News

US remains key to Aussie innovation

Australia should look towards the US to help address its innovation woes rather than just focusing on internal developments, a new United States Studies Centre (USSC) report urges. Authored...

Policy uncertainty hurts local R&D: Google

The federal government’s poorly implemented tech-focused legislation and lack of consultation with industry is damaging investment in local R&D, according to Google Australia public policy manager Alex Lynch. Speaking...

Deep tech is an ‘unprecedented opportunity’

Australia risks falling behind the rest of the world on deep tech at a time when it is most important, while renewed investment in the sector would present “unprecedented...

NSW sovereign capability taskforce named

The NSW government has named a 23-person ICT/Digital Sovereign Procurement Taskforce charged with making it easier for innovative local tech companies to get access to government contracts, using procurement...

Govt ‘head in the sand’ on copyright reform

Australia’s national startup body has slammed the government for its “head in the sand” approach to tech policy after it failed to act on a series of recommendations to...

Atlassian, Canva slam R&D tax changes

Two of Australia’s most successful tech companies have railed against the federal government’s planned changes to the research and development tax incentive, just days before a Senate committee is...

ACCC’s Google news plan will not work

Requiring global tech giants Google and Facebook to pay for content to news organisations is misguided and simply won’t work no matter how you slice and dice this ‘world-first’...

Cyber strategy needs user centric design

The federal government’s $1.7 billion 2020 Cyber Security Strategy document lacked the kind of strong organising principle to adequately address the cyber challenges of the less secure world, according...

ACCC fires back at Google ‘misinformation’

Australia’s competition watchdog has publicly rebuked search giant Google, accusing the company of spreading misinformation about a draft news media bargaining code. Google on Monday published an open letter...

ATO JobKeeper and RDTI plan ‘absurd’

The plan to block any research and development tax incentive claims on JobKeeper payments has been labelled “absurd” and damaging to tech companies at the “worst possible time”, with...

Govt robodebt legal fees top $34m: Labor

The federal government has spent more than $34 million to fight ongoing legal challenges to its unlawful robodebt scheme according to Labor, with $545 million now paid back to...

Pawsey, NCI join White House led research

The White House Office of Science and Technology has announced that NCI Australia and the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre have joined the US-led COVID High Performance Computing (HPC) Consortium. Joining...

Google goes to war over ad revenue

Google has gone on the offensive against the Australian government’s plans to force it to enter into revenue-sharing agreements with media companies, issuing a series of threats over the...

Health dept stands by COVIDSafe app

The federal Health department has stood by COVIDSafe at a Senate hearing, despite confirming it was yet to identify a new close contact in Victoria, where contact tracers stopped...