We are in the last stretch of the school year and just weeks away from final reports.
For some students, results may indicate serious gaps in skills or knowledge. This may be a result of circumstances outside their control, for instance, serious illness or teacher shortages. But some families may be wondering if the gaps are serious enough to consider repeating the year.
We know successful learning usually happens when we have the opportunity to rehearse, repeat and practise something multiple times.
But when it comes to getting children to repeat a year of school, research shows it is usually not a good idea.
How many students repeat?
There is little current information about the rates of repeating in Australia.
In 2014, about 7.5% of 15-year-olds had repeated one year over the course of their schooling, down slightly from 8% in 2009.
Repeating a year remains a common practice in other countries, such as France and Spain. But there has been a shift away from repeating in Australian schools.
For younger children in particular, the focus has shifted to stopping students from starting too young – rather than delaying their progression once they get to school.
Repeating does not usually work
It is well documented repeating a year typically has a negative impact on a student’s social and emotional needs.
It is supposed to help a student “catch up” but can instead harm their motivation and engagement. Counterintuitively, it can also harm their progress in literacy and numeracy if they are not motivated or interested in school.
As a 2021 review of 84 studies showed, repeating a year can see students left behind by their friends, harm a student’s confidence, and worsen their behaviour at school if they are unhappy.
It also found on average, repeaters and non-repeaters seemed to show a similar level of development – so there was no tangible benefit to repeating a year.
This is why education departments now only suggest repeating a year in “exceptional circumstances”. Particularly in the primary years, schools will work with students to help them catch up in term 4 for the following year.
So if your child is struggling academically – or with some other element at school – how can you approach it?
You can start by investigating and understanding why your child is struggling. Does your child need specialist help for a learning difficulty? Is there an issue with bullying or another social problem that is harming their progress? Or is there something else going on for them outside school?
Other things you can do include:
1. stay in touch with your child’s school: it could include casual chats with the teacher outside the classroom after school. For older students it could mean monitoring due dates for assessments on the school’s information portal
2. think about how old your child is: especially when children are younger a few months can make a huge difference. If your child is struggling, is it because they are several months younger than most of your peers? This may mean you need to be patient and know with more time they will catch up
3. ask teachers for more specific help: helping students of differing stages and abilities to learn is core work for teachers. And they can use different strategies to help students learn
4. consider a tutor: if you child needs extra help, this could be one way to assist their learning. However, it is important to choose your tutor carefully and make sure a tutor’s approach matches your child’s specific needs.
It can feel very difficult as a parent to see your child struggling or failing academically at school. Let them know it is OK. Tell them it’s what they do next that matters and they are not alone. You are here to help.
And when in doubt, communicate your concerns clearly and consistently with the school.
Sarah Jefferson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With the US presidential election on a knife edge and less than a week away, financial markets are watching with bated breath.
There’s no shortage of reasons to be nervous. Both sides have outlined radically different visions of America’s economic future, with major implications for the rest of the world.
All of this stands against the backdrop of simmering tensions with China and an ongoing crisis in the Middle East. The price of gold – a common way for investors to hedge against uncertainty – has soared to record heights.
Many have been speculating about what might be in store for the stock market and the economy – both in the United States and here in Australia.
Obviously, that depends on far more than just who is sitting in the Oval Office. However, looking at history still tells an interesting – and perhaps surprising – story.
In the United States, both sides of the political divide are subject to some oversimplifying stereotypes.
Democrats are often seen as the party of proactive government spending, favouring policies that redistribute wealth through taxation. Republicans, on the other hand, have a reputation as the business-friendly party of small government, favouring more passive policies with lower tax rates.
So, it might surprise you to learn that if we zoom out and look at a big chunk of the past century, the US economy and its stock markets have actually performed better under Democratic presidencies, on two key measures.
Research by Lubos Pastor and Pietro Veronesi from the University of Chicago examined the period between 1927 and 2015.
They found average growth in gross domestic product (GDP) was 4.86% under Democratic presidents. Under Republican presidencies, it averaged 1.7%.
Over the same period, the US share market’s “equity risk premium” was also 10.9% higher under Democratic presidents than Republicans. In the years from 1999 to 2015, it was even higher under democratic presidents – 17.4%.
This is the excess rate of return that can be earned by investing in shares above the “risk-free rate” (such as the interest rate on a savings account).
Why is it worth looking at the risk premium instead of total share market returns? Because it helps separate out the effect of interest rates.
The return on assets like shares is comprised of the risk-free rate from banks plus this risk premium. Risk-free rates are largely determined by central banks, which in most countries are independent from the government.
What might be driving this effect?
Whether this performance reflects good luck or good policies is much harder to answer. If the effect was arising from superior policy decisions, it would imply voters have been repeatedly failing to reward good government.
Pastor and Veronesi argue something different – that when the economy is weak and stock prices are low, voters are more risk-averse. That can lead them to prefer the wealth redistribution policies of the Democrats.
The last three transitions from Republican to Democratic presidencies support this theory. Bill Clinton was elected shortly after the 1990-91 recession, Barack Obama at the peak of the global financial crisis, and Joe Biden during the pandemic.
As the economy recovers from a crisis, stock prices often increase. Pastor and Veronesi’s thesis suggests that the election – and the good performance – of Democratic presidents comes down to the timing of voters’ heightened risk aversion.
Highly interlinked economies
Historically, monthly stock returns in Australia and the US have been highly correlated – my calculations show this is even more so in election years.
Correlation famously doesn’t say anything about causation, just that when we see change in one, we typically see a similar change in the other. That means some of the effects we described earlier can be felt here (and around the world), as well.
Expanding their long-term analysis internationally, Pastor and Veronesi found that the average equity risk premium of Australian stocks was also higher under Democratic presidencies in the US – by 11.3%!
Similar higher returns were also observed in the United Kingdom – 7.3%. And they were even larger in Canada, France, and Germany – all about 13%.
Two factors may help explain why what happens in the US is so wide-reaching. Stocks in these markets are globally owned. US presidential elections may reflect the cycle of global risk aversion, which in turn affects local stock markets.
These economies and financial markets are also highly integrated with the US in areas such as trade, making their economic cycles highly correlated.
A stock market boom?
Will a win by the Democrats in November usher in a stock market boom? It’s unlikely, for two reasons.
First, a win by the Democrats would be a continuation, not a transition from a Republican president. It would not represent policy changes favoured by more risk-averse voters.
Second, it would be a Democratic win in a booming economy. The US economy has been going strong since the end of the pandemic.
It added 254,000 jobs in September, the strongest job growth in six months. It also grew at an annualised pace of 3% in the second quarter of 2024, above its average of below 2% over the past decade.
Other research suggests some important caveats, too. On average, the short-term market reaction to an election does not favour the Democrats or the Republicans.
However, a surprise win by a Republican – that is, one contrary to prediction markets – is associated with 2-3% higher returns around election days.
One possible reason for this is that unlike voters, equity fund managers are more likely to be Republican-leaning. A surprise win by their favoured candidate can boost stock prices when the winner is declared.
Jianxin Wang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frederic Gachon, Associate Professor, Physiology of Circadian Rhythms, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland
This is the next article in our ‘Light and health’ series, where we look at how light affects our physical and mental health in sometimes surprising ways. Read other articles in the series here.
Exposure to light is crucial for our physical and mental health, as this and future articles in the series will show.
But the timing of that light exposure is also crucial. This tells our body to wake up in the morning, when to poo and the time of day to best focus or be alert. When we’re exposed to light also controls our body temperature, blood pressure and even chemical reactions in our body.
But how does our body know when it’s time to do all this? And what’s light got to do with it?
What is the body clock, actually?
One of the key roles of light is to re-set our body clock, also known as the circadian clock. This works like an internal oscillator, similar to an actual clock, ticking away as you read this article.
But rather than ticking you can hear, the body clock is a network of genes and proteins that regulate each other. This network sends signals to organs via hormones and the nervous system. These complex loops of interactions and communications have a rhythm of about 24 hours.
In fact, we don’t have one clock, we have trillions of body clocks throughout the body. The central clock is in the hypothalamus region of the brain, and each cell in every organ has its own. These clocks work in concert to help us adapt to the daily cycle of light and dark, aligning our body’s functions with the time of day.
However, our body clock is not precise and works to a rhythm of about 24 hours (24 hours 30 minutes on average). So every morning, the central clock needs to be reset, signalling the start of a new day. This is why light is so important.
The central clock is directly connected to light-sensing cells in our retinas (the back of the eye). This daily re-setting of the body clock with morning light is essential for ensuring our body works well, in sync with our environment.
In parallel, when we eat food also plays a role in re-setting the body clock, but this time the clock in organs other than the brain, such as the liver, kidneys or the gut.
So it’s easy to see how our daily routines are closely linked with our body clocks. And in turn, our body clocks shape how our body works at set times of the day.
The naturally occurring brain hormone melatonin is linked to our central clock and makes us feel sleepy at certain times of day. When it’s light, our body stops making melatonin (its production is inhibited) and we are alert. Closer to bedtime, the hormone is made, then secreted, making us feel drowsy.
Our sleep is also partly controlled by our genes, which are part of our central clock. These genes influence our chronotype – whether we are a “lark” (early riser), “night owl” (late sleeper) or a “dove” (somewhere in between).
But exposure to light at night when we are supposed to be sleeping can have harmful effects. Even dim light from light pollution can impair our heart rate and how we metabolise sugar (glucose), may lead to psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, and increases the overall risk of premature death.
The main reason for these harmful effects is that light “at the wrong time” disturbs the body clock, and these effects are more pronounced for “night owls”.
This “misaligned” exposure to light is also connected to the detrimental health effects we often see in people who work night shifts, such as an increased risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
How about the gut?
Digestion also follows a circadian rhythm. Muscles in the colon that help move waste are more active during the day and slow down at night.
The most significant increase in colon movement starts at 6.30am. This is one of the reasons why most people feel the urge to poo in the early morning rather than at night.
The gut’s day-night rhythm is a direct result of the action of the gut’s own clock and the central clock (which synchronises the gut with the rest of the body). It’s also influenced by when we eat.
Our body clock also helps control our attention and alertness levels by changing how our brain functions at certain times of day. Attention and alertness levels improve in the afternoon and evening but dip during the night and early morning.
Those fluctuations impact performance and can lead to decreased productivity and an increased risk of errors and accidents during the less-alert hours.
So it’s important to perform certain tasks that require our attention at certain times of day. That includes driving. In fact, disruption of the circadian clock at the start of daylight savings – when our body hasn’t had a chance to adapt to the clocks changing – increases the risk of a car accident, particularly in the morning.
What else does our body clock control?
Our body clock influences many other aspects of our biology, including:
physical performance by controlling the activity of our muscles
blood pressure by controlling the system of hormones involved in regulating our blood volume and blood vessels
body temperature by controlling our metabolism and our level of physical activity
how our body handles drugs and toxins by controlling enzymes involved in how the liver and kidneys eliminate these substances from the body.
If you can, avoid driving long distances at night, as you’ll be less alert. trendobjects/Shutterstock
Morning light is important
But what does this all mean for us? Exposure to light, especially in the morning, is crucial for synchronising our circadian clock and bodily functions.
As well as setting us up for a good night’s sleep, increased morning light exposure benefits our mental health and reduces the risk of obesity. So boosting our exposure to morning light – for example, by going for a walk, or having breakfast outside – can directly benefit our mental and metabolic health.
However, there are other aspects about which we have less control, including the genes that control our body clock.
Frederic Gachon is currently receiving funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Velux Stiftung, and the US National Institute of Health. He has previously received funding from the French Institute for Medical Research and Health (INSERM: 2006-2008), the Swiss National Science Foundation (2010-2012), the European Research Council (2011- 2015) and the Leenaards Foundation (2012-2014). He also worked for Nestlé (2012-2017) where he received industry funding.
Benjamin Weger is currently receiving funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia) Investigator Grant (2016334) and the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship (US, AARF-22-917584). He was also an employee of Nestec, a subsidiary of the Nestlé group, from 2014 to 2018.
The dingo was completely isolated from other canines on the Australian mainland for more than 5,000 years, until domestic dogs arrived on the scene. Subsequent concerns about livestock loss formed the basis of Australia’s “wild dog” (dingo) pest control programs, which continue today. Stretching 5,614km across Australia, the “dingo fence” or “dog fence” was built in the 1880s to keep dingoes away from livestock in the southeast.
Dingoes are protected as a threatened species in Victoria. But dingo–dog hybrids are considered pests, and therefore allowed to be killed.
Unfortunately, past research claimed to find evidence dingo-dog hybrids are common in the wild across eastern Australia. This research has been used to defend the trapping, poisoning and shooting of these animals in some parts of Australia, particularly Victoria.
But other studies and now our new genetic research show dingoes are not breeding with domestic dogs in the wild. Rather, they are maintaining their independence as a unique evolutionary branch.
Our research also highlights the precarious state of dingo populations in Victoria. We fear dingo genetic diversity will continue to decline as long as lethal control measures are used. Ironically, this could prompt dingoes to mate with dogs to survive.
Two tales of Victorian dingoes
Victoria has two main populations of dingoes: northwestern and eastern.
The northwestern population consists of as few as 40 dingoes and is protected.
But the eastern population of 2,640–8,800 dingoes is not fully protected. Lethal control measures are allowed on private land and on public land within 3km of a private land boundary. This “unprotection order”, introduced to safeguard livestock, was recently extended until 2028.
In 2022 alone, 683 dingoes were trapped and shot on public land as part of the Victorian wild dog program. But this number doesn’t include deaths from baiting programs, or farmers shooting dingoes on private land. Altogether, it’s estimated up to 1,500 dingoes are killed in eastern Victoria each year.
This means a substantial proportion of the eastern Victorian population is being killed every year. Even if population size is maintained despite culling, it may still reduce genetic diversity.
We think this is already happening in the northwestern population. Our research shows its genetic diversity is critically low. Recent observations of tail deformities underscore the potential consequences of low genetic diversity.
Juvenile (left) and adult (right) dingoes with tail deformities have been found in the small north-western Victoria population. Ellisha Martion & Deakin University
What we did and what we found
We obtained 434 frozen canine DNA or tissue samples for genetic analysis, from organisations around Australia.
The Victorian samples mainly came from the state’s wild dog program (2014–19). Other samples came from government officers, private landholders, conservation groups and dog owners.
Most (380) of the samples were originally collected in the field from free-ranging animals believed to be either pure dingoes or potential dingo–dog hybrids.
The remaining 54 samples came from domestic and captive animals. These were 39 domestic dogs, seven known hybrids born in captivity, and eight known “backcrossed” dingo–dog hybrid × dingo crosses born in captivity.
We found the free-ranging animals were all dingoes. They fell into one of three distinct groups: alpine, desert or mallee. They were distinct from the domestic dogs and known hybrids born in captivity.
The results also revealed low genetic diversity in all three dingo groups.
The isolated population in northwest Victoria is in particularly bad shape. Local extinction is probable in the near future. That’s why the unprotection order was lifted there.
If culling of the eastern population continues, it could soon follow suit.
Indigenous farmers are supporting the fight to save the dingo. | 7.30.
Ongoing decline may prompt desperate measures
The ongoing unprotection order is likely to further diminish genetic diversity. As dingo numbers decline and options for mates become increasingly limited, this could force dingoes to mate with dogs.
Mating with domestic dogs may actually increase dingo genetic diversity and allay concerns about inbreeding. But the implications will be profound, not just for the dingo itself, but for the ecosystem, Traditional Owners and even graziers. Balancing livestock protection against conservation of this iconic species is more crucial now than ever before.
In the next decade or so, Victorian dingoes may reach a “genetic cliff” where their genetic decline is irreversible. So it is essential to develop strategies that both support graziers and the unique dingo lineage.
Several non-lethal management strategies have been previously described. These need to be further developed with input from graziers, so they can be applied effectively across Victoria.
Treading a different path
Our research reveals dingoes remain genetically distinct from domestic dogs, despite more than 200 years of coexistence. This is consistent with recent research challenging previous claims about widespread interbreeding.
Unfortunately, our research also found low genetic diversity in all dingo populations. We are continuing to explore the genetic state of dingoes across Australia using new genomic approaches. This work promises to provide more insight into the decline of this iconic Australian animal.
In the meantime, we urge governments across Australia to consider the biological consequences of killing dingoes. It is becoming increasingly clear that “wild dog” control programs are contributing to their genetic decline.
Andrew Weeks is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Director of Cesar Australia, a small research based company that works in the fields of sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation. He receives funding from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Collin Ahrens is a Visiting Fellow at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University and a Senior Geneticist of Cesar Australia, a small research based company that works in the fields of sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation. He receives funding from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
A remote Filipino school in Bicol province assisted by a small New Zealand voluntary NGO has been seriously damaged by floodwaters in the wake of Typhoon Kristine (Trami) that left at least 82 people dead across the Philippines last week.
Mangcayo Elementary School, which was submerged by Typhoon Usman fringe storms six years ago, is the impacted school. It was a school that had been assisted by the Lingap Kapwa (“Caring for People”) project.
Now the school has been flooded again in the latest disaster. The school, near Vinzons in Bicol province, is reached by a narrow causeway that is prone to flooding by the Mangcayo Creek.
ABS-CBN News reports that foreign governments and humanitarian organisations have been scaling up assistance in the Philippines to aid hundreds of thousands affected by the typhoon, which struck several regions over the past week.
On Saturday, a C-130 cargo aircraft from the Singapore Air Force and a Eurocopter EC725 transport helicopter from the Royal Malaysian Air Force arrived at Colonel Jesus Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.
The aircraft will provide airlift support to help bolster the Philippine Air Force’s operations in delivering humanitarian aid supplies to typhoon-hit communities.
“During this challenging time, Singapore stands with our friends in the Philippines. This response underscores our warm defence ties and close Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) cooperation, as well as the enduring friendship between Singapore and the Philippines,” the Singapore Embassy in Manila said in a statement.
Rescue work in Mangcayo barangay in Bicol province of the Philippines. Image: Twitter/@pnagovph
Chest-deep floodwaters Philippine rescuers waded through chest-deep floodwaters to reach residents trapped by the typhoon, reports Al Jazeera.
Torrential rain had turned streets into rivers, submerged entire villages and buried some vehicles in volcanic sediment set loose by the tropical storm.
At least 32,000 people had fled their homes in the northern Philippines, police said.
In the Bicol region, about 400km southeast of the capital Manila, “unexpectedly high” flooding was complicating rescue efforts.
“We sent police rescue teams, but they struggled to enter some areas because the flooding was high and the current was so strong,” regional police spokesperson Luisa Calubaquib said.
At an emergency meeting of government agencies last Wednesday, President Ferdinand Marcos said that “the worst is yet to come”.
Flashback to the Typhoon Usman floodwaters in Mangcayo, Philippines, in January 2019. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report
Israel’s strike on military targets in Iran over the weekend is becoming a more routine occurrence in the decades-long rivalry between the two states.
Israel has conducted low-level or “unofficial” operations in Iran in the past, but since the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks on southern Israel and subsequent Israeli war in Gaza, tensions between Iran and Israel have spilled over into direct military confrontation for the first time.
While the consequences of this particular strike are not yet clear, it does show that the violence in the Middle East is not winding down any time soon. This is also a clear example of how easily one conflict – in this case, Gaza – can expand into new conflicts with unintended consequences.
But there are other dimensions at play beyond Gaza and the Palestinians. Relations between Israel and post-revolutionary Iran have never been good. The Iranian government has called for the destruction of Israel, and Israel has used its foreign intelligence service, Mossad, to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program with assassinations and cyber warfare.
In its most recent direct attack on Iran, Israel struck military targets from the air in the provinces of Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam, causing minor damage to military installations and killing four soldiers. Israel had consulted the US State Department about its plans, but the US was not directly involved in the strikes.
