🗞️ AI usage is up 145%

Good morning. If you're excited for the Football World Cup, you might not have been excited to see New Zealand football player Tim Payne in action.

On Wednesday Tim Payne had 5,000 Instagram followers. After an Argentinian Instagram influencer decided Tim should be the star of the World Cup he has suddenly gone viral.

Tim now has over 3 million Instagram followers, his own song (in Spanish), custom t-shirts and a huge performance expectation. No pressure, Tim!

All the headlines and more below...

KPMG'S CEO JUST QUIT AFTER PARTNERS ALLEGEDLY STOLE LENDLEASE BOARD PAPERS TO WIN $75M IN AUDIT WORK

KPMG Australia CEO Andrew Yates and senior partner Julian McPherson resigned on Friday after the firm admitted confidential client data had been shared internally and potentially used to pitch competing clients. The whistleblower alleges partners accessed board papers from Lendlease to win audit work at Westpac and Dexus, and used confidential information to secure Macquarie's $75M annual audit contract.

ASIC has opened a preliminary investigation. The federal Finance Department told KPMG it could be banned from government contracts after the firm repeatedly failed to self-report until forced to by the whistleblower.

As recently as 14 May, two years after the complaint, KPMG said the allegations hadn't been substantiated. Lendlease says KPMG told them in May last year there was "no issue." After the whistleblower went public in March, KPMG admitted a partner had accessed the board papers but called them "low sensitivity" with "zero competitive advantage."

When PwC lost its federal government business after its own data misuse scandal, KPMG was one of the firms that picked up the work.

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

• More capital city homes failed at auction than sold in the week to Saturday, dragging the clearance rate below 50% to its lowest in 6 years. LINK

• NAB has found that since ChatGPT’s 2022 release, employment and hours in highly AI-exposed Australian jobs are about 9% lower, while 42% of businesses already use AI. LINK

• The Fair Work Commission has raised the alarm over an unprecedented wave of AI-assisted dismissal claims, with many now representing themselves. LINK

NETFLIX SENT $1.35B OF ITS $1.47B IN AUSTRALIAN REVENUE OFFSHORE LAST YEAR

Netflix Australia reported $1.47B in revenue for 2025. $1.35B was paid to its parent entities overseas as "distribution fees." What remained: $119M. Profit after costs: $20M. Tax paid: $16M.

The company had 6.4M Australian subscribers in June last year and employs 78 people locally. The Australian arm acts as a distributor, reselling the parent company's product under a transfer pricing model the accounts describe as "arm's length." There's no suggestion of wrongdoing.

Netflix says it has invested over $1B in Australian content. Territory was the most-watched show globally for at least 4 days last year. The company now captures 8-10% of total television viewing in Australia.

Nearly half of Australian streaming users consider their subscriptions non-negotiable.

COMPANY NEWS

• Officeworks is offshoring hundreds of Australian customer service and office roles to Manila and Bengaluru as it responds to rising costs, increasing competition. LINK

• WiseTech Global has told almost 200 laid-off Australian staff they cannot work for 4 named rival companies for at least 1 year as it cuts 2,000 roles using AI. LINK

• Westpac reported that 152,512 retail customers now pay an average $37 a month for AI subscriptions, totalling $5.6M monthly and up 145% over 12 months. LINK

• The ACCC is investigating Uber Eats over exclusive deals with retailers such as Bunnings, Hungry Jack’s and Guzman y Gomez. LINK

• ASIC has launched an active investigation into Corporate Travel Management and its directors over delayed financial reporting and has refused any further extensions to its trading halt. LINK

• Property buyers agency Dashdot has entered voluntary liquidation and made more than 40 staff redundant after negative gearing and CGT reforms prompted banks to restrict lending to leveraged investors. LINK

• ACCC has launched its first Federal Court case against Amazon alleging it sold Unicorn Toddler Backpacks for children without required button battery safety warnings. LINK

• APRA has imposed new licence conditions on Hub24 trustee HTFS after finding poor conflict-of-interest management and inadequate due diligence on new investment options across $55B for 165,000 members. LINK

• Anthropic has raised US$65B, valuing it at US$965B, surpassing OpenAI as it launches its new Claude Opus 4.8 AI model. LINK

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BRAINTEASER

There are twelve men on an island. Eleven weigh exactly the same, but one is heavier or lighter (you don’t know which). Using a finely-tuned see-saw only three times, you must figure out who the odd man out is.

Answer below

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ANSWER

Label the 12 men: A B C D E F G H I J K L.

1st weighing: ABCD vs EFGH.

There are three possible outcomes from this weighing.

Case 1: The see-saw is balanced in the first weighing. If this is the case, all eight men who were weighed are normal and the odd man is among I, J, K, and L. You then weigh I, J, and K against any three known normal men (for example A, B, and C). If that second weighing balances, L is the odd man. If it does not balance, you now know whether I, J, or K is the odd one based on which side is heavier or lighter, and a final weighing between two of these people identifies the odd person out.

Case 2: ABCD are heavier in the first weighing. If ABCD is heavier, then either one of A, B, C, D is heavy or one of E, F, G, H is light (I, J, K, L are guaranteed normal and can be used as reference). You next weigh A, B, and E against C, D, and I (where I is a known normal weight). If this second weighing balances, then A, B, C, D, and E are all normal, which means the odd person must be among F, G, and H and a final weighing between two of them identifies the light one. If the left side is heavier in this second weighing, then either A or B is the heavy odd man, and weighing A against B in the third step determines which. If the right side is heavier, then either C or D is heavy or E is light, and a final weighing between C and D will identify the heavy one, while consistency with the previous result confirms whether E is the light one.

Case 3: ABCD are lighter in the first weighing. This is simply the reverse of Case 2: either one of A, B, C, or D is lighter, or one of E, F, G, or H is heavier. By following the same steps as in case 2, but reversing the roles of ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’, you can again identify the odd man with the two remaining weighings.

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