Call to criminalise AI technology used for child abuse
Report makes recommendations to minimise harm from strip searches
Alex de Minaur claims victory at the Washington Open Independent politicians are pushing for artificial intelligence technology that is used to create child abuse material, to be outlawed. Kate Chaney, the Member for Curtin, introduced a private members bill to criminalise downloading software that allows users to insert a person's photos and use generative AI to sexualise them. The legislation follows a roundtable on AI-facilitated child exploitation, which called for urgent action. Dannielle Kelly from the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children welcomed the move.
"We will always say that a child is always being injured or abused in the beginning of any process of AI. So there is always a real child that has gone through the system, and then it it becomes further and further away from that real child. However, if if you have a child, and if you are a parent, as Ali said, you are going to have that worry that your child is on the internet somewhere, and that this is a continuation."
Labor backbencher Ed Husic says the government should be prepared to increase pressure on Israel to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said Israel's actions are completely indefensible and are clearly in breach of international law. The coalition has blamed Hamas for the lack of aid reaching Gaza. Israel's deputy chief of mission to Australia has also said they don't recognize any famine or starvation in the Gaza Strip. Mr Husic says Australia should consider stronger sanctions.
"I believe that we should be prepared to do that. The government has taken some action recently, which was important. I think the combination of the statement last week, some of the images that came out last week that attracted international attention, plus the decision of the French government to recognise Palestine, those things alone, I would argue, in just the week, would have prompted the Netanyahu government to acknowledge the tenor of international concern and start allowing more aid to go in."
A new report has warned of the trauma caused by a controversial strip search policy in New South Wales and the disproportionate impact on First Nations Australians. A report from Harm Reduction Australia and Redfern Legal Centre has analysed previously unreleased police data, showing more than 85 per cent of over 80,000 strip searches conducted in the past 10 years have found no drugs. Tobias Elliott-Orr, the First Nations Legal Officer at the Redfern Legal Centre, says young Indigenous people have been especially targeted with strip searches. "The big takeaway from the recommendations is the negative effect searches are having on anyone being searched but especially young people and young First Nations people. We're finding that First Nations people are obviously over-targeted and over-policed with these strip searches and normal searches. They've been akin to the level of trauma of something similar to a sexual assault. It can have long-lasting effects on not only their trust and relations with police but also on a psychological level, the harm that it's causing." The report recommends the end of strip searches targeted at children under 18 and those suspected of minor drug possession and calls for the end of drug dogs at festivals and events.
The authors have also called for evidence-based drug reforms and the expansion of harm reduction programs.
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has introduced a private members bill to dump Australia's net zero climate emissions target. It marks an escalation in the group of Coalition backbenchers who are fighting against net zero, with Nationals including Matt Canavan, Colin Boyce, and Michael McCormack as well as Liberal MP Garth Hamilton pushing for the commitment to be scrapped. They say the plan is driving up power costs, hurting regional industries including mining, metals, and manufacturing, and hurting the communities in regional areas. The Opposition is currently reviewing all policies it took to the May election after their significant defeat. Nationals leader David Littleproud says he supports Mr Joyce's ability to table a bill. "We've got a process, a unanimous process, agreed to by a party room, to review this, to get the economic analysis to come back with solutions and alternatives. That's not going to be forever. That's a process that will only take a couple of months. We've got back benches that have every right to bring forward private member but members bills, you should never discourage that."
The bill is expected to fail with no support from Labor or much of the crossbench.
In tennis, Alex de Minaur has survived three nail-biting championship points and fought back to win the Washington Open title and re-enter the top-ten players in the world. The Australian men's number-one fought off fellow 26-year-old Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 5-7 6-1 7-6 in the final to claim his first title of the year and the 10th of his career. The hard-fought tiebreaker capped off a week full of positives for de Minaur ahead of next month's US Open in New York, while Spaniard Davidovich Fokina fell just short of claiming his first ATP Tour title. As seen on the Tennis Channel, De Minaur stayed humble after the win, saying he got lucky against his opponent.
"You're way too good to not have one of these, it's coming for sure. You deserved it today, I just got lucky. You are a hell of a competitor, a hell of a player. No one on the tour wants to play you and this is not the end, this is only going up for you."
