AI here to stay, accept it, says Australian government, vows artist copyright protection

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AI here to stay, accept it, says Australian government, vows artist copyright protection

17 July 2026

Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, says he wants to make Australia an “attractive destination” for investment in AI development, during a speech delivered on Wednesday.

Albanese also wants to balance the opportunities and risks presented by the technologies, particularly concerns that AI uptake will result in widespread job losses.

AI will take away jobs, he said, but will also create new and different lines of work.

Among proposals is a coordinated national framework, rather than a state-by-state approach, that will oversee matters including the construction of AI data centres.

In short, data centres will be required to generate their own power, by way of renewable energy sources, and minimise water consumption.

During his speech, Albanese also gave an undertaking to protect the intellectual property of Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists:

An artist’s creative endeavour is their work and their property. No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft.

These are words Australian artists and creatives wanted to hear.

Protections will doubtless be included in upcoming legislation, but after rampant marauding of creative material by AI scraper bots in recent years, the move might come too late.

The proposed laws might protect work created in the future, but what of copyrighted content that has already been copied, and digested, by AI agents?

Will AI companies who used creative work in the past be required to offer retrospective remuneration? Will these entities, many of whom are based outside Australia, be the slightest bit concerned by these proposals?

Australian government proposes AI national framework, standards

16 July 2026

Clare Armstrong, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Australia will seek to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence without losing control of it by tackling challenges such as data centres, copyright, and jobs through a new national framework.

Buoyed, no doubt, by the… success of the social media ban for Australians aged under sixteen, the Australian government is setting its sights on AI.

But I shouldn’t be so cynical.

An Office of AI will be established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and will be tasked with drafting standards guiding development and deployment of the technologies.

Substack reportedly asking Australian users to verify their age

2 February 2026

According to a Reddit thread, that was re-posted at Marginal Revolution, the online publishing platform is requesting users in Australia submit to an age verification process.

Substack, as of the time I type, is not on the list of websites, or services, that Australians under the age of sixteen cannot access, so I’m not sure why Substack would be doing this. If indeed they are.

On a visit to Substack, again, as of the time I write this, I was able to access, and move around the site without hindrance. I was not logged in, but was using an Australian ISP.

Evidently some people are having difficulty though. Possibly age verification only applies to people in Australia who are logging in to gain access. I might try doing this another time.

But Substack is a platform, and who knows, may one day be added to the banned list. This is precisely why online writers should be publishing from their own, independent website, and not a platform.

And this is before addressing the concerns many people have with Substack in the first place.

Nearly five million Australian social media accounts deactivated after ban

19 January 2026

Clare Armstrong writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

More than 4.7 million accounts on platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat were deactivated in the first two days of the ban that started on December 10, according to new data released by the federal government.

The social media ban, supposedly to stop Australians under the age of sixteen accessing numerous such platforms, has seen nearly five million accounts closed in the last five weeks.

Here’s hoping the lockout is having the desired impact, whatever exactly that was, though it may be a while before we know one way or the other.

Former police officer warned of potential Bondi Beach mass shooting ten years ago

20 December 2025

Steve Buttel, a former NSW police officer, speaking to Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reporters Lia Harris and Pablo Vinales:

A former NSW Police sergeant claims he repeatedly warned his superiors years ago that local officers would not be equipped to respond to an active-shooter attack in Bondi.

Between 2008 and 2016 Steve Buttel was based at Waverley police station, which was responsible for patrolling Bondi Beach as part of the Eastern Suburbs Police Area Command.

Mr Buttel told the ABC he informed his bosses “it was only a matter of time” before there would be a terror attack targeting the local Jewish community.

It’s horrifying to think, despite strict gun control laws in Australia, there were some police officers concerned a mass shooting event might occur one day at Bondi Beach.

Australian gun laws set to be tightened following Bondi Beach shooting

16 December 2025

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has flagged more restrictions on gun ownership. At present, to legally possess a gun, a person must, among other things, be “fit and proper”, have a genuine reason for ownership, belong to a gun club, and undertake to store the weapons securely.

Chris Minns, the Premier of the Australian state New South Wales (NSW), where Sunday’s shooting took place, is considering recalling the state parliament, which is currently in recess for the year-end holidays, to enact further gun control measures in NSW.

One of the Bondi Beach perpetrators had held a gun licence, allowing him to own the weapons, for ten years. The person in question had six guns in his possession.

Reddit: the Australian social media ban is unconstitutional, in a way

15 December 2025

Social news aggregator Reddit has filed a lawsuit in the High Court of Australia, claiming the ban preventing Australians aged under sixteen using social media intrudes on free political discourse.

The Australian Constitution does not protect free speech as such. In fact, the document seems more concerned with matters pertaining to the Australian government, parliament, and judiciary. However, in 1992, the High Court found that an implied freedom of political communication exists.

The thing is, the social media ban doesn’t curtail this freedom for young Australian as such, it merely means they have to find other channels to express themselves. A personal website, or blog, is of course an option. But let’s see what the High Court of Australia has to say about the Reddit filing.

Verify the age of adult websites users via their device operating system

22 November 2025

A provider of adult video content — I’ll refrain from naming them, in the hope of stopping network content filters getting upset — is suggesting the age of their audience be verified through the operating system (OS) of their device. Note: the link is to a blog post by the provider, not to any NSFW content. I can’t speak for what happens if you start clicking other links on the page though.

More of these laws are coming, and the safety of our users is one of our biggest concerns. However, the best and most effective solution for protecting minors and adults alike is to identify users at the source: by their device, or account on the device, and allow access to age-restricted materials and websites based on that identification. This means users would only get verified once, through their operating system, not on each age-restricted site. This dramatically reduces privacy risks and creates a very simple process for regulators to enforce.

