Category: MIL-OSI

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Future Swirl whipping up a storm with plant-based soft-serve and ICON grant

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Future Swirl founder Maddalena Eastbrook at her pop-up van.

Future Swirl is a Canberra-based start-up whipping up a storm in the ice-cream world.

Founder Maddi Easterbrook wanted to challenge the popular coconut, almond and soy-based ice-creams that dominate the dairy free alternatives market, with an oat milk soft-serve.

A hugely successful summer season with a pop-up van in Braddon showed Maddi that her idea had real potential.

“We opened Summernats weekend in Braddon and I was blown away by the response,” said Maddi.

“It was by far our best weekend during that January to May period in the van. It was really reaffirming. I thought the Summernats demographic would not be my audience, but we had so many converts and repeat customers over that weekend who turned into oat milk soft-serve lovers! It showed me there’s a lot of potential for us to grow.”

That experience paved the way for Maddi to secure an Innovation Connect (ICON) grant from the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN).

CBRIN receives funding from the ACT Government to support entrepreneurs, innovators and start-ups—like Future Swirl—in Canberra. It offers business support, programs, grants and access to networks of other entrepreneurs.

“The idea [for the ICON grant] was to take that soft-serve, which you can only get when I’m selling at markets in the van, and bring it to independent grocers in Canberra and straight to our customers in take home tubs.

“I received matched funding for $30,000,” Maddi said. “I contributed $30,000 myself and bought machinery to scale the business and work on product development.

“With that money I can move manufacturing out of the pop-up van and into a premises.”

The take home tubs are being manufactured at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Technology (CEAT) at ANU. CEAT is another ACT Government grant-funded spin out from the Priority Investment Program.

“I would encourage anyone who is thinking of applying for an ICON grant to do it,” she said.

“I was nervous about pitching my idea against people developing AI and high-tech solutions.

“But plant-based food alternatives are a growing and global industry, valued at nearly $5 billion and it’s expected to reach just over $100 billion by 2030. Being a vegan myself, I’m in a unique position to create a product that I would want to eat, rather than multi-nationals that are producing because there is a gap in the market.

“CBRIN could see my product has the capacity to scale and succeed.”

Maddi’s oat milk soft-serve is also filling a much-needed gap in the food allergen market. Her soft-serve is nut free, dairy free and soy free.

“It was amazing to see children who had never eaten a soft-serve or ice-cream before, sitting in the park enjoying their first taste in their 10 or 12 years of life,” Maddi said.

“My desire to start Future Swirl came from being vegan and being passionate about sustainability and plant-based food being the best way for individuals to reduce their carbon footprint. But meeting this need in the food allergen market has been an added bonus.

“It’s pretty great seeing the joy of a kid eating an soft-serve in the park! And soft-serves are very nostalgic.”

Future Swirl’s signature and most popular vanilla and chocolate oat milk based soft-serve.

As for what’s next for Future Swirl, Maddi is preparing to bring her take home tubs to Canberrans but also has her eyes set on the Sydney and Melbourne market.

CBRIN’s ICON grants are currently open and close on 11 September.

For more information visit the ICON website.

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Circular economy strategy to boost sustainable businesses

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

Thor Diesendorf, founder and owner of Thor’s Hammer which makes use of recycled timber.

The ACT Government is providing a plan to create new jobs and develop innovative sustainable businesses by delivering Canberra’s first Circular Economy Strategy and action plan.

The new circular economy strategy recognises benefits of supporting businesses that reduce waste, while supporting solutions to product development and investment.

Through the strategy and plan, the Government wants to give businesses the tools they need to support more sustainable jobs, create stronger supply chains that reduce waste, and make the most of materials.

The strategy and action plan aims to achieve this across a broad range of industries, from technology and hardware, right through to food waste and building products.

It also addresses land use for businesses that might need to process materials that support resource recovery or to help design waste out of our systems in the first place.

The strategy identifies six areas of the economy to lead first efforts:

  1. Food and garden organics
  2. The built environment
  3. Emerging and problematic waste streams
  4. Consumer goods
  5. A circular economy innovation precinct
  6. Procurement, skills, and governance.

Importantly this strategy is backed by a series of individual action plans, which outline specific objectives of Government, industry, business and our community.

Major reforms have already started to improve resource recovery outcomes for the region.

This includes the bulky waste pick-up service, building a new materials recycling facility, a food organics collection service pilot and the ACT container deposit scheme.

Canberrans are also demonstrating leadership in growing the circular economy, with some great initiatives such as repair cafes, Community Toolbox Canberra, Lids for Kids and thriving second-hand markets.

