What we learned: Sunday 21 April
We that, we are going to put the blog to bed. Before we go, here’s what we learned today:
Mourners will gather to pay tribute to those killed in the Bondi Junction attack at a candlelight vigil on Sunday night from 5.30pm at Bondi Beach.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says social media companies see themselves as being ‘above the law’.
The Albanese government appears to have been considering changes to the stage-three tax cuts from the moment it took office, according to documents revealed under freedom of information.
Elon Musk is a ‘narcissistic billionaire’, according to Labor minister Murray Watt
The Coalition has supported a call by the Israeli government to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation.
An artwork commemorating Indigenous Australian history has won the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale.
We’ll be back on Monday morning to bring you all the latest.
Updated
South Australia tops economic leaderboard again, but WA closing in
South Australia has managed to defend its title as the best-performing state economy based on its robust jobs market, growth performance and strong building activity.
The state topped CommSec’s April State of the States report, which gauges the economic momentum of each region, after also ranking first in January.
CommSec’s chief economist, Craig James, said South Australia was doing well, but there were signs its economy was losing momentum and it was possible Western Australia, another front-runner, could catch it.
Western Australia has the necessary momentum to pass South Australia to attain top spot in coming quarters.
States are assessed across various indicators such as retail spending and new home building starts to see how they are doing compared to “normal”, or the decade average.
WA topped the charts for population growth – that is, how quickly it is growing compared to 10-year trends – although most states and territories have had fast-expanding populations since borders reopened after Covid-19 lockdowns.
WA was also strongest on business investment, while the ACT led on retail spending.
James said state and territory economies were generally faring well despite clear challenges.
Overall, economies have slowed in response to higher interest rates, but have generally remained resilient, underpinned by firm population growth and low unemployment.
- AAP
Updated
The El Niño has ended. Will Australia get a La Niña next – and what weather could that bring?
The Bureau of Meteorology has declared the end of the 2023-24 El Niño event.
Since 1910, there have been 29 El Niños, a phase that sees easterly equatorial winds in the Pacific slow or even reverse. These increase the odds in eastern Australia for a dry winter into spring.
The opposite pattern, La Niña, has stronger easterly winds than usual, boosting chances in northern and eastern Australia of wetter than normal weather. Over the past 114 years, there have been 20 La Niñas, according to the bureau.
Guardian Australia’s Peter Hannam spoke to Karl Braganza, BoM’s head of climate services, who outlined key features of the recent El Niño, what’s coming and how climate change makes history a less useful guide. Read the full explainer:
Updated
Dip in auction clearance rates
Auction activity dropped slightly this weekend with 1,888 auctions held across the combined capitals.
This is a fall on the 1,978 held last week but still a gain on the 1,440 auctions that occurred at the same time last year.
Based on results collected so far, CoreLogic’s summary found that the preliminary clearance rate was 74.4% across the country, which is higher than the 72.7% preliminary rate recorded last week and well above the 65.2% actual rate on final numbers.
Across the capital cities:
Sydney: 613 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 73.8%
Melbourne: 877 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 72.7%
Brisbane: 177 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 75%
Adelaide: 167 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 86.5%
Canberra: 43 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 67.7%
Hobart: One of two auctions held.
Perth: Six of nine auctions held.
Updated
Consumer price data to set scene for interest rate call
Australia will get its first official quarterly update on consumer prices for 2024 after convincing progress on inflation in the second half of last year.
The March quarter consumer price index from the Australian Bureau of Statistics will be the key data release before the May meeting of the Reserve Bank board.
The central bank has been on hold since November and the next move is widely expected to be down, with the timing of those cuts unclear but thought to still be a while away.
When the ABS releases the March prices update on Wednesday, the central bank will be hoping for more progress to return inflation to its 2 to 3% target range.
In the December quarter of 2023, inflation rose 4.1% annually, down from 5.4% in the 12 months to December.
The 0.6% quarterly growth was also notable as the smallest three-month increase since the March quarter of 2021.
Yet the RBA acknowledges the final mile will be challenging and is anticipating more gradual progress.
Its latest forecasts have inflation reaching 3.3% by mid-2024 before finally making it back within target to 2.8% by late 2025.
