Cricket Australia has sacked a female employee after she campaigned for abortion reform on social media, telling the woman that concerns she had insulted the Tasmanian government were central to her dismissal.

Due to the closure of the last publicly run abortion clinic in Tasmania Angela Williamson, whom was working as the manager of public policy & government relations for Cricket Australia, was forced to travel to Melbourne for a termination.

The mother of three had criticised the Tasmanian government in a series of tweets beginning in January of 2018 and was told they’d “damaged [her] relationship with the government”.

Cricket Australia has confirmed that the matter is now in the hands of each party’s legal teams and has made a statement saying that whilst they “respect an individual’s right to their opinion” they expect “employees will refrain from making offensive comments that contravene the organisation’s policies.”

Personally, my takeaway from the statement is that Cricket Australia doesn’t believe women should have publicly available local options for pregnancy terminations in the state of Tasmania.

Source: Cricket Australia sacks worker over series of tweets about abortion

…it is believed that the breach also captured name, address, email and date of birth information provided by electors when applying for an express vote at the recent State and Legislative Council elections.

In case you haven’t heard online form creator “Typeform” had an extreme data breach recently where a “partial backup” of their data fell into the wrong hands.

The file contained details from a range of Typeform clients that are now being informed on a daily basis.

Tasmania’s electoral commission (TEC) appears to be another of those clients using five forms on their website collecting a variety of data including sensitive private information when applying for an express vote.

The TEC believe this breach affects approximately 4000 voters and is reviewing it’s data collection methods and use of third party services.

Source: Tasmanian voters caught in data breach – Security – iTnews

The federal opposition wants to create its own NBN service guarantee that would see NBN Co fined every time contractors missed appointments or made installation errors.

Labor’s argument is that right now retail providers of internet and communication services are held accountable by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) whence the NBN reports to no one.

This is true but it’s also a little skewed. Retail providers aren’t fined for missing appointments at the moment. They never have been and more often than not customers grit their teeth and bare it with many not even know the TIO exists.

Referring issues to the TIO is a process that anyone can do and I encourage those hitting road blocks with a telco to do so however it doesn’t result in instant fining either.

While I’m the first in line to pile shit on the Liberal MTM NBN, Labor’s announcement here is a bit of smoke designed to capture disgruntled voters and likely to implemented in a way that isn’t as black and white – if at all.

That’s politics in a nutshell really isn’t it?

Source: Labor wants to fine NBN Co for bad service – Telco/ISP – iTnews

Australians will be blocked from shopping on Amazon’s international websites and restricted to using its smaller local platform as the e-commerce giant responds to the government’s new GST rules on online purchases.

Of course old mate Gerry Harvey had plenty to say on the self imposed  redirection that Amazon announced yesterday.

“They’ve done the dirty on the government. They’ve done the dirty on the public.” cried Mr Harvey, no doubt with his head angled towards the sky and his fist pumping in rage.

Not only will Australians be unable to access the US (or any other) Amazon store should they gain access through other technical methods will be unable to ship their items to Australian addresses.

The end result is access to an awfully poor selection of items in the current store at inflated prices four times or more above the cost of buying it from the US and shipping it here currently.

The new redirection will start July 1st at the same time as the government’s new GST collection rules for overseas vendors begin.

Source: Amazon to block US website for Australian shoppers over GST rules

Beem It quietly launched in both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store earlier this […] May.

The app enables sending and receiving money, with an interface reminiscent of a social media app.

Comm Bank, Westpac & NAB (AKA the cry-babies that still wont implement Apple Pay) announced “Beem It” last October, a new platform that would enable users to pay one another with a new, modern user experience.

The app makes use of Australia’s Eftpos and Visa’s debit card networks to allow the funds to be transferred from one party to another.

Noticeably absent is Australia’s newly available New Payments Platform (NPP). A system that all banks in Australia now use and offers near-instantenous transactions. Beem It CEO, Mark Wood has said that NPP may arrive in the future however.

Australians will you Beem It?

Source: ​Big bank-backed Beem It launches Aussie payments app | ZDNet

With the Turnbull government already under pressure to ban Huawei from participating in the roll out of the 5G network, security agencies are also examining the decisions around ZTE, which is China’s second biggest telco equipment manufacturer.

The US government this week blocked any company from supplying the Chinese manufacturer. This now includes Google who not only supply the operating system for the their phones but the suite of apps that are most popular on it in western markets.

The sanction comes after ZTE previously sold telecommunications hardware to both Iran and North Korea, violating the US’ trade laws and beginning a large investigation into the company’s practices.

The US has already banned Huawei from providing hardware that would provider infrastructure to domestic telecommunications networks for security reasons and Australia has been strongly advised to do the same,  the Turnbull government remaining tight lipped & sitting on the fence over the issue.

The same will now be asked of ZTE. Presently the company provides a great deal of low-cost, rebranded phones sold by Telstra & Optus in Australia and could see the telco’s left trying to find another manufacturer if a sanction is imposed.

Source: Chinese telco ZTE on Australian spy agencies radar after UK, US bans | afr.com