A Sydney woman found herself in a race against the clock to buy an affordable home with her fiance amid warnings property prices could skyrocket under the federal government's new five per cent deposit scheme, which comes into effect today.

Linh Hoang, 29, was in the middle of a "deflating" journey trying to buy a house in the NSW capital when she realised the first home buyers scheme was creeping up – and it has the potential to send property prices skyrocketing.

Hoang told 9news.com.au she and her partner, Jeffrey, purchased a house and land package in western Sydney just three months ago.

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Nicole Kidman has filed for divorce from Keith Urban after 19 years of marriage, bringing a surprising end to a long and seemingly successful union that brought together two superstars from the worlds of movies and music.

The 58-year-old Oscar-winning actor petitioned on Tuesday to end her marriage to the 57-year-old Grammy-winning country singer in a Nashville court. The documents state the couple has undergone "marital difficulties and irreconcilable differences."

Kidman and Urban, two of the biggest stars to come out of Australia in recent decades, have been red carpet fixtures throughout their two-decade relationship, with Urban joining his wife at the Oscars and Kidman attending music events like the Academy of Country Music Awards.

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The filings include a marriage dissolution and childcare plan agreed on by the couple and submitted for a judge's approval.

"The mother and father will behave with each other and each child so as to provide a loving, stable, consistent and nurturing relationship with the child even though they are divorced," says the permanent parenting plan, using language common in the state's divorces.

"They will not speak badly of each other or the members of the family of the other parent. They will encourage each child to continue to love the other parent and be comfortable in both families."

The plan asks that Kidman be the primary residential parent to the couple's two daughters, ages 17 and 14, having them for 306 days per year with Urban taking them for the other 59.

The girls have lived in Nashville all their lives, and the documents give no indication that will change.

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The marriage dissolution plan lays out a roughly equal division of joint assets, with each keeping all the assets that are in their own name, including the copyrights and royalties for their artistic work.

The detailed agreements suggests that the divorce had been in the works for well over a month at the least. Urban signed the parenting plan on August 29, Kidman on September 6.

It will take at least 90 days for the divorce to become final under Tennessee law.

Representatives for Kidman and Urban did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Tuesday.

Both raised in Australia, Kidman and Urban met in 2005 at a Los Angeles event honouring Australians and were married in Sydney the following year.

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The marriage was the first for Urban and the second for Kidman, who was married to Tom Cruise from 1990 to 2001. Kidman also has two older children with Cruise.

The couple had publicly but lovingly described some marital difficulties, but there were still few if any signs they were headed for divorce. Media reports of their separation came just a day before the divorce filing.

Last year at the premiere of the Netflix series The Perfect Couple, Kidman told The Associated Press the term didn't apply to her and Urban.

"You're heading for trouble if you consider yourselves the perfect couple," she said. "I'm not a believer in perfect."

A few months earlier, Urban paid tribute to Kidman, and brought her to tears, when she received the AFI Life Achievement Award.

Urban said she showed him "what love in action really looks like" when his substance abuse problems emerged almost immediately after they wed in 2006.

"Four months into our marriage, I'm in rehab for three months," Urban said. "Nic pushed through every negative voice, I'm sure even some of her own, and she chose love. And here we are 18 years later."

Kidman's film roles have included Days of Thunder, Eyes Wide Shut, Moulin Rouge and The Hours, for which she won an Academy Award for playing author Virginia Woolf.

She has more recently worked in television, including the series Nine Perfect Strangers and Big Little Lies, for which she won Emmys as both actor and producer.

Urban has been a major country star since the 1990s, with hits including Somebody Like You and Blue Ain't Your Color. He has won four Grammy Awards and more than a dozen ACM Awards.

Their split was first reported by TMZ.

Two years of failures have left problem-plagued Optus with a multi-million-dollar hit to the brand's crumbling reputation, according to a public relations expert. 

