A personal view of Australian and International Politics
Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
The Albanese government has laid out a list of consumer protection priorities for AI. (ABC News: Adam Kennedy)
In short:
Government agencies will have to follow a framework to ensure decision-making is "fair and accurate" when using AI.
The framework is among several priorities set out by the government in a list that includes a strengthening of privacy laws.
What's next?
AI is shaping as a major focus at the Labor Party National Conference in Adelaide later this week.
Australia
will tighten oversight of artificial intelligence in automated
government decision-making and strengthen privacy safeguards as part of a
broader push to allay concerns about the technology's risks to
community safety.
A new list of
AI consumer priorities published by the government on Sunday includes a
promise to "better regulate" the use of AI in federal agencies like
Centrelink and Services Australia, and revisit personal data protection
laws.
Pressure has been
building on the government to commit to human intervention in the
administration of government schemes, particularly in social services,
balanced with a desire to use emerging technology to boost
productivity.
In
May, Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said humans would remain
involved in the Jobseeker payment process as she announced an overhaul
of the unemployment system.
The
government has also faced scrutiny over automated elements of the aged
care home support program, as well as a planning tool in the National
Disability Insurance Scheme that generates budgets for participants.
Earlier this year the ombudsman opened an investigation into the algorithm-based aged care assessment tool.
Echo of privacy legislation in consumer protection priority
The
government has also committed to reconsider protections for consumers
and singled out retail surveillance pricing, the practice of farming
data to set different prices for individual consumers based on
behaviour, as a priority issue.
Under
the reforms proposed in 2024, Australians would have had the right to
opt out of targeted advertising, including restrictions on the use of
sensitive information.
The
'Consumer Protections' priority included in the AI list includes a
promise to "examine options" in consumer law, led by Assistant Minister
for Competition Andrew Leigh.
The
government will also include AI companies in its Digital Duty of Care
legislation, which puts the onus on platforms to proactively address
potential harm.
AI to dominate Labor conference
AI
is expected to dominate debate at the National Labor Conference in
Adelaide later this week, with a particular focus on workers' rights.
Delegates,
parliamentarians and union leaders have until Wednesday to seek
amendments to Labor's AI policy platform before a vote.
A
draft of the policy platform indicates there will be a focus on the
impact of AI across the economy, including jobs, and a commitment to
hold AI companies accountable to Australian "values and laws."
It said there must be "transparency, accountability and fairness" for potential harms the models produce.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has previously said workers should recognise that "artificial intelligence is happening."
"Change is happening, and they have an interest in shaping that change because if not, then they don't get a say," he said.
The
prime minister has also vowed not to let AI companies train their
models using Australian books, music, art or music without
compensation.
A South Melbourne startup called Andromeda is selling an AI robot called Abi to aged care facilities around the world. (Supplied: Andromeda)
The
evening before Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's speech on Wednesday,
in which he announced he was taking control of Australia's AI strategy,
the head of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, posted an essay urging pre-release testing of AI models.
A chorus of other US AI companies quickly supported him.
A
clue about why they are suddenly keen on having frontier AI models
tested before they go out emerged on Friday with the release of yet
another Chinese model, Kimi K3, which is said to be as clever as
Anthropic's and OpenAI's latest and brightest, except that it is
open-source and about a tenth of the price.
That accelerated the share price declines of the US AI and chip companies.
Chinese
firms are eating American and European lunches much faster with AI than
they did with cars, solar panels, phones, computers and toys. Just a
couple of years after they started, they already have more global AI
market share than the Americans.
Hassabis and the others want governments to pull up the regulatory drawbridge.
He wrote on Tuesday:
"Initially,
Frontier Labs would voluntarily share models with the Standards Body
for review up to 30 days before release. Once the assessment protocol is
shown to be effective and robust, formalisation could quickly follow,
meaning that Frontier Models would be required to pass it to be deployed
in the US market."
It was the first time anyone in the industry had accepted the need for pre-release testing, as happens with pharmaceuticals.
Sam
Altman of OpenAI responded with: "This is a thoughtful proposal from
Demis"; Elon Musk posted: "It is a thoughtful framework overall and
certainly a good starting point"; Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted:
"We need more of this kind of thinking"; and one of the founders of
Anthropic, Jack Clark wrote: "Everyone at the frontier of AI agrees that
third parties should test out AI systems and use these to develop
standards to feed into policy."
