Source : the age
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national and international news this Tuesday, October 13. Here’s what you need to know today.
- Labor’s Digital Duty of Care laws are at the forefront of political debate this week in Canberra as the Greens seek changes to the bill that would allow individuals to seek compensation for online harms. Meanwhile, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson says the laws would target her party and impinge on freedom of speech.
- Several Labor MPs, including some ministers, are pushing the federal government to find a permanent solution to ensure the Tax Office accepts credit cards from businesspeople with cashflow problems, three days after Treasurer Jim Chalmers stepped in to delay the Tax Office’s ban on credit card payments.
- Parliamentarians have condemned the US’s potential live-streaming of an execution by firing squad of a former US Army major who killed 13 soldiers at a military base in 2009. It remains unclear if the government could legally block the livestream from being viewed in Australia.
- Russia has kept up its attacks on energy assets despite US President Donald Trump claiming there were pledges from both sides to support an “energy ceasefire” in the war, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said.
- And British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court for the start of his trial on rape and sexual assault charges. Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault.
Assistant Minister for the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton has pointed to the moratorium on data centres in Texas as evidence that Australia needs to ensure tech giants maintain their social licence locally.
“Texas, home of the brave, land of the free, has introduced a moratorium on data centres,” Charlton said. “You have to lose a lot of social licence to be banned in Texas. Data centres have done that. We do not want that to happen in Australia.”
He said Labor’s AI standards would ensure certainty around how data centres would be powered, how they used resources and engage with communities to avoid the backlash that has been seen in the United States.
“To make sure that when they come into Australia, they come in with social licence, not to unnecessarily restrain this industry, but to put it on a stable foundation so that it can grow and deliver benefits to Australians,” Charlton said.
Assistant Minister for the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton has told a summit of business leaders in Canberra that artificial intelligence was a key to lifting small business productivity.
“AI offers the next opportunity to start closing that productivity gap between small businesses and big businesses,” Charlton told the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s business leaders’ summit.
“That means supporting adoption, encouraging small businesses to take up those opportunities, and in doing so, benefiting them and doing probably the biggest thing we could do to lift productivity.
“The opportunity for us is to lift the productivity of small businesses up towards the productivity of large businesses, and that has been a dream for a long time. But I think these tools make that dream a real possibility.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has told his Labor colleagues that former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg is only interested in himself, and has labelled the Victorian the “shadow opposition leader” following days of coverage over his forthcoming memoir.
“The shadow opposition leader has never lacked confidence in his own capacity, but when he’s had an opportunity to act, he never delivered an energy policy, and as treasurer, he never delivered the surplus,” Albanese told a caucus meeting this morning.
The prime minister said “Frydenberg’s priority has always been Josh Frydenberg”, and said he expected the former MP was “hoping people forget his record” at the upcoming Victorian state election. The leader of the Victorian Liberals, Jess Wilson, once worked as an aide to Frydenberg.
Extracts of Frydenberg’s memoir, A Grateful Son, have been circulated over the past few days, and the former MP has repeatedly appeared on television programs. Many have speculated Frydenberg is creating a launch pad for a return to federal politics after he lost to teal independent Monique Ryan at the 2022 election.
Albanese went on to criticise Opposition Leader Angus Taylor for attending the weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane, and said the Liberals had “abandoned any pretense of being a centre-right party”.
Telstra’s nationwide mobile outage in July wiped an estimated $552 million from the Australian economy, according to modelling commissioned by consumer advocates.
The FTI Consulting estimate, prepared for the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and seen by this masthead, is more than 500 times the roughly $1 million Telstra says it has paid in compensation.
ACCAN chief executive Carol Bennett said the telco at fault “didn’t foot the bill”. “Australian households and small businesses did,” she said.
Telstra said it had not seen the research, but the figures appeared to “significantly overstate” the outage’s economic effect.
The July 8 outage left more than 8 million Australians unable to make calls or use mobile data, and hundreds of Triple Zero calls failed.
ACCAN wants senators debating the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation bill this week to impose enforceable reliability standards on mobile networks. The Coalition says its amendments will ensure the findings of an inquiry by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, due next year, are properly considered.
Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington has told parliament that notorious childcare paedophile Ashley Paul Griffith has been approved for extradition to NSW to face further charges in the southern state.
“I do wish to take this opportunity at the first available opportunity to inform the House that … in the last 20 minutes or so, the Magistrates Court of Queensland has determined to extradite Ashley Paul Griffith to New South Wales to, I understand, [face] around 180 charges relating to children in New South Wales,” Frecklington said.
“[This is] something that I have been working as attorney with the New South Wales Attorney-General Michael Daly on for several months, and the reason why I was so determined to support that application was because victims deserve … their time in court, and that’s what they will now get in New South Wales for that person”.
Griffith lost an appeal against a Queensland life sentence in June, after pleading guilty to 307 state and federal charges involving 69 girls including rape, sexual abuse, indecent treatment, and child exploitation material offences.
The Reserve Bank is preparing for unemployment to push higher in its bid to bring down inflation.
Minutes of the bank’s most recent monetary policy committee meeting, at which the official cash rate was pushed to a 15-year high of 4.6 per cent, show a change in its attitude towards the jobs market.
The bank has what is described as a “dual mandate”, in that it seeks to hold inflation between 2 and 3 per cent while maintaining as many people in work as possible.
Recognising that inflation at 4 per cent remains well above its target, the minutes reveal a concession that unemployment may have to climb higher if inflation is to ease.
Greens leader David Shoebridge has slammed the joint parliamentary committee into artificial intelligence, labelling its inquiry a “Labor farce”.
“It was made clear from the start that the government would not allow me as the Greens AI spokesperson to have a seat,” the senator said.
“Hard questions and serious challenges to US big tech was never part of their plan.”
We reported earlier that committee member David Pocock has claimed the committee’s early recommendation letter to the government had been “heavily vetted” by Anthony Albanese’s office.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says Josh Frydenberg is “popping up like an illegal smoke shop” this week, and that his resurgence is “very bad for Angus Taylor’s health”.
“I watched [him] last night … I tell you, there’s another thing there’s not much to be gained from,” he told reporters outside Parliament House in Canberra this morning.
Joyce said the former treasurer had his sights set on Taylor’s job.
“We know what you’re up to. You want to be the leader of the Coalition … and you’re setting the groundwork up now.”
Frydenberg did not confirm when he would contest a seat again, only that it was possible he could make a return to politics.
Independent senator David Pocock has accused the prime minister’s office of editing the advice of a bipartisan committee on artificial intelligence.
Pocock, a member of the committee, said an online version of the letter, which recommended reviewing copyright law, had track changes from Anthony Albanese’s office.
“This is meant to be a letter from the committee, but clearly has been heavily vetted by the prime minister’s office,” Pocock told News24.
“I’m concerned that the major parties are working together to potentially get a preconceived outcome rather than actually listening to experts, listening to the community.”
London: British comedian and actor Russell Brand appeared in a London court for the start of his trial on rape and sexual assault charges.
The hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Monday (UK time) was adjourned for a day after a morning of jury selection. The prosecution is due to open its case this week.
Brand, who is on bail, left the court building beside the River Thames holding hands with his wife, Laura Gallacher. He had earlier arrived at court flanked by security guards.
Brand, 51, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault. The charges involve six women and alleged offences between 1999 and 2009. The trial is expected to last up to 10 weeks.