Once the strategy is in place across a broad range of industries, the ACT Government aims to make further changes to supply chains and education, and help make jobs and businesses more innovative, sustainable, equitable, fair, and profitable.

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New Calwell townhouses ready for tenants

Source: Northern Territory Police and Fire Services

The townhouses are ready to welcome tenants and families most in need of housing support.

Construction is now complete on 30 new public housing homes in Calwell.

The townhouses are ready to welcome tenants and families most in need of housing support.

The 30 two- and three-bedroom townhouses are built to Class C Adaptable standards. This means they can be easily adapted to meet changing accessibility needs and support tenants to remain at home as they grow older.

The new homes are located close to schools, shops, services and transport.

They add to the category of public housing in highest demand – with approximately 80 per cent of all housing applicants able to be housed in a two-bedroom dwelling.

Construction took less than nine months for this project, which began in November 2022.

The project is a positive example of government and industry collaborating to deliver for the community.

More than 500 homes have been delivered under the ACT Government’s commitment and another 700 homes are currently underway in design or construction.

This is another step towards providing more people in need with safe, secure public housing.

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Keep authorisations and permissions up to date

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Relationship Authorisation ManagerExternal Link (RAM) enables authorised people to transact with government online services on behalf of your fund. This includes access to Online services for business and Access Manager. As the holder of an ABN, APRA regulated funds must keep authorisations and permissions up to date by regularly completing these 3 checks.

  1. Ensure the right people are authorised

The principal authority or authorisation administrator must create authorisationsExternal Link in RAM for people who need access. Maintaining accurate records ensures employees and others can easily identify who can approve access.

When a person no longer needs access (for example, they change roles or leave) remove their authorisation immediately to prevent unauthorised access.

  1. Ensure each person has the right access

The principal authority or authorisation administrator should regularly check each person has the right access. After creating an authorisation for someone in RAM, permissions can be customised in Access Manager.

If someone increases their myID identity strength from Basic to Standard, the principal authority or authorisation administrator needs to create a new authorisation. Once accepted, this will remove restricted access to our online services.

Where your fund uses Standard Business Reporting (SBR) enabled software to interact with our online services, you may need to create a machine credentialExternal Link using RAM. You can also customise machine credential permissions in Access Manager.

  1. Review activity regularly

The principal authority or authorisation administrator should regularly check the authorisation and machine credential activities for the fund using the History functionExternal Link in RAM.

Looking for the latest news for Super funds? – You can stay up to date by visiting our Super funds newsroom and subscribingExternal Link to our monthly Super funds newsletter and CRT alerts.

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Improving access to affordable and quality financial advice

Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry

The Albanese Government is reforming financial advice rules so that more Australians can access the advice they need without the huge price tag. The Delivering Better Financial Outcomes package delivers on this commitment, ensuring Australians can access quality and affordable financial advice.

This is about cutting red tape that adds to cost without providing a benefit to consumers. It will also expand access to financial advice about savings, retirement and insurance for all Australians.

The first components of the next tranche of legislation:

  • replace the statement of advice with a more fit‑for‑purpose client advice record
  • provide clear rules on what advice topics can be collectively charged for via superannuation
  • allow superannuation funds to provide targeted prompts to members to drive greater engagement with superannuation at key life stages

The Government continues to develop legislation to modernise the best interests duty and create a new class of adviser. Reforming the best interests duty and removing the safe harbour steps will provide advisers with confidence to deliver appropriately scaled advice. The new class of adviser is also vital to allowing life insurers, financial advice licensees, superannuation funds and other institutions to expand the supply of quality and affordable advice to consumers.

These remaining pieces will be consulted on and combined with the draft legislation released today to be introduced into Parliament as a single package. The whole package works together to expand access to affordable, quality financial advice.

Releasing this legislation now gives stakeholders more time to review and comment on the parts of the next tranche that are ready to be reviewed. It also demonstrates the Government’s ongoing commitment to reform financial advice laws.

The Government invites feedback to ensure that the reforms deliver on their objectives and operate effectively across all parts of the financial advice industry. Consultation is available on the Treasury website and closes on 2 May 2025.

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Media release: Websites leave children and parents guessing

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A recent scan of school websites and some popular childrens game sites showed there is often no information given to users about how their personal information collected via the site will be used and shared. The scan was part of an international internet sweep day, involving the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner and other overseas data protection offices in the Global Privacy Enforcement Network (GPEN). Each participating office selected a range of websites to scan. The first step was to see if the site showed any sort of privacy policy at all. We found that in a selection of the larger New Zealand schools websites we looked at, very few had any sort of policy at all.

