Photograph: Jason Knott/Alamy
What we learned, Friday 18 September
That’s a wrap on a jam-packed week of live coverage!
Before we go, let’s recap today’s top headline.
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Anthony Albanese is flying to the US today to visit the Apple headquarters in California just weeks after the government released sweeping reform designed to keep children safe online. Albanese will also head to New York to lead Australia’s delegation at the UN general assembly’s high-level week, to promote Australia’s commitment to multilateralism and meet international partners.
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In the podcast with Neil Mitchell, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, has warned of major security threats from international actors including Iran and China.
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Home affairs department officials warned that Australia faces a growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use. Meanwhile, AI companies have told the federal government Australia needs to slow down its AI use and create better security laws.
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Drivers in NSW with a prescription for medicinal cannabis will be legally allowed drive with traces of the drug in their system after laws passed state parliament.
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Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank governor, said “upside risks to inflation appear to be materialising”, setting the central bank on course to deliver a fourth interest rate hike later this month.
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Hundreds of Qantas ground crew workers are preparing for a 24-hour strike next week amid an escalating industrial dispute, but Qantas said that it has contingency plans to minimise the impact on customers.
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A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.
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A Western Australian man has died after being bitten by a shark at Sorrento beach in Perth’s north.
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The administrators of the embattled Bathla Group have been given a 12-month reprieve to find the money to keep the Sydney-based property development company afloat.
Have a lovely weekend!
Updated
WA man dies after reported shark attack at Sorrento Beach
A Western Australian man has died after a reported shark attack at Sorrento Beach in Perth’s north.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development was called to the City of Joondalup beach at about 10.15am on Friday following reports of a possible shark-related incident in the water.
Emergency services, including Water Police, the Police Air Wing and ambulances, were deployed to the scene.
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Alan Jones trial completes hearing evidence of three of the six complainants
Alan Jones went from being a trusted mentor to a “hostile” presence in the life of an alleged victim after a “boundary was crossed”, a witness told a Sydney court today.
The witness, a close friend of complainant M, did not give evidence in person but his statement was read on to the record by prosecutor Georgina Wright SC on Friday.
He is one of three friends M has testified that he told about the alleged assaults.
Complainant M finished his evidence on Friday morning after four days on the witness stand. The charges are that Jones of kissed M twice without consent and pressed his genitalia against his thigh. The friend said.
There was a point that there was a sharp shift in the relationship between the two.
I started to notice M actively avoiding speaking about Alan, and if Alan was brought up in a conversation, you could visibly see M’s body language change and his tone.
I remember telling M that he should have flogged Alan.
The trial has now completed hearing the evidence of three of the six complainants and will move onto a fourth next week.
Jones, 85, has been charged with 20 counts of indecent assault and two charges of sexual touching against six men. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
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South Australia's struggling wine industry gets more funding poured in
The South Australian government has announced funding to support a troubled $2.4bn wine industry grappling with oversupply, lower grape prices, changing demand and rising costs, AAP reports.
Premier Peter Malinauskas said the $108m package would help growers transition unviable vineyards to other crops and expand an export campaign to exploit the gap in Canada’s market, created by its trade war with the US.
Speaking in the Barossa Valley on Friday, the premier said global structural change in the industry had created an exceptionally large oversupply of wine, and “the impact for the Australian industry has been profound”.
The industry has also struggled with years of drought, and with China’s crippling ban on Australian wine, which ended in March 2024.
The premier said there were “other markets that we know can grow”.
Canada is a growing market for reasons that I won’t offer any personal opinion of.
But for reasons that are self-evident, Canadians aren’t drinking American wine where they once used to, and that gives Australians a really big opportunity to put our wine on Canadian shelves.
The SA Wine Industry Association’s Lucy Clements said the package was a pivotal moment “and the start of a journey of recovery”. The Freestone Estate chief executive said.
The wine industry has been touched by very hard times recently … and we are at the heart of that in South Australia.
I am fortunate enough to travel widely globally, meet with buyers all around the world.
So having the runway and the support to do that globally is just such a blessing - and Canada is absolutely part of that story.
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Federal police confiscate $2.5m of assets allegedly linked to crime, including $93,000 wine collection
The Australian federal police (AFP) have confiscated more than $2.5m worth of assets allegedly purchased with the proceeds of crime, following a decade-long investigation.
The investigation began in 2016, after Queensland police alerted federal authorities to a wine collection, a boat and a trailer seized during search warrants.
The confiscated assets include two houses, the sale proceeds from a third property, a 124-bottle wine collection valued at $92,900, and two boats and a trailer.
The assets were linked to a 44-year-old Queensland man and his 43-year-old de facto partner, who allegedly transferred properties into the names of family members and close associates before declaring bankruptcy in July 2015.
The man was convicted in April 2020 after being found guilty of several offences, including trafficking dangerous drugs and was sentenced to 17 years and six months in prison.
Later the year, authorities obtained orders in the Queensland supreme court to obtain the two houses and a Riva Ferrari boat and trailer.
Prosecutors alleged in court that the transferred properties and other assets were initially bought with, or later funded in part by, the proceeds of the man’s criminal activity.
