Today’s headlines
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of Australian and world news this Thursday, October 15. Here’s what you need to know today.
- Health Minister Mark Butler has vowed to bring the Albanese government’s health rebate bill back to the Senate after the Coalition and the Greens joined forces yesterday to throw out the proposed changes. Under the proposed measures announced in the May budget, private health insurance was set to become more expensive for older Australians.
- Communications Minister Anika Wells will introduce Labor’s Digital Duty of Care legislation to parliament today. It is likely to face delays as both the Coalition and the Greens prepare to send the legislation to a Senate inquiry.
- Outgoing Coalition frontbencher Jonno Duniam used his final speech to parliament to implore his Liberal colleagues to return to their roots and stay the course against a surging One Nation, and cautioned them against mimicking other politicians. The Tasmanian senator will not return to parliament next year.
- And US President Donald Trump has shared an AI video in which he wrestles the tiger that killed a British man at a South Yorkshire zoo. The beginning of the 23-second video mirrors actual footage of William Chapman’s last moments. South Yorkshire Police had asked the public not to share “distressing footage” of Chapman’s death, and Chapman’s family revealed their “severe distress” about footage and other content being shared online.
Adults can still listen to manosphere podcasts, claim the moon landing was fake, Wells says
Communications Minister Anika Wells says adults can still listen to manosphere podcasts or say the moon landing was fake under the new digital duty of care legislation introduced to parliament today.
Wells said that the new laws were not a stepping stone for regulating misinformation and disinformation but stumbled in her speech to the National Press Club, saying, “we are controlling”.
Wells corrected herself to say, “we are not controlling free speech; we are not conducting covert surveillance”.
“In response to concerns we heard during the exposure draft consultation, and to make this abundantly clear, we have removed the ministerial rulemaking power to define new harms in the final bill.”
Wells speaks at Press Club after introducing digital duty of care to parliament
Communications Minister Anika Wells is speaking at the Press Club after introducing digital duty of care into parliament earlier today. She has started her address with some statistics on the social media ban.
Wells said that she flagged in December that the social media ban laws would not be perfect from day one, but that 5 million underage accounts had been removed or restricted.
“A YouGov survey found 30 per cent of young Australians aged between 13 and 15 are spending more time playing sport,” Wells said.
“27 per cent report better sleep. Online bullying is down 9 per cent and exposure to inappropriate and violent content has fallen by 18 per cent.”
But Wells said that too many under 16-year-olds were still on social media, blaming social media companies for “not doing enough to follow the law”.
“This isn’t good enough, and I want to acknowledge our eSafety commissioners’ painstaking investigations to hold these tech platforms to account.”
Plibersek says One Nation poses genuine threat to abortion access
Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek warned this morning that One Nation would support winding back access to safe, medical abortions after the Labor government in Victoria pledged free abortion care to women if elected in November.
The Carroll government promised to invest $30 million over four years to remove the out-of-pocket cost of abortion care. One Nation had previously vowed to make abortion a criminal offence if elected.
Plibersek said the minor party posed a genuine threat to access to safe abortion care.
“Particularly for women in regional communities, access to pregnancy care or abortion can be much more difficult than if they’re living in cities. When I was the health minister, we managed to make a medical termination more easily available,” she told News24 earlier today.
“The typical woman who is deciding to have an abortion, is a middle-aged woman who already has a number of children, and she’s making that decision because of an unplanned pregnancy that she feels that she can’t afford to go through. The idea that you force someone to have a baby when they feel that they’re unable to cope with that – that’s not a recipe for a happy mother or a happy baby in the future.”
ACCC asks Australians to report mobile coverage woes
The competition watchdog wants Australians to tell it about their mobile coverage as it weighs forcing carriers to open their networks to rivals.
The ACCC on Thursday launched public consultation for its mobile services inquiry, releasing a consumer survey and a discussion paper.
“We are aware of long-standing concerns about prices, service quality, coverage gaps and limited provider choice in some parts of Australia,” ACCC commissioner Anna Brakey said. “We want to better understand these experiences, particularly in regional and remote areas.”
The inquiry, launched in August, is examining whether to declare a domestic roaming service, which would let a provider’s customers use another network where theirs has no signal, a radio access network service, or both.
The ACCC said it had not formed a view on declaration.
Submissions on the discussion paper close on November 26, and the survey runs until December 10. The watchdog is also considering consulting in person in regional and remote areas.
