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Sky News AU
2 hours ago
- Sky News AU
'It's Covid all over again': Labor bending at the knee to eSafety Commissioner's advice on YouTube ban while turning blind eye to our freedom, education
There is nothing in politics more ominous than a government that wants to be seen to be 'doing something'. A government that feels something must be done on a controversial topic is likely to act so boldly and so quickly that they don't have time to consider the consequences, and those who suffer are left to pick up the pieces. The popular thing to do these days is find an expert on an issue and outsource all responsibility on policy to them. Trusting an expert sounds nice - they know a lot and often have a reassuring 'Dr' at the start of their name. It's never the case that this expert is democratically elected or answerable to the people that their decisions affect. They are there for the government to hide behind - don't look at us, we had to do whatever the expert told us to. This was all the rage during Covid. Various state governments' preferred experts would recommend all sorts of bizarre restrictions - shutting South Australia down over a pizza box, for instance - but the government could tell their voters they were taking the issue seriously, because they were listening to the experts. I thought after Australians were told not to touch a football if it came into the stands of the Adelaide Oval that Australians were done stomaching the idea that we should listen solely to the experts. But Labor's talking points over the social media ban - especially its backflip on an exemption for YouTube - is a test for my theory. Social media use in teenagers is an area the government really wants to be seen as 'doing something'. It's a hot topic and for good reason. Mental health in teenagers, particularly among girls, has nosedived since smartphones and social media became widespread. Parents feel helpless. They know that social media will hurt their child, but also know depriving them of social media when all of their friends have them harms them as well. The government has jumped on this and come up with their social media ban. They also found their expert and outsourced responsibility to her. Enter the eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant. The level of deferral from the government to this public servant is galling. In Question Time on Wednesday, Minister Anika Wells referenced the commissioner four times in her one answer about the social media ban - including saying she 'was required by the law to seek advice from the eSafety Commissioner on the draft rules, and the eSafety Commissioner's advice was clear'. That's all well and good - but the Australian people did not elect the eSafety commissioner. They elected Anika Wells, and they elected her to do far more than ask Julie Inman Grant what to do then listen politely. The eSafety Commssioner's duty according to the government is to ensure Australians 'have safer, more positive online experiences.' But that is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to forming policy about the online world. Safety must be balanced with freedom, educational possibilities, economic concerns and a whole raft of other factors. We'd all be free of harm from social media if we never went on the internet again - but we'd also lose all of the wonderful benefits it gives us too. It's Covid all over again. Then governments outsourced responsibility to Chief Health Officers whose primary concern was safety and stopping the spread of the virus - because that was their area of expertise. Other concerns like students' education, mental wellbeing, individual freedom and the economy - issues that should have been considered with the same seriousness as the virus itself - were swept aside in the narrow view of stopping the spread. And now other factors are being swept aside in the narrow view the government and the eSafety Commissioner are taking when it comes to social media, and particularly YouTube. The government this week reversed its commitment to exempt YouTube from their social media ban for people under the age of 16. The problem with that is that YouTube does not behave in the same way as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook or the other social media networking sites. Those latter sites rely on users sharing information with each other, such as photos and updates. Teenagers spend hours cultivating their profiles to make their lives look idyllic, and spend further hours seeing the photos and lifestyles of people they know look even more idyllic - a vicious cycle that harms mental health. YouTube does not act like that. There is not as much person-to-person sharing as there are in the other social media networks. People watch videos and move on to other videos. In fact a survey released by the eSafety Commission itself found that YouTube is one of the safest social media websites for teenagers in terms of the risk of grooming, sexual harassment and bullying. Teenagers are more likely to be targeted over text message than over YouTube. The 'safety' concerns around YouTube are less about bullying and comparative lifestyles and more about what content is popular on YouTube, such as conservative opinions. Julie Inman Grant told the National Press Club this year that she was concerned YouTube's 'opaque algorithms' were 'driving users down rabbit holes they're powerless to fight against'. That's a whole different reason for enforcing safety and completely removed from the original conversation around protecting children online. But it's not unexpected considering the eSafety Commissioner's remit is to ensure online safety. It's up to the government to balance the desire for safety with other effects a ban on YouTube would have - especially education. Oxford Economics this year found that 72 per cent of parents agree that YouTube helps their children learn and 79 per cent of parents agree YouTube provides quality content for their children's learning. In an interview on Sky News this week, YouTube personality Leo Pugilsi said his teachers upload videos of themselves explaining what was discussed in school to help children out with homework. This is what the government is impacting when it listens solely to the eSafety Commissioner. An unforgivable sin from Covid was our governments letting experts tell them the education of children was a secondary concern. By listening solely to the eSafety Commissioner and ignoring the educational benefits of YouTube, Labor is making the same mistake again - all in the name of "doing something". James Bolt is a Sky News Australia contributor.
