The federal government’s upcoming data and digital strategy will be accompanied by an iterative implementation plan so the new guidance stays relevant through technological changes and can guide new investments and an upskilling of public servants. The new approach, expected to include bi-annual updates, looks to deliver on promises of the previous Australian Data Strategy…
Imagine if you could choose to have a digital identity established with a ‘trusted digital identity provider’ — and use that to apply for a passport, mobile phone, bank account or private health insurance plan, within seconds. Imagine if such a system meant that your telco, or bank, or insurance company, no longer needed to…
Small businesses feel excluded from Canberra’s “in-crowd” of suppliers and say competition mechanisms — including the Albanese government’s latest attempt — are being overlooked. A new paper reveals the frustrations in an $80 billion annual spend, including complaints of uncompetitive panel arrangements, an opaque tender pipeline, large companies using wholly-owned subsidiaries to exploit SME exemptions,…
Controversial facial recognition laws previously rejected by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee could be reintroduced in “parallel” with the Albanese government’s new digital identity legislation. As the timeline for the expansion of the Australian Government Digital Identity System (AGDIS) across the broader economy becomes clear, new documents have shed light on long-lost legislation for a…
The Australian government’s cyber experts were not consulted on the awarding of a $23 million grant to an industry body without tender to train thousands of “cyber wardens”, while Treasury has yet to detail how it managed any conflicts of interest in awarding grant without a competitive process. In the May Budget the Albanese government…
In the latest New Politics podcast: We should never underestimate the lengths to which the Liberal Party will go, or how low they will stoop, in order to gain a political advantage. This was evident in one of the most distressing weeks in federal Parliament in a long time: they exploited their own act of covering up allegations of sexual assault in Parliament House in 2019 and attempted to shift the blame onto Senator Katy Gallagher, accusing her of misleading Parliament during a Senate hearing.
The real issue here is the mistreatment of a woman – Brittany Higgins – who was sexually assaulted, and the Liberal Party has decided that they cannot go low enough to seek advantage. However, the Liberal Party’s tactics backfired, and by the end of the week, the focus was on Liberal Party Senator David Van, who faced allegations of sexual harassment and assault by several women Senators and was subsequently asked to resign from Parliament. Again, it’s all because of Dutton’s awful Liberal Party!
We also address the issue of housing affordability in Australia and speak with Cathy Callaghan, senior policy officer at Shelter NSW, who provides an overview of the various aspects of housing policy that need attention in order to achieve a sustainable and equitable housing sector in the future. Housing has been neglected by successive governments over the past 30 years, with social and public housing largely left to the private sector, which is a significant reason why we are facing the problems we have today. Resolving these issues requires substantial effort and focus by government.
And finally in the New Politics podcast, we examine the opinion polls regarding the Voice to Parliament initiative. While some polls suggest a decline in support for the initiative, others indicate that support remains around 60 per vent, creating a confusing picture. The Voice to Parliament is an important aspiration for First Nations people in Australia, but the debate surrounding the referendum has become toxic, with conservative groups disseminating misinformation to undermine its success. Beneath these layers of deception, the underlying reason for this strategy is a disturbing undercurrent of racism that is becoming more overt and brazen. #auspol #VoiceToParliament #MurdochRoyalCommission
Music interludes:
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The National Library of Australia will receive $33 million over four years in next month’s federal Budget, avoiding a funding cliff and securing the future of its digital archive database Trove. It follows ongoing calls for funding certainty for the institution, which had its budget slashed by the Coalition in 2016 and was not funded…
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Labor got solid round of applause when it unveiled plans for a Future Made in Australia Office last October in the run-up to the federal election as part of a 10-point Buy Australian Plan. It was broadly welcomed by industry as a no-brainer policy for building sovereign capability, and for bolstering critical supply chains. The…
The Commonwealth Procurement Rules have been changed to give small and medium sized businesses a bigger slice of the $70 billion the federal government spends annually on contracts and to force agencies to consider the climate impacts of bids. The Albanese government on Friday doubled the previous commitment of non-corporate Commonwealth entities sourcing at least…
Labor will cut just under $200 million from the Entrepreneurs’ Programme – about 75 per cent of the program’s funding – if it wins this weekend’s election, and will also “reprioritise” unallocated funds from the Coalition’s manufacturing grants scheme. Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmbers and Shadow Finance Minister Katy Gallagher released Labor’s election policy costings on…
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Trade minister Dan Tehan has declined to provide almost any detail about a lucrative contract his department awarded to global consulting giants McKinsey last year, with the Opposition slamming it as part of a Coalition trend to reduce the Australian Public Service to being “merely a secretarial service to minister”. In October Austrade gave McKinsey…
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Labor on Monday put forward a bill which would require ministers to report when they approve grants rejected by their departments or when they award grants in their own electorates, after a string of rorting scandals. The Opposition said the new law would curb the use of public money for political means, claiming that rorting…
Labor will introduce a bill requiring ministers to report when they approve grants rejected by their departments or when they award grants in their own electorates, in an effort to avoid “systemic rorting of public funds”.
Under the legislation to be introduced to the Senate, declarations would need to be made to the Finance Minister within 30 days, who would then need to table them to Parliament within five sitting days of receiving them.
