www.theguardian.com
Labor to make it harder for international students to ‘course hop’
Krishani Dhanji
International students will soon find it harder to transfer courses, and remain in Australia for longer, under a series of rule changes to stop the increase of “permanently temporary” migrants.
The assistant minister for international education, Julian Hill, is giving a speech this morning to the Migration Institute of Australia and says under the rules a student will now need a separate visa to transfer courses, making it much harder to “course hop”.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, announced at the press club last month that transfers could only be to courses of equal or higher value, meaning a student could not start a bachelor or masters’ degree and then drop to a vocational course.
Hill will say:
One of the biggest problems has been the growth in permanently temporary migrants. People who hop from visa to visa, who may have spent most of their adult lives here, with kids who are now Australian, but who will never make the cut for skilled migration or who wait for years on bridging visas for a permanent visa.
Hill will also crack down on migration lawyers and agents who try to “game” the system by profiting off people who have baseless visa claims.
Key events
Josh Taylor
Steam has age checks – but just with credit cards for now
Earlier in the blog we had the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, calling out Valve and its gaming platform Steam as “outliers” in relying on self-declaration for age instead of having age assurance technology – similar to the social media ban – which they have been required to have since March this year.
In the eSafety report out today, it clarifies that Steam did not have these measures in place during the reporting period when the questions were issued to Valve.
Steam has since brought in a form of age checking as of last month. There’s been a bit of controversy about it because to access content meant for people aged 18 and over in Australia, the only form of age checking Steam is accepting is credit cards.
This presents an issue for anyone who doesn’t have a credit card, or doesn’t want to use it for Steam.
The eSafety commissioner’s statement out today makes clear the office is “engaging with the company to seek commitments that it will put in place additional forms of age assurance to give its customers choice”.
Card surcharge ban will take time to work through
Australian businesses will need time to adjust to the new ban on card surcharges as the major banks prepare for a potential merchant fees war, AAP reports.
The change, driven by the central bank to give consumers transparency at the till, only came into effect on Thursday.
Commonwealth Bank says that from its end, the transition has been relatively smooth, although it has sensed pockets of anxiety.
Even though consumers will no longer see the surcharge on eftpos, Visa, Mastercard and Amex transactions, businesses are still on the hook to cover the cost by either absorbing it or increasing product prices.
The banks have already remotely removed the surcharge option from the in-shop terminals used by merchants, including key hospitality operations that were the biggest fee users.
At the same time, banks still have to cover the interchange fee – paid by the merchant’s bank to the customer’s bank when a payment is processed – even though it has now dropped to 0.3%, from 0.8% (roughly three cents on every $10) – and shopkeepers still pay merchant fees to their banks.
Labor to make it harder for international students to ‘course hop’
Krishani Dhanji
International students will soon find it harder to transfer courses, and remain in Australia for longer, under a series of rule changes to stop the increase of “permanently temporary” migrants.
The assistant minister for international education, Julian Hill, is giving a speech this morning to the Migration Institute of Australia and says under the rules a student will now need a separate visa to transfer courses, making it much harder to “course hop”.
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, announced at the press club last month that transfers could only be to courses of equal or higher value, meaning a student could not start a bachelor or masters’ degree and then drop to a vocational course.
Hill will say:
One of the biggest problems has been the growth in permanently temporary migrants. People who hop from visa to visa, who may have spent most of their adult lives here, with kids who are now Australian, but who will never make the cut for skilled migration or who wait for years on bridging visas for a permanent visa.
Hill will also crack down on migration lawyers and agents who try to “game” the system by profiting off people who have baseless visa claims.
Online game ‘threat environment is getting more serious’, eSafety chief says
Julie Inman-Grant, the eSafety commissioner, said she expected by now there would be “better protections” for children in the online gaming space as “the threat environment is getting more serious”.
