ESafety commissioner announces new AI codes for protecting kids
NEW ONLINE CODES
It’s one of those mornings where everyone is leading with a different news story with not much common ground between them. However, there’s plenty going on, so let’s get going.
The ABC led overnight on the news eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant has registered six new codes under the Online Safety Act. The broadcaster says the new codes are designed to limit the growing number of children accessing harmful content online.
Under the changes, children in Australia “will be prevented from having sexual, violent or harmful conversations with AI companions in a world-first move”, the ABC reports.
Inman Grant told the 7.30 program tech companies would be required “to embed the safeguards and use the age assurance” before AI chatbots were deployed.
The six new codes will apply to social media sites, app stores, technology manufacturers and AI chatbot apps.
The commissioner said on Monday that schools in Australia had been reporting children aged 10 and 11 were spending up to six hours a day on AI companions, “most of them sexualised chatbots”.
Guardian Australia reports Inman Grant also said none of the big technology companies were doing enough to stop images of “the most heinous abuse to children” from being shared.
The site adds around 100,000 Australians every month “have accessed an app that allows users to upload images of other people, including school students, to receive an accurate depiction of what they would look like naked”, according to the eSafety commissioner.
The ABC highlights a UK tech company has been threatened with a $49.5 million fine over its “nudify” sites.
The new codes are set to be implemented at the same time as the government introduces a ban on children under 16 using social media.
The Australian leads this morning on government plans to merge four education agencies into “a new super agency” in what it says is an attempt to eliminate failed teaching techniques and “challenge struggling state schools to catch up with the superior performance of private and Catholic schools”.
Education Minister Jason Clare is expected to tell a national schools symposium at Curtin University today: “In independent and Catholic schools, completion rates are high and are either stable or going up.
“It’s in our public schools where the real challenge is, and where a lot of the heavy lifting happens. In the last decade, the percentage of young people finishing high school has dropped in public schools from about 83% to as low as 73%.’’
The newspaper reports Clare reckons the government’s plan to pour an extra $16 billion into public schools over the next 10 years, in return for better results, will “turn this around’’.
COALITION CHAOS CONTINUES
Yesterday morning we flagged the complete chaos that is the Coalition at present, and the opposition went on to back that up with yet another day of mayhem on Monday.
Guardian Australia recalls Liberal frontbencher Alex Hawke called on Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to apologise for the “real damage” her comments have caused the Indian community, while Coalition leader Sussan Ley refused to apologise for Price, saying instead “the remarks were received by the Indian community as hurtful and harmful”.
Last week Price claimed the government was accepting “large numbers” of Indian migrants into Australia to bolster Labor’s vote. She has since sought to “clarify” her remarks but has not apologised.
As previously mentioned, she has instead accused Hawke of “cowardly and inappropriate” conduct against her staff. Last night, she told Sky News she had asked Ley to request Hawke apologise and claimed the leader had not raised concerns about her comments directly with her.
“I have not had a conversation with the leader specifically about that issue,” Price told Peta Credlin. “I guess I would expect that I would hear directly from the leader herself, if it was of huge concern. It didn’t appear to be of huge concern … I haven’t received any such call.”
Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce is among those now calling on Price to apologise for her comments, Guardian Australia also reports.
“You make mistakes in politics all the time and the best thing to do is apologise and move on and get off it, get on to another topic. It’s just the nature of politics,” he told Channel 7.
The Australian Financial Review has reported the Indian government has sought assurances from the federal government “about the welfare of its diaspora after raising alarm about the recent nationwide March for Australia protests against migration from countries including India”.
The newspaper also reports on the Coalition refusing to let go of its nuclear power dream, reminding us that emissions reduction and energy spokesman Dan Tehan is currently in the US gauging the level of private investor interest in nuclear.
Tehan told the paper the Coalition would, if elected, lift the moratorium on nuclear energy, enabling investors to become involved if they wished. “There’s no doubt that it’s [nuclear] going to come back into play,” he said.
“Every major industrialised country, apart from Australia, is either seriously considering nuclear or is adopting nuclear technology at pace. And so we have to make sure that we are absolutely on top of everything that’s going on.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is heading to the Solomon Islands this week for the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting, where leaders are expected to endorse a treaty to establish a new climate finance fund called the Pacific Resilience Facility, the ABC reports.
Before that, Albanese will visit Vanuatu today for what has been reported will be the signing of a landmark security and economic agreement. However, the national broadcaster says the deal “hangs in the balance”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Last week, 54-year-old Terry Dunn thought he was about to play for his beloved Dorking Wanderers after coming out of retirement to help the English soccer club he supports.
News of the National League South side signing the fan who retired 27 years ago on a short-term contract, after the club’s first-choice keeper was ruled out for weeks with injury, made an awful lot of headlines, with the likes of the BBC and The Guardian covering it.