- AAP
Updated
Government confident farmers will soon see fairer deals with supermarkets, Murray Watt says
Major supermarkets need to be held more accountable for their actions, the federal agriculture minister has declared, expressing confidence suppliers will soon secure better deals with grocery chains.
After the heads of Woolworths and Coles were grilled in fiery parliamentary hearings, Senator Murray Watt said progress was being made on farmers receiving a fair price for their produce.
The inquiry was set up over concerns supermarkets were price gouging at the checkout while also offering below market value prices to suppliers.
Watt told Sky News on Sunday that the inquiry was leading to steps in the right direction for farmers being better compensated.
It’s entirely appropriate that the supermarkets are accountable for their actions, whether it be through a Senate inquiry, a new mandatory code of conduct or anything else.
In the end, what we’re seeking here is simply a fair deal for farmers and for families, and I think any honest observer would say that that hasn’t been happening.
It’s great that we’re finally seeing some action here.
The inquiry comes after a review into the food and grocery code of conduct, which manages dealings between supermarkets and producers, recommended it be made mandatory.
Previously, the code was only a voluntary regime, with the review also recommending harsher penalties apply for supermarkets that breach the code.
Watt said farmers had also been forced to meet appearance standards for fruit and vegetables that were too high, placing additional pressure on them.
Everyone understands that poor quality fruit and veggies, no one would expect supermarkets to take them, pay for them and put them on shelves.
But I think what we’ve been seeing is a much too onerous regime for farmers, that it’s simply impossible to meet.
- AAP
Updated
Spammers, scammers alleged to be behind AI image flood
Images of children dressed as cabbages, amateur artwork and homemade cakes are racking up millions of views on Facebook, but experts warn the content might not be as innocent as it seems.
Among the most bizarre creations are images depicting Jesus made from prawns or other shellfish, which bemused users have dubbed ‘Shrimp Jesus’.
Other images purport to be amateur art, including elaborate rock and sand sculptures or breathtaking oil paintings that wouldn’t look out of place in the Louvre.
But while the weird and wonderful creations might appear to result from many hours of meticulous concentration, they were created in seconds with a computer.
1/ Have you been noticing AI-generated images in your Facebook Feed??
— Josh Goldstein (@JoshAGoldstein) March 19, 2024
Well, we have too. And we decided to write a (preprint) paper on it. cc: @noupsidehttps://t.co/rKAQ1IRqit
Researchers at Stanford Internet Observatory in California say the wave of AI-generated content appears to be an attempt to make money by attracting clicks and shares from social media users.
They analysed 120 Facebook pages that each posted at least 50 AI-generated images and collectively received hundreds of millions of engagements.
The researchers found that the spam pages were designed as clickbait to encourage users to visit suspicious websites or reveal their personal information.
Hacked pages were among those posting AI content, the study found.
Co-author Renee DiResta said that other pages appeared to be building large follower counts to increase their resale value.
Many Facebook users are unaware the images are not authentic. The posts also use emotive captions to encourage likes and shares.
Dan Halpin, the chief executive of cyber investigations firm Cybertrace, says the intention of the posts isn’t always straightforward and users should report the information to Facebook.
Such tactics are typically part of broader strategies aimed at either monetisation through clicks and affiliate marketing, or audience building for potential future use, potentially for scam targeting.
- AAP
Updated
Bus driver’s quick thinking praised for saving lives
A man fleeing police has died after his car collided with a bus on a New South Wales highway with 26 passengers lucky to be alive.
NSW police assistant commissioner Rod Smith said police were initially called to respond to a “domestic incident” outside Dubbo at 8.45am on Saturday.
Officers attempted to stop the man in a Mazda sedan around 9.15am on the Mitchell Highway near Dubbo. The driver failed to stop and the pursuit was called off soon afterwards due to safety concerns.
Police say the sedan crossed to the wrong side of the road and collided head-on with the bus travelling in the other direction near the intersection of Mitchell Highway and Eulomogo Road.
The driver, a man believed to be 32 years old, died at the scene.
Smith praised the actions of the bus driver in saving multiple lives.
The 50-year-old woman that was driving the bus took evasive action and probably saved the lives of a lot of people.
They’re extremely lucky.
NSW Ambulance assessed 26 people at the scene, with eight taken to Dubbo Base Hospital in a stable condition.
