Antipode & ex-polyglot - Art Director & Communication Designer
Melbourne
Joined April 2009
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Iben Blom retweeted
When public servants give evidence in a public hearing, about jobs that the public pays them to do, their answers should be direct, unambiguous, and detailed. That is the contract between the public and government. Any suggestion otherwise goes against that agreement.
Iben Blom retweeted
This is what they are doing.
This is what the data matching is about.
It’s why the NDIS is a ‘trial’ for Palantir.
It’s why disability is under Health now.
Joined up data. The newly rebadged My Health Record. All of it.
bmj.com/content/393/bmj.s929
In the UK, it’s recently been leaked that #palantir has unlimited access to all the public health records in the UK.
And if this NDIS Amendment Bill goes through on Monday, it’ll be coming to you.
You see this post about the NDIA and - Palantir? Two words I never thought I'd see in the same sentence, but here we are.
A bit of an explainer for those who aren't aware of the background.
In 2023 the then COO of the NDIA, Sam Porter, took a personal meeting with the Australian President of Palantir. Palantir is the American spy tech firm that runs the software behind ICE deportations, the Israeli military targeting system in Gaza, and every prisoner file in Victoria's jails. Peter Thiel is the co-founder. That Palantir.
Sam Porter's words to them, in the FOI: "I'd appreciate the opportunity to get together for a demo, particularly to hear about your work in the insurance and healthcare space."
Insurance and healthcare. Us.
The NDIA's own security architect, Chris, flagged that Palantir did not have an IRAP assessment. That is the basic govt tick a box for touching Australian data. The meeting went ahead anyway. Then the pitch moved from fraud detection to payments transformation and SAP. You know, like they plan to deliver in the new Bill, which enables this?
In November 2025 Palantir cleared IRAP at Protected level. Which is the level participant files sit at.
Now have a look at what has been built since.
$83.9 million to the NDIA in 2024 for 'fraud case management', 'claims assessment' and 'identity proofing'. That is Palantir Foundry's exact product page.
$358.5 million in the 2026 Budget for a new NDIS digital enrolment and payment system, live 1 July 2026.
The Integrity and Safeguarding Act 2026 gives the NDIA the power to make claiming electronic only. No electronic ID, no payment. No payment, no support.
Participants are already being told they must accept myID binding, biometrics, behavioural monitoring, liability waivers and overseas data sharing to view our own plan. To view it. On a screen.
Providers move to myID and RAM by September 2026. Micro providers and disabled-led services without a passport get locked out. And after this Bill goes through, it means a hard no to small business, block funding to megaproviders like Aruma and the private equity funded Big Disability orgs like Aidacare (led by former NDIS CEO Martin Hoffman) and a tidy link between our personal data, myGov, the Feds and American spy tech bros. As well as data sharing between Australian government depts.
24 agencies in the Fraud Fusion Taskforce sharing data about us, between themselves. NDIA, Services Australia, ATO, ACIC, AFP, AUSTRAC, the NDIS Commission. AUSTRAC has used Palantir since 2017. The Future Fund holds $100 million in Palantir shares.
How will they use it? Well, I am guessing that we are the guineapigs for the rest of you, because it is no coincidence that ATO's John Dardo was employed in this role. It's all - again - about payment clawback.
This is not just about the disabled. Because remember, they are calling this a 'pilot'.
So what should have happened before the NDIA opened its door to an American company built to join data, find patterns and point state power at people?
Before Palantir got a meeting, the Agency should have published a privacy and human rights impact assessment, mapped every data flow it was thinking about, put the procurement on the table, and tested any of it with disabled people, independent tech people and Parliament. None of that happened.
Instead the Bill now sitting in the Senate hands the NDIA search, entry, seizure and forced-answer powers under Schedule 2, new sections 73ZSA to 73ZSE. It lets computer programs make decisions with the CEO's authority under Schedule 3, sections 59B to 59E, and section 59E(3) says an automated decision still stands even if the safeguards were not followed.
It turns needs assessment into a set of capped budget cells under Schedule 4, sections 32K and 32L, where a rule can tell the assessor what they are allowed to see. It quietly removes review rights under Schedule 1, sections 48, 99 and 100, and under new section 34A a Ministerial cut to your funding is not a reviewable decision at all.
Told you this was all about illegal durries and spying on the general public. Hah.
Parliament cannot hand a Commonwealth agency this much machinery while the Palantir question is still unanswered and hope a commercial contract will put back the rights the Act takes out. The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 must be rejected.
The Royal Commission into *this* is going to make #Robodebt look like teatime at the CWA.