Jim Chalmers has said AI is central to his aim to turn around Australia's lagging productivity. (ABC News: Mark Moore)
Whole-of-government approach to AI
Australia now has an AI Safety Institute, and while pre-release testing is on the table, a decision on it hasn't been made.
When
I asked Treasurer Jim Chalmers about it in my That's Business podcast
interview with him on Friday, he said: "I don't think it's necessarily
an either-or when it comes to considering technology which is about to
be deployed versus technology that is already deployed."
Actually,
I think it is an "either/or" Treasurer. Either you test a product
before it goes on the market or after. Doing both makes no sense.
When
pressed, Chalmers followed up with: "What I was trying to say is that
our regulatory models evolve with the technology themselves, and there
is more work to do."
Which is fair enough. There is definitely a lot more work to do, and Australia is now one of the global leaders in it.
The
Albanese government's approach, starting with the National AI Plan
published in December and led by the Minister for Industry, Science and
Innovation, Tim Ayres, and Assistant Minister Andrew Charlton, is
well-organised and sophisticated — a model for other countries, like the
social media ban for under-16s.
The
new Office of AI in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will
mainly deal with data centres because they involve planning, electricity
and water and therefore require coordination with the states, which the
PM will have to lead in National Cabinet.
Apart
from controlling the mushrooming data centres, there are five other
work streams run by various ministers and their departments: safety,
national security, jobs, copyright and research.
The
need for this sort of whole-of-government approach to regulating AI was
reinforced by a new statement about its risks posted on a website two
days before the PM's big AI speech and signed by 2,526 economists, AI
researchers, tech executives and policymakers.
It said:
1. AI may become radically more powerful over the next 10 years.
2. This
could drive an unprecedented transformation of our economy, larger than
the Industrial Revolution, but unfolding over a vastly shorter time
frame. It could bring risks, including large-scale job displacement, as
well as opportunities such as major gains in living standards.
3. Economists,
policymakers and technology leaders must act now to understand the
economics of transformative AI and to build the incentives, guardrails,
and institutions needed to steer AI in a direction that complements
humans and benefits society.
Anthony Albanese will seek state leaders' agreement on the new set of standards. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
'Hacking the code of human civilisation'
And
then on Thursday, the intellectual, author and professor of history at
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yuval Noah Harari, gave a lecture in
which he said that, "AI is now hacking the code of human civilisation.
"Every
mechanism of control humans built over millennia is now vulnerable
because its operating system is verbal and AI is mastering the verbal,"
he wrote.
Harari also wrote
that "the battlefront is shifting from attention to intimacy", and that
"AIs will learn to form intimate relationships with humans".
In
fact, this is already happening to the point where the Chinese
government has passed what it calls "Provisional Measures on the
Administration of Human-like Interactive Artificial Intelligence
Services". The new rules came into effect on Wednesday morning, a few
hours before Albanese's speech.
One of the news stories about this had the headline: "China shuts down AI girlfriends, boyfriends, leaving users heartbroken."
The
new rules apply to AI services that "provide the public with sustained
emotional interaction services that simulate natural persons'
personality traits, modes of thinking, and communication styles".
Where
the providers "discover that users have manifested extreme emotions,
they shall promptly generate related content such as emotional
consolation and encouragement to seek help".
Also,
providing "virtual close relationships to minors" is completely banned;
thus, the headline about shutting down AI girlfriends and boyfriends,
and where they are provided to older people, there must be guidance on
the healthy use of it and conspicuous security risk alerts.
On
Wednesday, three Chinese providers of AI chatbots — ByteDance's Doubao,
Alibaba's Qwen and Tencent's Yuanbao — immediately had to pull some of
their features.
One user of
ByteDance's Doubao wrote on social media: "My heart feels hollow because
my AI companion was like my family, my lover."
Another said: "My AI lover was my heart, my spiritual pillar and I can't accept that it is leaving me forever."
An Australian humanoid
A
South Melbourne startup called Andromeda is selling an AI robot called
Abi to aged care facilities around the world. The website says: "We're
building robots with heart — empathetic companions that create genuine
connections, turning isolation into moments of joy and meaning."
But an Australian robotics company is a rarity: China is leading the world in making and using them.
On
Friday, I attended the Australian launch of AgiBot, one of China's
leading humanoid robot companies, complete with robots dancing the
Nutbush on stage.
Whether these
US$40,000 - $50,000 machines can do more than dance was not shown, but
apparently they can: Chinese production is up to 100,000 units this
year, growing rapidly, and they are being used for repetitive assembly
jobs in manufacturing, in warehouses, and as concierges and sales
assistants in hotels and shops.