Seven bus passengers and the driver were all admitted for minor and non-life-threatening injuries.
Multiple ambulances were deployed to the area with patients aged between 10 and their 80s, authorities said.
- AAP
Updated
Artwork commemorating Indigenous Australian history triumphs in Venice
The artist Archie Moore has won the prestigious Golden Lion for best national participation at the 2024 Venice Biennale – the first time an Australian artwork has won the prize.
With this year’s theme of “Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere,” Moore won the award for his artwork, kith and kin, at the Australia Pavilion. The work, which has involved the artist mapping a sprawling genealogy in chalk, concerns 65,000 years of Indigenous Australian history and nonlinear concepts of time and place. Below a vast family tree covering the dark walls and ceiling stands a white table covered in records of First Nations deaths, including those in police and prison custody.
The piece, curated by Ellie Buttrose and commissioned by Creative Australia, is the result of extensive research – including in libraries, newspapers and archives, but also using Guardian Australia’s database Deaths Inside and discussions with family members.
For more on this story, read the full report by Clea Skopeliti:
Updated
Coalition backs Israel’s call for Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be listed as terrorist organisation
The Coalition has joined the Israeli government in calling for Australia to list the armed forces protecting Iran’s Islamic Republic – known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – as a terrorist organisation.
Earlier this week, Israeli diplomats briefed journalists in Canberra about their push to get the Albanese government to consider diplomatic measures and sanctions against Iran and any entities involved in training, financing or supplying the IRGC.
It comes as tensions have flared between the two states over the conflict in Gaza, resulting in air strikes against each other.
The opposition’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Simon Birmingham, told Sky News this morning Iran should be treated as a “rogue state” for its role as a “sponsor of terrorism” in the region.
Iran is a rogue state and it should be treated as a rogue state, and Australia should be working in concert with the United States, EU and other democratic allies right around the world and all other partners who are willing to take steps in terms of isolating the Iranian economy as much as possible, targeting the Iranian leadership as much as possible, and particularly targeting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ...
The Coalition has been clear that we will support the government if they need to change Australia’s laws to enable that to happen. The United States has already taken such steps, and other countries should do so because the IRGC is a sponsor of terrorism. It does so through Hamas, through Hezbollah, has been doing so through support for the Houthi rebels and creating massive disruption to trade and the global economy. And it persecutes and oppresses its own people, which we’ve seen through the murder of Iranian women and girls, as well as any other dissidents within Iran.
Updated
New study offers hope for long Covid sufferers
Some long Covid symptoms may not last quite as long as first feared, according a study of Australians infected early in the pandemic.
Immunological symptoms that were present eight months after contracting the virus had largely resolved for most patients by the two-year mark, the joint study by the Kirby Institute at UNSW and St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney found.
Lead author, Chansavath Phetsouphanh from the Kirby Institute, said:
For the majority of samples we analysed in the laboratory, the biomarkers previously indicating abnormal immune function have resolved.
The study followed a group of people who contracted Covid-19 during Australia’s first wave, as well as a control group, getting participants to self-report health information and analysing blood samples.
In a global first in January 2022, the study demonstrated that long Covid symptoms were consistent with biomarkers showing a sustained inflammatory response at eight months.
Nearly 18 months later, “significant improvements” were found in the blood tests of the infected participants and there were no longer any observable differences between the groups, Dr Phetsouphanh said.
That was backed up by the participants’ self-reported data, with 62% reporting improvements in quality of life.
While this was cause for optimism, it still left more than a third who did not report improvements, the lead investigator, Gail Matthews, warned.
- AAP
Updated
New forensic science institute to address Queensland DNA backlog
The backlog of cases at a forensic DNA lab has increased to more than 41,000 as Queensland’s opposition calls for a strategy to address the beleaguered service.
Forensic Science Queensland has been under the microscope in recent years over issues with DNA testing with two inquiries into the lab in 2022 and 2023.
In the first inquiry it was revealed many DNA samples went untested and others were incorrectly ruled insufficient by the lab.
An automated DNA extraction method used from 2007 to 2016, known as Project 13, was examined in the second inquiry and was found to yield up to 92% less DNA than the manual technique.
A backlog of 37,000 cases potentially needing re-testing was identified and that had now increased to 41,077, the health minister, Shannon Fentiman, revealed in response to parliamentary questions.