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- ABC News
Uncertainty still surrounds government pay deals with police, teachers, and nurses and midwives
Most people know at least one nurse, midwife, police officer or teacher. They make up a tick over 63 per cent of Queensland's key frontline workforce, and right now the state government is negotiating new pay deals with all of them. Griifith University industrial relations expert Ben French said dealing with three such influential groups all at once put the government in a "tricky spot". The situation is a result of enterprise bargaining agreements "rolling over" during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Now they've all come up at the same time for the new government," Dr French said. It's been tough going for negotiators. The police union has agreed in-principle to a deal, but the government is in conciliation with both the nurses' and the teachers' unions in front of the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC). In early August, teachers across the state went on strike for the first time in 16 years. Earlier in the month, nurses and midwives took industrial action by refusing to do tasks not related to critical care. Pandanus Petter from Australian National University's School of Business and Politics said as opposition leader, David Crisafulli was keen to paint himself as someone who would not repeat "the mistakes of the Newman era". "He positioned himself as someone who was not going to radically cut the public service," Dr Petter said. "He was saying, 'You know, what I want to do is empower the public service.' The government has offered an 8 per cent raise over three years to the police and teachers, while nurses and midwives have been offered an 11 per cent wage rise. This "fairly prescriptive model" has come with various add-ons and extras for each industry, Dr French said. He said these one-off payments "that are not part of the actual increase" are a way the government can save money down the track. "If you get a pay rise and you get an increase, it's on the base rate … the next time you come around your base rate is higher and you can build on that," he said, adding bonus payments did not feed into employees' super or overtime. Already those differing extras have caused friction. The Queensland Nurses' and Midwives' Union (QNMU) publicly derided the government for offering some police officers an $8,000 retention bonus over two years. Secretary Sarah Beaman said it was "outrageous" that the government had already struck a "better deal" with the police union after months of negotiating with the QNMU. The nurses and midwives EBA nominally ended on March 31, while the teachers and police ended on June 30. "Does this government have a problem with nurses and midwives?" Ms Beaman asked. Dr French said none of the three deals were set in stone. The state legislation allows for six months of negotiations from the day the EBA nominally ends or three months from the beginning of conciliation. After that, the parties can apply for arbitration, where the QIRC will decide what's fair. In the case of nurses and midwives, who are chasing a 13 per cent wage rise they say will deliver "nation-leading pay", the last scheduled conciliation meeting is September 2. At the behest of QIRC deputy president John Merrell, the QNMU agreed to pause industrial action until then, but said they would take further steps if negotiations failed. The Queensland Teachers' Union sent a letter to members on Thursday, seen by the ABC, confirming they had given the government until the end of the month to come up with a better deal or risk further strike action. QTU vice president Leah Olsen said more work stoppages would be a "last resort" option for the union, adding the union's members did "not take industrial action lightly". "Further strike action during school hours can be avoided if the government delivers a package members see value in," Ms Olsen said. As for the police, while there is an in-principle deal in place, union members still have to vote on whether to approve it next month. "My guess is they will vote it down," Dr French said. Both Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek and Health Minister Tim Nicholls have expressed their commitment to getting deals over the line through the conciliation process. Mr Langbroek said the government met with QTU negotiators 18 times over five months before the conciliation process began. The QNMU said they had met with the government for a total of more than 150 hours before they took industrial action last month. Dr Petter said with an election just gone there was little political risk for the government to come off as "tough but fair" in this round of negotiations. However, if three-year deals were signed all round, the next time they would be negotiating would be in the lead up to the 2028 election.
ABC News
2 hours ago
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Selling out or selling up? The battle for Santos takes a twist
The gloves are off. The battle for control of oil and gas giant Santos moved up a gear this week after Ryan Stokes, chairman of Beach Energy and son of billionaire Kerry, took a swipe at the Abu Dhabi government's tilt for a large slice of Australia's energy market. A clearly incensed Stokes delivered a blunt assessment of the Middle Eastern gas giant's $36 billion takeover, suggesting it could end up denying Australians access to their own energy source. "A question we'd have is: 'Is that right in the national interest, given the importance of domestic gas?'" he asked. He didn't have to wait long for a response. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) quickly slapped him down, dismissing the criticisms as "clearly opportunistic and [reflecting] a commercial interest in the outcome". With $36 billion on the table — the biggest all-cash takeover offer in Australian history — ADNOC too has a significant commercial interest in the outcome. There's been surprisingly little, if any, debate around the merits of the takeover or the identity of the purchaser. Had the Australian government announced plans to purchase Santos, there undoubtedly would have been furious debate over the nationalisation of a vitally important commercial operation. Instead, a foreign government with potentially shifting global allegiances and a track record of dubious activities across Africa and Asia has stumped up a stupendous amount of cash for the same crucial energy infrastructure with nary a hint of community or political questioning. He's best known in the west as the money man behind the fabulously successful Manchester City Football Club. