Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Gilbert, Professor of Finance, Auckland University of Technology

As well as checking the news for updates on events in the Middle East, many New Zealanders are also nervously checking their KiwiSaver balances.

What they see is more than a snapshot of their own savings, it’s a window onto world events – in particular the rough ride stock markets are having as the price of oil spikes because of the US-Israeli attack on Iran.

Oil, for better or worse, is the lifeblood of the global economy, a crucial ingredient in many products and the fuel that moves goods around the planet.

A reduction in supply – or even the expectation of reduction – pushes oil prices up. Since the Iran crisis, it has risen from around US$60 per barrel to more than $100, with some analysts saying it could reach $150.

When transport costs rise, prices rise with them and inflation and interest rates follow. Households spend less, businesses sell fewer goods and services, and potentially cut jobs.

Lower economic activity means lower company profits. Higher interest rates reduce future growth. When geopolitical crises erupt, investors become nervous and demand a higher return for taking risk.

Put those forces together and the result is usually the same: falling share prices. Because KiwiSaver funds are heavily invested in local and global share markets, many New Zealanders are likely seeing their balances fall as well.

Take the long view

So what should KiwiSaver investors do? Nothing – seriously. If watching your balance drop is causing anxiety, the best response might simply be to stop looking. But it’s also important to remember stock markets are resilient beasts.

This is not the first time markets have faced an oil shock. The 1973–74 OPEC oil crisis led to fuel rationing, soaring inflation and economic disruption not seen since the 1920s.

Stock markets around the world – including in New Zealand – felt that pain, with the Dow Jones and the NZ share market both falling by roughly 40%.

But markets recovered. Returns remained weak for much of the 1970s, but over the following decades global share markets went from strength to strength.

The first Gulf War in 1990 had a similar, though smaller, effect: rising oil prices, higher inflation and falling share prices. Once again, markets eventually recovered.

For most of us, KiwiSaver is a long-term investment. Even if you are approaching retirement, most people will live several decades beyond it. Unless you need the money today, what happens in markets this month matters far less than what happens over the next ten or 20 years.

On that timescale, the current crisis will likely be a blip that barely registers. Even the pain of the 1970s barely stands out when you look at a 100-year chart of the S&P 500 index against its long upward climb.

Volatility – like we are seeing now – is the price investors pay for higher expected returns in the long run. It is felt most by investors in “growth” and “aggressive” KiwiSaver funds, which are heavily invested in shares.

But those higher-risk funds have historically produced higher returns. Since KiwiSaver was introduced in 2007, investors have lived through the global financial crisis, COVID, trade wars and a period of very high inflation. Each caused markets to fall and created uncertainty for investors.

Yet the cumulative return on a typical KiwiSaver growth fund since 2007 is around 240% – far higher than could have been earned in safer investments over the same period.

The upside of volatility

Volatility is our friend when it comes to investing. It just doesn’t feel good while we are experiencing it. In fact, falling markets can sometimes help long-term investors.

KiwiSaver contributions are invested regularly – usually every payday. Most funds invest those contributions immediately rather than trying to guess the “best” time to enter the market.

That is probably a good thing, because there is little evidence that fund managers can reliably time the market.

When prices are high, your contributions buy fewer shares. When prices fall, the same contribution buys more.

Consider a KiwiSaver member contributing around $100 a month. If your fund was to invest in a single company with a share price of $10, you can would buy ten shares. If the next month the price falls to $5, that same $100 buys 20 shares.

When prices eventually recover – as they usually do – you benefit from owning more shares than you otherwise would have.

This process is known as “dollar-cost averaging”, and it underpins one of the most reliable sayings in finance: it is not timing the market that matters, but time in the market.

Despite all the gloomy predictions and short-term pain right now, for KiwiSaver investors this is largely background noise.

And let’s face it, if global share markets ever did collapse permanently, leaving KiwiSaver balances worthless, retirement savings would probably be the least of our concerns.

– ref. The Iran crisis is hitting KiwiSaver balances – but market volatility can work for you too – https://theconversation.com/the-iran-crisis-is-hitting-kiwisaver-balances-but-market-volatility-can-work-for-you-too-278297

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Seymour, PhD Candidate in International Relations, Nottingham Trent University

In the two weeks since the US and Israeli strikes on Iran began, Donald Trump’s war aims have fluctuated between crippling Iranian military capabilities and toppling the regime that has ruled there since 1979. But despite the success of the initial strikes, which killed the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, many analysts believe that air power alone will not be sufficient to bring about regime change.

They say this objective would be impossible to achieve without combat troops on the ground, a move that most US military and political leaders have long opposed. Instead, one idea that seems to be circulating in Washington is to support an invasion by armed Kurdish groups in Iraq and western Iran to destabilise the Islamic Republic from within.

Trump publicly backed away from this idea on March 6, telling reporters: “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran … The war is complicated enough as it is.” But, given Trump’s trademark inconsistency and the unpredictable nature of this conflict, an armed Kurdish uprising remains a distinct possibility. Such a scenario could have consequences that extend far beyond Iran.

The Kurds are an ethnic group with their own language and culture who have lived in a mountainous area of the Middle East for centuries. Nowadays, they number around 30 million and live in a region that spans parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. The Kurds are widely considered to be the world’s largest stateless people because they do not have a country of their own.

This situation dates to the end of the first world war, when the Ottoman empire collapsed. Kurdish leaders at that time hoped to establish their own state, having lived for 400 years under Ottoman rule. But instead their homeland was divided between several new countries that emerged from the defeated Ottoman state. This left Kurdish communities split across international borders.

Around 10% of Iran’s population is Kurdish and many live in the country’s north-west near the borders of Iraq and Turkey. The Kurdish region of Iran has long been the least economically developed part of the country and Kurdish political parties are outlawed. Armed Kurdish groups have periodically clashed with the Iranian state, demanding greater autonomy or independence.

The Kurdish question is even more sensitive in Turkey, which is home to the largest population of Kurds in the world. Since 1984, the Turkish state has been locked in conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), an armed group that has fought to establish an independent Kurdish state. This conflict has killed more than 40,000 people in the past four decades.

For the Turkish government, the possibility that the US may support Kurdish fighters in neighbouring Iran is therefore not just a foreign policy issue. Turkish leaders worry that strengthening Kurdish armed groups elsewhere in the region could embolden similar movements inside Turkey itself.

In the recent past, Turkey has launched military incursions into the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria. It has also fought a brutal counterinsurgency against PKK fighters inside its own borders. These actions show how strongly Turkish leaders oppose any notion of Kurdish independence anywhere in the region.

American support for Kurdish fighters has caused tension between the US and Turkey in the past. Turkey strongly opposed the partnership between Washington and Syrian Kurdish forces during the fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria in the late 2010s. It argued that some of these Kurdish groups were linked to the PKK.

