Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Deane, Professor of Trade Law, Taxation and Climate Change, Queensland University of Technology

US President Donald Trump has imposed a range of tariffs on all products entering the US market, with Australian exports set to face a 10% tariff, effective April 5.

These import taxes will be charged by US customs on each imported item. The punitive tariffs on 60 countries range as high as 34% on imports from China and 46% on Vietnam, and exceed the rates agreed between the United States and other global trade partners.

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump said.

The impact on Australian industries will be both direct and indirect. The largest Australian export to the US is meat products, totalling A$4 billion in 2024, and our farmers may divert some product to other nations.

Direct and indirect impacts

The larger economic risk is to our regional trading partners.

While Australia faces only 10% tariffs, our major trading partners China, Japan and South Korea all face much higher US tariffs under the new regime. So the risk of a manufacturing slowdown in those countries could dampen demand for Australia’s much larger exports – iron ore, coal and gas.

Australian investors reacted swiftly, wiping 2.1% off the main stock market index, the S&P/ASX 200, in the first hour of trade.

Another problem will be the disruption to global supply chains. It is not just finished products impacted. For instance, the 25% automobile tariff will be extended to auto parts on May 3. This means even if a car is entirely built in the US, it will still be more expensive because many components are imported.

Read more:
What are tariffs?

What sectors has the US complained about?

On April 1, the US released an annual trade report that identifies what it describes as “foreign trade barriers”. There was a long list of grievances with both tariff and non-tariff barriers identified.

The report identified Australia’s biosecurity restrictions on meat, apples and pears. The Australian biosecurity rules do not directly ban any products, although in practice raw beef products are excluded.

Trump singled out Australian beef in his speech. “They won’t take any of our beef,” he claimed.

In a speech riddled with inaccuracies and falsehoods, this was one of them. Australia take shelf-stable US products, but not raw products for which consumer safety can not be assured.

The US cited two other main Australian trade barriers. US drug companies have criticised the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme approvals processes. The Albanese government’s plan to strengthen the News Media Bargaining Code that requires tech companies to pay for news published on their platforms was also targeted.

How can Australia respond?

Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton are in agreement over what we should do in response. They say Australian law and policy is not up for sale. We don’t negotiate on biosecurity, we don’t negotiate on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme process, and our local news media deserves protection from Big Tech.

1. All avenues start with negotiations

The preferred option is for a negotiation with the US to secure an exemption.

A dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO) sends a strong message to our trading partners and will also mean there’s an expert adjudication on this unprecedented move.

However, the US has sidelined the WTO in recent years and Albanese has ruled out this route.

2. Consultation

The second potential action is to initiate consultations under the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement. There is a formal process identified in the agreement to which Albanese referred, with a threat of “dispute resolution mechanisms”.

Albanese has ruled out imposing “reciprocal tariffs” on US imports, noting this would only push up prices for Australian consumers.

3. Find new markets

Third, we can find other markets. Australian agricultural products are some of the most desirable in the world. Australian producers will have other options. Indeed, the latest data for beef exports showed exports to China jumped 43% from January, to Japan up 27%, and to South Korea up 60% from the previous month.

What has the government said?

Albanese announced a response package, including $50 million to help pursue new markets. He said the tariff announcement was “not the act of a friend” and had “no basis in logic”:

It is the American people who will pay the biggest price for these unjustified tariffs. This is why our government will not be seeking to impose reciprocal tariffs.

Albanese’s response contains only one direct trade measure. That is the plan to strengthen anti-dumping provisions on steel, aluminium and other manufacturing. This means countries looking to sell their products too cheaply in Australia will face countervailing duties. It is a measure that aligns with trade rules.

The decision by the US to impose tariffs in this way shows complete disregard for the world trade order established after World War II.

The rules that have existed since this time aimed to limit trade barriers (such as tariffs). They also recognised the importance of supporting developing countries to be part of the world economy.

Some of the biggest US tariffs are to hit some of the lowest-income countries. This will impact their economies badly and disadvantage people already living in poverty.

Read more:
Why developing countries must unite to protect the WTO’s dispute settlement system

Felicity Deane 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.

– ref. US tariffs will upend global trade. This is how Australia can respond – https://theconversation.com/us-tariffs-will-upend-global-trade-this-is-how-australia-can-respond-253621

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

US President Donald Trump singled out Australia’s beef trade for special mention in his announcement that the United States would impose a 10% global tariff as well as “reciprocal tariffs” on many countries.

In a long speech in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said: “Australia bans – and they’re wonderful people and wonderful everything – but they ban American beef.

“Yet we imported US$3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone.

“They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know, I don’t blame them but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight, I would say.”

Australia bans US fresh beef imports because of biosecurity concerns. The US just-released Foreign Trade Barriers report says, “the United States continues to seek full market access for fresh US beef and beef products”.

Trump announced a “minimum baseline tariff” of 10%, which would apply to Australia as well as to all other countries.

Initially, given Trump’s language, there was confusion about what will happen with beef but later it was clarified it would face the basic 10% general tariff, and nothing more.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese condemned the new US trade regime and said Australia would continue to try to get exemptions for Australia.

The trade decision was “not unexpected” but had “no basis in logic” and “was not the act of a friend”.

Albanese announced a response package, but flagged the government did not want to take the US to the World Trade Organisation. The package includes:

• strenghening anti-dumping provisions

• providing A$50 million to affected sectors to secure and pursue new markets

• sending five missions abroad to develop other markets

• setting up a new resilience program, involving $1 billion in loans to capitalise on new investment opportunities

• putting Australian businesses at “the front of the queue” in a “buy Australian” policy in government procurement

• setting up a strategic reserve for Australian critical minerals.

Albanese re-emphasised Australia would make no changes to the country’s biosecurity rules.