The government has committed almost $200m to reforming forensic services and providing support to those affected by the inquiries.
Queensland will also get a forensic science institute, becoming the first state with a dedicated statutory framework governing the provision of forensic services.
- AAP
Updated
‘Completely blindsided’: new owners of strata properties shocked by special levies
About three months after Jake* and his partner bought their apartment in Sydney, they faced an unexpected bill of more than $100,000. It was a special levy for major repairs needed to fix problems with the building’s waterproofing, but it was not flagged in the strata report or the previous year’s annual meeting minutes that had informed their decision to buy the apartment.
“We did our due diligence, everything we were advised to do,” says Jake, who has taken on another job to pay off the levy at $10,000 a month.
Jake is in the upper end of what industry experts say is an increasing number of strata property owners – which can include apartments, townhouses and villas – facing extra payments on top of regular levies to cover maintenance.
The experts say in some cases owners who cannot afford the special levies are forced to sell their property – sometimes to buyers unaware of an impending levy.
Amanda Farmer, a strata lawyer in Sydney, says 90% of the disputes she deals with now are to do with failures to repair and maintain buildings.
What I am seeing more of are buildings that need to raise large sums of money at short notice. I’m seeing owners be completely blindsided by a very large bill that they have to contribute to, and they just had no expectation, no warning that this bill was coming.
For more on this story, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Jordyn Beazley:
Updated
Musk a ‘narcissistic billionaire’, Labor minister says
The agriculture minister, Murray Watt, has described the Twitter/X owner, Elon Musk, as a “narcissistic billionaire” after the tech mogul accused Australia’s eSafety commissioner of censorship and vowed to challenge a court order to remove graphic content on the site relating to Sydney’s church stabbing.
Musk’s comments followed the commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, warning that X and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, could face potential fines for failing to comply with an issue to remove content reflecting “gratuitous or offensive violence with a high degree of impact or detail” within 24 hours.
Watt told Sky News on Sunday morning the Australian public “had a gutful of these narcissistic billionaires who think they are above the law”.
Watt said:
Yeah, look, I saw his comments and it’s exactly what you’d expect from Elon Musk. He doesn’t think he seems to owe any obligation to any member of the public. Quite frankly, I think the public’s had a gutful of these narcissistic billionaires who think they are above the law. They have a social responsibility to do the right thing by their consumers. They’re not doing it. They do think they are above the law. They’re thumbing their nose at the laws that we have in place. And I think it’s entirely fair that we go after them.
They have a responsibility as producers and disseminators of information to do the right thing by the public. They make a lot of money off the public, billions of dollars a year, and I think they owe us all a responsibility and they should comply with the laws like everyone else does.
Updated
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, is in Sydney today and will speak to reporters at 1pm.
We will bring you the latest as it comes.
Updated
‘It’s like the mission days’: Indigenous and prison reform advocates outraged at NT prison expansion plans
Families who have been calling for therapeutic services in NT to reduce the number of people in the Territory’s jails are outraged at a decision to build more prisons.
Nyikina and Jabirra Jabirra woman Natalie Hunter, founder of the Northern Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, said the Territory needed services, not jails.
When are they going to listen to our black voices instead of blocking them out?
It has been decades of neglect, of not properly implementing recommendations from report after report.
Tiwi woman Yvonne, who asked not to publish her last name, said plans for new women’s prisons looked like dorm style accommodation.
It’s like the mission days where my mother grew up ... all clumped together.
It’s not culturally right.
You are putting women back through the stolen generation, taking their babies away and locking them up in places like that. Give us some dignity.
The executive director of the Justice Reform Initiative, Mindy Sotiri, said it was an “expensive step in the wrong direction”.
The proposed expansion will take prison bed numbers to almost 2500 in the Northern Territory, for a population of just under 250,000.
Comparatively, the NT has just 41 public mental health beds.
- AAP
Updated
Don Dale to become adult prison once again
Families and experts are outraged after the Northern Territory government announced Don Dale will again become an adult prison.
As part of a $123.5m budget announcement on Friday, the attorney general, Chansey Paech, committed to three new adult prisons in Alice Springs and Darwin.
More than a decade after the Berrimah jail, currently known as Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, was decommissioned, Paech said the facility will become a 100-plus bed training centre and adult prison.
