Auction activity has increased this weekend with 2,697 auctions to be held.

This is growth on the 2,457 held last week and a modest gain on the 2,648 auctions that occurred at the same time last year.

Based on results collected so far, CoreLogic’s summary found that the preliminary clearance rate was 68.2% across the country, which is a small jump on the 66.1% preliminary rate recorded last week but well above the 62.5% actual rate on final numbers.

Across the capital cities:

• Sydney: 713 of 995 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 70.3%

• Melbourne: 925 of 1,274 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 68.3%

• Brisbane: 95 0f 134 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 56.8%

• Adelaide: 114 of 206 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 74.6%

• Canberra: 37 of 71 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 48.6%

• Tasmania: One auction to be held.

• Perth: Seven of 16 auctions held.

Mortgage-holders should not expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to follow the United States central bank in slashing interest rates just yet.

Australia’s central bank has kept interest rates at 4.35 per cent since late 2023, a level intended to squeeze borrowers to slow inflation.

Board members will meet over two days starting on Monday, with the decision and press conference with governor Michele Bullock delivered on Tuesday afternoon.

Posturing since the last meeting suggests the RBA won’t be following the Federal Reserve’s lead, which delivered a 50 basis point rate cut last week.

The RBA maintains Australia is in a different position than many of its peers, with progress on inflation slow.

It has also pushed back on the prospect of near-term interest rate cuts and maintains another hike remains on the table.

The day after the cash rate meeting, the RBA will have fresh inflation data to chew on.

Wednesday’s monthly update from the Australian Bureau of Statistics may show the consumer price index falling 0.2 per cent in August, Westpac predicts.

Helped lower by government energy rebates, the bank’s economists expect an annual rate of 2.7 per cent, down from 3.5 per cent in July.

That would have headline inflation back within the RBA’s two-three per cent target range.

Yet the central bank has already indicated it plans to look through the temporary cost-of-living help and focus on underlying price pressures.

Other major datasets scheduled from the bureau include job vacancies and household wealth numbers, both due on Thursday.

A deep look into global and domestic financial stability is due from the RBA on Friday.

– AAP

Nathalie Gache spent more than three decades working in fashion and textiles, but when her company moved offshore she decided to have a go behind the wheel at her local bus depot.

I was put in a bus and did a trial around the suburb. And when I got back into the office, I was so pumped, I said, ‘Where do I sign?’.

Gache is now five months into a career she’ll stay in “as long as the universe grants”, relishing the chance to show hundreds of people the best views in Sydney every day – all while controlling a vehicle that weighs as much as a small whale.

I felt really empowered that I had moved up to … driving something as big as a bus. To take other people’s lives in your own hands as well, and to make sure that they all go home safe … It’s a very enjoyable job.

Gache has joined hundreds of new recruits to the New South Wales bus workforce, as the government and service operators struggle to overcome a shortage of drivers after a wave of pandemic-era retirements.

Sydney alone had almost 300 vacant driver jobs in April, forcing thousands of services to be cancelled each week. The workforce has stretched to cover replacement buses for impending Metro-related train shutdowns but hundreds of positions remain open.

For more on this story, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Luca Ittimani:

Weather early warning system aims to prevent deaths

Cards Against Humanity takes on Space X

The maker of the popular party game Cards Against Humanity is accusing Elon Musk’s SpaceX of trespassing on and damaging a plot of vacant land the company owns in Texas.

In a lawsuit filed this week at a Texas court, Cards Against Humanity alleges that SpaceX has essentially treated the game company’s Cameron county property as its own for at least the past six months.

The lawsuit said SpaceX, which had previously acquired other plots of land near the property, has placed construction materials such as gravel and other debris on the land without permission.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cards Against Humanity, which is headquartered in Chicago, had bought the plot in 2017 as part of what it said was a stunt to oppose former president Donald Trump’s efforts to build a border wall.

The company said 150,000 people had each contributed US$15 towards the effort.

Over the years, Cards Against Humanity says the land has been maintained in its natural state. It also says a “no trespassing” sign warns visitors they are about to step on private property.

The company is asking for US$15m (A$22m) in damages, which it says includes a loss of vegetation on the land.

– AAP

Universities’ casual staff ‘constantly sold out’

Lucy Nicolls is used to disappointment. She has been casually employed by the University of Sydney for eight years, despite repeatedly trying to get a contract.

So when the federal government’s casual employment changes came into effect last month she wasn’t holding out hope for immediate change.

Nor did she expect that some universities would respond to the legislation by halting casual hiring, firing employees or briefing managers on how to get around the industrial relations reforms and reducing courses:

We’ve been made a lot of promises and none of them have come to fruition. At this point casuals are demoralised – we’re consistently sold out.

We want permanency, we want to be able to plan our lives, but instead we’re in a situation of constant precarity. It’s exhausting.

The closing loopholes bill made a number of changes to casual employment, designed to make it easier for Australia’s 2.5 million casual workers to convert to a permanent role.