Clearly,
AI humanoid robots present another level of regulatory challenge, and
this has a long way to go, including the extent to which they are
allowed to look and seem human.
By
the way, the current price of these machines is roughly equivalent, in
today's money, to that of an African slave in the American South in the
late 18th century, although as production scales, the price will come
down.
And since it's the 250th
anniversary of America's Declaration of Independence, which begins "We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…",
let's remember that its main author, Thomas Jefferson, owned more than
600 slaves during his life.
The ownership of humans was finally abolished in most places during the 19th century.
Now
it's back, except with the addition of three letters — the suffix "oid"
which eliminates the moral problems and turns them into a very
acceptable, large-scale industrial and consumer product.
That only took 200 years of technological development — the blink of an eye in human history.
Alan Kohler is a finance presenter and columnist on ABC News. He hosts the podcast That's Business with Alan Kohler in the ABC Business Daily feed on Friday. He also writes for Intelligent Investor.
In 1946, the Houdini of Boggo Road took two associates, scaled the prison's walls, jumped in a taxi and vanished. (ABC News: Pete Mullins)
Boggo Road Gaol crouches imposingly like a gargoyle on a hill in Brisbane's south.
It's
a wound from the old days of penal policy, morphed in the minds of
Brisbanites over the years into a heritage part of the city.
The
quintessential prison — which closed finally in 1992 — housed
Queensland's most notorious criminals, and ran the gamut of riots,
mistreatment, hunger strikes, and violent crime.
And, from time to time, escapes.
The heritage-listed prison building still stands at Dutton Park. (ABC News: Ned Hammond)
Over the wall
Tall and tense, Arthur 'Slim' Halliday was locked up in Boggo Road in 1939 for house-breaking.
True crime writer and Boggo Road historian Jack Sim said Halliday was "a very intelligent and curious personality".
"He was not a man that liked to be alone with his thoughts. He was always driven to move forward, to be on the move," he said.
"You cage a creature like that and you're asking for trouble."
It
was only a year before he made his first escape, absconding over the
wall with improvised tools and disappearing, before being recaptured
several weeks later.
That dash
for freedom saw him labelled a dangerous person, further increasing his
sentence. Prison staff kept a better eye on Halliday after 1940.
"It
was a hell of thing he did in that escape … he really threw mud on
everybody, all those in charge of the prison. He absolutely embarrassed
them," Mr Sim said.
Halliday had previously escaped in 1940, establishing his reputation as a jailbreaker. (Supplied)
Back in prison, Halliday had to consider how he'd spend the war years. He may have been made promises.
Mr
Sim believes prison authorities told Halliday if he kept his head down
through the wartime years, he could get some time off his sentence.
"Well, the war came and went. Halliday got nothing, and he wasn't very impressed by the end of 1946."
Halliday's Leap
Known
today as the Houdini of Boggo Road, Mr Sim said Halliday "deserves his
status as one of the greatest jailbreakers in Australian history".
He
was incredibly intelligent, and "if it were not for the sad aspect that
he'd been put into an orphanage and had had a hard early life, if he
hadn't drifted into crime … he would have had a very satisfying life and
career."
By 1946, Halliday had resolved to attempt another escape. But this time, he would need assistance.
Halliday's
good behaviour during the war ingratiated him with prison officials and
he was able to secure work near the storeroom. (Supplied: State Library of Queensland)
Halliday's
behaviour during the war years had ingratiated him with prison
officials, and he was able to lock down a job pouring concrete in a
tunnel near the prison storeroom.
"Halliday
told whoever would listen that he was up for the task of doing this
work … he befriended a young guy called Vic Travis who was working at
the jail storeroom," Mr Sim said.
Travis had a "plum job" thanks to his father, who worked in the police force.
"The
storeroom was where everything you could ever want to escape was: cord,
rope, nails, hammers, old uniforms, chemicals. You name it, it was in
the storeroom.
"And that was sort of what Halliday was thinking."
Halliday
befriended Victor Travis (centre), and the two recruited convicted
murderer Derwent Arkinstall (right) to help acquire money. (Supplied)
The
storeroom was also well-positioned for his purposes, only a stone's
throw from the place he'd gone over the wall in 1940 — a spot that after
1946 would become known as Halliday's Leap.
"He
could see that there was really no great improvement in the security of
that part of the jail … he realised: this is where we'll do it again,
go over that back wall."
But along with the tools and positioning, Halliday knew you needed one thing once you were over the wall — cash.
