Telstra has AI handling 30% of customer queries, CEO says

Telstra’s chief executive says the company is using AI to handle 30% of customer queries across its website and app.

Speaking at Microsoft’s AI Tour event today, Vicki Brady said the telecommunications giant’s generative AI-powered assistant launched last November, where it could check customer plans and activate SIMs.

In March, it took the AI assistant into its app, where it could make changes to plans and accounts and troubleshoot.

Brady said AI was helping with customer queries:

Of all of that volume coming in on the website and our app, it is dealing with 30% of that without our teams needing to get involved. And we continue to build that capability. Of course, it hands off where it’s particularly sensitive or there might be indicators of vulnerable circumstances, but it’s allowing our teams to spend more time with customers on those more complex issues.

AI has also allowed Telstra to cut down from having 400 software partners to just two, and from 80 platforms storing data to 20, with the aim to cut down to three, Brady said.

The company has 75% of its teams using AI tools “at least weekly” and aims to raise that to 85% this year, Brady said.

How much of Microsoft’s $25bn is going to stay in Australia?

Circling back to Microsoft’s new investment: $25bn sounds big, but not all of the money is likely to stay in Australia.

Details of the spend are not finalised but the announcement repeatedly mentioned datacentres and included this line from Belinda Dennett, chief executive officer at datacentres Australia:

This investment in new digital infrastructure … is a significant vote of confidence in Australia as a hub for AI infrastructure investment and data centre development.

Without final details, we don’t know where those datacentres would be built or who would build them, though Microsoft already has 29 datacentres in Australia and has reportedly taken up a new contract with developer NextDC.

As a rule of thumb, McKinsey in 2025 estimated capital expenditure on datacentres generally would be split 25% on energy needs and 15% on builders and land, with 60% to tech companies producing and designing the chips and computing hardware.

Plenty of money will end up being spent overseas to purchase GPU and memory capacity from manufacturers in countries like South Korea. Huge amounts of datacentre investment actually count as imports in Australia’s national accounts, which analysts from the e61 institute have found are importing the direct benefits.

Following McKinsey’s rule of thumb and given only some of the $25bn is being spent on datacentres, less than $10bn of that figure is likely to be spent directly in Australia.

The governor general celebrated James Valentine at his living wake

Back to tributes to James Valentine: The governor general, Sam Mostyn, said Valentine held a living wake on Valentine’s Day this year:

He gave us plenty of advice as to how we cherish our lives and how we think about our futures in celebrating his.

Mostyn had been in contact with Valentine in recent months on how to bring Australians closer together. She said:

He was giving me quite a bit of advice as to how, in my role, we can bring better conversations about how we bring people together.

He gave suggestions on the issue of social cohesion and [how] people being angry with one another could be accommodated with better kindness, and what would that look like.

Monique Ryan says NDIS annoucement has left many ‘blindsided’

Responding to yesterday’s NDIS announcement, Independent member for Kooyong, Dr Monique Ryan, said people with disability, their families, carers and providers have been “blindsided”.

Ryan said the scale of the proposed cuts risks undermining the very purpose of the NDIS:

Bill Shorten, the previous NDIS minister, frequently described the scheme as ‘the only lifeboat in the ocean’ for people with a disability. Now, one in five people on the NDIS are about to be thrown into the sea.

Concerns are compounded by the absence of fully developed alternative supports. Foundational supports have yet to be agreed with states and territories, the Thriving Kids program has been deferred until 2028, and the proposed automated assessment tool has not been adequately tested, with its rollout postponed for another year.

Ryan acknowledged the need to strengthen the integrity and sustainability of the NDIS.

We all know the scheme must be protected from waste and exploitation. But responsibility for failures in oversight lies with government, not people with disability who rely on support to live independently and with dignity.

Officer pinned between two cars suffered serious damage to ligaments in his legs

Earlier, we reported details of two incidents in Sydney, including one where an officer was pinned between two cars after attempting to stop an allegedly stolen car in the city’s south-west.

The officer fired three shots from his firearm after the vehicle drove into him, including one that hit the alleged driver of the vehicle.

Police are holding a press conference, where they said that officer suffered serious ligament damage to his legs. The officer has since been discharged from the hospital. Det Supt Rod Hart, the Bankstown police area commander, said:

He was pinned against a car, run over and it was his decision at that time to fire the shots, which I believe has saved his life.

The man who allegedly drove the vehicle into the officer is expected to be charged with serious offences, Hart said. The man will go into minor surgery later to remove a bullet fired by the officer during the incident.

Microsoft chief says AI investment will mean ‘real economic growth’ in Australia

The investment was announced today at Microsoft’s AI tour event in Sydney, with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

Nadella said in a statement:

Australia has an enormous opportunity to translate AI into real economic growth and societal benefit. That is why we are making our largest investment in Australia to date.

Albanese said in a statement:

Microsoft’s long-term investment in our national capability will help deliver on [our AI] plan – strengthening our cyber defences and creating opportunity for Australian workers and businesses.

Former home affairs boss says he thinks there’s about a 10% chance of ‘catastrophic’ global conflict

Michael Pezzullo, the former home affairs boss, said while he believes the likelihood of a “catastrophic conflict” around the globe remained low, he would still peg it “at about a 10% chance”, and Australia needed to prepare. He told Sky News earlier:

That is troubling, because a 10% chance of war, particularly a catastrophic war that would dwarf anything that’s going in the Middle East now, is something that we need to actively manage against.

He said the country needed to develop a so-called “war book” to determine how Australia could mobilise all sectors of society in the event of a major global conflict.

We need to prepare a war book and we need to do it, well, yesterday, but as soon as possible.

