Was the Optus 000 failure discussed? Singtel, the parent company, is Singaporean owned.

Anthony Albanese said it was and Lawrence Wong adds:

Indeed, I have expressed my views in an interview recently on the outage. The company, Optus and its parent company, Singtel, operate commercially but we expect them to behave responsibly and comply with domestic laws wherever they operate as I stated. So, I have no doubt that Singtel, as a parent company of Optus in this instance, will extend its full support to the independent investigation happening and I have no doubt that the company together with regulators and awe thoroughties here l get to the bottom of this, identify the root cause and make sure something like that never happens again.

Australia and Singapore have come to an agreement to step up “our security cooperation to enhance defence cooperation and we will improve our military is reciprocal access to facilities and deepen cooperation in defence technology, logistics and supply chains”.

How is that going to work?

Lawrence Wong:

On defence co-operation, we see Australia as a resident power in Asia. Your continued presence in this part of the world contributes to stability, security, for all the countries in Asia. That’s why we already have a strong defence partnership, but we are enhancing it further and providing more support and enhanced access to Singapore’s air bases.

This will enable Australia to deploy more of its forces in our part of the world. We are working out the details of what this will entail, but clearly it will mean stronger facilitation for Australia to participate in Asia, for Australia to expand its security presence in South-East Asia and the region more generally: We believe this will be critical and important for Asia’s stability and security.

Anthony Albanese:

Can I thank Prime Minister Wong for the engagement in defence but also on green energy. On defence, the Wallaby exercises are taking place as we speak. The enhanced availability of Singapore’s ports and air access is obviously important for Australia to have that presence in South-East Asia in that region and it is a logical next step and I thank Singapore for that. On the green economy. The green economy agreement between Australia and Singapore is one of the world’s first. We are further enhancing it. Singapore is doing extraordinary work as well in creating a grid in its region. That is something this morning we had really constructive discussions with the Singaporean minister and the Australian minister going forward. I’m sure that part of what we need to do with the challenge of climate change that both of us understand is real and needs action is we need more co-operative action towards our common goal which is reducing emissions to reduce the impact of climate change.

The thing about events in the Marble Hall is that you often run into the school tour groups which meet in the hall ahead of their Parliament House trip.

Which suits politicians having photo ops down to the ground.

The Financial Review has reported that gold futures have topped US$4,000 for the first time. That means you could sign a contract to deliver gold to a customer in December at US$4,000 an ounce.

Record high gold prices usually reflect heightened tensions in the world economy. The press is point to the government shutdown in the US and political uncertainty in France. This part is unclear. Nobody really knows the motives behind deals in gold prices but, nevertheless, increases in gold prices are usually a good sign that there are problems in the world economy. 

People who wheel and deal in the financial markets tend towards safe assets when there are problems about. Uncertainty about individual companies means things like share prices may become less stable so speculators in shares will dump them and seek safe havens in things like gold.

The following graph from Trading Economics tells the story.

You could almost say the graph of gold prices follows the fortunes of Donald Trump. Since the end of 2023 and over the following two years the price of gold doubled. The sharp movement over the fortnight to 6 October is also apparent on the graph.

Just to illustrate that point about tax – here you go.

We had a friend of the blog question some of what we were saying on tax, arguing that miners are some of the biggest taxpayers in Australia. Which as Grogs says – is correct. But that doesn’t mean they are paying the RIGHT amount of tax.

As Grogs explains:

Yes, miners are one of the biggest taxpayers, because shock, they are with banks the biggest profit sector in Australia.

Glencore Investments is the 10^th largest taxpayer – paying $1.9bn tax on $31.6bn revenue and $7.9bn taxable income, but Glencore Holding, which had revenue of $4.3bn paid $0 tax. And to be honest that is not a surprise, given Glencore holdings has not paid tax since 2019-20 and in the 4 years from 2020-21 to 2023-24 it had $24.3bn in total revenue and an astonishing $27.8bn in taxable income and yet it paid $0 tax!

