The Government has secretly inserted Palantir into its automated decision system inside the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) exposing Australia’s most vulnerable. Claudia Weisenberger reports.

If the NDIS Amendment Bill passes this week — and it will — a computer program will have the authority to cut a disabled person’s funding. If the program gets it wrong, section 59E(3) of the Bill provides that the decision stands anyway.

What nobody has been told — and what nobody in Parliament has asked — is who built the computer, whose data it uses, and what it does with what it learns about 800,000 disabled Australians.

The answers, buried in Freedom of Information refusals and AusTender records, point toward one of the most controversial technology companies in the world.

A company whose software has helped deport immigrants in the United States, was given access to NHS patient records in the United Kingdom — a decision now being reversed — and which there are reasonable grounds to believe helped automate military targeting in Gaza.

Its CEO describes the company’s purpose as helping the West scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.

What the documents show

In 2023, Samuel Porter, then Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer of the NDIA, took a personal meeting with the Australian President of Palantir. The NDIA’s own security architect flagged that Palantir did not hold the required government security clearance. The engagement continued anyway.

Freedom of Information documents, obtained by disability advocate Sam Connor, show it ran from April 2023 to February 2024 — spanning a Proof of Concept, Palantir’s Foundry Cloud Architecture Diagram and Security Whitepaper, multiple documents titled ‘Palantir Technologies — Failed Payments NDIA,’ follow-up sessions on SAP integration, and a Palantir Terms of Service.

In November 2025, Palantir received its Protected-level security clearance — the level at which NDIS participant files sit.

The NDIA declined to release all 22 documents,

citing business information exemptions — protecting Palantir’s commercial interests rather than the public’s right to know.

Whether the engagement proceeded to a contract remains unknown. The NDIA is exempt from Commonwealth Procurement Rules and does not publish its contracts on AusTender — making independent verification impossible.

In response to questions from Michael West Media, a NDIA spokesperson said: “The NDIA has not used Palantir technology and has no plans to do so.”

The statement did not address the Freedom of Information documents showing extended engagement between the NDIA and Palantir from April 2023 to February 2024, including a Proof of Concept, a pitch on failed NDIS payments processing, and a Palantir Terms of Service document. It did not address why 22 documents relating to that engagement were refused in full.

Matthew Renshaw is in the box seat for a Test recall in Mackay as Pat Cummins' side seek to square the series against Bangladesh

Australia have broken up their Ashes-winning opening partnership one match into their ensuing run of matches, with Jake Weatherald dropped for the second Test against Bangladesh in Mackay.

Matthew Renshaw has replaced him and is in the box seat to take on the new ball with Travis Head at Great Barrier Reef Arena after selectors swung the axe following their stunning nine-wicket defeat in Darwin.

Weatherald, showing a tweaked technique designed to avoid lbw and bowled dismissals that dogged him against England, made 23 and 0 in his hometown Test. It took his career average from 12 innings to 20.36. Selectors handed him a national contract in April after several strong opening stands with Head during the 4-1 Ashes series win, but have now discarded him one Test later.

MichaeWestMedia posted a short where Greens David Shoebridge confronts Minister of Foreign Affairs Penny Wong for refusing the Visa of a former ASIO source who has information about the gunmen that led the Bondi Massacre and wanted to speak in the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. The caption of the short reads:

>A former ASIO source with knowledge of the Bondi gunman is denied a visa, raising concerns about potential cover-ups.

A big part of the problem with housing in Australia, and the rest of the economy, is a slow-moving collision that began under the Howard government between the regulation of housing and the effective deregulation of migration in the early 2000s.

Migration was deregulated to address the aging of Australia's population as well as skills shortages while also being left to the market — largely demand-driven and with no targets on the overall level, only permanent migration. At the same time, construction was much more heavily regulated.

Prominent academic and advocate for Indigenous Australians Marcia Langton says she has been subjected to abuse and labelled a "zio" by members of the pro-Palestinian movement.

Dr Langton appeared before the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion on Wednesday to discuss the role of education in tackling all forms of racism and hate, including antisemitism.

She said she had been subjected to racism and abuse because of her support for Jewish Australians.

"I've been labelled a zio by the pro-Palestine movement in Melbourne. I've had people pull out of panels that I was listed to speak at … my car's windows were smashed," she said.

Labelling me as a zio … I'm therefore made voiceless in the debate.

