16 News

Australia will host the 12th South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM) in 2027, after members endorsed Australia’s nomination at this year’s meeting in Fiji.

SPDMM is the region’s premier defence ministerial forum, bringing together Pacific partners to strengthen defence cooperation and support Pacific-led responses to shared security challenges.

Ministerial representatives from Australia, Chile, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga met in Fiji from 22 to 24 September 2026 for the 11th South Pacific Defence Minister’ Meeting under the theme “Securing the Blue Pacific: Collective Responsibility, Resilient Futures”. 

Officials from Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States participated as observers while Pacific Islands Forum representatives were also in attendance, providing a regional perspective.

Discussions focused on regional preparedness, countering transnational organised crime, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and strengthening cooperation across the Pacific security architecture.

Australia welcomed the outcomes of the meeting, including continued progress on regional initiatives that enhance collective security and resilience across the Pacific.

Australia’s hosting of SPDMM in 2027 reflects its enduring commitment to working alongside Pacific partners to address shared security challenges and support a peaceful, stable and resilient region.

Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles:

“I thank Fiji for hosting a successful meeting and look forward to welcoming our Pacific partners to Australia next year.

“Australia is committed to working closely with all members to deliver a successful meeting in 2027 that advances our shared vision of a secure, resilient and prosperous Pacific.”

the Assistant Minister for Defence, Peter Khalil:

“Australia is proud to host the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting in 2027 and continue supporting Pacific-led cooperation on our shared security challenges.

“As demonstrated in Fiji this week, SDPMM brings regional partners together to strengthen preparedness, build resilience and deepen practical defence cooperation across the Pacific.”

The Joint Communique from the 11th South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting is now online.

The Victorian Greens say revelations that a rogue OpenAI agent interacted with the Victorian Department of Health website as part of its testing should be a wake-up call for the Carroll Labor Government over its rush to embrace AI.

The Prime Minister has confirmed an OpenAI agent gained unauthorised access to non-public information held on a federal Medicare statistics portal in June. Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles has also confirmed the agent interacted with the Victorian Department of Health website, although the government says only publicly available information was accessed from the Victorian site.

The revelations come just months after the Victorian Greens warned Labor against rushing AI into Victoria’s public hospital system without clear safeguards for patient information, transparency about how the technology would be used, or proper public scrutiny.

They also come as the Victorian Labor Government continues to encourage investment in AI infrastructure and data centres across the state, and fails to listen to resounding community demands for a moratorium.

Victorian Greens spokesperson for AI and Data Centres Dr Sarah Mansfield said:

“Three months ago we warned Labor that rushing AI into Victoria’s public health system without strong safeguards was a risk. Now we learn a rogue OpenAI agent was interacting with the Department of Health website.

“The Albanese government says the Victorian site was not breached and only public information was accessed. But the fact an AI agent went on to break through protections on a federal Medicare portal should set off alarm bells.

“Victorians entrust our public health system with some of the most sensitive information imaginable. Labor needs to explain exactly what happened when this OpenAI agent interacted with the Department of Health website, what protections are currently in place, and whether any other Victorian government systems have been targeted.

“This is exactly why governments should regulate first rather than rolling out the red carpet for multinational AI corporations and asking questions later.

“The Victorian Greens have been calling for a moratorium on new AI data centres. Today’s revelations make the need for caution even clearer.”

The Victorian Greens are horrified by the treatment of a child transferred into an adult maximum-security prison revealed in a damning new Victorian Ombudsman report today, and say the findings are an indictment on the Labor Government and the cruel pathway they’ve chosen with putting children through the adult courts and prison system.

The report details how a 16-year-old child transferred from youth justice to Melbourne Assessment Prison was confined to his cell for an average of more than 22 hours a day for six weeks, routinely handcuffed when outside his cell and largely cut off from meaningful human contact.

The child told the Ombudsman the experience left him with “dark, dark thoughts”, including thoughts of self-harm and suicide, and that he still thought about the experience “pretty much every day”.