Unemployment jumps to highest level in nearly five years
The Reserve Bank is facing pressure to hold off any further interest rate rises after unemployment reached its highest level in almost five years.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the jobless rate reached 4.7 per cent in September, with a 39,000 drop in the number of people holding down a job and a 9000 increase in the total number of unemployed.
The number of unemployed, at 732,000, is at its highest level since April 2021.
The jobless rate would have been higher but for a 0.2 percentage point drop in the participation rate which measures the number of people in work or looking for it.
The result was driven by NSW where the unemployment rate jumped by 0.4 percentage points to 4.7 per cent. It would have been higher but for a large fall in the NSW participation rate.
Cue, Veronika Maine to shut 26 stores across Australia and New Zealand
The receivers in charge of collapsed women’s fashion labels Cue and Veronika Maine will shut 26 stores across the two brands from today.
A “small number of selected bidders” have been shortlisted as potential buyers for the two brands, which was handed over to administrators and receivers in mid-September after overhead costs, including expensive leases, overwhelmed slow sales.
Prospective buyers were asked to identify the stores they would be interested in acquiring if they were to purchase the business.
“Based on the feedback received and the [non-binding indicative offers] submitted, there is a common group of stores parties have indicated they would not be seeking to continue with,” said a statement from receivers FTI Consulting. “As a result, 26 stores will be closed across both brands.”
Ship sank in Strait of Hormuz after hitting a naval mine, Iran says
A cargo ship sank after striking a naval mine in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps navy said.
It’s the first time Iran has reported a ship sinking after hitting a mine during the war.
Shipping officials, meanwhile, said two Singapore-registered cargo vessels had been hit by “unknown projectiles” as they went through the strait on Tuesday and Wednesday.
One sank, while the other reached safety. All crew members were evacuated from the first ship, and no injuries were reported in either incident, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said.
“Such attacks are unprovoked, unjustifiable, and a breach of international law,” the authority said.
‘It’s the same Senate as yesterday’: Shoebridge
Leader of the Greens David Shoebridge has slammed Health Minister Mark Butler’s plan to bring the same bill blocked by his party and the Coalition back to parliament today.
“I mean, I don’t know what Senate he’s looking at. It’s the same Senate as there was yesterday,” Shoebridge told News24 earlier this morning.
“We’ve made it clear what our position is … We’re not going to let them punch down on pensioners.”
Health Minister Mark Butler vowed he would bring an identical bill back to parliament despite not committing to make any changes to the legislation.
Wells: Digital duty of care will take 12 months to come into effect
Labor’s digital duty of care will take 12 months to come into effect, Communications Minister Anika Wells has said, as she unveiled a “transitional period” should the legislation pass parliament.
“This transitional period will provide time for the making of any necessary rules and regulatory guidance material to ensure industry is able to put in place measures to meet the new compliance requirements in time for the digital duty of care to come into effect,” Wells told the House of Representatives.
“Online services that are currently complying with the basic online safety expectations and the relevant codes and standards will be well placed to comply with their digital duty of care obligations.”
Wells had earlier announced that online service providers will need to conduct annual risk assessments of the harms their services may cause Australians, saying: “Features like algorithmic recommender systems, the ability to live stream incognito from your glasses, or the ability to artificially generate text and pictures, then they will need to put systems in place to prevent those risky features from causing harm to Australians, because the architecture matters, the business model matters, the incentives matter”.
Wells said “low-risk” services would be able to conduct a self-assessment of their risk to ensure they do not “facilitate any user-to-user interaction, private messaging, or otherwise facilitated connection between strangers; allow users of the website to upload, stream, or generate content for other users; provide harmful or classified materials such as pornography or high-impact violence; or include design features associated with negative behavioral impacts, such as recommender systems or feedback features”.
Wells unveils principles of new digital duty of care laws
Communications Minister Anika Wells has laid out the four key principles of Labor’s digital duty of care, including opting in and out of algorithms on social media, as she introduces the legislation to parliament.
“Today, the Albanese government has released the proposed rules for user empowerment tools. They contain four principles that address some of the malicious compliance that we have seen in other jurisdictions,” Wells said.
“First, we must be able to opt in to the algorithm, with social media platforms required to send users a proactive notification about this choice. Second, the tools must be accessible; they must be easy to use, prominently available, functional, clear, and in simple language,” she said.
“Third, the choice must stick. Platforms cannot revert back to their default every time you open the app. And fourth, choosing to opt out of the algorithm must not make your feed harder to navigate. The experience must be similar to those who have chosen to opt in.”
The legislation is set to face a Senate inquiry but may still pass before the end of the year. It will then face a 12-month transitional period before it comes into effect as soon as the end of 2027.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