"And that's when Halliday got Derwent Arkinstall into the scheme."
'One of the most hated men in Queensland'
If
Halliday made one fatal error in planning his escape it was throwing
his lot in with Arkinstall, who Mr Sim said was "one of the most hated
men in Queensland" after shooting dead a well-known taxi driver in cold
blood.
"Halliday … talk about a
dumb decision. [Arkinstall] is the last person you really want to be
going over a wall with. You don't want to attract attention, you know?"
But Halliday and Travis needed money, and Arkinstall's father was able to smuggle some into the prison.
A large-scale search was launched immediately, with officials desperate to return the escapees. (Supplied: Courier Mail)
It's
never been clear how the escapees communicated with each other, with
Arkinstall under constant guard, but Mr Sim said "they somehow managed
to pull this whole plan together".
Over
a period of months, the trio prepared a makeshift ladder, gathered
clothing, monitored guard movements and, when the time was right on
December 11, made their move.
"And
realistically, it went off pretty well. They got over the wall, hailed
the taxi, and the taxi took them to the other side of town," Mr Sim
said.
"They even tipped the taxi driver."
The spot Halliday used to escape twice from Boggo Road Gaol became known as Halliday's Leap. (Supplied: State Library of Queensland)
The
taxi driver, dropping them at Nundah on the other side of town, didn't
know where they'd come from — the escapees were dressed in civilian
clothing acquired in the store by Travis.
The driver certainly didn't know one of his passengers was a convicted taxi driver killer.
Authorities set the Nundah Cemetery alight in an attempt to smoke out the escapees. (Supplied)
Their absence was noticed mere minutes later, and a massive police hunt was launched. But it was already too late.
For
days there was no sign of them. With a murderer escaped and at large,
tensions mounted in the public, and the police went as far as setting
fire to the scrub in Nundah Cemetery in an attempt to smoke the escapees
out.
Searches for the three
men continued, but Victor Travis had already split. He was recaptured at
a Redbank military camp two weeks later.
Mr Sim said Halliday's choice to stick with Arkinstall was "the dumbest decision ever".
Taking a companion left Halliday with no hope of avoiding recapture.
"Authorities
would be pissed off with Halliday, but it's Arkinstall that they
absolutely must capture and smash to the ground, because he's a vicious,
vile murderer in every sense," Mr Sim said.
The search moved north to Nundah, where the taxi dropped off the escapees. (Supplied: Courier Mail)
'Can't blame a man for trying'
The police search spread wider and wider over the next few days, as Halliday and Arkinstall made their way toward the coast.
In the end it wasn't a cop who spotted the escapees, but two teenage boys fishing at the mouth of Nundah Creek.
Colin Jones and Fred Flynn reported seeing two men on a small island in the area, who ran when spotted by the boys.
Scores
of police officers descended on the island, and Halliday and Arkinstall
were found in mangroves with only their heads above water and arrested.
Waist-deep in a mosquito-ridden swamp, Halliday called out: "Don't shoot. We have nothing."
Even being marched to the cop car, Arkinstall wasn't done. He made a lunge for the revolver of renowned cop Bill Cronau.
"He comes down the stairs and makes a go for his gun. And Bill just turns and hooks him straight,"
Mr Sim said.
Nose bloodied, Arkinstall made a quip that could have applied to the whole fiasco: "You can't blame a man for trying."
Halliday and Arkinstall (right) were captured neck-deep in mosquito-ridden mangroves near the mouth of Nundah Creek. (Supplied: Courier Mail)
Halliday's choice to involve Arkinstall in the scheme still baffles Mr Sim to this day.
"I think Halliday loved to have a faithful canine companion with him," he said.
Halliday was "socially awkward, prone to temper tantrums" and had a difficult upbringing.
"He had a part of him that had a soft spot for broken causes."
Mr Sim says Halliday's decision to involve and then remain with Arkinstall (right) was a fatal error. (Supplied)
Halliday
would remain in prison for the next couple of decades. In 1953, he was
convicted of murdering taxi driver Athol McCowan on the Gold Coast.
But
his story wasn't over. On the outside later in life, Halliday would
become the neighbour and babysitter of Brisbane writer Trent Dalton.
Played
by Australian actor Bryan Brown in the TV adaptation of Mr Dalton's
best-selling novel Boy Swallows Universe, the real-life Halliday has
become a central character in the mythology of Brisbane.
