Afternoon Report | Telstra, Hanson and Trump
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Welcome to the Fear and Greed Business News Afternoon Report for Friday the 17th of July 2026. I'm Sean Aylmer. Every afternoon we've got the five stories that happened today that you need to know about.
How did the ASX 200 perform today and which sectors led the moves?
Story number one, the S&P ASX 200 closed down half a percent to just under 8,800 points, meaning for the week the benchmark was off just a touch. Utilities, energies and telcos did best today while the miners were sold off. BHP was down another 3%, taking the value of the sell-off over two sessions to about $15 billion. Rio Tinto ended down around 3% as well, while all the big banks were lower. It was a day for defensive stocks. Telstra, CSL, Transurban, Coles all did well. So too did West Farmers and Woodside. Story number two, Telstra boss Vicky Brady today fronted a Senate hearing into the telco's recent outage and confirmed that a failed device affected 45% of all calls and data sessions on its mobile network at its peak.
What caused Telstra's outage and what did the CEO tell the Senate?
The server cost about $30,000 and a firmware update recommended by the manufacturer back in 2020 And then again in 2022, was never applied. Telstra rejected suggestions outsourcing was to blame, saying the maintenance work was carried out by its own internal Melbourne team with no staff cuts. Brady said Telstra has written to 8.8 million consumer and small business customers, but ruled out automatic blanket compensation claims. saying most payouts will probably come as bill credit rather than cash. Telstra conceded it has no way of knowing whether medical alert devices that failed to place a triple zero call during the outage went unnoticed since its welfare check process only covers calls that were initiated and failed.
Story number three, Pauline Hanson referenced the white Australia policy, said Muslims were rorting the NDIS, and praised her daughter as a possible successor in a near hour-long podcast with UK far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Hansen told Robinson that Australia's problems with immigration began in 1973 when former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam removed the last remnants of the White Australia policy, according to a report in the Fin Review. She went on to claim many Muslim immigrants are coming to Australia to access welfare payments and, her words, rip off. the National Disability Insurance Scheme, although she conceded some Australians were also rorting the system. Hanson said she had complained to an unnamed opposition leader that Sharia law existed in Australia with Muslims marrying multiple spouses and having lots of children and going on welfare, and that she was told nothing could be done to stop it.
She also said her daughter, Lee Hanson, who narrowly missed out on a Tasmanian Senate seat at the last election, could one day take over the leadership of One Nation. Story number four, unions have warned that industrial action could drag on for a year in the Pilbara after about 200 workers walked off the job at BHP's Port Hedland export terminal yesterday. It is the first strike in nearly three decades, you know, in Australia's iron ore heartland, according to The Fin. BHP said it had made contingencies, which included the hiring of extra non-union workers to limit any disruptions caused by the eight-hour stoppage. Seven ships had been scheduled for loading at the terminal, which is the world's largest iron ore port.
Unionised electricians, port operators, shiploaders, boiler makers and mechanical fitters all stopped work. Finally, story number five, US President Donald Trump has used a primetime television address to make a series of claims alleging wholesale corruption of American elections, including that China meddled in the 2020 presidential poll and stole the data of 220 million voters. Trump said US elections were, I quote, worse than any third world country, end quote, and could not continue as they were, warning that the country risked having a stolen election again. obviously a reference to his claim, unsubstantiated, that the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, was stolen from him. The Trump administration also declassified and published dozens of files that it said proved Trump's claims about the vulnerabilities of American elections.
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