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Court gives developer Bathla 12-month lifeline to prevent total collapse
The administrators of the embattled Bathla Group have been given a 12-month reprieve to find the money to keep the Sydney-based property development company afloat.
Bathla – one of Australia’s largest property developers – went into voluntary administration on 25 August, weighed down by almost $3.6bn in debt, leaving thousands of customers in limbo, some with semi-complete homes they’d bought off the plan.
The insolvency advisory Teneo, which was appointed as Bathla’s administrator last month, sent out a press release a short time ago saying the New South Wales supreme court had approved an extension to Bathla’s administration until 13 September 2027.
The court’s decision means Bathla won’t be immediately forced into liquidation, but it still leaves Teneo scrambling to find the funds to pay creditors to whom the company owes money, as well as its own staff and the contractors for its many projects.
In a statement, Teneo said:
The extension provides the administrators with sufficient time to progress the delivery of construction projects already underway, subject to securing the necessary funding to maintain a minimum viable operating structure.
Teneo’s Stephen Longley said the 12-month extension reflected the size of Bathla’s construction portfolio and the “varying stages of completion” across its projects. He said:
We have taken a cautious approach to the timeframe to ensure there is sufficient time to progress and complete projects in an orderly way …
The extension gives us the time needed to progress projects towards completion, but that outcome remains dependent on securing further lender support to maintain critical central functions at Bathla.
Locking in this funding is therefore an immediate priority and discussions are continuing.
Teneo said it would provide further updates to customers, employees, creditors, subcontractors and other stakeholders as the administration progresses.
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Possible shark incident at popular Perth beach
Emergency services have been called to a possible shark-related incident at Sorrento beach in Perth’s north.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said it received reports of a possible shark-related incident in the water at the City of Joondalup beach at about 10.15am on Friday.
Emergency services, including water police, the police air wing and ambulances, were deployed to the scene.
Western Australia police said they would provide more information once they had established the circumstances of the incident.
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Victorian police officer charged with assault after teenager allegedly kicked and punched during arrest
A Victorian police officer has been charged with assault following an investigation by the state’s independent corruption watchdog.
The senior constable was charged after a investigation into allegations the officer used excessive force against an 18-year-old during an arrest in Ballarat in October 2025.
It is alleged the officer punched and kicked the teenager multiple times while they were handcuffed and compliant.
The officer is expected to appear before a magistrates’ court next month.
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Good afternoon!
Thanks to Stephanie Convery for being our guiding light this morning. I’ll be with you for the rest of the day.
That’s all from me today – I’ll pass you over now to the inimitable Achol Arok who will take you through the rest of your Friday afternoon.
AI firms want right to use vast amounts of global and Australian content, government says
AI companies have ruled out training models in Australia without reforms to copyright laws because the amount of local and global data they want to process is too vast to do individual deals, the attorney general’s department has confirmed.
The government has made its first wide-ranging comments on copyright negotiations at a parliamentary committee hearing today.
Jenna Priestly, assistant secretary, said rights holder groups claimed AI companies could make a “relatively small number” of deals under current rules, to access plenty of material to train their models on.
But AI companies have told the department they won’t train here under existing copyright rules. Priestly said:
What we’ve heard from them is that because the magnitude of copyright material they need to use for this training is so large, it’s practically, I guess, impossible to ... strike the number of voluntary deals that they would need to be able to manage their legal risk.
Priestly said copyright applies in the country where activity occurs, implying any local reform would affect companies’ access to overseas-made content.
As Australia’s copyright framework protects not only copyright material that’s Australian in origin, but worldwide, I think it is a fairly large number that [companies] would need to go and strike deals with.
Priestly said the government late last year consulted on giving AI companies the full legal right to access content that wouldn’t have let rightsholders opt out of their material being used in AI training. The government has moved to considering a narrower data training authorisation in response to feedback and has not made decisions on its reform plans, she said.
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Runaway Tasmanian devil back in her sanctuary after weeks on the loose
A runaway Tasmanian devil named Mary has returned to her home at Paradise Country on the Gold Coast after spending weeks on the loose.
Mary escaped from her enclosure at the theme park in June and spent several months in recovery after being found.
The marsupial has spent recent months exploring the wildlife park and will soon return to the public exhibit, where she can interact with visitors.
Paradise Country curator of wildlife, Lauren Mousley, said:
It has been a long road to recovery for Mary, but we are incredibly pleased to see her back exploring her habitat so confidently.
Throughout her recovery, Mary has defied all the odds, with her improvements being phenomenal, and we can’t wait to welcome guests to the park to watch as the mischievous Mary explores.
Our team have been so dedicated in supporting Mary throughout her recovery and it is amazing to see their reactions when she took her first steps back into the habitat.
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BoM updates website with new rain radar features
The Bureau of Meteorology has made some changes to the way its website shows rain radar, a year after it launched an unpopular new site design for which it later apologised.
The new update, which went live on Friday, includes the addition of radar locations, radar quick links, changes to how rainfall is displayed and “radar range rings”, which the Bureau says “provide a visual measurement guide to how far rainfall is from familiar landmarks and locations.”
There are also new features that the Bureau says are designed to feel more like “the old radar view”.
