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Here’s what you need to know today

• Australia’s government budget looks far better than originally forecast. Treasurer Jim Chalmers presented a budget deficit of $10 billion for 2024-25, compared to the $28 billion originally forecast. The reason for the improvement? Higher than expected employment led to higher income tax receipts. (AFR)
  
  

• Australia’s tech darlings are fighting. For weeks, Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar has been doing the media rounds arguing for weaker copyright laws to allow Australia to fully realise the potential of AI. Now, Canva cofounder Cliff Obrecht has come out in favour of maintaining current IP protections, arguing “If you have created a piece of work, you own the rights to that work. And if people are training on that work, for example, then you should be compensated.” (Capital Brief)
  
  

• Optus’ triple-0 crisis continues after it reported a problem with a mobile tower in regional NSW. Callers near Wollongong were unable to make emergency calls for almost 10 hours. This outage comes 10 days after the initial triple-0 outage in WA and SA. (ABC News)
  
  

• TikTok’s American operations have reportedly been valued at US$14 billion, surprising investors who pinned the platforms value at closer to US$40 billion. The valuation was shared by US Vice President JD Vance and would mean a bargain for Oracle and the other US buyers. (Bloomberg)
  
  

• Video game maker Electronic Arts is in talks to go private in a US$50 billion deal that would be the largest leveraged buyout in history. The buyers include private equity firm Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners. (WSJ)
  
  

• In perhaps the most extreme trade restriction yet, the Wall Street Journal reports President Trump is considering a plan to reduce semiconductor imports by mandating a one-to-one production ratio. Given how far ahead Taiwan and South Korea are in semiconductor production, this would be a huge handbrake for American tech. (WSJ)
  
  

• American leaders held budget meetings as the country stares down another government shutdown. Lawmakers have until today (30 September) to pass a budget to continue funding the government. Republicans are pushing a temporary funding bill that keeps spending levels flat while Democrats are demanding a reversal to cuts to Medicaid healthcare spending. (NY Times)
  
  

• Russia bombarded the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv for the best part of 12 hours, firing more than 500 drones and 40 missiles. The attack came after Ukraine confirmed that, for the first time, it has received a US-made Patriot Missile system to improve its air defences. (Le Monde)
  
  

• Following this attack and reports of Russian drones nearing NATO airspace, Australian counterdrone technology manufacturer DroneShield saw shares jump 18%. This puts DroneShield up 487% so far in 2025. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• A coalition of countries including Britain, France and Germany have reimposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. Iran called the sanctions “baseless and unjustifiable”. (ABC News)

What the…?

Jimmy Kimmel returned to America’s TV screens last week after being taken off the air by the Disney-owned ABC Network. One of the biggest stakeholders breathing a sigh of relief would have been Australia’s ABC.

Australia’s national broadcaster was flooded with complaints intended for America’s ABC Network. It reported hundreds of complaints in the days after Kimmel was taken off the air, so much so that it linked to the American ABC’s complaint form at the bottom of its article on the topic. (ABC News)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today

Why Mark Lamonica doesn’t own property

This is an excerpt from our conversation with Mark Lamonica, Director of Personal Finance at Morningstar Australia, on Equity Mates Investing (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Question: What is your approach to property ownership and why?

Mark: Yeah, people obviously think I'm crazy with this whole thing. I wrote this article and I will say at the time, somebody else put a title on it, but it was ‘Why I Will Rent For Life’. They got all this attention, they put me in the AFR and somebody came and took some picture of me like ‘this idiot that is not going to buy a place’.

One of the problems with housing is that, of course, there's these huge cash flows that have to go into it. So not just mortgages, but also just the upkeep and maintenance - the low end of the estimates is 1% of the purchase price. So I don't think that's that attractive given the life I want to live.

The other problem is if I want to use my financial assets to generate income for my life, locking a bunch of them up in a house isn't a great thing, I think in my worldview. And it's nothing against people that buy houses but it's really thinking about what matters. Is that the way, if I'm totally focused on my net worth, is that the way to get rich? Yeah, probably because it's this huge leveraged bet on property. I don't use any leverage personally in my portfolio.

Want to watch our full conversation with Mark? Check it out on YouTube:

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