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The government has asked Optus’s parent company appoint an external reviewer to hold Optus to account after triple-zero outages this month, to address the “serious lack of confidence” Australians have in the telco.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Optus had “let down its customers and has let down the nation” after two outages in less than a fortnight piled political and public pressure on the company.

The communications minister, Anika Wells, met Singtel’s chief executive, Yuen Kuan Moon, the Optus chair, John Arthur, and its chief executive, Stephen Rue, in Sydney on Tuesday morning.

On 18 September, a network firewall upgrade blocked emergency calls for Optus customers in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and parts of New South Wales.

The deaths of two people in SA and one in WA have been linked to the outages (a fourth death – an infant in SA – was found likely to have been unrelated).

A separate outage on Sunday affected nine calls to the triple-zero network on one tower in the Illawarra region of NSW but Optus has confirmed the welfare of all who tried to call.

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In comments after the meeting, Wells said she had conveyed that the outages had been “completely unacceptable” and could not be allowed to happen again. Wells said she sought assurances from Optus and Singtel that their upmost priority was restoring Australian confidence in triple zero, and she asked Singtel to appoint a role to hold Optus to account to ensure it makes the changes necessary.

Asked whether she had confidence in Rue to remain as chief executive, Wells said he “has a lot of work to do”.

“The CEO of Optus now needs to work with the parent company, Singtel on the systems and holistic change required within their own company to give that confidence back to Australians,” she said.

Rue began as Optus chief executive last November after moving from the chief executive role at NBN. He replaced Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who left the telco after the company suffered a massive data breach and a national mobile network outage that also resulted in triple-zero calls not being able to transfer to other mobile networks as they are supposed to.

Moon told reporters on Tuesday Rue had been brought on to transform Optus, and it was “very early days”.

“It takes time to transform a company,” Moon said. “An initial investigation of the 18 September incident … is due to a people issue, and it takes time to transform and change the people. He is here to provide the solution.”

Arthur said Rue had been recruited to fix issues at Optus and the board was satisfied he was making progress – “but it is a work in progress”.

Wells said while human error and technical error was involved in the 18 September outage, Optus was not in compliance with its obligations to the Australian people.

The federal government has resisted calls from the opposition and the Greens to launch a wider inquiry into the triple-zero system, instead pointing to the Australian Communications and Media Authority investigation into the outage.

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Wells said the company would face “significant consequences” but those decisions would be made after the Acma investigation.

“Once that independent regulator investigation is complete it is for the Australian government to hand down any further penalties beyond what you could expect from the regulator, and any further systemwide change that may be required to give Australians confidence back,” she said.

The shadow communications minister, Melissa McIntosh, ridiculed Wells after she described herself as a “new minister” – more than four months after her appointment to the portfolio.

“The lacklustre performance by the communications minister this morning speaks volumes about what action she has been taking on this incredibly important issue,” she said.

The Greens communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, accused Wells of attempting to “wash her hands” of responsibility as she repeated calls for an immediate review of Optus’ operating licence.

Speaking from Abu Dhabi, Albanese backed his minister.

“Minister Wells has been very strong, as is entirely appropriate here, for what is an unacceptable failure of service by Optus to its customers and to the nation,” he said.

Wells said the federal government would fast-track legislation to appoint a triple zero custodian, although it’s yet to be confirmed if that would happen when parliament returns next week.

The government has not staffed the role for almost a year after it received a report on how the custodian should be structured.

The Aukus submarine deal will proceed as planned after reportedly surviving the Pentagon’s review of the security pact.

The Japan-based Nikkei Asia reported the Trump administration would retain the original timeline for the $368bn program, which includes the US selling three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia from 2032.

A US war Department official would not confirm the report when contacted by Guardian Australia.

“The Aukus initiative is still under review. We have no further Aukus updates to announce at this time,” the official said.

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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, acknowledged the review was still under way but was confident Aukus had the support of the US and the UK – the third partner in the pact.

