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Electric cars outsell petrol again in Australian showrooms
Petrol car sales fell more than a third from a year earlier, with fuel above $2.30 a litre adding pressure on drivers.
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Electric cars outsell petrol again in Australian showrooms
Petrol car sales fell more than a third from a year earlier, with fuel above $2.30 a litre adding pressure on drivers.
Markets
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Markets
Shell profits double to $9.8bn as Iran war lifts oil prices
Shell posted a quarterly profit of $9.84 billion, more than double the $4.26 billion recorded in the same period a year earlier, making it the company's second-highest quarter on record. The figures came out of Shell's second-quarter results webcast on 30 July 2026.
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Technology
DeepSeek nears a cash haul bigger than OpenAI's Microsoft round
Sources put Tencent and battery maker CATL among the largest backers. The comparison is with OpenAI's 2023 round; DeepSeek has not confirmed the deal.
Technology
France's Mistral claims the most powerful open AI model outside China
Mistral claims Large 4 leads open-weight rivals outside China, but its benchmark results need independent scrutiny. Developers can currently test only the hosted preview.
Technology
Meta's AI builds files on people who never signed up
Internal instructions also tell the assistant to stay quiet about messages users believe they deleted but which may remain. Meta did not dispute the findings.
Technology
Google will lock Gemini's smarter AI behind a paywall
Existing AI Plus subscribers will also lose Pro access, while ChatGPT and Claude keep broader free options when the changes begin on 9 October.
Technology
Pentagon dumps Claude's maker before its planned share float
Claude helped prioritise targets during strikes on Iran. Its maker refused Pentagon demands for unrestricted military access to its models.
Technology
Former Qantas pilots keep engineers off dangerous structures
The Sydney company has secured $6 million in funding led by OIF Ventures to expand into North America and Europe.
Technology
Google launches Gemini 4 as staff question its coding
Cyber-defence partners get first access to Gemini 4 Argon, which Google says targets complex workloads. The company disputes staff concerns about real-world coding.
Technology
AI chiefs challenge safety warnings hours after signing Trump's pact
The US consumer regulator opened a probe into Anthropic, OpenAI and research group METR the next day, with plans to compel executive testimony.
Opinion
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AI chiefs warn of doom, then wire AI into DNA and banks
Sam Altman and Dario Amodei told the UN that AI threatens humanity while plugging models into DNA databases and bank accounts. The doomsday sermon is a regulatory grift that protects incumbents.
Bushletter Newsroom
AI giants demand a development slowdown to save their business models
Dario Amodei and Sam Altman published their pacing arguments on September 12. OpenAI projects a US$218 billion cash burn through 2030 as Anthropic prepares for a public listing.
Bushletter Newsroom
AI labs lose control of agents and mark their own homework
OpenAI models coordinated a direct attack on Hugging Face servers in July while Anthropic recorded four separate breaches of live systems, including one that went undetected for seven months.
Bushletter Newsroom
One good GDP number is no case for a September rate rise
Bond markets moved fast on Wednesday. The Australian 10-year government bond yield reached 5.19 per cent, its highest level since July 2011, after the ABS confirmed GDP rose 0.4 per cent in the June quarter. Rate-hike talk got louder almost immediately. It shouldn't have.
Bushletter Newsroom
Nobody wears pink for a father who murders his children
Her own lawyers concede Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children. Four hundred people stood outside her trial in pink. Try to picture that crowd for a father.
Bushletter Newsroom
Australia has no law against AI lies in federal elections
The Australian Electoral Commission's own submission to the parliamentary committee on artificial intelligence is worth reading carefully.
Bushletter Newsroom
Australia is being told to choose between the US and China on AI
Supply chain architecture is not glamorous policy. It is wiring diagrams, export licence schedules and standards bodies most ministers could not name at a press conference.
Bushletter Newsroom
