcaster has spent more than $2 million in taxpayer funds defending the case.

“Whatever the penalty, for me this was never about money – it’s always been about accountability and the integrity of the information our public broadcaster gives us,” Lattouf said in a statement posted on X on Tuesday.

“I hope the ABC takes this opportunity to restore credibility, regain trust and re-establish integrity because our democracy depends on a strong fourth estate.”

ABC managing director Hugh Marks, who was appointed in December to take over from Mr Anderson, apologised to Lattouf and said the matter had been educational and “deeply felt” within the organisation.

“We must be better,” he said.

President Donald Trump has castigated the United Nations as a feckless institution in a speech to world leaders, praising America under his leadership while warning Europe will be ruined if it doesn’t turn away from a “double-tailed monster” of ill-conceived migration and green energy policies.

His roughly hour-long speech before the UN General Assembly on Tuesday was both grievance-filled and self-congratulatory as he used the platform to applaud his second-term achievements and lament that some of his fellow world leaders’ countries were “going to hell”.

The address was the latest reminder for US allies and foes that the United States has returned to an unapologetically “America First” posture with an antagonistic view toward the United Nations.

Trump also sharply criticised the global body for inaction, saying it was filled with “empty words” that “don’t solve wars”.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked.

“The UN has such tremendous potential. I’ve always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”

Afterward, Trump attempted to assuage fears from some diplomats by assuring the top UN leader that the US remained “100 per cent” supportive of the global body despite his earlier criticism.

“I may disagree with it sometimes, but I am so behind it because the potential for peace at this institution is great,” Trump told Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

It was another about-face after Trump offered a weave of jarring juxtapositions in his address to the assembly.

He trumpeted himself as a peacemaker and enumerated successes of his administration’s efforts in several hotspots around the globe.

At the same time, Trump heralded his decisions to order the US military to carry out strikes on Iran and more recently against alleged drug smugglers from Venezuela and argued that “globalists” are on the verge of destroying successful nations.

Trump touted his administration’s policies allowing for expanded drilling for oil and natural gas and aggressively cracking down on illegal immigration.

He warned that European nations that have more welcoming migration policies and commit to expensive energy projects aimed at reducing their carbon footprint were causing irreparable harm to their economies and cultures.

“I’m telling you that if you don’t get away from the ‘green energy’ scam, your country is going to fail,” Trump said.

“If you don’t stop people that you’ve never seen before that you have nothing in common with, your country is going to fail.”

“I love the people of Europe, and I hate to see it being devastated by energy and immigration. This double-tailed monster destroys everything in its wake, and they cannot let that happen any longer.”

Trump also addressed Russia’s war in Ukraine, once again threatening to hit Moscow with “a very strong round of powerful tariffs” if Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t end the war.

After the speech he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce a dramatic shift in his position on the war: He said he now believes Ukraine, with the help of NATO, can win back all territory lost to Russia.

The strengthened support from Trump, if it sticks, is a huge win for Zelenskiy, who has urged the president to keep up the pressure on Putin to end his brutal war on Ukraine.

The president also pushed back on longtime American allies who are using this year’s General Assembly to spotlight the growing international campaign for recognition of a Palestinian state, a move that the US and Israel vehemently oppose.

“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists,” Trump said. “This would be a reward for these horrible atrocities, including October 7.”

The president also took part in a group meeting with officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan for talks focused on ending the Gaza war.

“This is my most important meeting,” Trump said.

“But this is the one that’s very important to me because we’re going to end something that should have probably never started.”

The president again made clear that he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, repeating his spurious claim that he’s “ended seven wars” since he returned to office.

“Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Prize – but for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless wars,” Trump said in his address.

Inflation has climbed to three per cent, at the top of the Reserve Bank’s target range, as higher fuel and building costs stalled Australia’s progress on limiting price rises.

Economists had expected the headline consumer price index, which was released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, would rise from 2.8 per cent to 2.9 per cent for the month of August.

“The three per cent annual CPI inflation to August was up from 2.8 per cent to July, making this the highest annual inflation rate since July 2024,” said ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt.

The rise in the CPI was driven by food, housing and alcohol and tobacco.

Electricity costs rose 24.6 per cent in the 12 months to August.

Ms Marquardt said that was a result of higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers as government energy rebates rolled off.

“Over the year, those rebates have been used up and those programs have finished,” she said.

“Excluding the impact of the various changes in Commonwealth and state electricity rebates over the last year electricity prices rose 5.9 per cent.”

The headline monthly figure had held below three per cent since August 2024, but surged from 1.9 per cent to 2.8 per cent in a surprise result last month.

While the higher headline inflation rate won’t be welcomed by the central bank, it’s unlikely to cause a drastic shift in its monetary policy thinking.