Though Tehran has played down the extent of the damage, the Iranian regime has not ruled out a response, which should keep the region on edge for weeks to come. In fact, some hardliners in the Iranian parliament say the strike crossed a red line and a response is necessary.
Who’s to blame here?
Answering the question of “who started it?” in this conflict is not that simple.
US President Joe Biden said after the latest Israeli attack, “I hope this is the end” – an effort to urge both parties to halt their escalations. But unfortunately it is not his call to make.
Maintaining a delicate balance
There is a reason why direct military strikes between nations are rare, even between sworn enemies. When attacking another state, it is difficult to know exactly how they will respond, though a retaliatory strike is almost often expected.
This is because defence forces are not just used for fighting and winning wars – they are also vital to deterring them. When a fighting force is attacked, it’s important for it to strike back to maintain the perception it can deter future attacks and make a display of its capabilities. This is what is happening right now between Israel and Iran – neither side wants to appear weak.
If this is the case, where does the escalation end? De-escalation is essentially a game of chicken – one side has to be content with not responding to an attack to take the temperature down.
But there are equal pressures on states to choose to respond to an attack or de-escalate.
On the one hand, showing that your military is incapable of responding to an external threat is unacceptable, and theoretically invites further attacks. An unused deterrent is not a deterrent.
On the other, there’s the risk a retaliation could spiral into all-out conflict with your adversary. In the case of Israel and Iran this would almost certainly mean the involvement of US forces – a dire prospect.
Thankfully, this outcome is unlikely. There are signs both Iran and Israel are using their strikes to “save face” and maintain their deterrence capability rather than escalate tensions further, given the fact both made strikes on nonessential targets.
Both sides have reasons to avoid a larger conflict. Israel has just opened a second front against its adversaries by targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon and would face the largest conventional fighting force in the region if an all-out war broke out with Iran.
And Iran’s leaders have been under pressure domestically in recent years due to widespread public discontent. Iran would much rather continue to attack Israel through its proxies and maintain plausible deniability, as a direct war could threaten the regime’s survival.
But this latest strike is also a reminder that the longer conflicts go on, the less likely they are to remain contained. For over a year, the war in Gaza has raised tensions in the region to a fever pitch. A ceasefire would go a long way to reducing these tensions and stop the spread of political violence across the region – before it’s too late.
Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Often state elections don’t mean much federally, but Saturday’s Queensland’s result does carry implications for Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton and Adam Bandt.
Neither the prime minister nor the opposition leader will have missed the fact the actual campaign mattered. The new LNP government is headed to a comfortable majority but go back some time and Labor feared a wipeout.
Initially, that prompted the replacement of Annastacia Palaszczuk with Steven Miles less than a year ago.
Fast forward to the campaign, and a comparison between the pre-poll votes and the votes cast on Saturday shows how Labor clawed back some support during the final dash to the finish.
This pattern might make both federal leaders nervous. Albanese ran a relatively poor campaign in 2022. Looking back further, remember how the campaign went badly for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2016, and for Prime Minister Julia Gillard in 2010.
Peter Dutton is an unknown quantity in leading an election campaign, when scrutiny is intense and small things can blow out of proportion.
In Queensland we saw, once again, that scare campaigns are effective, and that Labor in particular is good at them.
Miles and state Labor seized on suggestions that women’s access to abortion could be rolled back by the LNP, perhaps via a private a member’s bill from Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) and a conscience vote for LNP MPs.
LNP leader David Crisafulli, likely sensitive to division within his own ranks, failed to react skillfully to the potential damage this issue could do him. He did not jump on it hard enough, early enough. Some shifty answers stoked fears and made him look dodgy.
Federal Liberals realise the risk of the abortion issue, which has seen passionate debate in parliament in the past even though the federal jurisdiction touches it only marginally.
When a couple of Nationals – senator Jacinta Price and Barnaby Joyce – aired their anti abortion views in the last week they were slapped down by Liberal women.
While abortion might be hard to mobilise as a federal issue in the coming election, scare campaigns can arise on all sorts of things, and unpredictably. Remember Labor’s “Mediscare” in 2016.
Parties have to be quick to recognise the potency of a scare, and deal with it effectively. Once it gets away it spreads like a bushfire, especially in the social media age of campaigning.
The state result will give heart to Dutton’s strategy of targeting the outer suburbs. As ABC election analyst Antony Green pointed out, the anti-Labor swing “was smaller in the south east than in regional Queensland, and smaller in inner Brisbane compared to outer Brisbane”.
More widely, in Australia the trend in recent years is towards Labor becoming the party of inner urban voters and the Liberals targeting outer suburbia.
The federal Greens will need to do some self-questioning about their strategy after their Queensland result. While their overall vote was not hit they appear certain of only one of their two state seats. They had talked up expectations of expanding their numbers.
This comes after seat losses at this month’s ACT election and a poor performance in the New South Wales local government election.
In 2022 the Greens increased their House of Representatives numbers from one to four, by winning three Queensland seats, two from the Coalition (Brisbane and Ryan) and one (Griffith) from Labor.
In this term of federal parliament, the Greens have become more extreme in their positions. The Middle East conflict has pushed this left-wing party further to the left. High profile Greens Max Chandler-Mather, from Queensland, appeared at a pro-CFMEU rally. The Greens have played hardball on some key government legislation.
As they review their situation, the Greens might be wise to cut a deal sooner rather than later on the housing bills they are holding up in the Senate. They have sought to make housing a high-priority issue for them, and could alienate voters they are targeting by continuing to hold out on measures the government argues will contribute to easing the housing crisis.
Finally, both the federal government and the Coalition will be able to see advantages in this result.
For the Coalition there is the golden threat of a conservative victory which, together with the federal polls, it can take as suggesting national opinion is, to a greater or lesser extent, moving in its favour.
Labor can look to silver linings. While the cost of living, an issue hitting the Albanese government hard federally, was central in the Queensland election, so was crime, as well as the “it’s time” factor. Crime was a distinctly state matter, and the Albanese government is looking for a second term, not a fourth one.
Federal Labor’s hope is that now voters have “vented” at a state level, they might be – despite the cost-of-living pressures – in a more benign mood when next year’s federal election comes.
For those in Queensland, that mood will also be influenced by how the Crisafulli government performs in the next few months, in meeting public expectations and avoiding missteps.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pandanus Petter, Research Fellow School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University
David Crisafulli, leader of the centre-right Liberal National Party of Queensland (LNP), will be Queensland’s 41st Premier. The party will form majority government for the first time since 2012.
Late Saturday night, Crisafulli claimed a victory of “hope over fear”, following a campaign dominated by messaging around youth crime, cost of living, housing and health crisises.
Although earlier polling was projecting a landslide to the LNP, Steven Miles’ three-term Labor party were able to narrow this lead in the final week of campaigning.
While there will be a change of government, the result wasn’t as decisive as many expected. As the vote counts trickled in on election night, they revealed a fragmented picture of who Queenslanders want in their parliament.
Miles campaigned vigorously on bread and butter, cost of living issues while promising more state involvement and regulation in housing, energy retail and petrol stations.
This looks to have played well in their heartland seats in Brisbane, Ipswich and Logan where they have likely returned South Brisbane and Ipswich West to the fold. Labor lost the former to The Greens in 2020 and the latter to the LNP in a by-election earlier in 2024.
The Liberal National Party will govern in majority in Queensland. ABC News
Despite this, with their laser focus on youth crime, the LNP made strong gains across the state, particularly on the North and central Queensland coasts.
They even took Mackay, a seat Labor has held for more than a century.
The LNP harmonised their heavy focus on crime with the selection of candidates. Some were high-profile victims of crime campaigners (such as in Capalaba, just outside of Brisbane). Others had a background in law enforcement.
How did the minor parties fare?
While the primary vote for the Greens increased modestly, they fell short of the election results they had hoped for. Having campaigned hard in four inner Brisbane seats in particular, the party has failed to pick up any seats so far, though they’re ahead in Maiwar.
Despite their efforts to pick up more seats in Queensland’s north, the parliament will likely continue on with a contingent of three or four Katter’s Australian Party MPs.
Popular independent Sandy Bolton was reelected in Noosa, while One Nation failed to secure a seat after running a candidate in all 93 electorates.
This was likely alluding to possible lessons learned from the LNP’s short-lived success last time around.
But it was also foreshadowing challenges he will face as a leader.
Who’s the new premier?
Like many politicians, Crisafulli will point to his early upbringing as teaching valuable lessons along his pathway to the premiership.
The 45-year-old was born in Ingham in North Queensland, the son and grandson of Italian migrants who run a successful sugarcane farm.
In his maiden speech in 2012, he attributed his success to his upbringing on the farm, the discipline he learned at local Catholic primary and secondary schools and the skills acquired working as a journalist during and after his days at James Cook University (where he was also known for competitive spaghetti eating).
He can claim to be able to understand the needs of rural constituents and those in the far north, who often feel neglected compared to the more densely populated south-east.
Despite this, his later career shows that he’s not tied down to that rural identity. It also shows he can’t claim to be an amateur politician.
Although he wasn’t involved in student politics, his political education began early as a media advisor for former Howard Minister Ian McDonald.
He demonstrated energy and ambition which have remained hallmarks of his career when he took a successful tilt at usually Labor-dominated Townsville politics, becoming the youngest ever councillor in 2004 and deputy mayor in 2008.
He joined state parliament in the bellwether seat of Mundingburra as part of Campbell Newman’s 2012 wipeout of Labor.
However, his time as a cabinet minister and high public profile weren’t enough to save him from a bitter exit from parliament when the electorate swung back towards Labor in 2015.
After reinventing himself as a Gold Coast based business consultant, he began his ascent anew by successfully defeating the incumbent in the safe LNP seat of Broadwater.
After the party lost the 2020 election, Crisafulli took over the party leadership.
He remained constantly on the move, unusually not residing permanently in his electorate but instead travelling the state extensively.
Crisafulli has focused on keeping public attention on crises (so-called or real) in youth crime (even promising to resign if he couldn’t quickly quash crime rates).
In aid of this goal, he mirrored many Labor party commitments to cost-of-living relief, such as cheaper public transport. Unusually, Crisafulli even agreed to honour their budget commitments sight unseen.
But on more controversial issues of interest to the party’s conservative base, he’s shown a tendency to try to avoid being nailed down.
This was most clear on the issue of abortion. Late in the campaign, Crisafulli said he supported “a woman’s right to choose”, but hasn’t ruled out a conscience vote on the subject.
Otherwise, he has only moved the party decisively to the right when he could claim to be following public opinion. For example, he abandoned bipartisan support for a Pathway to Treaty with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders after the unsuccessful Voice referendum.
Given he’s staked his leadership and credibility on addressing thorny problems in housing, health, crime and cost of living, he may have to take some big political risks.
Given the voters of Queensland have gifted him a majority, which in Queensland’s parliament comes with few restrictions on power, how well he’ll manage to avoid the mistakes of the Newman era remains to be seen.
Pandanus Petter is employed at the Australian National University with funding from The Australian Research Council.
Tuvalu’s Transport, Energy, and Communications Minister Simon Kofe has expressed doubt about Australia’s reliability in addressing the climate crisis.
Kofe was reacting to the latest report by report by the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, which found that Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom are responsible for more than 60 percent of emissions generated from extraction of fossil fuels across Commonwealth countries since 1990.
Kofe told RNZ Pacific that the report proves that Australia has essentially undermined its own climate credibility.
He said that there is a sense of responsibility on Tuvalu, being at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, to continue to advocate for stronger climate action and to talk to its partners.
“When the climate crisis really hits these countries, I think that might really get their attention. But that might actually be too late when countries actually begin to take this issue seriously,” he said.
He noted that Australia approved the extension of three more coal mines last month, which demonstrates that “there’s a lot of work to be done”.
‘Shoots their credibility’ “I think [that] kind of shoots their own credibility in the in the climate space.”
While Pacific leaders have endorsed Australia’s bid to host the United Nations climate change conference, or COP31, in 2026, Kofe said that if Australia really wanted to take leadership on the climate front, then they needed to show it in their actions.
“They are in control of their own policies and decisions. All we can do is continue to talk to them and put pressure on them,” he said.
“We just have to keep pressuring our partner, Australia, to do the right thing.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
With 45% of enrolled voters counted in today’s Queensland state election, The Poll Bludger’s results have the Liberal National Party (LNP) winning 38 of the 93 seats, Labor 26, Katter’s Australian Party (KAP) three and independents one.
Including undecided seats where one party is ahead, it’s 49 LNP, 39 Labor, three KAP, one Green and one independent. A majority is achieved with 47 seats, so the LNP are on track for a majority.
The statewide two-party estimate is a 53.1–46.9 win to the LNP, a 6.3% swing to the LNP since the 2020 election. Current primary votes are 40.9% LNP (up 5.7%), 33.4% Labor (down 6.6%), 10.3% Greens (up 0.7%), 7.8% One Nation (up 1.0%) and 2.3% KAP (down 0.3%).
As pre-poll and postal votes have come in, the swing to the LNP has increased as these votes have had stronger swings to the LNP than election day votes. There are many more pre-poll and postals still to be counted, so it’s more likely that the LNP will exceed its current projections than fall below them.
I believe the Resolve poll that gave the LNP a 53–47 lead will be the most accurate. While Labor recovered from landslide defeat margins in polls taken about the middle of this year, it wasn’t enough. The uComms poll that gave the LNP just a 51–49 lead two days before the election was poor.
The Greens lost South Brisbane to Labor, after the LNP recommended preferences to Labor on their how-to-vote material after recommending preferences to the Greens in 2020. Analyst Kevin Bonham said this is the first time the Greens have lost a single-member seat that they won at the previous general election.
The key reasons for Labor’s defeat were an “it’s time” factor, as Labor has governed since winning the January 2015 election, the federal Labor government tending to hurt state Labor parties, and Queensland easily being the most pro-Coalition state at the 2022 federal election.
At that election, Queensland was the only state where the Coalition won the two-party vote (by 54.1–45.9). The second best state for the Coalition was New South Wales, where Labor won the two-party vote by 51.4–48.6.
Labor’s defeat in Queensland will give some assistance to federal Labor. An unpopular and old Queensland Labor government would have hindered federal Labor’s prospects in Queensland at the federal election that is due by May 2025.
Late polls
The Newspoll and uComms poll were both released after Wednesday’s preview article on the Queensland election.
A Newspoll, conducted October 18–24 from a sample of 1,151, had given the LNP a 52.5–57.5 lead, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since a mid-September Newspoll. Primary votes were 42% LNP (steady), 33% Labor (up three), 11% Greens (down one), 8% One Nation (steady) and 6% for all Others (down two).
Labor premier Steven Miles gained seven points for a -3 net approval, with 48% dissatisfied and 45% satisfied. LNP leader David Crisafulli’s net approval plunged 15 points to -3. Miles led Crisafulli by 45–42 as better premier, a reversal from a 46–39 Crisafulli lead in September.
A uComms poll that was conducted Thursday from a sample of 3,651 using robopolling, gave the LNP a 51–49 lead. Bonham had primary votes from this poll, which was not commissioned by anyone. The primary votes were 39.3% LNP, 33.6% Labor, 12.9% Greens, 7.8% One Nation, 2.9% KAP and 3.5% others.
Federal Essential poll: Labor slumps and Dutton’s ratings jump
A national Essential poll, conducted October 16–20 from a sample of 1,140, gave the Coalition a 48–46 lead including undecided (49–47 to Labor in early October). Primary votes were 35% Coalition (up one), 28% Labor (down four), 12% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (down one), 2% UAP (up one), 9% for all Others (steady) and 6% undecided (up one).
Anthony Albanese’s net approval improved one point from September to -4, with 48% disapproving and 44% approving. He has improved six points since August. Peter Dutton’s net approval jumped six points to +6, his best in any poll this term.
King Charles had a 50–26 approval rating. By 45–39, voters supported Australia becoming a republic (42–35 in January). On Australia’s colonial history, 26% thought it something we should be proud of, 12% something we should be ashamed of and 62% said it had both positive and negative elements.
On the National Anti-Corruption Commission, 46% thought it is largely operating as intended but could be improved, 14% wanted it abolished and 10% said it’s successful.
Freshwater poll: Coalition holds narrow lead
A national Freshwater poll for The Financial Review, conducted October 18–20 from a sample of 1,034, gave the Coalition a 51–49 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the September Freshwater poll. Primary votes were 41% Coalition (down one), 30% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (steady) and 16% for all Others.
Albanese’s net approval was up one point to -14, with 49% unfavourable and 35% favourable. Dutton’s net approval improved two points to -2. Albanese was just ahead as preferred PM by 44–43 (45–41 in September).
Asked about Albanese buying a $4.3 million house, 52% said it had no impact on their view of him, 36% said it had worsened their view and 4% improved their view.
Cost of living remained the top issue with 72% saying it was important. The Coalition retained a 14-point lead over Labor on this issue and a 16-point lead on managing the economy.
Morgan poll: Labor jumps ahead
A national Morgan poll, conducted October 14–20 from a sample of 1,687, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since the October 7–13 Morgan poll.
Primary votes were 36.5% Coalition (down one), 32% Labor (up two), 13.5% Greens (down 0.5), 5.5% One Nation (down 0.5), 9% independents (steady) and 3.5% others (steady).
The headline figure uses respondent preferences. By 2022 election preference flows, Labor led by 53–47, a two-point gain for Labor.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
France has been criticised for the “alarming” death toll in New Caledonia during recent protests and its “cold shower” approach to decolonisation by experts of the UN Human Rights Committee.
The UN committee met this week in Geneva for France’s five-yearly human rights review with a focus on its Pacific territory, after peaceful protests over electoral changes turned violent leaving 13 people dead since May.
French delegates at the hearing defended the country’s actions and rejected the jurisdiction of the UN decolonisation process, saying the country “no longer has any international obligations”.
Almost 7000 security personnel with armoured vehicles have been deployed from France to New Caledonia to quell further unrest.
“The means used and the intensity of their response and the gravity of the violence reported, as well as the amount of dead and wounded, are particularly alarming,” said committee member Jose Santo Pais, assistant Prosecutor-General of the Portuguese Constitutional Court.
“There have been numerous allegations regarding an excessive use of force and that would have led to numerous deaths among the Kanak people and law enforcement,” the committee’s vice-chair said on Wednesday.
Months of protests Violence erupted after months of protests over a unilateral attempt by President Emmanuel Macron to “unfreeze” the territory’s electoral roll. Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their voting power and any chance of success at another independence referendum.
Eleven Kanaks and two French police have died. The committee heard 169 people were wounded and 2658 arrested in the past five months.
New Caledonia’s economy is in ruins with hundreds of businesses destroyed, tens-of-thousands left jobless and the local government seeking 4 billion euros (US$4.33 billion) in recovery funds from France.
Santos Pais questioned France’s commitment to the UN Declaration on Indigenous People and the “sufficient dialogue” required under the Nouméa Accord, a peace agreement signed in 1998 to politically empower Kanak people, that enabled the decolonisation process.
“It would seem that current violence in the territory is linked to the lack of progress in decolonisation,” said Santos Pais.
Last week, the new French Prime Minister announced controversial electoral changes that sparked the protests had been abandoned. Local elections, due to be held this year, will now take place at the end of 2025.
Pacific mission Tomorrow, Tonga’s prime minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni will lead a Pacific “observational” mission to New Caledonia of fellow leaders from Cook Islands, Fiji and Solomon Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs, together known as the “Troika-Plus”.
The PIF leaders’ three-day visit to the capital Nouméa will see them meet with local political parties, youth and community groups, private sector and public service providers.
“Our thoughts have always been with the people of New Caledonia since the unrest earlier this year, and we continue to offer our support,” Sovaleni said in a statement on Friday.
