SYDNEY — Apple and Google have too much power as gatekeepers over their popular app stores, and it’s harming consumers, and app developers alike, Australia’s competition watchdog said. The market power of the two tech giants in the famous world of smartphone apps is the focus of a new report issued by the Australian Competition and Consumer Watchdog, part of its five-year Digital Platform Services Inquiry. The report warns Apple and Google face the possibility of regulation if they do not choose to act on its recommendations to address the power imbalance. Apple and Google both operate popular stores, which are the avenues…
Author: zenger.news
PORT HEDLAND, Australia — A West Australian doctor who failed to examine an Aboriginal woman before she died in custody properly was found guilty of professional misconduct. Yamatji woman Dhu, whose first name is not used for cultural reasons, died two days after being locked up at the South Hedland Police Station in August 2014. She was arrested for unpaid fines totaling AUD 3,622 ($2,793). The 22-year-old died during her third visit in as many days to the Hedland Health Campus from staphylococcal septicemia and pneumonia after an infection in her fractured ribs — caused by her partner — spread to her…
MELBOURNE, Australia — A private security company involved in Victoria’s botched hotel quarantine scheme is suing the state government to recover nearly AUD 10 million ($7.7 million) in unpaid invoices. Unified Security was one of three companies contracted to provide guards for the program’s first iteration, designed to stop coronavirus from spreading into the community. But the program sparked a second wave of Covid-19 infections, resulting in 800 deaths. Unified has launched Supreme Court action to recover what it says amounts to more than AUD 9.7 million ($7.5 million) in unpaid invoices, plus Government State Tax, alongside damages and court costs.…
MELBOURNE, Australia — More than 200 Victorians have been told to get tested for Covid-19 after “strong and unexpected” fragments of the virus were detected in wastewater. Some 246 people in Melbourne’s western and northwestern suburbs have been contacted by authorities and told to get tested as a precaution. “This additional action is being taken due to the strength of the wastewater detection and because a known positive Covid-19 case, from flight QF778, has been in Victoria in the past 14 days,” the health department said on April 29. The 246 people contacted include four close contacts of the positive case and…
MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian state of Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found a former regional health service chief to have awarded dodgy contracts and wrongly claimed more than AUD 300,000 ($232,825) in personal expenses. The watchdog’s Operation Meroo special report was tabled in state parliament on April 30. Still, the report can’t reveal the identity of the health boss and the service in question for legal reasons. It showed the former chief executive awarded an AUD 960,000 ($745,041) contract to a company between 2010 and 2017 while they were in a relationship with one of its directors. They also billed the health…
SYDNEY, Australia — The Board of New South Wales public insurer Icare “comprehensively failed” to govern the organization, and the state government may need to intervene to maintain its viability, a parliamentary inquiry has determined. Meanwhile, the mechanisms aimed at ensuring the board’s accountability to New South Wales Treasurer Dominic Perrottet have been deemed substandard. Icare has for the past 12 months faced allegations of poor performance and financial management in its workers’ compensation scheme. This has resulted in the departure of Icare chief executive and managing director John Nagle and chairman Michael Carapiet. Along with the State Insurance Regulatory…
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Irreverently-minded New Zealanders quietly acknowledged an anniversary this week: Moehanga Day or the day Maori “discovered” Great Britain. In a tongue-in-cheek nod to their former colonial power, some Kiwis have begun an annual remembrance of the first trip by a Maori to London. That man was Moehanga of Northland’s Ngapuhi tribe, who reached Great Britain in 1806 before New Zealand was founded as a nation within the British Empire in 1840. The half-joke anniversary, which lives in pockets of the internet, now comes with a hat-tip from government and historians, eager to give fuller voice to Maori history…
BRISBANE, Australia — New analysis shows Australia could be AUD 210 billion ($163 billion) better off over the next 20 years if the shift to a digital economy is accelerated. The report, completed by consultants Ernst & Young for the Business Council of Australia, says with the right approach, Australia can fulfill its ambition to be a digital leader by 2030. “People want easier, more convenient ways of doing business, so becoming a leading digital economy is win-win,” said Tim Reed, president, Business Council of Australia. “It makes everyday life easier for consumers, and it creates new jobs.” He said the slow drift away…
BRISBANE, Australia — Australia’s leaders will consider classifying more coronavirus-stricken countries as high risk after pausing all flights from India until at least next month. Prime Minister Scott Morrison will chair April 30’s national cabinet meeting of state premiers and territory chief ministers. Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly and foreign affairs officials have been putting together a list of high-risk countries for consideration. India set another gut-wrenching world record on April 29 with more than 379,000 new cases and 3645 deaths. Flights from there have been paused until at least May 15, leaving thousands of Australians who want to escape the disease disaster…
BRISBANE, Australia — Governments and industries have time to build a more reliable and cleaner electricity system if plans are put in place now. That is the conclusion of an options paper released by the Energy Security Board, which was given the task in March 2019 of redesigning the national electricity market. An influx of renewable power and the retirement of old, coal-fired generation is pushing the existing energy system to its technical limits. The Energy Security Board is set to advise energy ministers mid-year on how best to tackle the many problems involved in getting a new system up and running.…