Turkey’s relations with Israel have also been strained by the Kurdish question. The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has accused the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of undermining the transitional Syrian government by aiding Kurdish groups there. The Kurdish issue has clearly become a major source of tension between Turkey, a key member of the Nato alliance, and the west.

So far, Turkey has largely remained neutral in the Iran war. Despite their regional rivalry, Turkish and Iranian leaders share concerns about Kurdish separatist movements and have sometimes cooperated to contain them. In the past, security forces from both countries have coordinated efforts against Kurdish militant groups operating along their shared border.

Turkish and Iranian officials have also exchanged intelligence and carried out military operations against Kurdish fighters moving between the two countries. And both governments strongly opposed the 2017 referendum on independence that was held by the Kurds in northern Iraq. Over 92% of votes were cast in favour of independence.

Iranian regime change

For Turkey, the collapse or fragmentation of the Iranian state would be deeply worrying. It could create exactly the conditions Turkish leaders fear most: armed Kurdish groups operating across a much longer and more unstable border.

Another concern is the possibility of a new refugee crisis. Turkey already hosts nearly 4 million Syrians following the civil war that began there in 2011 – the largest refugee population in the world. This has become a major political issue inside Turkey.

If conflict or state collapse in Iran – a larger and even more politically complex state than Syria – triggers large-scale displacement, many more refugees could head west towards Turkey. Such a scenario would place considerable political and economic pressure on the government.

Washington may see the Kurds as a useful way to confront the Iranian regime without deploying American troops. But such a strategy could create new tensions elsewhere in the region. For Turkey, Kurdish militancy is not simply a foreign policy issue but a core national security concern.

If the Iran war ends up empowering Kurdish armed groups or destabilising Turkey’s border, Erdoğan may yet feel compelled to respond. This could open up another front in an already expanding regional conflict.

– ref. Why the next escalation in the Iran conflict could be between the US and Turkey – https://theconversation.com/why-the-next-escalation-in-the-iran-conflict-could-be-between-the-us-and-turkey-278341

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Willis, Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

I teach a course on AI and filmmaking at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and lately, rather than planning each session well in advance, I’ve been structuring the class the night before. I’ll browse platforms like X, Substack and YouTube, selecting the most provocative articles and video clips to present the following morning.

It’s a testament to how quickly artificial intelligence’s relationship to filmmaking is evolving: Each week brings new – often startling – developments.

The next morning in class, my students and I debate the ethics, aesthetics and the storytelling changes taking place in these collaborations with AI.

And we’re not alone: Throughout Hollywood, everyone – aspiring actors and filmmakers, stars, screenwriters and studio execs – seems to have a take on what’s coming next. But I think three trends in particular are going to be hot topics of conversation at this year’s Oscars parties.

Nothing uncanny about this clip

In February 2026, a 15-second AI-generated video clip of Tom Cruise battling Brad Pitt on a burned-out highway overpass went viral.

Depending on the viewer, the video elicited either admiration, outrage or existential hand-wringing.

Created by Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson via a generative-AI tool called Seedance 2.0, the video marked yet another milestone in the propulsive growth of AI tools.

Seedance 2.0 – which was developed by ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok – is now one of the many AI tools available to create short-form video clips. But unlike most AI-generated videos, Pitt and Cruise don’t look creepy, uncanny or animated in the clip, which almost perfectly mimics live-action footage. The appearance of two A-list stars in a fairly realistic scene created by a relatively unknown director using stolen likenesses jolted the industry.

The backlash was swift. Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that the video was generated from a dataset that most likely includes Disney’s copyrighted characters. The actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, pointed to the video’s “blatant infringement” of the actors’ likenesses, as well as their voices.

“SAG-AFTRA stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by Bytedance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0,” the guild wrote in a statement. This practice, the guild added, “undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood,” while disregarding “law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent.”

In class, after watching the video, we explored the ethics of using someone’s likeness without permission, the challenges facing actors who build careers based on their unique ability to embody characters, and what the future holds for our understanding of acting.

If filmmakers can prompt fake actors to deliver precise performances, where does that leave human actors?

In with the old

Since 2023, the skyline of the Las Vegas strip has been dominated by an illuminated orb called the Sphere: an entertainment complex featuring a 360-degree LED screen covering 160,000 square feet (14,864 square meters). The Sphere recently surpassed 2 million tickets sold for a reimagining of the classic 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.”

The film, which premiered in August 2024, was shortened, its color was enhanced, and it was stretched to expand across the interior of the dome. AI was used to transfer the imagery from the film’s original, modest aspect ratio to the giant dome. This required generating new imagery around the edges of the original shots in what’s known as “AI outpainting.” The technology was also deployed to boost the original film’s resolution and to enhance certain scenes.

Some critics fretted that this fairly radical augmentation of the original classic would offend viewers. Instead, it has drawn them in droves to the Sphere, where they’ve been willing to shell out between US$100 and $200 per ticket.

Not bad for a movie about a girl from Kansas made in 1939.

Given the resounding success of “The Wizard of Oz,” experts expect producers to plumb the film archives for other potential hits and enhance them with AI before screening them in venues as varied as IMAX theaters and Cosm, another 360-degree dome with locations in Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta.

Or AI can simply be used to create material that was never completed for a historic film.

In fact, The New Yorker recently profiled AI media entrepreneur Edward Saatchi, who is working to recreate and reincorporate lost footage from Orson Welles’ 1942 feature “The Magnificent Ambersons.” While Welles was in Brazil shooting a documentary, executives at RKO Radio Pictures reedited the film without his approval after a poor preview screening. They cut around 45 minutes, replaced the original ending with a happier one and destroyed most of the footage that had been removed.

Saatchi’s idea is to build a dataset that includes the existing film, as well as scripts, notes, images and even new performances by actors. Then he plans to use his AI platform, Showrunner, to create new scenes from this data.

While Saatchi hopes to honor the director’s creative vision by producing the film he originally intended, his efforts open up some thorny questions.

Is it appropriate to take an existing artwork and revise it without the creator’s input? Isn’t there something sacrosanct about a film, the intentions of the director and the performances of the actors in a film’s original form? To what extent should these questions be overlooked if refashioning old movies will introduce them to new audiences?

Fewer opportunities?

There’s also an undercurrent of anxiety in my classes. What will happen, my students often wonder, once they graduate?

They’re worried that within a year or two, AI will have replaced entry-level film industry jobs, from concept artists to apprentice-level editors, before they’ve even had a chance to enter the workforce.

They have reason to fear.

In 2024, the Animation Guild published a sobering report claiming that by 2026, “creative workers will be facing an era of disruption, defined by the consolidation of some job roles, the replacement of existing job roles with new ones, and the elimination of many jobs entirely.”

