Executives from Google and Facebook recently told a Senate committee they are prepared to take drastic action if Australia’s news media bargaining code, which would force the internet giants to pay news publishers for linking to their sites, comes into force. Google would have “no real choice” but to cut Australian users off entirely from… Read more »
Anthony Albanese will risk a backlash from employers when he releases an industrial relations policy promising a Labor government would substantially increase the legal rights and protections for Australians in insecure work. Wednesday’s policy unveiling will ensure industrial relations is a major political battleground in coming months, with the opposition already declaring it will vote… Read more »
The Morrison government on Friday released a plan to reduce carbon emissions from Australia’s road transport sector. Controversially, it ruled out consumer incentives to encourage electric vehicle uptake. The disappointing document is not the electric vehicle jump-start the country sorely needs. In contrast, the United States has recently gone all-in on electric vehicles. Like leaders… Read more »
Over the past few weeks, Google and Facebook have engaged in desperate attempts to avoid regulation under the Australian government’s proposed mandatory news media bargaining code. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg even appealed to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher personally last week, hoping to shift the government’s hard stance. Both platforms’ strategies… Read more »
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has raised concerns that Australia’s proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code could fundamentally break the internet as we know it. His concerns are valid. However, they could be addressed through minor changes to the proposed code. How could the code break the web?… Read more »
The South Australian and Victorian governments have announced, and New South Wales is considering, road user charges on electric vehicles. This policy has drawn scorn from environmental advocates and motor vehicle lobbyists who fear it will slow the uptake of less-polluting vehicles. But, from a longer-term transport policy perspective, a distance-based road user charge on… Read more »
US tech pioneer Vint Cerf, the man dubbed “father of the internet” for his work co-designing TCP/IP protocols, has backed his employer, Google, in its fight against the Australian government’s plans to make tech giants Google and Facebook pay media companies for using their content. Cerf, who has worked for Google as a vice president and… Read more »
Female startup founders in Victoria will have access to $10 million in angel investment under a new fund announced in the state budget today. Treasurer Tim Pallas allocated $10 million towards the Women Founders Angel Sidecar Fund while hoping it will unlock a further $30 million in private sector equity. The funds are part of… Read more »
Video game production is worth around $250 billion annually, but Australia’s slice of that pie is tiny – just $114 million. It’s so paltry New Zealand’s games industry generates more revenue, while the UK and Canadian game development industries are 10 times bigger than Australia’s. The local sector believes it can easily become a $1… Read more »
The NSW budget is shouting the state a $250 million lunch, even as the 2021 financial year will post an historic $16 billion deficit as Treasurer Dominic Perrottet grapples with the impact of Covid-19 on Australia’s most populous state. The FY20 deficit was $6.9 billion. It will take until 2025 before the NSW budget is back… Read more »
A timeless tradition in political journalism is trying to find a narrative that explains an electoral outcome. A widely accepted narrative to explain Barack Obama’s win over John McCain in 2008 was that Americans wanted to embrace the “change” candidate who appeared the most dissimilar to then-President George W Bush. The narrative four years later… Read more »
Owing to the large numbers of mail ballots, counting in some states has been very slow. What we know is that Donald Trump won Florida, Texas, Ohio and Iowa. With the exception of Florida, these states were regarded as only winnable for Biden if he won by a landslide. Trump is narrowly ahead with almost… Read more »
Paul Fletcher, the federal communications minister in charge of the $55.5 billion national broadband rollout, has evoked tractor production under the Soviets to defend the Coalition government’s seven-year handling of the NBN roll-out. In a speech to the CommsDay Summit yesterday, Fletcher evoked the spectre of “those apocryphal Japanese soldiers found in remote jungles in… Read more »
This year has been a thunderclap to so much of what we assumed to be normal. While some parts of the economy, by virtue of the pandemic restrictions, were frozen in place, others had to accelerate at warp speed. But all of us have had to adapt and to find a place of resilience and… Read more »
The budget deficit is projected to hit $213.6 billion, a record 11% of GDP, before winding back: Instead of falling, as predicted in the last budget, debt will climb: There’s spending and tax cuts a plenty: It’s expected to bring about a bounce-back in economic growth: But much depends on the assumptions, including a return… Read more »
Daily startup news and insights, delivered to your inbox.
