AI is enabling foreign interference and hackers, home affairs department says
Luca Ittimani
Australia faces growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use, home affairs department officials say.
Kira Spencer, a deputy secretary, has told a parliamentary committee a key risk for Australia is AI in “information operations”, which are security agencies’ use of deception and psychological warfare. She said:
AI’s quicker, easier, nastier. And it enables it to be much more realistic and so the language is better. If you’re looking at targeted foreign interference, they scroll all your parliamentary speeches, your social media profiles, everything about you so they can find a really targeted way to engage with you and make it more likely that you will engage back.
Spencer said some AI companies had been able to track false communications from state actors but the government could not match the companies’ large-scale tools.
Officials also said AI made it “easier, faster, cheaper” for malicious actors to hack Australia’s key systems.
Part of the argument for Australia to bring in AI companies to train AI here is that law enforcement could better address threats or law breaches. Fergus Hanson, head of the Office of AI, told the committee:
If you’ve got an AI training firm physically located here, it enables a different type of collaboration, for example law enforcement cooperation. So if there is a threat to Australians’ lives, through misuse of those platforms … This just invites a different level of collaboration that you can have, that is not possible if you don’t have the companies necessarily located in your jurisdiction.
Key events
Luca Ittimani
AI firms want rights to use vast amounts of global and Australian content, government says
AI companies have ruled out training models in Australia without reforms to copyright laws because the amount of local and global data they want to process is too vast to do individual deals, the attorney-general’s department has confirmed.
The government has made its first wide-ranging comments on copyright negotiations at a parliamentary committee hearing today.
Jenna Priestly, assistant secretary, said rightsholder groups claimed AI companies could make a “relatively small number” of deals under current rules, to access plenty of material to train their models on.
But AI companies have told the department they won’t train here under existing copyright rules. Priestly said:
What we’ve heard from them is that because the magnitude of copyright material they need to use for this training is so large, it’s practically, I guess, impossible to … strike the number of voluntary deals that they would need to be able to manage their legal risk.
Priestly said copyright applies in the country where activity occurs, implying any local reform would affect companies’ access to overseas-made content.
As Australia’s copyright framework protects not only copyright material that’s Australian in origin, but worldwide, I think it is a fairly large number that [companies] would need to go and strike deals with.
Priestly said the government late last year consulted on giving AI companies the full legal right to access content that wouldn’t have let rightsholders opt out of their material being used in AI training. The government has moved to considering a narrower data training authorisation in response to feedback and has not made decisions on its reform plans, she said.
Achol Arok
Runaway Tasmanian devil back in her sanctuary after weeks on the loose
A runaway Tasmanian devil named Mary has returned to her home at Paradise Country on the Gold Coast after spending weeks on the loose.
Mary escaped from her enclosure at the theme park in June and spent several months in recovery after being found.
The marsupial has spent recent months exploring the wildlife park and will soon return to the public exhibit, where she can interact with visitors.
Paradise Country curator of wildlife, Lauren Mousley, said:
It has been a long road to recovery for Mary, but we are incredibly pleased to see her back exploring her habitat so confidently.
Throughout her recovery, Mary has defied all the odds, with her improvements being phenomenal, and we can’t wait to welcome guests to the park to watch as the mischievous Mary explores.
Our team have been so dedicated in supporting Mary throughout her recovery and it is amazing to see their reactions when she took her first steps back into the habitat.
BoM updates website to include new rain radar features
The Bureau of Meteorology has made some changes to the way its website shows rain radar, a year after it launched an unpopular new site design for which it later apologised.
The new update, which went live on Friday, includes the addition of radar locations, radar quick links, changes to how rainfall is displayed and “radar range rings”, which the Bureau says “provide a visual measurement guide to how far rainfall is from familiar landmarks and locations.”
There are also new features that the Bureau says are designed to feel more like “the old radar view.”
In a statement today, the Bureau said rain was “better detected and more accurately displayed on the weather map”, with higher definition and detail when very light to moderate rainfall is observed and when data from overlapping radars is used.”
Each radar also had a unique URL.
Bureau of Meteorology CEO Dr Stuart Minchin said in today’s statement that the updates were in response to community feedback:
We know how much value the community places on their local rain radar, so we’ve listened to feedback and made these updates to help you get to your local radar faster and estimate how far away rain is.
