Australian government, state and territory ministers and the Australian Local Government Association met in Canberra to discuss the draft Broadband Blueprint, progress of Connect Australia initiatives, broadband policy, Australia's ICT capability, security, government, digital television spectrum and other issues,

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, has announced new safeguards to protect consumers from inappropriate or harmful material delivered over 3G mobile phones and similar devices.

The federal government has announced a review of the policy, administrative and regulatory arrangements that underpin the operation of the .au internet domain. The review specifically considers competitiveness, cost effectiveness, consumer protection aspects of domain name arrangements, security and stability arrangements, emerging internet issues, technical standards and the global policy environment.

This report proposes measures to protect consumers from inappropriate or harmful material on emerging content services such as 3G mobile phones and subscription-based Internet portals. Releasing the report, the government promised to introduce appropriate safeguards are in place to protect children from certain content.

Backing Indigenous Ability is a federal government program to help to improve telecommunications and broadcasting services in remote Indigenous communities. This paper outlines the design principles the government intends to apply to the telecommunications area of the program and seeks comments on key elements and design of the program.