In a statement today, the Bureau said rain was “better detected and more accurately displayed on the weather map”, with higher definition and detail when very light to moderate rainfall is observed and when data from overlapping radars is used.”
Each radar also had a unique URL.
Bureau of Meteorology CEO Dr Stuart Minchin said in today’s statement that the updates were in response to community feedback:
We know how much value the community places on their local rain radar, so we’ve listened to feedback and made these updates to help you get to your local radar faster and estimate how far away rain is.
There are more updates planned for later this year, including some changes to Australian places with dual-names.
We encourage the community to continue to share their website feedback, and we will respond with enhancements and adjustments.
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Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co to close five stores
Long-time Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co, which operates Cue and Veronika Maine, will close five physical stores across Australia.
The five stores are Woden Cue, Parramatta Cue, Mosman Veronica Maine, Melbourne Central Cue and Armadale Cue.
The Sydney-based company, established in 1968, entered voluntary administration earlier this week after failing to find a buyer for the struggling business.
In a statement, administrators FTI Consulting said:
A difficult decision has been made to close five stores across the network, which the Receivers believe is in the best interest of the businesses as a going concern.
No concessions are included in the closures. The Receivers will explore opportunities to re-deploy staff across the network where possible.
Child protection roundtable expected next week
A national roundtable on Australia’s child protection system is expected to be held in Perth at the end of next week, following calls from Indigenous leaders and federal politicians.
Earlier this week, reporting by The Australian uncovered multiple failings by Western Australia’s child protection department in addressing reports of neglected First Nations children living unsupervised and in squalor in Port Hedland.
Lawyer and human rights advocate, Kurin Minang Noongar woman Hannah McGlade was first to call for a national roundtable, which has been backed by the independent senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe, who said:
What has happened in Western Australia is horrific. We need real action to keep children safe.
We cannot accept the status quo, which is seeing children across the country exposed to extreme risk and harm within these systems.
I support Dr Hannah McGlade’s call for an urgent roundtable of Aboriginal leaders working in child and family safety.
We also need a federal inquiry to hold the Albanese government to account. We are seeing failures in child protection systems nationwide, and the Albanese government is failing to act.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, is expected to announce that the roundtable will be held in Perth on Friday next week.
The Guardian understands the roundtable will take steps to address calls from Indigenous leaders for a complete overhaul of child protection.
The government will also discuss how it can act on past recommendations, findings and policies that are already available.
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Queensland police union pushed for changes to definition of victim of domestic violence
The Queensland police union has pushed for the changes to the definition of victim of domestic violence, in order to reduce paperwork for officers dealing with domestic violence callouts.
In a Wednesday press conference, general president Shane Prior said the union wanted domestic violence to only apply to people in a romantic partnership, and not to include, for instance, violence by adult children against their parents.
That change hasn’t been included in the bill, but Prior said he was still pushing for it:
I certainly don’t stop when I’m told no the first time. No means not right now. So what I’m going to be focusing on is making sure that we deliver for police in this state.
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AI is enabling foreign interference and hackers, home affairs department says
Australia faces growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use, home affairs department officials say.
Kira Spencer, a deputy secretary, has told a parliamentary committee a key risk for Australia is AI in “information operations”, which are security agencies’ use of deception and psychological warfare. She said:
AI’s quicker, easier, nastier. And it enables it to be much more realistic and so the language is better. If you’re looking at targeted foreign interference, they scroll all your parliamentary speeches, your social media profiles, everything about you so they can find a really targeted way to engage with you and make it more likely that you will engage back.
Spencer said some AI companies had been able to track false communications from state actors but the government could not match the companies’ large-scale tools.
Officials also said AI made it “easier, faster, cheaper” for malicious actors to hack Australia’s key systems.
Part of the argument for Australia to bring in AI companies to train AI here is that law enforcement could better address threats or law breaches. Fergus Hanson, head of the Office of AI, told the committee:
If you’ve got an AI training firm physically located here, it enables a different type of collaboration, for example law enforcement cooperation. So if there is a threat to Australians’ lives, through misuse of those platforms … This just invites a different level of collaboration that you can have, that is not possible if you don’t have the companies necessarily located in your jurisdiction.
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Queensland to allow on-the-spot DV orders to be issued against victims
Queensland police will be able to issue on-the-spot domestic violence protection orders against victims of domestic violence, under new legislation tabled yesterday.
The legislation eliminates all exemptions to the state’s police protection direction system, and makes them the sole alternative to the civil DVO system available to police. Police will be now be able to issue them on behalf of other police, or against children.
It also permits so-called “cross orders” – a direction against both people in a relationship – “in exceptional circumstances”, where the officer cannot identify the victim or offender. According to documents tabled with the bill:
Cross applications and cross orders are used by perpetrators as a means of continuing to control, intimidate and terrify victims.
Experts have warned of potential police misuse of the new system, because there is less oversight. Police have been repeatedly found to have routinely misidentified perpetrators and victims by a string of inquiries, often due to a culture of disbelieving female victims.
The legislation is designed to make the system more efficient, by reducing the paperwork police are required to complete for a protection order.
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Major ABF system outage causes delays at Australian airports
An Australian Border Force (ABF) technical outage caused major delays for international passengers at Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane airports on Friday morning.
