Paul Karp

Don't make me tap the sign, Ben:

Octopus
Octopodes

Parliament Live: Senate estimates gets underway. All the day's events, as it happens. The government is pushing forward with its FOI changes, despite pushback, while Anthony Albanese says today "is not a day for demonstrations" with the parliament to commemorate the second anniversary ...

It's Senate Estimates week, so @amyremeikis.bsky.social has got the live blog fired up
live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/10/parl...

HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report

Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement. A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors. (photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos

The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document. At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment. The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI.

SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report. Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth. The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

I'd add all of these

VPNs, 'old man' masks, and AI: The tech war quietly raging behind the social media ban From December 10, social media platforms will be forced to block under 16s in Australia from holding accounts, but experts warn age checks can be easily bypassed in several ways, including a $22 "old ...

This whole thing is going to be a debacle. "every face scanning tool they tested could be tricked with repeated attempts." www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

Haha

Sky News axes young commentator’s new show after bacon comments Conservative commentator Freya Leach had only been at the helm of her own show on Sky News Australia for six weeks when the incident occurred.

Three words you don't want on your professional obituary: "after bacon comments".
www.afr.com//companies/m...

Just discovered I am one of 390 people Silky Nutmeg Ganash follows on Twitter.

Just imagining her waking up to a timeline full of Albo and Chris Minns like we do Trump.

It's well beyond time our politicians kicked their US habit So Anthony Albanese has secured his one on one meeting with Donald Trump and we are all supposed to pretend this is a good outcome.

John Lyons' contacts "were openly saying Australia will never see the #AUKUS submarines.

Pretending a meeting with a mercurial embossed carbuncle of a President will change reality is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine." @amyremeikis.bsky.social
www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politic...

Donald Trump unleashes unhinged rant on the United Nations The US president has let fly with an absurd and rambling speech at the UN General Assembly, and it looks like Albanese has finally secured that meeting (lucky him).

Donald Trump has let fly with an absurd and rambling speech at the UN General Assembly, and it looks like Anthony Albanese has finally secured that meeting (lucky him).

Coalition dearly loves a 'cruel hoax' – now it has become one Pretending the Coalition matters, or its criticisms are worth anything, allows Labor to get away even less. That is the cruellest hoax.

www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/politic...

Matthew McConaughey says he wants a private LLM, fed only with his books, notes, journals, and aspirations, so he can ask it questions and get answers based solely on that information, without any outside influence.

this exists it is called thinking

Like, what the hell does ‘speak up’ mean if not putting your name to your comments? Farcical reporting.

Not a single one of them prepared to be named. Total cowards, both the MPs and the Guardian.

Oh goddamnit! Are we fuckkng living through history!?! This is bullshit

Hastie threatens to quit frontbench, issues net zero ultimatum to Ley Andrew Hastie’s opposition to net zero emissions is well known, but his provocative comments about quitting the frontbench are a fresh test of Opposition Leader Sussan Ley’s authority.

Hastie threatens to quit frontbench, issues net zero ultimatum to Ley
www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

“Kirk wanted the America he was killed in. He fought for it. Became rich in doing so. And up until his final breath was continuing his harmful grift that has seen trans-people demonised across world. So I do not mourn that.”

open.substack.com/pub/amyremei...

Register reveals the price of a lunch with a Labor minister Workers compensation and gig economy stakeholders paid NSW Labor to meet Treasurer Daniel Mookhey and Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis.

In AFR, @paulkarp.bsky.social tackles cash-for-access in NSW. It can be as little as $110 per head.

Donation caps do not stop it -- access is simply too cheap.

The new federal disclosure threshold of $5k would not reveal it -- most appear to be well below.

www.afr.com/politics/reg...

National Guard documents show public ‘fear,’ veterans’ ‘shame’ over D.C. presence Internal documents reviewed by The Post reveal, with rare candor, how domestic missions rooted in politics risk damaging Americans’ trust in the military.

The National Guard “inadvertently” emailed reporters a memo that says Trump deployments are turning the public against the military and bringing veterans shame.

FOI amendment bill not what John Faulkner, Allan Hawke wanted From cabinet secrecy to “factors against” access, the FOI amendment bill risks undoing gains won under earlier reforms.

From cabinet secrecy to “factors against” access, Australia’s FOI amendment bill risks undoing gains won under earlier reforms www.themandarin.com.au/299152-foi-a...

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered, because noone deserves to murdered. Political violence is not something to be tolerated, not even against Charlie Kirk. And it is in holding and defending those beliefs that we make ourselves unlike Charlie Kirk.

Horrors of Trump detention centre: Lisburn man tells his story after arrest for 'looking like a Mexican' A Co Antrim man lifted by US immigration police on an American street — in an incident he compared to a kidnapping — and then sent to a detention centre has described being deported back to Northern I...

Read Lee's account in full

Only Twix has the cookie crunch

Just going for the first swim of the season *checks notes* 8 days into spring.

Deloitte friends, my DMs are open. Please tell me who wrote the robo AI report (other than obviously robo AI).

Second robodebt class action settles – and costs balloon to $2.4b Taxpayers will fund another $548 million robodebt payout and the Albanese government says settling the latest class action case is the “just and fair thing” to do.

FULL STORY: Second robodebt class action settles – and costs balloon to $2.4b
www.afr.com/politics/fed...

Hume sets sights on ‘gender super gap’ in new bill The Liberal senator will move to let couples combine or split their super balances; Bob Carr says he decided to skip military display weeks ago. Follow live.

#breaking Robodebt wil cost more than $2.4 billion after Albanese Government settled second class action for $548.5 million.
Live blog here and story coming
www.afr.com/politics/fed...

The government's proposed FOI Act amendments are out.

Media has focused on the new submission fee, but far more alarming are changes making it easier for govt to block access to public information.

Two in particular stand out:

I’m a foreign government/criminal and I can’t wait to carry out my nefarious ends by filing FOI requests and waiting 6-9 months to get highly redacted documents as long as they aren’t exempt for a wide number of reasons including national security… beware 😈