The UN committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts that regularly reviews compliance by 173 member states with their human rights obligations and is separate from the Human Rights Council, a political body composed of states.
Serbian committee member Tijana Surlan asked France for an update on investigations into injuries and fatalities “related to alleged excessive use of force” in New Caledonia. She asked if police firearms use would be reviewed “to strike a better balance with the principles of absolute necessity and strict proportionality.”
France’s delegation responded saying it was “committed to renewing dialogue” in New Caledonia and to striking a balance between the right to demonstrate and protecting people and property with the “principle of proportionality.”
Alleged intimidation by French authorities of at least five journalists covering the unrest in New Caledonia was highlighted by committee member Kobauyah Tchamdja Kapatcha from Togo. France responded saying it guarantees freedom of the press.
French Ambassador for Human Rights Isabelle Rome addresses the UN Human Rights Committee meeting in Geneva, pictured on 23 October 2024. Image: UNTV
France rejects ‘obligations’ The French delegation led by Ambassador for Human Rights Isabelle Rome added it “no longer administers a non-self-governing territory.”
France “no longer has any international obligations in this regard linked to its membership in the United Nations”, she told the committee on Thursday.
New Caledonia voted by modest majorities to remain part of France in referendums held in 2018 and 2020 under a UN-mandated decolonisation process. Three referendums were part of the Nouméa Accord to increase Kanaks’ political power following deadly violence in the 1980s.
A contentious final referendum in 2021 was overwhelmingly in favor of continuing with the status quo. Supporters of independence rejected its legitimacy due to a very low turnout — it was boycotted by Kanak political parties — and because it was held during a serious phase of the covid-19 pandemic, which restricted campaigning.
“France, through the referendum of September [2021], has therefore completed the process of decolonisation of its former colonies,” ambassador Rome said. She added that New Caledonia was one of the most advanced examples of the French government recognising indigenous rights, with a shared governance framework.
Another of its Pacific territories — French Polynesia — was re-inscribed on the UN decolonisation list in 2013 but France refuses to recognise its jurisdiction.
No change in policy After a decade, France began attending General Assembly Decolonisation Committee meetings in 2023 to “promote dialogue” and that it was not a “change in [policy] direction”, Rome said.
“There is no process between the French state and the Polynesian territory that reserves a role for the United Nations,” she added.
Santos Pais responded saying, “what a cold shower”.
“The General Assembly will certainly have a completely different view from the one that was presented to us,” he said.
Papua New Guinea police say 10 people have been tragically killed after a series of violent “revenge killings” along the Laiagam-Sirunki Highway in the Highlands province of Enga.
The attacks, which occured last Friday and Monday, are believed to be connected to an unresolved death that took place in March earlier this year.
Police said that gunmen from the Mulapin tribe ambushed a vehicle packed with passengers from the Sakare clan near Tambitanis Health Centre in Sirunki on October 11 at 8am.
The vehicle, carrying a body, was fired upon in a surprise attack. A woman lost her life, several others sustained serious injuries, and the gunmen escaped.
An hour later on the same day, the Sakare clan retaliated by shooting the driver and his passenger from close range. They reached a nearby hospital but succumbed to their injuries on arrival.
The leadership of the Kunalin and Lyain tribes is urging restraint and for the clans not to resort to violence, police said.
They have also called for the immediate surrender of suspects from both the Mulapin and Sakare tribes to law enforcement.
Investigation into ‘root causes’ Assistant Police Commissioner Joseph Tondop, who is responsible for the state of emergency in Enga, is calling for an investigation into the root causes of the recent conflict.
“This sort of revenge killing is unheard of in the history of tribal conflicts in Enga Province where innocent people unrelated to the conflicts where killed,” he said.
“All tribal clans taking part in the conflicts (Sakars, Mulapian, Kunalins, Myom and people form Kulapi 4 in Porgera) are all under the scope and ordered to refrain from further escalating the situation.”
The investigative teams will start their work immediately, and individuals or groups found to be involved will be apprehended, he said.
“This task force is given strict orders to carry out a thorough investigation, leaving no stone unturned.”
RNZ Pacific’s correspondent in PNG, Scott Waide, said the public was frustrated that police were yet to make arrests.
He said police found it difficult to deal with the clans and arrest people who were armed.
Waide said people were reluctant to give up weapons because it gave them a sense of security in tribal conflicts.
“It is a difficult situation that both lawmakers, citizens and police are in. The longer this drags on and guns are in the hands of ordinary people, killing will continue.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Polkinghorne, Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University
If you’ve ever gone to look up a quick fact and just kept browsing from one article (or page, or video), to another, to another – then you know the feeling of “going down a rabbit hole”. This experience of curiosity-led online wandering has become synonymous with the free, user-created encyclopedia Wikipedia.
In new research involving more than 480,000 Wikipedia users in 14 languages across 50 countries, US researchers led by Dale Zhou at the University of Pennsylvania studied three distinctly different ways of going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. These “curiosity styles” have been studied before, but not in such a large, diverse group of people using Wikipedia “naturalistically”, in daily life.
The research may help us better understand the nature and importance of curiosity, its connections to wellbeing, and strategies for preventing the spread of false information.
Wikipedia: first controversial, now mature, always popular
When Wikipedia was new in the early 2000s, it sparked controversies. People such as librarians and lecturers voiced concerns about Wikipedia’s potential for platforming untrue or incomplete information.
Today, the factuality of Wikipedia’s existing contents is less concerning than questions of bias, such as which topics the site’s volunteer editors deem noteworthy enough to include. There are global efforts to fill gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage, such as “edit-a-thons” to add entries on historically overlooked scientists and artists.
Part of what made Wikipedia groundbreaking was how it satisfies people’s intrinsic learning needs by inviting navigation from page to page, luring readers into rabbit holes. This, combined with the site’s participatory approach to creating and verifying pages, sparked its rapid growth. These qualities have also sustained Wikipedia as a predominant everyday information source, globally.
This new study examines data about Wikipedia readers’ activities. It looks at the different “architectural styles of curiosity” people embody when they navigate.
Busybodys, hunters and dancers
The new study explores the “knowledge networks” associated with the three main styles of curiosity: busybody, hunter and dancer. A knowledge network is a visual representation of how readers “weave a thread” across Wikipedia articles.
As the researchers explain:
The busybody scouts for loose threads of novelty, the hunter pursues specific answers in a projectile path, and the dancer leaps in creative breaks with tradition across typically siloed areas of knowledge.
Earlier research had shown evidence of busybodies and hunters, and speculated about the existence of dancers. The new study confirms that busybodies and hunters exist in multiple countries and languages. It also details the dancer style, which has been more elusive to document.
The researchers also identified geographical differences between curiosity styles.
In all 14 languages studied, busybodies tend to read more about culture, media, food, art, philosophy and religion. Hunters in 12 out of 14 languages tend to read more about science, technology, engineering and maths.
In German and English, hunters were more drawn to pages about history and society than busybodies. The opposite was true in Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Dutch and Chinese.
Dancers were identified by their forward leaps between disparate topics, as well as the diversity of their interests.
The research team points out we still have much to learn about how curiosity is shaped by local norms. Relating these results to gender, ethnicity, access to education, and other elements will paint a fuller picture.
Curiosity is beneficial, generally … and we have more to learn
Overall, this study supports the benefits of freer, broader browsing and reading. Following our curiosity can help us become better informed and expand our worldviews, creativity and relationships.
At the same time, people sometimes need closure more than they need exploration. This is not a bad thing or a sign of narrow-mindedness. In many situations there are benefits to moving on from information-seeking, and deciding we’ve learned enough for now.
Endless curiosity can have downsides. This is especially true when it’s motivated not by the joy of learning, but by the discomfort of uncertainty and exclusion. As other research has found, for some people, curiosity can lead toward false information and conspiracy theories. When information has a sense of novelty, or a hint of being hidden by powerful elites, this can make it more appealing, even when it’s not true.
The new study emphasises that different curiosity styles do not lead simply or universally to creativity or wellbeing. People’s contexts and circumstances vary.
Each of us, like Goldilocks, can follow our curiosity to find not too much, not too little, but the information that is “just right”. The researchers also hint at evidence for a spectrum of new curiosity styles beyond the main three, which will surely spark more research in future.
Stay curious and enjoy the rabbit hole
This study also suggests ways Wikipedia (and sites like it) could better support curiosity-driven exploration. For example, rather than suggesting pages based on their popularity or similarity to other pages, Wikipedia could try showing readers their own dynamic knowledge network.
As a Wikipedian would say, this new study is noteworthy. It shows how smaller-scale, exploratory research into people’s reading and browsing can be translated to a much larger scale across languages and cultures.
As AI becomes more influential and the problems of misinformation grow, understanding technologies that shape our access to information – and how we use them – is more important than ever. We know YouTube recommendations can be a radicalising pipeline to extremist content, for example, and ChatGPT is largely indifferent to the truth.
Studying Wikipedia readers reveals a rich picture of people’s freely expressed, diverse online curiosities. It shows an alternative to technologies built on narrower assumptions about what people value, how we learn, and how we want to explore online.
Sarah Polkinghorne has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Association for Information Science & Technology, and RMIT University’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies. She is also affiliated with the University of Alberta, and is a past president of the Canadian Association for Information Science.
It was a heady week for the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — celebration of seven years of its Taipei office, presenting a raft of proposals to the Taiwan government, and hosting its Asia-Pacific network of correspondents.
Director general Thibaut Bruttin and the Taipei bureau chief Cedric Alviani primed the Taipei media scene before last week’s RSF initiatives with an op-ed in the Taiwan Times by acknowledging the country’s media freedom advances in the face of Chinese propaganda.
But the co-authors also warned over the credibility damage caused by media “too often neglect[ing] journalistic ethics for political or commercial reasons”.
As a result, only three in 10 Taiwanese said they trusted the news media, according to a Reuters Institute survey conducted in 2022, one of the lowest percentages among democracies.
“This climate of distrust gives disproportionate influence to platforms, in particular Facebook and Line, despite them being a major vector of false or biased information,” Bruttin and Alviani wrote.
“This credibility deficit for traditional media, a real Achilles heel of Taiwanese democracy, puts it at risk of being exploited for malicious purposes, with potentially dramatic consequences.”
RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin speaking at the reception celebrating seven years of Taipei’s Asia Pacific office. Image: Pacific Media Watch
The week also highlighted concerns over the export of the China’s “New World Media Order”, which is making inroads in some parts of the Asia-Pacific region, including the Pacific.
At the opening session of the Asia-Pacific correspondents’ seminar, delegates referenced the Chinese disinformation and assaults on media freedom strategies that have been characterised as the “great leap backwards for journalism” in China.
“Disinformation — the deliberate spreading of false or biased news to manipulate minds — is gaining ground around the world,” Bruttin and Alviani warned in their article.
“As China and Russia sink into authoritarianism and export their methods of censorship and media control, democracies find themselves overwhelmed by an incessant flow of propaganda that threatens the integrity of their institutions.”
Both Bruttin and Alviani spoke of these issues too at the celebration of the seventh anniversary of the Asia-Pacific office in Taipei.
Why Taipei? Hongkong had been an “likely choice, but not safe legally”, admitted Bruttin when they were choosing their location, so the RSF team are happy with the choice of Taiwan.
Hub for human rights activists “I think we were among the first NGOs to have established a presence here. We kind of made a bet that Taipei would be a hub for human rights activists, and we were right.”
About 200 journalists, media workers and press freedom and human rights advocates attended the birthday bash in the iconic Grand Hotel’s Yuanshan Club. So it wasn’t surprising that there was a lot of media coverage raising the issues.
RSF director-general Thibaut Bruttin (centre) with correspondents Dr David Robie and Dr Joseph Fernandez in Taipei. Image: Pacific Media Watch
In an interview with Voice of America’s Joyce Huang, Bruttin was more specific about the “insane” political propaganda threats from China faced by Taiwan.
However, Taiwan “has demonstrated resilience and has rich experience in resisting cyber information attacks, which can be used as a reference for the world”.
Referencing China as the world’s “biggest jailer of journalists”, Bruttin said: “We’re very worried, obviously.” He added about some specific cases: “We’ve had very troublesome reports about the situation of Zhang Zhan, for example, who was the laureate of the RSF’s [2021 press freedom] awards [in the courage category] and had been just released from jail, now is sent back to jail.
“We know the lack of treatment if you have a medical condition in the Chinese prisons.
“Another example is Jimmy Lai, the Hongkong press freedom mogul, he’s very likely to die in jail if nothing happens. He’s over 70.
“And there is very little reason to believe that, despite his dual citizenship, the British government will be able to get him a safe passage to Europe.”
Problem for Chinese public Bruttin also expressed concern about the problem for the general public, especially in China where he said a lot of people had been deprived of the right to information “worthy of that name”.
“And we’re talking about hundreds of millions of people. And it’s totally scandalous to see how bad information is treated in the People’s Republic of China.”
Seventeen countries in the Asia-Pacific region were represented in the network seminar.
Representatives of Australia, Cambodia, Hongkog, Indonesia, Japan, Myanmar, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, South Korea, Tibet, Thailand and Vietnam were present. However, three correspondents (Malaysia, Singapore and Timor-Leste) were unable to be personally present.
Discussion and workshop topics included the RSF Global Strategy; the Asia-Pacific network and the challenges being faced; best practice as correspondents; “innovative solutions” against disinformation; public advocacy (for authoritarian regimes; emerging democracies, and “leading” democracies); “psychological support” – one of the best sessions; and the RSF Crisis Response.
RSF Oceania colleagues Dr David Robie (left) and Dr Joseph Fernandez . . . mounting challenges. Image: Pacific Media Watch
What about Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand) and its issues? Fortunately, the countries being represented have correspondents who can speak our publicly, unlike some in the region facing authoritarian responses.
“While this puts Australia in the top one quarter globally, it does not reflect well on a country that supposedly espouses democratic values. It ranks behind New Zealand, Taiwan, Timor-Leste and Bhutan,” he says.
“Australia’s press freedom challenges are manifold and include deep-seated factors, including the influence of oligarchs whose own interests often collide with that of citizens.
“While in opposition the current Australian federal government promised reforms that would have improved the conditions for press freedom, but it has failed to deliver while in government.
“Much needs to be done in clawing back the over-reach of national security laws, and in freeing up information flow, for example, through improved whistleblower law, FOI law, source protection law, and defamation law.”
Dr Fernandez criticises the government’s continuing culture of secrecy and says there has been little progress towards improving transparency and accountability.
“The media’s attacks upon itself are not helping either given the constant moves by some media and their backers to undermine the efforts of some journalists and some media organisations, directly or indirectly.”
A proposal for a “journalist register” has also stirred controversy.
Dr Fernandez also says the war on Gaza has “highlighted the near paralysis” of many governments of the so-called established democracies in “bringing the full weight of their influence to end the loss of lives and human suffering”.
“They have also failed to demonstrate strong support for journalists’ ability to tell important stories.”
An English-language version of this tribute to the late RSF director-general Christophe Deloire, who died from cancer on 8 June 2024, was screened at the RSF Taipei reception. He was 53. Video: RSF
Aotearoa New Zealand In New Zealand (19th in the RSF Index), although journalists work in an environment free from violence and intimidation, they have increasingly faced online harassment. Working conditions became tougher in early 2022 when, during protests against covid-19 vaccinations and restrictions and a month-long “siege” of Parliament, journalists were subjected to violence, insults and death threats, which are otherwise extremely rare in the country.
Research published in December 2023 revealed that high rates of abuse and threats directed at journalists put the country at risk of “mob censorship” – citizen vigilantism seeking to “discipline” journalism. Women journalists bore the brunt of the online abuse with one respondent describing her inbox as a “festering heap of toxicity”.
While New Zealand society is wholeheartedly multicultural, with mutual recognition between the Māori and European populations enshrined in the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, this balance is under threat from a draft Treaty Principles Bill.
The nation’s bicultural dimension is not entirely reflected in the media, still dominated by the English-language press. A rebalancing is taking place, as seen in the success of the Māori Television network and many Māori-language programmes in mass media, such as Te Karere, The Hui and Te Ao Māori News.
New Zealand media also play an important role as a regional communications centre for other South Pacific nations, via Tagata Pasifika, Pacific Media Network and others.
Papua New Guinea’s Belinda Kora (left) with RSF colleagues . . . “collaborating in our Pacific efforts in seeking the truth”. Image: Belinda Kora
Papua New Guinea The Papua New Guinea correspondent, Belinda Kora, who is secretary of the revised PNG Media Council and an ABC correspondent in Port Moresby, succeeded former South Pacific Post Ltd chief executive Bob Howarth, the indefatigable media freedom defender of both PNG and Timor-Leste.
“I am excited about what RSF is able and willing to bring to a young Pacific region — full of challenges against the press,” she says.
“But more importantly, I guess, is that the biggest threat in PNG would be itself, if it continues to go down the path of not being able to adhere to simple media ethics and guidelines.
“It must hold itself accountable before it is able to hold others in the same way.
“We have a small number of media houses in PNG but if we are able to stand together as one and speak with one voice against the threats of ownership and influence, we can achieve better things in future for this industry.
“We need to protect our reporters if they are to speak for themselves and their experiences as well. We need to better provide for their everyday needs before we can write the stories that need to be told.
“And this lies with each media house.
The biggest threat for the Pacific as a whole? “I guess the most obvious one would be being able to remain self-regulated BUT not being accountable for breaching our individual code of ethics.
“Building public trust remains vital if we are to move forward. The lack of media awareness also contributes to the lack of ensuring media is given the attention it deserves in performing its role — no matter how big or small our islands are,” Kora says.
“The press should remain free from government influence, which is a huge challenge for many island industries, despite state ownership.
Kora believes that although Pacific countries are “scattered in the region”, they are able to help each other more, to better enhance capacity building and learning from their mistakes with collaboration.
“By collaborating in our efforts in seeking the truth behind many of our big stories that is affecting our people. This I believe will enable us to improve our performance and accountability.”
Example to the region Meanwhile, back in Taiwan on the day that RSF’s Thibaut Bruttin flew out, he gave a final breakfast interview to China News Agency (CNA) reporter Teng Pei-ju who wrote about the country building up its free press model as an example to the region.
“Taiwan really is one of the test cases for the robustness of journalism in the world,” added Bruttin, reflecting on the country’s transformation from an authoritarian regime that censored information into a vibrant democracy that fights disinformation.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has “cleared the air” with the Fijian diaspora in Samoa over Fiji’s vote against the United Nations resolution on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People.
He denied that Fiji — the only country to vote against the resolution — had “pressed the wrong button”.
In Apia, Rabuka, who leaves for Kanaky New Caledonia on Sunday to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum’s “Troika Plus” talks on the French Pacific’s territory amid indigenous demands for independence, told The Fiji Times:
“We will not tell them we pressed the wrong button. We will tell them that the resolution was an ambush resolution, it is not something that we have been talking about.”
‘Serious student of colonisation’ The Prime Minister said he had been a “serious student of colonisation and decolonisation”.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “We will not tell them we pressed the wrong button.” Image: Fiji Times
“They started with the C-12, but now it’s C-24 members of the [UN] committee that talks about decolonisation.
“I was wondering if anyone would complain about my going [to Kanaky New Caledonia] next week because C-24 met last week and there was a vote on decolonisation.”
According to an RNZ Pacific interview, Rabuka had told the Kanak independence movement:”Don’t slap the hand that has fed you.”
Fiji was the only country that voted against the UN resolution while 99 voted for the resolution and 61 countries, including colonisers such as France, United Kingdom and the United States, abstained.
Another coloniser, Indonesia (West Papua), voted for it.
“I thought the [indigenous] people of the Kanaky of New Caledonia would object to my coming, so far we have not heard anything from them.