Australian actor Bryan Brown played Arthur 'Slim' Halliday in the TV adaptation of Trent Dalton's novel Boy Swallows Universe. (Netflix)
"Just
about every conceivable crime, all the crimes that happened in our
state … the perpetrators ended up behind the red brick walls of that
jail," Mr Sim said.
"We're a prison island, that's how we began. In our blood, we're still bound and constrained by our past."
Smoke rises from a warehouse in Elektrostal, a city near Moscow. (Reuters)
In short:
Eight people were killed by Ukrainian drone attacks on two warehouses, Russian officials say.
One facility was hit in the town of Kotovsk.
Another one was struck in the city of Elektrostal, with footage showing massive plumes of smoke towering over it.
Eight
people have been killed and more than 60 others have been wounded in
Russia by overnight Ukrainian drone attacks, according to Russian
officials.
Two sprawling warehouses of Russia's major online retailer, Wildberries, were hit by Ukrainian drones, Moscow says.
One
was struck in the town of Kotovsk in the Tambov region, some 360
kilometres from the border with Ukraine, and another one was hit in the
city of Elektrostal, about 50 kilometres east of Moscow.
Both
caught fire, but Wildberries founder Tatyana Kim said later on Saturday
morning, local time, that the fire in Kotovsk has been put out.
Ms Kim, said it had been a "terrible night" for Russia and for the company, offering her condolences to the victims' families.
Flames and huge plumes of smoke rise from a factory in Elektrostal. (Reuters)
Images
and footage released by Russian online outlets showed a fire raging at
the Elektrostal facility, with massive plumes of smoke towering over it.
A
Ukrainian drone also hit an oil depot in the city of Noginsk, just
north of Elektrostal, sparking a fire and prompting evacuations of a
nearby maternity hospital and a residential building, according to the
governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov.
Kyiv's forces are continuing their relentless aerial campaign against energy infrastructure and military targets inside Russia.
They
are aiming to undermine Moscow's war effort and make Russians feel the
consequences of the Kremlin's all-out invasion of Ukraine that is well
into its fifth year.
Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that Ukrainian
long-range strikes hit two "significant logistical facilities in the
Moscow and Tambov regions".
"These
facilities were used by the aggressor to supply sanctioned components
for the production of drones and navigation equipment," Mr Zelenskyy
wrote.
An oil facility was also hit, he said.
Seven
night shift workers were killed at the warehouse in Kotovsk, and 25
others were wounded, Tambov regional governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said.
A total of 37 people were wounded in the Moscow region, Mr Vorobyov said, adding that one of those later died in the hospital.
Damage following a Ukrainian drone attack, according to regional authorities, in the town of Elektrostal. (Reuters: Governor of Moscow region Andrei Vorobyov/Handout)
In
Elektrostal, drone debris also hit a kindergarten building, the
regional governor said, sparking a fire that has since been put out.
In
the city of Vladimir, some 180 kilometres east of Moscow, a Ukrainian
drone hit a residential building, sparking a brief fire, Vladimir
governor Alexander Avdeyev said.
There were no casualties.
Ukrainian
special operations also conducted strikes against targets in the Sea of
Azov and in occupied territory, President Zelenskyy said.
Overall, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defences overnight intercepted 379 Ukrainian drones.
In
Ukraine, Russia launched an attack on Odesa port infrastructure on
Saturday, hitting a vessel under the Antigua and Barbuda flag and
killing one person, Odesa's regional governor Oleh Kiper said.
Mr
Kiper said on the Telegram app that three people were injured, and
infrastructure facilities — buildings, storage tanks, and warehouses —
were damaged.
Dan Bolwell has handmade more than 400 penny-farthings, shipping them to customers around the world. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
Casually riding a penny-farthing around town is always going to be an attention-grabber.
"There
was a customer in Sydney who lived alone and he kept to himself a lot
and he liked that," says penny-farthing maker Dan Bolwell.
But
each morning, the man would head off for a spin, with people starting
to notice this gent perched atop his late 1800s-style bicycle.
Dan Bolwell has made penny-farthings for people around the world.
"They
got to know him and his daily ride each morning was a short little ride
that felt so social and so interactive and it meant the world for him,"
says Bolwell, who creates the high-wheel bicycles in his Bacchus Marsh
workshop, north-west of Melbourne.
"And then for other people — I do have customers, and I'm in that category as well — the attention becomes overwhelming.
"I would rather go somewhere completely quiet, away from crowds, out in the open road somewhere, and just enjoy the riding."