In coming months, children will be moved from Don Dale to a new youth detention facility next to the adult prison in Darwin’s northern suburb of Holtze.
The corrections department hopes to create up to an additional 150 beds, but is still waiting to see the condition of the facility following a riot by 16 young people last month.
Paech said two existing alcohol rehabilitation facilities – Paperbark in Alice Springs and Stringybark in Darwin – will be converted into “therapeutic” women’s prisons with up to 140 beds across the sites.
Women are currently held within sections of prisons dominated by men in Alice Springs and Darwin.
The NT corrections commissioner, Matthew Varley, told reporters it was the largest infrastructure expansion in Territory jails over the past decade.
It is the next generation of facilities; we’ll go from four correctional facilities in the NT to seven.
Paech said he was confident the alcohol and rehabilitation services would continue but couldn’t provide further details.
- AAP
Updated
Government had considered changes to stage-three tax cuts in 2022, documents show
Former independent senator Rex Patrick has obtained under freedom of information advice requested by the federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers, from Treasury, which he says shows the government was considering changes to stage-three tax cuts soon after the government was elected in 2022.
Posting on social media, Patrick has shared images of documents with different tables outlining various options about how to proceed.
I support changes to the #Stage3TaxCuts. I also support truth in politics. After a long #FOI fight with Treasury I’ve now been given advice @JEChalmers requested on 15 Jun 22 and received on 01 Jul 22. It’s clear Labor were interested in tax changes from the get-go. 1/2 #auspol pic.twitter.com/fBwTCat75H
— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) April 20, 2024
We will bring you more as this story develops.
Updated
Higgins issues first public statement after Lehrmann defamation loss
Brittany Higgins says she hopes Justice Michael Lee’s judgment in Bruce Lehrmann’s failed defamation case will set a new precedent for how courts consider the testimonies of victims of sexual assault.
In a statement on Saturday, Higgins also said she was “devastated a rapist was given a nationwide platform to maintain his lies about what happened”. She hoped people who contributed to Channel Seven’s Spotlight program last June, in which Lehrmann was interviewed, “will reflect on their decision”.
But Higgins also apologised to the former defence minister Linda Reynolds and her then chief of staff, Fiona Brown, after Lee’s judgment rejected Higgins’s claims of a political cover-up.
“I was raped. No judgment was ever going to change this truth,” Higgins said in her statement, which she posted to social media on Saturday afternoon.
I lived with the shame, humiliation, and fear of what telling my story would mean for my life and career, like so many other victim survivors.
I was scared I wouldn’t be believed or supported.
For more, read the full report by Guardian Australia’s Lisa Cox:
Updated
Renewable projects ‘need social licence’ to operate, Dutton says
The opposition leader claims his party is the only party with a “credible pathway to net zero by 2050” because Labor’s policy relies on the construction of 28km of poles and wires to shift energy around the country. Dutton has attacked this as a $1.2tn spend.
Asked about whether a re-elected Coalition government would allow renewable energy companies to keep investing or put a stop to growth in the industry, Dutton says he is “more than happy to have renewable investment” but adds “there needs to be social licence with communities”.
There is a moral argument to part of this as well. In the end, as I say, we need to be mindful of our environmental impact that wind turbines don’t have any social licence off the Hunter Coast where they are 260 metres out of the water.
This is also a good point to note that many of the claims made against wind turbines have been misinformation, and there has been a very real campaign to exaggerate or spread disinformation about the alleged environmental impact of these structures.
Updated
Dutton on energy: ‘We can’t turn the old system off until the new one is ready’
Dutton sums up the Coalition energy policy very simply: “we can’t turn the old system off until the new one is ready”.
Dutton also makes the claim that Australia is the only country in the G20 that doesn’t have a nuclear industry, and is pulled up by David Speers who points out that Indonesia does not have a nuclear industry, and both Italy and Germany have phased out nuclear power.
Developed economies are only operating because of a firming up power. I know that people want to pretend that wind and solar can go around the clock. It can’t. You need a base load power and maybe hydrogen is the solution, but it’s not prospective and not going to be scalable by the account of many. Let’s hope it is. Let’s hope the batteries work out, let’s hope there is more hydro into the system, but we need to deal with the realities and if we don’t, we will see a significant collapse within our economy. That’s why you need to have 24/7 base load power in there which nuclear can do. The other point in relation to the environmental impact, which is Bill Gates’ point, a 470mW small modular reactor takes two hectares of land. The equivalent energy yield out of solar takes 4,000 hectares, 10,000 acres.
