On The Call

Firmus's ASX IPO hangs in the balance as institutional investors grow increasingly sceptic before the book build was due to close. Meanwhile, the Joint Select Committee on AI wraps a big week of hearings, with tech giants including OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google facing questions on their responsibilities and the AI opportunity in Australia. We discuss: Firmus' IPO unravelling in r...

Goodman Group has abandoned its $1.2 billion Lane Cove data centre after a fierce community and political backlash, raising questions on if Australia's AI infrastructure boom is hitting its first real  bump. Meanwhile, Firmus confirms its long-rumoured deal with Meta — worth up to USD750 million in annual earnings. Plus Wall Street heavyweight Millennium emerges as a surprise appearance at Fir...

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived in the United States earlier this week pushing for global guardrails on AI — signing a 22-nation statement on frontier AI regulation, launching Australia's bid for a UN Security Council seat and meeting with Apple chair Tim Cook on child safety. Then, an OpenAI breach into government portals is announced, which may give  Albanese some ammunition for his AI r...

Australia's AI copyright fight reignites as leaked documents reveal the Albanese government's reform plans. Meanwhile, just hours later, Anthropic signs its first Australian data centre lease: a $32 billion project in regional Queensland. We discuss: The two copyright reform proposals in the leaked documents, and the creative sector's response. Why the AI labs want copyright reform, an...

Xero's aggressive AI pivot has sent morale inside the accounting software company into freefall, with engineers fearing they're building their own replacements. Meanwhile, the Albanese government's battle against big tech has a new target: the algorithms, with a digital duty of care proposal that would let users opt out of algorithmic feeds. We discuss: Sinking morale at Xero and the f...

Agentic AI in banking has moved from drafting documents to moving money — and there’s an unanswered question on who's liable when bots are actioning transactions. Recorded live at Fintech Australia's Intersekt conference, the Capital Brief newsroom digs into the RBA's fintech regulation review, and where the big banks and the startup ecosystem sit not he agentic AI opportunity. We disc...

Support for Pauline Hanson slides in the latest Capital Brief–Demos AU poll, with the sharpest drop among women — positive views falling 13 points since June while negative views jumped 15 points. Meanwhile, less than a quarter of Australians would support a data centre being built in their area, and 44% oppose the idea outright. We discuss: One Nation's five-point primary vote collapse and wh...

Canva is facing AI token fraudsters who are exploiting loopholes to access AI credits beyond normal limits, with some later sold on grey markets. This comes as two of Canva’s earliest backers, Blackbird and Airtree, wrote down its valuation by 17% to USD34.9 billion. Meanwhile, BHP posted a blockbuster USD9.8 billion profit — and for the first time, copper contributes more than half of the miner&#...

In an exclusive interview with Capital Brief’s Matthew Franklin and Katina Curtis, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he wants Australia to lead the world on AI regulation. He says his move to legislate AI regulatory standards could become a global model, and points to the Labor government’s social media ban as inspiration for this step. Albanese also spoke to gambling advertisement reforms bein...

Community anger over AI data centres has found its epicentre in Sydney's Lane Cove of all places, a well-heeled North Shore suburb now facing five proposed data centres in its industrial park. Meanwhile, AI infrastructure company Firmus is turning on the charm offensive to win over sceptical communities in Tasmania and South Australia as it pushes ahead with its "AI factory" ambition...

Eucalyptus co-founder Tim Doyle joins the Capital Brief newsroom for On The Call’s first ever guest episode. Doyle has been one of the most prominent voices in the startup sector’s response to Labor’s capital gains tax reforms, arguing the sector’s backlash against the reforms is rooted in self interest. This discussion revisits the debate and where the discourse on the tax reforms has landed. It...

A new report suggests that Australia has seen the strongest first half in venture funding since 2022 — but the number of deals is actually a quite a bit lower. Meanwhile, the conversation around Chinese AI is heating up with the release of new frontier model Kimi K3 and Xi Jinping’s speech at a major Chinese AI conference. We discuss: The numbers in the new Cut Through Venture report Whether the r...

AI giant Anthropic is circling Australia, with reports suggesting it is looking to secure a massive amount of data centre capacity Down Under. That has kicked off a cycle of debate about what companies will build those data centres, whether copyright reform will be needed, and the biggest question of all: is this good for Australia? We discuss: The leaked request for proposal which revealed Anthro...

