The Australian market will be one of the happier hunting grounds for vendors seeking sales growth in 2010, with local IT spending budgets increases significantly higher than the global average, according to research group Ovum.

Consumers are putting themselves at risk of identity theft by listing too much information on social networking sites, the Australian Federal Police have warned.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has reversed a decision to allow beef imports from countries previously known to have been affected by BSE - more commonly known as mad cow disease - pending a full risk analysis of the policy.

The Rudd Government's 'trust me' approach to spending on its $43 billion National Broadband Network is starting to appear genuinely ridiculous.

Under the full glare of a Federal parliamentary inquiry, the newly-created political party Gamers4Croydon have accused the Australian Christian Lobby of lying, using selective research, and "unfounded emotional arguments," in its campaign against the introduction of an R18+ games classification.

The problems small and medium sized Australian companies face in winning Commonwealth IT contracts are as perennial as the grass. Two and a half years into a three year term and the Rudd Government solution is the appointment of a "respected industry figure" to "provide leadership."

The NBN Company has engaged the premium global consulting giant Accenture to deliver basic outsourced human resources services to employees.

A densely populated suburb in Melbourne, a Queensland coastal town and an outlying semi-rural residential area near Adelaide are among five sites around the nation selected as test-beds for the roll-out of mainland fibre for the National Broadband Network.

The Rudd Government is to appoint Commonwealth Ombudsman and Australian National University professor John McMillan to the newly created role of information commissioner to oversee its freedom of information and privacy regimes.

South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon is seeking a meeting with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to pursue the appointment of an online ombudsman to oversee complaints about content on mass-market social networking sites.