Tag: australia

Australia’s “eSafety” Commissioner Holds 2,600+ Records Tracking Christian Media Outlet

Australia’s online safety regulator is refusing to process a Freedom of Information request that would expose how it has tracked the activity of a prominent Christian media outlet and its leaders, citing excessive workload as the reason for denial.

The office of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has confirmed it is holding more than 2,600 records connected to The Daily Declaration, its founding body The Canberra Declaration, and three of its editorial figures: Warwick Marsh, Samuel Hartwich, and Kurt Mahlburg.

Despite admitting the existence of these records, the agency says reviewing them would take more than 100 hours and would therefore unreasonably impact its operations.

In a formal response dated 29 September, the regulator explained that it had identified thousands of documents referencing the group and its members. “Processing a request of this size would substantially impact eSafety’s operations,” the notice read.

The documents include media monitoring reports automatically generated whenever The Daily Declaration or its editors have posted online about the regulator or been tagged in relevant conversations.

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Strict new pet law to cost Aussies $5,000: What you need to know

Cat owners may be forced to spend thousands on building custom enclosures for their pets if powerful new laws are passed next year. 

Local councils in Western Australia could be granted new powers to enforce cat containment and fine owners whose pets stray too far from home. 

The federal government is currently amending the Cat Act 2011, with the changes expected to come into effect from as early as 2026. 

Building a large custom cat enclosure can cost upwards of $4,500.

It’s been estimated that since colonisation in 1788, cats have played a leading role in most of Australia’s 34 mammal extinctions.

A University of Sydney study found that each roaming cat killed an average of 186 reptiles, birds and mammals per year.

The 2020 report showed a death rate of 4,440 to 8,100 animals per square kilometre per year in areas inhabited by pet cats. 

In Australia, 2.7million pet cats, or 71 per cent, are able to roam free and hunt wildlife.

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Australian cyber warfare expert makes a chilling claim about Chinese EVs that every driver should read

China could detonate or disable electric vehicles sold in Australia, a top cybersecurity expert has warned. 

Alastair MacGibbon, former cybersecurity adviser to then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, sounded the alarm at the Financial Review’s Cyber Summit on Tuesday.

He depicted Australia’s policy towards Chinese EV’s as a security failure, adding the situation was so dire public officials ought to be banned from riding in them. 

‘The last decision of the National Security Committee of the Turnbull government was to take high-risk vendors out of 5G networks,’ he said. 

‘Fast-forward seven years and… potentially millions of [the Internet of Things] or connected devices – not made in China, but controlled by China – are all through our systems.

‘Those cars that we talk about, whether they’re electric or not, are listening devices, and they’re surveillance devices in terms of cameras.’

Mr MacGibbon, who now serves as the chief strategy officer at CyberCX, said the risks went beyond just EV’s to smart devices made or controlled in China.

‘Let’s talk potential scenarios, take off the safety features of household batteries so that they overcharge. Take off those same safety features for electric vehicles,’ he said. 

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Australia enforces world’s harshest social media age crackdown

Australia is introducing the world’s toughest rules to keep children off social media, with platforms facing fines of up to $49.5 million if they fail to detect and remove underage users.

From December 10, social media companies must actively identify and deactivate accounts belonging to users under 16, block re-registration attempts, and provide proper appeals processes. Communications Minister Anika Wells has unveiled a list of “reasonable steps” platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube must follow.

The measures demand that age assurance technology not be a “set-and-forget” system and cannot rely solely on self-declaration. Platforms are encouraged to adopt a layered or “waterfall approach” using multiple checks across the user experience to detect underage accounts. They must also remove existing accounts “with care and clear communication” and provide accessible review options for those who believe they were wrongly flagged.

Wells and controversial eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant will present the guidance directly to tech companies during a visit to the United States later this month. After trials proved the technology exists to meet the requirements, Wells said there is no excuse for companies to fall short.