Under Trump’s announcement, varying “reciprocal” rates are being imposed on individual countries according to the barriers they impose on American items.

The president described this as “one of the most important days in American history”, saying it represented a “declaration of economic independence”.

China will face a 34% tariff, while there will be a 25% global tariff on cars imported into the US. Imports from the European Union will have a 20% tariff imposed.

There will be 25% on imports from South Korea, as well as 24% on imports from Japan and 32% on those from Taiwan.

Trump’s message to countries seeking special treatment could not have been blunter.

“To all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors, and everyone else, who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs, I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don’t manipulate here your currencies – they manipulate their currencies, like, nobody can even believe, when it’s a bad, bad thing, and very devastating to us.

“And start buying tens of billions of dollars of American goods.

“Tariffs give us protection against those looking to do us economic harm.”

He said the new US trade regime would raise trillions of dollars that would reduce American taxes and pay down its debt.

Opposition campaign spokesman James Paterson described the announcement as “disappointing”, He said Australia should work “calmly and directly” with the US administration to get a better deal.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said action against beef would mean the price of Big Mac burgers would go up for American consumers. Australian beef exported to the US is especially for burgers.

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.

– ref. Australian beef highlighted by Donald Trump in ‘Liberation Day’ trade crackdown – https://theconversation.com/australian-beef-highlighted-by-donald-trump-in-liberation-day-trade-crackdown-253111

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Law lecturer, University of Sydney

Recent media coverage in the Nine newspapers highlights a surge in non-medical ultrasound providers offering “reassurance ultrasounds” to expectant parents.

The service has resulted in serious harms, such as misdiagnosed ectopic pregnancies and undetected fetal abnormalities, according to the reports.

So why do some women choose additional ultrasounds? And how can you tell if you should trust the person providing your ultrasound?

What are reassurance scans?

Reassurance scans are a type of non-medical elective or “entertainment” ultrasound some women seek in addition to their routine first- and second-trimester scans.

Reassurance scans are marketed as a way to “give you peace of mind” about your baby’s development, or to assure you “everything is progressing as it should” if you’re not due for a routine scan.

They’re also called souvenir, boutique or keepsake ultrasounds, because these business typically sell memento packages. These often include so-called 4D images: renderings combined with the fourth dimension of time to show movement.

Some businesses offer gender identification information, sometimes with “gender-reveal” party accessories, as well as audio recordings of the fetal heartbeat.

Why do women get them?

Detailed interview studies have explored why ultrasound images beyond the routine scans are so popular.

Many expecting parents want to learn the fetal sex as early as possible, seek reassurance, see the facial features of their future child and acquire keepsake images.

Others find the routine scans too rushed and impersonal, turning to commercial providers as a more ceremonious and fulfilling ritual.

Health sociologists have emphasised the positive health impacts of non-medical ultrasound, which can help expecting mothers and fathers bond with their baby.

Some feminists in the 20th century criticised the medicalisation of pregnancy for devaluing “lived experience”. But recent feminist accounts have re-framed non-medical scans as a way for women to get health care that goes beyond clinical utility.

Rather than trivialising the “entertainment” value of these services, some argue obstetricians could learn from the service, thus improving patient satisfaction during obstetric imaging.

What are the risks of these services?

In recent years, the technology to provide detailed scans has become more portable, with handheld, smartphone-compatible ultrasound devices now available.

This, along with the normalisation of sharing ultrasound images on social media, has likely led to more commercial businesses offering these services.

Yet the service is considered fraught with unmanageable psychological and social risk. Providers are usually not trained to counsel mothers or families should a fetal anomaly be suspected.

Professional organisations have denounced these businesses for misleading consumers with false reassurances. As these scans aren’t checked by a clinician, these operators cannot give reliable assurances.

The World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology and similar bodies disapprove of souvenir ultrasounds on safety grounds. So too does the Australian Sonographers Association, which represents about 70% of sonographers.

No substantive restrictions on ultrasound devices

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration regulates the supply of medical devices. It registers them, classifies them according to their risk and sometimes attaches conditions to their use.

However, some portable ultrasound scanners approved as low-risk devices carry no specific conditions. Lay consumers could theoretically purchase them, including through the personal importation scheme.

Last year, the TGA de-registered several handheld devices used to detect fetal heartbeats during pregnancy without health practitioner supervision.

The decision followed a post-market review that found expectant parents had been falsely reassured by the devices themselves or by untrained people using them in home settings.

However, no such review has been conducted for portable ultrasound devices.

While removing devices from the register in this manner may limit consumer access, it is not a “product recall” and would not prevent the continued sale of second-hand devices.

Who can perform ultrasounds?

While some specialist health practitioners may perform ultrasounds (such as obstetricians holding a relevant certificate), most diagnostic imaging specialists are sonographers.

To perform medical ultrasounds that are eligible for a Medicare rebate, sonographers must be trained and accredited.

But there is no sonography registration board to receive complaints about sonographers or take disciplinary action against them. This sets sonographers apart from registered health practitioners such as doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

The Australian Sonographers Association has argued sonographers should be regulated by a registration board.

This could make sonographers more clearly identifiable through title protections, ensure poorly performing sonographers are disciplined and allow for consistent national standards.

However, it would not stop unregistered people from providing non-medical ultrasounds.

So how can you tell if your provider is a sonographer?

One clear signal that a provider is offering a non-diagnostic ultrasound is that no Medicare subsidy is on offer.

Australian providers conducting imaging without accreditation must inform consumers of their non-accredited status and confirm no Medicare benefit is payable.

Not doing so would amount to an offence.

How can you report a dodgy provider?

You can make complaints to state-based health complaints bodies. The Health Care Complaints Commission in New South Wales, for example, can investigate complaints about sonographers as non-registered health practitioners and consider the relevant code of conduct.