Governments failed to deliver $160m of river improvements, report finds

Two state governments have drastically underdelivered more than $160m in infrastructure measures to improve river health in the northern Murray-Darling basin eight years since they were promised, a major independent review has found.

This includes failure by the New South Wales government to secure any of the private land access needed to improve water flows over floodplains in the state’s Gwydir region, where scientists had to scramble to rescue turtles in dried up wetlands last week.

A separate NSW government project to install passages to help fish migrate around barriers in waterways has delivered just 64km (3%) of the original 2,135km target, with the target later reduced to 589km.

In Queensland, promised refurbishments and upgrades to weirs also never proceeded past the feasibility stage, the review by the federal inspector general of water compliance, Troy Grant, found.

Read more:

Families face being thousands of dollars worse off as Labor cuts NDIS lifeline

On Wednesday, the health minister, Mark Butler, announced that about 160,000 people are expected to be removed from the national disability insurance scheme by 2030.

The $50bn scheme’s growth rate will be brought down to just 2% every year until 2030 in an effort to curb annual plan inflation and produce billions in savings. To get there, eligibility rules will be tightened, especially for children under 18.

There’s confusion over what the new system will look like, who’ll be eligible, and how it will work for kids, for adults with autism, for people in rural communities.

Read more here:

Governor general says James Valentine made member of the Order of Australia days before his death

The governor general, Sam Mostyn, said the loss of Valentine had made it a “very sad day”. She told ABC Radio Sydney he was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) in recent days, before his death, to recognise his contribution to the city.

Mark Butler says he understands NDIS changes may be ‘confronting’

The health minister, Mark Butler, is making the rounds this morning after announcing major changes to the NDIS yesterday.

He said the intention of the changes were to secure the future of the scheme, which is not on financially sustainable footing. Butler told RN Breakfast:

I also understand that change, particularly significant change, is confronting to people. I wish I could say that change is not needed or not much needed, but that wouldn’t be the truth. The truth is that this scheme is, I think, at real risk in terms of its sustainability. We’ve not been able to get spending growth under control.

Butler maintained that the NDIS had expanded “well beyond” its original intent and is now “riddled with poor practice, fraud and rorts”.

Two NSW police officers injured in separate incidents overnight

A NSW police officer was allegedly assaulted and another allegedly struck by a vehicle during a spate of incidents in Sydney overnight.

Officials said in one incident in Chester Hill, in Sydney’s south west, emergency services were called after reports of shots fired. Officers attended the area and were later called to Auburn hospital, where a man, 26, had presented with gunshot wounds. Police attempted to speak to another man, aged 30, in the emergency department, before that man allegedly assaulted the officer, repeatedly punching him in the head.

The man was arrested and taken to the police station. He has since been charged with assault of a police officer in the execution of duty. The 26-year-old who was shot remains in critical condition.

In another, unconnected incident in Greenacre, also in Sydney’s south west, officers were patrolling the area when they spotted an allegedly stolen vehicle. When an officer approached the car at an intersection, the driver allegedly accelerated, pinning the officer between two vehicles.

The officer discharged his firearm, striking the car before it drove off. He was treated by ambulance crews and taken to hospital in a stable condition.

Officers later found a man suffering from a gunshot wound in Ryde. He was taken to hospital in stable condition under police guard. No charges have been laid, and investigations continue.

Greens call for a rent freeze during the fuel crisis

The Greens are calling on Anthony Albanese to use Thursday’s meeting of the national cabinet to coordinate a country-wide rent freeze and a moratorium on evictions for the duration of the fuel crisis.

The prime minister will meet with premiers and chief ministers for the third time since the US and Israel’s war with Iran sent global energy prices spiralling.

The Greens want Albanese to take a leaf out of Scott Morrison’s Covid-19 playbook and work with the states and territories to shield renters from evictions.

The party is also renewing calls for a national freeze on rent increases - a policy it unsuccessfully pushed in the last term of parliament.

The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, said:

Renters around the country are facing some of the worst housing insecurity in living memory. We saw a rare example during Covid of a government doing their job and protecting renters from the volatility of global economic circumstances by putting a ban on rent increases and evictions. There’s nothing stopping that happening again.

Good morning, Nick Visser here to snag the blog. Let’s get to it.

Mark Butler says NDIS funding changes necessary to get scheme back on track

Sweeping changes to the national disability insurance scheme are expected to save the federal budget $35bn over four years, the health minister, Mark Butler, has confirmed.

Butler announced a major overhaul yesterday to contain the scheme’s rising costs, including changes to eligibility rules that are expected to remove at least 160,000 participants from the program by 2030.

Instead of costing more than $70bn at the end of the decade, the NDIS budget will be brought down to about $55bn.

In an interview on ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Butler said the changes would save the federal budget about $35bn over four years.

The minister said that figure covered a recent $13bn blowout in the scheme’s projected cost over the four-year period, meaning the net saving was closer to $22bn.

He said:

It’s a significant figure but one that we are confident is necessary to get this thing back on track. After all, what we are trying to do is secure its future in the long term.

Butler met state and territory disability ministers after his announcement to the National Press Club, the first time his counterparts had been briefed on the shakeup.

He said the disability ministers wanted further detail, including the modelling that underpinned the changes.

But they were up for the challenge. Disability ministers are talking with participants every single day. They’re talking with disability providers and all of them are saying they want a better quality of service delivered to them.

They want, they want this sort of free-for-all market that’s grown up over the last 10 years or so cleaned up. They want to see the fraud cleaned up. They want to see more integrity into the system. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm for the job of getting this thing back on track.