“So, I am hoping that no one will bring that up, but if they do bring it up, we have a perfect answer.”
Fiji human rights advocate Shamima Ali . . . “We are ashamed of having a government that supports an occupation.” Image: FWCC/FB
Human rights advocate Shamima Ali said in a statement on social media it was “unbelievable” that Prime Minister Rabuka claimed to be “a serious student of colonisation and decolonisation” while leading a government that had been “blatantly complicit in the genocide of innocent Palestinians”.
“No amount of public statements and explanations will save this Coalition government from the mess it has created on the international stage, especially at the United Nations.
“We are ashamed of having a government that supports an occupation, votes against a ceasefire and does not want decolonisation in the world.
“Trust between the Fijian people and their government is being eroded, especially on matters of global significance that reflect on the entire nation.”
According to the government, Fiji is one of two Pacific countries which are members of the Special Committee on Decolonisation or C-24 and have been a consistent voice in addressing the issue of decolonisation.
Through the C-24 and the Fourth Committee, Fiji aligns with the positions undertaken by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), in its support for the annual resolution on decolonisation entitled “Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”.
Government reiterated its support of the regional position of the Forum, and the MSG on decolonisation and self-determination, as enshrined in the UN Charter.
The Fiji Permanent Mission in New York, led by Filipo Tarakinikini, is working with the Forum Secretariat to clarify the matter within its process.
Rabuka is currently in Samoa for the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which is being held in the Pacific for the first time.
The UN decolonisation declaration vote on 17 October 2024 . . . Fiji was the only country that voted against it. Image: UN
After nearly 20 years as a lecture theatre, the University of Sydney’s Footbridge Theatre is reopening as a live performance venue in the university’s arts precinct.
The Footbridge is home to a long history of student theatre on campus. When it opened in 1961 as the 655-seat Union Theatre (replacing the old Union Hall) it was the first theatre to have been built in Sydney in more than 20 years.
Hopes were high for the new venture to be shared by student theatre groups and Sydney’s first professional repertory company, the Union Repertory Theatre Company (not to be confused with the Melbourne Theatre Company’s original name, the Union Theatre Repertory Company).
For decades, the Footbridge Theatre was host to both industry heavyweights and budding talent from across the arts sectors, before being converted to a lecture hall in 2006. Now, it’s back.
Bell also acted in and directed a number of shows in the following years. He returned again in the early 1990s to stage a series of productions with his fledgling Bell Shakespeare company.
Peter Carroll, Germaine Greer, Maree D’Arcy, Ron Blair and Paul Thom in Mother Courage. University of Sydney
A smidge of controversy
The university students of the 1960s had been delighted to have their “own” venue after years of makeshift spaces. They produced some adventurous – as well as some scandalous – works.
When the Dramatic Society staged its Revue of the Absurd in 1963, it included a controversial film by the then-nascent filmmakers Bruce Beresford and Albie Thoms. It Droppeth as the Gentle Rain depicted a cocktail party coming to a sticky end as shit rained down from the sky.
The film was promptly banned. This ban was reinstated the following year when Beresford and Thoms sought to show it at a gala commemorating the Dramatic Society’s 75th birthday.
Bruce Beresford and Albie Thoms’ film, It Droppeth as the Gentle Rain, was banned in 1963 – and again the following year. University of Sydney
Student revues were a popular feature of the theatre in its early years. One of these was the 1964 revue called Jump, which starred Colin Anderson, Germaine Greer, John Gaden and Paul Thom.
The revue Jump featured Paul Thom and John Gaden (left), as well as Colin Anderson and Germaine Greer (right). University of Sydney
The Union Repertory Theatre Company was short-lived, collapsing within 12 months of its launch in 1961.
Also, ironically, the Footbridge was too expensive for students to hire often. Nonetheless, it was still a launching pad for those involved in student theatre, including Henry Szeps (who later acted in the 1984–94 series Mother and Son), Jack Thompson, who played Claudius in a production of Hamlet (1969), and Neil Armfield in Much Ado About Nothing (1974).
Fellow student actor and director David Marr would later acknowledge Armfield’s genius as a director, while diplomatically adding “acting was not his strength”.
A poster designed by Martin Sharp for the 1965 revue First, No Pinky. University of Sydney
What’s in a name?
The Union Theatre was a venue for hire throughout the 1970s, with student theatre, concerts, music theatre, French language theatre and other genres sporadically staged. In 1981, it was renamed the Footbridge Theatre (after a footbridge that was constructed over Parramatta Road in 1972).
For two decades from the mid-1980s, the Gordon Frost Organisation leased the theatre to present a number of popular commercial productions.
It also rented the theatre to other companies, including Bell Shakespeare, the Sydney Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre and Sydney Festival, which programmed outstanding international works such as the Irish Druid Theatre’s 1998 production of The Leenane Trilogy.
The 1990s also saw students back onstage in annual faculty revues.
The next act begins
A squeeze on space at the university led to Footbridge’s conversion to a lecture theatre in 2006. Following extensive renovations, the now 300-seat theatre is opening once again, with Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.
The university’s Dramatic Society first produced Into the Woods in the early 2000s (starring Virginia Gay). The Sydney University Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE) staged it again in 2011.
This time around the production is showcasing the talents of the inaugural cohort of music theatre students from the university’s Conservatorium of Music.
Just as it was for the “Johns” (Bell and Gaden) who, in the early 1960s, took their first steps as student actors into their future careers – and are still going strong six decades later – campus theatres remain vitally important for students finding their feet as the artists of the future.
Now, in a new decade and with a new generation of students, it’s time to go into the woods again.
Laura Ginters and Robyn Dalton co-authored a history of drama activities at the University of Sydney, The Ripples Before The New Wave 1957-1963 (2018). The authors interviewed many of the student actors mentioned here for that book.
Travis Scott’s Melbourne concert on October 22 lived up to his reputation for chaotic performances. Fans, eager for a high-energy show, were met with unruly scenes both inside and outside the venue.
Reports described concertgoers clashing, throwing plastic bottles and dismantling barricades.
These occurrences, at times, were reminiscent of the dangerous atmosphere at Scott’s past concerts, including the fatal 2021 crowd crush at Astroworld Festival in Houston.
Modern crowd psychology shows us collective behaviour is shaped by perceived group norms, and these norms can either foster safety or encourage chaos. This performance – contrasted with other recent big concerts in Australia – highlights the urgent need to rethink the roles of performers in crowd management.
Scott’s performances are characterised by his desire to have his energy reciprocated by the audience, which creates an environment where defiance is normalised.
Statements such as “forget security, this is for y’all” push fans toward risky behaviours, making these concerts highly charged and, at times, uncontrollable.
While this may foster excitement and adrenaline, it also sets the stage for unsafe crowd dynamics.
The 2021 Astroworld tragedy, in which ten people died and thousands were injured in a crowd surge, should have served as a wake-up call about the elevated risks at Scott’s performances.
Despite signs of crowd distress, Scott continued performing for nearly 40 minutes after Houston officials started responding to the mass casualty event. Despite visible signs of crowd distress, the show continued.
More than 300 injury lawsuits were settled between festivalgoers and Scott and concert promoter Live Nation. Plaintiffs argued the concert’s organisers failed to act swiftly to prevent the disaster once the crowd surge became life-threatening.
Though the Melbourne concert didn’t reach the same tragic levels, the chaotic scenes were reminders of the ongoing risks at Scott’s performances.
Incidents like the one in Melbourne – with security struggles, fan injuries and disorder – should serve as near-miss warnings. The same volatile energy persists in Travis’ concerts and could amount to risky behaviour, luckily not of catastrophic consequences in this case.
Swift’s recent Australian shows, which hosted record-breaking attendance numbers, ran smoothly.
The difference in audience behaviour isn’t just about the genre of music and the energy and culture that comes with it. It’s also about how the artist interacts with the crowd. Swift creates an atmosphere of excitement while maintaining a sense of order, often engaging the audience in a way that fosters respect for boundaries and safety.
Swift has a strong track record of prioritising audience safety and wellbeing during her concerts.
In many shows, she stopped to address issues such as heat exhaustion or crowd distress, by encouraging fans to stay hydrated and to look out for each other.
Crowd psychology emphasises how individuals in large gatherings adjust behaviour based on the perceived norms of the group.
The Social Identity Theory of crowds explains that people align their behaviour with the crowd’s collective identity.
A shared social identity within a crowd increases the likelihood of people adopting collective norms – even if those norms encourage risk-taking. Perceived group norms can override personal caution in favour of behaviour that is seen as accepted or approved by the group.
In the case of music performers, artists can guide actions that align with the group’s sense of “us”. This can ultimately lead to shifts in behaviour towards safety or risk-taking.
What now?
The contrasting experiences between Scott’s and Swift’s concerts offers a crucial lesson in crowd management: the role of leadership and the norms set by performers.
We need to rethink the roles of performers in crowd management. Artists such as Scott wield immense influence over crowd dynamics, and this power should be harnessed more consciously.
The chaotic, high-energy nature of Scott’s performances is part of his identity. Fans attend his shows expecting that intensity.
The key difference lies in how the artist can create a high-energy environment without compromising fan safety. Encouraging fans to disregard security is an example of where defiance can stretch too far. The line between excitement and chaos becomes blurred. The messaging needs to shift to maintaining intensity but within boundaries that safeguard the audience.
Awareness around how crowd behaviour is influenced by artists and the group norms that they set can help walk the line between excitement and chaos.
Milad Haghani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the lead up to the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto last Sunday, Indonesia established five “Vulnerable Area Buffer Infantry Battalions” in key regions across West Papua — a move described by Indonesian Army Chief-of-Staff Maruli Simanjuntak as a “strategic initiative” by the new leader.
The battalions are based in the Keerom, Sarmi, Boven Digoel, Merauke and Sorong regencies, and their aim is to “enhance security” in Papua, and also to strengthen Indonesia’s military presence in response to long-standing unrest and conflict, partly related to independence movements and local resistance.
According to Armed Forces chief General Agus Subiyanto, “the main goal of the new battalions is to assist the government in accelerating development and improving the prosperity of the Papuan people”.
However, this raises concerns about further militarisation and repression of a region already plagued by long-running violence and human rights abuses in the context of the movement for a free and independent West Papua.
Thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been stationed in areas impacted by violence, including Star Mountain, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak and Puncak Jaya.
As a result, the situation in West Papua is becoming increasingly difficult for indigenous people.
Extrajudicial killings in Papua go unreported or are only vaguely known about internationally. Those who are aware of these either disregard them or accept them as an “unavoidable consequence” of civil unrest in what Indonesia refers to as its most eastern provinces — the “troubled regions”.
Why do the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the international community stay silent?
While the Indonesian government frames this move as a strategy to enhance security and promote development, it risks exacerbating long-standing tensions in a region with deep-seated conflicts over autonomy and independence and the impacts of extractive industries and agribusiness on West Papuan people and their environment.
Exploitative land theft The Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, in collaboration with various international and Indonesian human and environmental rights organisations, presented testimony at the public hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) at Queen Mary University of London, in June.
The tribunal heard testimonies relating to a range of violations by Indonesia. A key issue, highlighted was the theft of indigenous Papuan land by the Indonesian government and foreign corporations in connection to extractive industries such as mining, logging and palm oil plantations.
The appropriation of traditional lands without the consent of the Papuan people violates their right to land and self-determination, leading to environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, and displacement of Indigenous communities.
The tribunal’s judgment underscores how the influx of non-Papuan settlers and the Indonesian government’s policies have led to the marginalisation of Papuan culture and identity. The demographic shift due to transmigration programmes has significantly reduced the proportion of Indigenous Papuans in their own land.
Moreover, a rise in militarisation in West Papua has often led to heightened repression, with potential human rights violations, forced displacement and further marginalisation of the indigenous communities.
The decision to station additional military forces in West Papua, especially in conflict-prone areas like Nduga, Yahukimo and Intan Jaya, reflects a continuation of Indonesia’s militarised approach to governance in the region.
Indonesian security forces . . . “the main goal of the new battalions is to assist the government in accelerating development and improving the prosperity of the Papuan people,” says Armed Forces chief General Agus Subiyanto. Image: Antara
Security pact The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) was signed by the two countries in 2010 but only came into effect this year after the PNG Parliament ratified it in late February.
Indonesia ratified the pact in 2012.
As reported by Asia Pacific Report, PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and Indonesia’s ambassador to PNG, Andriana Supandy, said the DCA enabled an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the PNG-West Papua border.
This will have a significant impact on civilian communities in the areas of conflict and along the border. Indigenous people in particular, are facing the threat of military takeovers of their lands and traditional border lines.
Under the DCA, the joint militaries plan to employ technology, including military drones, to monitor and manage local residents’ every move along the border.
Human rights Prabowo, Defence Minister prior to being elected President, has a controversial track record on human rights — especially in the 1990s, during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.
His involvement in military operations in West Papua adds to fears that the new battalions may be used for oppressive measures, including crackdowns on dissent and pro-independence movements.
As indigenous communities continue to be marginalised, their calls for self-determination and independence may grow louder, risking further conflict in the region.
Without substantial changes in the Indonesian government’s approach to West Papua, including addressing human rights abuses and engaging in meaningful dialogue with indigenous leaders, the future of West Papuans remains uncertain and fraught with challenges.
With ongoing military operations often accused of targeting indigenous populations, the likelihood of further human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and forced displacement, remains high.
Displacement Military operations in West Papua frequently result in the displacement of indigenous Papuans, as they flee conflict zones.
The presence of more battalions could drive more communities from their homes, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the region. Indigenous peoples, who rely on their land for survival, face disruption of their traditional livelihoods and rising poverty.
The Indonesian government launched the Damai Cartenz military operation on April 5, 2018, and it is still in place in the conflict zones of Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga and Intan Jaya.
Since then, according to a September 24 Human Rights Monitor update, more than 79,867 West Papuans remain internally displaced.
The displacement, killings, shootings, abuses, tortures and deaths are merely the tip of the iceberg of what truly occurs within the tightly-controlled military operational zones across West Papua, according to Benny Wenda, a UK-based leader of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).
The international community, particularly the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum have been criticised for remaining largely silent on the matter. Responding to the August 31 PIF communique reaffirming its 2019 call for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua, Wenda said:
“[N]ow is the time for Indonesia to finally let the world see what is happening in our land. They cannot hide their dirty secret any longer.”
Increased global attention and intervention is crucial in addressing the humanitarian crisis, preventing further escalations and supporting the rights and well-being of the West Papuans.
Without meaningful dialogue, the long-term consequences for the indigenous population may be severe, risking further violence and unrest in the region.
As Prabowo was sworn in, Wenda restated the ULMWP’s demand for an internationally-mediated referendum on independence, saying: “The continued violation of our self-determination is the root cause of the West Papua conflict.”
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Green Left in Australia.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is cautioning New Caledonia’s local government to “be reasonable” in its requests from Paris ahead of a Pacific fact-finding mission.
A much-anticipated high-level visit by Pacific leaders to the French territory is confirmed, after it was postponed by New Caledonia’s local government in August due to allegations France was pushing its own agenda.
President Louis Mapou has confirmed the Pacific leaders’ mission will take place from October 27-29.
Rabuka is one of the four Pacific leaders taking part in the so-called “Troika Plus” mission and confirmed he will be in Nouméa on Sunday.
He told RNZ Pacific during his visit to Aotearoa last week that as “an old hand in Pacific leadership”, listening was key.
“I’m hoping that they will be very, very reasonable about what they’re asking for,” the prime minister said.
“When they started, the Kanaky movement started during my time as Prime Minister. I told them, ‘look, don’t slap the hand that has fed you’.
‘Good disassociation arrangement’ “So have a good disassociation arrangement when you become independent, make sure you part as friends.”
This week, Rabuka told RNZ Pacific in Apia that he would be taking a back seat during the mission.
Veteran Pacific journalist Nick Maclellan, who is in New Caledonia, said there was “significant concern” that political leaders in France did not understand the depth of the crisis.
“This crisis is unresolved, and I think as Pacific leaders arrive this week, they’ll have to look beyond the surface calm to realise that there are many issues that still have to play out in the months to come,” he said.
He said there appeared to be “a tension” between the local government of New Caledonia and the French authorities about the purpose of Pacific leaders’ mission.
“In the past, French diplomats have suggested that the Forum is welcome to come, to condemn violence, to address the question of reconstruction and so on,” he said.
“But I sense a reluctance to address issues around France’s responsibility for decolonisation.
‘Important moment’ “The very fact that four prime ministers are coming, not diplomats, not ministers, not just officials, but four prime ministers of Forum member countries, shows that this is an important moment for regional engagement,” he added.
In a statement on Friday, the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat said that the prime ministers of Tonga and the Cook Islands, along with Solomon Islands Foreign Affairs Minister, would join Rabuka to travel to New Caledonia.
Tongan PM Hu’akavameiliku will head the mission, which is expected to land in Nouméa after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Samoa this week.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
If you’re found guilty of a crime, it’s a basic principle of Australian law that you have a right to appeal.
But having a right and being able to exercise it are two different things, especially when it comes to fresh evidence casting doubt on your conviction.
In Australia, your ability to challenge a conviction with fresh evidence depends on where you live, because each state and territory has different rules. Too often, it also depends on the resources someone can access, including money and knowledge of the legal system.
Everyone should have the same opportunities to clear their name, so how can we make accessing appeals more equitable?
State by state
Direct pathways to appeal differ between the states and territories.
In all postcodes, it’s difficult to get appeal courts to consider fresh evidence in the first instance.
South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland and the ACT allow multiple appeal applications if “fresh and compelling” evidence emerges after your first appeal. Since 2013, six convictions have been quashed this way, including Henry Keogh’s in SA after the state coroner recanted trial evidence.
Tasmania and WA allow subsequent appeals only for serious offences, while SA has no such restriction.
New South Wales and the Northern Territory don’t allow subsequent appeals, so people there have less direct access to the courts if wrongly convicted.
There are, however, indirect ways people can seek an appeal with fresh evidence.
In all states, you can ask the government to refer your case back to an appeal court. For example, the Victorian Attorney-General referred Faruk Orman’s case after evidence emerged about his lawyer’s misconduct. Referral decisions are made in secret and not reviewable.
In the ACT, you can ask the Supreme Court for a judicial inquiry into your conviction. If you get an inquiry, the inquiry officer can refer your case back to the appeal court if they find reasonable doubt. This led to David Eastman’s conviction being quashed.
These inquiries are only available if the issue can’t be properly addressed in an appeal, for example because the time for filing an appeal has lapsed. But, the ACT introduced subsequent appeals in 2024 which have no time limit, so it is unclear whether this pathway is still usable.
You can also ask the NSW Supreme Court for an inquiry or direct referral of your case back to the appeal court. This path is available for all offences and sentences and decisions are public. Since 2014, 59 conviction review applications to the NSW Supreme Court have resulted in one inquiry order and six referrals, with three successful appeals.
The inquiry (currently underway) involves the Croatian Six, convicted in 1981 for conspiracy to bomb sites in Sydney. After many failed attempts, they finally secured an inquiry with fresh evidence casting doubt on police and witnesses’ trial evidence.
These different pathways across the country create an uneven playing field, where some wrongfully convicted people may have more opportunities to clear their name than others.
The right resources
Access to appeals doesn’t just depend on location. It’s also about resources.
To succeed in getting an appeal via any of the above pathways, you need the power to obtain documents and the resources to gather other evidence. You also need the ability to prepare a strong case. That’s before you even get to court.
Judicial inquiries have investigatory powers and resources, but are expensive. For example, the Eastman inquiry cost the ACT government $12 million.
These commissions have the power to compel evidence and resources to investigate claims of wrongful conviction at no cost to applicants. They also have the power to refer cases back to the courts. While these commissions don’t refer many cases overall, about 70% of of cases referred in the UK are successful on appeal.