But experts are warning that the casual employment changes, which came into effect on 26 August, are having the opposite effect at universities, where up to 75% of academic staff are on insecure employment contracts.

For more on this story, read the full feature story by Guardian Australia’s education reporter Caitlin Cassidy:

Refugees and supporters rally outside Tony Burke’s office

A protest has been held outside the office of the home affairs minister, Tony Burke, office over the Australian government’s handling of refugee and asylum seeker cases.

The protest has been staged by Refugees in Limbo, a refugee-led group campaigning for a pathway to permanency from the Australian government. The protests began in August, with a camp outside Burke’s office for 15 days.

Organisers of the rally have been livestreaming speeches addressed to a sizeable crowd of hundreds of people calling for the cases of the approximately 8,500 people on temporary protection visas after a decade to be resolved.

Instagram’s new teen accounts don’t negate need for social media ban, Rowland says

Plans by Meta to impose restrictions on teenage Instagram users do not negate the need for a social media ban for young people, the communications minister says.

The federal government has outlined plans to introduce laws by the end of the year to ban young people from social media, citing mental health and safety concerns.

While an exact age has not been determined, age verification trials are under way to determine how moves to bar young people from social media platforms could be enforced.

Meta has announced teenage Instagram users will face enhanced restrictions, giving parents more control and limiting sensitive content.

Michelle Rowland said despite the moves, a broader crackdown was needed:

Despite the fact that Meta has made this announcement, that doesn’t obviate the need for us to take action in this space.

While social media has many benefits, enables a lot of young people to connect where they otherwise might have been isolated, it comes with those harms.

Rowland said work was ongoing to determine what age would be the limit given:

There is a marked difference between age assurance as it applies to younger ages as opposed to higher ages.

It can also vary depending on ethnicity and also gender … there’s no off-the-shelf solution for this, which is why we’ve been very deliberate in making sure that we are looking at a range of ages and reaching one that is appropriate for the circumstances.

– AAP

Biden caught on hot mic telling Albanese and other Quad leaders China is ‘testing us’

Chalmers says Beijing trip aimed at stabilising ‘really important economic relationship’

The first visit by a federal treasurer to China in seven years will help to stabilise ties with Australia’s largest trading partner, Jim Chalmers says.

Chalmers is set to meet with top Chinese economic officials during his visit to Beijing on Thursday and Friday.

The meeting comes as diplomatic relations between the two countries have thawed and economic sanctions on several Australian goods such as wine and barley have eased.

The upcoming visit will be the first time an Australian treasurer has visited China since Scott Morrison in 2017.

Chalmers said the trip would aim for a firmer relationship between the two countries.

This is part of our effort to stabilise a really important economic relationship.

This is a relationship full of complexity but full of opportunity as well, and we believe that you get more out of this relationship when you engage as we have been.

The treasurer will hold talks during the two-day visit with officials from China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

Australia’s strategic economic dialogue with China is expected to be the main focus of the discussions.

I’ll be meeting with a number of my counterparts in order to compare notes on the economy, to work through any issues that we might have between our two economies.

A more stable relationship, and particularly a more stable economic relationship between Australia and China is a good thing for our workers and our businesses and our investors and for our country more broadly.

– AAP

The Indian PM, Narendra Modi, has responded in kind, posting photos from his meeting with Anthony Albanese.

Separate footage of the meeting posted to social media offer a glimpse of Kevin Rudd, Australia’s ambassador to the US.

Albanese meets with Modi on Quad summit sidelines

Nuclear policy costings will come before election, Coalition says

The shadow environment minister, Jonathon Duniam, has sought to water down expectations that Peter Dutton will lay out the costs of his nuclear plan in a speech planned for Monday.

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Duniam accused the government of running a scare campaign:

We’ll release the costings well and truly before the election, and Australians deserve to know, and we will have that data out there.

We’ll continue to mount the case for having this as a choice in the energy mix at the right time … we won’t be goaded into [releasing costings] on the government’s timing.

The speech comes as a report released on Friday showed a typical household electricity bill could rise by $665 a year on average if nuclear power were added to the energy grid.

– AAP

Coalition nuclear plans labelled ‘economic insanity’

Peter Dutton’s plans to build seven nuclear power plants are “economic insanity”, Jim Chalmers has said on the eve of a speech by the opposition leader unveiling details behind the policy.

The Coalition has floated a plan to build seven nuclear reactors across five states, should it win the next election, with the first to be built by 2035 to 2037 at the earliest.

The proposed reactors would be built in areas with existing coal-fired power stations, including the Hunter Valley and Lithgow in NSW, Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, Collie in Western Australia and Port Augusta in South Australia.

Dutton is expected to provide more information about the proposal in a major speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia tomorrow. The treasurer said the Coalition’s plan would not solve energy issues:

Peter Dutton’s nuclear fantasy is economic insanity. It costs more, it will push power prices up, it will take longer.

He needs to come clean tomorrow in this speech: what will it cost, what will it mean for power bills, how will he pay for it, and what will Australia do for the decades it will take to build these reactors.

– AAP