Some of those predictions have borne out: 41,000 jobs in film and television have disappeared in Los Angeles County alone over the past three years.

But I’ve tried to counter the hard statistics with some stories of thoughtful practices.

For example, filmmaker Paul Trillo at the AI studio Asteria has talked about how he seeks to keep artists at the center of the process. When he detailed the company’s work on a music video for the singer-songwriter Cuco, he was keen to highlight the number of artists working on the project. Yes, AI tools were used. But they were integrated in a way that replaced the tedious work, not the creative practice.

“Rather than removing [artists] from the process, it actually allowed them to do a lot more so a small team can dream a lot bigger,” Trillo explains at the end of the video.

In January 2026, the management consulting firm McKinsey published a report that largely echoes Trillo’s positive outlook. It forecasts more adoption of AI throughout the industry. But it also points to ways that the technology could lead to different kinds of work and open up new possibilities. For example, as AI-generated scenes become commonplace, studios will need technicians who know how to blend real footage with digitally created worlds. And as AI lowers the cost of producing polished films and shows, it could allow more “micro-studios” and independent filmmakers to create professional-quality content.

At the same time, the report also quotes a studio executive who concedes that AI could represent “a more significant platform shift than we have ever seen before in our industry.”

So it’s no wonder my students, along with varied critics, commentators and industry professionals, are nervous.

However, from where I stand, I’m convinced that the industry will weather this radical disruption. It’s adapted to big changes in the past: the addition of sound in the 1920s, the threat posed by videotape in the 1980s and streaming in the 2000s.

In the end, people will always crave new, artfully told stories. While the filmmaking tools and job market may be in transition, that core need for storytelling is not going away.

– ref. As the Oscars approach, Hollywood grapples with AI’s growing influence on filmmaking – https://theconversation.com/as-the-oscars-approach-hollywood-grapples-with-ais-growing-influence-on-filmmaking-273766

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ricketson, Professor of Communication, Deakin University

Does the world need another biography of Rupert Murdoch? It depends what it has to say and who has written it.

Bonfire of the Murdochs, by journalist Gabriel Sherman, looks promising. He made his name with an exhaustively researched biography of long-running Fox News head and serial sexual harasser, Roger Ailes. The Loudest Voice in the Room (2014) has 98 pages of endnotes and a team of three fact-checkers. It was made into a series starring Russell Crowe as Ailes. Sherman was also the screenwriter of Donald Trump biopic, The Apprentice, which Trump fought hard to prevent being screened.

Promising credentials, yes, but what does Sherman add to the eight Murdoch biographies already published?

Review: Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman (Simon & Schuster).

The first was Simon Regan’s business-oriented biography published in 1976. It has been forgotten, but not so George Munster’s A Paper Prince (1985), which laid out Murdoch’s deal-making modus operandi, nor William Shawcross’ 1992 semi-authorised work, which charted Murdoch’s creation of the first global media empire.

Michael Wolff’s The Man Who Owns the News (2008) painted the most vivid portrait of the Australian born media mogul. Flushed with the success of buying The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch agreed to more than 50 hours of interviews with Wolff and opened the doors of his notoriously secretive media empire to the Vanity Fair media columnist.

Wolff did report the Wall Street Journal takeover in detail, but he also retailed a breathtaking amount of industry and family gossip.

One example among many. He writes that Prudence, Murdoch’s daughter from his first marriage, gave him exasperated grooming advice after Murdoch botched a DIY makeover as he tried keeping up with Wendi Deng, his third wife who was the same age as his children.

“Dad, I understand about dyeing the hair and the age thing. Just go somewhere proper. What you need is very light highlights.” But he insists on doing it over the sink because he doesn’t want anybody to know. Well, hello! Look in the mirror. Look at the pictures in the paper. It’s such a hatchet job.

Murdoch’s response? He told her she needed a face lift.

Murdoch’s response to Wolff’s biography was that it needed more than a face lift – it should not have been published with the errors it had. He did not sue for defamation, however. Wolff has since become an even more controversial figure: he is embroiled in suit and counter-suit with Donald and Melania Trump over Wolff’s claims about Trump’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The long-running struggle for succession in the Murdoch family famously inspired the brilliantly coruscating fictional television series Succession (2018–2023). Sherman’s is the first biography to deal with its resolution, which happened only last September, when Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son, Lachlan, succeeded in changing the terms of an apparently irrevocable family trust.

The trust had been created when Rupert and his second wife, Anna, separated in 1998. (She died on February 17 this year.) It was her attempt to put a brake on Murdoch’s continual pitting of his children, especially his sons, against each other in the quest to succeed him as head of News Corporation.

It didn’t work. Rupert’s plan for Lachlan to lead the company, continuing its hard right position led by Fox News, eventually succeeded. To a greater or lesser degree, the other children from his first two marriages – Prudence, Elisabeth and James – loathed what Fox News had become and, reportedly led by James, were prepared to use their votes in the family trust to oust Lachlan after Rupert died.

In the end, though, they agreed to sell their shares in the family trust for US$1.1 billion each. Grace and Chloe, the two children from Murdoch’s third marriage, are part of a newly drawn family trust with their own shares in News.

The machinations behind this episode were reported last year in two extraordinary pieces of journalism, by Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times, who were leaked 3,000 pages of court documents about the case, and by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic magazine. He secured a long, revealing interview with James Murdoch, who was labelled in Rupert and Lachlan’s legal materials the “troublesome beneficiary”.

For those without subscriptions to these publications, my colleague, Andrew Dodd, and I discussed the case in The Conversation here and here.

An outstanding journalist

Sherman, another outstanding journalist, has been reporting on the Murdochs since 2008. Ailes threatened him with legal action and engineered a smear campaign over The Loudest Voice in the Room, as Sherman calmly detailed in “A Note on Sources” at the end of the book. It was Sherman who in 2016 broke the news about Fox News presenter Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment suit against Ailes that led to his ousting from the network.

In 2018, he revealed Murdoch came close to death after a fall on Lachlan’s maxi-yacht while sailing in the Caribbean.

Sherman also had the inside scoop on the end of Murdoch’s fourth marriage in 2022. The then 91-year-old mogul not only broke up by text with his wife, supermodel and actor Jerry Hall, but included in the divorce terms a demand she not give story ideas to the scriptwriters of Succession!

Hall later realised the marriage had ended, in Murdoch’s eyes, some time before, when he met Ann Lesley Smith, a 65-year-old former dental hygienist turned conservative radio host and follower of QAnon-style conspiracy theories. At a dinner at Murdoch’s ranch in Carmel, Smith gushed that Murdoch and Fox News were the saviours of democracy, and offered to clean his teeth for him.