But, even for commissions, a strong initial application is important. In the UK, the Cardiff University Innocence Project engages law students to investigate claims of innocence and prepare applications for claims with merit.
Canada and the United States don’t have criminal case review commissions. Innocence Projects there review claims of innocence and help prepare applications for government or court review.
This is similar to the work of the few innocence clinics in Australia, such as those at RMIT and Griffith universities.
Innocence initiatives around the world work with limited investigatory resources and powers compared with those of a review commission. In the absence of a such a commission in Australia, second appeals are useful, but they are expensive to run, hard to access and don’t address the resource issue.
The free NSW Supreme Court pathway doesn’t address the resource issue either. But it can lead to an inquiry or referral, is open and accountable, and comes with guiding criteria and discretion to make short shrift of baseless applications.
My research suggests free pathways to appeal are important justice mechanisms for the wrongly convicted, but they work best when applicants have legal help to prepare a clear and concise application. Involving law students to help edit applications could make it easier for decision-makers to review cases and help applicants without lawyers get a fairer chance to be heard.
Kylie Lingard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Investing in film and TV productions is a risky venture. Even the best directors and producers are just a flop away from ruining their careers.
So if a company owns the intellectual property to a popular material, or if that material enters the public domain, these companies – risk-averse entities, to be sure – will hastily retread their tyres for another lap of the track. This is partly why you’ll see well-worn stories from your childhood told over and over onscreen, even now.
But if the new version is too similar to the old, people will cynically roll their eyes. Enter Disney, which has perfected the strategy over the past few decades of retelling the same stories from different characters’ perspectives – a gambit that seems to strike people as inherently interesting.
Maleficent, for example, is Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the evil queen. Although this kind of fairytale revisionism goes back to Angela Carter’s best-selling feminist fiction, Disney has, more than any other corporation, become an expert at co-opting social movements in pursuit of profits.
The latest revisionist work set to be distributed by Disney+ was Nautilus. The series filters the story of Jules Verne’s inimitable maritime adventure novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea through the lens of Captain Nemo, framed as a prequel to the original.
The fact that Disney+ dropped Nautilus before its release (it has been picked up by Prime in the UK and Ireland and Stan in Australia) immediately stoked my interest. This is particularly notable because, with a budget of A$300 million, it’s the most expensive series ever made in Australia (filmed mainly on the Gold Coast).
Alas, after restlessly sitting through all ten episodes, I understand Disney’s decision.
Diluting a powerful message
Where Verne’s novel (and to a lesser extent, the 1954 Disney live action film) effortlessly creates an authentic world, which is absolutely critical to the effectiveness of any fantasy work, Nautilus seems painfully contrived from its opening.
It’s the kind of show where all the British soldiers and East India Company men speak in toffee accents and spout horrifically ruthless commands between sips of tea.
The show is a $300 million wreck. Stan
The Nautilus’ crew is made up of a miscellany of virtuous victims of the company (and thus of the British empire): a wealthy British woman being forced into an arranged marriage, an old Chinese worker, a Māori cook, a trader from Zanzibar and ex‑slave Indians.
The characters frequently pontificate about the value of freedom, the evils of slavery and the glory of the environment. In one particularly ludicrous scene early on, Nemo jumps onto a whale’s back to remove a harpoon.
In the novel, Nemo’s romantic alienation perfectly complements his maniacal drive, interspersed with Verne’s faux-scientific descriptions of the submarine, giant squid and other objects.
Similarly, here, Nemo is presented as being far from mercenary; hounded to the north seas by the British, he’s seeking treasure in order to bring the company down. But lead Shazad Latif’s delivery is monotonous and strained, as though even he doesn’t buy it.
British actor Shazad Latif’s performance as Captain Nemo is far from convincing. Stan
The idea that this is some kind of “fresh” (read “politically correct”) re‑imagining of the world of the novel is strange in the first place, given the original story (although narrated by Professor Aronnax) is already closely anchored to Nemo’s point of view.
Verne clearly presents Nemo as a kind of eco-warrior responding to the brutalities of colonialism. If anything, the original message is diluted in this adaptation as it implies Nemo’s quest is mainly personal – that he simply wants vengeance for what the company did to his family – rather than political.
At the same time, I sense the creators are going for some kind of psychological realism by painfully spelling out that Nemo had bad things done to him by the British. But this didacticism causes the spirit of adventure to suffer, so we’re left with something both silly and not particularly exciting.
The British soldiers and company men speak in ridiculous accents. Stan
A big fish isn’t always a good fish
The show’s production design and cinematography (some of the most important components in this kind of adventure epic) seem flat, too. The sets, though colourful, look decidedly artificial. The synthesis of CGI elements with filmed footage is far from smooth.
And the odd colour grade makes the characters’ skin look hyper-artificial. This was surely the intention, but why? It is distracting in every closeup.
Not to single out any particular department, every aspect of the production seems dialled in, including the score, which sounds like something hastily composed using AI software.
Of course, one could talk about the production’s benefits to the Australian industry, but this seems like a hapless argument if the work is no good. How many low-budget films could have been made with $300 million? 100? 150? Those would have also invested money in the industry, while developing local talent.
The impact of a big-budget production on local industries isn’t clear when the production in question isn’t very compelling. Stan
Not camp enough, yet not careful enough
If it were camper, Nautilus could have acquired the cult value of a great cinematic fiasco such as Renny Harlin’s 1995 film Cutthroat Island. All the actors seem to be trying hard, and the writers clearly laboured away at the story.
Perhaps this is the problem. Like so many new commercial works, Nautilus tries so hard to please everyone it ends up pleasing no one. The wider the appeal, the greater the risk mitigation, apparently.
But given it actually tries to embed the story in a sense of history, its sins seem greater than mere televisual boredom for the viewer. The series presents a monolithic and simplistic image of the way colonialism and capitalism are intertwined.
At best, this is naïve – one could argue, “who cares, it’s just a silly fantasy series”. At worst, however, it is actively destructive of historical consciousness. And that’s not smooth sailing.
Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
You had a great night out, but the next morning, anxiety hits: your heart races, and you replay every conversation from the night before in your head. This feeling, known as hangover anxiety or “hangxiety”, affects around 22% of social drinkers.
While for some people, it’s mild nerves, for others, it’s a wave of anxiety that feels impossible to ride out. The “Sunday scaries” may make you feel panicked, filled with dread and unable to relax.
Hangover anxiety can make even simple tasks feel overwhelming. Here’s why it happens, and what you can do about it.
What does alcohol do to our brains?
A hangover is the body’s way of recovering after drinking alcohol, bringing with it a range of symptoms.
Dehydration and disrupted sleep play a large part in the pounding headaches and nausea many of us know too well after a big night out. But hangovers aren’t just physical – there’s a strong mental side too.
Alcohol is a nervous system depressant, meaning it alters how certain chemical messengers (or neurotransmitters) behave in the brain. Alcohol relaxes you by increasing gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the neurotransmitter that makes you feel calm and lowers inhibitions. It decreases glutamate and this also slows down your thoughts and helps ease you into a more relaxed state.
Together, this interaction affects your mood, emotions and alertness. This is why when we drink, we often feel more sociable, carefree and willing to let our guard down.
As the effects of the alcohol wear off, your brain works to rebalance these chemicals by reducing GABA and increasing glutamate. This shift has the opposite effect of the night before, causing your brain to become more excitable and overstimulated, which can lead to feelings of anxiety.
So why do some people get hangxiety, while others don’t? There isn’t one clear answer to this question, as several factors can play a role in whether someone experiences hangover-related anxiety.
Genes play a role
For some, a hangover is simply a matter of how much they drank or how hydrated they are. But genetics may also play a significant role. Research shows your genes can explain almost half the reason why you wake up feeling hungover, while your friend might not.
Because genes influence how your body processes alcohol, some people may experience more intense hangover symptoms, such as headaches or dehydration. These stronger physical effects can, in turn, trigger anxiety during a hangover, making you more susceptible to “hangxiety.”
Do you remember what you said last night?
But one of the most common culprits for feeling anxious the next day is often what you do while drinking.
Let’s say you’ve had a big night out and you can’t quite recall a conversation you had or something you did. Maybe you acted in ways that you now regret or feel embarrassed about. You might fixate on these thoughts and get trapped in a cycle of worrying and rumination. This cycle can be hard to break and can make you feel more anxious.
Research suggests people who already struggle with feelings of anxiety in their day-to-day lives are especially vulnerable to hangxiety.
Some people drink alcohol to unwind after a stressful day or to make themselves feel more comfortable at social events. This often leads to heavier consumption, which can make hangover symptoms more severe. It can also begin a cycle of drinking to feel better, making hangxiety even harder to escape.
Preventing hangover anxiety
The best way to prevent hangxiety is to limit your alcohol consumption. The Australian guidelines recommend having no more than ten standard drinks per week and no more than four standard drinks on any one day.
Generally, the more you drink, the more intense your hangover symptoms might be, and the worse you are likely to feel.
Some people may drink more alcohol to feel more comfortable in social situations. LADO/Shutterstock
Mixing other drugs with alcohol can also increase the risk of hangxiety. This is especially true for party drugs, such as ecstasy or MDMA, that give you a temporary high but can lead to anxiety as they wear off and you are coming down.
If you do wake up feeling anxious:
focus on the physical recovery to help ease the mental strain
drink plenty of water, eat a light meal and allow yourself time to rest
try mindfulness meditation or deep breathing exercises, especially if anxiety keeps you awake or your mind races
consider journalling. This can help re-frame anxious thoughts, put your feelings into perspective and encourage self-compassion
talk to a close friend. This can provide a safe space to express concerns and feel less isolated.
Hangxiety is an unwelcome guest after a night out. Understanding why hangxiety happens – and how you can manage it – can make the morning after a little less daunting, and help keep those anxious thoughts at bay.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Queensland election campaign suggests both sides of politics have embraced the renewable energy transition. But solar and wind are variable and need energy storage. That is where pumped hydro energy storage and batteries come in.
Both are off-the-shelf technologies. And both are already being used on a vast scale.
Having promised 80% renewable energy by 2035, the incumbent Labor government is committed to large pumped hydro systems at Borumba, on the Sunshine Coast, and Pioneer-Burdekin, near Mackay. The A$14.2 billion Borumba project appears to have support from both major parties. However, the Liberal National Party (LNP) says it will scrap the $12 billion Pioneer Burdekin project and the renewables target if elected.
While Pioneer-Burdekin is a very good site, there are good alternatives. The LNP says it “will investigate opportunities for smaller, more manageable pumped hydro projects”. Regardless, in supporting more pumped hydro storage and rejecting the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plans, the state LNP is accepting the renewable energy transformation as inevitable.
What is pumped hydro energy storage?
Pumped hydro systemsstore surplus electricity from solar and wind on sunny and windy days. The electricity is used to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir. This water can later be released downhill though turbines to generate power when it’s needed.
Snowy 2.0 will last for at least 100 years. Its capacity (350 gigawatt-hours, GWh) is equivalent to 6 million electric vehicle batteries. It’s enough to power 3 million homes for a week.
ANU’s RE100 Group has published global atlases of about 800,000 potential pumped hydro sites. None require new dams on rivers. Some are new sites (greenfield). Others would use existing reservoirs (bluefield) or old mines (brownfield).
What about batteries?
Batteries are best for short-term storage (a few hours). Pumped hydro is better for overnight or several days – Snowy 2.0 will provide 150 hours of storage.
As with any major infrastructure, pumped hydro development has costs and risks. It has high upfront capital costs but very low operating costs.
What are Queensland’s options?
In Queensland, solar and wind electricity rose from 2% to 26% of total generation over the past decade. It’s heading for about 75% in 2030 as part of Australia’s 82% renewables target.
Queensland needs roughly 150 GWh of extra storage for full decarbonisation. After accounting for Borumba (50 GWh), batteries and other storage, Pioneer-Burdekin (120 GWh) would meet that need.
A similarly sized system or several smaller systems would also suffice. The latter approach has advantages of decentralisation but would cost more and have environmental impacts in more places.
The state has thousands of potential sites that are “off-river” (do not require new dams on rivers). The table below shows 15 premium sites, most with capacities of 50–150 GWh. Some larger sizes are included for interest – 5,000 GWh would store enough energy for 100 million people.
The key technical parameters are:
head: the altitude difference between the two reservoirs – bigger is better
slope: the ratio of the head to the distance between the reservoirs – larger slope means shorter tunnel
W/R: the volume of stored water (W) divided by the volume of rock (R) needed for the reservoir walls. Large W/R means low-cost reservoirs.
Clicking on each name takes you to a view of the site with more details.
Pumped storage in far north Queensland is valuable because it can absorb solar and wind energy from the Copperstring transmission extension to Mt Isa. It can then send it down the transmission line to Brisbane at off-peak times. This will ensure the line mostly operates close to full capacity.
Two potential premium 150 GWh bluefield pumped hydro energy storage systems near Tully. Author provided/RE100
The fossil fuel lobby argues gas is needed in the energy transition. But pumped hydro and battery storage eliminate the need for gas generators and their greenhouse gas emissions.
In the past decade, solar and wind generation in Australia’s National Electricity Market increased from 6% to 35%. Gas fell from 12% to 5%.
Most pumped hydro projects can be built off rivers. The same water is repeatedly transferred between the reservoirs. This means the system keeps running during droughts and avoids the impacts of new dams blocking rivers and flooding valleys.
The environmental and social impacts of off-river pumped hydro projects are much lower than for conventional hydropower or fossil fuel projects.
The system uses very common materials, primarily water, rock, concrete and steel. Very little land is flooded for off-river pumped hydro to support a 100% renewable energy system: about 3 square metres per person. Only about 3 litres of water per person per day is needed for the initial fill and to replace evaporation.
Sometimes, safely disposing of tunnel spoil is a challenge – as with mining (including for coal and battery metals). Any major new generation facility and its transmission lines may involve clearing and disturbing bushland. Local communities sometimes oppose pumped hydro developments.
In Australia, ANU identified 5,500 potential sites. Only one to two dozen are needed to enable the nation to be fully powered by renewables.
You can expect to see more pumped hydro systems in a state near you.
Jamie Pittock receives funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to provide technical assistance for the development of pumped storage hydropower to aid the transition to renewable energy for governments and others in Asia. He holds governance and advisory roles with a number of non-government environmental organisations.
Andrew Blakers receives funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
As we continue to change the planet, scientists are worried we might also be altering the evolutionary trajectories of the species that live alongside us, perhaps even including some irreversible shifts.
Certainly, the evidence for change is everywhere. As the planet warms, species’ ranges are shifting and their life cycles are changing. As we harvest the largest fish in the ocean, the species affected are now maturing at smaller sizes.
But are these shifts we observe in wild populations underpinned by genetic changes (mutations in the DNA) or are they simply flexible responses to environmental change? If the changes are genetic, how are they happening?
Our findings are centred on an intriguing case of “mimicry” from New Zealand, in which a harmless insect has evolved to mimic the warning colours of a highly toxic species.
Forest removal drives colour shift
Convincingly demonstrating “evolution in action” involves finding the agents of natural selection (environmental factors driving the change) and discovering the genetic mechanism.
Until now, the peppered moth was the “classic” example of human-driven evolution. Dark-coloured specimens of the moth suddenly appeared during the 19th century. It was a likely response to industrial pollution which meant light-coloured individuals were no longer blending in to the increasingly sooty British environment. Despite its broad appeal, some aspects of even this famous case have been criticised as unclear and anecdotal.
We worked on stoneflies and the impact of deforestation.
The black stonefly Austroperla lives in forests. It produces cyanide to deter potential predators, and to advertise its toxicity this species has high-contrast black, white and yellow markings, reminiscent of wasp colouration.
The non-toxic Zelandoperla stonefly has evolved astonishingly similar warning colouration, apparently to trick predators (forest birds) into assuming that it, too, is toxic. The intricate and unique ecological interactions between these insects and their predators have apparently evolved together over millions of years.
Dark coloured Zelandoperla stoneflies (middle) mimic the poisonous Austroperla (top), which are abundant in forests. Recent forest clearance has eliminated Austroperla from many regions of New Zealand. In response, Zelandoperla populations have quickly evolved lighter colouration (bottom). Graham McCulloch, Jon Waters, CC BY-SA
Where do humans come into this story? Aotearoa New Zealand was the last major landmass to be colonised by people. In many places the human impacts on its ecosystems have been devastating.
In addition to species extinctions, New Zealand has lost much of its original native forest cover in just a few centuries. This deforestation has wiped out countless populations of forest birds, along with the poisonous, forest-dependent Austroperla.
Our study reveals this widespread deforestation has also proven a game changer for the stonefly “mimic”. As its predators and the poisonous species it mimics have vanished from many regions, there is no longer much point in displaying warning colouration.
In an astonishing about-turn, Zelandoperla populations from deforested habitats have quickly lost their spectacular “mimic” colouration. It turns out that the production of this intricate colouration was costly, and when no longer essential, evolution rapidly removed it – in a case of “use it or lose it”.
Human-driven deforestation in New Zealand has altered species interactions in a mimicry system, leading to rapid evolution of insect colour. Graham McCulloch, Jon Waters, CC BY-SA
Genetic change
In our study, we compared insect populations across several parts of the South Island. We found a remarkably consistent picture. The removal of forest has driven similar colour shifts across different deforested regions.
The finding that evolutionary change can be “predictable” offers hope that scientists can use evolutionary theory to predict future biodiversity shifts.
Stonefly models helped to reveal the role of birds. Author provided, CC BY-SA
How do we know birds have played a key role in this rapid colour change? By placing stonefly models of different colours in a variety of habitats, we were able to demonstrate that birds only avoid attacking stoneflies with the “warning” colouration when they are in forests.
Another challenge was to show that this colour change represents evolution at the DNA level rather than a flexible response to environmental change. We looked at genetic variation across the Zelandoperla genome and found that just a single gene – ebony – is almost completely responsible for this colour evolution.
Our study also reveals the pace of evolutionary change. By comparing regions deforested soon after human arrival (for example Central Otago, which was deforested around 600 to 700 years ago) with those cleared much more recently (Otago Peninsula, 150 years ago), we show that evolution has proceeded steadily yet inexorably over this human timeframe.
On the positive side, the finding that at least some of our native species can adapt in the face of rapid environmental change suggests ongoing resilience of our native biodiversity. However, our results also highlight how quickly the intricate interactions that have evolved among native species over millennia can be lost from disturbed ecosystems.
These new findings raise tantalising questions about the potential to reverse the negative impacts of deforestation on our native biodiversity. In particular, our increasing focus on reforestation and ecological restoration provides hope for restoring the complex ecosystems we have inherited.
Jonathan Waters receives funding from the RSNZ Marsden Fund.
Graham McCulloch receives funding from the RSNZ Marsden Fund
A team led by researchers at MIT in the United States has discovered large molecules containing carbon in a distant interstellar cloud of gas and dust.
This is exciting for those of us who keep lists of known interstellar molecules in the hope that we might work out how life arose in the universe.
But it’s more than just another molecule for the collection. The result, reported today in the journal Science, shows that complex organic molecules (with carbon and hydrogen) likely existed in the cold, dark gas cloud that gave rise to our Solar System.
Furthermore, the molecules held together until after the formation of Earth. This is important for our understanding of the early origins of life on our planet.
Difficult to destroy, hard to detect
The molecule in question is called pyrene, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon or PAH for short. The complicated-sounding name tells us these molecules are made of rings of carbon atoms.
Carbon chemistry is the backbone of life on Earth. PAHs have long been known to be abundant in the interstellar medium, so they feature prominently in theories of how carbon-based life on Earth came to be.