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
The suburban US office that brokered lucrative military contracts with Australia
Tucked away in an unassuming suburban business park in Fairfax, Virginia, not far from Washington DC, is the single-storey office of Burdeshaw Associates, a company that has done millions of dollars worth of confidential business with the Australian Defence Department over the past 10 years. Located alongside neighbours that include an escape room and a karate studio, it's a surprisingly low-key location for a firm that describes itself as 'the premier aerospace and defense boutique consulting firm' offering the services of 'over 700+ [sic] retired generals, [and] admirals'. For years the company has acted as a conduit for highly paid advice to the Australian government from a raft of retired senior US navy and defence personnel who charge thousands of dollars a day. And there are likely to be further rich pickings ahead, as the AUKUS pact moves the Royal Australian Navy towards a nuclear-powered submarine fleet (albeit at a grindingly slow pace) and government dollars start to flow from upskilling a workforce, and building the infrastructure, to enter the nuclear domain. The depth and duration of Burdeshaw's relationship with Canberra's defence establishment is striking. Records on the federal government's Austender site reveal that the Australian Defence Department has struck contracts worth at least $11.7 million with Burdeshaw over the past decade for 'strategic planning consultation services'. A further $1.5 million deal was signed between the company and the Prime Minister's Department in 2021 for advice to then prime minister Scott Morrison. That's $13.2 million flowing through Burdeshaw's books courtesy of the Australian taxpayer over the past decade, including its most recent three-year contract with Defence, valued at $1.2 million, and dated February this year. However, a request to the Defence Department to provide a comprehensive list of the names and roles of personnel hired under the Burdeshaw contracts has been stymied, with Defence citing 'security and commercial-in-confidence reasons'. Burdeshaw and its principal, lawyer Alex Heidt, have also failed to respond to numerous attempts by this masthead to elicit further information. A visit revealed that Burdeshaw shares its premises with Heidt's law firm. A large painting of the late general William M. Hartzog, a former chief executive of the company, adorns the wall, and a stack of Heidt's awards from Lawyers of Distinction are assembled on a desk by the front door. An employee, Tyler Heidt (Alex Heidt's son), wanted to know if this masthead had security clearance, and when told no, said the dealings with Defence were confidential. Even on the limited information publicly available, Burdeshaw's record shows the deep involvement by senior retired US Navy personnel in confidential deliberations about the capabilities of the Royal Australian Navy, particularly as Australia pivoted towards the AUKUS submarine deal under Morrison. As investigative journalist Andrew Fowler noted in his book Nuked, by the time Morrison had junked the deal to buy conventional French submarines and replaced it in September 2021 with the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact with America and Britain, 'US senior military officials were liberally sprinkled across the highest levels of the administration'. By late 2022 – the last time Defence made figures readily available to a federal parliamentary committee – no less than eight retired senior US Navy officers were providing well-paid advice to the Australian Defence Department, among them, an admiral, a vice admiral, a rear admiral, a commander and four captains. All were either advising on 'naval shipbuilding' or on managing the transition of the RAN submarine fleet to a nuclear-powered future. It is unclear how many were on contracts negotiated through Burdeshaw. (At least two senior retired US Navy figures appear to have struck their own deals with the Australian Defence Department under separate consultancy companies they set up.) Defence also refused to provide updated figures on how many foreign nationals are working on AUKUS-related programs. In response to questions, a spokesperson said the department needed 'the support and expertise of the US and the UK to deliver AUKUS' and that 'all personnel regardless of nationality, are subject to appropriate security clearance requirements and operate under strict contractual obligations'. Burdeshaw first came to public notice in 2022, when The Washington Post published an investigation revealing more than half a dozen former US Navy and civilian navy leaders were playing advisory roles at senior levels of the Australian defence hierarchy in the lead-up to AUKUS. The Post named six former navy admirals and Dr Donald C. Winter, a onetime US Navy secretary to George W. Bush. Winter had been a key member of the Australian government's high-level Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board as far back as 2016, before being handpicked by Morrison to help drive AUKUS forward in