The Opposition said the bill would bring more transparency to government spending.
“Labor will introduce a bill into the Senate to improve the transparency and accountability of ministerial decisions with grant programs that Scott Morrison is addicted to rorting,” Shadow Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher said Monday.
Labor also revealed it will establish an Independent National Anti-Corruption Commission if elected, promising to make the body transparent and powerful by operating as a standing Royal Commission into serious corruption.
Shadow Minister for Finance Katy Gallagher. Image: Twitter
The push for more transparency in federal spending follows a series of scandals involving the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money through several federal grant programs.
The programs have been exposed to show money is being directed to Coalition held, marginal or targeted electorates, often contrary to Department advice.
The latest involved funds from a $660 million commuter carpark fund being allocated based on Coalition MP or candidate advice, rather than merit. Labor has flagged an upcoming $800 million manufacturing program is open to similar rorting because the Prime Minister will have final approval on grants up to $200 million in the run up to the election.
Senator Gallagher said the “abuse of public money” must end, and her planned bill would at least shine a brighter light on the behaviour.
“This will dramatically reduce the time Ministers are able to hide their dodgy decisions from the Australian community from 16 months down to just a couple of months,” she said.
“Labor shouldn’t have to introduce this bill but we have been left with no choice.”
On Monday, the Opposition also formally committed to establish an Independent National Anti-Corruption Commission should it win the next federal election, saying the watchdog would be far more robust that what has been proposed by the Coalition.
“It will have a broad jurisdiction to investigate and hold to account Commonwealth ministers, public servants, statutory office holders, government agencies, parliamentarians, personal staff of politicians and other Commonwealth public officials,” a joint-statement from Opposition leader Anthony Albanese and Shadow Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said.
“Labor’s National Anti-Corruption Commission will also be able to ‘follow the money’, meaning it can also investigate private individuals and companies involved in systemic and serious corruption by public officials.”
Labor’s planned Commission would be fundamentally different to the governments, they said, because under the Coalition plan the Commission would be unable to instigate its own inquiries into government corruption, be prevented from holding public hearings into politicians or public servants, and prevented from investigating past scandals.
Analysis of 40 recent political scandals earlier this month by The Guardian and the Centre for Public Integrity found all but two of the incidents would fall “well short” of the threshold to begin an investigation under the Coalition’s proposed anti-corruption commission.
A Liberal Senator has failed in his second attempt to launch an inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in Australia, after the motion was blocked by Labor and the crossbench.
South Australian senator Alex Antic moved a motion on Tuesday for the establishment of a Select Committee on Big Tech Influence in Australia, which would look into disinformation, “de-platforming”, fake accounts and the extent that the likes of Facebook and Google comply with local laws.
But the attempt was dismissed by Labor, who said there are already too many select committees, and the Greens, who took issue with the language of the motion, which they said was used “overwhelmingly by the far right”.
Big Tech: The senate has declined to establish a new select committee to investigate
Senator Antic had originally planned to move the motion last month, but put this on hold. This was the same day that the government announced it had reached an agreement with Facebook over its media bargaining code, with news allowed back on the social media platform.
He tried again on Tuesday, attempting to launch a select committee that would investigate and report on the activity of major international and domestic tech firms, specifically looking at disinformation, misinformation, shadow banning, de-platform and monetisation, fake accounts and bots, the companies’ terms of service and their compliance with Australian law.
The motion was voted down with Senators drawn at 32 votes for and against.
Labor voted down the motion due to the amount of Select Committees already operating.
“We were advised by the government that they are concerned at the number of Select Committees that are currently operating in the Senate and at the level of work references committees have – that Select Committees are perhaps filling part of the role that references committees had in the past – only to be given this motion on the Notice Paper,” Labor Senator Katy Gallagher said.
“So we won’t be supporting this today, based on the government’s own advice that there are too many Select Committees at this point in time.”
Crossbench Senator Rex Patrick also voted against the motion for this reason, saying it would mean there are 10 Select Committees, even though it is recommended there should only be three at any one time.
Senator Patrick said he would have supported an inquiry by a references committee into Big Tech.
The Greens voted against the motion due to the language used in it.
“There is no doubt that we do need an inquiry into the influence of Big Tech in this country, particularly its impact on our democracy and our media and the way that Big Tech has allowed for the proliferation of far-right extremism on digital platforms in Australia,” Greens Senator Nick McKim said.
“However, this motion contains language which concerns the Greens. It is language which is used overwhelmingly by the far right, including terms like shadow-banning and deplatforming.
“While we won’t be supporting this motion today, we do remain open minded and of the view that we need to have a look at some of the impacts of the Big Tech sector on those areas I mentioned earlier.”
Shadow industry minister Ed Husic last month labelled the attempted motion a “joke”.
“On so many levels this was a joke and a poor one at that. There are countless reports gathering dust now on what needs to be done to combat some of the excesses in technology that this government has ignored,” Mr Husic told InnovationAus in February.
“On top of that did anyone seriously think that this government that had pulled the handbrake on implementing Royal Commission recommendations against big banks was serious about a Big Tech inquiry that would produce a report that would go nowhere?”
