Making news: Essendon could learn a lot from Denmark's Queen

All the news that's fit to mint.

All the news that's fit to mint.

What's happening in (The) Oz:

🇹🇭 There's been a massacre in paradise

📲 Optus are releasing your data so you don't get ripped off

📄 The government plan on plugging the data leaks with paperwork

☎️ No one at Curtin University knows how to answer a phone

🎤 Chronically inflamed Wayne Carey quits

🤰🏻Million Dollar Baby star Hillary Swank is 48 and pregnant

👩🏻‍🌾 Kate Walsh just won Farmer Wants a Wife

🇩🇰 The Queen of Denmark is sorry her kids are offended

🍷 Post Malone is a wine maker now

Good morning!

Horrible news overnight out of Thailand. 

A former cop, who was discharged from the force last year due to drug offences, has shot dead about 30 people in Thailand before killing his wife, his son and them himself.

The attacker, armed with a shotgun, a pistol and a knife, opened fire on the childcare centre in Nong Bua Lam Phu province at about 4.30pm on Thursday before fleeing in a ute.

“The death toll from the shooting incident... is at least 30 people,” said a spokesman for the Thai Prime Minister’s office said. Twenty two of them are believed to be kids. 

Optus now just giving up info

Optus has been given the green light to share customers’ information with financial institutions and government agencies to help prevent fraud under new regulations following its massive data breach.

Under the changes announced on Thursday by the Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, telcos will be able to temporarily share approved information about customers affected by data breaches with financial institutions, including their drivers’ licence and passport numbers, and Medicare card details.

Rowland said the amended telecommunications regulations would help prevent ID theft and scams targeting Optus customers.

“What this is all about is to try and reduce the impact of this data breach on Optus customers and to enable financial institutions to implement enhanced safeguards and monitoring,” Rowland said.

Before rolling into what the government will do to prevent this happening again, despite Telstra suffering a hack this week in addition to the health service in Far North Queensland that was also compromised. The Apunipima Cape York Health Council was hacked so cut off all its tech and reverted to pen and paper modes of "service delivery" on Thursday.

Not all heroes wear capes, they write legislation

Michelle Rowland, who is drafting these new data laws, said they'll represent a major safeguarding of Australians’ private information.

“The key issue here for the Australian government is to do everything in our power to keep Australians safe, and that's why we've brought those regulations forward today,” she said on Thursday.

Today I announced the Albanese Government will introduce measures to better protect consumers following the Optus data breach.

We take the protection of personal information seriously, which is why these measures have been carefully developed and consulted on. pic.twitter.com/wKKMmKi85U

— Michelle Rowland (@MRowlandMP) October 6, 2022

“In the regulation at hand… whoever is obtaining this information must only examine it for 12-months, or hold it as necessary and review the need to continue holding it, every 12-months.

“Where that is no longer required, then it must destroy that information. So that is a very clear requirement in the regulations that we've put in.

“There must be undertakings provided about the need to have this information, and there must be undertakings provided as to the receipt of it and the use of it as well.”

Speaking of telecommunications...

Curtin Uni should probably return to the quill.

The Fair Work Commission has stopped staff at Perth's biggest tertiary education facility from voting on whether to ban answering phone calls.

It comes after university lawyers were accused of questioning whether employees understood what answering the phone meant.

As per the report in The Australian:

Curtin University challenged the National Tertiary Education Union’s application to hold a ballot on protected industrial action,  commission deputy president Melanie Binet ruled against eight questions being put to union members about potential industrial action.

One of the  proposed questions was: "do you authorise industrial action against your employer, separately, partially, concurrently and/or consecutively, in the form of a ban on responding to phone calls or emails?"

The university’s lawyers cross-examined union members about the questions including the definition of answering a phone call or emails.

In her decision, Binet said witnesses differed on their understanding of the ban on responding to phone calls or emails.

“Some understood the ban to be limited to physically picking up the phone or selecting the reply function on an email but understood the ban to permit responding to a message left on voicemail when the phone went unanswered or replying to an email in (a) separate chain. While other witnesses understood that the ban prevented any response while the ban remained in place,” she said.

And they say student politics is boring... game on USyd.

No smoking gun, just white powder

AFL legend, and consumer of anti-inflammatories, Wayne Careywill not face police charges over that bag of powder which fell out his pocket at a Perth casino last month.

But he also will not return to his lucrative Channel Seven TV role next season with his media career appearing to be over for now.

Carey was investigated after the bag fell onto a gaming table at the Crown in Burswood.

Following the incident, the man also known as "Duck", was stood down from his on air gigs at Triple M.

DIVE DEEPER: Underemployed Wayne Carey could work at the local Tesla factory

This aged well...

this Jurassic Park sequel absolutely sucks pic.twitter.com/ocy1THccSy

— Steve Smith (@stevesmithffx) July 8, 2022

Million dollar babies

Oscar-winner Hilary Swank is expecting her first baby.

Well, babies, more specifically, as the 48-year-old actor is pregnant with twins. 

"This is something I’ve been wanting for a long time and my next thing is, I’m going to be a mum," she said.

.@HilarySwank is going to be a mom of TWO!

Congratulations! ❤️ https://t.co/kWY5S6eOU4 pic.twitter.com/kzuG8NkpdF

— Good Morning America (@GMA) October 5, 2022

Kate Walsh just pulled a "Sam Armytage"

The Grey's Anatomy and Emily In Paris star is making like the former Sunrise host by getting married to an Aussie farmer.

The successful actor, producer and businesswoman is set to marry Moora farmer Andrew Nixon after the pair reportedly met on a cruise back in 2020.

She relocated to Perth during Covid to be closer to her beau and it looks like the gamble paid off.

In a gloriously twee touch, the news was broken via WA's agricultural newspaper The Countryman with the headline: "Hollywood superstar set to marry into WA farming dynasty". 

She then flashed her ring, and her fiance, off to her 4 million fans during a Live on Instagram.

And then the happy couple celebrated with martinis.

Kate Walsh, who turns 55 next week, is getting married to a WA farmer.

Dear leaders, be more like Mary's mother-in-law

The Queen of Denmark is now the only remaining female monarch in Europe since the death of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, and she is proving to be just as strong as the late sovereign.

You may remember we told you earlier in the week that Queen Margrethe II had stripped four of her eight grandkids of their royal titles.

Well, they are, reportedly, not too pleased with the idea.

DIVE DEEPER: The Danish royals got robbed by their Nan

Since the decision was made, the Queen has released a formal statement saying that she was “sorry” for the “strong reactions” to the changes, but that she would not change her mind, adding that it was “a necessary future-proofing of the monarchy.”

Essendon Football Club, you reading this?

Looks like a bootlegger, smells like rosé 

Post Malone going where Kate Hudson, Blake Lively and Cameron Diaz have gone before him and is getting into the booze trade.

In a pivot no one saw coming, the American rapper, actor and tattoo-enthusiast launched his rosé in Australia on Thursday.

The peachy-coloured wine, called Maison No. 9, is a blend of grenache noir, cinsault, syrah and merlot grapes.

It’s a collaboration between Malone, his manager Dre London, and James Morrissey of Global Brand Equities.

They worked with Alexis Cornu, a winemaker in Provence on the French Riviera, a region renowned for its rosé.

“Rosé is when you want to get a little fancy,” Malone said.

Hot tip, try it with some ice and a few slices of jalapeno - it's worth it. Trust me.

And with that, cheers to the freaking weekend!