Updated
Dutton pushing ahead with nuclear plans to ‘see manufacturing grow’
On nuclear power, Dutton says his party is not yet ready to outline its plan to establish a nuclear power in Australia saying “there is policy work being done at the moment”.
Obviously the events of the last week, for example, meant that part of our program couldn’t be rolled out and that’s not unreasonable, as you would expect. News events overtake all sorts of issues – the government had a defence policy that they wanted to spend time on during the week.
Dutton reiterates that he is forging ahead on nuclear power because he wants to “see manufacturing grow” and “power bills for families reduced”.
I want to see businesses prosper so they can employ more staff and pay more taxes … As we know, 90% of base load power comes out of the system over the next decade.
This is probably worth a timely reminder that a Coalition government, led by Tony Abbott, oversaw the closure and dismantling of Australian car manufacturing.
Updated
The opposition leader says he is “happy” for the Coalition’s proposal for a royal commission into the abuse of Indigenous children to “extend” to include women.
I would be happy to support anything at all that sees the incidence reduced, that sees women and children growing up in a safer environment and also, frankly, to point out where programs are working and the vast majority of good that happens in our society, that we need to talk about, but where we get it wrong, we should be addressing it and this is the number one priority.
Updated
Dutton says video games and social media a factor in violence towards women
Asked about the Bondi Junction attack and the decision not to label the attack a terrorist attack despite the attacker’s apparent targeting of women, Dutton says he agrees that the number of women being killed is a “crisis”.
I’ve been to many scenes of domestic violence and those images stay with you forever – the blood, the violence, the screaming children. The options available are probably greater today than they were a long time ago when I was a police officer in terms of shelter and in terms of financial support, etc, but it is getting worse.
Dutton says he is particularly concerned about violent games and online videos.
I remember advice from the Asio director general a number of years ago that really stuck with me, that a young person sitting behind a computer screen could be convinced to strap a bomb onto them without any religious belief whatsoever, if they were listening to the right videos and the right indoctrination just over a couple of weeks.
And if that’s possible, then the treatment of women, what they are seeing in some of the computer games, what they are seeing on social media, normalisation of all of that, the lack of manners in society more generally because I think social media has dumbed that down – all of that is a key element to it as well.
Updated
Duttons says he would support cancelling Australian visas for people who are violent towards police
Dutton says he would support the revoking of a person’s visa where they are a non-citizen and respond violently to police, as occurred where a riot erupted following the attack on a Assyrian priest.
If a decision-maker at the Department of Home Affairs had looked at the application for that person to come to our country and been made aware of video of that nature in another part of the country where that person was born, they wouldn’t issue the visa in the first place. So if you come here, you sign up to the conditions of the visa. That means that you conduct yourself according to Australian law and if you don’t, you can reasonably expect to have your visa cancelled.
Updated
Dutton is asked about the Coalition’s initial opposition to disinformation laws proposed last year, described as “a debacle, Orwellian and so on”, has changed in the wake of the Bondi Junction attack.
The opposition leader says “we need to get the balance right”.
That is, we don’t want to impinge on your ability to express a view, but we need to do it respectfully. As I say, the same laws need to apply in the real world as they do online. It is a matter of enforcing the laws and taking action, giving the eSafety commissioner further powers if that’s required. Here we are talking about images in particular which are offensive and which can trigger violent reactions as we saw earlier this week.
Dutton is asked whether he is “willing to boycott social media”. He says that many parents are confronting that decision now and that he has sought to prevent his children from using social media as long as possible.
But as a leader of the opposition, who is a regular Twitter user?
Dutton: Well, to be fair, I’m not. I can’t stand it.
David Speers: But you post every day.
Dutton: Well, certainly my staff do and I do send stuff through, if I’m being honest. But in terms of our own experience, we didn’t allow our kids to have access to that, and we resisted for as long as we possibly could, and I think that’s the most appropriate action here.
Speers: But you will keep posting under your name and face?