September 2021. Documents unearthed by the Post show Winter's services were being provided via Burdeshaw in late 2021 for $US6000 ($9318) a day, plus expenses. In 2022, specialist industry publication Australian Defence Magazine highlighted the 'significant American influence in Australia's defence capability decision-making'. It noted the Defence Department's submarine advisory committee included two senior US shipbuilding industry figures: Jim Hughes and retired US admiral Kirkland Donald. Hughes was a former vice president of submarines at US shipbuilder Newport News Shipbuilding (which makes Virginia-class submarines of the type Australia is now seeking to acquire from the US before it gears up to make its own). Loading Donald sat on Australia's top-level submarine advisory committee from 2017, while he was also on the board of and subsequently chairing US nuclear submarine builder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which owns Newport News. He eventually stepped down from the Australian advisory committee in April 2022, citing a potential conflict of interest. This masthead is not suggesting there was a conflict of interest. Defence officials later insisted he'd declared his HII role and 'in his capacity as a member of the submarine advisory committee he did not provide advice on nuclear-powered submarines'. In 2018-19, former US Navy rear admiral Stephen E. Johnson was appointed a deputy secretary inside the Australian Department of Defence, one of the most senior positions in the nation's security hierarchy. Former US Navy vice admiral William 'Willy' Hilarides, a veteran of 35 years in the American service, was also deeply embedded in Australian defence advisory structures for years. A former head of the US Navy's ship and sustainment program, Hilarides sat as a key member of the Australian Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board for four years before becoming chair of its successor body, the Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel, in 2021. Figures provided by the Defence Department to a Senate committee in late 2022 put the value of Hilarides' contracts – negotiated through Burdeshaw – at $1.9 million. Subsequently, this masthead reported he received $2.4 million for his role on the two advisory panels. Head of the Defence Department Greg Moriarty told the Senate that Hilarides had played no role in the Morrison government's decision to scrap the French submarine contract in 2021. In 2023, the Albanese government handed Hilarides a new role, heading a review to advise on achieving 'complementarity' between Australia's surface navy fleet and the AUKUS submarines. Labor Defence Minister Richard Marles has defended the extensive use of advice from former top-ranking US Navy officers, telling this masthead in 2023, 'where we have sought advice from those former officials in the US Navy, that has been on issues of profound importance for our nation's future'. Others have questioned how genuinely objective such advice could have been, even with the best intentions. Gary Slater, a former American marine turned consultant for local lobbyist ADCG, says 'there's a good and a bad to it: the good is that you're getting access to global expertise. And the bad is a perception ... that you're paying consultant rates for retired officers to give you advice that is not necessarily in Australia's best interest'. Rex Patrick, former South Australian senator and submariner, speculates that it appeared the department had wanted only one perspective. 'If you only seek counsel from US admirals, you'll only get a US answer. The department had the ability to reach out to other very experienced submarine-operating nations to bring different perspectives 'inside the tent'. They didn't.' Defence's refusal to answer this masthead's questions about the Burdeshaw contracts stands in marked contrast to some of the detail it provided in past Senate estimates hearings. Loading In 2023, Defence Department secretary Moriarty confirmed that contracts for advice by another American, retired US Navy rear admiral Thomas Eccles, then stood at $1.2 million. In early 2023, in written advice to Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, the department confirmed that the maximum amount payable on contracts relating to just three of the US Navy's former top brass – Hilarides, Eccles and Kirkland Donald – totalled close to $5.3 million. The AUKUS pact faces a raft of challenges, not least the review now being undertaken by Pentagon Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby. Finding the workforce to crew, build and maintain nuclear-powered submarines will pose a years-long challenge. However, one pool of labour that won't run dry any time soon is the pipeline of US and other consultants in waiting as the AUKUS project gathers momentum. Meanwhile, the federal government's Australian Submarine Agency is criss-crossing the globe at a seemingly frenetic pace. According to figures provided to the senate, between June last year and the end of January this year, its staff clocked up 218 international trips, at a total cost of around $3 million.