Murdoch proposed to Smith in early 2023, but he soon called off the wedding after another dinner, where she told then Fox News host Tucker Carlson he was a messenger from God. Hall felt humiliated by Murdoch’s treatment of her but told friends she took satisfaction in making an effigy of him, tying dental floss around its neck and burning it on the barbecue.

All these disclosures, and gossip, are included in Bonfire of the Murdochs. Indeed, Sherman’s reporting, for New York and Vanity Fair magazines, forms a good deal of the book. If you have already read his lengthy articles, there is not much new here. But if you haven’t, or if you are confused by the countless deals and complex financial/political transactions of Murdoch’s seven-decades-plus career in media, this biography is well worth reading.

‘Destroyed everything he loved’

At 241 pages, it has the virtue, as well as the shortcoming, of being the shortest of the Murdoch biographies. Sherman has a gift for succinctly summarising key themes.

The first is that more than most, Murdoch’s media empire is secretive. Remember, his plan to change the family trust was supposed to be heard behind closed doors. We only know about it because The New York Times was leaked the court records, which revealed Murdoch’s testimony. As Sherman puts it: “Rupert crafted narratives in the shadows, but the courtroom would require him to do it in the open.”

Initially, it did not go well for Murdoch. Under cross-examination, his determination to get his way no matter what and his sexism towards his daughters was revealed.

The second theme is the extent to which Murdoch will ignore the stated mission of his media outlets – report what is happening accurately – if it aligns with his commercial goals. During the global pandemic, while Fox News hosts fulminated about lockdowns and advocated dubious treatments like hydroxychloroquine, Murdoch followed the science and, Sherman reports, was one of the first in the world to be vaccinated, in December 2020.

“He was scared for himself and was very careful,” a person who spoke to Murdoch at the time recalled for Sherman. Questioned about the disconnect between his network’s coverage and his own behaviour, Murdoch would deflect responsibility for the presenters’ commentary, even though this seeming passivity contrasted sharply with his history of editorial interference.

As Sherman comments: “The hypocrisy revealed something essential about Rupert’s worldview: he had always been able to separate his personal beliefs from his business interests.” He adds that Murdoch thought then president, Donald Trump, grievously mishandled the pandemic but refused to use his position as head of Fox to pressure the president to treat it seriously.

Nor did Murdoch take any responsibility when a friend told him the channel was killing its elderly audience. According to one of Sherman’s sources, he replied: “They’re dying from old age and other illnesses, but COVID was being blamed.”

The biographer quotes other sources who say the quid pro quo was that Murdoch had successfully lobbied Trump in his first term to take action against Facebook and Google, who were winning advertising revenue from News (along with other legacy media companies) and to open up land for fracking, which was to boost the value of Murdoch’s fossil fuel investments.

The third theme is that Murdoch built the world’s first global media empire but has always run his companies as a family business, with him as the first and ultimate decision-maker. Nimbleness is the advantage of this approach. As with any autocratically run organisation, though, there are disadvantages. Among them is that no one has a perfect strike rate for success.

Along the way, talented executives such as Barry Diller, former chief executive at Twentieth Century Fox or Chase Carey, former top executive at 21st Century Fox, knew – or found out – that their path to the top was blocked not only by the company’s head, but by Murdoch’s desire to advance or protect family members. Murdoch once told shareholders complaining about nepotism: “If you don’t like it, sell your shares.”

From the 1950s, when Murdoch was the “boy publisher” of the afternoon newspaper he inherited from his father, the Adelaide News, he behaved, Sherman writes, as though “promises were like inconvenient facts: fungible when they got in the way of profit.” The newspaper’s editor, Rohan Rivett, was the first among several, alongside numerous politicians, who learnt this to their cost.

The fourth theme is that Murdoch has always wanted his children involved in his business, but only on his terms. “Growing up,” Sherman writes, “the children’s relationship to their father was expressed through the business, making them equate paternal love with corporate advancement.”

Where earlier writers have drawn parallels with Shakespeare’s King Lear, Sherman thinks King Midas is a more appropriate comparison.

Like the mythical monarch whose touch turned everything to gold, Rupert built a $17 billion fortune but destroyed everything he loved in the process. His media outlets stoked hatred and division on an industrial scale, and amassing that wealth required him to damage virtually anything he touched: the environment, women’s rights, the Republican Party, truth, decency – even his own family.

The weakest part

These are potent themes that resonate with those of us living in the country of Murdoch’s origin, which brings us to the book’s shortcoming. Australia features early on, but this is the weakest part of the book. Murdoch’s early years are well covered in Munster and Shawcross’s biographies and more recently have been given detailed attention in Walter Marsh’s Young Rupert (2023).

There are basic errors: The Daily Mirror in Sydney, which Murdoch bought in 1960, is misnamed The Mirror, while the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd., which he bought in 1987, becomes the Herald Times Group. Nor does it help that on the book’s final page, Sherman writes “Rupert was with his fourth wife while his children were scattered across the globe” – when Murdoch had discarded Jerry Hall in 2022 and was now married a fifth time, to Elena Zhukova.

Fourth, fifth? It’s easy to lose count. More seriously, in buying the HWT, Murdoch became the dominant newspaper owner in Australia, but his control did not account for 75% of the market, as Sherman writes. It is more like 60% to 65%, depending on whether you use circulation or number of newspapers as a measure.

Murdoch’s early years in Australia are briskly dealt with in chapter one, before he moves on in his relentless quest to acquire more media properties in the United Kingdom and the US. This is true as far as it goes, but once Murdoch does head north, his biographer loses almost all interest in how Australia is faring – even, or especially actually, after Murdoch acquires the HWT.

The same is true to a lesser extent with Sherman’s treatment of the UK. The phone hacking scandal is covered, of course, but not much else is once Murdoch arrives in New York in the mid-seventies.

What is lost, then, in Sherman’s compression, is context for events. Such as: where did the phone hacking culture come from? What lengths did News go to in denying the practice went beyond two “rogue reporters” or in obstructing official inquiries? Why have they since paid so much money settling with phone hacking victims, rather than going to court?

Missing, too, is any sense of the connections between Murdoch’s media outlets in the three main countries in which News operates. Has the hostile coverage of trans people been imported from Fox News to Sky News Australia? What affect has his media outlets’ campaigning against action on climate change had across these three countries?

These, and others, are relevant questions to ask about a global media empire. Rupert Murdoch may have handed over the company to Lachlan in 2023, but he led it for 70 years, he created its culture and he still wields influence. In case it passed you by, it was Rupert Murdoch – not Lachlan, according to the reports – who in February had a private dinner at the White House with US president Donald Trump.

