Headlines: Optus fined for targeting vulnerable customers

Today's headlines include:Prices rose by 3% in the year to August, according to new monthly inflation figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).Optus has been fined $100 million by the federal court for selling products to hundreds of vulnerable customers, including people with mental disabilities, who could not afford them.A Florida court has found a man guilty of attempting to assassinate the U.S. President Donald Trump at a golf course last year.And today’s good news: An international team of scientists has developed a way to make rice more nutritious while reducing the amount of fertiliser needed to produce it.

Hosts: Billi FitzSimons and Lucy Tassell
Producer: Elliot Lawry

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
From the Daily Os.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Billy fitz Simon's.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
It's Wednesday, the twenty fourth of September. Here's what's making
headlines this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Prices rose by three percent in the year to August,
according to new monthly inflation figures from the Australian Bureau
of Statistics. The ABS said it is the highest inflation
rate since July twenty twenty four. However, the annual trimmed mean,
which is the rate of inflation once you remove extreme
price changes on either side, decreased from two point seven

(00:34):
percent to two point six percent. According to the ABS,
the biggest increases in prices over the year to August
were alcohol and tobacco, which was six percent, and housing,
which was four point five percent. Electricity prices fell by
six point three percent from July to August, but are
up twenty four point six percent over the year. The
ABS attributed this to state government power bill rebates in

(00:57):
place last year that have since finished. Federal rebates have
now partly kicked in, contributing to the monthly drop.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Optus has been fined one hundred million dollars by the
federal court for selling products to hundreds of vulnerable customers,
including people with mental disabilities, who could not afford them.
After the lawsuit was launched by the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission or the a Triple C last year, Optus
admitted it had targeted vulnerable Australians and in some cases

(01:27):
had incentivized staff to complete these purchases through commission based rewards.
On Wednesday, Federal Court Justice John O'Sullivan said the company's
conduct was quote clearly unconscionable and can only be described
as appalling. Separately to this, the OPTA CEO Stephen Rue
fronted the media on Wednesday about an outage last week

(01:48):
that impacted customers calling Triple Zero, which has been linked
to four deaths. Rue said the outage was a quote
process issue that was a result of human error in
terms of the instructions provided.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
A Florida court has found a man guilty of attempting
to assassinate the US President Donald Trump at a golf
course last year. Ryan Wesley Ruth camped out at one
of Trump's Florida golf courses with a loaded gun last September.
He was then spotted by a Secret Service agent who
opened fire Ruth fled the scene and was later arrested.
At trial, Ruth represented himself, telling the jury he didn't

(02:24):
intend to kill anyone and didn't pull the trigger. The
jury took around two hours to find him guilty on
all counts, including a charge of attempting to assassinate a
major presidential candidate, which Trump then was After the verdict,
Ruth attempted to self harm in the courtroom, but was
stopped by court staff. He will be sentenced in December
and faces up to life in prison. If this story

(02:46):
has raised issues for you, help is always available at lifeline.
On thirteen eleven fourteen.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
And today's good News, an international team of scientists has
developed a way to make rice more nutrition while reducing
the amount of fertilizer needed to produce it. Rice is
possibly the world's most consumed food, forming most of the
daily diet of more than half of the entire population.
The production of rice has many negative impacts on the environment,
including consuming a lot of water and releasing methane, a

(03:17):
greenhouse gas, from the fields where it's grown. Now, researchers
say adding a tiny amount of the mineral selenium to
rice plants helps them absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere,
allowing the plants to grow bigger and more nutritious. The
same process also meant the rice plants absorbed more nitrogen
from the soil, which led to them releasing less into

(03:39):
the atmosphere. Plus, because the plants were able to absorb
and use more of those nutrients, farmers can use less
fertilizer to achieve the same, if not better effects.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
No one loves that story more than me because rice
is my favorite food in the entire world.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Plain rice.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yes, I could eat it every single day until the
day I die. So I love that amazing.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
It's so good to have you back on the podcasts
like that.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Is the latest from the Daily OS newsroom, not my
daily food habits, but the rest of the news that
we've provided. If you're looking for something else to listen to,
you can check out today's deep dive on the White
House has claims about paracetamol use during pregnancy.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
We'll be back tomorrow morning with another deep dive. Until then,
have a great evening. My name is Lily Maddon and
I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl Country.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.