Last night was Budget Night. Treasurer Joe Hockey stood and told Australia to tighten its collective belt in one of the harsher budgets in recent memory. But what will affect you, the Aussie tech lover? Gizmodo Australia has all the coverage you need to stay on top of this year’s budget.
Image: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty
NBN Co To Seek Private Sector Funding After Budget Ruling
Well, that’s one way to make the National Broadband Network rollout cheaper. Malcolm Turnbull’s office has confirmed in the Federal Budget that NBN Co will have to seek private funding to fund part of the NBN roll-out from mid-2018 after the government decided to stem the cash flow from the funding tap.
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$50 Million For CCTV Cameras Across Australia
In last night’s Federal Budget, $50 million was allocated to the Safer Streets Programme, promising a roll-out of London-style closed circuit TV cameras in the public areas of cities and towns across the country.
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The Government Doesn’t Really Know What An Entrepreneur Is But It’s Giving Them $500m Anyway
What is an entrepreneur really? What is it that they start-up? If you know, can you please tell Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey? That way they’ll know what they can spend almost half a billion dollars on in the Federal Budget. That’s right: without really knowing what they’re going to do with it, the government allocated $484 million to start-ups in the Budget last night.
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Australian Community TV And Radio Dodges The Budget Bullet
From regional access to 2SER, 3RRR and FBi — community broadcasting provides vital diversity across our airwaves thanks to armies of volunteers, sponsorships and pledges. Despite this, the recent Commission Of Audit recommended complete abolishment of the sector given various Commonwealth-funded ABC and SBS services. However, after Tuesday night’s budget, community TV and radio lives to broadcast another day.
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Australia’s Getting A Fancy New Medical Research Fund
Australia has some of the best scientists in the world thanks to our ongoing investment in being awesome. Now the government hopes to kickstart a new age of achievement in medical science by investing billions in new research fund.
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Mobile Phone Blackspots To Be Stamped Out With New Government Funding
It sucks not being able to get coverage on your mobile phone. The government feels your pain, and now it’s going to help us all out with new Budget funding to tackle mobile phone blackspots in rural Australia.
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Australia’s Chief Scientist Bittersweet Over Budget Announcements
Australia’s scientific community is facing a massive funding hurdle right now, with the Federal Government slashing its contributions to the CSIRO, PhD students and other scientific agencies. As a result, the nation’s Chief Scientist is worried that Australia’s scientific community is about to undergo a radical restructuring.
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Government Officially Implementing Idiotic ‘Cyber Commissioner’
Here’s a test for your memory: remember when the Government said it wanted to make the internet safer for our children, and proposed a rather silly way to go about it with the implementation of a so-called “cyber commissioner” to take on online bullying material and other such nasties? Despite widespread panning of the plan by Facebook, Twitter and Google (nobody major then) the Government will introduce the e-commissioner from next year.
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Government Pulls Funding For Aussie Video Games Industry In Federal Budget
It’s only the size of a Post-It note buried inside the 2014-15 Federal Budget papers, but it’s there, and it’s sad: the Government won’t fund the local game development industry any more.
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Watch The Federal Budget Speech In Full Here
Video: Can’t get enough of Joe Hockey’s dulcet tones handing down slash-a-palooza 2014 (by which we mean the Federal Budget)? You can now watch it in full here.
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$111 Million Cut From CSIRO, Millions More Cut From Aussie Science In Budget
We knew that the CSIRO was going to be cut in the Federal Budget. Now we have the papers, and we know just how much Australian science is losing.
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Australia’s Fuel Tax To Increase Twice A Year From August 1st
Ready to pay more for your petrol? As widely expected, the Australian government is set to increase the fuel excise in line with inflation twice a year. The government says this will generate $2.2 billion over the first four years — and be directly tied to fund upcoming major road projects.
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Here’s Every Major New Road Project Being Promised In The 2014 Federal Budget
Tony Abbott wants to be known as the “infrastructure Prime Minister”, by building shedloads of roads and rail links all over the country. An early leak of some key Budget information in the form of a YouTube video is now out in the wild, and it details the $125 billion investment in Aussie road links. Here’s what’s going to be storming through a town near you in the next four years.
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Here’s The New Twitter Game In The Lead-Up To The Federal Budget
Bored? Time to jump on Twitter and say stupid things about the Budget with this new game. It’s called #ThreeWordBudget, and all you have to do is create a slogan for the budget in three words, in the same vein as the age-old political three-word slogan.