Business

Financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC demands an external auditor for Airwallex over AML/CTF concerns

- January 22, 2026 3 MIN READ

The Australian government’s financial system anti-crimes regulator, AUSTRAC, has called in an external auditor at Airwallex over concerns that the fintech unicorn has failed to properly comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws. AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas, said the external audits will assess serious compliance concerns by the regulator, which is charged with… Read more »

Catalan tower
Funding

The quiet unravelling of Australia’s startup culture: when a nation loses sight of the rewards from risk

- January 13, 2026 8 MIN READ

When the Victorian government announced plans to disband LaunchVic, and distribute some of its roles to other agencies, like Breakthrough Victoria, there’s a temptation to treat it as an administrative change: a reshuffle of functions, a rebadging of programs, a matter for insiders. That temptation is comforting – and profoundly wrong. I don’t want to… Read more »

Grok, AI
AI/Machine Learning

eSafety takes on Elon Musk again over Grok’s AI child porn on X

- January 12, 2026 2 MIN READ

Australia’s eSafety commission has issued a please explain to Elon Musk’s social media site,  X, and his generative AI chatbot Grok following complaints about it making sexual images of women and children. The federal government body said there had been a small number of complaints about Grok being used to generate sexualised or exploitative imagery.… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

3 ways to make power-hungry data centres more efficient

- January 9, 2026 3 MIN READ

The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates data centres will consume 6% of Australia’s grid-supplied electricity by 2030. To put that in context, that’s more than the current share of Australia’s healthcare and social assistance industry. This reflects the rapid growth of Australia’s data centre industry – the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI). This growth is,… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

Now that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot is awash with sexualised images of women and children, the law needs to move faster

- January 8, 2026 4 MIN READ

X (formerly Twitter) has become a site for the rapid spread of artificial intelligence-generated nonconsensual sexual images (also known as “deepfakes”). Using the platform’s own built-in generative AI chatbot, Grok, users can edit images they upload through simple voice or text prompts. Various media outlets have reported that users are using Grok to create sexualised… Read more »

Business

Why not giving corporate regulator ASIC a current email address could cost you $20,000

- January 6, 2026 2 MIN READ

Business leaders would face fines of up to $40,000 for not listing their Director ID when required, and penalties of up to $20,000 for failing to provide updated email addresses, under draft legislation put forward by the federal government. The Treasury released an exposure draft for the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift)… Read more »

Business

The NSW government is slinging at least $5000 a vehicle at any company keen to switch its fleet to EVs

- January 2, 2026 < 1 MIN READ

The latest round of the NSW Government’s EV fleets incentive program has opened with $5 million in co-funding up for grabs for businesses and organisations making the shift to electric vehicles. The provides support for the purchase or lease of up to 15 battery EVs (BEVs) and the installation of smart charging infrastructure. The latest… Read more »

Advice

The best of 2025: If you want to get $16 million from the NSW government for your startup, probably the best bet is to start abusing people

- December 29, 2025 5 MIN READ

Over the Summer break, Startup Daily is republishing key stories from 2025. This opinion piece from editor Simon Thomsen first appeared in February amid news that the NSW that the NSW government and UFC fan premier Chris Minns, paid $16 million to the US cage fighting company to stage 3 events in Sydney at a… Read more »

Funding

‘Devastating decision’: women founders backed by LaunchVic’s Alice Anderson Fund on the merger and uncertainty

- December 29, 2025 3 MIN READ

The Victorian government’s plan to abolish LaunchVic has shaken beneficiaries of its Alice Anderson Fund, who fear upcoming women-led startups could lose out on important funding, significant business opportunities, and a powerful support network. In response to a major cost-cutting review of the public sector, the Allan government confirmed earlier this month that startup support… Read more »

Global tech

US tech is kicking up a stink about the Australian government’s plan for them to pay local media

- December 24, 2025 4 MIN READ

Reactions to the government’s consultation paper on the proposed news bargaining incentive have begun trickling in — and US tech lobby groups aren’t happy. Several Washington-based trade associations have warned the incentive is inconsistent with Australia’s free trade commitments with the US, and one lobby group has warned US President Donald Trump could be moved… Read more »

AI/Machine Learning

How scammers use crypto and fake fundraisers to profit from the Bondi terrorism tragedy

- December 23, 2025 2 MIN READ

Grifters and scammers are trying to cash in on the Bondi Beach terrorist attack by launching speculative cryptocurrencies and fake fundraisers, even celebrating when the value of a coin using the likeness of the 10-year-old victim of the mass shooting spiked after launching. As is typically the case around any major news event, opportunistic people… Read more »

Leadership

An AI founder and great-grandfather, on tech’s role in monetising antisemitism and why history shows silence is never an option

- December 21, 2025 10 MIN READ

By age 12, your political operating system is encoded. Everything after is confirmation bias with better vocabulary. This is not cynicism. This is archaeology. Dig into any 50-year-old’s beliefs and you will find layers deposited at the kitchen table, in the schoolyard, at church or synagogue or mosque, in the neighborhood where they learned who… Read more »

Diversity

‘The darkness cannot extinguish the light’: NSW Premier Chris Minns on healing and the way forward for all after Bondi

- December 21, 2025 4 MIN READ

Bondi is beautiful tonight. And not because of its beaches, its sunset, its people, its fun. It’s beautiful because you in your thousands, in your defiance, in your resistance and resolve, you have returned to these sands just seven days after a shocking crime, and have said to the terrorists, we are going nowhere. This… Read more »

Treasurer Jim Chalmers
Funding

The government is increasing funding for cash-strapped CSIRO, but startups will pay for it with commercialisation cuts

- December 18, 2025 4 MIN READ

The federal government will tip an additional $233 million into the national science agency the CSIRO over two years in response to budget shortfalls that have forced it to cut hundreds of research jobs, but the startup sector will pay for it with further cuts to commercialisation funding programs. And CSIRO still plans to cut… Read more »