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Three people arrested after investigation into man’s suicide uncovers alleged euthanasia ring

Three people have been arrested after police busted an alleged euthanasia drug trafficking ring while investigating a man’s suicide. 

Queensland Police began investigating after the Coroner revealed the cause of death for a 43-year-old man on Hope Island, on the Gold Coast, on April 11.

Toxicology results found he had died from pentobarbitone, also known as pentobarbital – a Schedule 2 drug used by vets to euthanise animals.

Detectives spent the following months investigating the man’s health, care and treatment in the time before his death, before three people were arrested on Monday.

A 53-year-old man, accused of supplying the pentobarbitone, was charged with two counts of aiding suicide and one count each of trafficking in dangerous drugs, possessing dangerous drugs and receiving or possessing property obtained from trafficking or supplying.

He is due to reappear at Southport Magistrates Court on 18 September.

An 81-year-old woman was charged with one count each of aiding suicide, trafficking dangerous drugs, possession of dangerous drugs and sale of potential harmful things.

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Australia Orders Tech Giants to Enforce Age Verification Digital ID by December 10

Australia is preparing to enforce one of the most invasive online measures in its history under the guise of child safety.

With the introduction of mandatory age verification across social media platforms, privacy advocates are warning that the policy, set to begin December 10, 2025, risks eroding fundamental digital rights for every user, not just those under 16.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has told tech giants like Google, Meta, TikTok, and Snap that they must be ready to detect and shut down accounts held by Australians under the age threshold.

She has made it clear that platforms are expected to implement broad “age assurance” systems across their services, and that “self-declaration of age will not, on its own, be enough to constitute reasonable steps.”

The new rules stem from the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which gives the government sweeping new authority to dictate how users verify their age before accessing digital services. Any platform that doesn’t comply could be fined up to $31M USD.

While the government claims the law isn’t a ban on social media for children under 16, in practice, it forces platforms to block these users unless they can pass age checks, which means a digital ID.

There will be no penalties for children or their parents, but platforms face immense legal and financial pressure to enforce restrictions, pressure that almost inevitably leads to surveillance-based systems.

The Commissioner said companies must “detect and de-activate these accounts from 10 December, and provide account holders with appropriate information and support before then.”

These expectations extend to providing “clear, age-appropriate communications” and making sure users can download their data and find emotional or mental health resources when their accounts are terminated.

She further stated that “efficacy will require layered safety measures, sometimes known as a ‘waterfall approach’,” a term often associated with collecting increasing amounts of personal data at multiple steps of user interaction.

Such layered systems often rely on facial scanning, government ID uploads, biometric estimation, or AI-powered surveillance tools to estimate age.

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Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell’s henchman exposed: How a police officer’s son rose through Australia’s far-right ranks

Thomas Sewell might be the current face of neo-Nazism in Australia but wherever his bald head pops up inciting racial hatred it is likely right-hand man Nathan Bull will be standing beside him.

When Bull first emerged on the far-right scene a couple of years ago he was a baby-faced stirrer with a penchant for offensive T-shirts and juvenile antics. He is now a 23-year-old father and his childish smirk has gone. 

Sewell is the leader of the National Socialist Network (NSN) and has long courted media attention, while Bull – the son of a Victorian policeman – has generally been seen as an insignificant young offsider. 

That changed last weekend when Bull was part of the NSN raiding party who stormed Camp Sovereignty at Melbourne‘s Kings Domain park, an Aboriginal sacred site near the Shrine of Remembrance.

Suddenly, Bull was seen on news website and television bulletins around the country snarling through a mouthguard as he stood next to Sewell, who appeared to be throwing a punch at a campsite occupier. 

The encampment was born of the Black GST Movement, which campaigns for an end to genocide, the acknowledgement of Indigenous sovereignty and making treaties with Indigenous Australians.

About 30 men dressed in black invaded Camp Sovereignty after an anti-immigration rally held under the March for Australia banner in Melbourne’s central business district on Sunday.

