Joseph Brookes

Salesforce has cracked the federal Industry department, landing a $1 million deal this month through limited tender to supply the national science museum with software over three years. The department, which until now has never procured Salesforce, did not go to open tender because it views the US giant as the only supplier capable of meeting the technology needs of Questacon, like ticketing, membership, and retail software. Questacon is tasked with supporting Australians’ engagement with science, technology and innovation, and in 2022-23 almost half a million visitors passed through its doors.

Wikipedia pages for Australian cities, national parks and landmarks present a “sanitised” neo-colonial image of the nation, according to new research, raising concerns that artificial intelligence is amplifying and insulating the view from scrutiny. The UTS research to be released on Tuesday reveals how Wikipedia's Australian place entries have become a battleground of ideologies while the articles and volunteer editing efforts have skewed towards “white settler perspective” and highly populated areas. The researchers found instances of “ideologically motivated” editors removing Indigenous place names, while Indigenous history was often reflected with a passive voice or omitted altogether from entries.

Federal and NSW Labor governments are committing more than $60 million to establish a clean energy manufacturing training facility in Newcastle to build up a workforce and new nation-wide courses over five years. The workforce is needed to support decarbonising and new industries spurred by net zero commitments and the governments’ industry and energy policies. The Hunter Net Zero Manufacturing Centre of Excellence was launched at the existing TAFE campus at Tighes Hill by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Premier Chris Minns on Tuesday.

Australia’s biggest medical research funding agency will start gaining independent assurances of grant recipients’ fraud risks and mandate reporting of suspected incidents, following a misconduct scandal and a critical audit. The audit, tabled on Tuesday, confirms the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has recovered $2.6 million from five grants awarded to applications “based on data that was fabricated, falsified or unreliable”. The incident centres on Professor Mark Smyth, who was regarded as one of Australia’s leading cancer researchers until 2021 when his employer reported him over allegations of research misconduct.

The first investments from the Albanese government’s landmark $15 billion manufacturing fund will be revealed within weeks as part of series A or B raises of local startups. The National Reconstruction Fund (NRF) Corporation’s investment chief Dr Mary Manning revealed the first deals are imminent at the InnovationAus Awards in Sydney on Wednesday night. “In the coming weeks, we hope to announce our first Series A/B venture capital investments in some of Australia's most exciting startups, including some previous winners of the InnovationAus Awards,” Dr Manning said.

Technology and Defence contractors account for most of the $528 million in outsourced work that federal agencies will bring back in house this financial year under Labor’s directive to rebalance the public service. The “core” APS work insourcing target was released on Monday by Finance minister Katy Gallagher, who put agencies on notice a year ago to develop plans to phase out contractors and consultants. Agencies have now signed up to ambitious estimates, which are targets and not savings, in the first year under the Strategic Commissioning Framework.

Jobseekers are being asked to adjust their reporting to employment service providers to avoid a government tech glitch or risk losing their payments, shifting more burden onto vulnerable people. Advocates say the current tech glitch is the latest in a series that have forced jobseekers to jump through even more administrative hoops and that any automated payments suspensions would "repeat the failures of robodebt". The department in charge says it is taking its own steps to ensure payments aren’t wrongly cut off but declined to explain the underlying cause or how many people are impacted.

Tech services giants Accenture and Deloitte are running the Bureau of Meteorology’s new forecasting technology, leveraging their original deals to build the platforms into $27 million of running costs over the next three years. Bureau of Meteorology officials on Friday told the Senate its main technology suppliers had to be paid more than anticipated on the build when the agency underestimated the complexity of its biggest ever tech uplift and supercomputer build. Contracts amended just before the project, known as Robust, ended also added nearly $27 million in running costs, further complicating what has been a contested final price tag.

Australia’s largest bank and a medical centre have signed on to test Canberra’s verifiable credentials project, which is promising to harden the nation against cyber attacks and scams by draining the data honeypot. While still at a proof-of-concept stage, the Services Australia TEx project announced in August could also leave a mark for outgoing government services minister Bill Shorten. It has already coopted all the major banks, telecommunications companies, Google, Apple, seek and private identity providers, while briefings are being provided to the Opposition to build bipartisan consensus in a project that would take years to deliver.

Tech giants like Meta and X face a European-style duty of care to proactively protect Australian users under an Albanese government plan that could be legislated by the end of the year. Communications minister Michelle Rowland on Wednesday night revealed the government will accept the key recommendation from a forthcoming review of Australia’s online safety laws and legislate a ‘Digital Duty of Care’. If passed, the legal requirement long sought by platform critics and safety advocates would shift the onus onto online service providers to keep millions of Australians safe by continuously assessing and mitigating risks.