Sphere PR Managing Director Louise Roberts said reliability is everything to a telco and, after three triple-zero outages since 2023 and a mass data breach in 2022, Optus' brand has taken repeated blows.

"The Optus brand is now in a fragile, high-risk state," she told 9news.com.au.

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"For telcos, reliability and resilience are really non-negotiables, and repeated failures will damage their credibility in ways that a single event may not have."

Roberts said the continued blunders could cost Optus millions in a loss of customers, fines, and a damaged brand reputation. 

She added that there may be lawsuits from the families of the three people who died during the triple-zero outage on September 18. 

"They'll risk ongoing customer churn, intensified reliability scrutiny, they're probably going to be subject to quite significant fines," Roberts said. 

"Companies can recover their reputation, but I think you'll find that Optus' issues will be mentioned for years to come."

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Days before the outage, a Roy Morgan survey ranked Optus as Australia's fourth most distrusted brand.

"It still has not recovered from the 2022 data breach," she said. 

"Optus has really got to take a long, hard look at itself and make sure that in future, that they have not only invested in their network and resilience, but they have also revised their processes.

"They really need to demonstrate that they've made long-term structural changes."

Optus' problems started years before the first triple-zero outage earlier this month. Here is a breakdown of everything that led to today.

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November 8, 2023

4am: Optus begins experiencing a nationwide outage that affects all services, including triple-zero calls and NBN.

6.47am: Optus tells customers it is aware of the issue and is working to restore services.

12.55pm: Some services begin to come back online.

4pm: Most, if not all, services are restored. 

November 13, 2023

The Australian Communications and Media Authority begins an investigation into the outage.

November 17, 2023

The Optus chief executive at the time, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, appears before the Senate to field questions on the outage and how the telco responded.

She insists she is not facing internal calls to step down.

November 20, 2023

Rosmarin resigns.

"Having now had time for some personal reflection, I have come to the decision that my resignation is in the best interest of Optus moving forward," she said at the time.

She is replaced in the interim by chief financial officer Michael Venter.

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January 24, 2023

Optus admits that almost 2700 triple-zero calls failed to connect, up from the initial 228 figure.

March 21, 2024

A government-commissioned review into the outage handed down its final report, making 18 recommendations to address structural issues within the broader telco system. 

The federal government accepts all the recommendations. 

May 6, 2024

Optus announces Stephen Rue as its new chief executive effective from November.

He is brought in to review the company and recover its reputation.

November 8, 2024

Exactly a year on from the 2023 triple-zero outage, the Australian Communications and Media Authority finds Optus failed to provide access to emergency services for 2145 people and failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had tried to make an emergency call during the outage. 

The telco pays a $12 million fine. 

September 18, 2025

12.17am — 12.30am: Optus crews ready themselves for a firewall upgrade.

12.30am: Crews begin the upgrade.

1.30pm: Thirteen hours later, Optus becomes aware of an issue affecting triple-zero calls and works to resolve it.

3pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage affected 10 calls.

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September 19, 2025

3.40pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage actually affected 100 calls.

4pm: Optus tells the Australian Communications and Media Authority that the outage restricted more than 600 triple-zero calls, and three people died.

4.40pm: Newsrooms across the country receive an email alerting them to a flash press conference.

5.45pm: Rue tells the media that three people died in a triple-zero outage – two in South Australia and one in Western Australia.

This is the first time the public hears about the outage. 

7pm: South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas holds his own press conference, in which he tells the media that Optus did not tell the state about the deaths before Rue fronted the media.

He says he has not witnessed "such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this".

Police in South Australia and Western Australia also say they were unaware of the emergency service breakdown until the press conference. 

September 20, 2025

Rue tells the media that a fourth death has been confirmed in Western Australia.

He reveals that two people had called Optus' customer service centres alerting them to an issue affecting triple-zero calls on September 18, but the matter was not escalated.

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September 21, 2025

Rue calls another press conference, where he confirms the telco actually received at least five calls to the customer line about the outage, none of which were escalated.