There are more updates planned for later this year, including some changes to Australian places with dual-names.
We encourage the community to continue to share their website feedback, and we will respond with enhancements and adjustments.
Achol Arok
Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co to close five stores
Long-time Australian fashion retailer Cue Clothing Co, which operates Cue and Veronika Maine, will close five physical stores across Australia.
The five stores are Woden Cue, Parramatta Cue, Mosman Veronica Maine, Melbourne Central Cue and Armadale Cue.
The Sydney-based company, established in 1968, entered voluntary administration earlier this week after failing to find a buyer for the struggling business.
In a statement, administrators FTI Consulting said:
A difficult decision has been made to close five stores across the network, which the Receivers believe is in the best interest of the businesses as a going concern.
No concessions are included in the closures. The Receivers will explore opportunities to re-deploy staff across the network where possible.
Douglas Smith
Child protection roundtable expected next week
A national roundtable on Australia’s child protection system is expected to be held in Perth at the end of next week, following calls from Indigenous leaders and federal politicians.
Earlier this week, reporting by The Australian uncovered multiple failings by Western Australia’s child protection department in addressing reports of neglected First Nations children living unsupervised and in squalor in Port Hedland.
Lawyer and human rights advocate, Kurin Minang Noongar woman Hannah McGlade was first to call for a national roundtable, which has been backed by the independent senator for Victoria Lidia Thorpe, who said:
What has happened in Western Australia is horrific. We need real action to keep children safe.
We cannot accept the status quo, which is seeing children across the country exposed to extreme risk and harm within these systems.
I support Dr Hannah McGlade’s call for an urgent roundtable of Aboriginal leaders working in child and family safety.
We also need a federal inquiry to hold the Albanese government to account. We are seeing failures in child protection systems nationwide, and the Albanese government is failing to act.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, Malarndirri McCarthy, is expected to announce that the roundtable will be held in Perth on Friday next week.
The Guardian understands the roundtable will take steps to address calls from Indigenous leaders for a complete overhaul of child protection.
The government will also discuss how it can act on past recommendations, findings and policies that are already available.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland police union pushed for changes to definition of victim of domestic violence
The Queensland police union has pushed for the changes to the definition of victim of domestic violence, in order to reduce paperwork for officers dealing with domestic violence callouts.
In a Wednesday press conference, general president Shane Prior said the union wanted domestic violence to only apply to people in a romantic partnership, and not to include, for instance, violence by adult children against their parents.
That change hasn’t been included in the bill, but Prior said he was still pushing for it:
I certainly don’t stop when I’m told no the first time. No means not right now. So what I’m going to be focusing on is making sure that we deliver for police in this state.
AI is enabling foreign interference and hackers, home affairs department says
Luca Ittimani
Australia faces growing threat from overseas agencies’ and hackers’ use of AI and does not have the tracking tools that AI companies can use, home affairs department officials say.
Kira Spencer, a deputy secretary, has told a parliamentary committee a key risk for Australia is AI in “information operations”, which are security agencies’ use of deception and psychological warfare. She said:
AI’s quicker, easier, nastier. And it enables it to be much more realistic and so the language is better. If you’re looking at targeted foreign interference, they scroll all your parliamentary speeches, your social media profiles, everything about you so they can find a really targeted way to engage with you and make it more likely that you will engage back.
Spencer said some AI companies had been able to track false communications from state actors but the government could not match the companies’ large-scale tools.
Officials also said AI made it “easier, faster, cheaper” for malicious actors to hack Australia’s key systems.
Part of the argument for Australia to bring in AI companies to train AI here is that law enforcement could better address threats or law breaches. Fergus Hanson, head of the Office of AI, told the committee:
If you’ve got an AI training firm physically located here, it enables a different type of collaboration, for example law enforcement cooperation. So if there is a threat to Australians’ lives, through misuse of those platforms … This just invites a different level of collaboration that you can have, that is not possible if you don’t have the companies necessarily located in your jurisdiction.
Andrew Messenger
Queensland to allow on-the-spot DV orders to be issued against victims
Queensland police will be able to issue on-the-spot domestic violence protection orders against victims of domestic violence, under new legislation tabled yesterday.
The legislation eliminates all exemptions to the state’s police protection direction system, and makes them the sole alternative to the civil DVO system available to police. Police will be now be able to issue them on behalf of other police, or against children.
