Samoa to head into early elections after PM Fiame dissolves parliament
Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa announced that she will seek a dissolution of parliament and will await the Head of State to advise when the national election will be called.
The ABC's Adel Fruean recounted what unfolded in parliament this morning and shared with Nesia Daily what this now means for the country.
Also in the program, we spoke with Luna-Rossa Lomitusi-Ape, a young beekeeper from Samoa who is on a mission to build up and protect the population of bees in the country.
Moses Cakau Willie joined us to acknowledge the passing of Motarilavoa Hilda Lini, a pioneering Ni-Vanuatu politician and chief who was the first woman elected to the nation's parliament in 1987, and eventually became Vanuatu's first female minister in 1991.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Bill to criminalise AI child abuse apps to be introduced to parliament
A bill to criminalise the use of AI tools purpose-built to create child sexual abuse material is set to be introduced to parliament. Independent MP Kate Chaney, who will introduce the bill, says the urgent issue cannot wait for the government's wider response to artificial intelligence. While it is an offence to possess or share child abuse material, there is no criminal prohibition on downloading or distributing the wave of emerging AI generators designed to create the illegal material. The tools are becoming easier to access online, with some of the most popular visited millions of times. Their spread is diverting police resources and allowing material to be created offline, where it is harder to track. A roundtable convened last week to address the issue recommended swift action to make the tools illegal, prompting Ms Chaney's bill. "[This] clearly needs to be done urgently and I can't see why we need to wait to respond to this really significant and quite alarming issue," Ms Chaney said. "I recognise the challenges of regulating AI — the technology is changing so fast it's hard to even come up with a workable definition of AI — but while we are working on that holistic approach, there are gaps in our existing legislation we can plug to address the highest-risk-use cases like this, so we can continue to build trust in AI." Ms Chaney said she had met with Attorney-General Michelle Rowland, who she said recognised there was a gap in the law. The MP for Curtin's bill would create a new offence for using a carriage service to download, access, supply or facilitate technologies that are designed to create child abuse material. A new offence for scraping or distributing data with the intention of training or creating those tools would also be created. The offences would carry a maximum 15-year term of imprisonment. A public defence would be available for law enforcement, intelligence agencies and others with express authorisation to be able to investigate child abuse cases. "There are a few reasons we need this," Ms Chaney said. "These tools enable the on-demand, unlimited creation of this type of material, which means perpetrators can train AI tools with images of a particular child, delete the offending material so they can't be detected, and then still be able to generate material with word prompts. "It also makes police work more challenging. It is [getting] harder to identify real children who are victims. "And every AI abuse image starts with photos of a real child, so a child is harmed somewhere in the process." The federal government continues to develop its response to the explosion in the use of AI tools, including by enabling the tools where they are productive and useful. It is yet to respond to a major review of the Online Safety Act handed to the government last year, which also recommended that so-called "nudify" apps be criminalised. Members of last week's roundtable said there was no public benefit to consider in the case of these child abuse generators, and there was no reason to wait for a whole-of-economy response to criminalise them. Former police detective inspector Jon Rouse, who participated in that roundtable, said Ms Chaney's bill addressed an urgent legislative gap. "While existing Australian legislation provides for the prosecution of child sexual abuse material production, it does not yet address the use of AI in generating such material," Professor Rouse said. Colm Gannon, Australian chief of the International Centre for Mission and Exploited Children, said there was a strong consensus that the AI tools had no place in society and Ms Chaney's bill was a "clear and targeted step to close an urgent gap". In a statement, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said the foremost priority of any government was "to keep our most vulnerable safe". "As Attorney-General, I am fully committed to combating child sexual exploitation and abuse in all settings, including online, and the government has a robust legislative framework in place to support this," Ms Rowland said. "Keeping young people safe from emerging harms is above politics, and the government will carefully consider any proposal that aims to strengthen our responses to child sexual exploitation and abuse." Ms Chaney said regulating AI must become a priority for the government this term. "This is going to have to be an urgent focus for this government, regulating the AI space," she said. "Existing laws do apply to AI, and so we need to plug the gaps in those so they continue to be fit-for-purpose. "We do also need a coordinated approach and a holistic approach so we can balance individual rights with productivity, global governance and trust in information and institutions. "The challenge is the technology moves fast and government does not move fast, so we need to get it right but we also need to plug these gaps as they appear. An inquiry established by former industry minister Ed Husic last year recommended the government take the strongest option in regulating AI by creating standalone laws that could adapt to the rapidly shifting technology.
