TRANSCRIPT
The Opposition has accused federal Communications Minister Anika Wells of misleading parliament, after an email Optus sent during last month's Triple-Zero outage was tabled in Senate estimates.
The outage affecting hundreds of calls occurred on September the 18th, and Ms Wells has maintained that neither she nor her office were informed until more than 24 hours later.
Opposition Communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh says the email shows the minister didn't tell the truth.
"The minister's office received notification on the Thursday. The minister stood up in parliament yesterday and told the Australian people she did not find out, and her office did not find out, until Friday. The minister has misled the parliament. She has misled the Australian public, and it is clear and plain to see, in this email, as revealed by Senate estimates."
Departmental officials also told estimates they were unaware that the outage was serious, because Optus failed to flag the extent of the problem, and also sent the notification of it to the wrong email address.
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Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong says an upgraded partnership between Australia and Singapore will see more collaboration between the two countries in the areas of cyberspace and artificial intelligence.
Mr Wong has joined his Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra to offer details about the enhanced partnership between the two countries in defence, technology and green economy.
He says Australia and Singapore shares a common strategic perspective that is built on a reservoir of trust.
"Singapore will continue to support Australia's efforts to deepen its engagement with Southeast Asia. And we will cooperate under a new third country training program to deliver capacity building program for Southeast Asian countries, including what will soon be ASEAN's newest member, Timor-Leste. All in all we have a full and ambitious agenda ahead of us."
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Israel has deported seven Australians who were part of an international aid flotilla en route to Gaza.
The Global Sumud Flotilla was intercepted in international waters by Israel's military last week [[1 Oct]].
Australian consular staff in Jordan are assisting Australians with the return home.
Julie Webb Pullman told SBS, she is glad her daughter, Dr Bianca Webb Pullman, one of the flotilla protesters, is in a good condition.
"I was just so relieved. I was very concerned about what sort of condition they might be in, having not eaten. She had been on a hunger strike along with many of them. Water that they had access to was contaminated. So she was nauseous and sick and all that sort of thing. But she says she is fine. I think they're just all so glad to be out."
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The federal government has introduced a bill to allow Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [[kor]] to be designated a terrorist organisation.
The bill follows assessments from ASIO ((Australian Security Intelligence Organisation)) that the Corps directed at least two attacks targeting the Jewish Australian community.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland says the new law aims to strengthen Australia's counter-terrorism framework.
"The bill will allow a foreign state entity to be listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, where they have directly or indirectly engaged in, or otherwise supported or advocated for, the doing of terrorist acts targeted at Australia. The consideration of the listing of particular entities under this framework sit separately to the parliament's consideration of this bill and will be appropriately considered by the responsible minister following passage."
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New South Wales Police are now investigating an alleged data breach at Western Sydney University, after students and alumni complained online that they received mass emails saying their degrees weren't accredited.
In a statement to SBS Chinese, a university spokesperson says the incident has been reported to the police, and it's unable to make further comment.
Eva Chen is a recent graduate of Western Sydney University.
She says the e-mail is clearly fraudulent.
(Mandarin then English) "There were no links in the email, so I wondered what their intention was — maybe they would follow up with a phone call or something. But since there were no links or requests for personal details, I was confident it was a scam.
This isn't the first data breach of the university in recent times.
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Groundbreaking research by Australian scientists has found women carry greater genetic risk of major depression than men.
The research analysed DNA of about 130,000 female and almost 65,000 male participants diagnosed with major depression in Australia, Europe, the U-K and the U-S.
It found females have almost twice as many genetic red flags as males regarding major depression, while the two different sexes also demonstrate different symptoms.
Dr Jodi Thomas from QIMR Berghofer says the findings can help medical professionals explore treatments and diagnosis around depression.
"Traditionally, how research or medical research has really focused more on males, and that's left a significant gap in our understanding of female health, so this research we think is very important, because we've focused on sex, we've treated females and males separately, and our analyses, and that's really helpful because it increases our knowledge around female depression, but it also increases our knowledge of male depression."
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In cricket, multiple reports have Australian captain Pat Cummins missing at least the first Test match of the forthcoming Ashes series against England.
Cummins has a back injury, and talk of whether he will be ready for the start of the all-important series against England on the 21st of November has dominated Australian cricket in recent weeks.
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting Cummins had scans last week, which showed his back is healing, but not fast enough for him to bowl until the final few weeks of the year- which puts into doubt whether he'll play in the Ashes at all.
The Herald Sun is reporting Cummins needs between four and six weeks of preparation time to play.
Steve Smith would likely replace Cummins as captain, and Scott Boland would likely replace him in the team.