It also permits so-called “cross orders” – a direction against both people in a relationship – “in exceptional circumstances”, where the officer cannot identify the victim or offender. According to documents tabled with the bill:
Cross applications and cross orders are used by perpetrators as a means of continuing to control, intimidate and terrify victims.
Experts have warned of potential police misuse of the new system, because there is less oversight. Police have been repeatedly found to have routinely misidentified perpetrators and victims by a string of inquiries, often due to a culture of disbelieving female victims.
The legislation is designed to make the system more efficient, by reducing the paperwork police are required to complete for a protection order.
Achol Arok
Major ABF system outage causes delays at Australian airports
An Australian Border Force (ABF) technical outage caused major delays for international passengers at Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane airports on Friday morning.
An ABF spokesperson said the issue affected both outbound and inbound passengers and was resolved by 11am.
The force has launched an investigation into the cause of the outage.
Luca Ittimani
Are migration rules hitting supermarket shelf prices?
Supermarkets won’t say whether labour shortages in Australian farms are going to push up shelf prices and worsen food shortages.
The National Farmers’ Federation’s Mike Guerin told reporters yesterday that farms were already running short of backpackers to help with the harvest and Labor’s reforms would only worsen that. Guerin said:
We will see a lift in the price of food. We will see emptier supermarkets. The food insecurity being built into the system right now by the inability of family farms to go about their business in the normal way is breathtaking. And while it’s yet to play out directly for consumers, for people in the cities, it’s very close. We will not be able to finish the harvest this year, before Christmas …
The economic impact for farmers is immediate and significant, and it will flow through to Australia’s supermarkets very quickly.
Labor has rejected those predictions, claiming farms can bring in any workers they need from Pacific countries through the dedicated visa stream.
The supermarket giants could not guarantee steady prices or supply when specifically asked by Guardian Australia. Coles and Woolworths declined to comment, signalling sensitivity to the political conflict over immigration.
We understand Coles management is not presently observing signs of product shortages.
The big supermarkets have significant control over their own prices, switching sales promotions in sync. Woolworths has reportedly pressured its suppliers for lower prices, though the company earlier this year raised prices on staple products during a price freeze promotion.
Both major supermarkets boosted their profit margins last financial year, with Coles enjoying its highest margin since at least 2019. Woolworths has denied its higher margins came from higher shelf prices.
Note: After publication, Guardian Australia confirmed Woolworths was “not presently observing signs of product shortage.”
Sydney teen boy charged over alleged series of break and enter and arson offences
A teenage boy has been charged following a series of alleged break and enter and arson offences across Sydney, according to NSW police.
Police allege that a 14-year-old boy broke into a home in Leichhardt with another young person and stole a Hyundai sedan at around 5am on Sunday 16 August.
About 7.50am, the boy filled a jerry can with fuel at a service station on Parramatta Road, Camperdown, and allegedly left without paying, police said.
They also allege the boy smashed the glass door of a Strathfield business, poured petrol from a jerry can into the premises and set it alight on 19 August, before setting alight petrol poured over a parked Mercedes and a driveway in Greenacre.
A short time later, police say, the boy filled a vehicle with fuel before driving away without paying from a service station in Lakemba.
They allege the boy also poured petrol over the driveway and onto a parked MG sedan before setting it alight at a Bankstown home on Monday 24 August.
Police will allege the boy was recruited and paid to carry out these offences.
He has been charged with multiple offences, including aggravated break and enter and two counts of destroying or damaging property in company and using fire or explosives, value exceeding $5,000.
The boy was refused bail and will appear before a children’s court on Monday 21 September.
Ben Doherty
Asio head reiterates warning about China possible attack on power networks
Further to the podcast episode featuring the Asio head, Mike Burgess: he specifically named China as a country trying to hack into Australia’s major power and telecommunications networks, saying while an attack was not imminent, China wants the capacity to “turn [those networks] off should they need to”.
He made a similar warning last year, saying Chinese hackers were consistently “probing critical infrastructure”.
Burgess said a state-sponsored cyber-sabotage attack on Australia was a real possibility.
Nation states are hacking power and telco networks preparing for the day that they can turn them off should they need to.
Now to be very clear — that’s not going to happen any time soon, but in a time of conflict, nation states are preparing to do that.