The annual trimmed mean, which removes volatile items, fell from 2.7 per cent to 2.6 per cent.

The RBA, in its latest economic forecasts released in August, predicted the headline figure to climb above the top of the target range by the end of the year, as government energy rebates roll off.

Underlying or trimmed mean inflation, which strips out volatile items like power prices and is included in the more reliable quarterly print, is the Reserve Bank’s preferred measure.

The more reliable quarterly data shows that both headline and underlying inflation have remained within the target band for the six months to June, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

“The sustained progress on inflation we’ve made together has supported the Reserve Bank’s decision to reduce interest rates three times,” he said ahead of the data release.

The RBA board begins its next interest rate meeting on September 29, but analysts and markets predict it will wait until November to announce another rate cut.

Under-fire telco Optus has announced an independent inquiry into how technical failures left people unable to access triple-zero services.

Kerry Schott will lead the external review into last week’s catastrophic outage linked to up to four deaths, as a potential axing looms for chief executive Stephen Rue.

The announcement comes on the same day Optus will head to the Federal Court to ask it to tick off a $100 million fine for unconscionable sales conduct, after it was pulled up by the consumer watchdog.

Under the action taken by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Optus admitted it had engaged in “unacceptable” dodgy sales tactics, including pressuring customers to buy mobile goods they did not want or need, which affected Indigenous and disabled customers.

Dr Schott’s review will press for the causes of the outage and examine the operational management of triple-zero calls on the Optus network.

It will also look at Optus’ response to the incident and whether it adhered to policies and legal requirements.

In a statement, board chairman John Arthur appeared to stand by the embattled chief executive.

“The Optus board is working with CEO Stephen Rue and his team to ensure we develop a full understanding of what went wrong and why, and what we need to do to prevent any repetition,” he said.

“In the interests of transparency – and to promote greater community understanding of what went wrong and why – we are committed to sharing the facts of the incident.”

But Optus faced a barrage of criticism following Thursday’s incident because it had not implemented a third of the recommendations from a similar incident in 2023.

Former chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigned 12 days after that outage and an earlier hacking incident that left millions of customers exposed to potential online fraud. 

Mr Rue, a former NBN Co chief, was appointed in mid-2024.

The review will be completed before the end of the year.

Dr Schott was at NSW Parliament on Tuesday as the state government responded to another of her reports.

She oversaw a review of the state’s train network and how wiring issues brought it to a crippling halt in May.

This comes as another telco has revealed it has changed its emergency call handling and technology after Optus’ 2023 outage.

Resilience improvements included real-time network monitoring to detect call-routing anomalies and a welfare check protocol that escalates to police if triple-zero calls fail three times in five minutes, TPG Telecom told AAP.

But it did not agree with the assertion that the self-regulatory nature of the Australian telco industry had led to repeated failures in emergency call management.

“Australia’s mobile network operators already comply with more than 500 pieces of laws, regulations and codes … we don’t need more regulation; we need smarter regulation,” a spokesman said.

Telecommunications expert Mark Gregory has said that the problems exposed in the Optus outages extend throughout the sector.

“Unless the government is prepared to introduce new legislation and regulations, then this culture of the wild west and having cowboys in charge is not going to change,” he told AAP on Monday.

Telstra has been contacted for comment.

Westpac is reshuffling its staff by cutting 200 teller and personal banker roles and adding 200 new positions to support home lending and small business banking.

The business-focused big four bank said Wednesday it would try to keep as many employees on as possible through retraining and redeployment.

Australia’s major banks have announced thousands of job cuts in recent months, with Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ, Bendigo Bank and the Bank of Queensland all shedding staff.

A Westpac spokesman noted that the bank is a major Australian employer with more than 30,000 staff across the country and last year hired almost 5,000 people in Australia.

“We adjust the composition of our workforce according to our investment priorities,” he said.

“While we continue to invest in extra bankers, other areas may need fewer resources.”

In an email to employees, Westpac general manager for retail banking, Damien Macrae, said that the decision was part of the bank’s digital-first strategy.

Westpac is investing $5 million in training staff and, in the past 12 months, 33 employees have taken the next step in their careers by moving from branches to becoming home finance managers, he added.

Queensland’s premier has come out swinging in the latest round of a heavyweight bout with the mining sector over coal royalties.

An expert has also weighed in, saying other factors are landing more telling blows on the Sunshine State’s miners rather than royalties.

Premier David Crisafulli on Tuesday appeared to take aim at BHP Mitsubishi Alliance and the like in his first State of the State address in Brisbane, following a string of mining job losses.

The joint venture company had highlighted the government’s “unsustainable” scheme when it cut 750 jobs last week, claiming the state coal industry was reaching “crisis point”.