An ABF spokesperson said the issue affected both outbound and inbound passengers and was resolved by 11am.
The force has launched an investigation into the cause of the outage.
Are migration rules hitting supermarket shelf prices?
Supermarkets won’t say whether labour shortages in Australian farms are going to push up shelf prices and worsen food shortages.
The National Farmers’ Federation’s Mike Guerin told reporters yesterday that farms were already running short of backpackers to help with the harvest and Labor’s reforms would only worsen that. Guerin said:
We will see a lift in the price of food. We will see emptier supermarkets. The food insecurity being built into the system right now by the inability of family farms to go about their business in the normal way is breathtaking. And while it’s yet to play out directly for consumers, for people in the cities, it’s very close. We will not be able to finish the harvest this year, before Christmas …
The economic impact for farmers is immediate and significant, and it will flow through to Australia’s supermarkets very quickly.
Labor has rejected those predictions, claiming farms can bring in any workers they need from Pacific countries through the dedicated visa stream.
The supermarket giants could not guarantee steady prices or supply when specifically asked by Guardian Australia. Coles and Woolworths declined to comment, signalling sensitivity to the political conflict over immigration.
We understand Coles management is not presently observing signs of product shortages.
The big supermarkets have significant control over their own prices, switching sales promotions in sync. Woolworths has reportedly pressured its suppliers for lower prices, though the company earlier this year raised prices on staple products during a price freeze promotion.
Both major supermarkets boosted their profit margins last financial year, with Coles enjoying its highest margin since at least 2019. Woolworths has denied its higher margins came from higher shelf prices.
Note: After publication, Guardian Australia confirmed Woolworths was “not presently observing signs of product shortage.”
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Sydney teen boy charged over alleged series of break and enter and arson offences
A teenage boy has been charged following a series of alleged break and enter and arson offences across Sydney, according to NSW police.
Police allege that a 14-year-old boy broke into a home in Leichhardt with another young person and stole a Hyundai sedan at around 5am on Sunday 16 August.
About 7.50am, the boy filled a jerry can with fuel at a service station on Parramatta Road, Camperdown, and allegedly left without paying, police said.
They also allege the boy smashed the glass door of a Strathfield business, poured petrol from a jerry can into the premises and set it alight on 19 August, before setting alight petrol poured over a parked Mercedes and a driveway in Greenacre.
A short time later, police say, the boy filled a vehicle with fuel before driving away without paying from a service station in Lakemba.
They allege the boy also poured petrol over the driveway and onto a parked MG sedan before setting it alight at a Bankstown home on Monday 24 August.
Police will allege the boy was recruited and paid to carry out these offences.
He has been charged with multiple offences, including aggravated break and enter and two counts of destroying or damaging property in company and using fire or explosives, value exceeding $5,000.
The boy was refused bail and will appear before a children’s court on Monday 21 September.
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Asio head reiterates warning about China possible attack on power networks
Further to the podcast episode featuring the Asio head, Mike Burgess: he specifically named China as a country trying to hack into Australia’s major power and telecommunications networks, saying while an attack was not imminent, China wants the capacity to “turn [those networks] off should they need to”.
He made a similar warning last year, saying Chinese hackers were consistently “probing critical infrastructure”.
Burgess said a state-sponsored cyber-sabotage attack on Australia was a real possibility.
Nation states are hacking power and telco networks preparing for the day that they can turn them off should they need to.
Now to be very clear — that’s not going to happen any time soon, but in a time of conflict, nation states are preparing to do that.
They are working actively to understand our systems and I believe in some cases they could do it today should they need to.
Asked which country was responsible, Burgess named China.
I’ve spoken about this before publicly — China is preparing for this. But again, they’re not going to do it any time soon.
China’s the principal concern for Australia.
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Police say alleged murder of university student ‘extremely complex’ and still being investigated
Abdy said a police ballistics report showed a firearm that was located at the site of the alleged murder of university student Marco Tapia was the same firearm that was used in the shooting at Hurstville and Turrell.
He said the Tapia matter was still being investigated by the homicide squad.
That investigation is extremely complex and it’s very important that all the evidence is examined before people are charged obviously with the very serious offence of murder…
We’ll work with [the Homicide Squad] in our evidence-sharing to establish the link. These people obviously are significant persons of interest. Once that evidentiary standard has been met, if it gets met, then Homicide will take carriage of the further prosecutions.
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More on four arrests
Abdy said it was “troubling” that one of the alleged offenders was just 16 years old:
It’s extremely troubling. It’s been well documented, I think, and reported in the last couple of weeks about organised crime networks using young males, particularly to [alleged] commit such violent acts where they prey on their risk-taking behaviour, and placing them, you know, essentially on a life that’s probably not what they thought it was going to be.
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Four arrested and extradited to NSW over alleged connection to shootings
Four people have been arrested and extradited from Victoria after allegedly travelling to Sydney to carry out “criminal acts linked to two shootings” in August, NSW police have said.
Speaking to the media just now, acting Det Supt Brad Abdy said a 22-year-old man was arrested in Epping, while a 23-year-old man and 26-year-old woman were arrested in Donnybrook, along with a 16-year-old boy, in connection with the shootings.
He said:
These four people were later taken to Victoria police centre where they were placed into custody and later appeared in court in Victoria for extradition proceedings.
