Optus identifies seven more people unable to call triple zero during outage
Optus has identified another seven people who could not contact triple zero on Thursday during the outage, four of whom have not yet responded to a welfare check.
In an update this afternoon, the Optus CEO, Stephen Rue, said after reviewing call logs, the company had identified the additional seven customers who could not get through to emergency services on Thursday.
Rue said:
Our investigations have revealed there was a period from 12.17am to 12.30am, as the upgrade was being readied for deployment, during which the ability of these customers to get through to emergency services was affected.
We have completed welfare checks and can confirm that three of the households have confirmed they require no further assistance.
Two customers have been referred to SA Police and two to WA Police as we have been unable to make contact. This is in line with standard welfare check protocol.
Key events
The owner of Australia’s last white paper mill is suing the Victorian government over an alleged contract breach that permanently shut down production, AAP reports.
Opal, the operator of the Maryvale Mill in Victoria’s La Trobe Valley, launched a lawsuit in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking $402 million in damages from the Victorian government.
Its statement of claim accuses the state government of breaching an agreement, entered into with the mill’s former owner Amcor Limited in 1996, to supply pulp wood.
The agreement was not due to expire until 30 June 2030 but was ripped up after the state government announced native logging would end on 1 January 2024.
Opal terminated the supply agreement two days after the announcement in May 2023 over a “breach or an anticipatory breach”, the court document alleges.
In November 2022, the Supreme Court ordered state-owned logging business VicForests to scale back its timber harvesting in parts of East Gippsland and the Central Highlands, where two endangered possum species live.
Opal alleges the government advised the now-defunct VicForests would be unable to fulfil its contractual obligations and delivered a reduced supply that financial year.
Production workers were stood down and the Maryvale mill, which opened in 1937, produced its last ream of white copy paper in January 2023.
The closure of white pulp and paper production led to the loss of more than 400 jobs and caused the company, owned by Japanese multi-national Nippon Paper, to suffer “substantial loss and damage”.
In a statement, Opal said it had sought to reach a negotiated outcome with the Victorian government to no avail after three years of discussions.
AAP has contacted the Victorian government for comment.
Daisy Dumas
Flinders University considers proposal to abolish humanities college
Flinders University is considering a proposal that would see the closure of its arts, humanities and social sciences faculty, with all courses moved to other colleges.
The South Australian university announced last week that it was consulting with staff about changes to the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences which would “improve collaboration and enhance outcomes in the arts and humanities” and would “create new synergies and greater opportunities for students”.
According to the university, the proposal includes a new Flinders Academy of Creative Arts and an Indigenous Studies Academy and would see cuts to a “small number of management and administrative support positions”.
A Flinders University spokesperson said:
Under the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences proposal there would be no academic positions lost with any savings we make through reducing administrative costs directed into new academic staff positions.
All current and advertised courses will continue and so students can expect no change to their study plans – in fact, they will experience an overall increase in the teaching resources available at Flinders.
A separate proposal would see up to 30 positions in the College of Science and Engineering being disestablished, while raising academic staff numbers from 132 to 143.
The university said the proposals were not driven by cost-saving objectives.
The spokesperson said no decisions had been made in relation to the proposed changes. Consultation was under way until 7 October.
SA police carry out 156 welfare checks on Optus customers
Further to that update from Optus, South Australian police confirmed that they have conducted a welfare check on the two people identified and referred to them by the telco. No adverse outcomes were identified in those checks.
SA Police have now completed a total of 156 welfare checks.
Optus identifies seven more people unable to call triple zero during outage
Optus has identified another seven people who could not contact triple zero on Thursday during the outage, four of whom have not yet responded to a welfare check.
In an update this afternoon, the Optus CEO, Stephen Rue, said after reviewing call logs, the company had identified the additional seven customers who could not get through to emergency services on Thursday.
Rue said:
Our investigations have revealed there was a period from 12.17am to 12.30am, as the upgrade was being readied for deployment, during which the ability of these customers to get through to emergency services was affected.
We have completed welfare checks and can confirm that three of the households have confirmed they require no further assistance.
Two customers have been referred to SA Police and two to WA Police as we have been unable to make contact. This is in line with standard welfare check protocol.
Meta to use AI to detect under-18s in Australia
Josh Taylor
From today, Meta will begin testing AI in Australia on teens on Instagram suspected of being under 18, but have their account age listed as being over 18.
The Facebook and Instagram parent company has been testing the tech in the US since April, but as of today it is being expanded.
If an account is suspected of being under 18, it’ll be pushed into the teens account settings, which will restrict the types of content the user sees.
Meta found that when it was tested in the US, 9 out of every 10 teen accounts on Instagram remained in teens account mode.
It’s not difficult to see Meta could seek to apply this AI detection technology to the social media ban from December when those accounts under 16 will need to be deactivated, and teens prevented from re-registering.
