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Making news: Milan Fashion Week is straight out of Westfield while the AFL found its PR saviour

All the news that's fit to mint.

Jenna ClarkeEditorial Director
7 min read
6:50PMSeptember 25, 2022.
Updated 7:06AMSeptember 26, 2022
The Oz
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All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz:

😢 The floods in NSW took a tragic turn

📲 The government have intervened in the Optus drama

👖 Kate Moss wore jeans

🍝 Kim Kardashian (allegedly) ate a lot of carbs

🏟 The grand final crowned a new AFL king

💡 The UK is preparing for the dark ages again

👑 Harry and Meghan are already there

🇦🇺 The thorny devil has a new gig

🚀 North Korea worked on a Sunday

👋🏻 China has unblocked and is following us again

Welcome to Monday!

Pass the Voltaren, it has been a huge weekend of sport.

Roger Federer played his final match of tennis and cried after bowing out of the Laver Cup in London against his best mates and longtime rivals Rafal Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.

The 41-year-old sporting legend has 20 Grand Slams to his name and gave the most moving farewell speech.

Meanwhile the Geelong Cats absolutely pummelled the Sydney Swans in the AFL Grand Final, a match which returned to its spiritual home of the MCG after three, Covid-infected years. 

More than 100,000 people turned out to see the biggest grand final margin in more than 30 years - 133 to Sydney's 52.

Despite the nightmare of a week, with Hawthorn's previous coaches being at the centre of a racism and sexism scandal, the new generation of AFL heroes like Cats captain Joel Selwood showed what leadership looks like - on and off the field.

Meanwhile, the pre-game show headlined by Robbie Williams and Delta Goodrem was the best the we've seen in a very, very, very long time. The $1 million fee paid to Robbie appeared to be worth it.

Floods and tears 

The weather in regional NSW continues to be terrible.

Gunnedah remains flooded after the Namoi River peaked at 8.24m on Saturday and NSW SES personnel are preparing to enter the northeastern town to conduct rapid impact assessments when floodwaters reside. 

Hundreds of people remain stranded in their homes after flooding in the Central West region over the past couple of days and 17 flood warnings are now active across the state, including minor to major flood warnings for the Namoi and Gwydir rivers. 

Emergency services are warning families as school holidays get underway and to take extra care after the body of a five-year-old boy was found inside a ute stranded in central west NSW after his parents drove through a flooded creek bed at the weekend.

Flooding continues in western and southern NSW and emergency services have received over 110 calls for help in the past 24-hours and conducted six rescues. 

BoM senior meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said rain and isolated thunderstorms would start pushing across southern parts of NSW, particularly the Riverina district, before shifting east on Tuesday. 

An important Optus update

As we reported last week when 9 million Australians had their details, including passport numbers and other IDs, exposed when Optus got hacked, cyber experts said for customers to see how both the telco and the federal government respond. 

Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil and several of her federal ministerial colleagues met with the Australian Signals Directorate and the Cyber Security Centre at the weekend to sort out the mess from a legislation and regulation point of view.

Customers and decision makers are now asking questions as to why Optus knew of the breach on Wednesday night but it wasn't until our colleagues at The Australian broke the news late Thursday afternoon.

New changes are set to be announced this week, including banks and other institutions being informed faster of a similar data breach so personal information can't be used to access bank accounts and the like. 

The lag in reporting comes down to privacy protections in place that prevent banks being immediately told about a cyber breach that's relevant to their business. 

Specialists in the telecommunications sector have blamed metadata retention laws for contributing to such breaches.

Milan Fashion Week went suburban

Kate Moss made her runway return for the hottest house right now - Bottega Veneta.

Wearing denim and a flanno like she got lost on her way to the closest RSL for a pint and $10 parmi.

Meanwhile Kim Kardashian closed the show for Dolce & Gabbana.

And despite dropping more weight than a jockey, she allegedly ate gelato, pasta and pizza in the lead up the to show which allowed her to lean further into her Marilyn Monroe COS play era.

Britons facing a winter of (dark) discontent

London’s banks are drawing up contingency plans to cope with the threat of rolling blackouts in the UK for their winter.

If you're planning on heading to London to enjoy some real The Holiday-esque yuletide vibes pack your thermals and carry pounds (as in the currency) and maybe some extra kgs too due to an unreliable power network thanks to Russia and sanctions. 

