While Australia officially slips into the first recession in 30 years, it is clear that we need more jobs. But we must embrace technology to be globally competitive. There is no other way. The Senate Select Committee on Financial Technology and Regulatory Technology was established in September last year, and following an extensive round of public… Read more »
Facebook’s threat to ban publishing and sharing of local new stories on its platform, as well as Instagram, is “ill-timed and misconceived” according to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims. The ACCC has been charged by the government with shepherding the proposed “News media bargaining code” through to law. The proposed… Read more »
Have you used Google lately and been greeted by a yellow warning saying that the way Australians search on Google is under threat? To understand why these messages are appearing, Media Files interviewed former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Professor Allan Fels, and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative (PIJI),… Read more »
Google Australia’s war of words over plans to make the company pay local media companies for news content, has continued today with a rebuttal of competition regulator the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC), which accused the global tech giant of “misinformation”. Google launched a campaign against the ACCC’s proposal for the so-called “News Media… Read more »
Plans by the Morrison government to make Google and Facebook pay local media companies for news content appear to have stirred a sleeping giant, with the global search engine publishing an open letter to Australians warning that their search data, and the company’s free services are at risk as a result. Competition regulator the Australian… Read more »
The eligibility test for the JobKeeper wage subsidy has been changed by federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in a nod to the compulsory shutdown of thousands of Victorian businesses this week due to the state government’s stage 4 restrictions. The Treasurer has eased the criteria, which also applies nationally, so businesses now only have to show… Read more »
Australia’s unemployment rate is predicted to hit 9.25% in the December quarter this year as the shockwaves from the Covid-19 pandemic continue to hit the national economy, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in updating the government’s budget figure In the Economic and Fiscal Update released today, the Treasurer said 700,000 jobs had been saved as a… Read more »
Gone are the days when economic policy was adjusted once each year by the government in the budget and fine-tuned once each month at meetings of the Reserve Bank board. The coroanvirus means we haven’t had a budget in more than a year. What the Reserve Bank has done to interest rates means its monthly… Read more »
The Australian government’s lifeline to small businesses and the unemployed – JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments – will be extended past their original September cut-off date to continue to provide support during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Prime minister Scott Morrison announced today that the wage subsidy program and unemployment benefit schemes would extend for a further… Read more »
The Australian government is ramping up its cybersecurity defences, announcing on Tuesday that it will spend $1.35 billion over 10 years to enhance the national capabilities and assistance via the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre. Dubbed the Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (CESAR) package, the focus will range from cyber… Read more »
The quantum technology sector could be worth more than $4 billion annually and create 16,000 jobs by 2040, according to a report by CSIRO. The Growing Australia’s Quantum Technology Industry report sees potential in everything from national security to mineral exploration, drug and materials development, and communications from spin offs resulting from quantum physics developments.… Read more »
The Morrison Government released the eagerly anticipated discussion paper for the Technology Investment Roadmap overnight, with the 74-page paper, prepared by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, focused on climate change, emissions reduction and energy sources. The paper’s name is somewhat misleading for the broader startups sector, with the goal of the plan… Read more »
In late March, we posed a hypothetical scenario to a sample of Australians, asking if they would download a contact tracing app released by the federal government; 70% responded in favour. But a more recent survey, following the release of COVIDSafe, revealed only 44% of respondents had downloaded it. The Australian government’s COVIDSafe app aims… Read more »
Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes and Square Peg Capital’s Paul Bassat are among the tech sector’s high-profile supporters of the federal government’s contact-tracing smartphone app, CovidSafe, released on Sunday, but many remain wary of letting politicians anywhere near their data amid ongoing suspicion of their motives. Cannon-Brookes came out in favour of the app, which… Read more »
As governments look to ease general social-distancing measures and instead use more targeted strategies to stop coronavirus transmission, we face a social dilemma about the limits of cooperative behaviour. Consider the controversy over contact-tracing phone apps, which can help authorities identify people with whom someone diagnosed with COVID-19 has recently come into close contact. Oxford… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
