Latest news with #DownUnder
Reuters
25 minutes ago
- Business
- Reuters
Australia social media teen ban software trial organisers say the tech works
SYDNEY, June 20 (Reuters) - Some age-checking applications collect too much data and no product works 100% of the time, but using software to enforce a teenage social media ban can work in Australia, the head of the world's biggest trial of the technology said on Friday. The view from the government-commissioned Age Assurance Technology Trial of more than 1,000 Australian school students and hundreds of adults is a boost to the country's plan to keep under 16s off social media. From December, in a world first ban, companies like Facebook and Instagram owner Meta (META.O), opens new tab, Snapchat (SNAP.N), opens new tab and TikTok must prove they are taking reasonable steps to block young people from their platforms or face a fine of up A$49.5 million ($32 million). Since the Australian government announced the legislation last year, child protection advocates, tech industry groups and children themselves have questioned whether the ban can be enforced due to workarounds like Virtual Private Networks, which obscure an internet user's location. "Age assurance can be done in Australia privately, efficiently and effectively," said Tony Allen, CEO of the Age Check Certification Scheme, the UK-based organisation overseeing the Australian trial. The trial found "no significant tech barriers" to rolling out a software-based scheme in Australia, although there was "no one-size-fits-all solution, and no solution that worked perfectly in all deployments," Allen added in an online presentation. Allen noted that some age-assurance software firms "don't really know at this stage what data they may need to be able to support law enforcement and regulators in the future. "There's a risk there that they could be inadvertently over-collecting information that wouldn't be used or needed." Organisers of the trial, which concluded earlier this month, gave no data findings and offered only a broad overview which did not name individual products. They will deliver a report to the government next month which officials have said will inform an industry consultation ahead of the December deadline. A spokesperson for the office of the eSafety Commissioner, which will advise the government on how to implement the ban, said the preliminary findings were a "useful indication of the likely outcomes from the trial. "We are pleased to see the trial suggests that age assurance technologies, when deployed the right way and likely in conjunction with other techniques and methods, can be private, robust and effective," the spokesperson said. The Australian ban is being watched closely around the world with several governments exploring ways to limit children's exposure to social media. ($1 = 1.5427 Australian dollars)
ABC News
7 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Federal politics live: Technology to ban teens from social media ready to deploy, early report finds
An organisation tasked with testing the technology behind the federal government's social media ban says a preliminary report has found age verification is ready to deploy in Australia. Follow all the updates in our live blog.
The Guardian
14 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
A three-day working week or higher pay: what a more productive economy could buy Australians
Australians would have a three-day working week if we had collectively decided in 1980 to spend all the productivity gains of the following decades on leisure time instead of buying more stuff, according to the Productivity Commission. Jim Chalmers has kickstarted a national conversation about reforming the economy to make Australia more productive to underpin the next generation of prosperity. There are plenty of disagreements about how this can be done, but there is general consensus that we should try. But another question has been left unasked: if we are successful in lifting productivity, what should we do with the dividends of our success? Or more simply: do we want to work less and spend the same, or do we want to work more and spend more? Looking at history, the answer has been a combination of the two, according to Rusha Das, a research economist at the Productivity Commission. In a new paper, Das calculated that Australians used only 23% of the productivity 'dividend' from the past 40-plus years to work less, while we banked the remaining 77% as higher income. 'Rather than spending our productivity dividend on more spare time, we have largely traded it for higher incomes, and more and better stuff,' Das said. This choice of how to spend the fruits of higher productivity is rarely presented to us in such simple terms. A typical employer doesn't ask if their staff want to work 5% less or have a 5% pay rise, for example. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'Instead, the effects of productivity gains are more subtly embedded in our lives, granting us more agency over how we live and work,' Das said. 'It may be taking a half-day each fortnight, investing time in professional development rather than taking on additional clients, or deciding to expand the number of cattle on a dairy farm. 'All these are choices that reflect the underlying freedom that productivity growth makes possible.' The economist John Maynard Keynes in 1930 famously predicted that technological advances meant his grandchildren would be working just 15 hours a week without being any worse off materially. Das said that prediction was not necessarily wrong, it's just that we have made different choices. 'With the growth in labour productivity Australia has enjoyed since 1980, Australians could have reduced their average hours worked by 15 hours per week without lowering consumption levels,' she said. Or we could have used all of the productivity dividend on working more and spending more – in which case GDP per capita would be 11% higher now than in 1980. Das said the choice between leisure and consumption can be influenced by a number of factors. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion If we feel like the changes that are making us more productive are short term, then we'll work more to take advantage of it while we can, and vice versa. Government policy plays a part – whether it's higher tax rates that disincentivise working that extra hour, or workplace rules that allow people more flexibility. Cultural values also have a hand, Das said. In France there is a strong tendency to choose more leisure time, while in the US it is the opposite, her research showed. 'For example, there is a saying that in the UK the last one to leave the office is seen as the hardest working, whereas in Germany the last one to leave is seen as the least efficient.' And these values change through time. Next year will mark a century of working five days a week, after carmaker Henry Ford reduced it to five days from six. As we approach this milestone, more companies are implementing or trialling four-day working weeks, while the Greens before the May election launched a four-day work week policy. Das said keeping up our high levels of work 'could be a good thing if it reflects greater voluntary participation in the workforce': workers choosing to improve their living standards, or it's the result of removing historical barriers that have held some segments of society back. 'But it is concerning if Australians have been working more out of sheer necessity, sacrificing study, rest or time with loved ones just to maintain their standard of living. 'For example, people may need to work more just to keep up with rising house prices, which has outpaced wage growth over a long period of time.'