Those proceedings were later granted and they have since been extradited from Victoria to New South Wales where they will currently be charged with a variety of offences relating to the shooting at Turrella and the shooting at Hurstville.
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Qantas ground staff prepare to strike as dispute escalates
Hundreds of Qantas ground crew workers are preparing for a 24-hour strike next week amid an escalating industrial dispute, but Qantas said that it has contingency plans to minimise the impact on customers.
The 600-plus workers on the airline’s freight and regional QantasLink service are preparing to strike in Victoria on Wednesday, and across the rest of the country on Thursday, according to the Transport Workers’ Union.
The TWU says the airline’s use of subsidiaries, instituted under former Qantas management, has frustrated attempts to bring pay and job security in line with industry standards.
The union wants to replace multiple enterprise agreements for ground staff and freight handlers with one agreement.
The Australian reported that Qantas is applying to the Fair Work Commission to prevent the industrial action.
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Top AI developers would have to report incidents, standards say
Developers of the most advanced AI, if they came to Australia, would have to report concerning events to the government.
The government’s consultation paper on AI standards says frontier labs will have to meet specific, minimum-security and safety expectations, including disclosing reportable AI incidents to the government.
OpenAI on Wednesday reported six new critical incidents, the latest in a string of cases in which AI agents took unexpected and unauthorised actions.
Top labs could be required to contribute to the Australian economy by reserving some computational power for Australian research, subsidising public-interest research or hiring local staff, under options proposed in the paper.
The paper reads:
Without mechanisms to encourage onshore research activity and investment in the broader research and innovation ecosystem, Australia risks hosting AI infrastructure and training activity while the associated research outputs, model development, intellectual property and commercial returns accrue offshore.
The government is taking submissions from members of the public and top organisations until 9 October as Labor plans to release draft legislation by year’s end.
The paper has a curious endnote:
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to summarise and compare submissions to support policy work. This includes using AI tools to analyse sentiment to help us understand patterns and trends in submissions. We only use AI where it is appropriate for the task and the information involved.
Asio chief Mike Burgess says Iran may want to ‘kill prominent Jewish Australians’
In the podcast with Neil Mitchell, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, said Australia’s Jewish community also faced threats from state actors, in particular Iran.
He said:
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Iran would want to kill prominent Jewish Australians.
Asio has previously identified two attacks on Jewish properties – the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne– as being directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador and three other diplomats from the country in August 2025.
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Expect fuel prices to be ‘much higher for longer’, RBA boss says
Australians should brace for “much higher for longer” oil prices and fuel costs, according to Michele Bullock, the RBA governor.
Bullock told an parliamentary economics committee hearing that when the US-Israel war on Iran started there was a “baseline assumption, certainly on our part and amongst many other countries, that it would be short-lived, and that the rise in oil prices and associated fuel prices and other energy prices would be short-lived, and they would ultimately come back down”.
While the worst-case scenarios may not have come about, “certainly scenarios where we’re seeing much higher for longer oil prices, fuel prices, those sorts of things, that’s sort of more in the world we’re in now”.
As the war rumbles on into its eighth month with little sign of resolution, Bullock said there had been a “realisation” among central bankers that they would need to act.
There was a tendency to wait and see, but now that fuel prices have been much higher for longer, and you are seeing that reflected in inflation overseas, central banks are responding. And you’ve seen that in the responses … particularly in the US and Europe, and some other countries being on high alert.
The US Fed lifted rates this week, the first hike since 2023.
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Big datacentres will have to bring renewables unless alternatives have ‘clear benefits’
The Albanese government has detailed the core parts of its AI standards as it consults on the new rules to be brought in early next year.
Large datacentres will be forced to offset their energy usage with new renewable projects, unless using state-owned infrastructure would have “clear benefit” keeping the grid more stable and prices lower.
That is the compromise reached with the Northern Territory and Queensland governments, which run parts of their energy systems.
Projects will also be required to manage their energy use during peak periods and cover their own energy and water network costs so households don’t face higher prices.
Developers will be required to engage “meaningfully” with communities and First Nations peoples, draw on local suppliers “where possible”, and build away from “sensitive community areas”, such as schools and homes.
The projects will have to support training of construction and operational workers to ensure they don’t worsen Australia’s skills shortages. Efficiency standards for water and energy use are also under consideration.
The government is considering applying those to datacentres with 30-100MW capacity, excluding smaller builds. Datacentres with even higher usage could face “more substantial requirements”.
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Spy chief Mike Burgess says there has been a widespread failure to tackle antisemitism
Australia’s spy chief has said Australia’s politicians, community leaders and media have not done enough to keep Australia’s Jewish community safe from antisemitism.
The director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, spoke at length on a podcast hosted by broadcaster Neil Mitchell.
“We still have antisemitism as a problem and that does concern me,” he said:
It’s got to a pretty high, disturbing level.
It raised its ugly head after the 7th of October. It started with threatening, intimidating behaviour and then, a year later, it transitioned to direct targeting of people, places of worship and businesses. And then we saw the death of 15 people. I reckon that’s a bad place for us to be.
Burgess said more needed to be done to prevent conflation of the state of Israel with Jewish people in public and private rhetoric.
