Key events
Former Wallaby hooker Nathan Charles diagnosed with MND at ۳۷
The former Wallaby Nathan Charles, who became the first cystic fibrosis sufferer in the world to play a contact sport professionally, has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND).
AAP reports the ۳۷-year-old, who played four Test matches for Australia, revealed he has been diagnosed with the same disease as retired South Sydney NRL star Jai Arrow.
During a Stan Sport interview with former Wallaby turned commentator Justin Harrison, Charles said he had only recently been diagnosed.
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Nick Visser
Good morning, and happy Friday. Nick Visser here to take over the blog. Let’s get to it.
Atlassian enters ۱۰-year solar energy deal with community co-op to power Sydney HQ
A solar farm owned by a group of community investors has secured a ۱۰-year deal with one of Australia’s biggest technology companies to help power its headquarters, Australian Associated Press reports.
Atlassian announced its virtual power purchase agreement with the Goulburn Community Energy Co-operative on Friday in a deal that will fund almost ۷۰% of the project’s output over the next decade.
Electricity generated by the project in NSW’s Southern Tablelands will help to meet the renewable energy needs of the tech firm’s ۳۹-storey Sydney base, currently in construction near Central station, when it opens in ۲۰۲۸.
The announcement comes amid heated debate over whether technology companies should be required to invest in renewable energy generation to meet growing demands from data centres and artificial intelligence operations in Australia.
The solar and battery farm, located on ۲.۲ hectares of industrial land in Goulburn, features ۲,۳۰۰ solar panels and a four megawatt-hour battery. Owned by a group of about ۲۸۸ local investors, who contributed a minimum of $۴۰۰, the farm connected to the electricity grid in March ۲۰۲۶, ۱۲ years after it was proposed.
The agreement follows a $۲.۳m NSW government grant and would support local workers and suppliers, Andrew Bray, the Goulburn Community Energy Co-operative chair, said:
Our active volunteers and investor community worked patiently and diligently across a number of years to see this project come to fruition.
To have a blue-chip Australian company like Atlassian come on board as a commercial partner is a huge vote of confidence in what we have built.
Online gaming ‘shortcomings’ put children at risk, eSafety report finds
Sarah Basford Canales
Online gaming services are failing to take enough action to prevent children being exposed to harmful content, a new report from the eSafety Commissioner has found.
In a report published today, the online safety watchdog found measures adopted by gaming providers were not up to standard and varied in quality between platforms.
Platforms with the dominant purpose of gaming are not covered under Australia’s under-۱۶s social media ban but are subject to the eSafety Commissioner’s information gathering notices.
The report – which drew details from Fortnite’s developer, Epic Games, Roblox, Minecraft and Valve’s Steam – found some positive signs but overall determined “disparities and shortcomings”.
Among them, examples of some platforms relying on age self-declaration resulting in children being able to easily access third-party content lacking sufficient content moderation as well as a limited number of human moderators to respond to harmful content.
The commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, said:
While we have seen some safety improvements as a result of sustained regulatory pressure, including the recent court-enforceable undertakings we accepted from Roblox, there is still significant work to be done across the board to prevent serious harms in online gaming to children.
Martin Farrer
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it’ll be Nick Visser with the main action.