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Privacy Commissioner amends health code to protect newborn blood samples : media release

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Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has strengthened the Health Information Privacy Code 1994 to improve legal protections around newborn babies bloodspot samples. These samples are collected as part of a national newborn metabolic screening programme, also called the heelprick or Guthrie Test. The samples are held permanently unless parents request their return. The amendment will restrict how information derived from the samples may be used and disclosed. DNA testing is getting cheaper and faster all the time and that makes national bloodspot collections more valuable. Because of this it is possible someone in the future will want to use the collection as a national DNA database. If this were to happen, trust in the programme would be severely damaged.

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Parliament passes modernised Privacy Act

Source:

Privacy Commissioner John Edwards welcomed Parliament passing the Privacy Act 2020 with unanimous support.

The new Act replaces the 27-year-old Privacy Act 1993. Many of the changes are based on recommendations from the Law Commission’s comprehensive 2011 review of New Zealand’s privacy laws.

“The new Privacy Act provides a modernised framework to better protect New Zealanders’ privacy rights in today’s environment,” Mr Edwards said.

“I am grateful for the cross-party support of Parliament on this issue. It is an endorsement of the significance of privacy as a universal human right that the Bill was passed with the multi-party support of the House.”

Key reforms in the new Privacy Act include:

  • Mandatory notification of harmful privacy breaches. If organisations or businesses have a privacy breach that poses a risk of serious harm, they are required to notify the Privacy Commissioner and affected parties. This change brings New Zealand in line with international best practice.
  • Introduction of compliance orders. The Commissioner may issue compliance notices to require compliance with the Privacy Act. Failure to follow a compliance notice could result a fine of up to $10,000.
  • Binding access determinations. If an organisation or business refuses to make personal information available upon request, the Commissioner will have the power to demand release.
  • Controls on the disclosure of information overseas. Before disclosing New Zealanders’ personal information overseas, New Zealand organisations or businesses will need to ensure those overseas entities have similar levels of privacy protection to those in New Zealand.
  • New criminal offences. It will be an offence to mislead an organisation or business in a way that affects someone’s personal information or to destroy personal information if a request has been made for it.  The maximum fine for these offences is $10,000.
  • Explicit application to businesses whether or not they have a legal or physical presence in New Zealand. If an international digital platform is carrying on business in New Zealand, with the New Zealanders’ personal information, there will be no question that they will be obliged to comply with New Zealand law regardless of where they, or their servers are based.

The Act comes into effect on 1 December 2020.

To view a PDF of the file, click here.

For more information – contact Feilidh Dwyer 021 959 050

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Children need to be wise owls when it comes to the internet

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A new resource to help teachers teach internet privacy issues to primary and intermediate school students was launched on 11 February to coincide with Safer Internet Day and the start of the 2014 school year. The online resource named OWLS is a joint project by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and NetSafe, in partnership with the NZ National Commission for UNESCO. It was introduced to students and teachers at Tawa School in Wellington by the Associate Minister of Education and Minister of Youth Affairs, Nikki Kaye. The Privacy Commissioner, Marie Shroff, says the internet and mobile technology expose children to a range of risks that previous generations have never had to deal with. Teaching children how to protect their privacy online increasingly involves schools because children are experimenting in digital media from very young ages.

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Charges – Drug offences – Darwin

Source: New South Wales Department of Education and Communities

The Northern Territory Police Force has charged a 26-year-old male for multiple drug offences in Marrara. 

On Tuesday 11 February, the Gangs Task Force executed a search warrant at a residence in Bellamack. Police located and seized over $130,000 in cash and 60g of Ecstasy tablets from the residence.

The alleged offender was not present at the time of the search.

Later, on Friday 21 March, Gangs Task Force arrested 26-year-old Mongols member.

When police located the male at accommodation in Marrara, the male refused to exit his room. 

Entry to the residence was gained and the male was arrested without incident.

During a lawful search of the accommodation, police seized a traffickable quantity of MDMA and a quantity of cannabis.

The 26-year-old has been charged with the following offences:

  • Supply schedule 1 dangerous drug – Commercial quantity
  • Possess schedule 1 dangerous drug – Commercial quantity
  • Receive / possess / tainted Property
  • Possess schedule 1 dangerous drug – Traffickable quantity
  • Destroy evidence
  • Possess schedule 2 dangerous drug – Less than traffickable quantity.

He has been remanded to appear in Darwin Local Court 25 March 2025

Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Timothy Gardiner said, “Police will not tolerate the violent and criminal behaviour exhibited by outlaw motorcycle gangs in our community.

“These organisations thrive on intimidation, drug trafficking, and violence, and we are committed to dismantling their operations.

“We will pursue them relentlessly until they no longer pose a threat to our community.”