It’s OK to be angry at the state of Israel. But how you deal with that anger, it really does matter. I’d like to think there are people who are kind of passionate and they’ve got a right to have that strong view. Are they deliberately wanting to be antisemitic? No, I don’t believe they are, but their actions may well be.
Burgess said there was a widespread failure to counter growing antisemitism.
All of us should have stood up more. Maybe I could have shouted more. Political leaders could have said ‘this is not right’. I mean, a couple of them did do that, but not many of them did. The media should have probably watched how it was reporting.
By all means be critical of the state of Israel but actually say, ‘but we’re not talking about Australians or people of Jewish faith’.
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RBA governor paves way for rate hike in September
Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank governor, says “upside risks to inflation appear to be materialising”, setting the central bank on course to deliver a fourth interest rate hike later this month.
Bullock told a parliamentary economics committee:
Inflation is too high. We are focused on getting it back down and making sure that it does not become embedded into price and wage-setting decisions.
The governor said at the RBA board’s last meeting they were worried that inflation would come in hotter than hoped, and it looked like that was happening, despite the slowing economy.
She said:
Global cost pressures have increased – the Middle East conflict, the AI boom and extreme weather events are contributing to upward pressure on a range of energy, agricultural and technology-related prices.
There is little sign of resolution of the Middle East conflict. Oil and related prices have increased sharply again and will add directly to inflation. Through our liaison program, we are hearing that many firms are passing on higher input costs.
The RBA board will meet on 28-29 September, where the “key question” will be whether the three rate hikes earlier this year will be enough to bring inflation back to the 2.5% target “in a reasonable time”. Bullock said:
I recognise that higher interest rates are difficult for Australians with mortgages who are also facing cost-of-living pressures. But reducing inflation is essential. High inflation hurts all Australians and is especially tough on people with lower incomes and those in vulnerable financial positions.
Labor already ‘removing people’ who overstay visas: Thistlethwaite
Matt Thistlethwaite says the Labor government has already been “removing people” who overstay their visas.
Still on that News24 interview, he said:
I know that because I sign off on the removals. We do remove people. But what we’re committing to here is additional resources. There’ll be an additional 100 officers that will work and there’ll be an additional 250 beds in detention centres for those people who overstayed.
In 2015, the previous government changed the system so that mainly people that were detained were those that had committed crimes.
Now, anyone that overstays their visa, if you overstay a tourist visa, you overstay a student visa, you’ll be picked up and you’ll spend a few nights in a detention centre, and we think that that will deter a lot of people from overstaying.
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Labor’s migration policy ‘completely different’ from One Nation’s
Matt Thistlethwaite has insisted Labor’s migration policy is “completely different” from One Nation’s, but that deporting people who overstay their visas has “always been our plan”.
Thistlethwaite made the comments while speaking to Peter Stefanovic on News24, with the latter suggesting to the assistant minister for migration that Labor’s policy had been “partly borrowed from One Nation and then rushed once you didn’t get Coalition support”.
Thistlethwaite responded:
No, it’s completely different. If you look at the changes that we’ve made, it’s all about ensuring that we deliver the numbers for migration that we’ve budgeted for in the budget that we put out in May. And secondly, that we’re strengthening the integrity of the system by removing people who don’t have the right to remain in Australia because they’ve overstayed their visa. So, they’re the two major elements.
When it was suggested that “that’s One Nation’s plan”, the assistant minister said:
Well, it’s always been our plan as well.
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Labor will 'look at' idea of following Canada in seeking closer ties with EU
Federal Labor will “look at the issue” of Australia possibly following Canada’s lead in seeking closer ties with the European Union, assuming it was in Australia’s national interest, the assistant foreign affairs minister, Matt Thistlethwaite, has said.
Thistlethwaite’s comments come after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that Canada should become the EU’s first associate member, to which the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, responded: “Canada welcomes this idea.”
You can read more about that here:
Speaking to News24, Thistlethwaite said:
We will look at that issue, but I mean, obviously, I think it needs to be in Australia’s national interest. … We recently signed a free-trade agreement with the European Union. Both of our parliaments are in the process of ratifying that. That will deliver substantial increases and boosts to exports of Australian products into one of the largest consumer markets in the world. So, we made that decision because it was in Australia’s national interest. And we’ll consider this proposal on the same vein.
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A woman believed to be the mother of a newborn baby found dead in a bin last month has been charged.
The boy was found inside a rubbish bag in an apartment block bin on Harrow Road at Auburn in Sydney’s west on 31 August by a local resident.
NSW police put out a desperate plea to find the baby’s mother, saying their main priority was getting her medical care.
More than three weeks later, police said a 24-year-old woman believed to be the infant’s mother had been identified.
She was taken to hospital for assessment and then arrested upon her release on Thursday evening and taken to Auburn Police Station.
The woman was charged with “mother alone conceal birth by disposing body”.
She was granted conditional bail to appear before Downing Centre Local Court in October.
Auburn Police Area Acting Commander Darren Sly said it was believed the baby had been in the bin for up to 36 hours.
“It’s sad and a horrific set of circumstances,” he told reporters on the day the boy was found.