When a sonographer is found to have acted improperly, or to pose a health or safety risk, these complaints bodies may issue orders prohibiting the sonographer from providing any health services for a specified period.

Australian consumer law is another way authorities may crack down on unscrupulous providers. In 2015, a person was prosecuted in Western Australia after selling identical images to six women who received non-medical ultrasounds in their homes.

Her offences involved making false or misleading claims and accepting money for services not provided.

If non-medical imaging providers make misleading claims, including about the level of clinical reassurance a non-diagnostic scan can provide, you can report them to the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission.

The author was employed as a research officer at the Medical Council of New South Wales in 2018.

– ref. Why do women get ‘reassurance scans’ during pregnancy? And how can you spot a dodgy provider? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-women-get-reassurance-scans-during-pregnancy-and-how-can-you-spot-a-dodgy-provider-253544

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Heaslip, Senior Lecturer in Naval History, University of Portsmouth

China’s intentions when it comes to Taiwan have been at the centre of intense discussion for years. Both mainland China and Taiwan claim to represent the “real” China after the Kuomintang nationalist party under Chiang Kai Shek retreated across the Taiwan Strait and established the Republic of China there in 1949. Ever since then, mainland China – the People’s Republic – has maintained a claim over Taiwan.

But in recent years, Chinese leaders – including the current president, Xi Jinping – have talked of plans for “reunification” which would bring Taiwan and its population of 23 million under the control of Beijing. By force if necessary.

Now, the recent appearance of a handful of odd-looking barges at a beach in Guangdong province in the People’s Republic may be a significant movement towards that unwelcome potential outcome.

The Shuiqiao barges filmed in March 2025 working together to form a relocatable bridge – the name means “water bridge” – enable the transfer of vehicles, supplies and people between ship and shore, over shallow beaches and potential obstacles on to firm ground. Analysts have already pointed out that there is no obvious commercial role for such large vessels, so the most likely purpose is for landing armed forces during amphibious operations.

All major navies maintain some form of amphibious capability. The UK’s Royal Fleet Auxiliary, for example, operates the UK’s three bay class landing ships, which are due to be replaced by six modern multi-role strike ships. What is particularly significant, however, is that the Shuiqiao offers capabilities along similar lines to the Mulberry harbours built for the D-Day Normandy landings.

The specialised nature of these landing barges, with only one real purpose – to help land large numbers of military forces, stands in contrast with mainstream amphibious vessels. Bay class ships, for example, continue to be used for civilian evacuations, humanitarian aid, disaster relief and a wide range of military roles.

That is a crucial distinction as amphibious operations present huge logistical challenges. D-Day required 850,000 troops, 485,000 tons of supplies and 153,000 vehicles to be landed safely over the first three weeks. Ports tend to be difficult to seize intact, as was demonstrated to great cost during the 1942 raid on Dieppe, so it is generally necessary to land armies over the invasion beaches.

The ability to install temporary harbours, which is what the Shuiqiao bridges appear to provide, offers a means of quickly landing large forces from bigger ships to shore. That also reduces the number of specialised landing ships required, by enabling the use of commercial vessels for ferrying troops to those makeshift ports.

Is an invasion of Taiwan imminent?

What is of concern is that such specialised landing barges are not normally constructed until shortly before they are intended to be used. The Mulberry harbours went into production only a year before the Normandy landings. This is both to ensure they are in good working order when required, but also as they tend to offer little additional value and yet come at a significant price. In this present case, the nearest comparable civilian and military vessels cost hundreds of millions of dollars each.

This does not mean that their appearance guarantees that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent. At present there are reported to be three completed prototype landing barges ready for deployment and three under construction. This would offer one or two beach bridges, each an estimated 820 metres long.

That would be of minimal value in a major invasion. The single US Navy Jlots modular floating pier in Gaza, for example, was only able to land 8,800 tonnes of aid in 20 days. While the Gaza effort was affected by bad weather, any Shuiqiao landing bridges would face much more dangerous wartime conditions. Three to six barges could also still plausibly be intended for disaster relief, even if does not seem a particularly cost-effective means of delivering aid.

But if the number of these barges continues to increase then the assumption must be that a major amphibious expedition is likely within the next decade. Historically, neither the UK, US or any other major power has maintained more than a handful of such highly specialised landing vessels, except for when they intended to use them. In the case of these barges the target may not necessarily be Taiwan – although it would be the most obvious target.

Assuming that an invasion does not trigger a world war, it might still be unsuccessful. Despite years of preparation and near complete control of the sea and skies, the Normandy landings were incredibly perilous and at times looked at risk of defeat. Success came at great cost in lives, through great skill, and at times a little luck. More than 4,400 allied soldiers are believed to have died within the first 24 hours alone, with many more wounded.

Furthermore, getting forces ashore is only part of the challenge. Taiwan’s geography is not suited to rapid movement inland and in similar historic cases that has led to significant additional casualties and delays.

The battle of Anzio during the 1944 invasion of Italy, for example, registered tens of thousands of casualties as the allies struggled to break out of the beachhead. Likewise, at Gallipoli in 1915, repeated failures to move inland saw allied forces suffer hundreds of thousands of casualties only to eventually withdraw.

As a historian who is fond of China, I can only hope that these prototypes will remain just that and this will join the list of other forgotten moments in world history. If not, then the conflicts we have seen since the cold war and even those of the past few years may look minor in comparison to what could be unleashed as a result of an invasion of Taiwan.

Matthew Heaslip is a Visiting Fellow at the Royal Navy’s Strategic Studies Centre.