"As we had not detected the triple-zero failures in our network at the time of these calls, there were no red flags for the contact centre to alert them to any live issues," he said.

South Australia Police confirm that the death of a four-month-old baby, which was initially linked to the outage, was most likely unrelated.

The death toll stands at two in Western Australia and one in South Australia. 

September 22, 2025

The outage widens.

Optus says seven people were unable to contact triple-zero during the brief period the upgrade was being readied between 12.17am to 12.30am on September 18. 

Communications Minister Anika Wells promises to hold the telco to account. 

September 24, 2025

Rue confirms the outage was caused by human error.

Crews, comprised of Optus and third-party Nokia staff in Australia and India, had failed to follow step one of the upgrade process, which would have allowed emergency calls to be redirected through the network.

Optus commissions an independent review as its owner, Singapore-based Singtel Group, issues its first apology.

Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon announces he will visit Australia the following week.

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September 28, 2025

Optus experiences yet another outage that affects 4500 people in NSW's Dapto region between 3am and 12.20pm and impacts nine triple-zero calls.

Optus confirms all the people who tried to contact triple zero were okay, with several of them being accidental or test calls. 

September 30, 2025

Moon meets with Wells in Australia, where she tells him to bring in external advisors to independently assess the company's plans to avoid another outage.

Speaking to reporters, Moon declined to say whether he backs Rue.

"We brought in Stephen 11 months ago to transform Optus to really address the issues that we've had since 2022 and 2023," he said.

"It is very early days, it takes time to transform a company."

Where to now?

Optus has commissioned an internal review, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority is investigating.

Wells hints that there may be a wider review into the telco industry and emergency service network.

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More sunscreens have been temporarily pulled from sale or paused from supply over sun protection claim concerns, bringing the total number of affected sunscreens currently off the market to 18.

The nation's medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), issued the advice yesterday while revealing six more products had been voluntarily removed from its register in the past two weeks.

It's the latest chapter in the saga sparked by a June Choice report that claimed more than a dozen popular sunscreens "failed" to meet their own SPF claims.

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The TGA yesterday said it had received preliminary test results on the base formulation used in Ultra Violette Lean Screen SPF50+ and an export-only variant – both of which the company voluntarily recalled in August – and 19 other products from 13 other companies. 

Those tests found the formula was unlikely to have an SPF of more than 21 and "may, for at least some of the goods, be as low as SPF four".

The TGA said manufacturer Wild Child Laboratories had stopped manufacturing and supplying the base formulation but each sunscreen company would be carrying out its own tests.

"The TGA is considering whether to take regulatory action with respect to those sunscreens," it said.

"Each company is provided with an opportunity to respond to any proposed regulatory action before the TGA makes a decision."

The TGA also issued a warning about UK-based testing laboratory Princeton Consumer Research, saying it had "significant concerns" about the reliability of its tests.

It said "many" companies using the Wild Child-made base formula had – before being told of the regulator's concerns – relied on tests performed by PCR to support their SPF claims.

Wild Child Laboratories said the TGA had confirmed "no manufacturing issues were identified at our facility that could explain variability in SPF testing results" and said the discrepancies were "part of a broader, industry-wide issue".

"We understand the TGA has raised concerns about testing undertaken by PCR Corp and is conducting an ongoing investigation," chief executive Tom Curnow told 9news.com.au in a statement.

"Wild Child has ceased using PCR and initiated confirmatory testing with other accredited, independent laboratories to validate the SPF performance of our products.

"We remain committed to transparency, product safety, and supporting the introduction of more consistent and objective SPF testing standards across Australia."

The TGA said it had written to PCR but had not received a response.

In a statement to 9News.com.au Princeton Consumer Research said it "conducts sunscreen testing in good faith, to recognised industry standards, on the specific samples provided to us by sponsors at the time of testing".

The TGA yesterday released a list of sunscreens using the same base formulation. 

