The day that was, Thursday 9 June
That’s where we will leave the live blog for Thursday.
Here’s what made the news today:
- The energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the Coalition’s attempt to push nuclear power as an option to address the energy crisis is a “complete joke”.
- The federal government will renew the gas security mechanism beyond its due expiry date of 1 January next year and will also review how it works.
- The Liberal leader, Peter Dutton, confirmed that before the election, defence was working on a plan to purchase two Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US by 2030, as a stop-gap before nuclear submarines could be made in Australia.
- The deputy prime minister and defence minister, Richard Marles, accused Dutton of playing “rank politics” in making the statements.
- Covid booster doses will be recommended for at-risk children between 12 and 15 years old.
- The Victorian government will offer payments of $3,000 to all staff working in public hospitals and ambulance services in recognition of the challenging circumstances they’ve faced.
- The NT will close its Covid-19 quarantine facility on 16 June.
- There were 59 reported Covid-19 deaths across Australia.
Until tomorrow, I hope you keep warm.
Updated
Google cracks down on scam ads
In a bid to tackle the meteoric rise of financial scam ads, Google will require advertisers of financial services in Australia to demonstrate they are authorised by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) and have gone through Google’s advertiser verification program to promote products and services.
The same policy of regulator verification is already in place in the UK, and the new regime will be rolled out in Australia from 30 August, 2022.
Google’s government affairs and public policy senior manager Samantha Yorke said:
We work tirelessly to make sure the ads we serve are safe and trustworthy, and we know that partnering and collaborating with government regulators is critical to our success. That’s why we’re closely coordinating with the appropriate Australian regulators to make sure this program is effective at scale. In the coming months, we plan to further expand these verification requirements to advertisers in additional countries and regions.
In 2021, the company blocked or removed over 58.9m ads for violating the financial services policy.
The ACCC reported that Australians lost more than $205m in the first four months of 2022 with the majority of losses coming from “crypto-investment scams” which increased by over 300%.
Updated
