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Australia's inflation rate has sunk more than expected, boosting the chances of interest rates staying on hold.
Inflation moderated to six per cent in the June quarter from seven per cent growth through to March.
The official numbers came in below the 6.2 per cent annual growth pencilled in by economists.
On a quarterly basis, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' consumer price index lifted 0.8 per cent through to June, down from 1.4 per cent in the three months to March.
This was the lowest quarterly rise since September 2021.
"While prices continued to rise for most goods and services, there were some offsetting price falls this quarter including for domestic holiday travel and accommodation and automotive fuel," ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt said.
Working in the other direction were rents, which grew 2.5 per cent - the fastest quarterly pace in decades.
International holiday travel and accommodation jumped 6.2 per cent across the quarter, fuelled by higher demand as holiday-makers trekked to Europe for the summer peak.
The trimmed mean, which crops away large price changes at either end of the spectrum, also weakened to 5.9 per cent annually in the June quarter from 6.6 per cent in March.
The core inflation result was a touch lower than the expected six per cent annual growth.
The slowing pace of inflation will likely be welcomed by the Reserve Bank ahead of its cash rate meeting next week.
While inflation is still well above the RBA's two to three per cent target range, Oxford Economics Australia economist Sean Langcake said it was tracking below its own forecasts for the June quarter.
"While there are still concerns around the labour cost outlook, we think these data will buy the RBA more time and allow them to keep rates on hold a little longer," he said.
Labour data released last week came in hotter than expected, with the unemployment rate holding firm at 3.5 per cent in June.
Along with the strong labour market, stubborn services inflation could complicate the pathway forward for interest rates.
Services inflation recorded its largest annual rise since 2001, lifting to 6.3 per cent in the June quarter from 6.1 per cent in March.
Ms Marquardt said this highlighted a shift from 12 months ago when goods were the major inflation drivers.
"Price increases for a range of services like rents, restaurant meals, child care and insurance are keeping inflation high," she said.
EY economist Cherelle Murphy said the quarterly profile mattered more, with services inflation cooling gradually in the past three quarters.
She said the data suggested the dozen rate hikes fired off since May last year were working as planned to bring down inflation.
"But with inflation still far above the RBA's ... target band and some ongoing upside risks to wages and food prices, we are not out of the danger zone yet," she said.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers welcomed the decelerating inflation.
"We'd like to see it moderate faster but we are making welcome progress in this fight against inflation."
He said the government had a three-point plan to combat the challenge - banking its oversized budget surplus, providing targeted cost of living relief and addressing supply-side challenges.
Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said the government needed to treat fighting inflation as its "first, second and third priority".
"There are many levers at the government's disposal," he said.
"This is not a job to be left to the RBA."
The monthly inflation gauge, which was released at the same time, rose 5.4 per cent in the 12 months to June.
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A former deputy principal has been jailed after sending sexually explicit chats to undercover police he thought was a 14-year-old teenage girl.
In sentencing Damian Scott Wanstall on Wednesday, Judge Andrew Colefax asked how as a father he could discuss sexual acts and arrange to meet up with someone so young for that purpose.
"You're a parent yourself Mr Wanstall. How do you imagine parents would react to knowing that their 14-year-old daughter was being preyed upon by a man like you? Because that's what you were doing," he said in Parramatta District Court.
The 49-year-old was sprung by undercover police on December 7, 2020 after posting an online classified advertisement under the heading: "Any legal Indian or Filo teens want fun."
The ad read: "40yo Aussie daddy seeking sexy play this weekend. Will reward. Can host discreetly Rouse Hill".
Arriving at what he thought was the meet-up point in the Sydney suburb of Westmead with $200 in his pocket, he was greeted by sex crimes officers who arrested him.
Wanstall has been sentenced to a maximum prison term of three years and seven months, expiring on December 16, 2026.
His non-parole period will be two years, expiring on May 16, 2025.
Judge Colefax rejected Wanstall's claims he was drunk while texting the purported teen as he had sent the messages on a Thursday and Friday during work hours while presumably at school and not drinking.
Submissions he had placed the original ad as "bait" to rekindle his relationship with his former partner or make her jealous were also dismissed.
The judge found the offending - one charge of using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 for sexual activity - was in the mid-range of seriousness.
"On this occasion, something that is part of you, that is a sexual interest in young people below the age of consent emerged," Judge Colefax said.
"But for the fact it was an online assumed personality, you would have carried through what it was you had intended to do."
The chats were not a one-off event but consisted of dozens of texts, some sexually explicit, over several days.
"It wasn't spontaneous, it wasn't spur of the moment, it was protracted over days with numerous communications between you and the child," Judge Colefax said.
Wanstall had also changed his story over time, the judge noted, and had originally told the Local Court in January 2023 he was a victim of a police sting which had been misled by officers.
The 49-year-old had showed no remorse or insight into his offending.
A 10 per cent discount was added to the sentence for Wanstall's late guilty plea made four weeks before his trial was set to begin.
The judge rejected claims media coverage of the case amounted to extra-curial punishment, saying publications on the case had been accurate.
"The media had a proper and responsible interest in reporting that a person in your position had been charged with such an offence," he said.
Wanstall, who hugged his family outside court before the sentence, was taken away by police officers.
The charge he was jailed for carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.
A spokesperson from the NSW Department of Education said Wanstall had been dismissed immediately once convicted.
