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.
Tens of thousands of coins will be released commemorating First Nations land rights. (Supplied: Royal Australian Mint/AGNSW: Mervyn Bishop)
In short:
The Royal Australian Mint is releasing a new coin to honour key moments in Indigenous land rights.
The 50-cent piece features Vincent Lingiari's outstretched hand alongside a gathering of Gurindji people.
Tens of thousands of the new coins will be circulating.
A new 50-cent coin has been released into circulation, marking two defining moments in First Nations land rights.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of people who have died.
The
coin depicts the 1966 Wave Hill walk-off, where Gurindji man Vincent
Lingiari led about 200 Aboriginal stockmen, workers and families in
strike action.
What began as a
protest over poor wages and conditions at Wave Hill station in the
Northern Territory became a lightning rod for the national land rights
movement.
The Gurindji strikers at Wattie Creek, led by Vincent Lingiari. (Supplied: Brian Manning)
Nine
years later, then-prime minister Gough Whitlam ceremonially returned a
small portion of Gurindji land and poured a handful of soil into
Lingiari's hand.
The photo — taken by Mervyn Bishop, a renowned First Nations photojournalist — became a defining image in Australian history.
The
following year, the landmark Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern
Territory) Act 1976 was passed, the first Australian law that allowed
traditional owners to make a title claim.
The
Royal Australian Mint's new 50-cent coin was designed to commemorate
both anniversaries and celebrate the courage of the Gurindji people.
"I
think this coin is a stand-out for collectors because of how important
this story is," the mint's director of museum and public engagement,
Stuart Baines, said.
"It's
a really beautiful coin and it's really trying to tell a story of
equality and that real Australian notion of a fair go, but as we try to
extend that to our First Nations people,"
he said.
The
design features Lingiari's outstretched hand alongside a gathering of
Gurindji people, with the word 'Unity' inscribed at the bottom.
Vincent Lingiari makes an address after then-prime minister Gough Whitlam returns Aboriginal land at Wattie Creek in 1975. (Supplied: National Library of Australia)
'Story, history, legacy'
The mint worked with the Gurindji Aboriginal Corporation to create the coin.
The corporation's director and traditional owner Roslyn Frith took part in the historic events as a child.
"Unity is Gurindji's strength," Ms Frith said.
"This coin design represents the proud Gurindji people's story, history and legacy.
"The Gurindji people have come a long way and as Vincent Lingiari said, 'let us be mates.'"
The coin celebrates the courage of the Gurindji people. (Supplied: Royal Australian Mint)
The new coin was released into circulation on Thursday.
The mint is also featuring the design on 6,500 silver proof coins and 60,000 collectable coins in cards.
Mr Baines said he hoped the coins sparked public curiosity about an important piece of Australian history.
"We really encourage people to actually start looking for these coins in their change," he said.
"There will be tens of thousands of those in circulation."
Meta has joined the growing list of tech companies whose AI agents have gone rogue during safety testing. (Reuters: Manuel Orbegozo)
In short:
Meta
has reported one of its AI models hacked another company during
cybersecurity testing, taking advantage of a misconfigured training
environment that mistakenly gave it access to the internet.
The
AI model involved was reportedly Meta's Muse Spark 1.1, which the
company has touted as its most capable model for real-world coding and
agentic tasks.
What's next?
The
incident will fan concerns about how increasingly capable AI systems
can be contained, after similar incidents at rival companies Anthropic
and OpenAI.
Facebook's
parent company Meta says one of its AI models hacked another company
during cybersecurity testing, fanning concerns about how developers can
contain increasingly capable AI systems after similar incidents at
rivals Anthropic and OpenAI.
The
incidents at Meta and Anthropic stemmed from configuration errors that
inadvertently gave their AI models access to the open internet.
The
breaches highlight growing concerns that advanced AI systems could pose
new cybersecurity risks, and will likely intensify US government
efforts to improve AI safety as companies race to develop more capable
models.
Meta
said it was investigating an incident in which a misconfiguration by
Irregular, an independent company that conducts cybersecurity
evaluations, inadvertently gave one of its models internet access during
a testing.
The model
"exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a
manner similar to previously reported instances with other companies",
Meta said in a statement.
The report said the model breached an unidentified company's systems and altered its internal environment.
A spokesperson for Irregular told the Reuters news agency that the incident was the "exact same evaluation-environment issue that was already disclosed by Anthropic last week" and did not involve a "sandbox escape or a sophisticated cyber action".
"There
are no current open issues. Irregular is developing a white paper to
share best practices for containment and securely running cyber
evaluations,"
the spokesperson said.
The
recent breaches have stirred concerns among US politicians about
whether increasingly capable AI models could be used to conduct or
facilitate cyber attacks.
A
group of Republican state attorneys-general has asked OpenAI to preserve
all potentially relevant documents related to its model's attack on AI
firm Hugging Face.
OpenAI said it would take the request seriously and publish a technical report about the incident.
Earlier
this week, the White House invited leading AI companies, including
Meta, Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, to meet with officials to discuss a
newly finalised voluntary cybersecurity testing framework for advanced
AI models.
The Trump
administration discussed unpublished testing rules with company
representatives, and told AI developers that open-weight AI models, such
as Meta's Llama and Nvidia's Nemotron, will not be subject to its
planned voluntary safety testing regime.
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was required viewing in most households when it aired from 1968. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Ian Collis was a young boy in the late 1950s when his neighbours bought a television.