And while Glencore Investment paid tax, what about Santos Ltd? It had $8.3bn in revenue, and yet $0 taxable income and paid $0 tax. Again, not a shock. Santos ltd hasn’t paid tax for a decade – despite taking in $43.3bn in revenue – guess it must keep losing money and have no profit to declare? Weirdly, though Santos told investors in 2023 it made $1.432bn in underlying profit and in 2024 the profit was $1.2bn.

Yes, iron ore companies pay a lot of tax – Rio Tinto and BHP especially. Good for them. But gas companies like AGL,  ICHTYS, Inpex, and Chevron are notorious for paying negligible or no tax. And we will call that out.

For those keeping an eye on the Tasmanian stadium mess, the Tasmanian government have now released their response. Here is what the minister for Macquarie Point Urban Renewal Eric Abetz (we are never losing him) had to say (and the whole response is here)

We have carefully worked through the Commissionʼs report and responded to issues raised in
relation to economic and social effects, outlining the stadiumʼs unquantifiable benefits.

The stadium is much more than just a sporting precinct, it will have strong intergenerational
benefits. We have responded to the Commissionʼs concerns about urban form, activation and public realm by highlighting opportunities for broader site activation and drawing comparisons with other stadia sites interstate.

The Commission found that challenges such as parking, traffic, pedestrian movement, noise and
environmental effects can all be effectively managed. The Government has also responded to issues raised by the Commission in relation to historical cultural heritage and community values.

Our response makes the important distinction between direct and indirect heritage impacts,
reiterates the importance of the roof and highlights that community sentiment about the stadiumʼs
visual impacts may vary across individuals and communities.

The official photo op between Lawrence Wong and Anthony Albanese has occurred in the Marble Hall. Mike Bowers was there:

Last ninght in the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, Senator David Shoebridge pursued Senator Don Farrell and the Attorney-General’s Department on the Government’s proposed changes to Freedom of Information law.

Liberal and Green senators were united in their concern that the Government had ignored their efforts in the 2023 inquiry into the operation of FOI laws – or, worse, that they had used it to “work out what not to do”, as Senator Shoebridge put it.

The questions revealed that:

• While the Department claims the changes are consistent with Senate recommendations, that is just not true. Senator Shoebridge had the benefit of Liberal Senator Paul Scarr confirming, as the author of those recommendations, that the Department was misrepresenting them.
• There is no evidence that many FOI requests are generated by AI bots, as the Albanese Government has claimed.
• The Department cannot provide a single example of a foreign actor abusing Freedom of Information law, despite the Government warning that anonymous FOI requests could be abused by criminal gangs and foreign agents.

Senator Shoebridge quoted yesterday’s report from The Australia Institute:

The Australia Institute has done some analysis of your government’s performance under FOI. 

In 2006-07, it took 13 hours on average for the Government to determine an FOI. It now takes your government, in 2023-24, 51 hours. 

In 2006-07, 81% of applications were granted in full, now under your government, in 2023-24, it’s just 21%.”

Anthony Albanese will meet with Singapore’s prime minster Lawrence Wong today, as part of the latter’s three day tour of Australia and the annual Australia-Singapore leaders’ meeting.

Human Rights Watch say its the perfect opportunity for Albanese to raise Singapore’s capital punishment regime, given Australia adopted a strategy for the abolition of the death penalty in 2018 and pledged to advance the cause, globally.

HRW says “Singapore’s harsh capital punishment laws also “quiet diplomacy is unlikely to stop Singapore from sending more people to the gallows”.

Singaporean authorities are planning to execute a 38-year-old Malaysian national, Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, who was convicted in 2017 of trafficking drugs into Singapore. Pannir Selvam’s family was informed on October 3 that his clemency plea had been rejected and that his execution would take place just five days later.

Singapore has already executed 11 people in 2025, 9 of them for drug-related offenses. Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty.

In addition, Singaporean authorities routinely target anti-death penalty activists using media censorship and anti-protest laws to stifle dissent.

Singapore’s suppression of critical voices underscores the importance of governments like Australia speaking out on the death penalty and other human rights issues in their public engagements with the city-state.