The Ombudsman found the Department failed to properly consider the child’s human rights before applying for his transfer and that its assessment focused heavily on justifying the transfer through his behaviour rather than meaningfully considering what adult prison would do to him.

The report reiterates the long-standing position of the Ombudsman that there are ‘no circumstances that justify the placement of a child in the adult prison system’.

The Victorian Greens say that the report is an indictment on the Victorian Labor Government who have engaged in this relentless race-to-the-bottom with the Liberals over who can sound the toughest while putting children in serious harm and doing absolutely nothing to reduce crime.

Victorian Greens justice spokesperson, Katherine Copsey:

“No child should be locked alone in a maximum-security adult prison for more than 22 hours a day until they are having thoughts of suicide and self-harm. That is torture.

“This report is horrifying and an indictment of the Labor Government who ignored the evidence and engaged in this relentless race-to-the-bottom with the Liberals, bragging about putting children through the adult system and life sentences.

“Meaningful relationships, education, treatment, exercise, culture and connection – this is how you support a child to make better choices and thrive. Stripping them of these things doesn’t rehabilitate them, it’s traumatising. Dragging children into the adult system is exactly what causes cycles of reoffending.”

Aged care experts have slammed Labor’s ham-fisted attempt to repair its broken aged care assessments system at a public hearing in Canberra today.

The Integrated Assessment Tool (IAT) has been widely criticised for relying on automated, algorithmic decision-making, which has been demonstrated to systematically underassess care need and priority, denying thousands of older people essential care.

Labor is attempting to add an “escalation pathway” for review via an amendment to an unrelated bill, but this pathway would not give clinical assessors override power, but instead send the decision to the Department for review.

Ian Yates, who established the office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care, labelled the IAT a ‘methodologically inept and ill-conceived tool’, and gave evidence the proposed escalation pathway did not address its fundamental problems. Mr Yates called on the Senate to reject the attempted fix, stating ‘two wrongs don’t make a right.’

Professor Kathy Eager, an advisor to the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, also slammed Labor’s amendment, telling the committee that the Department ‘developed the algorithm in-house and when it’s now making a mistake, it gets to mark its own homework’.

These government amendments come after a cross-party bill to restore human override and a Greens motion to abolish the tool entirely both passed the Senate.

Senator Penny Allman-Payne, Greens spokesperson for Older People:

“The Integrated Assessment Tool is broken, and this half-baked amendment won’t fix it.

“The IAT systematically denies essential care to older people, especially those with cognitive issues, mental health conditions and frailty, and yet the government still gave it absolute power over aged care assessments.

“The Labor government, the Minister and the Department have all shown a complete lack of understanding as to how badly this tool has gone wrong, and how poorly designed it is.

“The expert evidence is blindingly obvious. Scrap this broken tool, restore human override by clinicians, and start putting the needs of older people at the centre of the aged care system.

“The Department shouldn’t be trusted to check its own homework when it comes to its mistakes, that power should rest with clinical professionals.”

The Labor Government and the Canberra Liberals have joined forces to actively court major technology companies to build large new data centres across Canberra.

In amendments that completely re-wrote Laura Nuttall MLA’s motion, the major parties also rejected measures that would ensure communities share in the benefits, protect the environment, or pause further data centre expansion while its impacts are assessed.

Laura Nuttall MLA, ACT Greens Spokesperson for Water and Air:

“Canberrans are rightly asking tough questions about the explosion of AI powered data centres, their impact on our environment, and what our community gets in return. Today the Labor government and the Liberals made it clear they don’t want those questions getting in the way.    

“Faced with an opportunity to put safeguards around a fast-growing industry, the major parties instead chose to roll out the red carpet for Big Tech, actively backing more large-scale data centres across Canberra, regardless of community or environmental impact. 

“My motion called for common-sense measures: making sure new data centres deliver real benefits for Canberra, fund new renewable energy generation, genuinely consult with Traditional Custodians about their Country, and not driving up water or energy costs for households. Labor and the Liberals stripped those measures out.

