Australia

If I've had a device replaced under warranty, does Australian consumer law apply from the date of the replacement or date of original purchase?

I originally bought the item just under 3 years ago and it was replaced ~1.5 years ago. Lasting 3 years wouldn't be too unreasonable - but of course I wouldnt turn down another replacement if entitled.

Whoa if true.

The Coalition’s commitment to undermine Australia’s push to renewables is getting more creative – and desperate – by the week, with new claims that the federal government’s 82 per cent target is putting a flame under the cyber security risk posed by rooftop solar inverters.

Opposition home affairs and cyber security spokesperson James Paterson, late last week released a statement claiming the Albanese government’s “rush to renewable energy” has exposed Australia’s electricity grid to “potentially catastrophic cyber attacks.”

Paterson – a former fellow of the fossil fuel funded lobby group, the Institute of Public Affairs – is virulent anti-renewables and, like many of his Coalition partners, pro nuclear.

He says his latest concern is focused on a key part of the “renewables rush:” the almost 20GW of rooftop solar installed by Australian homes and businesses, even though the vast majority of it was installed on the Coalition government’s watch, particularly the push to “smart inverters”.

“Experts have said that the real danger point comes when these products reach a critical mass, when they reach a significant proportion of our rooftop solar and therefore a significant proportion of our electricity grid,” Paterson told Sky News on Friday.

“And then that could be disrupted by an external party, by a signals intelligence agency like the People’s Liberation Army’s cyberspace force or the Ministry of State Security cyber hacking unit.

“And that could not just damage those inverters and that source of power, it could actually do damage to our grid as a whole and take our whole grid offline,” he said.

“We cannot afford for our electricity grid to be riddled with exploitable cyber security vulnerabilities in the most dangerous strategic environment since World War II.”

The reality is somewhat different. It is true that Australian consumers continue to pile on the panels, at near record levels, in response to the price hikes caused by the very technologies that the Coalition is attached to, coal and gas.

Bizarrely, the Coalition is now ramping up its call for another even more expensive technology, nuclear power. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has made it a major plank of Coalition policy and the party has now imagined something called “micro nuclear” which it says can power hospitals and mines.

Liberals deputy leader Sussan Ley told the ABC Insiders program on Sunday that nuclear was the solution to soaring power bills. She was not pressed on why choosing the world’s most expensive technology – as described by most experts – would help address that problem.

Meanwhile Andrew Liveris, the former Dow Chemicals boss rolled out by the Coalition amid Covid to push for gas, has used his platform as head of the Olympic Games organising committee to suggest small modular reactors be rolled out in Brisbane to help power the games in 2032.

He said he hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t mentioned it to either the state of federal governments, or even considered if it was possible, or in whose backyard the nuclear reactors should be located.

But his ramblings were enough to warrant a front page lead in The Australian, which along with the AFR is leading the conservative campaign for nuclear and against renewables.

Paterson is not wrong about smart solar inverters being vulnerable to cyber attacks. Like anything device that is connected to the public internet, a smart solar inverter might be hacked and used for nefarious purposes.

The federal government is aware, the Australian Energy Market Operator is aware, and the industry is aware.

How quickly this might become a threat to national security, or “take the whole grid offline,” and how much Labor’s ambition on renewables might be increasing these dangers, are up for debate.

Grace Young – chief innovation officer at WattWatchers and one of the experts cited in a “fact sheet” distributed with Paterson’s media release on Friday – says she “cannot agree” with a number of claims being made by the Victorian Liberal MP.

“Cyber security in this space is a concern,” says Young, who last week gave a presentation on this very subject at the EnergyNext conference in Sydney.

“We need to consider policy and protections against the sorts of threats that we’re seeing and can foresee, but it’s not something that should be stopping progress towards renewables,” she told RenewEconomy on Monday.

“Certainly from my perspective, and from our company’s perspective, where we are here providing technology solutions to advance the development of renewables in a safe and secure way, we don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be continuing to pursue that.

“There’s plenty that’s being done and there’s plenty to do – we need to be ever vigilant, but it should definitely not be something that stops requires us to stop.”

Meanwhile, Young adds, there are more pressing threats to the stability of Australia’s network, and to the security of energy supply, that have “nothing to do with with Chinese inverters” and everything to do with our dependence on fossil fuels.

“We are looking at mandated control mechanisms for solar over the next 18 months or so across the eastern seaboard – we’re not looking at an imminent threat.

“We need to be vigilant, because these systems are being developed with a 10-year horizon. But right now, we need, more, to offset the potential for disruption and increase resilience of the network [through renewables].”

