⏱️ The 147th edition of our newsletter is a nine-minute read.
Morning all,
A quick Vietnamese roll update before we get into the news. When putting together my North Shore banh mi guide earlier this year, I passed over one particular Crows Nest location: Banh Mi Xin Chao, at the top of Willoughby Road.
My reasoning was weak: I was put off by what appeared to be AI-generated posters out the front. It’s a disturbingly common sight nowadays, and a man has to stand for something.
However, since then, I have ducked in to try the place out, and it’s become a favourite. Maybe I shouldn’t judge a book by it’s AI-generated cover. The Saigon Special (Vietnamese cold cuts) is recommended.
🗞 Anyway, onto the news …
HEARD THIS WEEK👂
📈 “It’s getting harder to pay”: Home insurance up 38% for Lindfield bushland property
Vast, bushy backyards, dense tree canopy, close proximity to national parks: these are the characteristics of the Upper North Shore that have attracted successive generations of residents.
But what makes the region attractive is also what makes it more vulnerable to bushfire than most of metropolitan Sydney.
For some residents, prevention of bushfires is part of everyday life. Leanne Denison lives on the bushy outskirts of West Lindfield, backing onto Lane Cove National Park.
When she notices the bush out back becoming overgrown, she gets in touch with the local Rural Fire Service unit to organise a hazard reduction burn. The fact that many of her neighbours are members of the service makes this a bit easier.
She’s no stranger to the smell of smoke and crackle of embers. In the 1994 Lane Cove bushfires, her home burnt down along with many others on the street. Her family was among those who remained and rebuilt.
Smoke over Sydney Harbour during the 1994 bushfires. Image: Daduschu via Wikimedia
In the last year, her fortnightly home insurance payments went up by $80 to $290, a 38 percent increase. That comes out to around $7,540 annually.
She told the Lorikeet it would be irresponsible to live here without home insurance, but despite shopping around and comparing different policies, it was getting more difficult to pay.
“It just makes everything a little bit tighter … you've got to double think everything.”
Living on the rural fringe of Hornsby Shire, Fiddletown resident Mara Barber told the Lorikeet insurance on her property, which is vulnerable to bushfire, rose by $1,000 this year to $4,874.
Hikes in insurance premiums don’t always sweep regions in a broad-brush manner.
Killara’s Colin Pont is a case in point. His property also backs onto Lane Cove National Park and is about 2km north of Leanne Denison’s, yet he hasn’t seen a dramatic rise in his house insurance premiums.
Read the full story below.
👾 AI revolution will hit the North Shore harder than anywhere in Australia, report claims
“Knowledge workers” in finance, accounting and tech who live on the North Shore will be among the hardest hit by AI job automation, according to new analysis.
What happened: A report by public policy consultancy SGS Economics and Planning lists North Sydney, Willoughby and Ku-ring-gai as the most vulnerable council areas in Australia to “AI-driven disruption".
Unlike previous waves of automation, the report claims, which focused on “routine, manual occupations”, AI is “increasingly capable of supporting or automating cognitive tasks”.
It refers to these occupations as “knowledge work”, including jobs in finance, tech, marketing, accountancy and IT.
Sweaty white collars: “This new disruption looks set to concentrate instead in the professional heart of our cities, among the workers and industries that have historically been shielded from technological displacement.”
The report said 43.5 percent of tasks performed by workers living in North Sydney are exposed to AI automation, the highest of any LGA.
The report compares the impact of the AI revolution to Australia’s shift away from manufacturing in the late 20th century, but “compressed into a much shorter time frame”.
Read the full story below.
🚏 The one question Roads Minister won’t answer about the Cammeray-Rozelle tunnel
As the third Sydney Harbour crossing reached a major milestone this week, the Minister for Roads has refused to say whether public transport services will run through the tunnel.
What happened: In June, Patyegarang — one of two 4,000-tonne tunnel boring machines excavating the Western Harbour Tunnel — began burrowing from Birchgrove to Waverton, 50 metres below the surface of Sydney Harbour.
The Western Harbour Tunnel is a $7.4 billion infrastructure project connecting Rozelle and Cammeray.
On Tuesday, Patyegarang’s cutterheads reached their halfway point across the harbour. On the Waverton side of the tunnel, journalists gathered to view the “nozzle” where the boring machine will break through, and the vast chamber where the machine will be disassembled.
Logistical challenges mean parts of the machine, including its cutterheads and shields, will not be removed from the site, but entombed in a chamber to the tunnel’s east.
Read the full story below.
LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀
🟥 After our inquiry, Labor changed its secret "news" account
The Labor Party is running Instagram accounts in NSW and Victoria that look and post like news outlets, and there are no rules stopping political parties from doing it.
The NSW account, newsnsw, described itself as “news from the NSW Government”. When we asked who was behind it, the government confirmed its involvement.
Curiously, about 30 minutes later, the account’s bio was updated to say it was authorised by the Australian Labor Party.
The Victorian account, Vicnewstoday, already carried Labor’s authorisation.
The National Account’s Archie Milligan has the rundown:
That’ll be all from me today.
As always, if you have a news tip, an idea for a story or think there’s something I should be covering, hit reply to this email or reach out at [email protected].
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Cheers,
Huw