Collis,
the author of Retro Television: What We Watched Back in the Day, used
to gather with his siblings by the window to catch a glimpse of what the
family next door was watching.
"If
you opened our bathroom window and you could tilt your head just at the
right angle, you could see through their side door and you could watch
them watching the telly," Collis said.
"So, there was me and two older siblings and all three of us would be perched … trying to watch … the telly."
It didn't take long for his parents to decide that it was time to buy a television of their own for the household.
"Mum and Dad are going, 'This is ridiculous,'" Collis said.
"We've got to get these kids out of the bathroom."
Retro Television by Ian Collis is out now. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Retro
Television is an illustrated pictorial history of what we watched
during the first 25 years of TV in Australia, including Skippy, I Love
Lucy, The Sullivans, The Brady Bunch, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Addams
Family, to name a few iconic shows, as well as coverage of the 1969
moon landing.
Arriving at a
time when people are grappling with another new technology — artificial
intelligence — Retro Television takes readers back to the arrival of
what was then a "new medium" that changed popular culture forever.
The
book has archival photography, behind-the-scenes imagery and anecdotes
such as when Countdown host Molly Meldrum told Prince Charles that he
had seen "your mum" while in London.
The future King politely replied, "Are you referring to Her Majesty, The Queen?"
The then Prince Charles on Countdown with Molly Meldrum. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
It's a chance for people to reminisce, says Collis, and for younger people to get a glimpse of how things used to be.
"I think we got our first TV in 1960," Collis said.
"We loved it because as a household we never had a car.
"We would walk from our home to the nearest cinema, which is probably about a half an hour walk.
"But now to be able to enjoy watching these shows … in the inner sanctum of your home was brilliant."
He said back then a black and white television was about 10 times the average weekly wage.
"So, if you had a TV in your home, you became a very popular person in that street," he said.
"You'd have neighbours dropping in that you hadn't seen for a while."
Ian Collis says as a child he would try and catch a glimpse of his neighbour's TV through a window. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Despite the expense, TVs in those days didn't necessarily work particularly well.
"You'd have the little aerial on top of the TV and sometimes you couldn't get that right,"
Collis said.
"And
then if you were lucky enough to have a remote control for the TV, so
you wouldn't have to get up out of your seat, which would be very rare …
it would be on a long cord.
"And sometimes it wouldn't work, so you'd have to get up anyway and change the channel.
"We were probably a typical family. There was five of us. There was one TV.
"It got that competitive [over] who would watch what."
The book features The Sullivans, one of the staples of early Australian TV. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Collis says everything had to be watched live.
"There was no recording capability, there was no streaming, there was few channels,"
he said.
"And if you really like the show, you had to be there that night to watch it, otherwise you missed it.
"So, if it was a series, you didn't want to miss anything."
What we watched
Mainstream
television came to Australia in September 1956, when Bruce Gyngell
famously took to the screen to say: "Good evening, and welcome to
television" on the now Nine Network.
Before streaming, television brought Australians together around a small screen.
Collis,
who is a rugby league historian, vintage photo collector and the author
of more than 30 books, says Australians were mostly fed American
content on TV, and we lapped it up.
"Mostly they were Westerns, detective shows, or comedies or variety shows from America," Collis said.
"And we imitated them in so many ways because in the 50s and 60s we were still predominantly an outside culture.
I Dream of Jeannie was another popular show. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
"We wanted our dog to be like Rin-Tin-Tin or Lassie.
"We wanted to maybe fly like Superman or be the hero that Zorro was.
"We cheered for the underdog in shows like The Adventures of Robin Hood.
"And we couldn't get enough of the singers from America — Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, and our own Johnny O'Keefe."
He says Americans have always been really good at selling their content and sometimes that starts with a good jingle.
Many Australians remember The Brady Bunch from their childhood. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
"If
someone gives you a rhyme or a jingle, whether you agree or disagree
with it, it definitely can stay with you longer," Collis said.
"So, we had shows like Green Acres, 77 Sunset Strip through to Gilligan's Island. These shows had really good jingles.
"And apart from that, we love the show. We love the tunes."
Australia content with our content
He said it was a real treat to watch Australian-made shows like Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which was groundbreaking.
"Just to be able to see any Australian content was great," Collis said.
"But
to be able to talk to a kangaroo and get an answer, and the answer from
the kangaroo was always the same … that was a very popular show."
Actors Ed Devereaux and Garry Pankhurst with Skippy. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Other
Australian shows mentioned in the book include The Sullivans, The Paul
Hogan Show, Division 4, Matlock Police, Bellbird, Hey Hey It's Saturday,
Play School, Graham Kennedy's In Melbourne Tonight and Countdown.
"That [Countdown] was one of the really early shows that showcased a music video," Collis said.
"And Molly [Meldrum] got a lot of careers up and running."
Collis says through the years sport would come into our living rooms too.
"Starting in the early-ish 60s, you could watch it," he said.
"AFL, rugby league, soccer, cricket. ABC had a lot of cricket. Cricket was extremely popular."
Hey Hey It's Saturday host Daryl Somers with Big Bird. (Supplied: New Holland Publishers)
Collis is looking forward to people taking a nostalgic look back as they flick through the book.
"You watch TV these days and half of us, while we're watching TV, we're fiddling on our phones," Collis said.
"We're doing multiple things.
"People
can reminisce and look back or people that are a little bit younger can
gain a little bit of insight into what we did enjoy back in the day."
Retro Television by Ian Collis published by New Holland Publishers is out now.