It stated that where the company responsible for a sunscreen has decided to cancel or recall the affected goods, it is working to support them in doing so.

It also advised consumers who purchased a product from the list that they may wish to consider using an alternative product until the TGA completes its review.

Skincare brand Naked Sundays yesterday said it had commissioned more independent testing for its Collagen Glow Mineral Sunscreen, which uses the same base formula but wasn't tested in the Choice report.

"Preliminary results for Collagen Glow have now been provided to the TGA, confirming our variant provides high sun protection, poses no concern, and we will await further guidance from the regulator," it said.

"Naked Sundays partners with various manufacturers in the US and Australia, and no other Naked Sundays products in Australia and or worldwide are impacted," the company said.

"Naked Sundays is working closely with the TGA to ensure we uphold the highest standards for all our products, and we will adopt any new testing requirements that the TGA may impose as soon as they are in place."

Of the 21 products sharing the same base formulation, only two remain on the market in Australia: Allganics Light Sunscreen SPF50+ and GlindaWand The Fountain of Youth Environmental Defence Cream SPF50+.

The others have all been either voluntarily recalled and cancelled from the regulator's register or temporarily pulled from sale.

You can find a full and regularly updated list of the sunscreens using the Wild Child base formulation on the TGA website.

Princeton Consumer Research statement

Princeton Consumer Research conducts sunscreen testing in good faith, to recognised industry standards, on the specific samples provided to us by sponsors at the time of testing. Our studies are performed by trained professionals following written, validated protocols and rigorous quality controls. Over many years we have tested thousands of product samples for global clients using established methods designed to estimate SPF and related claims.

Sunscreen performance measured in a laboratory reflects the exact batch and condition of the sample submitted at that moment. Multiple factors outside the laboratory — such as manufacturing variability between batches, raw-material differences, packaging, storage conditions, product age, and in-market handling — can influence the SPF of products sold later. Testing is therefore one part of a broader quality and regulatory process that includes manufacturing controls, stability programs, and post-market surveillance by brands and regulators.

We can only speak to the data we generated on the samples we tested; we cannot opine on any subsequently manufactured or sold product that we did not test.

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A man is dead and a 13-year-old girl is among two people in hospital after a drowning emergency at a Western Australian river popular with swimmers.

Families enjoying the school holidays were left shocked when seven people were pulled from Moore River in Guilderton – an hour north of Perth – after getting in trouble.

The day out on the water took a disastrous turn at the holiday spot when police received a distress call at 10.45am (12.45pm AEST) today.

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"It just makes you realise how easy things can go from ok to really bad," one witness said.

A group of seven people got into trouble after trying to navigate a steep drop off in the shallows.

It's understood the group of three adults and four children were walking along a sand bank, when a 38-year-old man went into the water.

It's understood he slipped into a deep area, disappearing beneath the surface.

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Bystanders rushed to help, pulling out seven people and starting first aid, before paramedics arrived.

The 38-year-old man didn't survive.

A 13-year-old girl is recovering at Joondalup Hospital and a woman in her 30s remains at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, both, in a stable condition.

Three children under 10 and a man and his 40s were also taken to hospital but discharged earlier today.

A report will be prepared for the coroner.

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The plastic replica pistol was one of three given out in July by Kash Patel.

Emergency services were called to the two-vehicle crash just after 7.40pm.

The exporter now sells to 52 countries, with US sales up 30% despite tariffs.

There were hopes of relief coming from the Reserve Bank, but surprisingly high inflation has changed their minds.

Homeowners wishing for more relief on their variable home loans may have to wait until next year after the RBA kept interest rates on hold at its September meeting today.

Just two meetings remain – in November and December – for the calendar year, which has already seen the main cash rate target fall from 4.35 per cent to the current rate of 3.6 per cent.

Experts remain divided over whether the central bank will slash rates again prior to Christmas, with a relatively steady labour market and strong inflation providing more incentive for the RBA to move slowly.