@senatorpennyqld @SenatorPayman @SophieScamps @Mon4Kooyong @DavidShoebridge @MichaelWestBiz @crikey_news @SatPaper @westaustralian @australian @SkyNews
Iben Blom retweeted
The fact that Nick doesn't have 8 bajillion followers is clear evidence to me that this platform is irrevocably broken. All dude does is slog through the jungle studying and photographing the wildest animals imaginable, producing REAL content AI slop peddlers could only dream of.
Iben Blom retweeted
The spooks have taken over the asylum.
“ABC people get replaced by non-ABC people — and sooner rather than later we have Sinophobic news specials with moody music, too much airtime wasted on Hughsey, Sandilands and Stefanovic, and a repellent tabloid shimmer can be seen on the once mighty public broadcaster.”
theshot.net.au/uncategorized…
Iben Blom retweeted
“He leased an Australian port to China, then took $880,000 a year from the buyer.”
ANDREW ROBB / PORT OF DARWIN
A Trade Minister signed off a 99-year lease of an Australian port to a Chinese company. The day before he left politics, that same company put him on $880,000 a year.
This one’s been on the public record for years, and it still stops me cold every time.
In 2015, Andrew Robb was the federal Trade Minister. On his watch, the Port of Darwin was leased to Landbridge Group, controlled by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, a member of the CPPCC, an advisory body to the Chinese Communist Party. The lease runs 99 years.
On 1 July 2016, the day before the federal election, with Robb on his way out of Parliament, Landbridge began paying him a consultancy worth $880,000 a year. The terms: $73,000 a month for “strategic advice.” No specified deliverables. Thirty days’ notice to end it.
The ministerial standards say a former minister should wait eighteen months before cashing in on their portfolio. Robb waited zero days. He took roughly $2 million from Landbridge before quitting the arrangement in 2019, just ahead of the new foreign-influence register that would have required him to declare it.
I’m not alleging a crime. No crime has been found, and I’m not a court. What I’m pointing at is the structure: the decision in office, the beneficiary, the destination after office, the timing. Lease the port, leave the Parliament, bank the money. All legal. That’s exactly what should worry you.
This is what “legal corruption” looks like in Australia. Not envelopes of cash. A consultancy contract, signed on the way out the door, from the company you just did the favour for.
Cold hard facts. Sourced. Corrected when wrong.
Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺
Sources — check it yourself
- Michael West Media: michaelwest.com.au/andrew-ro…
- The Canberra Times (leaked contract, judge’s assessment): canberratimes.com.au/story/6…
- Originally: ABC Four Corners + Fairfax/SMH, June 2017 (Nick McKenzie reporting)
Iben Blom retweeted
Sometimes I get in a funk and feel like I’m treading water with my work. It’s hard to see progress every day.
Then I look at some of what I’ve done and ask myself… would 2017 Andrew think this was cool?
If so… I think I’m doing alright.
Iben Blom retweeted
Congratulations @MichaelWestBiz for 10 years of courageous journalism - a champion of independent media. 350 supporters celebrated his achievement last last - whistleblowers from all over Australia, journalists, politicians and supporters of press freedom, truth and justice.
Iben Blom retweeted
It seems old folk are being charged for stuff they can’t use. Is there no end to people’s greed?
— First Dog on the Moon
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
Iben Blom retweeted
Greenland Institute of Natural Resources
Suspends New Cooperation with the United States
The Natural Resources Institute has decided to halt all new collaborations and travel involving the United States. Instead, it is shifting its focus toward cooperation within the Kingdom of Denmark and with European countries.
The Director of the Natural Resources Institute, Josephine Nymand, says the institute will no longer enter into new partnerships with the United States.
She previously served as Chair of the Research Council, where she worked to strengthen scientific cooperation with Greenland's western neighbor.
Since then, the situation has changed significantly—particularly after January, when the United States spent an extended period refusing to rule out taking over the country by military force.
"We have collaborations that were established before all of this happened. We will continue those because they involve researchers we have worked with for many years and whom we trust," says Josephine Nymand.
"—However, we are not entering into new agreements or projects with U.S. partners whom we do not already know."
In recent weeks, KNR has reported that the alleged influence agent Tom Dans has become Chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission.
This has prompted warnings from two prominent research figures: U.S. affairs expert Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard from the Danish Institute for International Studies, and Marianne Holmer, Chair of Denmark's Research Committee and a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Josephine Nymand explains that only a few months ago, Tom Dans attended a conference in Aarhus where the Natural Resources Institute was also present.