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the younger brother of the United Arab Emirates's all powerful ruler, is one of the richest men in the Middle East and the UAE's deputy prime minister and vice president. Rarely seen in public, he never attends Manchester City games and has managed to maintain a low profile despite controlling key institutions like the Emirati central bank, the Abu Dhabi criminal authority and the nation's rapidly growing $330 billion sovereign wealth fund. He also chairs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the entity leading the Santos takeover. But his influence extends well beyond the UAE's borders. An in-depth investigation by the New York Times, published just last month, outlines a web of shadowy connections, linking Sheikh Mansour to several long-running conflicts in Africa. Until recently, he's somehow escaped scrutiny. But last year the British government intervened to prevent the sheikh buying The Telegraph over concerns it could diminish press freedom. His name was also raised in trials in the United States and Malaysia amid accusations Sheikh Mansour profited from 1MDB scandal, one of the world's biggest financial frauds. More recently, Manchester City has been accused of breaching funding rules on 130 occasions to purchase star players that have transformed the club from mediocre also-rans to top of the Premier League, accusations denied by the club. But it is the revelations of Sheikh Mansour's associations with regional warlords, outlined in the New York Times, that are concerning. For years, he has been aligned with Lt General Mohamed Hamdan, the powerful Sudanese commander who seized power in a coup and who, two years before the latest conflict erupted in the war-torn North African enclave, he had hosted at an Emirati arms fair. Just weeks before the conflict erupted into outright civil war in 2023, the NYT reported Hamdan was a guest at Sheikh Mansour's Persian Gulf palace. US Democrats have called for a ban on weapons exports to the Emirates. The UAE, meanwhile, has vehemently denied any involvement in arming Hamdan's forces, which have been accused of massacres, mass rape and genocide in the ongoing war. It is a conflict that has resulted in the death of 150,000 and displaced more than 12 million people, making it the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. For a country swimming in surplus energy, it seems almost inconceivable that Australia's most populated areas have faced gas shortages and soaring electricity prices for much of the past decade. The blame can be sheeted home to a series of bungled decisions that allowed gas to be exported from the east coast by three giant consortia without ensuring adequate domestic supplies. Domestic gas prices, which previously had traded around $3 a gigajoule, trebled and then quadrupled to match global prices and beyond. Much of the blame could be sheeted home to Santos. At the last minute, it doubled the size of its liquifying export plant on Curtis Island just off the Queensland coast near Gladstone without fully shoring up its gas reserves. Finding itself short of feed to meet its export contracts, it then proceeded to drain the domestic market. The ongoing shortfalls drove energy intensive manufacturers to the wall and were a major contributing factor to the inflation outbreak for the past three years that only now is under control. It is into this charged environment that ADNOC has parachuted. Santos, for decades a chronic investment underperformer, has been offered a price that far exceeds the company's value. According to one financier who requested anonymity, the UAE based group has suddenly decided it needs to be a global entity and is executing that strategy regardless of price. "There are only a handful of assets globally that are available if you wanted to scale up. There's a few in America and then there is Woodside and Santos. "So ADNOC is willing to deal on non-commercial terms." But there are concerns about the Middle Eastern energy giant's ambitions. Some believe that, despite its statements and assurances, it isn't the slightest bit interested in Australia's domestic gas market, Instead, the thinking is that the firm has its sights set on the Barossa gas field in the waters north of Darwin along with Santos's Papua New Guinea operations and its prospective play in Alaska. Ryan Stokes and his father Kerry have a direct interest in the outcome of this mega-deal. Their Beach Energy has a joint venture with Santos in one of the world's largest carbon capture and storage projects, in the Cooper Basin, a major gas field smack in the middle of Australia, that has supplied the east coast for decades. While Stokes has since gone to ground, insiders believe the pair were miffed at not being informed of the deal, given their commercial link, and may now be looking to expand Beach's domestic gas operations by purchasing Santos assets. ADNOC isn't alone on the transaction. There's another Abu Dhabi government entity along with US private equity group Carlyle. Exactly what role Carlyle will play has yet to be spelt out. It may be in the consortium to pick up the Australian domestic gas interests if the deal goes ahead. Or it could there to play a role in smoothing the way in the US, given the Alaska gas fields. First, however, the deal needs Jim Chalmers' tick of approval. ADNOC is still going over the Santos books and has yet to confirm a formal takeover offer. So the Foreign Investment Review Board has yet to receive an application. But ADNOC may face a tougher time than it anticipated. Foreign ownership has become a politically charged issue, highlighted by the federal government's determination to return the Port of Darwin to local ownership from Chinese control. Energy, and particularly gas, is in another realm altogether, given it is supposed to be the transition fuel to a renewables future. Then there's the history. Three prime ministers, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese, were forced to personally intervene in the market. Such is the distrust of the gas exporters, the competition regulator has been charged with the task of keeping the east coast market under permanent review. Its most recent report forecasts ongoing and growing domestic shortages out to 2036. Not surprisingly, investors aren't all that confident the deal will proceed. The Santos share price hasn't risen above $8 since the bid was announced. That's an 11 per cent discount to the $8.89 offer.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Abuse proves changes to child care are urgently needed but is the government brave enough to start again?