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The Albanese government is considering a “world-leading” ban on smart glasses in its offices and service centres as councils around Australia push the technology out of public spaces over privacy fears.
The government has avoided a sweeping ban on the import of the camera-equipped technology and encouraged individual workplaces to set their own rules.
The public service minister, Katy Gallagher, said on Thursday she had asked the Australian public service for advice on whether the glasses should be prohibited.
Gallagher said:
We need clear and consistent guidance for public servants.
Smart glasses can raise legitimate privacy and security concerns, particularly because of their ability to record and capture information.
Commonwealth-run workplaces range from bureaucrats’ offices to Centrelink service centres and CSIRO laboratories.
Read the full story here:
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Microsoft, Telstra, Kmart to contribute to AI in the workplace guide
Labor will meet with executives from Microsoft, Telstra, Kmart and more to develop what the government is calling a “best practice guidance for AI in the workplace”.
The employment and workplace relations minister, Amanda Rishworth, will host an “AI employer roundtable” in Canberra, including executives from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Microsoft, AGL, Telstra, Kmart, Blackmores Group and Ramsay Health Care.
Labor said the roundtable would “draw on the experience” of companies that had already introduced AI into their businesses “with a focus on how businesses can realise the productivity benefits of AI while supporting workers through technological change”.
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OpenAI warns Labor about global security threats
Australia needs to slow down its artificial intelligence use and create better security laws, the companies creating the technology have told the federal government.
In a submission to an ongoing inquiry, OpenAI said national leaders had a responsibility to work with other countries to stop global security threats:
Many of the most consequential risks will not stop at national borders, making international co-ordination increasingly important.
It said Australia was in a narrow “defender’s window” during which it could use the technology to find and fix cybersecurity threats, rather than create them.
Tech giant Atlassian, which runs AI system Rovo, used its submission to urge the government to bolster its laws. International standards and work already undertaken overseas should be used to protect Australian consumers, it said.
“We need to embrace governance and regulation as a force multiplier for trust,” Atlassian’s head of regulation, Anna Jaffe, wrote, arguing that tighter privacy crackdowns would also benefit the tech sector as clients would be more likely to engage with them.
The comments come after OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk displayed rare unity in backing Anthropic’s head Dario Amodei, who called for a slowdown in “reckless” AI development through a three-part essay.
– AAP
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NSW opposition claims new drug-driving laws will make roads less safe
The NSW opposition said the state Labor government’s new drug-driving laws would “[make] NSW roads less safe and [put] more lives at risk”, claiming the science on impairment from THC levels was not settled.
Mark Coure, the shadow minister for roads, said the government had “pushed ahead with the legislation despite the absence of a scientifically agreed test for cannabis impairment and has refused to release any evidence underpinning its approach”.
He continued:
Drivers deserve laws that are fair, clear and based on science. Police deserve laws that are workable and properly drafted. Patients deserve clarity about how their prescribed medication may affect their legal position.
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Medicinal cannabis driving laws pass in NSW
Drivers in NSW with a prescription for medicinal cannabis will be legally allowed drive with traces of the drug in their system after laws passed state parliament.
The legislation alters laws that saw drivers with traces of THC in their system immediately lose their licence for three months, instead allowing drivers who register under the new scheme to drive under strict conditions.
These including that THC in their blood is below a threshold of 50 ng/ml, they hold a valid prescription, and they undergo an online education program about cannabis and safe driving.
The government said roadside drug testing would continue and there would be no changes to the roadside drug-testing process carried out by police.
Registered patients who exceeded the THC threshold would be issued with warnings for the first two instances, while a third in two years would result in penalties, including a $722 fine and a minimum three-month licence suspension.
The roads and regional transport minister, Jenny Aitchison, said:
These reforms balance road safety with the need for a new system for patients who rely on this legally prescribed medication, without the fear of being treated like a criminal …
From now on, eligible medicinal cannabis patients, who are not impaired, will have a clearer system, more opportunities for education, and a chance to adjust their behaviour before facing penalties.
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Amanda Rishworth defends Labor’s cuts to migration
Employment minister Amanda Rishworth has said she “[doesn’t] accept the premise” of the argument that Labor’s proposed cuts to migration would threaten food security and affect the cost of living.
She told ABC News that “there will still be access to backpackers”, saying they would be required in their second and third year to work in regional areas, and that the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) would still be running.
Rishworth said:
I’d encourage farmers to have a look at that [PALM] scheme, because there is opportunity. But more broadly, when it comes to migration, it is about taking a response that ensures that we have integrity in the system, that we have compliance in the system.
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Asia Group chairman hopes for return of globally engaged America
Kurt Campbell, chairman of the Asia Group and formerly the national security coordinator for the Indo-Pacific in the Biden administration, told a US thinktank that US willingness to work with allies “occasionally is lost” but that he hoped for a return to a more globally engaged America.
The CSIS event marked five years since the announcement of the Aukus pact between the US, UK and Australia.
I believe that this enduring quality of American diplomacy will see a brighter day again.
I would simply say that the idea that we will enhance our security by withdrawing from allies and partners is deeply, profoundly misguided. And we have many historical examples of moments of American retrenchment. In almost every case that has led to degrees of global calamity. And so I’m all for opportunities to work constructively with allies and partners.
