White House fires warnings shots over digital duty of care bill
The White House has issued a warning to Australia as the government forces social media and US based tech giants to clean up their platforms and remove harmful content.
Yesterday the government released its draft bill that will require platforms to protect kids from harmful content around eating disorders, misogyny, pornography, glorifying crime, abuse and cyberbullying. Adults and children will need to be protected from illegal material.
In a statement provided to Guardian Australia, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said:
President Trump has unequivocally warned trading partners against imposing digital services taxes, fines, and other forms of extortion on America’s leading technology sector.
The Administration remains committed to raising these issues with our trading partners.
Key events
‘I don’t trust big tech, but I trust the Labor party a lot less’: Canavan
Nationals leader Matt Canavan says the government should go back to the drawing board and start again on the digital duty of care bill because there isn’t “trust” in the process.
Canavan has been a vocal critic of the laws, but we understand there is an array of opinions across the party over the issue – some who are more keen to see the reforms than the Nationals leader.
One of his chief concerns is the power the communications minister will have to broaden the scope of harms that platforms have to protect adults and children from.
Speaking to reporters a little earlier, Canavan said:
I think the government needs to start again here with this because trust is very important on these issues. I don’t trust big tech, but I trust the Labour Party a lot less.
Giving them these type of powers just is a non-starter should be a completer non-starter for the Australian people, who I think like living in a democracy and like being able to speak freely especially about their own government.
Anika Wells said earlier today that the bill won’t impact political communication or misinformation, and that those who want to read fake moon landing conspiracy theories will still be able to.
Hanson denies calling Hastie a ‘traitor’
Adding some context here to Andrew Hastie calling Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce “lying cowards” a little earlier.
Hastie said yesterday Hanson and One Nation had called him a traitor after he provided evidence in court against Ben Roberts-Smith.
But Hanson told The Nightly newspaper yesterday:
I’ve never called him a traitor … I will call him a wanker.
Hastie told News24 that Hanson had posted a One Nation cartoon on her X account that called him a traitor eight times.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian premier announces plan to respond to homelessness
The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, is speaking at an event at state parliament this afternoon, announcing a $24.8m six-point plan to respond to rough sleeping.
He says the plan’s centrepiece is a rollout of an online triage system that recognises homeless people by name, helps direct resources by need and helps to collate better data and insights of how many people are sleep rough each night and where they are in the state. Carroll told the event:
One of the things I’m most proud of in this plan is the very first establishing a by-names list. We must remember these people aren’t numbers. Every one of them has a name. Every one of them has a backstory, and that is the key to ending homelessness. Making sure we know these people, who they are, what’s led them to where they are, and how we help give them the pathway forward.
The plan also includes an expansion of assertive outreach workers to every area of the state, and new supported housing on the Mornington Peninsula – using money the state collects from the levy it introduced on Airbnb properties in the region. We’ve previously reported the region has largest number of homeless people in greater Melbourne.
About 140 people experiencing homelessness are known to services in the region, but experts say the real number is closer to 300.
The minister for homelessness, Nick Staikos, says:
One of the first visits I made as minister for housing was the Mornington Peninsula. It has the largest number of rough sleepers outside of Melbourne CBD, and it has a very, very high number of women sleeping rough. It is also a place with a lot of properties listed on short stay platforms, and so we will fund supported housing on the Mornington Peninsula out of the short stay levy.
Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce ‘are lying cowards’, Hastie says
Liberal frontbencher and SAS veteran Andrew Hastie has called Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce “lying cowards”, after he claimed a One Nation cartoon called him a traitor for providing evidence in court against Ben Roberts-Smith.
It’s a further escalation after Hastie yesterday, in a letter to supporters, promised a costly fight against One Nation.
I deployed twice on combat operations to Afghanistan. I left my wife at home, knowing that I might not return. And then to be called a traitor by One Nation … well, they’ve picked a fight with the wrong veteran.
Speaking to News24 today, Hastie said the cartoon, which Hanson posted on her X account, called him a traitor eight times.
I would say that Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce are lying cowards, and I’ll say it again, so there’s no ambiguity. They are lying cowards … when you start calling me a traitor to my own country, then we have a big, big problem.
Are they saying the same thing of the other 20 SAS combat veterans who gave evidence under oath in the federal court? Are they also traitors to their country?
And so I’m calling on Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce to own this cartoon. And if they own it, step out into the house or outside the house, I don’t really care, use parliamentary privilege or don’t, and explain why I and other veterans, and indeed serving members of the ADF, who think war crimes are wrong, are traitors to their country.
Domestic violence report should ‘shame governments into action’, says Steggall
The independent MP Zali Steggall says the latest report by the domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner shows “an abject failure to keep women and children safe”.
Steggall says data is unavailable for around 68% of the measures in the national plan’s outcomes framework, meaning, “we can’t manage what we don’t measure – and we can’t hold governments fully accountable when the data is missing”.