“We know that Aukus is in the interests of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States,” Albanese said from Abu Dhabi, the last stop in an overseas trip that has included visits to the two Aukus allies.

“It is about a partnership which is in the interest of all three nations which will make peace and security in our region so much stronger.”

The review will be wrapped up before Albanese’s first scheduled face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump in the US on 20 October, Nikkei Asia reported.

The future of Aukus has been under a cloud since the Pentagon launched an appraisal of the deal to determine if it aligned with Trump’s “America-first” agenda.

The review has been conducted by the US under secretary of war for policy, Elbridge Colby, who has previously expressed scepticism about any deal that could weaken the US navy.

One of the most significant concerns over Aukus in the US is its capacity to spare any nuclear-powered submarines to sell to Australia as it struggles to build enough for its own needs.

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There has also been speculation the US has wanted clarity from Australia about how it respond in a potential US-China war over Taiwan.

The federal government has already handed over $1.6bn to the US to support America’s shipbuilding capacity, with delivery of the first Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the early 2030s contingent on the US ramping up production.

Australia’s government has never publicly expressed concern about the Pentagon review, arguing that it was standard procedure for a new administration to examine such an agreement, just as the UK did after a change of government.

Earlier on Tuesday, Australia’s defence minister, Richard Marles, would not pre-empt the outcome of the Pentagon review but again expressed confidence that the deal was secure.

“Aukus is happening – that’s not in question,” the acting prime minister told ABC Melbourne on Tuesday morning.

“We’re very confident about the deal and we’ve been saying that all the way through, as we have also been saying that we welcome this review and will participate in it,” Marles said on Tuesday.

“I’ve repeatedly said Aukus is going well; Aukus is happening at a pace; it is meeting all the milestones that it’s meant to be meeting and we are confident about this being the pathway for Australia acquiring its future submarine capability.”

The US has also been pushing Australia to raise its overall defence spending to 3.5% of GDP, up from its current level of roughly 2%.

Albanese has publicly resisted that pressure, insisting Australia will determine the nature and volume of its military spending.

The federal government has made several new defence spending commitments while the review was under way, including $12bn to upgrade a Western Australian shipyard that will be used by the Aukus submarines.

Albanese and Marles have confirmed the US navy will be able to use the Henderson defence precinct to dock and maintain its own ships.

At least one student has been killed, dozens injured and 65 presumed buried under rubble after a school building collapsed in Indonesia on Monday, with rescuers running oxygen and water to those who remained trapped more than 12 hours later.

Rescue workers, police and soldiers digging through the night pulled out eight weak and injured survivors hours after the building at Al Khoziny Islamic boarding school in the East Java town of Sidoarjo collapsed while students were praying.

Rescuers saw additional bodies, indicating the death toll was likely to rise.

Families of the students gathered at hospitals or near the collapsed building, anxiously awaiting news of their children. Relatives wailed as they watched rescuers pull a dusty, injured student from the buried prayer hall.

A noticeboard at the command post set up in the boarding school complex listed 65 students as missing as of Tuesday morning. They were mostly boys in grades seven to 11, between the ages of 12 and 17.

“Oh my God … my son is still buried, oh my God please help!” a mother cried hysterically upon seeing her child’s name on the board, followed by the cries of other parents whose relatives had suffered a similar fate.

“Please, sir, please find my child immediately,” cried a father, holding the hand of one of the rescue team members.

Heavy slabs of concrete and other rubble and unstable parts of the building hampered search and rescue efforts, said Nanang Sigit, a search and rescue officer who led the effort. Heavy equipment was available but not being used due to concerns that it could cause further collapse.

“We have been running oxygen and water to those still trapped under the debris and keeping them alive while we work hard to get them out,” Sigit said. He added that rescuers saw several bodies under the rubble but were focused on saving those who were still alive.

Several hundred rescuers were involved in the effort and had equipment for breathing, extrication, medical evacuation and other support tools.

The students had been performing afternoon prayers in a building that was undergoing an unauthorised expansion when it suddenly collapsed on top of them, provincial police spokesperson Jules Abraham Abast said.