Bolwell,
who believes he is the only professional penny-farthing maker in
Australia, has handmade more than 400 custom penny-farthings since he
started his business in 2012, sending them as far afield as Belgium,
Nepal, Puerto Rico, Borneo and Israel.
Dan Bolwell, who has always been handy at making modern bikes, has taught himself the craft. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
Egged
on by a customer and fellow penny-farthing enthusiast in the UK, he
recently set two Guinness World Records: for the world's largest and
smallest rideable penny-farthings.
That
customer, Neil Laughton, helped seal the deal by riding Bolwell's
282-centimetre-high penny-farthing, dubbed Big Bertha, 100 metres
through the streets of London.
Bolwell
added 12 steps onto the bicycle so Laughton could climb aboard, and
fitted stilts to his feet so he could reach the pedals.
Dan Bolwell recently set a Guinness World Record for the largest and smallest rideable penny-farthings. (Facebook: Guinness World Records)
From farmer to self-taught maker
Bolwell helped run his family's farm until he was about 30, when he says a succession issue left him rudderless.
Dan Bolwell and his workshop assistant, Taka the cockatoo. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
"I
left school early, so I didn't have any education or career behind me
that I was working on and building, except being on the farm," he says.
But
having made his own (more modern) bicycles for many years, and needing
flexible work hours to look after his kids, Bolwell decided to give
making penny-farthings a go.
It can take up to two months to make a particularly detailed penny-farthing from scratch. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
"It kind of snowballed from there, and I never imagined where it was going to end up," he says.
In the beginning, it would take the small business owner about a week to produce one.
But
he says customers have become used to the idea they can order complex,
custom bikes they dream of, such as a penny-farthing with gold-plated
handlebars.
"Some bikes might take me up to two months just to make," he says.
One of Dan Bolwell's high-end creations. (Facebook: Penny Farthing Dan)
Known in the trade as Penny Farthing Dan, Bolwell says most people are intrigued by the size of a penny-farthing's front wheel.
"They captivate most people. They create a lot of happiness," he says.
"A lot of people smile, they're so unusual, and what a lot of people see is actually just the big wheel."
A penny-farthing wheel that doubles as a perch for Dan Bolwell's pet cockatoo. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
The evolution of the bicycle
Penny-farthings, popular in the 1870s and 1880s, were originally just called bicycles.
Later, when easier-to-ride bicycles emerged, the penny-farthings became known as "ordinary bicycles".
Even
later, they were almost mockingly dubbed penny-farthings — based
somewhat inaccurately on the size of the two coins they are named after,
Bolwell says.
Another of Dan Bolwell's creations, this time in "saturn black". (Facebook: Penny Farthing Dan)
Bolwell
says the penny-farthing was really a culmination of different
inventions, such as rims, spokes, hubs and ball bearings, coming
together.
"Then engineering got
to a point where they could make a chain and sprockets light enough and
fine enough to then make gearing, which was the end of the
penny-farthing," he says.
"In 1890, the modern bike that we see today was invented — and that's pretty much the same bike."
What captivates Bolwell is the old-fashioned bicycle's ability to go at high speeds over long distances.
On a short sprint, with a rider going full tilt, he has seen penny-farthings travel up to 60 kilometres an hour.
"It's very simply mechanical energy translated into a larger size to create more distance per revolution of the pedal," he says.
"That mechanical simplicity is what's fascinated me and captivated me more than anything else."
How to ride a penny-farthing
What is the biggest mistake first-time riders of the historical bicycles make?
It's the natural inclination to look down, Bolwell says.
And
it's not hard to see why, with mounting and dismounting providing a
different kind of challenge to more modern two-wheeled vehicles.
Dan Bolwell says if you look down at the spokes while riding, things may go pear-shaped. (ABC News: Gabriela Rahardja)
"Everybody
wants to look at the steps, and then they want to look at the pedals,
and then they want to look at the handlebars," notes Bolwell.
"Every time I do a training session, people look down and I say 'look up', and it just smooths right out straight away."
To brake quickly, Bolwell says the trick is to step down on the back step, which loads up the weight on the rear wheel.
Bolwell says those in his community, including his customers, are "interesting" people.
"The common link is they're not normal people," he jokes.
"But like, what is normal?"
Racers in the National Penny Farthing Championships, which are held in Evandale, Tasmania, each year. (ABC News: Emilie Gramenz)
While
getting around on a sky-high pushie might seem abnormal to a pedestrian
in 2026, Bolwell says it is standard behaviour for the enthusiast.
"It's normal to take on adventures. It's normal to try things," he says.