A pyrene molecule, consisting of carbon atoms (black) and hydrogen atoms (white). Jynto/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
We know there are many large PAHs in space because astrophysicists have detected signs of them in visible and infrared light. But we didn’t know which PAHs they might be in particular.
Pyrene is now the largest PAH detected in space, although it’s what is known as a “small” or simple PAH, with 26 atoms. It was long thought such molecules could not survive the harsh environment of star formation when everything is bathed in radiation from the newborn suns, destroying complex molecules.
In fact, it was once thought molecules of more than two atoms could not exist in space for this reason, until they were actually found.
Also, chemical models show pyrene is very difficult to destroy once formed.
Last year, scientists reported they found large amounts of pyrene in samples from the asteroid Ryugu in our own Solar System. They argued at least some of it must have come from the cold interstellar cloud that predated our Solar System.
So why not look at another cold interstellar cloud to find some? The problem for astrophysicists is that we don’t have the tools to detect pyrene directly – it’s invisible to radio telescopes.
Using a tracer
The molecule the team has detected is called 1-cyanopyrene, what we call a “tracer” for pyrene. It is formed from pyrene interacting with cyanide, which is common in interstellar space.
The researchers used the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia to look at the Taurus molecular cloud or TMC-1, in the Taurus constellation. Unlike pyrene itself, 1-cyanopyrene can be detected by radio telescopes. This is because 1-cyanopyrene molecules act as small radio-wave emitters – tiny versions of earthly radio stations.
As scientists know the proportions of 1-cyanopyrene compared to pyrene, they can then estimate the amount of pyrene in the interstellar cloud.
The amount of pyrene they found was significant. Importantly, this discovery in the Taurus molecular cloud suggests a lot of pyrene exists in the cold, dark molecular clouds that go on to form stars and solar systems.
A wide-field view of part of the Taurus molecular cloud ~450 light-years from Earth. Its relative closeness makes it an ideal place to study the formation of stars. Many dark clouds of obscuring dust are clearly visible against the background stars. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin.
The complex birth of life
We are gradually building a picture of how life on Earth evolved. This picture tells us that life came from space – well, at least the complex organic, pre-biological molecules needed to form life did.
That pyrene survives the harsh conditions associated with the birth of stars, as shown by the findings from Ryugu, is an important part of this story.
Simple life – consisting of a single cell – appeared in Earth’s fossil record almost immediately (in geological and astronomical terms) after the planet’s surface had cooled enough to not vaporise complex molecules. This happened more than 3.7 billion years ago in Earth’s approximately 4.5 billion history.
For simple organisms to then appear so quickly in the fossil record, there’s just not enough time for chemistry to start with mere simple molecules of two or three atoms.
The new discovery of 1-cyanopyrene in the Taurus molecular cloud shows complex molecules could indeed survive the harsh conditions of our Solar System’s formation. As a result, pyrene was available to form the backbone of carbon-based life when it emerged on the early Earth some 3.7 billion years ago.
This discovery also links to another important finding of the last decade – the first chiral molecule in the interstellar medium, propylene oxide. We need chiral molecules to make the evolution of simple lifeforms work on the surface of the early Earth.
So far, our theories that molecules for early life on Earth came from space are looking good.
Maria Cunningham has received funding from The Australian Research Council. In the past she has collaborated with Anthony Remijan, one of the co-authors on the Science paper discussed in this publication. Their last co-authored paper was in 2015.
In late September, the governor of the state of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, boasted that election officials had removed 453,000 people from the state’s voter rolls since 2021. In a state with only 2.3 million registered voters, it appears that roughly one in six registered voters had been purged.
While some of these people were dead or disfranchised owing to felony convictions, nearly 200,000 of them were removed for being “inactive voters”. This means they likely failed to respond to a postcard sent to their mailing address.
Voters can re-register if they were incorrectly removed, but this “voter list maintenance” process still creates a barrier to democratic participation.
This bucks the national trend. Overall, across the United States, electoral turnout has increased in presidential and midterm elections since 2018. Americans feel, now more than ever, that elections have high stakes.
And some states have made it easier to vote. Minnesota, for example, allows voters to register online or at the polls on Election Day.
In states like Oklahoma, however, voters are discouraged or demoralised by policies and laws meant to make voting difficult and time consuming. Legislatures in these states have been emboldened over the past decade by a series of Supreme Court rulings voiding key parts of the Voting Rights Act.
These states are now the new fronts in the unfinished battle to secure one of the fundamental elements of democracy – the right to vote. We’ve analysed data on voter turnout and voting accessibility across the US and found states restricting access the most are overwhelmingly led by Republican legislatures.
A long history of voter disenfranchisement
US elections have always been the domain of the states. And state legislatures have long wielded this power to discriminate against marginalised groups.
Prior to the Civil War, most states restricted the right to vote to white men. Then, in 1870, the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which forbade states from restricting the right to vote on the basis of “race, color or previous condition of servitude”
In practice, however, this didn’t change things in all states. In the South, where Jim Crow laws maintained segregation in many facets of public life, lawmakers found other ways to disenfranchise Black voters.
When other methods failed, white people used violence and intimidation to discourage Black voters from showing up at the polls.
Women made gains state by state in the decades following the Civil War, though Black women in the South were disenfranchised alongside Black men. This made white women the primary beneficiaries of the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920. This dictated that states could not withhold voting rights “on account of sex”.
It was not until the ratification of the 24th Amendment in 1964, which prohibited the use of the poll tax, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed the literacy tests, that American democracy could begin to live up to its name.
How states are erecting more barriers
However, even these landmark developments have not ensured that voting is easy or universally accessible to all Americans.
In fact, many states have accelerated efforts to police voting rolls and enact hurdles to civic engagement in the wake of then-President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Republican-dominated states like Oklahoma have been particularly keen to adopt restrictive policies.
According to the Center for Public Integrity, 26 states have made voting less accessible since 2020. These barriers include many tactics:
Partisan redistricting also discourages members of minority parties from turning out on Election Day. By drawing district lines that clearly favour one party over another, such practices can make people feel it is pointless to vote.
What our research found
According to our calculations, out of the states that have made voting less accessible since 2020, most are located in the South (43%) or Midwest (31%). The data reveal the most significant losses in voting access have occurred in southern states with large populations of Black voters.
And the most restrictive lawmaking has been spearheaded by Republican-dominated state legislatures, with 86% of such states passing inequitable voting barriers. In contrast, only 5% of Democratic-led states have made voting harder.
In addition, according to our research, high barriers to voting are directly related to lower voter turnout rates.
When all states are analysed, “high barrier” states had an average turnout rate of 45.8% compared to 49% for “low barrier” states in the 2022 election, a statistically significant difference. The average turnout rate across all US states in 2022 was 46.2%.
In the South, most states (11 of 16) made voting more difficult after the 2020 election – and nearly all had voter turnout rates well below the national average in 2022. (Mississippi was the lowest at 32.5%.)
High-barrier southern states with Republican-led legislatures had an average turnout rate of 40.6%, compared to 46.2% in high-barrier, Republican-led states in other regions.
Three states in low-barrier states, meanwhile, had turnout rates above 60% – Oregon, Maine and Minnesota. All had Democratic-majority legislatures, or in the case of Minnesota, a divided legislature and Democratic governor.
States should motivate voters, not demoralise them
These policies to restrict voting accessibility, draped in the cloak of “election security”, will no doubt affect turnout in certain states in the upcoming November elections, as well.
Yet, staying home on Election Day is also a rational behaviour since the chances of being the pivotal voter that decides an election is estimated at one in one million in a battleground state and much less in a noncompetitive state.
With national voter turnout already low compared to other democracies, state legislatures should be doing what they can to motivate voters and make it easier for them to cast a ballot – not making it more difficult for them to do so.
Kathryn Schumaker has received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Allyson Shortle is affiliated with the Public Religion Research Institute.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sathana Dushyanthen, Academic Specialist & Senior Lecturer in Cancer Sciences & Digital Health| Superstar of STEM| Science Communicator, The University of Melbourne
Cancers are abnormal groups of cells that grow uncontrollably and start invading neighbouring sites. They can also spread to other organs in the body. This is known as metastases.
Treatment of early disease, when cancer is confined to the original site, is focused on that single area, most often with surgery or radiation therapy. Treatment of advanced disease, when it has spread, often relies on treatments that can travel all around the body such as chemotherapy or immunotherapy.
A more advanced form of radiation therapy, called stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, may be able to treat both early and advanced cancers. So how does it work? And how does it compare to existing therapies?
It delivers a higher dose to a smaller target
Stereotactic radiotherapy uses high doses of radiation to target and kill cancer cells. It uses newer machines that can deliver very focused radiation beams. Combined with advances in imaging and radiation planning software this allows clinicians to “track” and target cancers.
This results in such high precision – with a targeting accuracy less than 1mm – that cancers can be safely treated with minimal risk of damaging surrounding healthy organs.
Having a higher dose means radiotherapy can be delivered in fewer treatments (one to five sessions over one to two weeks) where it previously would have been divided into many small doses (20 to 40), delivered over weeks or even months.
Stereotactic radiotherapy has increasingly been used to treat cancer in the brain and lungs. But new data has shown it can also effectively treat prostate cancer.
What did the new study find?
A study published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine compared two groups of patients with early prostate cancer with a median age of 69.8 years. Half (433 participants) received five sessions of stereotactic radiation therapy, the other half (431 participants) received standard radiation therapy consisting of at least 20 sessions.
The researchers found no long-term difference in outcomes between the groups, with 95% of patients showing no evidence of disease five years after treatment. These cure rates are equivalent to patients who had their prostates surgically removed.
Early evidence suggests that stereotactic radiation therapy appears to be as effective, less onerous and less invasive than currently available treatment options.
Prostate cancer that has spread beyond its original site is, unfortunately, incurable in most circumstances. Treatments for this stage of disease are aimed at suppressing or controlling the cancer for as long as possible.
However, studies have shown stereotactic radiation therapy can be used to target disease that has spread to distant sites in patients who have advanced prostate cancer.
Researchers found stereotactic radiation therapy could render patients free of clinically evident disease for eight to 13 months, delaying the need for hormone therapy or chemotherapy.
How do the side effects compare to other cancer treatments?
Stereotactic radiation therapy is delivered daily, with painless radiation beams. In the weeks following delivery it is common to notice soreness and/or inflammation at the treated site. This reaches a level requiring medication in one-third of cases.
Erectile function is frequently impacted during prostate cancer treatment, as the nerves and blood vessels responsible for erections are often damaged.
Another recent study comparing stereotactic radiation therapy to surgery found 48% of patients treated with stereotactic radiation therapy had difficulties with their sexual function two years after treatment compared to 75% of patients who had surgery.
Comparison of differences between traditional radiotherapy and stereotactic radiotherapy. Precision Radiation Oncology
What are the costs? And who can access it?
Newer and more advanced radiation treatment machines can deliver more precise treatments, but these are much more expensive than standard machines. They also have more complex maintenance and operational requirements.
However, traditional radiotherapy machines can also be upgraded to provide stereotactic precision.
While the initial investment costs can be high, cost-benefit analyses show stereotactic radiation therapy for lung cancer costs the health system less than other cancer treatments and conventional radiotherapy. This is in part because treatment is completed far more quickly. Formal cost-benefit analyses have not been completed for prostate cancer but are likely to be similar.
Stereotactic radiation therapy is now widely available at most major Australian public hospitals for many cancer types, including selected lung cancers, kidney cancers, advanced brain cancers and bone cancers. This has no out-of-pocket costs for patients. It is also provided in many private centres.
However, even when a centre can deliver stereotactic radiation therapy, there is still significant variation in the devices used to deliver the therapy.
In addition, the actual planning and delivery of radiation therapy is a complex skill. Studies have shown that patients treated by clinicians with higher caseloads have better outcomes, due to their greater familiarity with these specialised techniques.
Radiotherapy departments throughout the world have rapidly upgraded their capability over the past few years to provide stereotactic radiotherapy. After the recent clinical trial findings, it’s likely prostate cancer will be added to the list of cancers treated this way.
David Kok has a clinical appointment at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre which provides prostate cancer treatments including stereotactic radiotherapy, conventional radiotherapy and surgery.
Sathana Dushyanthen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evelyn Parr, Research Fellow in Exercise Metabolism and Nutrition, Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University
Type 2 diabetes affects 1.2 million Australians and accounts for 85-90% of all diabetes cases. This chronic condition is characterised by high blood glucose (sugar) levels, which carry serious health risks. Complications include heart disease, kidney failure and vision problems.
Diet is an important way people living with type 2 diabetes manage blood glucose, alongside exercise and medication. But while we know individualised, professional dietary advice improves blood glucose, it can be complex and is not always accessible.
Our new study looked at the impact of time-restricted eating – focusing on when you eat, rather than what or how much – on blood glucose levels.
We found it had similar results to individualised advice from an accredited practising dietitian. But there were added benefits, because it was simple, achievable, easy to stick to – and motivated people to make other positive changes.
What is time-restricted eating?
Time-restricted eating, also known as the 16:8 diet, became popular for weight loss around 2015. Studies have since shown it is also an effective way for people with type 2 diabetes to manage blood glucose.
Time-restricted eating involves limiting when you eat each day, rather than focusing on what you eat. You restrict eating to a window during daylight hours, for example between 11am and 7pm, and then fast for the remaining hours. This can sometimes naturally lead to also eating less.
Participants in our study could still share meals with family, as long as it was within a nine-hour window finishing at 7pm. Kitreel/Shutterstock
Giving your body a break from constantly digesting food in this way helps align eating with natural circadian rhythms. This can help regulate metabolism and improve overall health.
For people with type 2 diabetes, there may be specific benefits. They often have their highest blood glucose reading in the morning. Delaying breakfast to mid-morning means there is time for physical activity to occur to help reduce glucose levels and prepare the body for the first meal.
How we got here
We ran an initial study in 2018 to see whether following time-restricted eating was achievable for people with type 2 diabetes. We found participants could easily stick to this eating pattern over four weeks, for an average of five days a week.
Importantly, they also had improvements in blood glucose, spending less time with high levels. Our previous research suggests the reduced time between meals may play a role in how the hormone insulin is able to reduce glucose concentrations.
Other studies have confirmed these findings, which have also shown notable improvements in HbA1c. This is a marker in the blood that represents concentrations of blood glucose over an average of three months. It is the primary clinical tool used for diabetes.
However, these studies provided intensive support to participants through weekly or fortnightly meetings with researchers.
While we know this level of support increases how likely people are to stick to the plan and improves outcomes, it is not readily available to everyday Australians living with type 2 diabetes.
What we did
In our new study, we compared time-restricted eating directly with advice from an accredited practising dietitian, to test whether results were similar across six months.
We recruited 52 people with type 2 diabetes who were currently managing their diabetes with up to two oral medications. There were 22 women and 30 men, aged between 35 and 65.
Participants were randomly divided into two groups: diet and time-restricted eating. In both groups, participants received four consultations across the first four months. During the next two months they managed diet alone, without consultation, and we continued to measure the impact on blood glucose.
In the diet group, consultations focused on changing their diet to control blood glucose, including improving diet quality (for example, eating more vegetables and limiting alcohol).
In the time-restricted eating group, advice focused on how to limit eating to a nine-hour window between 10am and 7pm.
Over six months, we measured each participant’s blood glucose levels every two months using the HbA1c test. Each fortnight, we also asked participants about their experience of making dietary changes (to what or when they ate).
Continuous glucose monitoring measures the levels of glucose in the blood. Halfpoint/Shutterstock
What we found
We found time-restricted eating was as effective as the diet intervention.
Both groups had reduced blood glucose levels, with the greatest improvements occurring after the first two months. Although it wasn’t an objective of the study, some participants in each group also lost weight (5-10kg).
When surveyed, participants in the time-restricted eating group said they had adjusted well and were able to follow the restricted eating window. Many told us they had family support and enjoyed earlier mealtimes together. Some also found they slept better.
After two months, people in the time-restricted group were looking for more dietary advice to further improve their health.
Those in the diet group were less likely to stick to their plan. Despite similar health outcomes, time-restricted eating seems to be a simpler initial approach than making complex dietary changes.
Is time-restricted eating achievable?
The main barriers to following time-restricted eating are social occasions, caring for others and work schedules. These factors may prevent people eating within the window.
However, there are many benefits. The message is simple, focusing on when to eat as the main diet change. This may make time-restricted eating more translatable to people from a wider variety of socio-cultural backgrounds, as the types of foods they eat don’t need to change, just the timing.
Many people don’t have access to more individualised support from a dietitian, and receive nutrition advice from their GP. This makes time-restricted eating an alternative – and equally effective – strategy for people with type 2 diabetes.
People should still try to stick to dietary guidelines and prioritise vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, lean meat and healthy fats.
But our study showed time-restricted eating may also serve as stepping stone for people with type 2 diabetes to take control of their health, as people became more interested in making diet and other positive changes.
Time-restricted eating might not be appropriate for everyone, especially people on medications which don’t recommend fasting. Before trying this dietary change, it’s best speak to the healthcare professional who helps you manage diabetes.
Evelyn Parr receives funding from Diabetes Australia and Australian Catholic University.
Brooke Devlin received funding from Diabetes Australia.
“Nature positive” is seemingly everywhere. Two weeks ago, Australia hosted the first Global Nature Positive Summit. This week, nations are meeting in Colombia for a global biodiversity summit to discuss progress on nature positive commitments.
Nature positive has a simple meaning: ensuring more nature in future than there is now. Making it a reality is the hard part.
It’s necessary because nature is in trouble. Once common species are becoming threatened and threatened species are going extinct. Humans, too, will be severely impacted. When ecosystems are healthy, they provide vital benefits. Insects pollinate crops, trees slow floodwaters, earthworms, fungi and soil critters make healthy soil and natural vistas improve our mental wellbeing.
While Australia’s government is working to embed nature positive ideas in environmental reform efforts, we may see lip service rather than real change. The government’s Nature Positive Plan faces opposition from businesses and politicians ahead of a looming election. And the plan itself doesn’t fully align with true nature positive outcomes.
In our article published today in Science, we lay out four vital steps to ensure nature positive policies are actually positive for nature.
Step 1: Ensure biodiversity increases are absolute
At present, Australia’s planned nature positive reforms would only require developers removing habitat to achieve a relative net gain for nature compared to business as usual.
We have argued this approach won’t work – it should be an absolute net gain.
It might sound abstract – but it makes all the difference. For instance, consider a population of endangered koalas living on the site of a new mine. Any negative impact to koalas would have to be offset with a benefit to the species elsewhere, usually on a separate site.
If Australia had absolute net gain in effect, the company would have to ensure there are more koalas overall. If the mine site and an offset site had a combined population of 100 koalas before the development, this combined population would need to be more than 100 koalas after the development – even though some will be lost.
But let’s say these 100 koalas over two sites were expected to fall to 80, even if the mine didn’t happen. In this case, a relative net gain could be achieved if the mine and offset site had 90 koalas. The population fell, but less than it would have otherwise.
By contrast, England brought in a net gain approach in February of this year, with developers now required to provide a 10% net gain in biodiversity.
Importantly, the vast majority of developments affecting threatened species habitat never require any offset at all. Plugging this major gap is also key.
For nature positive to work properly, any damage done to a species by a development has to be offset by net gain. Pictured: Peak Hill gold mine in NSW. Phillip Wittke/Shutterstock
Step 2: Avoid conservation payments in risky situations
The Australian government plans to introduce conservation payments, where developers can pay into a government-managed fund rather than providing direct offsets.
If developers were to cut down trees used by the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum, for example, they could choose either to improve habitat elsewhere to offset the damage – or they could pay into the fund instead.
This is a risky plan. For one, it’s often almost impossible or extremely expensive to find suitable habitat for critically endangered species because they have very little habitat remaining.