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In its monetary statement today, the RBA board said it was keeping a close eye on Australia's domestic market and the ongoing turmoil of tariff-driven geopolitics, while Governor Michele Bullock added next month's quarterly inflation figures will be crucial.

"The board sees the risks as broadly balanced and it remains data-driven," she said.

"By the next meeting in November, we'll have more data on the labour market and inflation data for the September quarter.

"We'll also have some more forward-looking indicators, including from liaison and an updated set of forecasts."

While Treasurer Jim Chalmers said today's decision would be disappointing for Australians with a mortgage, Bullock had a far bleaker message for those who wanted but couldn't afford to buy their first home.

"We're in a very difficult position with the property market," she said.

"And I don't think that most reasonable people think that this is a good outcome."

She added that the main driver of increasing property prices is the chronic undersupply of housing – not interest rates – and that governments are finally starting to address that issue.

But she said it's years away from starting to improve.

"It's going to be slow to work its way through, it's going to take time… I'm not confident it's going to make any impact in the next two years," she said.

AS IT HAPPENED: RBA leaves rates on hold

'Good news' around the economy despite uncertainty

Two unexpectedly high instalments of monthly inflation data had effectively scuppered any chance of a rate cut before this week's meeting had even started, but Bullock said that wasn't necessarily bad news for the economy.

She said the increase in prices was driven at least in part by rising incomes, and that consumers getting out and spending was a positive story.

"That's good news," Bullock said.

"It's good news that activity is responding. So I don't want anyone to think that's bad news, but it just makes us think, well… it was a good decision today to hold."

At the same time, her monetary policy board said the path forward remains murky.

"The board remains alert to the heightened level of uncertainty about the outlook," it said in its post-decision statement.

"It noted that monetary policy is well placed to respond decisively to international developments if they were to have material implications for activity and inflation in Australia."

Another consideration for the central bank was analysing the impact of its three rate cuts already made this year.

"Financial conditions have eased since the beginning of the year and this seems to be having some impact, but it will take some time to see the full effects of earlier cash rate reductions," the board said.

"The board judged that it was appropriate to remain cautious, updating its view of the outlook as the data evolve."

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Three of the big four banks, including CBA, Westpac and ANZ, think there will be another cut of 25 basis points in early November.

NAB, which earlier indicated it too thought a November rate cut was in play, recently updated its forecast to scrap any change to the cash rate target for 2025.

Graham Cooke, head of consumer research at Finder, said the meeting-to-meeting variability of interest rates was still having a material impact on Aussie families.

"While relief is starting to filter through, 35 per cent of homeowners are still struggling to pay their mortgage in September," he said.

"Even with another cut expected before Christmas, you don't need to wait to get a better deal. If you're currently paying more than 5.5 per cent for a variable rate, you're probably paying too much."

This year has already seen three interest rate cuts in February, May and August.

Canstar data shows that for the average Australian borrower with a $600,000 mortgage, three cuts is currently equating to a monthly drop of $272 this year.

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Sally Tindall, data insights director at Canstar, said most are taking these savings and re-injecting them into the loan.

"That's a decent chunk of money that is already making a difference to household budgets," she said.

"It's astounding to see that so many eligible borrowers aren't pocketing this relief into their bank account but rather, reinvesting it into their mortgage instead.

"By keeping their repayments unchanged, they're effectively turning each RBA cut into an extra mortgage repayment, which, if kept up for the remainder of their loan, could see them save thousands."

Tindall said while the RBA has held steady for this meeting, many borrowersv were unknowingly servicing a loan with a higher interest rate than necessary.

"Borrowers looking to turbo-change the savings even further should consider switching to a lower rate mortgage," she said.

"Right now, the average owner-occupier on a variable rate is estimated to be paying 5.53 per cent, yet there are more than 30 lenders on Canstar offering at least one variable rate under this mark.

"While the RBA will wait for and act on the data, borrowers don't have to play this waiting game."

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