The Weekly Cybers #62
AEC rules that podcasts are The Media too, Budget a “missed opportunity”, ASX tech is rubbish, and more.
The Weekly Cybers #62 | 4 April 2025
Welcome
We’re 29 days out from the federal election, so there’s relatively few digital policy stories this week. So much attention was given to prime minister Anthony Albanese falling over.
Still, there’s an AEC ruling that podcasts count as media for election content, more commentary on last week’s Budget, and more.
Podcasts are The Media too: AEC
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has ruled that political content in Abbie Chatfield’s podcast and subsequent clips on Instagram do not need an authorisation line because they were not “paid advertising or ... communicated by or on behalf of a candidate or party”.
Under Australian law, all election material must have a tagline explaining where the material came from, such as “Authorised by Suellen Wrightson for the Trumpet of Patriots, Gold Coast”, but there are exceptions for news reporting and genuine editorial content.
Chatfield’s podcast interviews with prime minister Anthony Albanese and Greens leader Adam Bandt are therefore no different from, say, opposition leader Peter Dutton appearing on Sydney commercial radio 2GB.
A question remains over those Instagram clips then being re-posted by politicians on their own social media accounts.
“We were looking at the original interview — there’s still a question there about the cross-posting, particularly when it comes to how that appears on the pages of the political entities or participants themselves — so there’s still a question there that we’re looking at,” said AEC spokesperson Evan Ekin-Smyth.
Budget a “missed opportunity” for the digitals
As we noted last week, the federal Budget was seen by some industry lobbyists as a disappointment, with little new funding compared with previous years.
This “puzzling” policy gap could also “undermine Australia’s future economic sovereignty and innovation potential,” according to a piece in the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter this week.
“Australia remains largely a consumer of global digital ecosystems, with little influence over the rules that shape the technology landscape,” argues Dr Marina Yue Zhang. The omission of fresh funding for AI and digital infrastructure “deepens these challenges”.
“Australia should develop a national digital infrastructure — a comprehensive ‘AussieCloud’ that integrates data centres, biofoundries, and AI supercomputing labs,” she writes.
Australia should also “engage in shaping international technological standards”.
Lack of action on AI guardrails and privacy reforms: EFA
Meanwhile, digital rights organisation Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) has called for action on developing AI guardrails, and “a legal framework that ensures transparency, accountability, and fairness in AI systems”.
“Nothing for AI Safety. Zip. Zero. Zilch. This is bad,” writes EFA chair John Pine.
“There was no funding or even an announcement of standing up an AI Safety Institute (or legislation) yet EFA notes Australia has signed on to the Seoul Declaration on AI safety and remains the last signatory to stand up an AI Safety body/regulator,” he wrote.
“The absence of these guardrails not only jeopardises individual rights but also undermines public trust in AI technologies.”
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Also in the news
- Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code could well be in Donald Trump’s sights, as the cliche goes, because the tech giants are getting in his face about it. The prime minister has vowed to defend the code, as well as the age restrictions for social media, and planned Australian content minimums for streaming services. Greg Jericho, chief economist at The Australia Institute, reckons Trump’s tariffs would mostly hurt Americans.
- Chinese social media app Rednote is being used by migration agents to spread false claims, according to disinformation experts. Meanwhile, influencers on Rednote who usually post about food or real estate are now interviewing politicians on a platform that’s too big for the AEC to monitor.
- The eSafety Commissioner is appealing a decision by the the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART) that the ART has jurisdiction to review eSafety’s decision to alert X Corp to a possible breach of their terms of service. Possibly one for the true policy wonks, but the eventual decision by the Full Federal Court will help clarify the commissioner’s powers.
- Some of Australia’s largest superannuation funds have suffered a major cyber attack, reports Cyber Daily. “So far, the superfunds affected by the incident include REST, HostPlus, Australian Retirement Trust, AustralianSuper and Insignia, the owner of major superfund brand MLC.”
- Tech at the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is so bad it’s allegedly risking the stability of Australia’s financial system. Back on 20 December 2024 a memory allocation error meant some trades failed and had to be put through the next working day. There was no backup plan.
- From iTnews, “A formal ban on the use of Kaspersky Lab software by the federal government last month was triggered by ‘a detection of its use in the supply chain of one government agency’, according to Home Affairs officials.”
Elsewhere
- Amazon is due to launch its first batch of 27 Project Kuiper satellites next week, which will eventually start to create a real competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet.
- The Guardian has an explainer on what Australians travelling to the US need to know about phone and device searches at the border.
- An interesting argument from the UK that copyright (probably) won’t save anyone from AI, given copyright’s history and philosophy. “Saying that copyright might not be the winning tactic for the media and creative industries is not the same as saying what’s happening is fair, reasonable or okay,” of course. Worth reading in full.
- FS-ICAC, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center, has released a bunch of business guidance on cyber fraud prevention for financial services, but once again it’s hidden being a regwalls that asks for your contact details.
Inquiries of note
None, and we won’t see any until after the election.
What’s next?
The Australian government is currently in caretaker mode before the federal election on Saturday 3 May, so there will be policy pitches but few real actions before then.
Fridays 18 and 25 April are public holidays for Good Friday and Anzac Day respectively, so in those weeks this newsletter will appear on Thursday.
DOES SOMETHING IN THE EMAIL LOOK WRONG? If there’s ever a factual error, editing mistake, or confusing typo, it’ll be corrected in the web archives.
The Weekly Cybers is a personal look at what the Australian government has been saying and doing in the digital and cyber realms, on various adjacent topics, and whatever else interests me, Stilgherrian, published every Friday afternoon (nearly).
If I’ve missed anything, or if there’s any specific items you’d like me to follow, please let me know.
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This is not specifically a cyber security newsletter. For that that I recommend Risky Biz News and Cyber Daily, among others.