Multiple stories of children being abused in childcare centres have put governments and their snail-like bureaucracies on notice. There is a growing realisation that the old script about the complexity of the system and long time frames to fix it does not meet the moment. Politicians and policymakers are now in overdrive. The consensus built on collective disgust following these revelations points to a system so broken that it needs fundamental change in the longer term. More on that later. On Friday, federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland felt the fire of national outrage after she began the day suggesting it could take 12 months to get the working-with-children checks fixed. The tsunami of outrage was predictable: The public is in disbelief that we have built a system incapable of tracking alleged perpetrators or raising red flags. An investigation by the ABC revealed a Victorian childcare worker was sacked for sexual misconduct in 2020 — after an internal investigation found he was grooming and kissing toddlers — and was considered such a risk to children that he was blacklisted from the industry. This worker was allowed to keep his Working with Children Check (WWCC) for years after his sacking. It was not revoked after his sacking, nor after he was slapped with a prohibition order in 2024 that banned him from working in childcare. The story sent further shock waves through the community, and his case demonstrates just how farcical the system is in practice. By Friday afternoon, Rowland promised state and territory governments would "pull out all stops" to close loopholes being used by child abusers this year, just hours after saying it could take up to 12 months. But after a meeting of attorneys-general, Rowland also confirmed there would be no national Working With Children Check system to replace the patchwork of state and territory-administered criminal justice systems. Instead, ministers would work on a national "checking capability" that allowed the states and territories to communicate with each other. "We are not looking to redo individual state systems. We are looking for consistency," Rowland said. The national children's commissioner, Anne Hollonds, welcomed the initial changes but said working-with-children checks need to be more robust. She told me the announcement by ministers on Friday does not make this particular screening tool any stronger, despite the check being the outstanding element that must be addressed. "It does need to be stronger. It is very basic still. It is mostly about police convictions in the past," Hollonds argued. "And I think the name itself, Working with Children Check, kind of gives the impression that it is assessing your suitability to care for children, which it is clearly not. It is just checking whether you have police convictions, in most cases." Hollonds believed a more comprehensive check is required to assess the suitability of people who want to care for children. This would give employers more confidence that they are employing the right people, she said. Key to the checks must be the proposed national register of educators, Hollonds said. "That is really, really important. We need to be doing proper referee checks, we need mandatory child safety training on top of their basic early childhood educator training. All of these things will help to strengthen the safeguarding scaffolding that we need, not just in the early childhood sector but beyond." The shadow attorney-general, Julian Leeser, told me he believed the government should be moving towards a "fit and proper person" test. This would fundamentally change the definition of a working-with-children check from one focused on a narrow police lens to one more broadly about character. The federal government wants you to know it is serious about change. On Friday, it launched compliance action against 30 childcare centres. Education Minister Jason Clare said these centres failed to meet National Quality Standards and he would withdraw funding from them if they did not lift their performance over the next six months. On Tuesday this week, we will learn their names and locations, which will be published on the department's website. It is a public naming and shaming that the government hopes will shift the dial. But while all the tough compliance is desperately needed, there are much deeper questions we need to start asking. The prime minister's vision for universal childcare cannot be realised under the current policy paradigm, and the government is facing an internal reckoning. There is a growing consensus that a fundamentally flawed system cannot continue to be expanded. A different model may be the answer — but achieving that would be difficult and would ruffle feathers. The for-profit sector, which has enjoyed the industry's expansion on its bottom line, is likely to be particularly disgruntled. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher said moving towards universal childcare was a policy priority, but that the government needs to work on the workforce and infrastructure before it can commit to moving forward. Her answer demonstrates the government is acutely aware that the system, as it is, cannot be scaled up easily without risks. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has suggested he is open to reforming the current subsidy model when asked if there was an appetite for change. Inside the government, conversations are underway about how childcare centres are funded, and many Labor MPs have made clear their desire to see an overhaul in the for-profit childcare sector. The Greens want a Senate inquiry into the quality and safety of early childhood education and care as soon as parliament resumes. The Coalition on Friday suggested they would back it. Senator Steph Hodgins-May, the Greens spokesperson for early childhood education and care, said real action means more than introducing improved checks a decade after it was recommended. "It means tackling for-profit cowboys sidelining quality and care in favour of profit, and a workforce in crisis," she said. "The government must do more than Band-Aids. It must sit down with everyone in the parliament willing to prioritise the safety and care of our children and enact meaningful reform to keep our kids safe." On Friday this week, education ministers will meet to work on their next steps to reform the system, including a national register. The work is being done to try to reform a flawed system. A big question remains: Does the government need to be brave enough to start again? Patricia Karvelas is host of ABC News Afternoon Briefing at 4pm weekdays on ABC News Channel, co-host of the weekly Party Room podcast with Fran Kelly and host of politics and news podcast Politics Now.