It’s far better to avoid all further habitat removal. For developers, this would mean avoiding damage to rare habitat in the first place.
Even where offsetting is possible, payments are often inadequate to cover the cost of purchasing and managing an offset site.
Then there’s the time lag. The fund might take years to buy or restore habitat sites, adding to already-long delays between damage and any benefit. And worse, under the government’s proposal, the money could be used for different, potentially less threatened species.
Under Queensland’s scheme, most developers choose to pay into a fund rather than create their own offset sites. Very little of these offset funds have been spent.
Meanwhile, the latest independent assessment of the New South Wales biodiversity offset payment scheme recommended the fund be completely phased out.
Step 3: Go beyond compensation
Compensating for new damage is important. But it’s not nearly enough. Over the last century, we have done huge damage to the natural world. Australia’s southern seas were once ringed with oyster reefs, for instance, but these were nearly all fished out.
We need to begin to recover what was lost by restoring ecosystems, managing weeds and reducing risk of diseases.
Nature-positive laws should include funding and actions designed to produce absolute gains in biodiversity over and above any required compensation.
The world has long seriously underfunded conservation, including threatened species recovery, ecosystem restoration and protected area management. Australia alone needs a roughly 20-fold increase in funding to actually bring back threatened species.
While this sounds large, it’s off an extraordinarily low base – just A$122 million in 2019. By contrast, we spend over $100 billion on human health each year.
Two years ago, the government passed the first of its nature-positive reforms to create a nature repair market aimed at drawing more funds into nature restoration. But as the market will rely on voluntary private sector investment, we don’t know how much funding will flow or whether it will focus on threatened species recovery.
Ensuring compliance with new nature-positive laws requires transparent and effective enforcement, such as through the independent national environment protection authority with extra powers proposed in Australia.
Its independence and powers may be less than required, due to proposed call-in powers allowing the minister to overrule decisions. True independence and adequate resources are crucial.
If governments do pass environmental reforms, we need to collect adequate and robust data on species to know if they are actually working to boost nature recovery. At present, many Australian threatened species remain unmonitored.
Is nature positive within reach?
It’s not easy to create a future with more nature than we have now. Australia’s current government took office vowing to embrace nature positive. To date, their reforms are not yet likely to make that a reality.
But the task will only get more urgent. Meaningful nature-positive policy means ensuring targets of absolute net gain for threatened species, ensuring strict compensation for any nature loss, independently resourcing and financing other recovery efforts and implementing these laws effectively.
With a course correction, Australia can still act as a leading example for other nations as they reform their own policies to meet nature-positive ambitions. Now is the time for real and decisive action.
We acknowledge our research coauthors, Brooke Williams (Queensland University of Technology), Martine Maron (University of Queensland), Jonathan Rhodes (Queensland University of Technology), Jeremy Simmonds (2rog), and Michelle Ward (Griffith University).
Yi Fei Chung has received funding from UQ Research Training Scholarship. He is also involving in a Australian Research Council Linkage Project with financial and in-kind support from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, the Biodiversity Conservation Trust, Tweed Shire Council, and the NSW Koala Strategy.
Hannah Thomas has received funding from WWF-Australia and an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. She is an early-career leader with the Biodiversity Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Penny Van Bergen, Head of School of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Wollongong
Everyone knows a kid who cheats at Monopoly or backyard cricket. Perhaps they have even cheated on a test at school.
If your notice your own child is doing this, you may worry they are headed for a life of crime.
But in developmental terms, cheating is not usually a cause for concern for kids.
What is cheating?
Cheating occurs when a child behaves dishonestly to gain an unfair advantage. They might pretend to roll a six, peek at others’ cards, score a sports game incorrectly, or use video game modifications to skip levels.
Despite parents’ and teachers’ best efforts, cheating is remarkably common. In one experiment, five-year-olds were asked not to peek inside a box while the experimenter left the room. Almost all peeked and most then denied having done so.
A sign of development
The capacity to deceive can signal the emergence of new skills, including an understanding of others peoples’ minds.
To cheat effectively, we have to think about what someone else is thinking. We then need to trick them into believing a different reality. These cognitive skills only emerge in preschool, and it is not until the primary years that children can successfully maintain a false story over time.
Research shows it is very common for children to cheat. spass/Shutterstock
Cheating at school
As children get older, they can get more cautious about cheating in general, but also start cheating at school.
In a US study, more than three in four high school students reported cheating at school at least once over the past year.
Common techniques included sharing their work with others, getting test answers ahead of time, plagiarising from the internet, and collaborating when they weren’t supposed to.
Students were more likely to see cheating as acceptable when helping a peer, or when they could rationalise the behaviour in a pro-social way (for example, they ran out of time and needed to cheat because they were caring for a family member).
Temptation matters
Like adults, children are more likely to cheat when the temptation is greater. In one study, children aged seven to ten were more likely to cheat at a die-rolling game if they could win a bigger prize.
Children and adolescents also report being more likely to cheat to avoid negative consequences. As far back as 1932, US school principal M.A. Steiner wrote how too much work encourages students to cheat. In a 2008 study, students themselves reported cheating at school because they were uninterested in the material or under pressure to perform.
While temptation encourages cheating, the risk of being caught can encourage honesty. Children must weigh up the benefits of cheating against the risks of being caught.
As they get older, children may also consider how cheating impacts their sense of self. For example, “being a good person is important to me – so I won’t cheat”.
Do boys cheat more than girls?
Some children are more likely to cheat than others. For example, in a 2019 study in which children’s rolls of six dice could win them prizes, boys cheated more than girls. Boys and girls also approached cheating differently: girls were more likely to cheat to avoid losses, while boys were equally motivated by losses and gains.
Social skills also make a difference. A 2003 US study showed second grade children who have been rejected by their peers are more likely to cheat at board games – even when playing with new children they have never met before. It is possible such children are not as good at regulating their emotions and behaviours.
Adolescents with lower self-restraint and greater tolerance for breaking rules are more likely to accept academic cheating, as are those who misbehave in class.
Although cheating is common, it can pose increasing problems for children and teens as the stakes become higher. Research with Chinese students in the eighth grade showed those who cheated when scoring their own test were less likely to have learned the correct answer later on.
Here are four things parents and teachers can do to help discourage cheating.
1. Have open conversations: talk openly and compassionately about why cheating is not a good idea (for example, “it ruins the fun for your friends”). Research shows children and adolescents who made a promise to experimenters not to cheat at a game were less likely to do so. But children who fear getting in trouble are less likely to tell the truth.
2. Don’t put too much pressure on results: when talking about school, use language related to learning rather than performance (“just try your best, that’s all you can do”). Studies show highly competitive academic environments make cheating more likely, because the benefits of success and risks of failure are heightened.
3. Be positive about your child’s character:in one study, preschoolers were allocated to one of two groups. In the “good reputation” group, children were told “I know kids in your class and they told me you were a good kid”. In another group, children were not told anything. All children were then asked not to peek at a tempting toy while the experimenter left the room. Those in the good reputation group were less likely to cheat (60%) than those in other group (90%).
4. Show kids how it’s done: if adults are being honest and open, children are more likely to do the same. In one study, children were told there was a big bowl of candy in the next room. When this turned out to be a lie, children themselves were more likely to cheat in a game and to lie about it.
Penny Van Bergen receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Education.
Should employers prioritise efficiency at all costs? It might seem like a good idea. More processes than ever before can now be automated with robotics, artificial intelligence and other technology.
But in case after case, we’ve also seen technology usher in a whole new era of workplace surveillance. Companies have powerful new tools to track employees and monitor their productivity in detail, raising obvious concerns.
Reporting in The Guardian this week only highlighted the most recent example. Woolworths has been criticised for allegedly having “unrealistic” expectations about the productivity of its warehouse pickers – workers who travel from aisle to aisle to select required products.
A new framework, introduced by the supermarket giant last year, reportedly aims for pickers to reach 100% efficiency, putting those who fall short into a coaching program.
Regardless of whether efficiency tracking practices are right or wrong in a moral sense, a more fundamental question arises. Does increased surveillance and productivity measurement actually increase employee performance?
What gets measured gets done, right?
Scientific management approaches that treat workers as cogs in a machine have a long history, originally developed to optimise manufacturing output.
You’d think that by now, we might have moved on to something more human-centric. But the rise of constant monitoring for employees – both onsite and remote – suggests otherwise.
This was likely helped by the shift to remote work in the wake of the pandemic, which thrust digital surveillance technology into the mainstream. Bosses all around the world had to grapple with a new workplace reality.
The pandemic thrust remote work surveillance tech into the mainstream. Anna Shvets/Pexels
But given the newness of many of these technologies, there’s only limited research on their effectiveness.
A 2023 systematic literature review, by University of Turin’s Elisa Giacosa and colleagues, explored the outcomes of digital surveillance on employee performance and other measures. Across 57 empirical studies published on the topic, they found the results were mixed.
Some studies revealed worker surveillance had a positive impact. Workers who knew they were being observed felt more motivated to perform at a high level, acknowledging the benefits of being measured objectively.
Greater objectivity helps workers know what it takes to be positively evaluated by their employers, and it might translate to subsequent rewards.
But other studies showed the opposite effect. Employees who knew they were being monitored performed poorly, perhaps in retaliation for being constantly observed or timed.
When evidence is mixed, researchers cannot conclude if the intervention – digital surveillance in this case – is or isn’t effective. But that doesn’t stop companies from applying such ambiguously effective approaches in the meantime.
There seems to be a paradox between surveillance and performance that goes beyond discussions of its effectiveness. When surveillance is enforced, employers have greater control over the work that can be accomplished by employees. But it can also signal a lack of trust.
By definition, seizing greater control is incompatible with communicating trust. Companies who choose to monitor the keystrokes of remote workers or the number of items that can be picked by warehouse workers may only be maximising outcomes in the short term.
Dissatisfied workers who are tired of being treated as robots with heartbeats will often look elsewhere for better conditions. Increases in turnover lead to massive inefficiencies due to having to recruit and train new workers who may also turn away in search of more fulfilling work.
A recent survey conducted by Slack found that about 25% of desk workers didn’t feel trusted at work. Those feeling this lack of trust were two times more likely to look for other work.
Building employee trust shouldn’t be forgotten in the pursuit of efficiency. Yuri A/Shutterstock
Employers must tread carefully
Employers need to carefully weigh the pros and cons when thinking about this issue.
Tracking techniques can reduce the amount of time workers spend on non-work, such as chatting at the water cooler onsite or surfing social media remotely. Such monitoring could even help employers flag some security and safety issues.
But monitored employees will detect the lack of trust and feel anxious under constant scrutiny and unrealistic goals. Their creativity may even be stifled, if they feel they have no time to problem-solve or think critically.
Excessive scrutiny creates psychological discomfort, inhibiting risk-taking and experimentation – essential building blocks for creativity and innovation.
Given the lack of consistent evidence on the topic, those who are considering implementing surveillance technology may first want to consider alternative ways to improve efficiency.
This could be by automating processes that can be automated. But it could also include creating psychologically safe workplaces for employees, developing their internal motivation to perform and thrive.
When employees feel they are trusted and safe to experiment and make mistakes, they are driven to high performance by their own sense of pride and accomplishment – independent of external rewards or punishment.
Melissa Wheeler has engaged in paid and pro-bono consulting and research relating to issues of applied ethics and gender equality (e.g., Our Watch, Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, VicHealth). She has previously worked for research centres that receive funding from several partner organisations in the private and public sector, including from the Victorian Government.
Most people will tell you they hate small talk. It can feel awkward, especially when it steers to that blandest of topics, the weather.
We turn to the weather when we can’t think of anything else to talk about. This is because we can be sure the other person will share the experience of rain or sunshine. But the weather is something you could talk about with anyone. It’s so universal it becomes meaningless and seems to assume no other common ground. No wonder it’s awkward.
The solution is to think about “audience design” in your use of language. This is a foundational principle of all communication. When we communicate, we are not just exchanging information, rather we are influencing each other. You can only achieve this influence using language if you consider who your audience is, what will they notice, how will they understand what you say, and how will they react.
To apply meaningful audience design we need to take the social power of language seriously. Here’s how you can harness that power on your next social outing.
It’s a jungle out there
Language is a form of animal communication. One of its functions is to create and regulate social relationships.
In all species with complex social systems, there are certain forms of behaviour individuals engage in to show who their closest allies are. We see this, for example, when coalitions of dolphins swim in synchrony, when baboons spend long bouts of time picking at each other’s skin, and when pairs of white-faced capuchins carry out mock attacks on random inanimate objects.
While language is much more than a display behaviour, it serves similar functions.
For example, consider the opposite of small talk: conversation about your most personal affairs. We can all recognise that an embarrassing health condition is not a good place to start a conversation with the spouse of a workmate you’ve just met at an end-of-year party.
You don’t have to be the life of the party. But small talk helps connection. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock
Oxford biologist Robin Dunbar defines various layers of social distance which distinguish our relationships. He starts with our innermost circle of around seven people, known as a “support clique”. These are the ones we’d call first in an emergency, or go to first if we needed a big favour.
The circles move out to a “sympathy group” of around 20 people, and so on, including Dunbar’s famous group of 150 familiar acquaintances. We design our language to fit our degrees of familiarity or intimacy within these various layers.
Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet
The problem is that in our species’ evolutionary past we spent our time in much smaller groups than today. For most of human history it was rare to meet a stranger. It was usually quite clear who we were talking to, and what common ground we already shared. These days we talk to strangers all the time.
This is the dilemma of small talk. On the one hand, the person you are about to talk to is not in one of your defined social circles, so you have little or no common ground to draw on. Nor is it appropriate to talk about the kinds of probing personal matters that would suit a closer relationship.
And you don’t want to wallow in that lack of common ground by talking about the most vacuous thing possible, like the weather. What to do?
His fourth principle was this: “Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.”
1. Be generous
Finding a way to get someone talking about what they know is a win-win.
First, by being generous you give the other person a way to avoid the discomfort of not knowing what to say. If they are talking about what they know, they will be comfortable. And showing interest in the other person’s knowledge and experience is a good way to engage their interest in return.
As the Ancient Latin writer Publilius Syrus is supposed to have said: “We are interested in others when they are interested in us.” In this way, we move from the bland, generic topics of small talk to topics that are tailored by definition to your conversational partner, thereby maximising audience design.
This requires that we resist the urge to talk about ourselves, and instead allow the other that privilege.
2. Be curious
Everybody you meet knows things you don’t. Why do people do the things they do? How does a person get into that kind of work? What is life like in the places they know and that you haven’t been to? And so on.
Again, by resisting the urge to talk about nothing, or to talk about ourselves, we stand to gain by learning new things. That is one of the many magic tricks of language.
As you are listening and learning, you have opportunities to contribute, too, with feedback, prompts and follow-ups. And, ideally, by this time your conversation has hopefully developed an organic two-way exchange of generous curiosity.
When looking down the barrel of a conversation with someone you don’t know, resist the twin urges of boring conversation: the urge to talk about nothing and the urge to talk about yourself.
Instead, apply the combination of generosity (let the conversation be about their world) and curiosity (you will learn new things). Together, we can rid ourselves of the futility and awkwardness of small talk.
Nick Enfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The current inquest into the worshippers killed in the Christchurch mosque attacks has been examining gun laws at the time of the 2019 atrocities, and how lax controls helped the terrorist acquire his weapons.
Firearms control is a complex and contentious issue – but New Zealand can learn from other countries’ experience. It may surprise many, but one such country is the United States, where gun rights and restrictions are perennially – and often tragically – political.
Of course, there are fundamental differences between the US and New Zealand when it comes to the regulation of firearms. For Americans, the possession of guns is a right. For New Zealanders, it is a privilege. This has resulted in very different approaches to regulation, with the US undoubtedly more liberal – for which it pays a heavy price.
But it would also be wrong to assume New Zealand has nothing to learn from the US. Paradoxically, a more liberal approach to firearms ownership can produce tighter specific laws and regulations as a result.
There are four areas where New Zealand might learn from this as the government seeks to rewrite the Arms Act.
Some crimes should not be forgotten
The Americans take the position that anyone convicted of a crime punishable for a prison term exceeding one year (a “felony”) forfeits their right to possess a firearm.
Unless that right is restored, typically by petition or pardon (agreeing the person is no longer a risk), there is a strong presumption this is a permanent ban. Supplementary state prohibitions ensure this law is generally enforced properly, keeping convicted criminals away from firearms.
(Even Donald Trump fell foul of this law because of his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records during the 2016 presidential election.)
In New Zealand, the list of legal and other reasons to deny a firearms licence is growing. But such disqualifications typically only extend back ten years from the application date, and are not indefinite.
Take ‘straw buying’ seriously
A “straw purchase” is when someone who is legally entitled to purchase or possess a firearm provides a weapon to someone prohibited by law from possessing one.
A 2023 federal report showed 54% of the guns US police recovered at crime scenes in 2021 had been bought within the previous three years. This suggested straw purchasing or illegal trafficking was a significant problem.
Recently, in a remarkable piece of policing, NZ officers trawled through three years of hand-written records for more than 360,000 individual gun sales across 390 stores. This appears to have set the scene for the arrests of nearly 40 people, including two former gun store employees, on charges of illegally on-selling guns.
In the US, the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act made gun trafficking and straw purchasing federal crimes for the first time. Until then, only light penalties applied. But the new law allows for prison sentences of up to 15 years – or up to 25 years if the firearm was used in more serious crimes, such as terrorism or drug trafficking.
In New Zealand, by contrast, selling or supplying restricted firearms to unauthorised people carries a jail penalty of up to three years in jail. The illegal sale of prohibited firearms or magazines (such as the type used in the Christchurch terror attack) carries a penalty of up to five years. The prison sentence for supplying someone subject to a firearms prohibition order can now be up to seven years.
These changes, made in the aftermath of the Christchurch attacks, are at least an improvement. In 2018, the man who supplied Quinn Patterson with the military-style weapons he used to murder two people received only 12 months’ home detention.
Guns made or modified using 3D printing technology on display at the US National Firearm Reference Vault in West Virginia. Getty Images
Minimum amounts of metal in all firearms
A particularly clever US law – renewed four times since it was first signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988 – is the Undetectable Firearms Act. This makes it illegal to manufacture, import, sell, possess, transfer or receive any firearm not detectable by walk-through security systems.
Every gun must contain enough metal to set off X-ray machines and metal detectors. Also prohibited are any firearms with major components that do not generate an accurate image in standard airport imaging technology.
Although this alone won’t prevent the problem of unauthorised 3D printing of firearms, it is a step in the right direction for enhancing security in places such as court houses and airports. New Zealand has no similar law.
Mandatory reporting of firearms injuries
While firearms homicides are well recorded and shared with the police, there are often significant gaps in the data due to firearms injury reporting being optional.
Health professionals in New Zealand are only required to report an injury if they believe someone has a health condition that should prevent them holding a firearms licence.
But mandatory reporting of firearm injuries by medical professionals is common in a number of comparable countries. In the US, there are reporting requirements in 48 out of 50 states.
Mandatory reporting of all firearms injuries helps authorities track the extent and nature of wrongful firearms use. It can also prompt police visits and checks on the gun owner to ensure they are still “fit and proper” since their last licence renewal.
Despite these benefits – and the fact that mandatory reporting of firearms injuries by health professionals was recommended by the royal commission into the Christchurch terror attack – the government declined to take the matter further.
Revisiting the Arms Act presents a unique opportunity to make New Zealand safer. The first step is to look at what other countries can teach us. And while it may seem counterintuitive, and despite all the faults in its very liberal system, the US still has some ideas we should consider adopting.
Alexander Gillespie is a member of the Ministerial Arms Advisory Group (MAAG). He is also the 2024 recipient of the Borrin Justice Fellowship, and is researching revision of the NZ Arms Act. His views and opinions here are independent of both the MAAG and the Borrin Foundation.