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The suburban US office that brokered lucrative military contracts with Australia
Tucked away in an unassuming suburban business park in Fairfax, Virginia, not far from Washington DC, is the single-storey office of Burdeshaw Associates, a company that has done millions of dollars worth of confidential business with the Australian Defence Department over the past 10 years. Located alongside neighbours that include an escape room and a karate studio, it's a surprisingly low-key location for a firm that describes itself as 'the premier aerospace and defense boutique consulting firm' offering the services of 'over 700+ [sic] retired generals, [and] admirals'. For years the company has acted as a conduit for highly paid advice to the Australian government from a raft of retired senior US navy and defence personnel who charge thousands of dollars a day. And there are likely to be further rich pickings ahead, as the AUKUS pact moves the Royal Australian Navy towards a nuclear-powered submarine fleet (albeit at a grindingly slow pace) and government dollars start to flow from upskilling a workforce, and building the infrastructure, to enter the nuclear domain. The depth and duration of Burdeshaw's relationship with Canberra's defence establishment is striking. Records on the federal government's Austender site reveal that the Australian Defence Department has struck contracts worth at least $11.7 million with Burdeshaw over the past decade for 'strategic planning consultation services'. A further $1.5 million deal was signed between the company and the Prime Minister's Department in 2021 for advice to then prime minister Scott Morrison. That's $13.2 million flowing through Burdeshaw's books courtesy of the Australian taxpayer over the past decade, including its most recent three-year contract with Defence, valued at $1.2 million, and dated February this year. However, a request to the Defence Department to provide a comprehensive list of the names and roles of personnel hired under the Burdeshaw contracts has been stymied, with Defence citing 'security and commercial-in-confidence reasons'. Burdeshaw and its principal, lawyer Alex Heidt, have also failed to respond to numerous attempts by this masthead to elicit further information. A visit revealed that Burdeshaw shares its premises with Heidt's law firm. A large painting of the late general William M. Hartzog, a former chief executive of the company, adorns the wall, and a stack of Heidt's awards from Lawyers of Distinction are assembled on a desk by the front door. An employee, Tyler Heidt (Alex Heidt's son), wanted to know if this masthead had security clearance, and when told no, said the dealings with Defence were confidential. Even on the limited information publicly available, Burdeshaw's record shows the deep involvement by senior retired US Navy personnel in confidential deliberations about the capabilities of the Royal Australian Navy, particularly as Australia pivoted towards the AUKUS submarine deal under Morrison. As investigative journalist Andrew Fowler noted in his book Nuked, by the time Morrison had junked the deal to buy conventional French submarines and replaced it in September 2021 with the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact with America and Britain, 'US senior military officials were liberally sprinkled across the highest levels of the administration'. By late 2022 – the last time Defence made figures readily available to a federal parliamentary committee – no less than eight retired senior US Navy officers were providing well-paid advice to the Australian Defence Department, among them, an admiral, a vice admiral, a rear admiral, a commander and four captains. All were either advising on 'naval shipbuilding' or on managing the transition of the RAN submarine fleet to a nuclear-powered future. It is unclear how many were on contracts negotiated through Burdeshaw. (At least two senior retired US Navy figures appear to have struck their own deals with the Australian Defence Department under separate consultancy companies they set up.) Defence also refused to provide updated figures on how many foreign nationals are working on AUKUS-related programs. In response to questions, a spokesperson said the department needed 'the support and expertise of the US and the UK to deliver AUKUS' and that 'all personnel regardless of nationality, are subject to appropriate security clearance requirements and operate under strict contractual obligations'. Burdeshaw first came to public notice in 2022, when The Washington Post published an investigation revealing more than half a dozen former US Navy and civilian navy leaders were playing advisory roles at senior levels of the Australian defence hierarchy in the lead-up to AUKUS. The Post named six former navy admirals and Dr Donald C. Winter, a onetime US Navy secretary to George W. Bush. Winter had been a key member of the Australian government's high-level Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board as far back as 2016, before being handpicked by Morrison to help drive