Supermarkets sidestep Tim Tam dunkJonathan BarrettExecutives at Coles and Woolworths have told a Senate committee they’ll need to ask Tim Tam-owner Arnott’s why their chocolate biscuits are cheaper in the UK than in Australia.“It’s probably a great question for Arnott’s,” Paul Harker, chief commercial officer at Woolworths, told the parliamentary committee on cost of living today.Adam Fitzgibbons, head of public affairs at Coles, said:
I think the question almost presupposes that Arnott’s sells their product to us at the same price that they would sell those products to other retailers internationally. That’s not something that I or Coles would have visibility of at all, but I think that’s certainly a question that would be very best directed towards Arnott’s.
A comparison of seven Australian products stocked in UK supermarkets, including Tim Tam biscuits and Vegemite, found they are often cheaper to buy in Britain than at Australia’s two big chains.The products are manufactured in Australia, raising questions over markups applied by supermarkets. Food manufacturers have consistently said that supermarkets have the final say over pricing decisions.The committee chair, Liberal senator Jane Hume, said:
It does sound passing strange, doesn’t it, that a product that is manufactured in western Sydney would cost more at a supermarket in Sydney than it would at a supermarket in London after it’s travelled 17,000km.
ShareUpdated at 03.01 CESTKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureTruck rollover at service station along Hume HighwayFirefighters in NSW have responded to a truck rollover at a service station along the Hume Highway, at Sutton Forest in the Southern Highlands.The service station will remain closed “for some time”, the RFS said, while crews remove the contents and fuel from the truck.We’re reached out to the RFS for more details on how this occurred, and will update when we can.Firefighters from the #RFS and FRNSW are on scene of a truck roll-over within the south-bound service station on the Hume Highway at Sutton Forest. The service station will remain closed for some time, while crews remove the contents and fuel from the truck. pic.twitter.com/Kl5XukZaDK— NSW RFS (@NSWRFS) October 11, 2024

ShareAI deepfake ads set to screen during federal electionDeepfake political advertisements with videos pretending to be the prime minister or opposition leader will be allowed at the next federal election, AAP reports, under contentious recommendations from an AI inquiry.Voluntary rules about labelling AI content could be fast-tracked in time for the 2025 election and mandatory restrictions applied to political ads when they are ready.The Adopting Artificial Intelligence inquiry issued the recommendations in its interim report today, but failed to secure the endorsement of a majority of its members, with four out of six senators clashing over its content.In a dissenting report, the inquiry’s deputy chair, Greens senator David Shoebridge, said the recommendations would allow deepfake political ads to “mislead voters or damage candidates’ reputations”. Two Coalition senators argued a rushed process would unfairly restrict freedom of speech.A temporary, targeted ban on political deepfakes should be introduced to help voters participating in the next federal election, Shoebridge said.
Under current laws, it would be legal to have a deepfake video pretending to be the prime minister or the opposition leader saying something they never, in fact, said as long as this is properly authorised under the Electoral Act. That falls well below community expectations of our electoral regulation.
ShareUpdated at 03.57 CESTInternet safety classes will be part of South Australian school curriculumAt the press conference, South Australia’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, said there would be a school-based program applied to all school across the state within the curriculum to give children “the knowledge and the tools about how to confront the challenges they’ll experience online”:
No one is suggesting for a moment that we should keep kids off the internet.
Yes, we want to put an age limit in place in terms of their access to social media, but if we’re serious about their safety, we [have] got to make sure they have got the skills and the capability to be able to deal with cyberbullying, to be able to understand what healthy messages are around body images, to understand what is illicit content and really isn’t safe for them. To give them the preparedness, to know what to do and who to speak to if an online predator comes after them.
Malinauskas said this would roll out in schools from next year.ShareUpdated at 03.51 CESTMichelle Rowland reiterates social media age requirement changes will focus on platformsThe communications minister, Michelle Rowland, is speaking at the social media summit in Adelaide about the legislative design principles that will underpin the proposed laws about minimum age requirements to access social media:
For example, we see the onus as being on the platforms, not on users or their parents when it comes to safety online. It’s important to incentivise the platforms to create less at-risk platforms, less at-risk apps, less at-risk services.
To that end, we look forward to working with industry to help achieve this goal. We know through recent developments that the platforms can and they should be doing more in this space.
We will also be working with eSafety who will be overseeing this legislative change. And importantly, we will continue to pursue efforts to make sure that the platforms are held to account and do more. To that end, there won’t be penalties that will be imposed, as I said, on those children or their parents as users. But we will ensure through our review of the Online Safety Act that the penalties’ regime is fit-for-purpose.
