Developers had sought to turn the old City Sawmill in Port Dundas into about 60 flats, only for the proposals to be blocked.

Phenomenal drummer and percussionist was an equally accomplished songwriter who embodied the band’s bloody-minded spirit * Rob Hirst, Midnight Oil drummer and founding member, dies aged 70 Ask Midnight Oil fans what drummer Rob Hirst will be remembered for, and the most likely answer will be his drum solo on Power and the Passion, one of the band’s big early hits. It’s an explosive minute of almost literal madness – Hirst was on the verge of a breakdown when the track was recorded in 1982, for their breakthrough album 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Drum solos had, by that time, become a symbol of rock excess. But this wasn’t just another vulgar display of virtuosity. It was more musical than most guitar solos, enhancing a song already full of moving parts. Live, much of it was played on a corrugated iron water tank Hirst retrieved from the desert on the Oils’ Blackfella/Whitefella tour in 1986. Continue reading...

For A$30k you could have a remote employee see inside your home via a walking, talking machine with a chilling blank face. Count me out There’s something particularly dystopian about watching the mute headlines of daytime television play at the gym. It feels like a movie montage; pop bangers streaming, surrounded by sweaty hotties, I watch the latest horror unfold. News of war, the pandemic, death and destruction slide across the bottom of the screen below chatty hosts. It’s here where I first see NEO, the “world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot designed to transform life at home”. I watch as the hosts gleefully introduce its creepy, soft, grey body and chilling blank face with puny camera eyes. As though exercising my corporeal form wasn’t trial enough, now robots? Who in their right mind would want a walking, talking surveillance machine inside their home? The privacy invasion required for such robots to function goes far beyond your smart speaker listening into your conversations, your automatic pet feeder capturing footage, or your Roomba mapping the inside of your home and sharing it with Amazon. Beyond sensors, cameras and pervasive data collection, Neo – just one example of humanoid “service” robots now on the market – relies upon “expert mode” for the tasks it can’t quite manage on its own. That’s code for a remote employee being able to see inside your home and control the robot through a VR headset. Creepy. Samantha Floreani is a digital rights advocate and writer based in Melbourne/Naarm Continue reading...

Flooding across the state’s north and west blocks roads and cuts off towns at a time of year when so many are on holidays * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Over the weekend, Narelle Hetherington got a call from a couple planning a more than 1,000km trip across Queensland. The drive would see them pass through Winton, where Hetherington runs a motel – the couple wanted a room. “I’m like, ‘mate, the roads are all cut off out here,’” Hetherington says. Continue reading...