Young also stresses that the shift to distributed energy resources has, in no small part, been driven by the need to create a much more resilient grid, particularly as climate change brings more unpredictable weather extremes.

“An islandable microgrid or an islandable feeder is far more resilient a sub-system … and means that the overall grid can be more stable if one segment goes offline or one segment is interrupted.

“The more centralised infrastructure that we have is far more susceptible to … attacks and disruptions,” she says.

Young also questions Paterson’s focus on the threat from China made inverters, which currently dominate the Australian market – with around 58% of the rooftop market.

“Smart inverters are internet-connected devices that can be controlled remotely over the internet, and are overwhelmingly supplied by manufacturers with links to the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

“We know that critical infrastructure networks like power are of great interest to signals intelligence agencies in foreign authoritarian states, including China.”

But Young says that even if we took the “illogical” step of immediately banning all Chinese inverters, the security issue is still there, because it comes with the kind of control functionality that is essential for balancing the grid as we take up more renewables.

“We need to focus on that,” she tells RenewEconomy. “It’s got nothing to do with a specific country …it’s a whole bunch of different things, and that [particular cyber security threat] could come from anywhere.”

First AIDS-free country? HIV epidemic in Australia may soon be defeated

https://ground.news/article/australia-may-soon-have-defeated-the-hiv-epidemic

Calls for special deal to be struck for NT, which has biggest funding gap between public and private schools

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs oversaw the payment of millions of taxpayer dollars to powerful Pacific Island politicians through a chain of suspect contracts.

Disquiet points to jockeying among jurisdictions and impatience over the rollout of renewables

An advertisement by Australia’s gas lobby has been taken off the airwaves after it was found to mislead viewers with environmental claims.

The television campaign, aired in June and run by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), claimed natural gas is “50 per cent cleaner” and “together with renewables it gets emissions down”.

A complaint to Australia’s advertising watchdog argued that although gas was “scientifically slightly less bad” than some other coal and oil energy sources, the blanket statement of “50 per cent cleaner” was unacceptable.

“It is a blanket and misleading statement that gas is ‘green’, when in truth the exploration, extraction, transport, processing and logistics of gas are very damaging to the environment and emit a lot of greenhouse gas – especially methane,” the complainant said.

The watchdog, Ad Standards, upheld the complaint in a ruling last month.

A community panel of Ad Standards found the commercial breached the advertising code for environmental claims by making an unclear comparison with coal.

The gas lobby had defended its ad and qualified the claim with two reports.

“The panel considered that the ’50 per cent cleaner’ claim was not clearly stated in either report with supporting evidence and without the use of qualifiers,” the panel’s decision said.

“As such, the advertiser had not provided supporting evidence with sufficient detail to allow the evaluation of the claim.”

APPEA, which represents Australia’s upstream oil and gas industry and has more than 60 member companies, said it disagreed with the verdict.

“APPEA believes the advertising was clear, factual and does not agree with the community panel findings,” its chief executive Samantha McCulloch told AAP on Friday.

Ms McCulloch said the fact gas produces around 50 per cent less carbon dioxide emissions than coal when used for power generation is supported by robust international and Australian research.

The lobby group ultimately agreed to update some of their campaign material “out of respect for the decision and the process”.

It has now been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for allegedly airing false or misleading statements regarding the relative greenhouse gas emissions of coal and gas.

Lock the Gate spokesman Nic Clyde said that at a time when Australians need to back renewable energy, the lobby group has chosen to “double-down on their promotion of fossil gas”.

Environmental Defenders Office lawyer Kirsty Ruddock said the advertisement was “designed to make the public think gas is good for the environment, when in fact it is driving dangerous climate change”.

• Get flyer to check waste service is correct.

• Check waste service on notice. Service number 1

• go to website on flyer. It's a login portal. No information about service.
• google council webpage, search page for waste service.

• There is no "service 1".
• check notice again for $ amount.
• Check page again for corresponding service.
• fin.

So easy, thanks Penrith City Council!

Guys, which do you like the most and is value for money?

I guess I'm stupid. I didn't realise they changes the interest rates on HECS. Is it true, you basically should pay it off ASAP because the interest now is massive (I think it says 7% on mygov). I always understood HECS was almost interest fee so I just left it for a long time. Now I'm desperately trying to pay it off quickly so I don't have the compounding debt.

Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate said on Thursday the city could step in to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games after Victoria placed the future of the quadrennial multi-sport event in doubt by pulling out due to projected cost overruns.

Includes some useful answers to concerns people may have about voting yes.