ShareUpdated at 03.42 CESTAurora Australis lights up the nightNatasha MayThere’s been a massive solar storm overnight and it’s not only the northern hemisphere which has had a cracker aurora night as a result– some parts of Australia have also seen light shows in the sky.Solar storms occur when there is a sudden explosion of particles, energy, magnetic fields, and material blasted into the solar system by the sun, according to Nasa. A geomagnetic storm then occurs due to the interaction of the Sun’s outburst disturbing the Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in the auroras.Around the country from Canberra to Perth and Cape Schanck, many stayed up to see nature’s spectacle:ShareUpdated at 03.52 CESTWhat’s the cost of a Tim Tam slam in the UK in comparison with Australia?Just following on from our last post where executives at Coles and Woolworths told a Senate committee they need to ask biscuit maker Arnott’s why their chocolate biscuits are cheaper in the UK than in Australia.As we mentioned, a comparison of seven Australian products stocked in UK supermarkets, including Tim Tam biscuits and Vegemite, found they are often cheaper to buy in Britain than at Australia’s two big chains.Vegemite retails for $1.93 per 100g at Morrisons but costs customers $2.27 at Coles and $2.21 at Woolworths, according to price checks conducted by Guardian Australia.You can read the full story from Cait Kelly below:ShareUpdated at 03.11 CESTSupermarkets sidestep Tim Tam dunkJonathan BarrettExecutives at Coles and Woolworths have told a Senate committee they’ll need to ask Tim Tam-owner Arnott’s why their chocolate biscuits are cheaper in the UK than in Australia.“It’s probably a great question for Arnott’s,” Paul Harker, chief commercial officer at Woolworths, told the parliamentary committee on cost of living today.Adam Fitzgibbons, head of public affairs at Coles, said:
I think the question almost presupposes that Arnott’s sells their product to us at the same price that they would sell those products to other retailers internationally. That’s not something that I or Coles would have visibility of at all, but I think that’s certainly a question that would be very best directed towards Arnott’s.
A comparison of seven Australian products stocked in UK supermarkets, including Tim Tam biscuits and Vegemite, found they are often cheaper to buy in Britain than at Australia’s two big chains.The products are manufactured in Australia, raising questions over markups applied by supermarkets. Food manufacturers have consistently said that supermarkets have the final say over pricing decisions.The committee chair, Liberal senator Jane Hume, said:
It does sound passing strange, doesn’t it, that a product that is manufactured in western Sydney would cost more at a supermarket in Sydney than it would at a supermarket in London after it’s travelled 17,000km.
ShareUpdated at 03.01 CESTRafqa ToumaNSW deputy premier thanks activists for educating government on coercive controlWe also asked the NSW deputy premier, Prue Car, what can be done so police take claims of victims of coercive control more seriously. She said police were trained upon coercive control being made a crime in the state:
The work that has been done by people in the community, firstly on educating us all about coercive control being the precursor to domestic violence, that has led to coercive control now being a crime for New South Wales.
Credit where credit’s due, it wasn’t just this government today … The previous government also did some work on this. We were proud to have made that a crime in NSW so that women like that can actually be confident that the crime of coercive control will be policed.
Part of the framework of doing that was training police in the new criminal framework of coercive control as a crime, so we can actually prosecute these men, mainly, that coercively control their partners, people that they purport to love.
NSW deputy premier Prue Car. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAPShareUpdated at 02.41 CESTWoman’s arm severed in vicious dog attackA woman has been rushed to hospital after her arm was severed in a vicious dog attack in north Queensland, AAP reports.Emergency services were called to reports of a dog mauling at a Lonerganne Street property in Garbutt, a suburb of Townsville, just after 7am.A woman in her 30s sustained significant injuries to her arm which has been severed during the attack. She was rushed to Townsville university hospital.Police attempted to subdue the dog but were unsuccessful and it was “euthanised” at the scene. Officers said investigations into the attack are ongoing.It follows another attack in a Melbourne back yard yesterday where a woman was critically injured and the three dogs responsible fatally shot by police.ShareUpdated at 02.39 CESTBoM forecasts thunderstorms across parts of NSWThe Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting thunderstorms across central and south-east New South Wales this afternoon and evening, including for Sydney:ShareUpdated at 02.23 CESTRafqa ToumaNSW deputy premier on electronic monitoring of alleged serious DV offendersThe deputy premier, Prue Car, addressed press a short while ago to announce the NSW government’s electronic monitoring of alleged serious domestic violence offenders.We brought to Car’s attention Alicia*, a woman who told Guardian Australia she fears she will be killed by her controlling ex, but that police won’t listen until “there’s a dead body”.Asked how the NSW government can say it is committed to ending violence against women when someone begging for help from police was repeatedly dismissed, Car said it is “those kinds of women and stories that spurred the government on to do something about this once and for all”.She said this is “not a simple problem to fix” and needs to be “attacked from all angles”:
We are attempting to do that from every angle, making it harder for those charged with these heinous, heinous offences to be given bail while they await their trial. From today, they are going to have to wear an ankle bracelet.