When most people think about caring for their mental health, they may think about getting more exercise, getting more sleep and making sure they’re eating healthy. Increasingly, research is showing that spending time in nature surrounded by plants and wildlife can also contribute to preventing and treating mental illness.
Our research focuses on the importance of birds and trees in urban neighbourhoods in promoting mental well-being. In our study, we combined more than a decade of health and ecological data across 36 Canadian cities and found a positive association between greater bird and tree diversity and self-rated mental health.
The well-being benefits of healthy ecosystems will probably not come as a great surprise to urban dwellers who relish days out in the park or hiking in a nearby nature reserve. Still, the findings of our study speak to the potential of a nature-based urbanism that promotes the health of its citizens.
Across cultures and societies, people have strong connections with birds. The beauty of their bright song and colour have inspired art, music and poetry. Their contemporary cultural relevance has even earned them an affectionate, absurdist internet nickname: “birbs”.
There’s something magical about catching a glimpse of a bird and hearing birdsong. For many urbanites, birds are our daily connection to wildlife and a gateway to nature. In fact, even if we don’t realize it, humans and birds are intertwined. Birds provide us with many essential services — controlling insects, dispersing seeds and pollinating our crops.
People have similarly intimate connections with trees. The terms tree of life, family trees, even tree-hugger all demonstrate the central cultural importance trees have in many communities around the world. In cities, trees are a staple of efforts to bring beauty and tranquility.
Contact with nature and greenspace have a suite of mental health benefits.
Natural spaces reduce stress and offer places for recreation and relaxation for urban dwellers, but natural diversity is key. A growing amount of research shows that the extent of these benefits may be related to the diversity of different natural features.
Finally, we compared both of these data sets to a long-standing health survey that has interviewed approximately 65,000 Canadians each year for over two decades.
We found that living in a neighbourhood with higher than average bird diversity increased reporting of good mental health by about seven per cent. While living in a neighbourhood with higher than average tree diversity increased good mental health by about five per cent.
Importance of urban birds and trees
The results of our study, and those of others, show a connection between urban bird and tree diversity, healthy ecosystems and people’s mental well-being. This underscores the importance of urban biodiversity conservation as part of healthy living promotion.
Protecting wild areas in parks, planting pollinator gardens and reducing pesticide use could all be key strategies to protect urban wildlife and promote people’s well-being. Urban planners should take note.
We’re at a critical juncture: just as we are beginning to understand the well-being benefits of birds and trees, we’re losing species at a faster rate than ever before. It’s estimated that there are three billion fewer birds in North America compared to the 1970s and invasive pests will kill 1.4 million street trees over the next 30 years.
By promoting urban biodiversity, we can ensure a sustainable and healthy future for all species, including ourselves.
Rachel Buxton receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, National Institutes of Health, and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
Emma J. Hudgins received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Nature et Technologies for this work. She currently receives funding from Plant Health Australia.
Stephanie Prince Ware has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Also in continuation of Israel’s war on journalism, the IDF has published the names of six Al Jazeera reporters who it claims are actually members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, citing as evidence documents which it claims Israeli forces found in Gaza.
These allegations would mark these journalists as legitimate military targets.
Al Jazeera has denounced these claims as unfounded, saying in a statement: “The Network views these fabricated accusations as a blatant attempt to silence the few remaining journalists in the region, thereby obscuring the harsh realities of the war from audiences worldwide.”
There is of course no reason to ever believe any claim Israel makes about anything whatsoever absent mountains of independently verifiable evidence, after the mountains of lies it has churned out over the last year.
The fact that Western news outlets are treating these allegations as plausible is evidence of their propagandistic nature.
Israel claims everyone it wants to kill is Hamas. The journalists are Hamas, the hospitals are Hamas, the UN is Hamas, the aid trucks are Hamas, the schools are Hamas, the mosques are Hamas, the water infrastructure is Hamas, the civilian homes are all Hamas, and Hamas is hiding behind every woman and child in Gaza.
The only exception to this rule is in Lebanon, in which case everyone Israel wants to kill is Hezbollah.
“Israel hates truth” . . .Gaza: The Al Jazeera investigation into Israeli war crimes.
Why journalists are killed Israel hates truth, which is why it kills journalists at every opportunity and blocks them from entering Gaza. This is because truth tends to have a marked anti-Israel bias.
We saw this illustrated recently when Israel announced that there is a secret Hezbollah bunker underneath a hospital in Beirut, so the press simply sent a bunch of reporters to go and investigate because Israel can’t block the press from entering Lebanon like it can in Gaza.
Even Western outlets like the BBC and Sky News entered the hospital and interviewed medical staff, reporting that they found no trace of evidence supporting Israel’s claims and that the hospital staff all denied the existence of any Hezbollah bunker on the premises.
And you may be sure those outlets would have eagerly reported any sign of Hezbollah if they were given the opportunity.
Criminal institutions need to function in the dark. They cannot function in the light of visibility and critical journalism and inconvenient video footage.
That’s why the mafia murders witnesses. That’s why the inner workings of the US war machine are shrouded in government secrecy. That’s why Julian Assange spent five years in a maximum security prison.
And that’s why Israel does everything it can to kill and obstruct journalists who tell the truth about its crimes.
If Donald Trump wins the US presidency on November 5, his victory will have profound implications for other countries on many fronts. Not least of them will be climate change policy.
Perhaps the uncertainty now hanging over US politics was on the mind of Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who shilly-shallied this week over when he’ll announce Australia’s 2035 emissions reduction target under the Paris climate agreement.
Bowen refused to be pinned down at the Australian Financial Review’s energy and climate summit on whether the target would be public before next year’s election. Neither his office nor that of the prime minister would be more specific later.
Australia, like other countries, is required under the Paris agreement to put forward its target in February. But, also like other countries, Australia is focused on what’s happening in the US.
Trump wants to take the US out of the Paris agreement for the second time. The first exit took effect immediately after his 2020 defeat and incoming President Joe Biden was able to reverse it at once. This time, there’d be no such quick turnaround.
The Biden administration has been strongly committed on climate issues. If the US exited, the Paris agreement would likely be transformed.
There may be other reasons why Bowen is being cagey about the 2035 target. Climate change and energy will be harder issues for Labor in this election, as it struggles with the realities of the transition, than in the 2022 one.
In the run-up to that election, a desperate Scott Morrison pulled out all stops to win support within the Coalition to sign up to the 2050 net-zero emissions target.
Labor was on the front foot, with a policy for a 43% reduction in emissions (on 2005 levels) by 2030, underpinned by a target of 82% renewable electricity by then. The election promise for consumers was a $275 cut in household power bills by 2025.
Crafting a policy is often easier than implementing it. The journey to a clean energy economy is arduous.
The $275 promise was quickly seen as unrealisable. The government has had to provide rebates to keep prices in check. The rollout of renewables is complicated by local resistance to some projects, including wind farms and transmission lines. At present, more than 40% of electricity comes from renewables.
The cost-of-living crisis has increasingly dominated everything. Climate change remains a significant issue with people, but over time it tends to go up and down their scale of concerns, depending on changing circumstances.
The Ipsos Climate Change Report, done annually, found in 2024 “strong notional support for the energy transition”, but low understanding of what progress had been made.
Concerns about the negative impacts of the transition on cost of living and energy reliability have increased, particularly in the current high inflation environment. The perceived economic benefits of the transition are less clear, with many unsure about the impact on jobs and the broader economy.
The emphasis on cost of living is influencing priorities for the energy transition, with Australians wanting to see energy prices and reliability prioritised. There is a growing sentiment that Australia should only take action if other countries are also contributing fairly to climate change efforts.
Of course a summer of bad bushfires can change people’s priorities suddenly. Barring that, Labor is looking at a 2025 election in which it will be more on the defensive than the offensive on climate and energy issues.
The opposition has already acted to sharpen the difference with Labor over the medium term targets. Peter Dutton will have no 2035 target before the election, and has questioned the 2030 target to which Australia is signed up, although he says a Coalition government would not leave the Paris agreement. He is also running hard on his controversial policy for nuclear energy.
While Bowen is not clarifying whether he’ll announce the government’s target ahead of the election, it would be awkward for Australia not to meet the February deadline.
There would not be a penalty, but it would be a bad look, especially given we are vying with Turkey to host, together with Pacific countries, COP31 in 2026. One unknown, incidentally, is whether a Coalition government would continue this bid, which the opposition has describes as a “vanity project”.
If the government does announce the 2035 target before the election, the big question is how ambitious it will make it.
Bowen will receive advice on this from the Climate Change Authority, to which the government has appointed, as head, former New South Wales Liberal Treasurer Matt Kean.
A 2035 target in the range of 65-75% […] could be achievable and sustainable if additional action is taken by governments, business, investors and households […]. However, attempting to go much faster could risk significant levels of economic and social disruption and put progress at risk.
A bold target would make the government more vulnerable, just when Labor would want the attention on the Coalition’s problematic nuclear policy. On the other hand, if the target were modest, that would be exploited by the Greens.
Next month, Bowen will attend COP29 in Azerbaijan, where the central issue will be a financial goal, replacing the 2015 goal, for developed and major economies to help fund developing countries’ emission reduction efforts. Bowen, with Egyptian Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad, is leading the consultations on this, and so has a significant role at the conference.
At the COP meeting, Bowen will get a better idea of where other countries are on their expected 2035 targets. He indicated this week he has already started taking soundings. “Obviously […] of course you think about international context.”
By the time of COP, which runs November 11-22, America will have chosen its next president. The COP meeting will either be business-as-usual, looking to an incoming Kamala Harris presidency, or trying to anticipate the implications of a Trump administration that could be a major disruptor of international climate policy.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka says he will take a back seat in the upcoming Pacific leaders’ fact-finding mission to New Caledonia, which was postponed from earlier in the year.
Leaders from the Cook Islands, Tonga, and Solomon Islands make up a group called the Pacific Islands Forum troika, comprising past, present and future hosts of the annual PIF leaders’ meeting.
The call for a PIF fact-finding mission was made while Fiji was still part of the troika.
Rabuka spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron the week before the mission was originally scheduled to take place.
When asked by RNZ Pacific why the trip had been postponed, Rabuka replied: “I do not know. I’m just the troika-plus.”
Moments after touching down in Samoa, Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka was bestowed the chiefly title, Tagaloa in Samoa’s Leauva’a village. #CHOGM2024pic.twitter.com/zzrNqgc1u0
Rabuka, who is currently in Apia for the 27th Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), was bestowed with a Samoan matai title of Tagaloa by the village of Leauva’a yesterday.
He confirmed to RNZ Pacific that he would be in Nouméa on Sunday.
“We will be talking about the future of negotiations and the relationship between New Caledonia and the people and France,” he said.
PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa told RNZ Pacific that supporting peace and harmony in New Caledonia was top of the agenda for the leaders’ mission.
Waqa, who is also attending CHOGM, said an advance team was in Nouméa making preparations for the visit.
Violence and destruction has been ongoing in New Caledonia for much of the past five months in protest over French plans for the territory.
The death toll stands at 13.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New Zealand’s opposition Labour Party has backed Christchurch City Council and called for other cities to block business with firms involved in Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestine Territories.
“It is great that Christchurch is the first council in New Zealand to take up this cause. We hope others will follow this example,” Labour’s associate foreign affairs spokesperson Phil Twyford said.
Christchurch is New Zealand’s third-largest city with a population of 408,000. The council vote yesterday was 10 for sanctions, two against and three abstentions.
Labour has called on the government to direct the Super Fund and the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) to divest from any companies on the United Nations list of companies complicit in building or maintaining the illegal settlements, and use its procurement rules to ban any future dealings with those firms.
“New Zealanders want to see an end to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza, and a political solution that allows the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Twyford said.
“Unfortunately, since the Oslo Accords in 1993, Israel has deliberately set out to colonise the Occupied West Bank with settlements housing more than 700,000 Israelis, designed to scuttle any hope of a two-state solution.
“It is time for the international community to take action against this breach of international law.”
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Kate Kelly, PhD Candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, RMIT University
Under the program, known as the Coaching and Productivity Framework or simply “the Framework”, workers say they face potential disciplinary action if they fail to achieve 100% adherence to a speed-related metric known as pick rates. This represents a sharp break from previous approaches in which a pick rate of 100% was a non-enforceable goal, rather than a basic requirement.
A Primary Connect spokesperson told The Conversation the Framework is more flexible, ensuring “a fair approach to the standards is applied to any personal circumstances or abilities”, with exemptions “for when a team member is unable to perform to standards, including pregnancy, disability or injury”.
Workers say the new system creates huge stress and leads to unsafe work practices.
An outline of the Woolworths Coaching and Productivity Framework. Woolworths
‘Scientific management’
Although pick rates are common across warehousing, enforcing 100% compliance is highly unusual. In a memo to warehouse staff, Woolworths justified the strict enforcement of pick rates by claiming they are based on “engineered standards”, which are “the times that a trained and competent person should take to complete a set task safely using the ‘agreed method’ for that task”.
Engineered standards (or engineered labour standards) are also widespread in the warehousing industry. Developed in the early 20th century by US management consultants, engineered standards follow the stopwatch studies and time-and-motion methodologies of Frederick Winslow Taylor, the pioneer of “scientific management”.
To this day, engineered standards may be developed by “putting the stopwatch” on workers to record and standardise the time taken to perform a particular task. These data sets may be used to develop and justify pick rates.
Turning workers into data points
The use of engineered standards integrates workers into Woolworths’ ongoing program of increased automation and surveillance across its business.
Much like inventory, workers’ bodies also become a data point to be monitored in terms of speed and movement. Engineered standards encode the assumption that human labour can be rationalised in the same way as the activity of a machine.
Engineered standards promise the ability to control the output of workers at every moment. In practice, the application of engineered standards is often flawed and inaccurate.
Regardless of accuracy, engineered standards and other algorithmic systems may have other benefits for management, providing a veneer of technological objectivity for decision-making.
Confusing and inconsistent
Through research for my PhD and my work with the United Workers Union, I have heard many concerns from workers subjected to the Framework.
One common concern is that, due to the algorithmic nature of the Framework, the pick rate is opaque. In practice, workers do not know what 100% compliance means, so they do not even know what is expected of them.
Workers report that rates seem to change and are applied inconsistently across different departments.
The psychological impact has been significant. Workers have reported lying awake at night and experiencing heightened anxiety of job loss following the introduction of the Framework.
One worker told me:
I can’t sleep thinking about what would happen if I lost my job because I didn’t meet the standards a few times and my average wasn’t high enough.
Another said:
I frequently go to sleep and dream of picking at work. I find myself thinking of work at home and dreaming of work when I’m sleeping. I’m constantly on edge whenever I see a team leader, thinking I’ve done something wrong.
And a third:
I have some personal issues at home with my marriage and I’m laying awake thinking about my pick rate and if I will have a job tomorrow.
Speed and safety
Workers have also reported they feel compelled to prioritise speed over safety to meet the pick rate, or risk losing their job. At the same time, failure to work safely can also result in disciplinary action, injury or worse.
Failure to meet the pick rate may result in a “tap on the shoulder” from management. This may be followed by notification that “coaching” will commence as part of a 12-week performance management program.
Coaching consists of working under the close supervision of a manager who is tasked with observing the worker’s movements and appraising their speed against a company checklist.
In the words of another worker:
They are watching you, following you around with a clipboard, piece of paper and a pen. Writing stuff down behind you. It feels degrading.
Monitoring ‘gap times’ such as toilet breaks
Distribution centres are complex and dynamic environments. Congestion builds in aisles, equipment glitches and breaks, pallets spill, and batteries go flat.
Woolworths claims the Framework takes into account “gap times”, which include reasonable periods of unavoidable delay, worker fatigue, rest breaks and so on.
Gap times refer to any time during a shift when a worker is not actively on task. Workers report that time pressures have resulted in breaks being skipped, and safety measures disregarded, to meet pick rate targets and avoid disciplinary action.
A question of control
Following widespread worker disputes, including one filed with the Fair Work Commission in April, the Framework has been temporarily placed on pause. If reinstated, it would take effect at 15 distribution centres across the country, impacting about 8,000 permanent workers and, indirectly or directly, several thousand casual labour-hire workers.
Woolworths team members represented by the United Workers Union are currently bargaining for a new enterprise agreement. Abolition of the Framework and related disciplinary action is a key demand of the union.
In a statement to The Conversation, a Primary Connect spokesperson said:
We have listened to the feedback from the union on the Framework, and will engage our teams in the distribution centres and the union in due course. As the country’s largest private sector employer, we are committed to ensuring that our workplaces are safe and productive for our teams and customers.
Beyond Woolworths, the contest over pick rates raises a broader question: to what extent should an employer be able to dictate the speed of work?
Clearly, an employer can assign the duration of a shift and ask workers to perform their role to the best of their abilities, but should workers retain the right to control the speed at which they move their own body?
The future of the Woolworths Framework may have widespread implications for working life in Australia.
Lauren Kate Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She is affiliated with the United Workers Union, which represents workers across the supermarket supply chain.
The reasons for this are unclear, though there are obvious differences in the level of government and community investment in countering intimate partner violence versus awareness of and attention to stalking.
What exactly is stalking?
Stalking is a pattern of repeated and unwanted behaviour in which one person pushes their way into the life of another where they have no legitimate right to be, causing the target distress and fear.
The most common methods are unwanted communication (by phone or digital media) and unwanted contacts (such as following someone or loitering nearby).
Threats of violence and assault occur in at least a quarter of cases.
Victims of persistent stalking have described it as “psychological rape”, with the stalker invading every part of their life.
The cumulative impact of seemingly never-ending intrusions, and their social and financial toll, is probably why stalking victims report high rates of depression, anxiety and traumatic stress disorders.
Researchers have estimated being stalked for 14 months costs victims approximately $A140,000, including direct costs from lost work and legal expenses and indirect costs of physical and mental harm.
Who stalks?
Most stalking is perpetrated by people who are known to the victim, either as an acquaintance or an ex-partner, with strangers responsible for about 20-25% of stalking.
Stalking usually starts either because the person feels mistreated and stalks to take revenge or right the wrong, or they stalk to start or enact a relationship with the victim that does not exist. In a small number of cases, stalking has a sexual motivation and can sometimes be part of planning or preparation for a sexual assault.
Regardless of motivation, most stalking is communicative – the stalker wants the victim to know they exist and to feel like they must respond.
Physical violence is much more common in cases of ex-partner stalking, with the ABS survey and earlier research finding half of intimate partner stalkers used physical violence.
Thankfully, most stalking-related violence does not cause severe physical harm and homicide is extremely rare.
Stalking is a complicated problem and a comprehensive response needs multi-faceted systemic change that will be costly and take much effort and time.
Currently, there doesn’t seem to be an appetite in Australia for the work required.
However, there is one relatively straightforward thing the federal, state and territory governments could do right now to help: establish a national stalking helpline that can provide specialist information, advice and advocacy for all victims.
The helpline provides online and telephone advice to potential stalking victims, including basic risk assessment, advocacy and links to local support services. It also provides advice to mental health professionals and others who are supporting stalking victims.
The helpline serves all people, regardless of their gender or relationship with the stalker. Nearly half (45%) of its clients are stalked by a stranger or acquaintance, not an ex-partner. This highlights the importance of a specialised stalking response separate to existing services for family and intimate partner violence.
An Australian equivalent would provide immediate support for victims and a focal point for necessary research and evaluation into what works to stop stalking.
An Australian national stalking helpline would be a practical, relatively inexpensive and immediately helpful strategy that governments could implement to support the hundreds of thousands of Australians who are stalked every year.
Troy McEwan has received funding from the Australian Research Council and Victoria Police for stalking-related research.