KPMG's whistleblower scandal has snowballed into a reckoning for the Big Four. A number of senior executives have resigned. Lendlease has ended its 68 year old relationship with the firm. Government departments, including the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Australian National Audit Office have put their contracts with the firm for its own whistleblower service under review. Now, Assistant Treas...

The latest Capital Brief/DemosAU poll shows the Coalition's primary vote has collapsed 5% in a single month, putting the Liberal party closer to the Greens than to One Nation. Meanwhile, Labor's CGT and negative gearing reforms have passed the Senate after a deal with the Greens. We discuss: The Coalition's freefall and why Angus Taylor is struggling to cut through. One Nation's so...

Labor revealed its long-awaited CGT carve-outs for startups and small businesses minutes before Capital Brief went live with this conversation. Meanwhile, complexities arise around Canva's path to IPO as its first investor puts forward the bear case. We discuss: The nuts and bolts of the CGT carve-out announcement. What the Innovative Business CGT Concession will mean for startups, VCs and ESO...

This week, Newspoll had One Nation jumping ahead of Labor on the primary vote, confirming what the exclusive DemosAU and Capital Brief poll first revealed last month. Meanwhile, frustration over the government's capital gains tax reforms continues to mount. We discuss: One Nation's polling surge and why both Labor and the Coalition have been slow to respond. Tony Abbott's new role as P...

The collapse of Dashdot — one of Australia's most prominent buyer's agencies — raises a bigger question about whether the property market is hitting an inflection point. Meanwhile, Anthropic files for a blockbuster IPO in a trillion-dollar race with SpaceX and OpenAI. We discuss: Dashdot's collapse being a significant signal of a turning property market. The role of negative gearing  a...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's giant pixelated head looming over CBA chief executive Matt Comyn at the bank's inaugural AI summit is a somewhat honest depiction of Australia’s place in the global AI economy at present. While CBA wants to lead Australia’s AI race, technology giants are still the ones wielding the power. Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the federal budget the big four banks and Macqu...

The backlash to Labor's federal budget — and its capital gains tax changes — have not slowed down since last week's episode. If anything, it has heated up. The startup sector has been particularly vocal, and Labor ministers are feeling the heat. We discuss: Where the loudest opposition is coming from. Why Labor seems to have misjudged what the response was going to be. The consultation pro...

Labor’s federal budget is one of the most significant in years regarding tax reform. The government is betting big on housing affordability by proposing an overhaul to negative gearing and capital gains tax — a decision that’s faced heavy criticism from the startup and VC sector. We discuss: The core elements of the federal budget. The surprising attention given to startups in the budget announcem...

It was a big week for banks. NAB, Westpac and ANZ posted their half-year earnings this week, projecting a rosy outlook as the RBA struck a far more sombre tone with its latest rate decision. Commonwealth Bank was also in the news after Apple’s submission to a parliamentary inquiry into digital wallets, where the tech giant singled out the bank as being ‘self-serving’. Meanwhile, at the Macquarie A...

With the federal budget less than two weeks away, surging inflation and a war-driven energy shock are forcing the government to rewrite its budget narrative in real time. Meanwhile, Senator Tim Ayres backs ‘balanced’ immigration, defends the National Reconstruction Fund and targets hyperscalers for more AI deals We discuss: CPI at 4.6% and what it means for the budget Why "resilience" is...

Canva has launched Canva AI 2.0 in the design giant's biggest transformation yet. Meanwhile, healthcare company Cochlear saw its share price crash 40% on an earnings downgrade. We discuss: Capital Brief's scoop on Canva's IPO timing Canva's AI 2.0 and the end-to-end design pivot The death of seat-based SaaS pricing Is Canva building AI or just wrapping it? Cochlear's 40% single...

The latest Capital Brief/DemosAU poll shows Australians want the government to keep its distance from US President Donald Trump as the Middle East conflict deepens. The poll shows that 47% of Australians disagree with the statement that the US was a "reliable military ally", compared with 28% who agreed and 25% who did not know. Meanwhile, corporate regulators APRA and ASIC have urged co...