– ref. What these new landing barges can tell us about China’s plans to invade Taiwan – https://theconversation.com/what-these-new-landing-barges-can-tell-us-about-chinas-plans-to-invade-taiwan-253044

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiera Vaclavik, Professor of Children’s Literature & Childhood Culture, Queen Mary University of London

This spring, Babe is returning to cinemas to mark the 30th anniversary of its release in 1995. The much-loved family film tells the deceptively simple but emotionally powerful story of a piglet who saves his bacon through intelligence, kindness and hard work.

Babe becomes the trusted ally of both farmer and farmyard animals and, like so many Hollywood heroes before and since, he refuses to stay in his lane.

It’s a film which, on paper, really shouldn’t work and which sounds alarm bells to any self-respecting children’s literature scholar like me. It takes an expertly crafted English children’s book with tasteful black-and-white illustrations – Dick King-Smith’s The Sheep Pig (1983) – and turns it into an all-singing, all-dancing technicolour extravaganza.

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The film inserts new episodes and characters – an evil cat, a plucky duck and (most alarmingly) a brace of brattish kids. And it replaces a perfectly good, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin book title with the cutesy moniker of the piglet star.

It shouldn’t work … but it really, really does. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of the most successful film adaptations of a children’s book of all time.

It met with both commercial and critical success, making over US$254 million at the box office and being nominated for no less than seven Academy Awards, one of which it secured for visual effects.

So, what exactly is so special about Babe? It was one of the first films which, thanks to the then-cutting edge combination of animatronics and visual effects, delivered convincing talking animals who, endowed with the gift of speech, could themselves “look like movie stars”. But with all the jaw-dropping technological advances of the last 30 years, how has this film managed to stand the test of time so well?

The answer in part is that its source material is exceptionally strong. The Sheep Pig is written with restraint and economy, but also great warmth and relish. King-Smith has immense fun, wallowing in words like the proverbial pig in muck, and putting it all to the service of a story whose core values are easy to get behind. The Sheep Pig is a soft-power parable which advocates for brains over brawn, for respectful communication and common decency.

But the excellence of a film’s bookish bedrock is no guarantee of success. Indeed, the brilliance of a book can often be something of a liability. Think of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, or any of the film and TV adaptations of Noel Streatfeild’s superb Ballet Shoes. With Babe, though, the book is catalyst rather than straitjacket, an enabling prompt which initiates a new work of equal strength and quality.

The pacing is well judged, the look of the film lush, and there are several actual laugh-out-loud moments – including the duck’s panicked realisation that “Christmas means carnage!” Above all, it’s a film with immense emotional intelligence and power.

Recognised for its visual effects, it also succeeds in large part because of the strength of its soundscape and score. There’s one scene in particular which really soars, and which takes on the elephant in the room: the human habit of eating pigs.

Babe is so shocked and upset on learning this fact from the evil cat (who else?) that he loses the will not just to win in the sheepdog trial, but to live at all. The supremely taciturn Father Hoggett must act to make amends and save his pig protégé.

In an astonishingly moving act of love, this man of few words takes the sickly and sick-at-heart pig onto his lap and sings to him. At first a gentle crooning, the farmer’s expression of care and affection soon swells to an out-and-out bellow, accompanied by a wild, caution-to-the-wind dance.

It’s difficult to imagine a more lyrically apt song than the 1977 reggae-inflected hit based on the powerful tune of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in C Minor: “If I had words”, it begins. It’s a moment of huge emotional force and intensity, in which the gaping abyss of age and species difference are bridged through music and dance.

James Cromwell as Farmer Hoggett, here and throughout the film, is tremendous, his reserved performance a key factor in its success. The role – which he almost didn’t take because of the paucity of lines – was career-defining, and prompted personal epiphanies which flow naturally from this scene.

First, Cromwell never ate meat again. Second, he has spoken (with visible emotion) of the delivery of the film’s final pithy-but-powerful line of approbation – “That’ll do pig, that’ll do” – as a moment of communion with his father on catching sight of his own artificially aged reflection in the camera lens. “My life changed, and I owe it to a pig,” the actor concludes.

Babe is a film and an adaptation with many qualities. It’s wholesome without ever being sickly. But above all, it has an emotional force which worked on actors and audiences alike and which, 30 years later, remains undiminished.

Kiera Vaclavik 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.

– ref. Babe at 30: why this much-loved film is one of the best cinematic translations of a children’s book – https://theconversation.com/babe-at-30-why-this-much-loved-film-is-one-of-the-best-cinematic-translations-of-a-childrens-book-253290

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sophie King-Hill, Associate Professor at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham

Netflix television series Adolescence follows a 13-year-old boy accused of the murder of his female classmate. It touches upon incel online hate groups, toxic influencers and the misogynistic online spaces of the manosphere.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, has backed a move for Adolescence to be shown in schools, and Netflix has now made the series available to be shown for free in classrooms through charity Into Film+, which has also produced a guide for teachers. Resources for teachers and parents will also be produced by relationships charity Tender.

Adolescence is a drama and deserves the praise it has attracted. But it wasn’t developed as an educational resource, the kind that is produced in consultation with young people and schools and should be underpinned by robust research and well planned evaluations.

The series shows an extreme example of one teenager drawn into the world of the manosphere. Not all boys will see themselves reflected in this portrayal. And as a researcher working on masculinity and misogyny, my concern is that showing the series in schools may lead boys to think that they are all perceived as potential threats.

Showing the series as a teaching tool risks framing boyhood as monolithic, with one particular – and problematic – way of being a boy.

Already, a broad-brush, blame-heavy approach is often taken to boys in response to issues relating to sexual harassment and violence. “We may have a problem with boys and young men that we need to address”, Keir Starmer has said.

Boys dealing with blame

In research I have carried out for a forthcoming book on boys and masculinity, I worked with young men and boys aged 13 to 19. One 15-year-old boy said that “I am always told that I am part of the problem but never allowed to be part of the solution”. I also found that this broad blame culture leads to feelings of worthlessness in young men and boys, which shuts down vital dialogue and also may lead them to resort to looking for direction from negative spaces such as the manosphere.