The intruders were filmed trampling an Aboriginal flag amid a violent scuffle in which Camp Sovereignty occupiers were allegedly punched, kicked and hit with a pole. 

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REVEALED: Secret Service Spent $81,000 on Kamala Harris’ Trip to Australia Where She Was Paid $500,000 to Bash Elon Musk and Trump

The Secret Service spent a whopping $81,000 on Kamala Harris’ trip to Australia earlier this year, where she was paid $500,000 to bash Elon Musk and Trump at a real estate conference.

President Trump has since yanked Harris’ Secret Service protection.

“The Center to Advance Security in America commends President Trump’s decision to remove Secret Service protection for former Vice President and failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris,” Fitzpatrick said.

“CASA recently obtained records showing that the Secret Service spent $81,000 to protect Harris on her trip to the Australian Real Estate Conference in May, where she engaged in political attacks on the Trump administration and its allies, and was paid $500,000,” Fitzpatrick added. “This is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and the American people should not be expected to fund the protection of Harris as she travels the world in an attempt to line her pockets.”

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Australia’s Senate Orders Release of eSafety Censorship Emails

The Australian Senate has formally ordered the production of all communications between “eSafety” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), adding to the scrutiny over the Commissioner’s role in transnational efforts to stifle online political speech.

While the contents of the emails had already come to light through a US House Judiciary Committee investigation, the Senate’s move signals a significant shift, one aimed squarely at holding a senior Australian bureaucrat accountable for her coordination with a foreign activist group pushing to censor views, including those of US President Donald Trump.

Senator Alex Antic, who introduced the motion, confirmed its passage on Wednesday afternoon, posting: “The Senate has voted in favour of my order for production of documents relating to communications between the Office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.”

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Follow the Scientism

Because we would all prefer to forget the Covid crisis and move on, the following may have already faded from our collective memory. Only a few years ago, Australia rounded up citizens exposed to Covid, including asymptomatic people, and shipped them involuntarily to detention facilities against their will. Videos of Australian quarantine centers made their way onto social media before tech censors, at the behest of governments, dutifully scrubbed them from the internet. Many provincial governors in Australia abused their emergency powers: while not every Australian state chose full-throated authoritarianism, several of them did. Canada likewise built detention facilities for infected persons, and the state of New York fought an ongoing legal battle to do so.

Authoritarian measures during the Covid crisis went beyond forced detainment of suspected or actual cases. The Medical Indemnity Protection Society (MIPS) in Australia, which provides medical malpractice insurance to all the country’s physicians, published twelve commandments for physicians on their website to avoid disciplinary “notifications”—an Orwellian euphemism for investigations overseen by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulatory Agency, the governing entity overseeing all physicians. The MIPS Commandment #9 instructed Australian doctors as follows:

Be very careful when using social media (even on your personal pages), when authoring papers or when appearing in interviews. Health practitioners are obliged to ensure their views are consistent with public health messaging. This is particularly relevant in current times. Views expressed which may be consistent with evidence-based material may not necessarily be consistent with public health messaging.

Read that last sentence one more time: “evidence-based material” refers to peer-reviewed scientific papers or other sources of credible medical information. So, if Australian doctors mention findings of a published study which are not consistent with “public health messaging”—i.e., the approved views of the public health bureaucrats in power—these physicians could potentially lose their ability to practice medicine. Notice that this applies also to physicians “authoring papers,” meaning that if a doctor conducts research and his findings contradict “public health messaging,” he’d better think twice before publishing the results.

Likewise, in the US, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), an authority on medical licensure and physician discipline, passed a policy in May 2022 on medical misinformation and disinformation that guides all state medical boards and the nation’s physicians they license. My home state of California took up the FSMB’s suggestion to codify these recommendations in law with Assembly Bill 2098. I traveled to Sacramento to testify against this legislation when it was debated in the State Senate.

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