The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has warned of a sense of weight hanging over Australia following the alleged attack on independent MP Helen Haines, AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett said. According to her, lone attackers are motivated by a combination of personal grievances, mental health vulnerabilities and ideological beliefs.
Barrett highlighted that geography, analogue systems and remote criminals are being affected by fully integrated technology, social media and artificial intelligence. These changes are altering how security threats emerge and spread.
In a separate development, the ABC on Wednesday again requested at Senate estimates that the depiction of the character Bluey be removed from a One Nation cartoon in which the character repeatedly crosses over politicians on the floor. ABC chief executive Hugh Marks said on Tuesday that he had learned last week of a possible intellectual property infringement by One Nation and had sought legal advice.
The ABC does not own the intellectual property rights for Bluey. The ABC is considering its available options and believes that the relevant cartoons should be immediately removed from One Nation's platforms and that further use should not continue. Bluey's international distributor, BBC Studios, and Brisbane-based creators Ludo have been in discussions with the ABC on the matter.
Communications Minister Anika Wells stated that the ABC is 'entirely right to be concerned' about the use of Bluey by One Nation, describing the character as 'one of the biggest, most loved and most famous Australian export products'.
Meanwhile, social welfare advocates accused the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) of 'cherry-picking' regarding who might be eligible for compensation for unlawful termination of payments. The department has invited 50,652 people to submit claims, while it is estimated that 310,000 people were affected.
Kristin O'Connell, spokesperson for the Antipoverty Centre and member of the DEWR's Stakeholder Reference Group for targeted compliance, said that all members of the reference group had repeatedly expressed concern to the DEWR about the process and called on it to ensure that everyone subjected to those unlawful decisions receives compensation. O'Connell added that it is not for the department to decide whether those 300,000 people were harmed.
In an economic context, Treasurer Jim Chalmers blamed higher global oil prices for intensifying cost-of-living pressures at home, after inflation in the year to September jumped to 4.3 per cent. Chalmers said that inflation is 'too high', but that prices are rising faster in a number of countries, not just here.
Fuel prices rose by more than 9 per cent last month and were 24 per cent higher than a year earlier. Chalmers said that higher oil prices are driving higher inflation around the world and that today's data confirms that Australia is not immune to this. He added that, from an economic standpoint, the conflict in the Middle East cannot end soon enough.
The Treasurer's comments followed a sometimes heated exchange earlier in the day between Treasury Secretary Jenny Wilkinson and Liberal Senator Jane Hume over the extent to which government spending is to blame for high inflation. Sarah Hunter is the chief economist of the RBA.