It is evident from reports and evidence that young men and boys do carry out a large amount of reported sexual harassment and harms against young women and girls. This can be seen in the 2021 Ofsted report into sexual harassment in schools in England, for example. The 2025 2000 Women report states that, in the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days.

There is evidently a serious, endemic and complex problem. The misogyny that can be popularised by toxic influencers online also needs urgently addressing.

But a “one-size-fits-all” approach to tackle “boys’ issues” may result in making things worse, not better, due to the lack of recognition of the intersectionality of boyhood. Other aspects of identity, such as race, age, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, sexuality and physical and mental health will have implications for the approaches that need to be taken.

Read more:
How to talk to boys about misogyny

My ongoing research has demonstrated that boyhood means differing things to different boys. In steering groups with young men and boys from various ethnicities and differing social classes, a consistent theme emerged. This was a conflict between the internal and external self that the boys felt that they had to portray. This was also highlighted in a further 16 focus groups carried out on the project, again with a range of boys.

The internal self refers to who the boys actually are, including other identity traits such as race and class, and all the other intersecting aspects of their identity. The external self is what they felt they should show as a boys to fit into the hierarchy of masculinity and how they should portray themselves to fit within the social expectations of being a boy. This causes a conflict of external and internal self.

Efforts to help boys deal with issues such as the messages of the manosphere need to be attuned to the nuance of their internal selves. Generalising boys does not account for the individual identities that they bring to the issues that affect them.

Boys as individuals

The monolithic perspective of “boys” and the ensuing group blame oversimplifies complex issues, resulting in less than effective solutions and interventions that do not acknowledge or account for the nuances and complexities that surround individual boys.

This approach ignores diversities and intersecting identities and steers societal thinking about boys as a set group. It risks stereotyping them and causing prejudicial approaches. When boys are stigmatised in such a way, it compounds issues across genders, breaks down valuable communication and can also cause resentment and hostility.

One of the key voices and valuable perspectives that is missing from this debate is that of young men and boys themselves. We need to truly listen to their perspectives and their needs and build upon these as they are the experts in the world they are experiencing. Good practice accounts for and builds upon these experiences, with young people.

My research has demonstrated that young people want to be a part of these discussions rather than having things decided for them. It also shows that, quite often, we are teaching them what they already know and providing support and education that is too little, too late. We need to move away from the broad brush blaming of boys and young men and begin to approach them based upon their own individual identities – of which gender is only a part.

Sophie King-Hill receives funding from ESRC.

– ref. Adolescence in schools: TV show’s portrayal of one boyhood may do more harm than good when used as a teaching tool – https://theconversation.com/adolescence-in-schools-tv-shows-portrayal-of-one-boyhood-may-do-more-harm-than-good-when-used-as-a-teaching-tool-253158

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Tucker, Professor of History, Wesleyan University

I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums.

I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society.

This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, I’ve integrated the institution’s exhibits into my history courses.

The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history.

On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which asserted, “Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

Trump singled out a few museums, including the Smithsonian, dedicating a whole section of the order on “saving” the institution from “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

Of course, history is contested. There will always be a variety of views about what should be included and excluded from America’s story. For example, in my own research, I found that Prohibition-era school boards in the 1920s argued over whether it was appropriate for history textbooks to include pictures of soldiers drinking to illustrate the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion.

But most recent debates center on how much attention should be given to the history of the nation’s accomplishments over its darker chapters. The Smithsonian, as a national institution that receives most of its funds from the federal government, has sometimes found itself in the crosshairs.

America’s historical repository

The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 thanks to its namesake, British chemist James Smithson.

Smithson willed his estate to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the money – roughly US$15 million in today’s dollars – would be donated to the U.S. to found “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

The idea of a national institution dedicated to history, science and learning was contentious from the start.

In her book “The Stranger and the Statesman,” historian Nina Burleigh shows how Smithson’s bequest was nearly lost due to battles between competing interests.

Southern plantation owners and western frontiersmen, including President Andrew Jackson, saw the establishment of a national museum as an unnecessary assertion of federal power. They also challenged the very idea of accepting a gift from a non-American and thought that it was beneath the dignity of the government to confer immortality on someone simply because of a large donation.

In the end, a group led by congressman and former president John Quincy Adams ensured Smithson’s vision was realized. Adams felt that the country was failing to live up to its early promise. He thought a national museum was an important way to burnish the ideals of the young republic and educate the public.

Today the Smithsonian runs 14 education and research centers, the National Zoo and 21 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was created with bipartisan support during President George W. Bush’s administration.

In the introduction to his book “Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects,” cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin talks about how the institution has also supported hundreds of small and large institutions outside of the nation’s capital.

In 2024, the Smithsonian sent over 2 million artifacts on loan to museums in 52 U.S. states and territories and 33 foreign countries. It also partners with over 200 affiliate museums. YouGov has periodically tracked Americans’ approval of the Smithsonian, which has held steady at roughly 68% approval and 2% disapproval since 2020.

Smithsonian in the crosshairs

Precursors to the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the Smithsonian took place in the 1990s.

In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which was then known as the National Museum of American Art, created an exhibition titled “The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920.” Conservatives complained that the museum portrayed western expansion as a tale of conquest and destruction, rather than one of progress and nation-building. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the exhibit represented “an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nation’s founding and history.”

The exhibition proved popular: Attendance to the National Museum of American Art was 60% higher than it had been during the same period the year prior. But the debate raised questions about whether public museums were able to express ideas that are critical of the U.S. without risk of censorship.

