Government

This afternoon, Victoria's Road Authority, VicRoads, has enabled Digital Licenses. Digital licences have been recently introduced in Victoria, Australia, and are available for fully licensed drivers, motorcyclists, and heavy vehicle operators. These provide a convenient and secure way to carry and present your driver's licence information on your smartphone. The move to offer digital licenses in Victoria comes after a successful trial of more than 15,000...

Today is the second day of the Everything Electric Show 2024, held at the Sydney Showgrounds. This morning Minister for Climate Change and Energy of Australia, Chris Bowen attended the event and took to the stage to deliver an uplifting speech to the audience of the main stage. During the speech, Bowen commented on Australia's recent vehicle emission standards, currently in draft form, current...

EV drivers across Victoria are rejoicing as the saga of the ZLEV (zero and low emission vehicle) road user charge has come to a conclusion. VicRoads has finally begun issuing refunds, complete with compounding interest. Since 2019, I've owned an EV and paid the EV Tax between 2021 and 2023. This week, I received a letter in the mail from VicRoads detailing that they...

The Albury Wodonga Data Hub has been released to surface some of the great datasets available across the twin regional cities that span the NSW and VIC borders. The datasets include information like bike and walking trails, EV charging stations, playgrounds, parks, public toilets, and more. Today, there are 26 discreet datasets, but with the platform now established, this will be added to over time....

The Australian Government has a program to help Aussie farmers leverage technology to improve their farming practices, centring around better connectivity and data, the program is known as the 'On Farm Connectivity Program'. This program is funded to the tune of $30 million over 2 years to enable primary producers in agriculture, forestry and/or fisheries to take advantage of connected machinery and sensor technology. The objectives of...

Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio announced today that from 1 January 2024 Victoria would: Require that all new planning permits refuse gas in favour of all electric buildings Ensure that any future State Government buildings are gas free Offer a package of grants for residential fuel switching, and Create a $10 million reskilling package to assist workers in the transition to a post gas...

This week, the Australian Government provided interim guidance to Government agencies on the use of generative AI platforms like ChatGPT. Published on the Digital Transformation Agency's website, the interim advice was developed by the Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources (DISR). In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT which set the world on fire with its consumer-facing chat service...

Often I write about the latest news, but occasionally, like this article, you'll see me write about cool applications of existing technologies. Right now, Victoria is in the midst of a major infrastructure uplift, known as 'Victoria's Big Build' which even got its own website - https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/ Projects under this program include Major updates to road and rail, including underground tunnels. When you change infrastructure...