Just like what we faced a few weeks ago with the AEMO warning Aussies to cut back on electricity use during the depths of our winter.

Over in the UK, financial institutions are discussing how best to cope with the risk of "load shedding, or organised power cuts, amid fears that the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could leave Britain’s National Grid utility unable to keep the lights on," The Times of London reported.

It could mean that London-based banks move to alternative sites or revive work from home arrangements put in place during the pandemic. While banks have always planned for cuts, and most have generators that can supply them for at least 72 hours, bad weather affecting electricity lines has been the main cause of potential disruption.

The news of prepping for a tough winter comes after new Prime Minister Liz Truss laid out her economic plan - that essentially saw new tax cuts for the rich by removing the 45% tax rate for those earning more than $250,000. Another facet of her plan, which raised eyebrows in the country that is set to see electricity bills increase by 80% in the coming weeks, was the scrapping of the cap on bankers' bonuses that were imposed by the EU after the (last) financial crisis.

Stamp duty will be cut and there's good news for Australian producers and visitors. Any changes to a booze tax that would have seen companies pay per alcohol percentage as been rubbished, meaning wine from Australia will be spared excess tariffs and tax free shopping is coming back and extended to online offering in a bid to encourage more tourists to spend more.

Truss also announced the country's new Chancellor (their Treasurer) in Kwasi Kwarteng. 

Here's his abridged (mini) Budget.

Forget Harry and Meghan...

All eyes are now on Archie and their daughter Lilibet. Or more specifically, the mini Sussexes prefixes. 

According to the royal press corp, and reports by The Times of London, King Charles has not decided whether to allow his two youngest grandchildren to use their new titles of prince and princess.

Harry and Meghan are "understood" to fear the King may strip Archie and Lilibet of their titles, after his reluctance immediately to recognise their elevated status on the Queen’s death.

As children of the sovereign’s son, Archie, three, and one-year-old Lilibet, known as Lili, are automatically a prince and princess and entitled to be styled His Royal Highness and Her Royal Highness, something Meghan had claimed (to Oprah) Archie would be denied because he was of mixed race.

It's got nothing to do with the kid's DNA and everything to do with an ancient act called "Letters" which only the monarch has the capacity to alter. Queen Elizabeth did it most recently when she allowed Prince William's children the prince and princess honourifics.

When Archie was born in 2019, he was too far down the line of succession to become a prince automatically. Although he was a great-grandchild of the monarch, he was not the first-born son of a future monarch and so not elevated to a prince until Charles became king.

To prevent Archie and Lilibet being a prince and princess, Charles would need to issue letters patent changing their rights.

However the new King's office is making them sweat.

"The King is focused on the mourning period. It’s unlikely you’ll know other titles during that period. I’m sure at some point there will be discussions," a Palace spokesperson said.

The official mourning period ends today.

The devil works hard..

But the Thorny Devil is set to work harder.

The little critter is the new mascot for the Australian Republican Movement.

And interesting flex give recent opinion polls taken in Australia show we're still cool being apart of the Commonwealth. For now...

We wondered were you were

North Korea is back at it - launching missiles. More precisely "unidentified ballistic missile into East Sea".

The regime set off some terrifying rockets toward the sea off its east coast ahead of planned military drills by South Korean and US forces and a visit to the region by US Vice President Kamala Harris.

China isn't as chilly

The Ross and Rachel era of the China - Australia relationship could be nearing its end.

According to The Australian - the Chandler to our Monica - one of President Xi Jinping's top advisors has said China is ready to meet Australia “halfway”.

It's the most promising sign of a reconciliation from Beijing since its relationship with Canberra blew up back in 2020.

"The emphatically positive language - which for the first time in almost three years was delivered without any chiding of Australia - suggests it is increasingly likely that President Xi and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet before the end of the year," The Australian reported. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Foreign Minister Penny Wong that Beijing was now ready to “properly resolve differences”, according to China’s official transcript of their New York meeting.

The new leaf being turned follows Wong's addressing the UN General Assembly on Friday night.

Watch this space.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/the-oz/news/making-news-milan-fashion-week-is-straight-out-of-westfield-while-the-afl-found-its-pr-saviour/news-story/15bc5ed0b101d08fa460541e25e52964