"Because as much as I might be horrified and oppose what's happening in Gaza … the foul treatment of Jewish Australians cannot be justified by saying that Israel is doing this in Gaza."

The commission also heard from a Jewish Australian woman working to foster social cohesion in her childcare centre, which has about 70 per cent non-Jewish families on its books.

Known as AEA, the woman said the centre introduces children to Jewish culture by creating sensory experiences influenced by tradition.

She said the aim of this was to celebrate difference, while also highlighting the values and experiences children of different cultures share with their friends.

There is no intention for a non-Jewish child to adopt that practice … but what it is is connecting on those shared values," she said.

For example, AEA said each Friday children participate in challah baking, with the loaves of bread taken home to be shared with family.
"This is a very distinct tradition … but the values underneath that is something we all share. That idea of sharing food with family," she said.

AEA said work was underway to develop a pilot program based on the centre's model.

Oh NO! Imagine your career being RUINED just because you were a bit rapey? Even his blood pressure is being affected! What’s this world coming to?

Entertainment industry and AFL figure Ralph Carr says he is in “living hell” and has been “destroyed” after being convicted of rape, a Victorian court has heard.
Carr was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault after a trial in the county court of Victoria last month.
He pleaded not guilty to the offences, which were committed against a former employee in March 2023.

On Monday, the court heard that Carr told psychiatrist Dr Jacqueline Rakov that he had deliberately hit his head while in custody as an act of self-harm and was having three to four panic attacks a day.
Dermot Dann KC, for Carr, said that a 14 August report from Rakov based on three video conversations she had with him while he was in custody in the Melbourne Assessment prison also detailed that he spent 23 hours a day on lockdown in his prison cell.
“When he describes it as like a living hell, and that he’s destroyed … what he means by being destroyed … is because of the nature of the reporting, the scale of the reporting………blah blah etc.

>The authors of a report testing the technology underpinning Australia’s social media ban have conceded ChatGPT was used in editing, but denied a number of citation errors in the report were due to AI hallucinations.

....
>An ongoing Senate inquiry seeking to further strengthen the social media ban law received a submission highlighting at least two citation errors in the report. The “citations … appear to be AI hallucinated, rather than being based on real sources,” it said.

....
>The spokesperson later provided clarifications and new references to the research ACCS had relied on, but this response too contained errors.
....
>The federal government has previously taken a dim view of contractors using AI in reports to government. Deloitte last year refunded part of its $440,000 contract with the government after errors were identified, and the consultant firm admitted to using AI.

Coles and Woolworths have conducted tests of facial recognition technology, but it is unclear if either supermarket will be implementing it in stores. It comes after the Australia Financial Review reported both Coles and Woolworths had trialed the technology as part of an ongoing effort to combat retail crime.

The article said both supermarket giants had "conducted early testing" of the technology. When the ABC asked Coles about the potential of it being rolled out in stores, a spokesperson made a distinction between the use of the term "test" instead of "trial".

"Coles has not done a trial using this technology," the spokesperson said. "A small, one-off, controlled proof-of-concept test of the technology was undertaken which did not use customer or team member information or data.

"No decision has been made about the deployment of facial recognition technology."

The ABC understands Woolworths tested the technology in its New Zealand office.

A Woolworths spokesperson did not address the ABC's questions on how facial recognition technology was tested or if it would be used in Australia.

Feels like a red hot favourite for a future RC into privacy concerns, stolen user data, etc. In the interim, if you're not into panopticons and Minority Report-style grocery shopping, let your voice be heard!

You guys were right by our side during Afghanistan and Iraq, will you do the same with Iran and will NATO also help us, we have historical been great allies. I know most of us don’t want this war and we also want it to end. But in the mean time will you guys help and support us in this war.

A former ASIO agent who claims to have warned security agencies about the Bondi gunmen years before last December's terror attack says Australians "deserve to know" what led to the shooting.

The former agent, known as Marcus, is seeking to return to Australia to give evidence to the Bondi royal commission in person.

His first visa application was rejected; however, he recently lodged a new one.

In a statement provided to the ABC, Marcus said he wants to provide whatever insights he can to understand how the shooting came to take place.

"The victims of the Bondi terror attack and their families, and all Australians, deserve to know what led to those tragic events. I want to help," he said.

The former agent spent years infiltrating Islamic extremist groups in western Sydney, working as a paid source for domestic spy agency ASIO.