"Any government school staff member convicted of a sexual offence against a child or young person will not be able to work in any government school as they will be placed on the Department of Education's Not To Be Employed list," they said.
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Social media giant Meta and subsidiaries have copped $20 million in fines after an app that claimed to protect personal information was found to have collected user data for commercial purposes.
Onavo Protect was a free mobile app made available by Meta that provided a virtual private network service which claimed to "keep you and your data safe online" and give users "peace of mind when you browse" according to its App Store listing.
The app, which had been downloaded more than 270,000 times in Australia, also told users their data would not be used for any purpose other than providing Onavo Protect's products.
But in 2020, the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission took Facebook Israel Ltd and its subsidiaries to court after it found Meta had collected significant amounts of user information for its own commercial benefit between February 2016 and October 2017.
In a judgment handed down on Wednesday, Federal Court Justice Wendy Abraham found the company's conduct was likely to mislead or deceive Australian consumers and fined the social media conglomerate $20m - $10m to Facebook and $10m to Onavo.
Meta also agreed to pay $400,000 for the ACCC's legal costs.
The consumer watchdog found Onavo Protect tracked users' online activity, taking records of every app they accessed and the exact number of seconds spent on each app, alongside information about their device and location data based on IP addresses.
If Onavo Protect users had a Facebook account, Meta could combine the data from both sources and learn "nearly everything they are doing on their mobile device".
Meta used the information, which had been anonymised and aggregated, for advertising and marketing activities such as identifying future acquisition targets and developing business strategies.
ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said the commission was concerned consumers seeking to protect their privacy through a virtual private network "were not clearly told that they were actually facilitating the use of their data for Meta's commercial benefit".
"We believe Australian consumers should be able to make an informed choice about what happens to their data," she said after the court decision on Wednesday.
While the app technically revealed the ways it would use consumer data, these disclosures were nestled in the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which Justice Abraham found was "not sufficiently prominent or proximate" compared to the claims made about data protection in its app store listings.
However, she ultimately decided the assertions were "not deliberately misleading" and found no evidence that any senior management at Meta were involved in the contravening conduct.
A spokesperson from Meta said user data protection was important to the company and maintained Onavo Protect had properly functioned as an online security tool.
"Protecting the privacy and security of people's data is fundamental to how Meta's business works," Meta said in a statement.
"Over the last several years, we have built tools to give people more transparency and control over how their data is used and we design every new product and feature with privacy in mind."
The Federal Court's decision comes almost a year after Meta agreed to pay $1.1 billion for providing political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica access to data from as many as 87 million Facebook users, on top of previous billion-dollar penalties.
The Australian Information Commissioner earlier this year sued the company for breaching the privacy of 311,000 Australian users.
The Onavo Protect app is no longer available on the App Store or Google Play Store.
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A former deputy principal has been sent off to jail after sending protracted sexually explicit chats to someone he thought was a 14-year-old teenage girl.
In sentencing Damian Scott Wanstall on Wednesday, Judge Andrew Colefax asked how as a father, he could discuss sexual acts and arrange to meet up with someone so young for that purpose.
"You're a parent yourself Mr Wanstall. How do you imagine parents would react to knowing that their 14-year-old daughter was being preyed upon by a man like you? Because that's what you were doing," he said in Parramatta District Court.
The 49-year-old was sprung by undercover police on December 7, 2020 after posting an online classified advertisement under the heading: "Any legal Indian or Filo teens want fun."
The ad read: "40yo Aussie daddy seeking sexy play this weekend. Will reward. Can host discreetly Rouse Hill".
Arriving at what he thought was the meet-up point in the Sydney suburb of Westmead with $200 in his pocket, he was greeted by sex crimes officers who placed him under arrest.
Wanstall has been sentenced to a maximum prison term of three years and seven months, expiring on December 16, 2026.
His non-parole period will be two years, expiring on May 16, 2025.
In handing down his judgment, Judge Colefax rejected Wanstall's claims he was drunk while texting the purported teen as he had sent the messages on a Thursday and Friday during work hours while presumably at school and not drinking.
Submissions he had placed the original ad as "bait" to rekindle his relationship with his former partner or make her jealous were also dismissed.
The judge found the offending - one charge of using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 for sexual activity - was in the mid-range of seriousness.
"On this occasion, something that is part of you, that is a sexual interest in young people below the age of consent emerged," Judge Colefax said.
"But for the fact it was an online assumed personality, you would have carried through what it was you had intended to do."
The chats were not a one-off event but rather consisted of dozens of texts, some sexually explicit, over several days.
"It wasn't spontaneous, it wasn't spur of the moment, it was protracted over days with numerous communications between you and the child," Judge Colefax said.
Wanstall had also changed his story over time, the judge noted, and had originally told the Local Court in January 2023 that he was a victim of a police sting which had been misled by officers.
The 49-year-old had showed no remorse or insight into his offending.
A 10 per cent discount was added to the sentence for Wanstall's late guilty plea made four weeks before his trial was set to begin.
The judge rejected claims media coverage of the case amounted to extra-curial punishment, saying publications on the case had been accurate.
"The media had a proper and responsible interest in reporting that a person in your position had been charged with such an offence," he said.
Wanstall, who hugged his family outside court before the sentence, was taken away by police officers.
The charge the 49-year-old was jailed for carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.
© AAP 2023
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