It’s Wednesday the 28^th of May 2025 and Telstra announces a big push into connectivity and telco infrastructure, Jacqui Lambie retains her Senate seat, and Tabcorp upsets publicans. Plus ‘forever chemicals’ rife in Australia, and the Kremlin says Trump is suffering from ‘emotional overload’.

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News in brief

Telstra is going big into artificial intelligence, with chief executive Vicki Brady outlining a five-year plan aimed at repositioning the telco as a business focused on connectivity and infrastructure operations.

Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie has retained her Senate seat after speculation she could lose it to One Nation candidate Lee Hanson, daughter of party leader Pauline Hanson.

Tabcorp has lost a few friends among publicans with the group proposing to drop all commissions for hotels hosting Tabcorp’s wagering venues. Instead, Tabcorp will host a bunch of new promotions only available to punters in pubs.

85pc of Australians have at least three types of PFAS – otherwise known as ‘forever chemicals’ - in their bloodstream, with older people more likely to demonstrate the chemicals, and males more likely to contain PFAS than females.

The Kremlin claimed Donald Trump was showing signs of "emotional overload" after he called Vladimir Putin "absolutely crazy" following Moscow's largest aerial assault on Ukraine.

Fear-o-meter

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady’s decision to upend her predecessor’s strategy and focus on infrastructure and clipping the ticket on connectivity transactions makes sense.

Telstra is the dominant telco in the local market and it has the country’s best mobile network. Importantly, the network is growing. Artificial intelligence will only increase demand for connectivity and the Telstra network, so the telco’s goal is to find a way to make money from that demand.

Owning the infrastructure is a very good start, and boosting connectivity is a good second. It allows Telstra to potentially discriminate on pricing. A gamer might want to pay more for a few hours to increase upload and download speeds. A food vendor might only want ultra-low latency when working remotely at a festival, for example, and will be prepared to pay for it.

That’s how Telstra wants to make more money. It is about getting closer to the customer and providing more choice.

Who's talking today?

"One of the bits of research that we've conducted recently showed that the majority of small business owners have less than 90 days of business expenses as cash in the bank account. Literally three months of runway. So it is really important that business owners, I guess, see these opportunities that are now starting to emerge in the economy. I think looking forward in terms of optimism, it's definitely coming from a place where interest rates are coming down, unemployment is relatively stable. Consumer growth, while it's not booming, it's relatively stable. We've got the election result out of the way as well, which is good for certainty around policy. So I think all of the platform ingredients are there now for business owners to take advantage of those opportunities that are going to be coming over the next 12 months." 

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Greed-o-meter

A look at Telstra by the numbers:

Source: Telstra.com.au

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