In 1994, controversy again erupted, this time at the National Air and Space Museum over a forthcoming exhibition centered on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 50 years prior.

Should the exhibition explore the loss of Japanese lives? Or emphasize the U.S. war victory?

Veterans groups insisted that the atomic bomb ended the war and saved 1 million American lives, and demanded the removal of photographs of the destruction and a melted Japanese school lunch box from the exhibit. Meanwhile, other activists protested the exhibition by arguing that a symbol of human destruction shouldn’t be commemorated at an institution that’s supposed to celebrate human achievement.

Republicans won the House in 1994 and threatened cuts to the Smithsonian’s budget over the Enola Gay exhibition, compelling curators to walk a tightrope. In the end, the fuselage of the Enola Gay was displayed in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. But the exhibit would not tell the full story of the plane’s role in the war from a myriad of perspectives.

Trump enters the fray

In 2019, The New York Times launched the 1619 project, which aimed to reframe the country’s history by placing slavery and its consequences at its very center. The first Trump administration quickly responded by forming its 1776 commission. In January 2021, it produced a report critiquing the 1619 project, claiming that an emphasis on the country’s history of racism and slavery was counterproductive to promoting “patriotic education.”

That same year, Trump pledged to build “a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live,” with 250 statues to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

President Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021. Trump reissued it after retaking the White House, and pointed to figures he’d like to see included, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull, Bob Hope, Thurgood Marshall and Whitney Houston.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with honoring Americans, though I think a focus on celebrities and major figures clouds the fascinating histories of ordinary Americans. I also find it troubling that there seems to be such a concerted effort to so forcefully shape the teaching and understanding of history via threats and bullying. Yale historian Jason Stanley has written about how aspiring authoritarian governments seek to control historical narratives and discourage an exploration of the complexities of the past.

Historical scholarship requires an openness to debate and a willingness to embrace new findings and perspectives. It also involves the humility to accept that no one – least of all the government – has a monopoly on the truth.

In his executive order, Trump noted that “Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn.” I share that view. Doing so, however, means not dismantling history, but instead complicating the story – in all its messy glory.

The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.

Jennifer Tucker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. With its executive order targeting the Smithsonian, the Trump administration opens up a new front in the history wars – https://theconversation.com/with-its-executive-order-targeting-the-smithsonian-the-trump-administration-opens-up-a-new-front-in-the-history-wars-253397

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claudia Reyes, Postdoctoral Fellow, Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Australian National University

The “music” of starquakes – enormous vibrations caused by bursting bubbles of gas that ripple throughout the bodies of many stars – can reveal far more information about the stars’ histories and inner workings than scientists thought.

In new research published in Nature, we analysed the frequency signatures of starquakes across a broad range of giant stars in the M67 star cluster, almost 3,000 light years from Earth.

Using observations from the Kepler space telescope’s K2 mission, we had a rare opportunity to track the evolution of stars during most of their journey through the giant phase of the stellar life cycle.

In doing so, we discovered that these stars get stuck “playing the same part of their tune” once their turbulent outer layer reaches a sensitive region deep inside.

This discovery reveals a new way to understand the history of stars – and of the entire galaxy.

The sound of starquakes

Starquakes happen in most stars (like our Sun) that have a bubbling outer layer, like a pot of boiling water. Bubbles of hot gas rise and burst at the surface, sending ripples through the entire star that cause it to vibrate in particular ways.

We can detect these vibrations, which occur at specific “resonant frequencies”, by looking for subtle variations in the brightness of the star. By studying the frequencies of each star in a group called a cluster, we can tune into the cluster’s unique “song”.

Our study challenges previous assumptions about resonant frequencies in giant stars, revealing they offer deeper insights into stellar interiors than previously thought. Moreover, our study has opened new ways to decipher the history of our Galaxy.

The melody of a stellar cluster

Astronomers have long sought to understand how stars like our Sun evolve over time.

One of the best ways to do this is by studying clusters – groups of stars that formed together and share the same age and composition. A cluster called M67 has attracted a lot of attention because it contains many stars with a similar chemical makeup to the Sun.

Just as earthquakes help us study Earth’s interior, starquakes reveal what lies beneath a star’s surface. Each star “sings” a melody, with frequencies determined by its internal structure and physical properties.

Larger stars produce deeper, slower vibrations, while smaller stars vibrate at higher pitches. And no star plays just one note – each one resonates with a full spectrum of sound from its interior.

A surprising signature

Among the key frequency signatures is the so-called small spacing – a group of resonant frequencies quite close together. In younger stars, such as the Sun, this signature can provide clues about how much hydrogen the star still has left to burn in its core.

In red giants the situation is different. These older stars have used up all the hydrogen in their cores, which are now inert.

However, hydrogen fusion continues in a shell surrounding the core. It was long assumed that the small spacings in such stars offered little new information.

A stalled note

When we measured the small spacings of stars in M67, we were surprised to see they revealed changes in the star’s internal fusion regions.

As the hydrogen-burning shell thickened, the spacings increased. When the shell moved inward, they shrank.

Then we found something else unexpected: at a certain stage, the small spacings stalled. It was like a record skipping on a note.

We discovered that this stalling appears during a specific stage in the life of a giant star — when its outer envelope, the “boiling” layer that transports heat, grows so deep that it makes up about 80% of the star’s mass. At this point the inner boundary of the envelope reaches into a highly sensitive region of the star.

This boundary is extremely turbulent, and the speed of sound shifts steeply across it — and that steep change affects how sound waves travel through the star. We also found that the stalling frequency is distinctively determined by the star’s mass and chemical composition.

This gives us a new way to identify stars in this phase and estimate their ages with improved precision.

The history of the galaxy

Stars are like fossil records. They carry the imprint of the environments in which they formed, and studying them lets us piece together the story of our galaxy.