She told RN this morning some changes had been made, but other companies were lagging behind:
Some are doing better than others. We’re starting to see Roblox uplift. And Minecraft has education-based games that are safer than, say, the online version. But we would expect to see more from Fortnite.
And Steam and Valve are really the outliers. They’re still relying on self-declaration for age assurance, even though in March we have required all gaming platforms to be able to age assure those under 18 and prevent harmful content being served to them.
Inman-Grant said it was a “shame” that some companies needed regulatory pressure to better their safety standards.
We’re starting to see gaming platforms act more like social media platforms. They’re trying to keep the kids on the platforms longer. … They’re introducing new services like dating services and shopping malls where the primary demographic is 8 to 13 and they’re allowing adults to intermingle. I mean, what could possibly go wrong there?
Man charged with sexually assaulting woman in Sydney park
A Sydney man has been charged after allegedly restraining, choking and sexually assaulting a young woman in a park, Australian Associated Press reports.
A 23-year-old woman was walking from Flemington Station through Airey Park in Homebush, in Sydney’s west, around 11.15pm on Friday 18 September when she was stopped by a man not known to her, police say.
Police will allege the man, 27, then allegedly restrained the woman and dragged her into nearby bushland, where he sexually assaulted her.
Police searched a Padstow property about 8.50am on Thursday, arresting the 27-year-old man and seizing several items for forensic examination.
He was charged with aggravated sex assault – inflicting actual bodily harm, intentionally choking without consent, taking a person with intent to commit a serious indictable offence and stalk/intimidating with intent to cause fear of physical harm.
The man is due to appear in Bankstown local court on Friday.
Some findings from the eSafety report on online game companies
The eSafety commission released a major new report into online game service providers today, examining how the companies keep kids safe on the internet, or fail to do so.
The report found that “left unchecked or unmoderated, there is a risk that these games could contain unlawful material or serve as high-risk environments for child sexual exploitation and abuse or activity which promotes, incites or instructs in matters of crime or violence”.
Most of the providers employed tools to proactively detect unlawful or harmful material, but the quality and coverage of those tools varied across each one, eSafety said. It expected the industry to raise the bar to combat serious harms like child sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual extortion and material or activity that promotes or incites violence.
Some of the providers also took longer than others to respond to user or automatic reports of specific harms, which could leave other users exposed to serious harms for longer.
The full findings are available here.
eSafety commissioner says ‘time for new leadership’ after 10 years in role
Julie Inman-Grant, the eSafety commissioner, confirmed this morning “it’s probably time for new leadership” at the body after serving 10 years in the role.
She spoke to RN Breakfast this morning, saying 10 years was a “good, round, solid number”, adding:
We’ve increased the office tenfold. We’ve done amazing things. I think with the new digital duty of care, I’m going to be actively shaping that to the extent that I can and getting all the right pieces in place.
But it’s probably time for new leadership. This is not an easy gig from a personal perspective, but also professionally, it’s been the role of a lifetime. And, you know, to be able to try and make some positive change has been an incredible opportunity. But yeah, I think it’s time to be thinking about what’s next.
Industry minister says it is important Australia works in tandem with AI
Tim Ayres, the minister for industry and innovation, was asked this morning why the government’s rhetoric on artificial intelligence had softened after an initially stern tone on the OpenAI breach.
Ayres said the government had, in fact, been direct with OpenAI, but maintained the country and tech giants had to work in tandem. He told RN Breakfast:
It reinforces the government’s approach here, which is about making sure that artificial intelligence investment here supports Australia’s national interest, happens on Australia’s terms.
He said Albanese had initially given a direct, firm message to the founder of OpenAI, but that has since been followed by “extensive, enhanced cooperation, working through the issues in a constructive way”.
It underscores why it is that we’re legislating AI standards, why it is that we’re seeking to secure the right level of artificial intelligence investment, including training investment here in Australia, because it makes Australia stronger and means that we are part of shaping the technology and that is crucial for Australia and Australians.