But Meta’s regional policy director, Mia Garlick, said in a statement that Meta continues to hold the view that it would be better if a teen’s age was something checked on the device level, rather than social media platforms.
She said:
We’d like to see App Stores, such as the Apple App Store or Google Play, give parents the ability to verify their teens’ age directly at the point of download, which could then send a signal to apps like Instagram regarding a person’s age range.
Ella Archibald-Binge
Kumanjayi White’s funeral was held in Yuendumu on Friday. The NT police executive director Leanne Liddle said police, at the request of the family, had visited the community in the days after the funeral and “they’ve been fully briefed and informed”.
White’s mother filed papers in July to sue the NT government in the federal court, claiming that the officers involved had committed assault, battery and false imprisonment.
The acting NT police commissioner, Martin Dole, said both officers were still on duty in administrative roles.
The death in custody came weeks before the NT coroner was due to hand down the findings of a long-running coronial inquest into the fatal police shooting of Kumanjayi Walker – White’s cousin who had grown up with him in the remote desert community of Yuendumu.
Nationwide protests and vigils called for an independent investigation into the death, but NT police said no other agency was qualified to conduct such an investigation.
Ella Archibald-Binge
More on Kumanjayi White developments
As we noted earlier, the Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions will decide whether to lay charges over the death of Kumanjayi White, a Warlpiri man with disability who died after being restrained by police in an Alice Springs supermarket in May.
The final autopsy report and brief of evidence has been handed to the DPP, police told reporters in Darwin on Monday.
White, 24, died on 27 May during a confrontation with police in the confectionery aisle of a Coles supermarket. He was living in supported accommodation away from his community of Yuendumu at the time.
Police alleged White was shoplifting and said plainclothes officers had stepped in after an altercation with a security guard.
White’s family have criticised NT police for failing to update them on the criminal investigation and refusing to release CCTV and body-worn video footage of the incident.
The acting NT police commissioner, Martin Dole, said it was not “unusual” for these processes to take a long time to allow a thorough investigation to take place:
In this circumstance, we were waiting for independent medical advice. That’s now been received.
Josh Taylor
Social media platforms have ‘obligation’ to protect under-16s from inappropriate content, Labor says
The federal government has responded to our story today on the types of content under-16s teens could end up seeing when they’re locked out of having accounts and view TikTok and YouTube logged out.
Our experiment showed the Shorts and TikTok algorithms could quickly send users down a rabbit hole of often far-right and violent content, for those who are not logged in and have less control over the type of content they can see.
A spokesperson for the Albanese government said the platforms “have an obligation to ensure young Australians are not exposed to harmful or age-inappropriate content”.
The spokesperson said:
We’ll continue to work closely with industry as we progress our significant online safety reforms, including implementing the social media minimum age and a digital duty of care.
Benita Kolovos
Victoria education minister accepts VCAA recommendations
Victoria’s education minister, Ben Carroll, has wrapped up a press conference following his release of a review into the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA).
He told reporters he would be accepting all 11 recommendations of the review, sparked by the state’s VCE “cheat sheet” bungle last year. Carroll went on:
We know everyone was let down, and the additional stress that was placed on them last year was unacceptable. What I can say is, we’ve been very transparent. We have done a root and branch review by Dr Blacher, a two stage report that’s been released …
We did reconstitute the board. The board has a new matrix of capability, led by the secretary of the department of education. But you can have all the strategies in place. If you don’t have the culture right, then you’re not getting out of the starting blocks, and that is why … changing the culture of the VCAA is so critically important.
Carroll says the recommendation follows eight accepted in April, which were focused on safeguarding the 2025 VCE exams, which are on track:
We are more advanced this year than we’ve been in many years at the VCAA in terms of the exam preparation, all 75 I think it is, are written and ready to be sent out. So we have every confidence in this year’s examinations, and we have left no stone unturned.
Josh Butler
Hanson-Young says PM must use trip to UN to secure COP summit
Sarah Hanson-Young said PM Anthony Albanese must use his trip to the United Nations to secure the COP climate conference for Australia, and it would be a “fail” if he didn’t do so.
The prime minister must bring home the COP. This climate conference is important for Australia. It’s important for our Pacific neighbors. It’s important for the planet, and Australia shouldn’t be cowering and letting Turkiye win this battle.
Australia and Turkiye are both still vying to host the next conference, but the process is decided by consensus, and if the nations can’t agree for one of them to host, then the venue will default to Bonn, Germany.
Hanson-Young is from Adelaide, the city which would host if Australia won the bid. She said Australia should do more diplomacy to win hosting rights.
I’ve been worried for the last few months that we haven’t seen enough diplomatic muscle flexed in order for Australia to win the bid, and we now need the prime minister to turn on the charm, to flex that diplomatic muscle, and to bring the COP home.
If the prime minister doesn’t bring COP home, I think that’ll be a fail.