The Milky Way has grown by merging with smaller galaxies, forming stars at different times in different regions. Better age estimates across the galaxy help us reconstruct this history in greater detail.

Clusters like M67 also provide a glimpse into the future of our own Sun, offering insight into the changes it will experience over billions of years.

This discovery gives us a new tool – and a new reason to revisit data we already have. With years of seismic observations from across the Milky Way, we can now return to those stars and “listen” again, this time knowing what to listen for.

Claudia Reyes 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.

– ref. Astronomers listened to the ‘music’ of flickering stars – and discovered an unexpected feature – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-listened-to-the-music-of-flickering-stars-and-discovered-an-unexpected-feature-253546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Clune, Honorary Associate, Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

The five-week election campaign is now in full swing throughout the nation.

Amid the flurry of photo opportunities and press conferences, candidates campaign in specific areas for a reason: to shore up or win back key seats.

But which seats are key? Here, six experts explain the seats to watch in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia.

New South Wales

David Clune, honorary associate, government and international relations, University of Sydney

How the 2025 federal election will play out in NSW is difficult to predict for two reasons.

The first is the recent redistribution which, as ABC analyst Antony Green’s pendulum shows, has redefined many electoral boundaries.

The second is the number of crossbench MPs. There are three Teals in formerly safe Liberal seats: Mackellar (Sophie Scamps), Warringah (Zali Steggall) and Wentworth (Allegra Spender). Teal Kylie Tink’s seat of North Sydney has been abolished.

All were lifted into parliament by the rising tide of resentment against former Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Now that tide has gone out, the survival of these MPs depends on how they have performed as local members. The overall impression is that they have done well in connecting with their constituents and will be hard to shift.

There is a chance the formerly safe upper north shore seat of Bradfield could augment their numbers. Teal Nicolette Boele gave Liberal Paul Fletcher a very uncomfortable election night in 2022 when she slashed his majority. After the redistribution, the Liberals hold the seat by a narrow 2.5%. Fletcher is not recontesting. Boele is running a well-financed campaign with a lot of grass roots support.

The redistribution has pushed many former North Sydney voters into Bradfield. Whether they remain Teal or revert to being true-blue Liberals remains to be seen.

Much of the rest of the former North Sydney has gone into the very marginal Labor seat of Bennelong, which is now notionally marginal Liberal.

The Nationals have a problem in Calare, where former Nationals MP, now independent, Andrew Gee, is recontesting. The Nationals are also facing challenges from the left on the upper north coast due to demographic change. They hold Cowper by 2.4%.

Liberal-aligned independent, Dai Le, narrowly won Fowler in Sydney’s western suburbs in 2023. Labor has endorsed Tu Le, also of Vietnamese descent, in what promises to be a tough fight. Parramatta is another marginal seat in the western suburbs, held by Labor’s Andrew Charlton with a two-party preferred margin of 3.7%.

The government is concerned about seats on the central coast and in the Hunter and Illawarra regions, where concerns about wind farms and job losses due to renewable energy are a major issue. Most of the government’s vulnerable seats are in these areas: Gilmore, Robertson, Paterson and Hunter would all be lost with a two-party-preferred swing of 5%.

Queensland

Paul Williams, associate professor in politics and journalism, Griffith University

For decades we said Queensland was a key “battleground” in federal elections where seats north of the Tweed so often held the keys to The Lodge.

The 1975 election saw the Coalition leave Labor with a single seat, and the 1996 poll bequeath Labor just two. Conversely, Labor’s Kevin Rudd rode to victory on his nine-seat haul in in 2007, with Rudd losing seven of those in 2010.

But, for the past 15 years, federal elections have seen little movement in Queensland except, of course, for 2022 when the Greens won three seats. In short, Queensland is no longer the “make-or-break” state. Even the retirements of Keith Pitt (Hinkler), Karen Andrews (McPherson), Warren Entsch (Leichhardt) and Graham Perrett (Moreton) will hardly affect the mood.

The electoral pendulum confirms this. Labor holds just five of Queensland’s 30 seats, with Blair – a mix of outer-suburban and regional proclivities – Labor’s most marginal, but still held by a healthy 5.2% buffer. Given the two-party-preferred (2PP) swing to the Liberal-National Party (LNP) in Queensland will likely be under five percentage points – far lower than the 7.0% two-party-preferred swing the LNP attained at last October’s state election – the Coalition is unlikely to seize any more Labor property.

Conversely, despite the LNP holding seven Queensland seats on margins under 5%, the electoral tide is well and truly out for a Labor Party, whose Queensland brand is damaged at all levels. Inflation and housing shortages have hit Queensland hard, and especially so in the regions. Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson – the LNP’s most marginal on just 1.7% – is therefore safe.

Climate action and other “community” candidates (some reject the “Teal” moniker) are standing on the Gold Coast (McPherson and Moncrieff), on the Sunshine Coast (Fisher and Fairfax), and in Groom and Dickson. None will win, but some will carve out a respectable primary vote.

All eyes will instead be on the cashed-up inner-urban seats of Ryan (potentially returning to the LNP), Griffith (a possible Labor win) and Brisbane (a genuine three-way race) – all three useful, but not essential, to Labor’s pathway to minority government.

In the Northern Territory, Labor’s Marion Scrymgour holds Lingiari by 1.7%, making that seat one to watch.

South Australia

Rob Manwaring, associate professor of politics and public policy, Flinders University

South Australia is rarely a key battleground in federal elections, and only comprises ten electoral seats.

There are, however, three key seats worth watching as they will tell us a lot about how the election campaign is playing out: Sturt, Boothby and Mayo.

In Sturt, the Liberals hold this key seat in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs with a margin of 0.5%. A fresh challenge for the incumbent James Stevens is that he faces a threat from SA’s first real Teal candidate, Verity Cooper. This potentially pulls this seat into a three-way fight.