– ref. Secrets, sexism and hypocrisy: Bonfire of the Murdochs reveals the family’s real succession drama – https://theconversation.com/secrets-sexism-and-hypocrisy-bonfire-of-the-murdochs-reveals-the-familys-real-succession-drama-275938

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clement Macintyre, Professor emeritus in politics, Adelaide University

For the past six decades, South Australian politics has been characterised by long periods of Labor domination interrupted by short-lived Liberal governments. Since a record 32 uninterrupted years in office came to an end in 1965, the Liberal Party has spent a mere 17.5 years in government. Now, as they go to the election on March 21, the Liberals face yet another term (and probably several more) in opposition.

Led by Peter Malinauskas, Labor enjoys extraordinary levels of popular support. Solid, if unspectacular economic progress, combined with the aggressive pursuit of popular sporting events (AFL Gather Round, LIV golf, MotoGP) has left Labor in a seemingly impregnable position on the eve of the election.

And, as has been the case for much of the past 60 years, the Liberal Party’s ongoing internal divisions provide a sharp contrast with the professionalism of Labor. This in turn has rendered the Liberals an ineffective opposition and made the government’s task easier.

For example, Labor does not seem to be paying any serious political price for its failure to “fix” ambulance ramping at hospital emergency departments, despite this being a key plank in its 2022 election campaign that brought Malinauskas to power. Similarly, the growing level of state debt is apparently not deterring voters.

While the ascent of first-term MP Ashton Hurn to the Liberal leadership in December 2025 was overdue, it has not stemmed the fall in the the party’s polling. Hurn stood out in a very weak shadow cabinet as clearly the Liberals’ best performer. But the legacy of policy shifts and three leadership changes in a single term (one ahead of the prosecution of a former leader on a charge of supplying drugs) remains a continuing drag on the party’s fortunes.

Accordingly, there can be no doubt Labor will win yet another convincing victory. The election-night focus will therefore be less on the size of the majority, and more on how many seats the Liberals will be able to hold. There will also be much interest in whether One Nation can make a breakthrough in the House of Assembly.

Recent polls in SA have mirrored those taken elsewhere in Australia. One Nation now consistently outperforms the Liberals. But whether this will translate into seats in the state’s lower house is less clear.

The Liberals go into the election holding just 13 of the House of Assembly’s 47 seats. Six of these are in the Adelaide metropolitan area, and if any are lost (as several will be), they will be lost to Labor.

In rural SA, which has traditionally been dominated by the Liberals, they face threats not just from One Nation, but from several strong independent candidates who threaten to turn these contests into three-cornered battles. With a record number of candidates nominating, predicting the flow of preferences is difficult.

Read more: SA Newspoll shows Liberal wipeout likely; Victorian Morgan poll puts One Nation first on primaries

While polls show support for One Nation at somewhere in the mid-20s across the whole state, it may well be a little higher in rural electorates. Given One Nation received just 2.63% of the vote at the 2022 election (albeit standing in just over half the seats), this is a remarkable rise. It also reflects the growing disaffection with the Liberals seen across the rest of the country. At the same time, it may not be enough to budge rural Liberals from their seats as Labor preferences will probably come to the rescue of some beleaguered Liberals.

At the 2022 election, with one exception where there was significant support for an independent candidate, Labor won at least 20% of the primary vote in SA’s Liberal-held rural seats. With Labor preferencing the Liberals ahead of One Nation, to win a seat One Nation will need to either secure a substantial first preference vote or draw sufficient preferences from the minor parties and independent candidates. It could happen – but as long as the Liberals can stay ahead of Labor in the count, it is unlikely. If it does happen it will only be because the Liberal primary vote has collapsed, and in some seats the election of a high-profile independent is every bit as likely as a One Nation win.

On the other hand, in the state’s upper house, where members are elected under a proportional election system, all the signs are that One Nation will win two, possibly three seats. So, party defections aside, they seem sure to have some presence in the SA parliament for the immediate future.

So what might be the lessons for the rest of Australia? If support for One Nation on March 21 matches or exceeds their standing in the opinion polls, we will know the threat to the coalition is real – at least in the short term.

If One Nation fails to break through in SA, it will be largely a result of the particular circumstances of continuing high levels of support for the premier and the Labor Party.

But, with the exception of Western Australia, this combination of conditions is unlikely to be found across the rest of Australia. After the SA election, all eyes will turn to the byelection in the federal seat of Farrer, which is likely to tell us more about the changing shape of party politics in Australia.

– ref. South Australian election is likely to be Labor in a landslide. But who will be the opposition? – https://theconversation.com/south-australian-election-is-likely-to-be-labor-in-a-landslide-but-who-will-be-the-opposition-275834

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Smith, Associate Professor in American Politics and Foreign Policy, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

No US president in living memory has gone to war with less public support than Donald Trump has for the war in Iran. Even Barack Obama’s much-maligned Libyan intervention began with 60% of Americans in support in 2011. There is no poll that shows a majority of Americans supporting the Iran war, and multiple polls showing clear majorities against it. And wars usually lose public support as they go on.

Trump did not make a public case for the war before it began, because he preferred quick, surprising strikes preceded by theatrical suspense. He presented the vast military buildup in the Persian Gulf as a high-pressure negotiating tactic in the short-lived bargaining sessions over Iran’s nuclear enrichment.

Trump was undoubtedly emboldened by the tactical success of his removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, though that too was not very popular with Americans.

Wars are not necessarily better when the US government invests a huge effort in justifying them. The justification for the disastrous Iraq War, after all, was based on misperceptions, distortions and falsehoods. But by completely disregarding US public opinion before the war, Trump now finds himself in all kinds of trouble as he tries to fight it.

Americans don’t like seeing themselves as aggressors

Political scientist Bruce Jentleson argued that public support for war in the United States depends not just on how the war is going, but on the public’s understanding of the war’s aims. The US public is much more likely to support wars aimed at imposing restraints on aggressive powers than wars aimed at bringing political change to other countries.

That theory explains why the Bush administration made such an effort to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to the September 11 terrorist attacks, even though “regime change” was the aim of the Iraq war.

Regime change is also, quite clearly, the aim of the Iran war. Trump has been talking about it for months, and is still talking about it.

It was only after the bombs started falling on Iran that Trump and his administration began to make the case that Iran was an “imminent threat” to the US. It wasn’t very convincing.

After all, Trump had been boasting until recently that he had “completely obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program the year before. In a video released shortly after the attacks, Trump complained about the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, the 1983 Hezbollah attack on US marines in Beirut, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which he said Iran was “probably involved in”.

It was left to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to make the convoluted argument that the US was acting in preemptive self-defence, because it knew Israel was going to strike Iran, and that Iran would retaliate against Americans in the Middle East.

That did not play well in a country increasingly wary of Israel. A Gallup poll released just before the war began showed that, for the first time this century, more Americans said their sympathies were with Palestinians than Israelis. Recently, the biggest drop in support for Israel has been among political Independents, whose views have shifted significantly during the Gaza War.

