PM

What's most likely to derail Australia's entire financial system? The Reserve Bank say it's worried about the potential for a glut of apartments to emerge in inner-city Melbourne and Brisbane, and also China's on-going debt binge. Both were detailed in the bank's Financial Stability Review, which is a snapshot of current threats to Australia's financial system. So just how worried are senior policy makers?

In March this year, Sydney University was rocked by a data breach that compromised sensitive information about some of its most vulnerable students. The university announced that a notebook computer containing its disability access database had been 'lost in transit' by a software engineer. The database contained names, birth dates, contact details and disability diagnoses for around 6,700 students accessing the university's disability services. An external report that the university commissioned in response to the breach found that while the university has relevant privacy policies and procedures in place, these were not followed and 'gaps' remain.

In a campaign speech yesterday, President Obama referred to a talk-show host and friend of Donald Trump who had literally described him and Hillary Clinton as demons, who smelled of sulphur. That talk show host is a conspiracy theorist called Alex Jones, and he and his website Infowars have been a significant influence on Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The journalist and documentary maker Jon Ronson has made a speciality of extremists and conspiracy theorists in books like 'The Men Who Stare at Goats'. He profiled Alex Jones in 'Them', and he returned to observe the man's influence on Trump on the campaign trail for a Kindle single e-book called The Elephant in the Room.

Virtual reality has been talked up as the next big step in gaming since films such as Tron and the Matrix sent their characters into a fully computer-generated world. While technology hasn't quite caught up to this full body experience, headsets connected to a computer or gaming console allow gamers to take a look around a virtual universe. But time will tell whether it's a fad, or the future of gaming.

Queensland research has raised fears that a dying reef could have far-reaching repercussions for weather patterns. Now an international group of climate scientists has sailed out to investigate the possible impacts for the first time. Reporter Kathy McLeish is on the Great Barrier Reef with the group leader Professor Zoran Ristovski of the Queensland University of Technology.

The slaughter of African elephants for their ivory continues despite all attempts to stop it. Poachers killed more than 140,000 between 2007 and 2014. But a meeting of parties to the CITES treaty, which protects endangered plants and animals in Johannesburg this month, rejected a bid to give African elephants the highest level of international legal protection, and demand for the poachers' products remains high.

Phillip Hughes's father was heard using the word 'lying' during the testimony of a cricket physiotherapist who wrote an official report into the batsman's death. Alex Kountouris told the Coronial Inquest he had not known the Hughes Family had expressed concerns about tactics and sledging before the fatal accident. The inquest also heard that no ambulances were free in the Sydney area when Hughes was struck on the neck during a Sheffield Shield match at the SCG in November 2014.

The Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte - already famous for the spiralling death toll in his war on drugs at home - has also caused alarm in foreign policy circles, with an apparent pivot towards Beijing. Early in September he described President Obama as a a son of a whore. Late last month he gave notice that the latest joint military exercises between the US and the Philippines would be the last. All eyes will be on President Duterte when he visits Beijing for the first time in a couple of weeks.

It's been a tough afternoon in the Federal Parliament for the Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer. Labor used Question Time to mount a sustained attack, after the Minister last night inadvertently allowed an Opposition amendment to government legislation to pass through the House of Representatives. Ms O'Dwyer and the Prime Minister accused the Opposition of playing an adolescent game, and scoring a cheap political point. But when she was pressed for detail on last night's legislation, the Minister struggled to provide it.

The Federal Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce has voiced his clearest opposition yet to the WA Nationals mining tax plan. The WA Nationals Leader Brendon Grylls is proposing a five dollar a tonne tax on iron ore. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have condemned the plan and Mr Joyce argues it would be bad for both jobs and economic growth.