AUKUS forward in September 2021. Documents unearthed by the Post show Winter's services were being provided via Burdeshaw in late 2021 for $US6000 ($9318) a day, plus expenses. In 2022, specialist industry publication Australian Defence Magazine highlighted the 'significant American influence in Australia's defence capability decision-making'. It noted the Defence Department's submarine advisory committee included two senior US shipbuilding industry figures: Jim Hughes and retired US admiral Kirkland Donald. Hughes was a former vice president of submarines at US shipbuilder Newport News Shipbuilding (which makes Virginia-class submarines of the type Australia is now seeking to acquire from the US before it gears up to make its own). Loading Donald sat on Australia's top-level submarine advisory committee from 2017, while he was also on the board of and subsequently chairing US nuclear submarine builder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), which owns Newport News. He eventually stepped down from the Australian advisory committee in April 2022, citing a potential conflict of interest. This masthead is not suggesting there was a conflict of interest. Defence officials later insisted he'd declared his HII role and 'in his capacity as a member of the submarine advisory committee he did not provide advice on nuclear-powered submarines'. In 2018-19, former US Navy rear admiral Stephen E. Johnson was appointed a deputy secretary inside the Australian Department of Defence, one of the most senior positions in the nation's security hierarchy. Former US Navy vice admiral William 'Willy' Hilarides, a veteran of 35 years in the American service, was also deeply embedded in Australian defence advisory structures for years. A former head of the US Navy's ship and sustainment program, Hilarides sat as a key member of the Australian Naval Shipbuilding Advisory Board for four years before becoming chair of its successor body, the Naval Shipbuilding Expert Advisory Panel, in 2021. Figures provided by the Defence Department to a Senate committee in late 2022 put the value of Hilarides' contracts – negotiated through Burdeshaw – at $1.9 million. Subsequently, this masthead reported he received $2.4 million for his role on the two advisory panels. Head of the Defence Department Greg Moriarty told the Senate that Hilarides had played no role in the Morrison government's decision to scrap the French submarine contract in 2021. In 2023, the Albanese government handed Hilarides a new role, heading a review to advise on achieving 'complementarity' between Australia's surface navy fleet and the AUKUS submarines. Labor Defence Minister Richard Marles has defended the extensive use of advice from former top-ranking US Navy officers, telling this masthead in 2023, 'where we have sought advice from those former officials in the US Navy, that has been on issues of profound importance for our nation's future'. Others have questioned how genuinely objective such advice could have been, even with the best intentions. Gary Slater, a former American marine turned consultant for local lobbyist ADCG, says 'there's a good and a bad to it: the good is that you're getting access to global expertise. And the bad is a perception ... that you're paying consultant rates for retired officers to give you advice that is not necessarily in Australia's best interest'. Rex Patrick, former South Australian senator and submariner, speculates that it appeared the department had wanted only one perspective. 'If you only seek counsel from US admirals, you'll only get a US answer. The department had the ability to reach out to other very experienced submarine-operating nations to bring different perspectives 'inside the tent'. They didn't.' Defence's refusal to answer this masthead's questions about the Burdeshaw contracts stands in marked contrast to some of the detail it provided in past Senate estimates hearings. Loading In 2023, Defence Department secretary Moriarty confirmed that contracts for advice by another American, retired US Navy rear admiral Thomas Eccles, then stood at $1.2 million. In early 2023, in written advice to Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, the department confirmed that the maximum amount payable on contracts relating to just three of the US Navy's former top brass – Hilarides, Eccles and Kirkland Donald – totalled close to $5.3 million. The AUKUS pact faces a raft of challenges, not least the review now being undertaken by Pentagon Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby. Finding the workforce to crew, build and maintain nuclear-powered submarines will pose a years-long challenge. However, one pool of labour that won't run dry any time soon is the pipeline of US and other consultants in waiting as the AUKUS project gathers momentum. Meanwhile, the federal government's Australian Submarine Agency is criss-crossing the globe at a seemingly frenetic pace. According to figures provided to the senate, between June last year and the end of January this year, its staff clocked up 218 international trips, at a total cost of around $3 million.