Tucker Carlson, the loudest critic of the Iran war on the right, immediately labelled it “Israel’s war”. Joe Rogan, an influential figure among Trump’s 2024 support base of disillusioned young men, said they felt “betrayed” by the war.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tried to sell the war to Americans by gloating about the death, destruction and fear being inflicted on Iran. Even as investigations show the US military was responsible for the bombing of a school that killed more than a hundred children, he dismisses rules of military engagement as “stupid”. The most recent Quinnipiac Poll showed Hegseth’s approval rating at 37%.

Americans are unprepared for sacrifice

Despite high-profile opponents like Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump still has most of the MAGA base with him for now. They were never really opposed to foreign wars. What they hated was losing foreign wars, and Trump is promising them swift victory in Iran.

But Trump has not prepared them or anyone else, including his own cabinet, for the costs this war will incur. Especially the disruption to global oil markets, which the International Energy Agency is calling the largest in history, and which will elevate the cost of everything from travel to food.

Trump’s rhetoric about the price of war has hardly been Churchillian. One night he posted on social media that a short term increase in oil prices is “a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

But the next day he was forced to calm markets by claiming the war was nearly over.

The Iranian regime, whose main goal is survival, is well aware of the political and economic vulnerabilities of the US and its Middle Eastern allies, and these appear to be what it is targeting.

At the beginning of the war, Iran’s seemingly scattered attacks on infrastructure, embassies and hotels in Gulf states were a source of mirth for some American commentators. But these were eventually enough to shut down large swathes of energy production and shipping, and inflict far more pain than Trump or his supporters were expecting.

Trump was already facing the same domestic problem that Joe Biden faced. It doesn’t matter how much you tell Americans about positive GDP, stock market and employment numbers; if they are struggling with the cost of living, their view of both the economy and the President will be bleak.

Trump’s glib dismissals of the price of oil are sounding a lot like his airy reassurances at the beginning of the pandemic.

Few Republicans in Congress have been prepared to stand up to Trump over the war. But as midterm elections approach, many of them will be silently praying he finds an excuse to end it as soon as possible.

– ref. Why Donald Trump is losing the war at home – https://theconversation.com/why-donald-trump-is-losing-the-war-at-home-278079

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lyndsey Collins-Praino, Associate Professor, School of Biomedicine, Adelaide University

Parkinson’s disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder, with over 10 million cases worldwide. Up to 150,000 Australians currently live with the disease and 50 new cases are diagnosed each day.

The number of people living with Parkison’s is projected to more than triple between 2020 and 2050.

Yet despite the immense impact on those living with Parkinson’s and their loved ones, and the staggering cost to our economy – at least A$10 billion a year – there is still a lot we don’t know about how this disease presents and progresses.

A recent large-scale study of nearly 11,000 Australians living with Parkinson’s disease provides some critical insights into symptoms, risk factors and how these affect men and women differently. Let’s take a look.

First, what is Parkinson’s disease?

Parkinson’s is a progressive disease in which cells that produce the chemical messenger dopamine in a part of the brain called the “substantia nigra” begin to die. This is accompanied by multiple other brain changes.

It is usually considered a movement disorder. Common motor symptoms include a resting tremor, slowed movement (bradykinesia), muscle stiffness and balance issues.

But Parkinson’s also involves a variety of lesser known non-motor symptoms. These may include:

• mood changes
• difficulties with memory and cognition (including slower thinking, challenges with planning or multitasking and difficulty paying attention or concentrating)
• sleep disturbances
• autonomic dysfunction (such as constipation, low blood pressure and urinary problems).

While these are sometimes referred to as the “invisible” symptoms of Parkinson’s, they often have a greater negative impact on quality of life than motor symptoms.

So, what does the new research tell us?

The study used data collected as part of the Australian Parkinson’s Genetics Study led by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. After a pilot study in 2020, it was launched as an ongoing, nationwide research project in 2022.

Some 10,929 Australians with Parkinson’s were surveyed and provided saliva samples for genetic analysis. This is the largest Parkinson’s cohort studied in Australia and the largest active cohort worldwide.

There were several key initial findings.

1. Non-motor symptoms are common

The study reinforced how common non-motor symptoms are, with loss of smell (52%), changes in memory (65%), pain (66%) and dizziness (66%) all commonly reported.

Notably, 96% of participants experienced sleep disturbances, such as insomnia and daytime sleepiness.

2. A better picture of risk factors

The study also provided insights into what can influence Parkinson’s risk.

This is important because we don’t completely understand what causes the dopamine producing cells in the substantia nigra to die in the first place.

Age is the primary risk factor for Parkinson’s. The new study found the average age for symptom onset was 64, and for diagnosis, 68.

3. Genes and environment both play a role

In the recent study, one in four people (25%) had a family history of Parkinson’s. But only 10–15% of Parkinson’s cases are caused by – or strongly linked to – mutations in specific genes.

It’s important to remember that families don’t only share genes but often their environment.

Multiple environmental factors, such as pesticide exposure and traumatic brain injury, also increase risk of Parkinson’s.

The majority (85–90%) of cases of Parkinson’s are likely due to complex interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors, and advancing age.

The study showed environmental exposures linked to Parkinson’s risk were common:

• 36% of people reported pesticide exposure
• 16% had a prior history of traumatic brain injury
• 33% had worked in high-risk occupations (such as agriculture, or petrochemicals or metal processing).

These exposures were significantly higher in men than in women.

4. Differences between the sexes

The disease is 1.5 times more common in men. In the new study, 63% of those surveyed were male.

Parkinson’s also presents and progresses differently in males and females.

The study found women were younger than men at time of symptom onset (63.7 versus 64.4 years) and diagnosis (67.6 versus 68.1 years), and more likely than men to experience pain (70% versus 63%) and falls (45% versus 41%).

Men experienced more memory changes than women (67% versus 61%) and impulsive behaviours, particularly sexual behaviour (56% versus 19%) – although most participants exhibited no or only mild impulsivity.

What we still don’t know

The large-scale study and its comprehensive survey shed valuable light on people living with Parkinson’s in Australia.

But it’s still only a sliver of the population. More than 186,000 people with Parkinson’s were invited to participate and just under 11,000 took part – a less than 6% response rate.

Of these participants, 93% had European ancestry. So this sample may not be fully representative of Parkinson’s disease.

The information we have about symptoms also relied on self-reports by the study’s participants, which are subjective and can be biased or less reliable than objective measurements of function. To address this, the researchers are planning to use smartphones and wearable devices to collect more comprehensive data.

Finally, while this provides a snapshot of the current cohort, it’s not clear how participants compare to people of a similar age without Parkinson’s, or how their symptoms may change over time.

These are important areas of future research for this ongoing study.

What all this means

Studies like this provide crucial insights into risk factors linked to Parkinson’s. They also help us better understand the symptoms people experience.