Steggall calls for increased powers for the commission to monitor government performance and compel information, launch an urgent national education plan, establish a national domestic violence offender register and establish a royal commission.
Shockingly, around 80% of police call-outs are related to domestic and family violence … Women and children don’t need more condolences and promises. They need action, accountability and a genuine national commitment to ending this crisis.
‘Pork barrelling by design’: crossbenchers push for grants process overhaul
Crossbench MPs are calling for an overhaul to strengthen the commonwealth grants system after it was revealed the government used most of a $560m invite-only fund to support infrastructure projects in safe, marginal or target Labor seats.
The MPs want mandatory and enforceable standards for grants administration, transparency over funding decisions and a non-government chaired parliamentary committee to ensure compliance of grants under commonwealth rules.
Helen Haines, who was a key campaigner for the national anti-corruption commission, claimed in a statement:
Sports rorts was pork barrelling by deception, this is pork barrelling by design … My private member’s legislation would serve as a safeguard and won’t stop governments investing in local infrastructure. It would make sure funding is allocated fairly, transparently and in the public interest.
‘We owe them action’: Plibersek on the latest domestic, family and sexual violence report
Tanya Plibersek says there is a “long road ahead” to end violence against women and children, following the release of a damning report.
Reports of sexual violence were at their highest level ever in 2024, and dropped less than 1% nationally last year, according to the latest Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission annual report. Reports of sexual violence have increased by 64% over the last fifteen years.
The government is currently developing the second national plan to end violence against women and children, but the report shows the first phase has barely made a dent.
Plibersek, the social services minister, is making a statement to the House of Representatives on the yearly report, and it’s sober listening:
The dozens of women and children killed this year; rising rates of sexual violence among young people; and the online harm that’s rapidly spilling into the real world are painful reminders of the long road ahead …
So, to Australians listening across the country today, my message is clear: you have more power than you think. Please use it. Take a disclosure seriously. Show your children that love never requires control. Model respect at every opportunity. Teach the boys in your life the value of empathy and that women and girls’ boundaries aren’t obstacles to overcome.
These feel like small acts. But taken together, they can make a radical difference. We have changed this country before. Now is the time to move together to change it again. We owe the women and children who have had their lives stolen by this violence more than our horror. We owe them action.
Sarah Basford Canales
High court trial for neo-Nazi group White Australia continues
It’s day two at the high court for a neo-Nazi group’s challenge against laws banning them from starting a political party before the next federal election.
Yesterday we heard from the lawyers for the White Australia Party (WAP), formerly known as the National Socialist Network, who argued their listing as a prohibited hate group should be ruled invalid.
This morning, the commonwealth’s lawyer, Brendan Lim, is up.
Lim told the high court bench the group only changed its organisation to a political party in an attempt to protect themselves from the anti-hate group laws brought in following the Bondi terror attack.
The group’s lawyer, Peter King, told the court yesterday that they might be “awful but lawful” and should not be excluded from free political communication. Lim responded this morning to that claim:
[White Australia is] more than awful, more than invective – it is violent.
Luca Ittimani
ANZ chief economist says house price fall ‘had to happen’
ANZ’s chief economist has said a decline in Australia’s booming house prices “had to happen” and this year’s downturn is still tiny in context.
Richard Yetsenga yesterday told the Australian Financial Review’s property summit he expected prices to fall further in the wake of what he called “the most consequential property tax changes since 1999”. Prices are down 3.6% nationwide since March, according to Cotality.
Yetsenga said:
Property prices in Australia have risen 6.5% a year for the last 30 years. We’re down about half of one year’s gains. … and up 1,000% in the last 30 years. I mean, the change we’ve seen is marginal in the context of the increase that we’ve had. And I’m not saying it’s not disruptive and it’s not painful … but I think also a little bit of context is important.
Yetsenga also rejected suggestions falling prices would lead to recession, noting that less than 1% of mortgage holders are behind on repayments. He said:
There are some broader forces going on here. We are probably going through quite a substantial change in the housing market, and one that probably needed to happen, and we’ve done it before.
PM pays tribute to Blanche d’Alpuget: ‘Australia has lost a true one-off’:
In a statement the prime mnister, Anthony Albanese, has remembered Blanche d’Alpuget:
With the passing of Blanche d’Alpuget overnight, Australia has lost a true one-off.
As a writer, she was at home in fiction as she was in non-fiction, working in each realm with a keen eye for every telling detail that opened up the humanity of her subject to her readers.
Blanche’s novels were compelling works of verve and originality, and her biographies comprehensive and definitive – most famously those she wrote of Bob Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband.
Our hearts right now [are] with her family and all who loved her.
Blanche d’Alpuget, widow to Bob Hawke, dies aged 82
Blanche d’Alpuget, the writer and widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has died at the age of 82.