Fellow giant Anglo American and Queensland company QCoal soon followed in what was labelled a co-ordinated campaign resulting in more than 1200 workers facing the axe.

It prompted calls for reform but the premier on Tuesday was adamant his Liberal National government would not tweak the state’s royalties scheme, which he had promised not to touch during his 2024 election campaign.

Mr Crisafulli appeared to take a jab at the alliance, criticising “fairweather friends” in his address to a packed crowd at the Brisbane Convention Centre.

“We are looking for companies that want to become part of the fabric of our communities, partners who will share in the good times, and partners who will remain steadfast in our communities in the challenging times,” he said.

“We are not interested in fairweather friends who come running for the dollars when things are good, and then abandon Queenslanders in the name of shareholder interests.”

In response, the Queensland Resources Council said the sector had been backing the state for some time, supporting 17,000 businesses and more than 1600 charities and sports clubs last year alone.

“The resources sector has proudly supported Queenslanders for decades through both the good times and not so good times in the market cycles,” council CEO Janette Hewson said in a statement.

“Through royalties and taxes paid by our resources industry, all Queenslanders benefit.

“This underpins our state’s economic prosperity and enables government to fund the services we all rely on.”

The premier is set to meet on Friday with the council that has vocally supported royalty changes and offered to work with the government to reform the “defective” regime.

There is speculation the government will offer financial relief via other costs and charges the state imposes on miners, without touching its royalties regime.

The stoush comes after the state government in August finalised a deal with Adani to defer royalty payments in exchange for an expansion of central Queensland’s Carmichael coal mine.

The state’s former Labor government introduced a tiered royalties system in 2022, in which higher revenues are generated during boom periods of high coal prices but less is taken when market conditions deteriorate.

Miners want the tiers adjusted amid rising production costs and weak coal prices.

BHP Mitsubishi Alliance’s Adam Lancey said his company paid about eight times more in royalties than it made in profit after announcing the layoffs.

Yet according to one an expert, royalties only play a small part in the financial issues facing the state’s coal mines, pushing back at speculation the scheme would put off investors.

“It’s not that Queensland is not investable. It’s just that coal mines are not a good investment right now,” Andrew Gorringe of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said on Tuesday.

“The major driver of the future viability of coal mines in Queensland is the price for the coal – it’s not sufficiently covering the cost to produce it.”

Rising costs have been impacting the industry for some time and squeezed profit margins for miners, he said.

Unit costs – the expense of producing a tonne – for metallurgical coal miners in Queensland had risen by up to 50 per cent since 2018.

“There are many contributing factors for this, including Queensland’s higher royalty rates – but royalties have risen by a lesser amount than the other cost factors,” Mr Gorringe said.

An influential global economic organisation is warning central banks to be vigilant about inflation, as it fires a broadside at Donald Trump’s political interference with the Federal Reserve.

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development lifted its inflation forecasts for Australia in its September economic outlook, released on Tuesday.

But Australia’s headline and core inflation figures are still expected to come in around the midpoint of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s two to three per cent target band in 2025 and 2026.

Core inflation, which removes volatile items and is more closely watched by the Reserve Bank, is expected to fall from 3.7 per cent in 2024, to 2.7 per cent this year, before settling at 2.5 per cent in 2026.

That should give the RBA the green light to continue its gradual easing of interest rates, the OECD said in its report.

But the body warned US tariffs continued to cause uncertainty in the global economy and inflation surprises could trigger drastic financial market sell-offs.

“Central banks need to remain vigilant and attentive to shifts in the balance of risks around economic developments and financial markets in order to maintain price stability,” it said.

“Provided inflation expectations remain well anchored, policy rate reductions should continue in economies in which underlying inflation is projected to moderate towards target.”

In its latest economic outlook in August, RBA staff said it was more likely tariffs would result in lower inflation in Australia, as other countries redirect cheap goods from the US.

The RBA expects Australia’s headline inflation rate to climb to three per cent by the end of 2025, as government energy rebates roll off, but core inflation should fall to about 2.6 per cent.

In a nod to Mr Trump’s efforts to strongarm the Federal Reserve to lower rates, the OECD warned central bank independence was crucial for policymakers to “react quickly and credibly to shifts in the risks to price stability”.

“These lower the volatility and persistence of inflation by helping to ensure that long-term inflation expectations remain well anchored,” it said.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the report made clear that uncertainty and volatility were continuing to weigh on the global economic outlook.

“Amidst this intense global economic volatility and inflation rising in parts of the world, the Australian economy is in an enviable position,” he said in a statement.

The OECD expected Australia’s economic growth rate would accelerate from 1.1 per cent to 1.8 per cent in 2025 and 2.2 per cent in 2026, unchanged from its prediction in June.