She says the institute was aware of his whereabouts throughout the event so that its representatives could avoid interacting with him.
Break with the United States
It is not only new research partnerships that have been suspended. The Natural Resources Institute has also halted all travel to the United States.
"We have instructed our staff and researchers that, as a general rule, they should not travel to the United States for conferences, meetings, research, or similar activities."
According to Josephine Nymand, there are several reasons why cooperation with the United States is no longer considered appropriate.
One reason, she explains, is that the Trump administration has censored certain research because it contained terminology that did not align with its views on diversity.
—KNR
My body, my choice. This should be a given. Surely?
𝐖𝐎𝐖: 🇩🇰 Denmark is the first European country to make your face, voice, and body, your intellectual property.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Denmark has proposed but not enacted a law granting individuals intellectual property rights over their face, voice, and body. theguardian.com/technology/202… globallawexperts.com/denmark-deepfa… kum.dk/aktuelt/nyhede…
Iben Blom retweeted
“I work the front desk at a small doctor’s office, and I wish people could see what happens on the other side of the phone.
Every day, older patients call us confused.
They are told to use the patient portal, upload documents, check lab results online, fill out forms before the visit, and confirm everything through a link.
Some of them do not know what a portal is.
Some do not have a smartphone.
Some have one, but they are afraid to click the wrong thing.
Last week, a man in his late 80s called about his test results.
He said, “Ma’am, I don’t mean to bother you, but the computer says I have a message and I don’t know how to open it.”
He sounded ashamed.
That broke my heart.
He should not have to feel ashamed for needing a human being.
Technology can be helpful. I understand that.
But when people who built this country are made to feel helpless because everything became a login and a password, we have gone too far.
Not everything needs to be an app.
Not every answer should be hidden behind a screen.
Sometimes people need a voice.
A patient person.
A real human who says, “Don’t worry, I can help you.”
Progress should not leave seniors behind.
Because one day, the world will move faster than us too.
And I hope someone is kind enough to slow down.
~Unknown
Iben Blom retweeted
The human species has essentially been transformed into a giant profit-generating machine for corporations.
Under capitalism, humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders.
That’s why everyone’s so unhappy. We’re not living with purpose. We’re not working together to build a better world and a better future, we’re just pulling levers to turn gears to make the arrow line go up on the graph in the conference room. It’s a hollow, pointless way for people to live.
It makes our whole culture vapid and soulless.
Music is made to be as profitable as possible, which means giving it the broadest possible appeal using formulaic song structure calculated to cause a chemical response in the largest number of human brains.
Movies are designed to draw the largest possible box office revenue at the lowest possible risk to studios and investors, often by just rehashing a movie that’s already proven successful in the past or by slapping together a story about an IP with pre-existing mass appeal.
Food is made to be fast and addictive rather than nourishing.
Healthy human connection has been commodified as social media intertwines with friendships and dating apps insert themselves into the development of romantic relationships.
Human sexuality is being warped and twisted as internet porn normalizes violence and degradation for the maximum number of clicks.
Attention and engagement have been monetized, creating an information ecosystem dominated by conflict and gossip designed to appeal to our baser instincts.
Advertisement is injected into every possible corner of our waking sensory experience, with any available space where the eye might rest or the ear might listen being flooded with psychological manipulation compelling us to consume. They’ll start running commercials in our dreams the instant they have the technology to do so.
You spend eight hours at the office working to generate corporate profits, then you come home and consume products to profit other corporations. You need your beer and snacks to unwind, your streaming services and social media to distract your mind from the stress of it all, your online clothing purchase to try to feel good about yourself, and your prescription drugs to get to sleep at night. People live their entire lives like this.
And that’s those of us who are lucky enough to be living in the global north. In the global south you get wage slavery and exploitation with far more toil, far less relaxation time, and no cheap products made by impoverished workers on other continents with which to comfort yourself.
All of humanity has been roped into this mess. And for what? To make the numbers in some bank accounts increase. To get some green arrows pointing upward on the stock exchange. To enable a few billionaires to buy islands and elections.
All while destroying the biosphere we all depend on for survival.
This, we are told, is the best possible system we could possibly be living under.
I personally do not believe this is true. I personally believe we can have better. Those who benefit from this current arrangement are going to assure us it’s impossible and do everything they can to stop us from changing it, but we do have the means to reclaim the wealth, dignity and happiness that they have stolen from us.
They built this whole machine on our backs. All we need to do is stand up.
Iben Blom retweeted
Big shout out to @DavidShoebridge who is doing a absolutely sterling job atm 👍👏🙏