Morning Mail: High-end home values fall; costs of sea level rise revealed; and is AI coming for humans?

Want to get this in your inbox every weekday? Sign up for the Morning Mail here, and finish your day with our Politics, really newsletter. Good morning. Amid the gloom over the property market downturn across Australia, new figures reveal that it is the more high-end houses being hit worst – down more than 10% from their peaks in some cities.A new report has projected staggering economic losses to be felt across Australia by the end of the century due to coastal flooding as rising sea levels cause “safe land” to vanish amid a worsening climate crisis.‘Less and less viable’ | The Climate Council forecasts that more than 267,000 coastal properties will be damaged by flooding by 2100 as Australia’s sea levels rise, costing hundreds of billions of dollars.A mixed bag | High-end homes are recording steep price falls, while more affordable properties are proving resilient, leaving Australians to experience the real estate downturn in very different ways.Renters warned | So-called “RentTech” companies may be circumventing Victorian laws designed to protect tenants’ personal data by asking for “excessive” information, a review has found.Analysis | The RBA hoped this year’s three interest rate rises would tame inflation. But with the US-Iran conflict, rising oil prices and the explosion in datacentre investment, nothing is going their way.Koala concerns | The Victorian government sat on a report for more than 12 months that found the state’s koala population was in chronically poor health, a report reveals.‘A true one-off’ | Blanche d’Alpuget is being remembered as a successful author who “lived fearlessly” – and brought her own star power to her relationship with her “great love”, Bob Hawke. Continue reading...