The idea certainly makes sense, and would save having to go through a separate age verification process on every website, social network, and other online service that requires it.

To date though I don’t recall ever supplying any of the OS’s I use with my date of birth, let alone verifying that information. It seems to me to make age verification possible this way might require some OS suppliers to make changes to allow this.

Update: on checking, I see my date of birth details are entered into my smartphone’s OS, iOS. I expect those details were verified when I obtained my first iPhone, as I needed to present photo identification on signing up with my then phone company.

Assume then my age is verified as far as my smartphone goes. As for my computer OS, Linux Mint, I’m pretty sure I didn’t supply any such info. Couldn’t even be certain I entered my full name. This I will need to check on.

A train station comes to Woollahra NSW: there goes the neighbourhood

3 September 2025

Woollahra, a suburb in Sydney’s east, is soon to have a train station. At first pass that doesn’t seem like a big deal. But the story is as long as the rail line is winding. Proposals to build a station in the affluent suburb are over a century old.

Then, in the 1970’s, as the Eastern Suburbs train line, AKA the T4, was being constructed, foundations for a station were laid. But work came to an abrupt halt when residents, unhappy at the prospect of a train station in their backyard, succeeded in stopping construction.

The partly built station sits between the stations at Edgecliff, and Bondi Junction, where the T4 line presently* terminates, a kilometre or two from the beach at Bondi. But with the housing situation in Sydney reaching dire proportions, the NSW State Government has revived plans to build the station, and then construct much needed high-density residences in the vicinity.

News of the station, and apartment blocks, has no doubt come as a double blow to locals.

Woollahra is far from apartment building free — an array of beautiful art deco style medium-density residences span Edgecliff Road — and the prospect of high density blocks will be causing alarm to some. But the reality is Sydney needs more residences, and it is unreasonable to expect all of these be built “somewhere” in the west of the city.

Or “the western side of ANZAC Parade”, a quip sometimes uttered by those residing on the eastern side of ANZAC Parade. ANZAC Parade being a major roadway running from inner Sydney through to La Perouse, at the southern end of the eastern suburbs.

Some Woollahra residents will argue the presence of high-rise dwellings will be at odds with the “character” of the suburb. Woollahra is possessed of houses built in the nineteenth century, quiet tree-lined streets (one or two rather steep), boutique shops, and a village-like ambience. It is a place many people would like to call home. The building proposals will bring significant changes.

Bondi Junction street scene at dusk featuring modern buildings, traffic lights, and trees. Cars are seen on the road alongside pedestrians, with a pharmacy sign illuminated. The sky displays shades of blue as the sun sets.

Spring Street, Bondi Junction, NSW, at dusk. Photo taken June 2021. Note the construction crane in the top right hand corner.

But such is life in the big city. Change is constant. Bondi Junction — where we stay when not on the NSW Central Coast — situated right next to Woollahra, has undergone a tremendous transformation in the last decade, particularly along parts of Oxford Street. While always a mixed commercial/retail and residential precinct, numerous high-density apartment blocks now line Oxford street.

Of course Bondi Junction, being a retail centre, and public transport hub, with the aforementioned T4 train line, and numerous bus services, seems an ideal place to build residences. That’s not to say everyone in Bondi Junction is happy with the prospect. Many feel the suburb has been over-developed. But again, housing shortages in the region have compelled governments to act.

Yet the “residential-isation” of Oxford Street, and surrounds, has not always been a bad thing. Bondi Junction is at once a quiet residential suburb, after the shops close, in the midst of a bustling commercial centre. People walk their dogs along Oxford Street in the evenings, a sight that would not have been seen ten years ago.

Despite this metamorphosis, perceptions of Bondi Junction have not changed.

Either within the eastern suburbs, or elsewhere in Sydney. As far as other residents of the eastern suburbs are concerned, the junction is “ugly”. Meanwhile people outside the eastern suburbs think Bondi Junction is full of rich snobs. But nahsayers of the junction are looking at the wrong suburb when identifying ugly, or seeking to point out “rich snobs”.

But I digress. I’m not saying high-density residential blocks in Woollahra, full of dog owners, will bring about any sort of catharsis to existing residents who are going to be subject to possibly decades of disruptive construction work. They had all of that in Bondi Junction, and will probably continue to, but the world did not end.

Whether we like it or not, high-density accommodation is one of the solutions to the shortage of housing, and is something everyone in Sydney needs to get used to.

* there were proposals to extend the train line to Bondi Beach, but residents rallied to oppose the idea.

Mastodon might struggle to comply with social media age verification laws

1 September 2025

Sarah Perez, writing for Techcrunch:

The Mastodon 4.4 release in July 2025 added the ability to specify a minimum age for sign-up and other legal features for handling terms of service, partly in response to increased regulation around these areas. The new feature allows server administrators to check users’ ages during sign-up, but the age-check data is not stored. That means individual server owners have to decide for themselves if they believe an age verification component is a necessary addition.

Mastodon is a decentralised social network that allows anyone with the inclination, and access to a reasonably robust server, to establish their own instance, or chapter.

Mastodon is the sum of its many parts, and is not structured like X or Threads, whose operations are run from a single, centralised, point. I have no idea how many Mastodon instances there are, but the number would not be insignificant.

Compliance with age verification laws will be down to individual instance administrators. It’s not something the Mastodon head office could do, because there isn’t one, as such.

This doesn’t mean members of Mastodon instances operating in jurisdictions where age verification laws apply, will be able to forgo confirming their age. Indeed, age verification will be a necessity if the instance they belong to is to continue operating.

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