Campbell said while the US had partnerships with other nations that were strong and durable “they come, frankly, from a tradition of a degree of paternalism”.
On the part of the United States, we’ve got to clear out some of those hurdles that make cooperation with the United States that much more difficult. And it means approaching some of these partnerships with a much higher degree of humility.
Under Pillar One of the proposed Aukus agreement – a multi-decade deal slated to cost Australia $368bn to the mid-2050s – Australia will buy three “in-service” Virginia-class nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines from the US, beginning in 2032.
From the early 2040s, Australia expects to deploy a new, larger Aukus-class submarine. The new class will be designed in the UK, and the first boat built for the Royal Navy. Australia will then build Aukus submarines – except for their nuclear reactors – in South Australia.
But the proposed deal has faced consistent criticism over laggard shipbuilding rates in both the US and UK, and over Australia’s sovereign control of the boats: whether Australian submarines would be expected to join any potential US conflict in Australia’s region.
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'Sovereignty, prosperity and peace are not a given': Penny Wong
Anthony Albanese will head to New York to lead Australia’s delegation at the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level week, to promote Australia’s commitment to multilateralism and meet international partners.
The prime minister will also deliver Australia’s National Statement, which will share Australia’s values and priorities – including digital safety, climate change, security and peace - to the largest annual gathering of world leaders.
In a statement, Albanese said:
Australia’s prosperity and security depend on a strong global system, where nations work together, agreed rules are respected, and co-operation delivers shared benefit
It’s expected several bilateral meetings with world leaders will also take place on the sidelines of the summit as Australia ramps up its bid for a seat on the UN’s Security Council.
Australia is bidding to become one of the 10 non-permanent members of the 15-seat council during 2029 and 2030. A vote for the spot isn’t due to take place until 2028, but lobbying efforts will intensify during the general assembly. Australia last held a seat on the Security Council in 2013 and 2014.
In a statement, the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said “sovereignty, prosperity and peace are not a gift or a given.”
From building coalitions for the protection of aid workers and the rules countries like Australia rely on for our security and prosperity, to advocating for a better UN system fit for these uncertain times.
– With AAP
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Albanese to meet Apple boss after social media reform
Anthony Albanese will fly to the United States to visit the Apple headquarters in California just weeks after the government released sweeping reform designed to keep children safe online.
The prime minister will meet with Tim Cook, Apple’s executive chair of the board of directors, to discuss Apple’s new parental controls for children – which the government characterised as “in part inspired by Australia’s groundbreaking reform”.
The tech executive issued an open invitation to the prime minister to visit Apple’s California headquarters after a phone call between the pair in June.
It comes after Labor introduced its digital duty of care reform, including new laws that require platforms to protect children from online harms including content that glorifies eating disorders, misogyny, crime or stunts, and abuse or bullying. It’s also almost a year on from Australia’s world-first ban on under 16s from using social media.
In a statement, Albanese said he was “proud that Australia is setting the world standard for digital safety”.
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Britain’s Aukus chief says adversaries’ hatred of deal shows its success
One of the markers of the success of the Aukus nuclear submarine deal is how much it is opposed by potential adversaries, Britain’s Aukus chief has told a Washington DC thinktank.
Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the UK prime minister’s special representative on Aukus, told an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: “our adversaries hate Aukus”.
They really hate it. And in a sense, the way in which you can judge whether or not it is doing the things that you want it to do is how much people who don’t necessarily share our value systems and our objectives are objecting to it.
Australia’s ambassador to the United States, Greg Moriarty – secretary of the defence department when the Aukus deal was struck in 2021 – concurred, saying China had “made clear it’s very unhappy with Aukus”.
It believes that – or it’s said as much, I’m not sure if it believes it – that it’s destabilising the region. I think when you look at the way in which China is putting additional nuclear-powered submarines, additional nuclear armed submarines, it’s building its submarine capability and its nuclear missile capability at such a pace, these Australian boats are not destabilising the region. We are seeking to balance in the region and … the growth of PLA nuclear powered submarine capabilities is very profound.
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Labor 'worked through all the policy issues' on immigration, Burke says
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, has defended the time Labor has taken to release its immigration plan and blamed the Coalition who “might have more of an appetite for legislation”.
Burke on ABC’s 7.30 was asked “what took you so long” – given he was meant to speak at the National Press Club six weeks ago.
He said the Labor party had spent time “working through all the policy issues”, and navigating the visa system was complex.
Every part of the economy is affected by immigration these days for Australia, and so … dealing with the challenges we’ve got with housing supply, which is not immigration’s fault, but immigration needs to be part of the answer, to do that in a way that has the softest landing for the economy is something you’ve got to get right.
The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, told 7.30 that the Coalition had “laid out what we needed as preconditions in order to be able to work with the government and they couldn’t meet the preconditions”.
The numbers are too high and what we’ve seen from the government today is no cut to the numbers … We are a great immigrant nation. Make no mistake about it. But immigration needs to be capped based on the housing supply, the infrastructure, the services we have, and that has not been the case in recent years.
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Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Stephanie Convery with the main action.
The woman believed to be the mother of a newborn baby found dead in a bin in Sydney last month has been arrested. More coming up.
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