Brandon How

Brisbane-based vaccine patch company Vaxxas is developing the first room temperature-stable needleless vaccine for one of the world’s most common cold-like diseases, weeks after launching efforts to raise $100 million. On Tuesday, Vaxxas announced it had received a global licence from the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH). The company will now prepare for the first clinical trial for a room temperature-stable needleless vaccine for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Vaxxas chief executive David Hoey said the “Vaxxas needle-free technology to eliminate the need for refrigerated distribution and enable self-administration”.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has awarded its first battery development and manufacturing grant to Brisbane-based AnteoTech to commercialise its unique component technology for lithium-ion batteries. Announced on Tuesday, AnteoTech will spend the next three years commercialising its ultra-high silicon anode technology -- a key battery cell component -- which could reduce the cost of battery storage and extend the range of electric vehicles. The $6 million grant was awarded after an “extensive diligence process and independent technical analysis by ARENA”, according to AnteoTech, jumping ahead of the upcoming $523 million Battery Breakthrough initiative, which will launch by early 2025.

The South Australian government’s $593 million plan to build a hydrogen power station, production facility, and storage can now be built after securing federal environmental approval. The approval, announced by the state’s Office of Hydrogen Power on Thursday, comes around four months after receiving development approval from the state’s planning minister. The state government’s preferred development partners for the project are Canadian energy infrastructure firm ATCO and BOC, a subsidiary of German chemicals and engineering firm Linde.

Queensland’s new Premier David Crisafulli has appointed a new Minister for Customer Services and Open Data after scrapping the former government's Digital Services portfolio. Steve Minnikin was sworn in as Minister for Customer Services and Open Data and Minister for Small and Family Business on Friday as part of Mr Crisafulli's 19-member ministerial Cabinet. He replaces former Labor Minister for Transport and Main Roads Bart Mellish, who had also overseen the digital services portfolio. Before the election, Mr Minnikin was working as the shadow minister for customer service and for transport and main roads.

The Western Australian parliament has been forced to consider changes to a signature public sector privacy and data sharing bill, amid criticisms it delivers "privacy lite" protections. The amendments - brought by independent Legislative Council member Wilson Tucker - would bring the bill closer to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. The Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing (PRIS) bill is scheduled for debate on Tuesday, but given the government's majority in the upper and lower houses, the amendments are unlikely to pass. Mr Tucker told InnovationAus “this is the one shot for WA to get these laws right”, to ensure visibility and transparency regarding the government's use of personal data.

The federal government's broad definition of an Australian business is hurting the country’s economic complexity, a group of local defence, technology and space companies collectively worth more than $5 billion have warned. In a submission to a consultation on what makes an Australian business, the Sovereign Australian Prime Alliance (SAPA) said that including multinational subsidiaries in the definition diminishes the effectiveness of policy aimed at uplifting Australia’s industrial capability. The group consisting of NIOA, DroneShield, Macquarie Technology Group, AUSTAL and Gilmour Space argued that subsidiaries of foreign-owned multinationals “are necessarily vested in advancing the industrial capabilities of their home nations first and foremost”.

Social media companies failing to fight scams on their platforms will be subject to fines of up to $50 million under a new framework brought before Parliament on Thursday. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones has put social media companies “on notice”, with the proposed legislation to enable sector-specific mandatory scam codes and require consumers to have easy access to an internal dispute resolution mechanism. The government has also committed to building a “a mandatory coordinated intelligence sharing ecosystem that requires timely reporting and information sharing across industry and government”, if the legislation passes.

Attempts to use stolen identity credentials legitimately spiked by 66 per cent in just seven months, with federal government's anti-fraud register blocking more than 200,00 attempts by fraudsters.The Credential Protection Register was created following the Optus data breach in October 2022 to prevent compromised passports, Medicare cards and driver’s licence data from being verified through the government’s Document Verification Service (DVS).Initially established by the Department of Home Affairs to block the use of credentials stolen from more than 2.1 million Optus customers while new identity documents were issued, it is now overseen by the Attorney-General’s Department.

Australia’s leading constitutional law expert Anne Twomey is says there is a potential "constitutional problem" with the government's definition of misinformation and serious harm in proposed laws. Appearing before a Senate inquiry into the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill on Monday, Ms Twomey said examples in the explanatory memorandum could capture political communication, which is an implied constitutional freedom. But the Sydney University Professor Emerita argued that the definitions in the text of the bill, which she expressed no particular concern with, is “completely different” with the explanatory memorandum making it “all very confusing”. She also expressed concerns around the practicality of identifying mis- and disinformation on foreign-based social media platforms, noting that "outsourcing censorship to foreign corporations generally, is not a good idea".

Tweaks to Consumer Data Right rules effective from Tuesday allow energy companies to shield their trial products for two years from the scheme's data sharing obligations in a bid to encourage more innovation. The longer than expected exemption was announced alongside streamlined consent and data collection processes by Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones as part of his "reset" of the economy wide data sharing scheme. The energy sector's trial product exemption applies to new products being rolled out to up to 2,000 customers and will last 24 months. It is double the current thresholds for CDR's pioneer banking sector but still well below what energy companies had asked for.