News

Calls to reinstate cyber minister role

The federal government must reinstate the position of Minister for Cybersecurity as part of the updated 2020 national Cyber Security Strategy, the Opposition and industry figures have said. The...

CSIRO to shutter ON startup program

Four years after it was unveiled as part of the National Innovation and Science Agenda, the CSIRO is preparing to shutter its $20 million entrepreneur-focused science accelerator program known...

Aus-US talks begin on data sharing

The federal government has begun negotiating a new data-sharing agreement with the US,  amid concerns about whether the recently passed encryption laws will jeopardise these talks, and the impact...

Staff cap part of ‘war on science’

The government-imposed staffing cap at its primary science agency has put innovation “under threat”, according to the Opposition. The Coalition’s Average Staffing Level cap, introduced in 2015-16 with an...

Australia ramps up encryption fight

The Australian government has ramped up its fight against the big global tech companies and the various encryption services the offer as part of a push to pressure Facebook...

NBN focus shifts to business products

The government has no idea how to move the NBN forward if the Communication Minister Paul Fletcher’s speech at the CEDA conference last month is any indication. After bashing...

CyberCon cancels whistleblowers

A prominent US national security whistleblower who had his speech at a government-sponsored cybersecurity conference in Melbourne cancelled – along with the speech of an Australian academic – says...

TIO seeks complaint role in Big Tech

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has called on government to expand its remit to include complaints about Facebook and Google so it can provide “access to justice” for Australian users....

Data61 and the new CSIRO role

Australia’s home-grown technology sector is half the size of our global peers as a percentage of gross domestic product, four times smaller than the US (as a percentage of...

ServicesAus defends outsourcing cost

Outsourcing public sector work and calling in the contractors is often a “timely, cost-effective” option made necessary by the staffing cap and a lack of internal tech expertise, according...

Staff cap restricts CSIRO innovation

The federal government’s arbitrary cap on public sector employee numbers is “severely undermining” its science and innovation efforts, according to the CSIRO staff association. In a submission to a...

Entrepreneur plan gets a facelift

The federal government is preparing to hand out $182 million to potential partners to help deliver and promote its Entrepreneurs’ Programme after a significant refocusing of the flagship scheme....

Tech precinct plan heads to Cabinet

It is more than a year since Premier Gladys Berejiklian stood with Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar in Sydney to unveil the city’s ambition to build an innovation and technology...

Vic hospitals hit by cyber incident

A number of Victorian hospitals have been hit by a “serious cyber incident”, with patient records and information still inaccessible and entire systems left offline. The Victorian government confirmed...