Now, a cynic might ask if this was something of a publicity stunt. Honestly, who knows? What we do know is that Dunn didn’t end up playing for the team he supports because Dorking managed to sign another goalkeeper, Joe Wright, on an emergency loan just in the nick of time.
Dorking said in a statement: “With Wright now joining our ranks on a temporary basis, Terry will remain part of the Wanderers squad. The club would like to place on record its sincere thanks to Terry for stepping forward with true Wanderers spirit and grit. Supporters will have the chance to meet him at Meadowbank this afternoon, where he will be in attendance.”
Say What?
I’d like to encourage everybody to be kind to each other.
Ian Wilkinson
Wilkinson, who survived being served a beef wellington lunch laced with death cap mushrooms, spoke after convicted triple-murderer Erin Patterson was sentenced to at least 33 years behind bars.
CRIKEY RECAP
Beneath the pratfalls, there’s something malignant happening on race within the Liberals
Behind Ley’s visible discomfort and Hawke and Price slapping pies in each other’s faces in public, however, is something a whole lot less funny. There is support for the Great Replacement Theory within sections of the right in Australia, and that overlaps into the right of the Liberal Party, which is why no-one batted an eyelid when Peter Dutton, rather more bluntly, offered his own version involving Palestinians back in February.
There may undoubtedly be people who actually believe that Labor has operatives working in the bowels of Home Affairs, processing visa applications to ensure Labor-voting migrants come to Australia and somehow get fast-tracked to citizenship. But the Great Replacement Theory is as much an expression of resentment as it is a viable conspiracy theory: it explains the annoying fact that the electorate keeps producing the wrong outcomes, from the point of view of right-wingers.
Meanjin’s ‘financial’ shutdown doesn’t add up
The crest of the University of Melbourne bears the motto “postera crescam laude”. It’s a line from one of Horace’s odes that means, “I shall grow in the esteem of future generations”. Former Melbourne VC Glyn Davis shoehorned the motto into a bland corporate strategy, but the poem is really about the capacity of art and poetry to endure beyond flagship buildings and executive bonuses.
Future generations will look upon the decision to shutter Meanjin with contempt, and as they continue to plunge into the living waters of the journal’s archive, they will esteem the writers and thinkers and editors who made it.
Alan Joyce’s final $3.8m Qantas paycheck is par for the course across corporate Australia
Qantas executives enjoy a lucrative long-term incentive (LTI) — i.e. executive remuneration for achieving performance goals — built almost exclusively on the blunt instrument of the airline’s share price, which soared 88% in the 2024-2025 financial year. There is no clearer example of the effect of its link with executive LTI than in the final $3.8 million paycheck for former chief executive Alan Joyce.
Such links between share price performance and LTIs are a feature baked into the generous remuneration schemes across corporate Australia, a landscape generally dominated by cosy oligopolies. These structures — a drag on the country’s productivity — are great for investors as they provide higher returns on capital, stronger businesses and cash flows.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Epstein birthday letter with Trump’s signature revealed (The Wall Street Journal) ($)
French government collapses after prime minister loses confidence vote (CNN)
At least six dead, 15 wounded by gunmen at bus stop in Jerusalem outskirts (ABC)
Palestinian prisoners not being given adequate food, Israel top court says (BBC)
Beijing has post-parade tantrum at Australia over ‘incomprehensible’ Japan ties (The Australian) ($)
‘I’m gonna punch you in your f—king face’: Scott Bessent threatens an administration rival (POLITICO)
THE COMMENTARIAT
If Price continues to follow Trump’s playbook, she’ll be sorry, even if she won’t say it — James Massola (The Sydney Morning Herald): Price has a binary view of Australia’s media landscape. Either you’re on her side or you’re her enemy. It’s not surprising, given an entire TV station tells her — night after night, after dark — how great she is.
As if to prove the point, she appeared on Sky to discuss the controversy with Peta Credlin, one of the big champions of conservative Victorian MP Moira Deeming, and demanded an apology from Hawke, rather than proffering one.
But Australia is not America. We have compulsory voting and a world-leading electoral commission. The political contest is settled in the centre, not on the fringes of the left or the right, nor in a televised Liberal Party branch meeting watched by 50,000 viewers.
Putin shows his true colours, but will Trump see them? — Cameron Stewart (The Australian): Putin has shown with his ever-larger attacks on Ukraine that he does not fear whatever Trump can throw at him. Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska last month achieved the dictator’s aim of buying time from the president while at the same time pretending to support low-level ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine.
Since then Putin has walked away from his reported agreement to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and has refused to give any ground on Russia’s conditions for ending the conflict. The latest example was Moscow warning that it would never agree to European troops being stationed in Ukraine under a ceasefire deal. This statement came after 26 European nations last week pledged their willingness to contribute troops to such a force if needed.
The Western world has waited for months for the moment when Trump finally loses patience with Putin. This massive attack on Ukraine is another sign of Putin’s disdain for the peace process and another reason for Trump to finally turn on him.