D’Alpuget was an acclaimed writer, whose work includes the highly regarded biography of Hawke which won the New South Wales Premier’s Award.
She was born in Sydney, lived in England, France, Indonesia and Malaysia and is survived by her son Louis Pratt from her first marriage and three Hawke step-children.
The ABC reports D’Alpuget asked her family to share her final message.
Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.
Digital duty of care won’t stop ‘your right to be wrong on the internet’: Wells
Anika Wells says Australians who believe the moon landing is fake will still get to read all about it and it won’t be banned under the digital duty of care bill.
The Coalition accused Labor of using the bill to censor free speech and stop criticism of the government.
Wells says that’s not true, and that political misinformation also won’t be banned from platforms.
They [platforms] need to identify risks on their platforms, and then need to mitigate against those risks on their platforms. This is not about the content. Your right to be wrong on the internet, remains preserved in the digital duty of care.
If you want to believe that the moon landing was fake, i is in no way impacted by the digital duty of care. It’s about basic safety standards online.
Wells downplays US warning over digital duty of care bill
The communications minister, Anika Wells, has downplayed a statement from the White House warning countries not to engage in fines or “extortion on America’s leading technology sector” and says the statement was “broad”.
She tells News24 no US representative has been directly in touch with her to issue the same warning.
The White House has issued a statement, a broad statement about their position [and] the digital duty of care that we announced the exposure draft of yesterday, is a piece of work that has been long standing.
In this particular piece of work, I wouldn’t say that I have had that piece of feedback communicated to me … like the prime minister said, we’re a sovereign nation. We have the right to defend Australian parents and kids and we’ll do that.
Benita Kolovos
Politicians quizzed by reporters over historical drug use after Warren Pickering admission
Politicians of all stripes are being asked by reporters this morning whether they have ever taken illegal drugs, following an extraordinary press conference by One Nation Victorian leader, Warren Pickering, yesterday, in which he admitted to using ecstasy, methamphetamines and marijuana.
The Victorian treasurer, Colin Brooks, said:
So to be honest with you, maybe when I was in the early 20s, I might have smoked marijuana once. That’s probably the extent of it.
The state’s health minister, Ingrid Stitt, said she “dabbled in a bit of marijuana” in her early 20s:
Decades and decades ago. Obviously, as the health and mental health minister, it’s important that we take a health-led response to anyone in the community who’s seeking support for drug use. That’s been my focus, and I’m not going to comment on any other individual circumstances. That’s a matter for them.
One Nation’s only currently sitting MP, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, said her drug of choice was “sugar”.
Diesel prices highest since April with Canberra at $2.70 a litre
Luca Ittimani
Retail diesel prices in Australia’s capital cities are at their highest since April, with Canberra surpassing $2.70 per litre.
With no sign of an end to Donald Trump’s war in Iran, oil prices have trended up since early August and Brent crude oil is now hovering under prices of US$100 per barrel.
The local Singapore benchmark, Tapis crude, soared to about US$120 per barrel yesterday, after hovering around US$100 per barrel for most of August, according to Argus Media.
Vivek Dhar, a Commonwealth Bank analyst, said the Singapore gas/oil price – Australia’s diesel import benchmark – had hit its highest since 1 May and Asian diesel markets were getting tighter.
With rising import costs for Australian retailers, all the big cities are facing higher pump prices. Canberra is faring the worst but every capital is averaging diesel prices of more than $2.50 per litre, except for Perth at $2.49, according to MotorMouth.
Petrol prices are also on the rise, with unleaded at $2.18 in Canberra – the city’s highest in nearly five months – and $2.16 a litre in Perth. All the capitals are recording average unleaded prices of at least $2.05 per litre.
Benita Kolovos
Victorian treasurer highlights report that pokes holes in Coalition fiscal plan
The Victorian treasurer, Colin Brooks, has this morning seized upon an Australia Institute discussion paperwhich challenges the Coalition’s plan to return the state to a cash surplus by 2032.
The paper said the centrepiece of the Coalition’s plan – to save $22bn via a hiring freeze across all back-office public service roles – would require the cutting of 31,700 jobs and could push unemployment toward 5.4%.
“That would gut the public service. To claim this could be achieved with a few back office jobs is nonsense,” co-CEO Richard Denniss said.
The paper also said the goal of returning the budget to cash surplus by 2032 would require cuts of government spending of at least $8bn each year, denying Victorians access to essential services and infrastructure.
Brooks told reporters at parliament:
The Liberals have said that their cuts won’t impact frontline services. This report clearly shows that that’s not the case. These cuts will have a direct impact on hospitals and schools and police and child protection and all of the services that Victorians rely on.
The report also shows that these cuts are likely to push up unemployment to 5.4%. So Jess Wilson needs to explain clearly to the Victorian public, which she had not done yet, exactly who she intends to sack.