They are working actively to understand our systems and I believe in some cases they could do it today should they need to.
Asked which country was responsible, Burgess named China.
I’ve spoken about this before publicly — China is preparing for this. But again, they’re not going to do it any time soon.
China’s the principal concern for Australia.
Police say alleged murder of university student ‘extremely complex’ and still being investigated
Abdy said a police ballistics report showed a firearm that was located at the site of the alleged murder of university student Marco Tapia was the same firearm that was used in the shooting at Hurstville and Turrell.
He said the Tapia matter was still being investigated by the homicide squad.
That investigation is extremely complex and it’s very important that all the evidence is examined before people are charged obviously with the very serious offence of murder…
We’ll work with [the Homicide Squad] in our evidence-sharing to establish the link. These people obviously are significant persons of interest. Once that evidentiary standard has been met, if it gets met, then Homicide will take carriage of the further prosecutions.
More on four arrests
Abdy said it was “troubling” that one of the alleged offenders was just 16 years old:
It’s extremely troubling. It’s been well documented, I think, and reported in the last couple of weeks about organised crime networks using young males, particularly to [alleged] commit such violent acts where they prey on their risk-taking behaviour, and placing them, you know, essentially on a life that’s probably not what they thought it was going to be.
Four arrested and extradited to NSW over alleged connection to shootings
Four people have been arrested and extradited from Victoria after allegedly travelling to Sydney to carry out “criminal acts linked to two shootings” in August, NSW police have said.
Speaking to the media just now, acting Det Supt Brad Abdy said a 22-year-old man was arrested in Epping, while a 23-year-old man and 26-year-old woman were arrested in Donnybrook, along with a 16-year-old boy, in connection with the shootings.
He said:
These four people were later taken to Victoria police centre where they were placed into custody and later appeared in court in Victoria for extradition proceedings.
Those proceedings were later granted and they have since been extradited from Victoria to New South Wales where they will currently be charged with a variety of offences relating to the shooting at Turrella and the shooting at Hurstville.
Qantas ground staff prepare to strike as dispute escalates
Jonathan Barrett
Hundreds of Qantas ground crew workers are preparing for a 24-hour strike next week amid an escalating industrial dispute, but Qantas said that it has contingency plans to minimise the impact on customers.
The 600-plus workers on the airline’s freight and regional QantasLink service are preparing to strike in Victoria on Wednesday, and across the rest of the country on Thursday, according to the Transport Workers’ Union.
The TWU says the airline’s use of subsidiaries, instituted under former Qantas management, has frustrated attempts to bring pay and job security in line with industry standards.
The union wants to replace multiple enterprise agreements for ground staff and freight handlers with one agreement.
The Australian reported that Qantas is applying to the Fair Work Commission to prevent the industrial action.
Luca Ittimani
Top AI developers would have to report incidents, standards say
Developers of the most advanced AI, if they came to Australia, would have to report concerning events to the government.
The government’s consultation paper on AI standards says frontier labs will have to meet specific, minimum-security and safety expectations, including disclosing reportable AI incidents to the government.
OpenAI on Wednesday reported six new critical incidents, the latest in a string of cases in which AI agents took unexpected and unauthorised actions.
Top labs could be required to contribute to the Australian economy by reserving some computational power for Australian research, subsidising public-interest research or hiring local staff, under options proposed in the paper.
The paper reads:
Without mechanisms to encourage onshore research activity and investment in the broader research and innovation ecosystem, Australia risks hosting AI infrastructure and training activity while the associated research outputs, model development, intellectual property and commercial returns accrue offshore.
The government is taking submissions from members of the public and top organisations until 9 October as Labor plans to release draft legislation by year’s end.
The paper has a curious endnote:
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to summarise and compare submissions to support policy work. This includes using AI tools to analyse sentiment to help us understand patterns and trends in submissions. We only use AI where it is appropriate for the task and the information involved.
Asio chief Mike Burgess says Iran may want to ‘kill prominent Jewish Australians’
Ben Doherty
In the podcast with Neil Mitchell, the Asio director general, Mike Burgess, said Australia’s Jewish community also faced threats from state actors, in particular Iran.
He said:
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Iran would want to kill prominent Jewish Australians.
Asio has previously identified two attacks on Jewish properties – the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne– as being directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Australia expelled the Iranian ambassador and three other diplomats from the country in August 2025.