SBS Australia
21 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- SBS Australia
Top News: Australia's unemployment rate holds at 4.1% in May despite loss of 2,500 jobs
Independent news and stories connecting you to life in Australia and Hindi-speaking Australians. Ease into the English language and Australian culture. We make learning English convenient, fun and practical.
News.com.au
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Garbage singer Shirley Manson warns ‘expensive' Australia may miss out on more big tours
Shirley Manson confirms there are 'plans afoot' for '90s industrial pop pioneers Garbage to return to Australia later this year for their first tour in almost a decade. The rebel siren who has stalked the country's biggest stages over the past three decades says the delay in returning down under to play to one their biggest fanbases in the world, isn't for a lack of desire. It's a numbers' game. Manson reveals the band, which features famous producers and hitmakers Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Market, are offered the same fees to play in 2025 as they were paid in the late '90s. As Garbage get ready to head out on a massive US tour in support of their eighth studio album Let All That We Imagine Be The Light, the alt-rock goddess says the explosion in costs from flights and accommodation to staging and freight is putting younger rock bands out of business. 'There are plans afoot to come this year but it's getting increasingly difficult for bands to come to Australia,' she says. 'It's very expensive for us, flights, hotels, wages, everything, and the fees for a band like us, not always but sometimes, remain the same as what we were being paid in the '90s. 'I don't think people fully understand how difficult it is for bands to survive and that is why we are seeing less and less bands because the expense of touring for a band just becomes impossible to sustain. 'We have managed to survive an industry that's brutal by being really canny with the money; none of us live wildly, I drive a f---ing 10-year-old Prius.' Manson has been to hell and back over the past couple of years. She underwent hip replacement surgery to fix the damage wrought by a stage fall she suffered in 2016. Last year her other hip broke and she went through the same operation and recovery process all over again. Dealing with her human frailty, and the sociopolitical flux of her beloved America, where the Scottish singer has lived for decades, tested her spirit. Like all songwriters, when the brain fog of pain and medication lifted Manson set up a small recording studio in her bedroom and channelled her feelings into lyrics for the new record's songs. 'It's the first time I've sort of recorded my part of the bargain independently of the band; it's my era of independence!' she says with pride. 'I was recovering from two major surgeries over the course of two years so I was bed bound and my whole life got sort of turned upside down and all my habits got just disrupted, which was actually in the end, really great both for me and the band. 'It just changed the dynamic completely, which after 30 years is a real gift because of course if you're familiar with one another and familiar with your patterns of working, things can get very predictable.' 'Being in pain and having to learn to walk again was no picnic but I'm grateful for the upheaval in the end because it changed my thinking and it turned out there was a lot of silver linings to this misery.' The 58-year-old sounds different on the songs. Maybe it was the painkillers, perhaps it was the pain but her already expansive, emotive voice has found bolder new colours. Like on Sisyphus, where she channels her recovery – 'This little body of mine is going to make things right' into a soaring electronic club track that is ripe for a cover version from her labelmate Kylie Minogue. The pair were both mentored by the late great Australian music mogul Michael Gudinski. 'Oh my darling Kylie, she would kill that track actually,' Manson says. 'I have such a massive love for her. 'I really try to explore different parts of my voice, with every record that we make. And I really tried to push myself to not stick to what I know so if you hear any new colour in my voice after 30 years, that's the greatest compliment you could possibly pay me.' Manson has a lot of love for the new generation of female pop artists who share her passion for using their art and platform to speak out against injustice. The singer has never shied from using her songs and her social media to protest, and has been buoyed by other women raising their voices from Lady Gaga to Chappell Roan. 'We are screaming about the same bullshit as we did in the '90s. I'm very excited, however, by the new generations of young artists. They really fill me with a lot of joy,' she says. 'Whether they know it or not, they're coming from our school. 'And we've had a dearth of provocative and alternative voices for about 20 years with the advent of uber pop artists who are just ginormous and take up so much space and were well-behaved and sort of conservative. 'I'm not knocking pop, I love pop, so I love seeing these enormous pop stars now who are getting involved in trying to improve our communities and are being courageous, way more courageous than my generation.' Let All That We Imagine Be The Light is out now.
