🗞️ Fair dismissal

Good morning. A Newcastle postie of more than 30 years has lost his unfair dismissal case after taking an Australia Post van to KFC during work hours, then telling his supervisor to "make an appointment" when asked where he'd been.

The Fair Work Commission heard he missed work or failed to make contact on at least 19 occasions in a month, ignoring 17 messages from managers.

The commission accepted his mental health had affected how he responded, but found the conduct serious enough to justify the sacking anyway.

All the headlines and more below…

DOMINO'S AUSTRALIA BLAMED FOR DRAGGING DOWN GLOBAL SALES AFTER DITCHING DISCOUNTS

Domino's US has directly called out its Australian operation for pulling down the company's international performance after the company cut discount promotions to protect margins and lost customers instead. International comparable sales dropped 0.1% in Q2, with US executives saying the Australian arm remains "definitely a drag on our same-store sales".

Domino's Pizza Enterprises - which runs thousands of outlets across Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Japan - reduced lower-margin discount deals to protect profit margins against inflation. Order volumes fell sharply and ticket increases didn't compensate.

The US parent has more than doubled US order volumes since 2008 and added over 2,100 net new stores through order growth and disciplined pricing.

DPE reported a small after-tax loss in FY25, its worst result in over 20 years. US leadership said DPE is the number one pizza player in most of its markets and expects an aggressive return to value-focused deals to win back budget-conscious customers. DPE is currently led by Hungry Jack's founder Jack Cowin.

AUSTRALIAN NEWS

• Australia is heading for its weakest decade of living standards growth since the 1910s as GDP per person has risen just 4% and real wages have fallen 5% over 5 years. LINK

• The Queensland government has launched the TradieStart program offering construction businesses up to US$16,000 per apprentice as part of a $24.4M initiative to address forecast tradie shortages before the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. LINK

• Private Healthcare Australia has warned that rigid gold, silver and bronze tiers and reduced rebates in the federal budget are driving an existential flight from top hospital cover, with up to 253,000 people expected to drop or downgrade policies. LINK

• Recruitment has become a major area for AI deployment as employers and job seekers use tools to automate cover letters and candidate screening, following Amazon’s scrapped biased hiring system. LINK

• Reuters editor-in-chief believes that AI companies are “plundering” copyrighted news content to train models without consent or compensation, threatening journalism’s future revenue and viability. LINK

GOOGLE BUILT A $2T EMPIRE DIRECTING USERS TO MILLIONS OF WEBSITES. NOW IT'S KEEPING THEM INSIDE.

Google's 2004 IPO letter promised "abundant, free and unbiased access to high-quality information." The model was meant to answer search queries with hyperlinks, push users to the open web to support the merchants, publishers, universities who built the internet's content layer. Google became one of the planet's richest companies by being that gateway.

Google has cut down click-throughs. No visits to the source. The content still comes from publishers and institutions, but the relationship has inverted - instead of sending traffic out, Google absorbs the information and serves it back as its own answer.

Publishers rely on visit traffic for ad revenue and subscriptions. If users never leave Google, that revenue disappears - even as Google continues to depend on those same publishers to train and feed its AI models.

COMPANY NEWS

• KPMG Australia has appointed long-term partner John Sams as chief executive to lead reforms after a whistleblower audit scandal that triggered senior resignations and a governance overhaul. LINK

• Nine Entertainment is cutting about 30 jobs across its metro mastheads in a restructure to accelerate a shift to digital news as advertising conditions weaken and technology disrupts media. LINK

• NextDC increased its pro forma contract utilisation by 11% to 740 megawatts as its shares trade at $13.59 in afternoon trade. LINK

• Revolut has become Australia’s newest bank after APRA granted it a full ADI licence, enabling government‑guaranteed deposits up to $250,000 and savings rates up to 5.05% p.a. LINK

• Atlassian chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes says the US$1.8B Sydney skyscraper opening in 2028 remains economically sound, costing about one-third less per square metre than current offices. LINK

• MoneyME has secured a US$300M warehouse facility from Standard Chartered as global banks intensify competition to fund credit card challengers in the US$60B local market. LINK

• Woolworths Group has appointed a new advertising agency for its Australian and New Zealand supermarkets in an $8M annual deal as it seeks to extend its sales lead over Coles. LINK

• Emirates has refused delivery of 10 Boeing 777X jets from its US$440M-per-plane, 270-aircraft order as 7 years of design delays left the initial batch unfit for purpose. LINK

• Books Kinokuniya will open its first Melbourne store at Melbourne Central by the end of August as part of a $170M redevelopment that will expand the centre’s retail footprint by 14%. LINK

• Hub24 reported a 20% year-on-year rise in both net inflows and total funds under administration as its shares traded at $81.32 at 2:40pm AEST. LINK

• Fiat has halted imports of its 500e and Abarth 500e passenger cars to Australia as lower-cost Chinese rivals including BYD expand and its local sales fall 30% to 144. LINK

• CBA has warned that collapsed US Iran peace talks and Houthi threats to blockade Saudi oil routes will prolong Gulf conflict, risking global trade and higher oil prices. LINK

• Alphabet is facing investor scrutiny ahead of its Q2 results as a delay to its Gemini 3.5 Pro AI model heightens concerns over growing data-centre spending and ecosystem strategy. LINK

• Interactive Brokers reported a 35% rise in Q2 profit as elevated trading activity, driven by a sharp US equity market rally, boosted its results. LINK

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CHART OF THE DAY

Messi and Mbappé make World Cup history

ONE MORE SCROLL

Editor’s Pick: Australian circus performer Tiffany Field has honoured her family legacy by setting a new aerial neck spin world record of 3 min 1.18 sec, beating the previous 1 min 10.28 sec mark.

Draft Pick: 6 years out from hosting the Olympics, this is where Brisbane stands.

Doctor’s Pick: Children who grow up in unpredictable environments may face elevated risks for depression, anxiety, sleep disorders and other mental health challenges.

TRIVIA

Today, you need to put the below events in chronological order (and guess the year if you're that way inclined):

• Wizard of Oz premiers

• IBM PC released

• First Model T released

• US annexes Hawaii

• First Communication by satellite was made

Answers below

OUR SOCIALS

ANSWERS

1898 - US annexes Hawaii
1908 - First Model T released
1939 - Wizard of Oz premiers
1960 - First Communication by satellite was made
1981 - IBM PC released

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