Residents, teachers and administrators assisted injured students, many with head injuries and broken bones. Female students were praying in another part of the building and managed to escape, survivors said.

One male student, a 13-year-old boy, was killed and 99 other students were injured and taken to hospitals, some of them in critical condition, officials said.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the collapse. Abast said the old prayer hall was two storeys but two more were being added without a permit.

“The old building’s foundation was apparently unable to support two floors of concrete and collapsed during the pouring process,” Abast said.

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The men-only Melbourne Savage Club has pulled the pin on allowing women to lunch there two days a week – but has left its exclusive doors open to potential future female participation.

Under the “Female Dining Initiative”, the private club trialled mixed dining on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. “Lady guests” were allowed to have a pre-lunch tipple in the Social Room and lunch in the Dining Room.

Before that, women were only welcome as guests at certain functions and after 4.30pm on weekdays.

A survey last year found overwhelming opposition to allowing women as members. Just four men (2% of the membership) wanted to admit women.

But many were in favour of being more “female friendly”, including by breaking a 130-year tradition to allow women to dine in one of the club’s multiple rooms.

The trial allowing women guests for lunch, meant to run for six months, was announced in June and started in July.

But this month, a rebel faction warned of uneasy wives and “Karens” – a term that has been described as racist, sexist and ageist – and called an extraordinary general meeting.

The group wrote in an email that “the loud and boisterous bohemian behaviour that the club is famous for will now have to be tempered for fear of upsetting a ‘Karen’ at the other end of the dining room”.

“Our wives no longer will have the comfort of knowing we are at a male-only venue, so long hours spent at the club will no longer be viewed as favourable on the home front,” the email says.

Members were asked to vote yes or no on three options in a non-binding plebiscite.

The first was a return to the original rules where “the club maintains its gentlemen-only dining policy in the Main Dining Room”, while female guests would still be allowed in the evenings and at specific events.

The second was to continue allowing female guests access to the Dining Room and Social Room on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The third was reducing that access to one day a week, a “ladies day when accompanied by a member”.

On Tuesday, members were told the mixed dining trial had finished less than halfway through the planned six months, but that “future options” for mixed dining would be explored “in light of the feedback received through the recent plebiscite”.

“These will be considered carefully and shared with the membership for input at an appropriate time,” the email says.

The club, formed in 1894, describes its membership as sharing “a passion for music, art, drama, literature and science … unified by a bohemian spirit”.

Guests can enjoy open fires, leather lounges, Heidelberg School paintings and “irreplaceable Polynesian and Melanesian artefacts”, its website promises.

Mobile phones and electronic devices are not allowed and jackets and ties are required (presumably just for the male members and their male guests).

The Australian government has welcomed the Trump administration’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza and says it leaves the door open to a two-state solution.

The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, told ABC radio on Tuesday the plan represents hope for the region to end hostilities and see aid flow into Gaza and hostages returned.

“Our view, ultimately, is that the only way that there will be an enduring peace in the Middle East is if there are two states,” he said. “The plan, as it’s been articulated, that keeps the door open for all of that. So that’s where we see that there is hope.

“We certainly welcome this and we do thank the Americans for the efforts that they have put in here … There have been plans in the past, of course, and so, you know, we’re not there yet. But I think it does represent hope.”

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The US president, Donald Trump, announced the plan alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday, which states Gaza would be governed by a transitional “apolitical” committee.

That committee would be headed by Trump and include former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Asked whether the government would trust Trump to “govern” Gaza, Marles said the board would include a number of “very significant people internationally”.

Marles added the government did not want to see the annexation of Palestinian territories, in response to comments by Netanyahu that Israel would “finish the job by itself” if Hamas rejected the plan.

“Certainly what we have seen play out is a matter of real concern from the Australian government’s point of view,” Marles said. “We absolutely do not want to see an annexation of these territories.”

The opposition has also said the plan represents “hope”.