Dutton: We will keep posting, but we won’t post disinformation or misinformation or violent images. Again … used in a responsible, sensible way, it’s fine, but people – again, the actions that we saw at the church the other night, the violent response there, I suspect those individuals would have responded that way regardless of what Meta or other companies did because that reflects their values and their approach, and a violent reaction is how they thought they should respond to that situation.
Updated
Social media platforms ‘impeding police investigations’ into child exploitation material, Dutton says
Peter Dutton says the Coalition is willing to back laws to address misinformation and disinformation in the wake of the Bondi Junction attack.
The opposition leader, in particular, singles out the use of social media platforms for spreading or sharing child sexual abuse material.
As home affairs minister, we tried to get all of the Five Eyes partners together – the home affairs ministers – to exert pressure, particularly in relation to the child protection space. These companies have snubbed their noses at governments in the United States, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Australia for many, many years. The European Union, I think, has had a gutful as well. And they’re allowing paedophiles to distribute, through their networks, images and videos of children being sexually abused. They are impeding the investigations of the police. So there are many aspects here that we need to deal with.
Updated
Social media companies see themselves as ‘above the law’, Peter Dutton says
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, says global social media companies see themselves as “above the law” and has joined calls for tougher action to force these companies to take down material by enforcing the Online Safety Act.
We know that the companies – and we’ve seen some of the comments from Elon Musk overnight – they see themselves above the law and the Australian law here should apply equally in the real world as it does online.
The opposition leader also says the Musk’s claim that Australian laws do not apply outside Australia is a “red herring.”
I’m sure that’s the case, but in terms of the content which is displayed here or broadcast here, well, the Australian law does apply and the fact is that X and Meta and other companies have a presence here.
They make, or at least turn over, billions of dollars’ worth of revenue in the Australian economy. I think what they’re worried about is the flow-on to other markets if Australia’s laws are upheld, and that’s all the more reason, I think, for us to take a stance. It’s important for us, but for other democracies as well.
Read more on Musk’s and X’s comments:
Updated
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, will be speaking to ABC Insiders’ host, David Speers, this morning.
Coming up on #Insiders with host David Speers:
— ABC News (@abcnews) April 20, 2024
• 🔎Opposition Leader Peter Dutton
• 📷 Cathy Wilcox
• 🛋️Samantha Maiden, Phil Coorey, and Lenore Taylor
See you at 9am #auspol pic.twitter.com/QaAMzuf9fa
We will bring you all the latest as it happens.
Updated
Victims of mass killing at Bondi Junction to be honoured
Bondi beach will be the backdrop for a candlelight vigil to honour the victims of Australia’s worst mass killing in years.
From 5.30pm hundreds of mourners are expected to gather to reflect and pay tribute to those killed during the stabbing attack at Bondi Junction shopping centre last Saturday.
A first-time mother defending her baby, the daughter of a millionaire advertising guru and an on-duty security guard were among the six people killed in the attack.
Five of the six killed were women – Ashlee Good, 38, Dawn Singleton, 25, Jade Young, 47, Pikria Darchia, 55, and Yixuan Cheng, 27.
Faraz Tahir, a 30-year-old refugee who fled persecution in his native Pakistan, was also killed.
At least 12 others – including nine women – were taken to hospital after suffering stab wounds in the attack.
Six people remain in hospital, including a nine-month-old baby girl.
The vigil will begin with a minute’s silence in honour of those whose lives were lost.
Attenders are being asked to bring candles.
- AAP
Updated
Good morning
And welcome to another Sunday Guardian live blog.
Hundreds of people will gather at Bondi beach early on Sunday evening for a candlelight vigil to honour the victims of the Bondi Junction stabbing attack. Mourners are expected to gather from 5.30pm to take part in the act of remembrance. Six people died and six remain in hospital after one of the largest mass killings in recent Australian history.
Elsewhere, Brittany Higgins says “it is now time to heal” in her first public statement since Bruce Lehrmann’s attempt to sue journalist Lisa Wilkinson and Network Ten for defamation failed. Higgins said she was “devastated a rapist was given a nationwide platform to maintain his lies about what happened” and that she hoped Channel Seven “will reflect on their decision” to interview Lehrmann on its Spotlight program.
I’m Royce Kurmelovs and I’ll be taking the blog through the day.
With that, let’s get started ...
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