This is important because the way Parkinson’s presents varies from person to person. Not everyone will experience the same symptoms to the same extent.

Similarly, the way the disease progresses over time differs between people.

A better understanding of the factors that influence this can lead to earlier identification of who’s at risk and more personalised ways of managing this disease.

– ref. Largest ever Parkinson’s study shows how symptoms differ between men and women – https://theconversation.com/largest-ever-parkinsons-study-shows-how-symptoms-differ-between-men-and-women-277730

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ren Perkins, Lecturer in Indigenous Education, The University of Queensland

The federal government is promising a new policy to guide First Nations students right throughout their education careers. It will cover from the time they are in early childhood education right through to after they leave school.

The First Nations Education Policy has the potential to significantly influence outcomes for First Nations students, their families and communities. It brings together years of commitments and policies in many different places into a shared national direction.

What is it meant to achieve? And what would meaningful success actually look like?

What is the policy trying to do?

The last First Nations-specific education policy was released in 2015. But this only aimed to improve educational outcomes and strengthen cultural inclusion across Australian schools.

And while the policy established national priorities, progress since then has been uneven and significant gaps remain. As the most recent Closing the Gap data shows, there are ongoing disparities between Indigenous students and their non-indigenous peers.

At the end of 2025, the government announced it was developing a new policy in 2026. Rather than introducing a single new program, it aims to set common priorities across early childhood, schools, vocational education and higher education.

It seeks to:

• define shared priorities for First Nations education and establish how change will be implemented and evaluated

• translate existing national commitments, such as the Mparntwe Education Declaration (which sets out a vision for all Australian students), school funding agreements, the national Indigenous early childhood strategy, Universities Accord and Closing the Gap, into tangible action

• improve educational outcomes in early childhood, schooling, and post-school pathways.

The government has committed to consulting with First Nations communities across metropolitan, regional and remote contexts.

What are the positives so far?

At its core, the First Nations Education Policy aims to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous learners.

For the first time the policy will span the full education life cycle. This matters because students do not enter school or university in isolation. Their learning is shaped by families, communities, culture and earlier education experiences.

It also signals a move from broad aspirations to more concrete actions, including how progress will be measured and evaluated.

The discussion paper emphasises cultural safety, self determination, and recognising the strengths, knowledges and aspirations of First Nations peoples.

It also acknowledges that a “one-size-fits-all” approach will not work, committing to flexibility across systems and locations.

These are positive signs. This suggests, if done well, the policy could shift reform away from deficit narratives about “closing gaps” and towards systems that work with First Nations communities.

But of course, ambition alone does not guarantee change.

What are the risks?

Australia has seen ambitious First Nations education policies before.

One danger is confusing consultation with shared decision-making. While community input matters at the start, past reforms have often stopped short of shifting real authority. Research has repeatedly shown that decades of Indigenous education policy have produced limited systemic change in Australia.

Research consistently shows meaningful and sustained improvements for Indigenous students are only possible when communities are partners in decision-making, not just consultees.

First Nations voices have informed education policy in the past, but rarely shaped outcomes. Too often, First Nations expertise is sought through consultation rather than embedded within the systems that implement policy. Shifting this requires more First Nations teachers and leaders, but also greater First Nations authority within education departments and decision-making roles.

What is ‘success’?

There is also a risk “success” is defined too narrowly. If progress is measured mainly through attendance or test scores, the policy may miss what many communities value most: cultural safety, belonging and local control.

Education reform in the past has also tended to focus on students rather than systems.

In other words, are students coming to school? Are they graduating? This means curriculum (what they are learning), workforce capability (who is teaching them and with what skills), governance (who is making decisions) and institutional racism are often left untouched.

This limits the impact of even well-funded programs.

So for this policy to succeed, it needs structural change. This includes clear accountability, long-term investment, and sustained support for First Nations leadership across education systems. Without that shift, Australia risks repeating a familiar cycle of promise without delivery.

What happens next?

Governments and education providers now have an opportunity to rethink how decisions about First Nations education are made and who makes them.

Then the real test will be how the policy is funded, implemented and evaluated over time. If it leads to stronger First Nations authority, this new policy could be seen as a real turning point for Indigenous students.

If not, it risks becoming another well-intentioned policy that falls short of meaningful change.

– ref. There’s a new plan to help First Nations students from daycare to uni. What does it need to work? – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-new-plan-to-help-first-nations-students-from-daycare-to-uni-what-does-it-need-to-work-273899

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Duck, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Sydney

As households are squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis, central bank governors such as Jerome Powell in the United States and Michele Bullock in Australia are coming under repeated fire from politicians, pundits and households.

Before each interest rate decision, there is debate about what the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) should do and predictions as to what it will do. Afterwards, the gap between these generates heated commentary.

This is uniquely Australian: a high concentration of variable-rate mortgages exposes Australian households to interest rate changes more than in other advanced economies.

Interest rate decisions affect the economy in several ways, including business borrowing costs, the value of the Australian dollar and inflation expectations. But they also have an almost immediate effect on households’ cash flows.

Ahead of Tuesday’s Reserve Bank interest rate decision, the debate has reignited.

Housing complicates the picture

One of the RBA’s core tasks is to limit price rises in consumer goods and services – fuel, groceries, power bills and so on. But the bank has repeatedly stressed it does not target house prices when deciding on whether to change rates.

Our recent research shows that house prices and household debt, having increased dramatically over recent decades, complicate the RBA’s decisions.

In addition to inflation and employment, the RBA is responsible for ensuring the stability of the financial system. High house prices and household debt can lead to financial instability risks.

What former RBA insiders say

Interviews we conducted with five former RBA economists showed that housing does indeed influence their interest rate decisions. A review of RBA documents shows although the bank often publicly denies targeting the housing market, it uses households’ mortgage payments to control inflation and slow the economy.

One former RBA economist said housing “paralyses them, and it causes them to make mistakes”.

According to this economist, between 2015 and 2019, the RBA held interest rates higher than its own modelling suggested it should. During this period, the RBA undershot its inflation target because it was worried that lower interest rates would increase house prices and cause financial instability.

In 2017, then-Governor Philip Lowe said the RBA would like faster economic growth and lower unemployment. But achieving this with lower interest rates “would encourage people to borrow more” and probably “put more upward pressure on housing prices”. Lowe didn’t consider either of those things to be “in the national interest”.

When asked about this period, the same ex-RBA economist interviewed said:

there were policy mistakes that were made specifically because they were looking at the housing market too much.

They said the RBA’s modelling suggested it should cut interest rates, and that its decision not to cut went against its own research.

Another former RBA economist said this period was dominated by internal debates at the bank about whether it should focus on inflation or the risk of financial instability caused by high house prices and large mortgages.

