Follow the day’s news live
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
1m agoSurprise rise in unemployment to 4.6%
42m agoMinns says OpenAI agent infiltrated NSW crime data agency Boscar
2h agoPocock says OpenAI hack ‘very concerning but ultimately unsurprising’
4h agoOpenAI notified government of Medicare breach via ‘email sent to public mailbox’
4h agoVictoria to allow dogs in pubs – if Labor wins the state election
5h agoMarles says Australia will investigate ‘legal situation’ around OpenAI Medicare breach
5h agoQantas ground crews walk off the job to demand better conditions
5h agoAustralia to provide $60m more in support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia
6h agoWorld order no longer fit for purpose, Albanese says
6h agoAnthony Albanese says OpenAI agent hacked Medicare
NSW premier Chris Minns says OpenAI agents may have also accessed information held by the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Boscar).
Minns said he was first alerted to the incident after a call from the PM.
The prime minister called me late last night in Sydney, it was early morning in New York, and he told me about this breach and his real concerns as it relates to safety and security of information held by government agencies, particularly the circumstances relating to it.
Minns described the incident as “a big concern for us in New South Wales”.
We do believe there’s been access to a New South Wales government agency as well. Not private information, not personal information, but a similar example of what is generalised information but was not released to the public, being accessed by an open AI agent.
We do believe there’s been access to a New South Wales government agency as well.
Not private information, not personal information, but a similar example of what is generalised information but was not released to the public, being accessed by an open AI agent.
Minns said an investigation into the incident and the government’s cyber-security vulnerabilities will be launched.
We need to and will examine its impact, both the technology and the vulnerabilities in our confidential information. New South Wales will be working with commonwealth intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of it, firstly to identify how this happened and secondly to breach the gap so that it doesn’t happen again.
We need to and will examine its impact, both the technology and the vulnerabilities in our confidential information.
New South Wales will be working with commonwealth intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of it, firstly to identify how this happened and secondly to breach the gap so that it doesn’t happen again.
The unemployment rate has unexpectedly risen to 4.6%, the highest since November 2021, August data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows.
Jobless rates rose both in seasonally adjusted and trend terms, from 4.5% in July.
The rise was mostly due to more people looking for jobs, with an extra 28,000 unemployed Australians in August. An extra 46,000 people took on part-time jobs but 6,000 full-time jobs disappeared.
Markets were expecting much smaller change in the number of people employed and looking for work, predicting a steady 4.5% unemployment rate.
The higher jobless rate is unlikely to stop the Reserve Bank from raising interest rates next Tuesday. The RBA governor, Michele Bullock, said on Tuesday she thought the jobs market was still tight while unemployment was near 4.5%, adding:
I think between 4.5 and 5 will probably take enough heat out of the labor market that it’ll ease pressure on inflation.
Marles says no individual medical data accessed by Open AI agent
Government services minister, Katy Gallagher, said the AI model accessed only publicly available, aggregated information from the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal.
On the website that it accessed, the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal is a standalone website. It’s public–facing, and it is not in any way related to Medicare in terms of claims, payments, and processing individual information. It’s a completely different system, and the two shouldn’t be conflated. It’s a public website. It’s most often used by researchers and academics, who get that aggregated data about benefits statistics, prescribing statistics, to use in their own research.
On the website that it accessed, the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service Portal is a standalone website. It’s public–facing, and it is not in any way related to Medicare in terms of claims, payments, and processing individual information.
It’s a completely different system, and the two shouldn’t be conflated. It’s a public website. It’s most often used by researchers and academics, who get that aggregated data about benefits statistics, prescribing statistics, to use in their own research.
Deputy prime minister Richard Marles said the incident was “very serious”, but its impact was “relatively minor”.
We are talking about aggregated medical statistics. No individual’s medical data was accessed here. The system itself has not been in any way compromised. The impact of this event is minor, but it is a very serious incident because, in an unintended way, an AI agent has entered into an Australian government website in a way which is unauthorised.
Marles says many ministers have known of hack ‘less than a week’
Marles is getting pressed on the timeline surrounding the breach and when Australians were told, saying many government ministers have only known about the hack for a “less than a week”.
Making this public has its own consequences. We needed to do it with a certain amount of information at hand. The incident itself is obviously very serious. It’s very serious that we’ve got an AI agent having gained unauthorised access into an Australian website. Now, the moment that we felt that we were in a position to have that information at hand and to responsibly inform the Australian public, we have.
Making this public has its own consequences. We needed to do it with a certain amount of information at hand.