“Under Labor, inflation is down, debt is down, real wages are growing, unemployment is low, interest rates are falling, and economic growth is picking up,” Dr Chalmers said.

Similar developed economies were faring less favourably, with Canada’s GDP expected to grow 1.1 per cent in 2025, the UK 1.4 per cent and Europe 1.2 per cent.

While slow productivity growth was an issue across the globe, the OECD said AI could boost productivity and living standards, although significant uncertainty remained around the speed of adoption.

A “faster AI adoption” scenario, in which adoption rates were similar to those seen for mobile phones, could raise average annual GDP growth by 0.4 percentage points in advanced G20 economies such as Australia. 

Jaguar Land Rover’s production lines will remain at a halt until at least October 1 after being shut down by a cyberattack in August.

Britain’s biggest auto maker sent workers home from its factories in central and northwest England on August 31.

The shutdown has rippled through the UK auto industry.

JLR, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, employs more than 30,000 people, with its supply chain supporting tens of thousands more jobs.

The company has disclosed limited information about the nature of the attack and says it’s investigating.

JLR said in a statement that it had extended the pause in production “to give clarity for the coming week as we build the timeline for the phased restart of our operations and continue our investigation”.

It said it was working with law enforcement and the UK government’s National Cyber Security Centre “to ensure we restart in a safe and secure manner”.

The government said that Business Secretary Peter Kyle and Industry minister Chris McDonald will visit Jaguar Land Rover on Tuesday and talk to companies in the supply chain.

“We are acutely aware of the difficulties the stoppage is causing for those suppliers and their staff, many of whom are already taking a financial hit through no fault of their own – and we will do everything we can to reassure them that the government is on their side,” McDonald said.

The head of one of Australia’s largest childcare providers has defended the safety record of the massive operation he oversees but apologised for harm to children that took place in his centres.

Challenges facing the heavily scrutinised sector were acknowledged by Affinity Education Group leader Tim Hickey as he fronted a NSW parliamentary inquiry.

Shocking allegations of children being sexually abused, restrained for hours and served low-quality meals at for-profit centres have been revealed by Greens MP Abigail Boyd, who has been scathing of private equity firms investing in providers.

Quadrant Private Equity, which owns furniture giants Amart Furniture and Freedom, bought publicly listed Affinity in 2021 for $650 million.

Ms Boyd peppered Mr Hickey with questions on Tuesday about the real motives of private childcare providers.

“The purpose of private equity, though, isn’t it to cut costs and make profits?” she asked him.

Mr Hickey told the committee: “I don’t work for private equity, I work for Affinity”.

“My job is to sustain profitability in our centres so that we can reinvest back into the educators, back into the centres.”

He argued “the priorities of safety and quality” were at the heart of his business ethos with 23,000 children attending some 250 centres.

Mr Hickey said 90 per cent of centres were meeting or exceeding on the critical quality area and 95 per cent scoring highly on child health and safety.

Affinity was one of the major providers rocked by distressing child abuse allegations in July when former worker Joshua Dale Brown was charged with more than 70 offences, including sexual assault.

Brown was known to have worked at 24 facilities between 2017 and 2025, including many run by Affinity.

“I want to express my sincere apology for any child that’s been harmed while they’ve been in our care,” Mr Hickey said.

“That’s an outcome that’s deeply distressing to all of us and unacceptable, quite frankly.

“They’ve caused stress, anxiety, and in some cases, a loss of trust in the very services that should give them peace of mind while they work or study, for educators, many of whom dedicate their lives to caring for children.”

He vowed safety would be enhanced “to a whole new level.”

A federal Productivity Commission report found NSW had more breaches than the rest of the nation combined for five consecutive years.

An independent review by former NSW deputy ombudsman Chris Wheeler in June found the childcare regulator’s performance was hampered by national laws and frameworks.

He praised the NSW government on Tuesday for acting swiftly in reforming the sector with a bill introduced in September that stipulates board members of childcare providers have a duty of care that takes primacy over profits.

“Board members of bodies that have services can’t say well ‘I have an obligation to the shareholders’. Obligation to children is paramount,” Mr Wheeler said.

He told the inquiry that issues in the sector would emerge regardless of how stringent legislation was or measures taken by governments.

“There is no way that you will ever have an environment in which 6500 services in NSW … where there isn’t (a) problem – there will be problems.

“It’s about whether the regulatory authority finds out about it quickly, whether it can react quickly and whether the outcomes are effective.”

Following Mr Wheeler’s review, the NSW government mandated security cameras be installed in childcare centres, safety issues publicised and bigger fines slapped on dodgy operators as part of measures unveiled to keep children safe.