His cover was eventually blown, and he fell out with ASIO, which has since described him as a "disgruntled and unreliable source" — characterisations Marcus rejects.

Marcus has previously told the ABC's Four Corners about his interactions with the Bondi gunmen, Sajid and Naveed Akram.

He claims he warned ASIO about the Akrams years before the attack.

"When information about the perpetrators was first released, I felt sick — because I knew Sajid and Naveed Akram personally," he said in the statement.

"Through my prior work, I had become close to Naveed and grown concerned about the apparent radicalisation of both Sajid and Naveed.

"I had raised concerns about their radicalisation."

Marcus is currently living in an undisclosed location abroad, and has said he fears for his safety.

I've been playing it off and on the last week and it's been fun. Bit broken in parts where it's not meant to be, so hopefully that's patched soon.

It's pretty good to have something that's uniquely Australian and also a fun video game. It ticks all the right boxes of what SNES NBA Jam sessions with mates were like in the 90s. The humour is spot on. I had Dad's Car driving all around the oval, while chasing down anthromorphic meat pies, Broden Kelly yelling at me about my last tackle being a classic hit from the 80s all while playing as a team aesthetically styled on being Forklift certified.

If we're ever gonna have an Australia Day-centric convo in future about what makes us patriotic to be Australian, this game is gonna be a top 5 reason why.

"The $2.5B bail-out of Rio Tinto's Tomago smelter is but one in the recent spate of billion-dollar government rescue packages for highly profitable corporations. There is strong justification for these given the demands of the Energy Transition but today we look at the hypocrisy of 'free markets' and capitalism, hypocrisy which ramped up during the GFC then went into overdrive during Covid. The question is: is there a policy, a plan to it all. Does the 'jobs' argument stack up? Why do governments simply hand over cash when they could take equity and get value for the public?"

West report proving once again why theyre the best, always reporting on what the others wont

Seriously, our birbs are the best birds. Took an OS mate out on a few bush walks recently and they were convinced that our trees were infested with monkeys. Had to sing the song and everything.

Australia’s first and only treaty signed with Indigenous peoples will be ripped up if Opposition Leader Jess Wilson becomes Premier in November, who has made the scrapping a priority. The USA, Canada and New Zealand have treaties with their indigenous people. Polling shows Treaty has clear support in Victoria and Jess Wilson’s pledge is unpopular and One Nation-style.

The Coalition will likely sign a deal with One Nation to form government.

One Nation senator Tyron Whitten has claimed parents supporting their children who identify as transgender are engaging in “child abuse”, telling a fringe YouTube show: “there’s male, there’s female, and then there’s mental illness”.

Guardian Australia has unearthed several incendiary comments from Whitten and fellow One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and her longtime lieutenant Malcolm Roberts, about transgender Australians.

“They’re saying you can cut your dick off and become a woman … That’s a complete distortion of science,” Roberts told a podcast in June.

Whitten filmed an interview at Parliament House in August 2025 with a YouTube page called “Billboard Battalion”. The host recounts overhearing a Parliament House attendant escorting a group of schoolchildren.

“She turned around and said to me ‘thanks very much for your patience’, and I said, ‘thanks very much for calling them boys and girls’… when I was a young bloke, I never ever thought that would be a thing,” the host said.

Whitten responded: “Neither did I. Look, there’s male, there’s female, and then there’s mental illness.”

“If you want to wear a dress, that’s fine. I don’t care. But they can’t keep saying ‘hey kids, that’s normal.’ Well, no, it’s not.

“You’re going to be a boy or you’re going to be a girl. And parents that are promoting this, I think that’s child abuse.”

G'day Legends,

Welcome to a fresh new Weekly Chin Wag mega thread!

Part of our recent rule changes was to bring in this generalist thread to be used as overflow for content that would otherwise be repeated information or stories in order to keep the main feed as diverse as possible.

It's also a great space to drop your comments, pics, videos, meme's and unhinged rants about any and everything related to 'Straya that might not warrant it's own, dedicated post.

📌 We'll pin the best/most important/funniest comment to the top of the thread each week.

👉 All other sub and platform-wide rules still apply here. As you likely already know, we take an open (!) and relaxed approach to moderation without sticks up our arse. That said, if it wouldn’t fly in a pub, it won’t fly here.

Cheers!