The incident itself is obviously very serious. It’s very serious that we’ve got an AI agent having gained unauthorised access into an Australian website. Now, the moment that we felt that we were in a position to have that information at hand and to responsibly inform the Australian public, we have.
Marles ‘grateful’ to OpenAI for engaging after Medicare hack
Richard Marles, the acting prime minister, is speaking in Sydney about the OpenAI hack. He said the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will institute a taskforce to look at the incident and examine Australia’s posture with respect to cyber threats.
“It will look at the security of government networks, it will look at the legal arrangements that we have in place in respect of an incident of this kind,” Marles said.
I want to say and acknowledge that OpenAI have been working with us very cooperatively here. They have clearly notified us of this and engagement with them has been critical to understanding what has occurred. We are grateful for that. That said, what has occurred here is obviously completely unacceptable. All of this, I think, we can take as a warning in relation to the development of AI itself. It is so important that this technology, which represents such an enormous opportunity for humanity, is nevertheless being developed in a way where the guardrails, the safeguards, are well ahead of the capability itself.
I want to say and acknowledge that OpenAI have been working with us very cooperatively here. They have clearly notified us of this and engagement with them has been critical to understanding what has occurred. We are grateful for that. That said, what has occurred here is obviously completely unacceptable.
All of this, I think, we can take as a warning in relation to the development of AI itself. It is so important that this technology, which represents such an enormous opportunity for humanity, is nevertheless being developed in a way where the guardrails, the safeguards, are well ahead of the capability itself.
‘We want big tech to take accountability,’ Wells says after Medicare hack
Anika Wells, the federal communications minister, just spoke in Brisbane. She was asked about OpenAI, and had this to say:
We want big tech to take accountability. We want an unregulated industry to implement some basic safety standards here on Australian shores, and that’s what I’ll be trying to do when I introduce the digital duty of care in October.
Wells said an investigation into the matter is ongoing, confirming the Australian Signals Directorate is still looking into whether there had been any criminal breaches here, and if so, if there should be repercussions.
Greens call for US ambassador to be grilled over Medicare hack
The Greens have called the OpenAI incident “a serious attack on Australia’s sovereign interests”.
The acting Greens leader, Mehreen Faruqi, has called for the new US ambassador, David Brat, to be called in by the government over the incident revealed this morning.
“This breach by a foreign AI company on an Australian government database is deeply alarming and brings home the risks that these out of control tech corporations pose. The fact that the government did not even know it happened is disturbing,” she said.
These billion dollar corporations will not take taskforce investigations or statements seriously. They will respond to strength. Now is the time for the prime minister to fight for Australia’s interests and implement a moratorium on data centres in Australia until we have regulations protecting people and the country. If hacking Medicare and taking two months to alert the government doesn’t push Labor to treat AI with the seriousness it deserves, what will?
These billion dollar corporations will not take taskforce investigations or statements seriously. They will respond to strength. Now is the time for the prime minister to fight for Australia’s interests and implement a moratorium on data centres in Australia until we have regulations protecting people and the country.
If hacking Medicare and taking two months to alert the government doesn’t push Labor to treat AI with the seriousness it deserves, what will?
Independent senator David Pocock put out a statement this morning, saying the breach highlights “how slow the Australian Government has been to implement appropriate safeguards for AI in high risk settings”. He went on:
This begs the question about why the Albanese government shelved plans for a National AI Safety Act and why they are so slow to develop legislation to implement new standards. We have these companies warning of existential threat and hacking critical government infrastructure and the Labor government’s response is “We’ll get to that next year”.
This begs the question about why the Albanese government shelved plans for a National AI Safety Act and why they are so slow to develop legislation to implement new standards.
We have these companies warning of existential threat and hacking critical government infrastructure and the Labor government’s response is “We’ll get to that next year”.
Pocock said there remained a “big question” as well about why “we aren’t holding these big tech companies liable for this kind of data breach”.
If it was an Australian who hacked the system they’d likely be heading for jail, yet there’s no accountability for AI companies developing this technology.
Groceries up 7% across Coles, Woolworths, IGA and Aldi, Choice says
Groceries have become more expensive at all four of Australia’s major supermarket chains, with the average price of a basket of essentials increasing by 7% between March and June, new analysis has found.
The consumer advocacy group Choice on Thursday released its 10th quarterly government-funded survey of supermarket prices, which it assessed by filling a basket with eight common grocery items at 104 different stores in June.
The basket – containing milk, royal gala apples, strawberries, bananas, potatoes, avocado, basmati rice and beef mince – increased in price by 7% across Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, and IGA since Choice’s last survey in March.