They said that although there was “a strong case” for lower interest rates, the RBA decided to hold them steady because it was worried about its financial stability objectives.

Scrutiny over house prices

At a Senate hearing late last year, RBA Governor Michele Bullock faced scrutiny over rapidly rising house prices and inflation.

When asked about the role the Reserve Bank played in fuelling higher house prices, Bullock admitted that “part of the way monetary policy works is through the housing market”. But she did “not accept that the Reserve Bank is responsible” for house prices.

When pressed on the role played by property “speculators” and tax settings like the capital gains tax discount, Bullock replied:

Government runs government policies on housing. The policy that I’ve got control over is the interest rate.

Slower growth in house prices would make it easier for the RBA to set interest rates. Removing tax breaks for investors that increase housing demand, house prices, and household debt would help.

In Senate hearings about reforming the capital gains tax discount, former RBA governor Bernie Fraser said the tax breaks should be scrapped.

Rate increases hit differently

Interest rates will remain political because of their uneven effects.

Interest rate rises increase the burden of repayments for younger, more heavily mortgaged households while boosting the savings and investments of older, wealthier households.

Interest rate cuts increase house prices and lock people out of the market.

Throughout 2024 and early 2025, as interest rates were rising, Australians who rent or make mortgage payments had softer growth in household spending than those who own their property outright.

During the recent rise in inflation, spending diverged between age groups. Those aged 18-39 reduced their spending on essentials and discretionary categories while those aged over 60 increased their spending.

Recent homebuyers are spending twice as much of their income on mortgage payments than new homebuyers were five years ago, when the official cash rate was near zero.

Another hike in interest rates is expected, either on Tuesday or in May.

Our research shows that the RBA – constrained by high house prices, large mortgage payments and global events – is unlikely to avoid the public or the government’s ire any time soon.

– ref. Despite denials, there are signs the RBA does consider house prices in setting rates – https://theconversation.com/despite-denials-there-are-signs-the-rba-does-consider-house-prices-in-setting-rates-277477

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Cumberbatch, PhD Candidate, School of Creative Arts and Media, University of Tasmania

According to anthropologist Richard Wrangham, cooking fundamentally altered the human species. He claims the control of fire and the advent of cooking sparked significant biological changes (including brain development and digestive efficiency). This shaped human communities through the shift from solitary foraging to communal meals around fires.

No wonder the kitchen is positioned as the heart of the home. Writer Tony Birch describes it as “a place of great joy that held memories of life that were always loving”.

But the Australian kitchen is a consumable product, typically replaced every 15 to 20 years in pursuit of an idealised lifestyle. The kitchen is now a site for renovation, consumption and waste generation – not an enduring place of connection to our sense of belonging and culture.

Contemporary kitchen replacement cycles create physical waste and destroy any accumulated social value, with new kitchens constructed from materials designed to prevent such accumulation in the first place.

If we think about the kitchen as a space that sustains family and community bonds, we can rethink the way we renovate it.

The changing shape of our kitchens

Kitchen design has shifted significantly over time.

In the 1850s, a traditional kitchen centred around a large table that enabled communal work to cook simple food like bread, pies or stew.

Social changes brought about by the industrial revolution reduced the availability of domestic servants for middle-class households and created pressure to redesign kitchens for women working alone.

By the mid-20th century, as women increasingly entered the workforce, kitchen design became focused on efficiency. Compact workspaces, continuous benchtops and integrated storage emerged to accommodate both preparing and cooking meals, and multitasking.

Internal walls were removed by the late 1970s to reveal open kitchen dining areas. This organised approach became a display of style and status.

Since then, purely functional considerations have given way to striking visual appeal.

Now, luxury kitchens feature exotic stone surfaces, bespoke cabinetry, elaborate lighting and statement appliances.

In 2020–21, newly built Australian homes installed 215,000 kitchens, valued at a record A$7.58 billion. This was in addition to an estimated 160,000 kitchen renovations – 64% of which involved enlarging the kitchen footprint. This suggests we are renovating our kitchens in a reimagining of the space, rather than for maintenance or repair.

Paradoxically, as kitchens get larger and cost more, the actual practice of home cooking has measurably declined.

Cooking up waste

Approximately 29 million tonnes of building waste accumulated in Australia in 2022–23. Replaced kitchens go mostly to landfill.

Compounding the generation of physical waste, current design practices also erode the kitchen’s ability to function as the heart of social life.

A central table creates a natural gathering place. Contemporary island benches typically arrange seating along one side. Stools lined like soldiers are organised for service and separate work and social sides.

Rather than a social hub, this design restricts social interaction beyond the person straight ahead.

Contemporary kitchen design also ignores the accumulated social value in existing materials. Instead of honouring worn spots where hands have rested and marks that record meals shared together, kitchens are replaced with mass-produced materials designed to emphasise aesthetics.

Like jeans that acquire character over time, kitchen surfaces store memories and reflect personal experiences. Authentic emotional connection emerges through use. It is not artificially applied through styling.

Kitchen materials themselves are manufactured in ways that prevent the formation of social connections. Materials that promote “fingerprint resistance” promise to prevent the signs that would otherwise document human presence and family interaction.

This positions the ideal kitchen as one that never shows evidence of having been used at all.

Highly polished, pristine surfaces were once needed to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. Today, materials gleam to create luxurious effects and provide an appearance of hygiene, which is felt to be a genuine need.

Materials that maintain pristine appearances become markers of status. The material resistance to marking represents a deeper resistance to the social connections kitchens traditionally fostered.

Contemporary kitchen culture embodies a fundamental contradiction. The “heart of the home” is designed to resist the very traces of life that would make them heartful.

A different approach

“Designer” kitchens increasingly adhere to standardised perfection. An alternate approach to designing these spaces recognises them as places where social bonds strengthen during time spent together preparing, sharing and conversing.

When you think about renovating your kitchen, think about how the space will evolve over time, rather than reaching for a complete, manufactured solution that is replicated globally.

Consider what can be reused and repaired. And think about what materials invite touch and develop character with use, evolving to become catalysts for storytelling and memory-sharing, thereby extending the kitchen’s lifetime. This might mean reusing handles touched by children over years, or drawer faces which connect past to present.

Incorporate a central table to form a genuine social hub.

Engage craftspeople and artists as collaborators who can creatively rework existing materials and objects into distinctive, functional elements for a new space, rather than manufacturers supplying a whole new room.

Every material preserved binds us together and honours the people and resources they embody.

The more we invest in creating the perfect kitchen, the less capable it is to develop the authentic connections that justify its central position in family life.

– ref. Kitchens are the heart of the home. What do all these bland luxury renovations lose? – https://theconversation.com/kitchens-are-the-heart-of-the-home-what-do-all-these-bland-luxury-renovations-lose-272061