“They also rejected calls to explore a levy or other way for the community to share in the profits generated from Canberra’s land, water, and energy.

“Given this, the Greens did not feel that in good conscience we could vote for the final rewritten motion. 

“If Labor’s objective was to reassure worried residents that the Government isn’t in Big Tech’s pocket, today’s vote was a spectacular misfire.

“Today’s vote showed that when given a choice between standing up for Canberrans or doing favours for billion dollar tech companies, Labor and the Liberals know exactly whose side they are on.

“The Greens will keep fighting for our community on this issue, and for a framework that puts communities ahead of corporate interests. Right now though, the Government’s message to Big Tech seems to be: take the land, take the power, take the water, and don’t worry too much about what Canberra gets in return.”

The Albanese Labor Government must explain how an AI agent gained unauthorised access to a Services Australia system and why the Government did not detect it. 

Australians only know this breach occurred because OpenAI told us about it. 

This incident raises serious questions about the adequacy of Services Australia’s cyber defences, particularly given the Auditor-General has previously raised concerns about its cyber security.

The incident should be a warning about the new cyber risks posed by rapidly advancing artificial intelligence.

The Government needs to explain what it is doing to ensure Australia has the capability to detect and defend against AI-enabled attacks before an external company has to tell it that a breach has occurred. 

It must also explain why seven days passed between the Minister being advised of the incident and Australians being told. 

Services Australia was notified of the incident on 10 September. Minister for Government Services Katy Gallagher was advised around 17 September, yet Australians were not told until 24 September.

The Government says it needed time to understand the incident and receive further technical information, but that does not explain why Australians could not have been told earlier while those investigations continued.

Leader of the Opposition Angus Taylor said Australians deserved transparency when government systems were breached.

“Seven days passed between a Minister being told about this incident and Australians being told about it. The government needs to explain why,” Mr Taylor said.

“This incident is a serious warning about the security of our government systems in the age of AI. These systems hold an enormous amount of personal information, so the government must explain what steps it has taken to keep those systems safe from this new form of attack.

“To address a problem, you must first acknowledge there is an issue. The Prime Minister gave a keynote address just a few months ago on AI and didn’t mention cyber defense.

“The Prime Minister needs to act urgently. We need leading frontier companies to make sure we are identifying vulnerabilities in our critical systems as early as possible, to protect all Australians and our way of life.”

Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Senator Jane Hume, said the incident raised serious questions about the cyber security of government systems.

“Labor has questions to answer about why Services Australia’s cyber defences were not good enough, despite concerns raised by the Auditor-General two years ago,” Senator Hume said.

“The only reason we know about this incident is because the Government was told. They have no idea if this has happened before, and no idea how to stop it happening again.

“Labor have no plan for this emerging threat. While they want to censor Australians online, they haven’t even thought about basic online protections for Australians’ data.

“Why did it take seven days for Services Australia to inform the Minister that their system had been breached.

“Then, once the Minister knew, another seven days passed before Australians were told.

“The government says this was serious enough for the Prime Minister to raise directly with the head of OpenAI. If it was serious enough for that, Australians deserve a proper explanation for why they were kept in the dark for a week.

“You can investigate an incident and inform the public at the same time. Australians should not have to wait a week to find out that a government system has been accessed without authorisation.”

Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, Jonathon Duniam, said the incident raised broader questions about the security of government systems.

“This is a serious incident where an AI agent has got to where it was not authorised to go and accessed non-public government files,” Senator Duniam said.

“The question that the government must answer for all Australians is: what actions have been taken to bolster the cyber security of all government departments to protect the data of Australians?”

Shadow Minister for the Digital Economy and Cyber Security, Aaron Violi, said the core role of government is to keep Australians safe.

“AI brings new and bold opportunities for our nation, but it also increases the sophistication and scale of cyber threats and presents a cyber challenge we have never seen before,” Mr Violi said. 

“But just like AI can be used against us, we can choose to harness AI to strengthen our cyber defences and national security to protect our way of life. We need to significantly scale up our cyber security, and the best tools to do that are AI tools.”