“We all want to see the war end and we always knew that the only peace that could be brokered would be brokered by the US. So there is hope today,” the Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, told Sunrise on Tuesday.

The Liberal senator and former Australian ambassador to Israel, Dave Sharma, told the Today show the plan was the most detailed and comprehensive agreement put forward since 7 October.

“I think it does have a good chance of success but I think the real difficulty here will be getting Hamas to agree,” he said. “ Hamas is being asked to sign its own extinction warrant here.

“I think Trump’s plan envisages a future role for the Palestinian Authority and I think that’s important. I think that’s something Australia should support. They are the legitimate political body of the Palestinian people.”

The Coalition has said it would revoke Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood, which the prime minister committed to at the UN general assembly earlier this month.

The plan has attracted some criticism, including from Greens who said Palestinians must “have the right to determine their own future.”

In a statement, deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi criticised the involvement of Trump and Blair in the plan, and said it was not a “good faith choice” for Palestinian people.

“The US doesn’t even accept the right of Palestinians to have a state of their own, so I have no faith that this isn’t just continued occupation with different faces,” said Faruqi.

A court in China has sentenced 11 people to death for their alleged roles in a family-run crime syndicate accused of running illegal gambling and scam operations worth more than $1.4bn, and for the deaths of workers who disobeyed them.

The Wenzhou intermediate people’s court on Monday sentenced 11 members of the powerful Ming family in Kokkang, Myanmar to death while another five were handed death sentences suspended for two years.

A further 12 defendants received jail sentences of between five and 24 years. Two-year suspended death sentences are often converted to life in prison.

China issued arrest warrants for four members of the Ming family in November 2023 on suspicion of fraud, murder and illegal detention as part of a crackdown on illegal scam operations near the border with Myanmar.

The syndicate had “relied on armed force” to establish multiple compounds in Kokang, the court said in a statement posted on social media.

The court alleged the group had killed 14 people, including 10 involved in fraud who had tried to escape from the group or disobeyed its management. It cited one incident in October 2023, when the accused allegedly “opened fire” on people at a scam compound to prevent them from being transferred back to China.

The group’s operations attracted numerous “financial backers” to whom it provided armed protection, the court said.

Scam centres, in which criminals run sophisticated online scams targeting people all over the world, have proliferated in countries in south-east Asia, including Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

They often use trafficked workers who are forced to conduct romance-based investment scams as part of a globalised industry that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates is worth $40bn annually.

In April, the UN warned that Chinese and south-east Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year through cyber scam centres.

China is cracking down on scam centres in the region through joint operations or coordinating with local police forces.

In February, China, Myanmar and Thailand exerted pressure on scam centres located along the Thai-Myanmar border, resulting in the release of more than 7,000 workers, most of whom were Chinese citizens.

With Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

It’s official, Jim Chalmers has not managed the budgetary equivalent of a “three-peat”.

After delivering two straight surpluses, Monday’s final budget outcome confirmed the country’s finances slumped to a deficit of $10bn in 2024-25.

A small and expected deficit for the recent financial year is no disaster, but nor is it great news.

So why were Chalmers and Katy Gallagher, the finance minister, doing a victory lap on Monday, trumpeting the government’s “responsible economic management”?

Because it could have been worse.

The pre-election economic and fiscal outlook forecast a deficit of $27.9bn in 2024-25.

Which means the final budget outcome for the last financial year has come in about $18bn better than anticipated, thanks in large part to a much bigger than anticipated tax take from workers and companies.

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Which is good.

But Gallagher went even further, boasting to journalists that the budget was “getting in better shape” and that “it means we’re able to lower the debt” and “we’ve lowered the interest bill on that debt”.

None of those three statements is true.

The budget is not “getting in better shape”, unless you reckon shifting from a surplus to a deficit – with an even wider deficit predicted for this financial year – is an improvement.

Meanwhile, debt is climbing, not falling, as is the interest we have to pay on that debt.

In fact, interest payments are the fastest-growing major payment in the budget, at an estimated annual average of 9.5% over the coming decade.