Minns government vows to regulate labour hire in NSW
The Minns government has pledged to regulate labour hire in New South Wales if reelected, a move meant to protect workers and businesses from dodgy labour hire providers.
An independent report found earlier this year a number of labour supply companies had been incorporated within days of each other at the same address, with the same director and secretary, during the Western Sydney Airport Metro project.
The investigation found suspected underpayment of workers, insurance fraud, tax fraud and unaccounted invoices worth than $10m.
The contractor was terminated after the report.
Other entities, including farmers and unions, have raised concerns about labour hire providers in the horticulture sector.
Sophie Cotsis, the minister for industrial relations, said in a statement:
The NSW Government has zero-tolerance for the exploitation of workers, and this commitment builds on the work we are doing to stamp out dodgy labour hire firms.
Every worker deserves fair pay, access to their entitlements, and to work and live in a safe environment and a labour hire licencing scheme is an important step in ensuring safer workplaces for labour hire workers.
Former Wallaby hooker Nathan Charles diagnosed with MND at 37
The former Wallaby Nathan Charles, who became the first cystic fibrosis sufferer in the world to play a contact sport professionally, has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND).
AAP reports the 37-year-old, who played four Test matches for Australia, revealed he has been diagnosed with the same disease as retired South Sydney NRL star Jai Arrow.
During a Stan Sport interview with former Wallaby turned commentator Justin Harrison, Charles said he had only recently been diagnosed.
Read more:
Nick Visser
Good morning, and happy Friday. Nick Visser here to take over the blog. Let’s get to it.
Atlassian enters 10-year solar energy deal with community co-op to power Sydney HQ
A solar farm owned by a group of community investors has secured a 10-year deal with one of Australia’s biggest technology companies to help power its headquarters, Australian Associated Press reports.
Atlassian announced its virtual power purchase agreement with the Goulburn Community Energy Co-operative on Friday in a deal that will fund almost 70% of the project’s output over the next decade.
Electricity generated by the project in NSW’s Southern Tablelands will help to meet the renewable energy needs of the tech firm’s 39-storey Sydney base, currently in construction near Central station, when it opens in 2028.
The announcement comes amid heated debate over whether technology companies should be required to invest in renewable energy generation to meet growing demands from data centres and artificial intelligence operations in Australia.
The solar and battery farm, located on 2.2 hectares of industrial land in Goulburn, features 2,300 solar panels and a four megawatt-hour battery. Owned by a group of about 288 local investors, who contributed a minimum of $400, the farm connected to the electricity grid in March 2026, 12 years after it was proposed.
The agreement follows a $2.3m NSW government grant and would support local workers and suppliers, Andrew Bray, the Goulburn Community Energy Co-operative chair, said:
Our active volunteers and investor community worked patiently and diligently across a number of years to see this project come to fruition.
To have a blue-chip Australian company like Atlassian come on board as a commercial partner is a huge vote of confidence in what we have built.
Online gaming ‘shortcomings’ put children at risk, eSafety report finds
Sarah Basford Canales
Online gaming services are failing to take enough action to prevent children being exposed to harmful content, a new report from the eSafety Commissioner has found.
In a report published today, the online safety watchdog found measures adopted by gaming providers were not up to standard and varied in quality between platforms.
Platforms with the dominant purpose of gaming are not covered under Australia’s under-16s social media ban but are subject to the eSafety Commissioner’s information gathering notices.
The report – which drew details from Fortnite’s developer, Epic Games, Roblox, Minecraft and Valve’s Steam – found some positive signs but overall determined “disparities and shortcomings”.
Among them, examples of some platforms relying on age self-declaration resulting in children being able to easily access third-party content lacking sufficient content moderation as well as a limited number of human moderators to respond to harmful content.
The commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, said:
While we have seen some safety improvements as a result of sustained regulatory pressure, including the recent court-enforceable undertakings we accepted from Roblox, there is still significant work to be done across the board to prevent serious harms in online gaming to children.
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action.
