Qantas ghost flights penalty ‘discoun t’ to $120m | Moderna takes the plunge on A I | Westpac CEO cautions on budget, rates

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Qantas senior managers knew the airline’s systems were not capable of informing customers in a timely fashion about cancelled flights, resulting in the sale of tickets on flights that did not exist.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb revealed Qantas made the admission on the way to striking a $120m settlement deal in the ghost flights fiasco.

Biotechnology titan Moderna – known for its Covid-19 vaccines – has joined forces with artificial intelligence heavyweight OpenAI to accelerate drug development, including using the technology to determine correct dosages during clinical trials.

Westpac boss Peter King says Treasurer Jim Chalmers has an “unenviable task” in handing down next week’s budget as spending pressures ramp up, and has warned on the new two-speed economy pitting young against old in the inflation fight.

The Australian sharemarket started the week on a positive note, with the ASX 200 closing up 0.7 per cent at a two-week high of 7682.4 points. The All Ords also closed up 0.7 per cent, at 7952.3.

The Big Read

Mike Cannon-Brookes leans back into a chair in one of the side rooms of The Venetian’s sprawling convention centre in Las Vegas, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans and his long silver-streaked hair tucked beneath one of his trademark baseball caps.

On his hat is an image of a solitary black sheep.

He has made a career of standing out from the corporate flock - building a $US47.8bn ($72.8bn) software empire - that is now capitalising on remote working and the rise of artificial intelligence, the two biggest trends to hit workplaces in decades. And he has a message for the militant return to the office brigade: trust your workers.

As he sees it, if corporates hire “a bunch of idiots” who don’t want to do a job there’s a chance they’ll “goof off” when left to their own devices working from home. But hire some adults who can think for themselves? Less goofing off.

It’s a practice Cannon-Brooke’s has adopted across Atlassian’s global workforce of 11,000 employees, and proof the remote working revolution works - and is here to stay.

Jared Lynch

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