Luckily, while the government spin may be out of control, the budget isn’t.

As Chalmers has been keen to point out, most other similar countries would love to be in our position.

A small deficit worth 0.4% of GDP looks fantastic when compared with the United States’ extraordinary deficit worth 6.4% of its economy.

The same is true for our debt burden, which, while expanding, is equivalent to 50% of GDP, including the states and territories.

In contrast, the average among the G20 countries is over 100%.

But is it enough to be the best of a bad lot?

Luke Yeaman, CBA’s chief economist and a former deputy Treasury secretary, says “right now we have a strong fiscal position”.

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“We have a AAA credit rating and the government has delivered two surpluses and now a reasonably small deficit,” Yeaman says.

He agrees that this strong position looks even better when compared with other similar economies.

But he says the international comparison should serve as both a comfort for today and a warning for tomorrow.

“It is the boiling frog,” he says.

“There is still at the heart of the budget a structural challenge that is not being met. And the people who will bear the consequences will be future generations.”

That structural challenge involves climbing spending commitments that have to be met with an ever-rising tax take, the burden of which increasingly falls on younger workers.

The budget predicts that the deficit dwindles away to nearly zero over the coming decade.

But that budget repair only happens because workers pay a steadily higher average share of their wages on income tax, in a phenomenon known as “bracket creep”.

A recent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that to eventually balance the books, the average worker’s tax rate will rise from 25% now to 27% by the mid-2030s.

Assuming no further tax relief, total personal income tax as a share of overall government revenue will climb from 48% to 53% over the coming decade.

This government or future ones will have to grapple with telling voters they need to accept higher taxes or lower spending on services, Yeaman says.

“Ultimately there’s a choice to be made.”

Retailers have told the government that tax rises could further fuel inflation as the pace of shop price rises stepped up in September with increases on home improvement and gardening goods offsetting stabilising food prices.

Annual shop price inflation rose to 1.4% in September, up from 0.9% in August, according to the latest monthly report from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and analysts NIQ.

A year and a half of deflation on non-food goods appears set to come to an end, according to the trade body, with prices just 0.1% lower year on year in September compared with an annual drop of 0.8% in August.

Falling prices on back-to-school items such as laptops dampened inflation on other household items including DIY goods. Annual food price inflation, which has been steadily accelerating all year, levelled out at 4.2% in September – the same rate as in August.

Helen Dickinson, the BRC chief executive, said: “Households are finding shopping increasingly expensive. The impact on retailers and their supply chain of both global factors and higher national insurance and wage costs is playing out in prices for consumers.”

She said high energy and labour costs, including the government’s rise in employers’ national insurance payments (NICs), continued to push up input prices for many producers, including farmers, with dairy and beef prices remaining high.

However, Mike Watkins, the head of retailer and business insight at NIQ, said low consumer confidence meant retailers were likely to have to continue offering promotions and deals to ring up sales.

“With inflationary pressures persisting, many shoppers remain concerned about their personal finances and are becoming increasingly price-sensitive,” he said.

The BRC figures are the latest indication that food inflation has peaked, with retailers expecting it to ease late this year or from early 2026.

However, earlier this month the Bank of England held off from implementing a cut in interest rates on fears that rising food prices were putting upwards pressure on headline inflation.

Rachel Reeves has hinted that tax rises or spending cuts could be on the way as the chancellor faces having to find up to £30bn to plug a spending gap amid slower than hoped for growth and expected changes to official calculations on UK productivity.

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“The new packaging tax, set to take effect in October, will put further upward pressure on inflation,” Dickinson said. “While retailers continue to absorb higher costs as much as possible and deliver value to customers, any further tax rises in the upcoming budget would keep shop prices higher for longer.

“Ultimately, it is British households who will bear the consequences – positive or negative – of the chancellor’s decisions.”

Retailers face a £7bn increase in costs this year, according to the BRC, after changes were introduced in April to employers’ NICs, packaging levies and the legal minimum wage.