In no way would we ever stand here and say that this is simple, or that we have solved this. There are too many women in NSW that fall victim to domestic violence, to coercive control. It took a significant amount of years to get to the point where coercive control, about where a woman goes, who she sees, what money she spends, leads to physical, mental, sexual violence. It’s women like that that we are attempting to do this for.
You can read Alicia’s story, reported by Kate Lyons, here:*Names have been changedShareUpdated at 02.14 CESTDementia set to become Australia’s leading cause of death: ABS dataDementia Australia says that new data from the ABS shows dementia is set to become the nation’s leading cause of death.In 2023, dementia accounted for 9.1% of all deaths, closely following ischaemic heart disease at 9.2%. Dementia is the leading cause of death for Australian women, representing 12.2% of all female deaths and 6.4% of male deaths.Dementia Australia’s CEO, Prof Tanya Buchanan, said the ABS data reinforces the urgent need for a public health approach to reducing, or preventing, the risk of developing dementia. She said this was especially important given there is no cure for dementia and poor community understanding of the terminal nature of the disease.
There are currently an estimated 421,000 Australians living with dementia and without a significant intervention, this number is expected to increase to more than 812,500 by 2054.
As dementia edges closer to becoming the leading cause of death of Australians, it is crucial that we act now to focus on the brain health of the nation as well as provide more targeted, effective support to those impacted by dementia.
ShareUpdated at 02.20 CESTDutton ‘out of step with international community’, Wong saysPenny Wong was asked if the government went “too far” with its wording on the 7 October motion in parliament – and if it should have ensured it included words the Coalition would support?Peter Dutton refused to support a parliamentary motion proposed by Anthony Albanese marking the first anniversary of the 7 October attacks because it also mentioned the need for regional de-escalation and a ceasefire.Wong said that it was Dutton who had “gone too far”, saying that he was “out of step with the majority of the international community”.
The United States and every member of the UN Security Council have called for a ceasefire in Gaza, but Mr Dutton does not want to vote for one.
Wong said a similar debate had occurred in the Senate yesterday, where the Coalition was “prepared to support a broader motion including some of the issues that Mr Dutton refused to support in the house”:
Mr Dutton is doing what he always does, which is to seek to divide, to seek to inflame. Whenever there is a moment where we need Australians to come together, you can always count on Peter Dutton to look to divide Australians.
ShareUpdated at 02.00 CESTNo further evacuation flights from Lebanon after SundayPenny Wong is asked to respond to comments from Simon Birmingham (see earlier) suggesting Australians fleeing Lebanon should be paying their own way instead of being “rewarded with a free ride”.Wong says the government is taking the same approach with these evacuation flights it did for people feeling after 7 October:
We have a flight scheduled for Sunday, that’s October 13. There are no further flights scheduled beyond that … Flights are not going to be scheduled indefinitely, and are subject to operational and security constraints. You should leave now if you wish to leave.
Penny Wong in the senate this week. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The GuardianShareUpdated at 01.53 CESTQuestions for WongThe foreign minister Penny Wong is now taking questions.Asked when the first lobsters will hit China, she says “by the end of the year” but is hoping for a “little earlier than that”.She is also asked if the government trusts China as a trading partner, and what lessons have been learned. Wong responds:
We learned a few lessons as a country, didn’t we? The first is that Peter Dutton talking tough isn’t the same as being tough and that Mr Dutton and his colleagues really took an approach to the relationship with China which ultimately didn’t end up with a relationship that was stable, where we are could agree, disagree, cooperate where we can, disagree where we must and engage in the national interest.
She accuses the opposition of seeking to continue politicising the China-Australia relationship:
I’ve been very clear, China has a set of interests – some of those are very different to Australia’s. There are gonna be areas where we disagree and Australia has been very clear about standing up for those issues which are important to Australians. But we also know that it’s important to engage and we will continue to do that in a mature, calibrated and deliberate way.
Earlier, the shadow foreign minister Simon Birmingham said Australia should be “principled and predictable” with China (see earlier post for more).ShareUpdated at 01.49 CESTTrade agreements hailedThe trade minister, Don Farrell, also spoke about the lifting of trade restrictions on lobster.He said more than $700m worth of trade was lost due to the restrictions:
As you will have seen in the last week or two, we have negotiated new free trade agreements with the United Arab Emirates and we are encouraging companies like Ferguson’s to expand and look at other markets so that we diversify our trading relationship. That is the best way we can increase our prosperity and increase the number of jobs in this country.
Penny Wong and Farrell have been speaking from the Ferguson Australia lobster business in Adelaide.ShareUpdated at 01.48 CEST