PM's bid for UN seat; Premier misconduct claims; Macquarie to pay $321m

PM's bid for UN seat; Premier misconduct claims; Macquarie to pay $321m

News in brief

An internal investigation by Premier Investments, owner of Smiggle and Peter Alexander, has allegedly uncovered a culture of serious misconduct, ranging from absenteeism, intoxication during work hours, bullying, sexual harassment and potential bribery.

 

The May 3 federal election is finally complete after the Liberal candidate for Bradfield in northern Sydney, Gisele Kapterian, abandoned a court bid to overturn her defeat, accepting the result after further scrutiny of disputed ballots. Teal candidate Nicolette Boele is now, officially, the MP for the seat.

 

Macquarie will pay $321m to thousands of investors whose superannuation savings were tipped into the collapsed Shield Master Fund through its platform over 2022 and 2023, after admitting it broke the law by failing to place Shield on a watch list for heightened monitoring.

 

Elon Musk’s X has accused the federal government of undermining human rights by restricting children’s free speech and access to information. The comments came in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s social media ban and its age verification.

 

China’s President Xi Jinping has set out conservative targets for emissions cuts from the world’s second-largest economy while taking a veiled swipe at US inaction on climate change under Donald Trump.

 

Fear-o-meter

 What is frustrating about this week’s United Nations General Assembly is the ignorance of countries, notably the United States, about how the UN operates.

 

The organisation, founded in 1945, has a goal of maintaining international peace and security and promoting the wellbeing of the peoples of the world.

 

It depends totally on its member nations doing the right thing and supporting the organisation. It doesn’t have its own army. It doesn’t have the ability to make laws.

 

All power resides in the seven-member Security Council.  There are five permanent members – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States – and two rotating members. They have the power to make decisions that member states are then obligated to implement under the Charter.

 

Saying the UN has done nothing is akin to saying the seven members of the Security Council have done nothing. The UN is only as good as the support of its member nations.

 

And that’s why the UN is crippled at the moment. The US does not support it, and therefore it is powerless. But that is the fault of America, not the UN.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the changing role of AI in small and medium-sized businesses - from simple automation of tasks, to increasingly assisting with strategy. And as part of that, the need for SMEs to keep experimenting with the technology:

 

"With any new tool or new technology, everyone probably learns in a slightly different way. But I have been, I think my high school chemistry teacher would find it hilarious how often I use this as an example, but I kind of hark back to what we learned when we were doing science in school at whatever level we took that to. You learn how to do an experiment, right? And you frame up a hypothesis and then you go and conduct an experiment. You test that hypothesis and you try and gather data along the way to see if you can confirm it or prove that it's false.

 

And that's the mentality that I take and I try to encourage with my colleagues and with my family as well is to experiment safely, but start by forming a bit of a hypothesis and then testing the capabilities of these tools in a safe way and going, actually I've got some new data points. Maybe my hypothesis was right. Maybe it was wrong. Okay, let's evolve from there because it's continuous learning. Anytime anyone says they've got this all figured out, I don't know if they've been paying attention because it moves so quickly. So it has to be constantly something that we're looking to search and to learn and to grow in our knowledge about."

It's Friday, the 26^th of September 2025. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent his last day in New York reintroducing Australia’s bid for another term on the United Nations Security Council before pouring beers at an Aussie pub in the Big Apple. In his inaugural address to the UN General Assembly, the PM said while the UN was more important than ever, given the state of the world, its impotence in the Middle East showed it badly needed reform. In sharp contrast to comments at the General Assembly from US President Donald Trump, he said if the United Nations steps back, everyone loses ground.

Greed-o-meter

Rank	Brand
1	Bunnings Warehouse
2	ALDI
3	Kmart
4	Apple
5	Toyota
6	BIG W
7	Commonwealth Bank
8	Myer
9	Australia Post
10	JB Hi-Fi

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 Bunnings is still the most trusted brand in Australia, according to Roy Morgan. At the other end of the scale, the big supermarkets are still yet to earn back the trust of customers.

Listen to today's episode 🎧 

Source: Roy Morgan

Most trusted

Most distrusted

Rank	Brand
1	Woolworths
2	Coles
3	Facebook / Meta
4	Optus
5	Qantas
6	Temu
7	Telstra
8	Tesla
9	Twitter / X
10	News Corp