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Queensland's State of the Sector report shows almost 30 per cent of public service earning at least $120,000
The headcount of Queensland's public service has swelled to over 320,000 workers, with almost 30 per cent of state government employees now earning at least $120,000. A new report to be released today reveals the Queensland government's workforce consisted of about 270,883 full-time equivalent (FTE) roles as of March this year. It represents a 5 per cent uptick from 258,012 FTEs in March 2024, with the majority of the growth attributed to an increase in health workers. When this is converted to a total headcount, which takes into account part-time workers, employee numbers climbed from 308,033 to 322,600 over this period. The details are contained in the annual State of the Sector report, which is the first snapshot of the public service since the new LNP government came to power last year. When looking at the total headcount, about 64,500 workers were earning between $120,000 and $149,999 per year as of March — equating to about one in five employees. This is up 38 per cent from the 46,753 workers in this wage bracket the same time last year, when they made up 15.2 per cent of the public service. Another 19,001 employees — or 5.89 per cent of the total headcount — were earning between $150,000 and $179,999 as of March this year. This reflected a 66.7 per cent increase from a year earlier when there were 11,397 workers in this income category. Workers earning more than $180,000 per year made up 2.3 per cent of the headcount — or a total of 7,439 workers, compared to 5,880 employees 12 months prior. Overall, the number of workers making at least $100,000 per year made up 44.7 per cent of the public service and those earning at least $120,000 accounted for 28.2 per cent. In the latest state budget, the government forecast it would spend almost $38 billion on public services wages in 2025-26, with this set to reach about $42 billion by 2028-29. The Queensland government is the state's biggest employer. The State of the Sector report reveals FTE corporate roles — which includes legal services, marketing, and human resources — increased 3.45 per cent in the past year. In comparison, FTE key frontline roles, which includes positions such as police officers, firefighters, and teachers, grew 4.02 per cent. Frontline and frontline support roles, which consist of jobs like security officers, policy analysts, general clerks, and gardeners, climbed 7.56 per cent. Overall, corporate roles make up about one tenth of FTE public service jobs. Health workers make up the largest portion of FTEs — accounting for 42.36 per cent of the public service, followed by education workers who make up 30.16 per cent. The report says the number of FTE police roles increased 3.26 per cent in the 12 months to March following drops in the prior two years. It attributes the growth to a "significant recruitment drive". There was also a 6.04 per cent increase in FTE nurses and midwives, an 8.42 per cent jump in doctors, and a 5.19 per cent rise in ambulance officers. FTE teacher positions increased by 0.23 per cent and child safety case workers ticked up by 0.68 per cent, while correction officer numbers grew 13.88 per cent. The number of FTE TAFE teachers and tutors fell by more than 2 per cent. So too did the number of disability support workers. The report notes the TAFE workforce is designed to "expand and contract" to meet the demand for qualifications and skill sets. The reporting period of between March last year and March this year includes roughly the last six months of the former Labor government and the first six months of the new LNP administration.
ABC News
15 hours ago
- ABC News
Taiwan opposition parliamentarians survive major recall election
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited China recently, there were questions about what role Australia would play if China and the US went to war over Taiwan. The island's defence capabilities have also been front-of-mind for some Taiwanese people and parliamentarians during a domestic political stoush that came to a head on Saturday. For several months now, civil society groups in Taiwan have been campaigning to unseat 24 parliamentarians they considered to be too pro-China. But their efforts to expel the politicians, using a recall motion, have failed. So, what does that mean for Taiwan? Taiwan, a democratic self-governing island of 23 million people, has a political system that allows voters to remove their elected representatives before the end of their term through a legal process known as a recall. But recalls are rare, and had never been used on this scale before. Grassroots organisations behind this unprecedented mass recall campaign wanted to unseat opposition party parliamentarians they viewed as pro-Beijing. The campaigners believed these parliamentarians had been using their majority to block the democratically aligned Taiwan president's agenda, impacting government budgets and crucially, defence programs, which consequently created risks for Taiwan's security. "The opposition lawmakers have paralysed the government's ability to start the process of enhancing defence reforms and capabilities that Taiwan desperately needs in order to deter China from continuing to enhance military pressure on Taiwan," said William Yang, International Crisis Group's senior analyst for North-East Asia. The opposition parliamentarians had denied these accusations. Beijing has repeatedly insisted that Taiwan will one day become a part of China, refusing to rule out the use of force to achieve that. US intelligence suggests China's President Xi Jinping wants his military ready for a potential invasion by 2027. All recall votes against the 24 opposition party members from the Kuomintang (KMT) were rejected, according to Taiwan's Central Election Commission. It means the current makeup of Taiwan's parliament will remain the same. "The result shows the majority of the Taiwanese people still prefer the outcome from the Taiwanese election delivered in 2024," explained Mr Yang. The opposition party will continue to have a majority in the legislature, and the ruling party, President Lai Ching-te's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will continue to control the executive branch of government. Mr Yang described the results as a "double-edged sword". "On the one hand, the opposition party could feel that they have the momentum behind them, so they will try to make a way to push the government to provide more leverage and concessions," he said. "But at the same time, the opposition could also feel the heat in the way that they will be more cautious when it comes to blocking or stopping the government's agenda so that they won't face similar recall measures in the future." KMT chairman Eric Chu thanked Taiwan's voters and called for President Lai to apologise and reflect on his governance. "One should not lose the elections and then call for malicious recalls. One should not seek one-party dominance and destroy democracy," he told a press briefing in Taipei. "Most importantly, the people of Taiwan chose stability and chose a government that gets things done, rather than political infighting." Wu Szu-yao, secretary general of the DPP's legislative caucus, said the party respected the voters' decision with pleasure, adding the result would only strengthen the DPP's "anti-communist and pro-Taiwan" stance. "This time we saw China was trying everything it could to intervene," she told reporters at party headquarters in Taipei, pointing to Chinese military pressure and a disinformation campaign. "We must be more vigilant against their possible malicious intentions toward Taiwan." The groups seeking the recalls said theirs was an "anti-communist" movement, accusing the KMT of selling out Taiwan by sending lawmakers to China, not supporting defence spending and bringing chaos to parliament. Voters like Mr Hsu told the ABC the recall campaign had created a divided society, and political polarisation in Taiwan had become "extreme." He hoped for a return to normalcy after the recall vote result. "I hope everyone on this island can live happily, with a thriving economy, instead of being caught up in constant infighting." Jennifer Chang said she hoped that both sides of the political spectrum could find some common ground. "I think everyone should speak out and listen more," she said. Ms Liang, 60, believed people in Taiwan were tolerant. "They're open to different opinions and treat each other with respect. That's something I really value about Taiwan." Reuters