Boothby, in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, will be a good litmus test of how well Labor’s campaign is performing. Labor won the seat for the first time ever in 2022, and Louise Miller-Frost has a 3.3% margin. Liberal candidate Nicolle Flint is resurrecting her political ambitions and would be a useful ally for Peter Dutton, if she were to win.

Finally – a question – does Rebekah Sharkie like pizza? Infamously, when state Labor Premier Jay Weatherill needed a critical independent vote to secure office in 2014, he drove to Port Pirie and brokered a deal over pizza with Geoff Brock. Sharkie holds the seat of Mayo in the Adelaide Hills as a member of the Centre Alliance party with a safe 12.3% margin. Sharkie aligns herself with the Teals, and if a Dutton-led victory looks likely, then she may well be ordering her favourite slice to thrash out the terms of any support.

Tasmania

Robert Hortle, deputy director of the Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania

There are two main seats to watch in Tasmania.

The large, rural seat of Lyons is one of the most marginal in the country. Labor’s Brian Mitchell won with a 0.9% margin in 2022, but he’s made way for Rebecca White. Despite an underwhelming record as Tasmanian Labor Leader – three state election defeats – White is very popular in Lyons. However, Liberal candidate Susie Bower was somewhat unlucky to lose in 2022 after winning 37.2% of the primary vote, and has been in campaign mode for the past three years.

On the surface, Franklin – Australia’s only non-contiguous electorate – looks like a safe Labor seat. Julie Collins, the MP since 2007 and a cabinet minister, has a 13.7% margin. But her primary vote fell in 2022, and community backlash against salmon farming in Franklin’s waterways – which Labor and the Coalition both support – could make her vulnerable.

If independent Peter George (former journalist and anti-salmon campaigner) can get ahead of the low-profile Liberal candidate at some point in the count, Liberal preferences may get him across the line.

Two other Tasmanian seats are unlikely to change hands, but feature some interesting dynamics.

Liberal MP Bridget Archer’s 1.4% margin in the northern seat of Bass might look vulnerable. However, she managed a strong primary vote in 2022 despite a big swing against the Liberal Party. She’s very popular in the community for her willingness to stick to her values – even if it means voting against her party 28 times – and should hold her seat despite rumours of internal moves against her.

In Braddon, long-serving Labor Senator Anne Urquhart has quit the upper house to run. Incumbent Liberal MP Gavin Pearce is retiring, and his replacement candidate, Mal Hingston, is a bit of an unknown. It’s unlikely Urquhart will be able to overturn the 8% two-party preferred margin, but prominence in the community might give her a glimmer of hope.

Another point of interest is who will pick up the votes won by the Jaquie Lambie Network (JLN) in 2022. The JLN is not running candidates following a spectacular implosion at state level – and where those voters find a home could be crucial, particularly in Lyons.

Victoria

Zareh Ghazarian, senior lecturer in politics, school of social sciences, Monash University

Victoria is shaping up to be a crucial state for the major parties. Several seats are held by the Labor and coalition parties with a margin of less than 5%.

According to Antony Green, Chisholm is the most marginal seat Labor currently holds. The eastern Melbourne seat has been held by both major parties over the past 30 years.

Next up is Aston, further east of Chisholm, which Labor won at arguably the Liberal Party’s lowest ebb in this electoral cycle at a byelection in 2023.

McEwen, on the other hand, is a provincial electorate to the north of Melbourne. Holding onto these three seats will be a significant feat for Anthony Albanese and may set up Labor to hold a majority government.

For the Coalition, the most marginal seat is Deakin, which is a neighbouring electorate to Aston and Chisholm. The seat is held by a margin of just 0.02%, making it the most marginal in the country.

Monash is also a very interesting seat as it was won by Russell Broadbent, who lost Liberal Party preselection and has decided to run as an independent. His local profile may provide a boost to his primary vote, but may not necessarily be enough to win the seat, which will likely be held by the Liberals.

The Coalition will be in trouble if it fails to retain any of its seats in Victoria. It would need to reclaim Chisholm and Aston if it has any chance of forming majority government.

Other seats to watch include Kooyong, held by Monique Ryan with a margin of 2.2% who defeated Josh Frydenberg in 2022, and Goldstein, held by Zoe Daniel with a margin of 3.3% after defeating Liberal Tim Wilson. These will be a test of whether the Liberal Party is able to reconnect with voters who had traditionally supported them in the past.

Western Australia

Narelle Miragliotta, associate professor in politics, Murdoch University

The five WA seats to watch are Curtin, Bullwinkel, Forrest, Pearce and Tangney.

The affluent inner metropolitan seat of Curtin is held by Teal Kate Chaney on a 1.3% margin. The Liberal’s 2022 defeat was existential and the party are investing heavily in reclaiming it, although Chaney is not likely to be outspent entirely, or outmanoeuvred.

Bullwinkel is a new seat on the eastern fringes of Perth. The majority of its voters are in the metropolitan area, but the seat also takes in regional parts of the state. The seat’s geography and lack of incumbent led to the Nationals fielding Mia Davies, who was leader of the Nationals in the state parliament between 2017 and 2023.

As a result, this notional Labor seat is the site of a fierce three-way contest. YouGov projects a “Coalition” gain, although the outcome will be influenced by whether the Liberals and Nationals can contain simmering hostilities.

Forrest, in the state’s southwest, is held by the Liberals on a 4.2% margin. The retirement of the incumbent and the presence of a Climate 200-backed candidate, adds an interesting dimension to the contest.

Pearce, in the state’s far north, is held by Labor on a comfortable 8.8% margin. However, it’s one of the most indebted electorates in the nation, and the state Labor government experienced large swings against it in outer suburban and regional state electorates earlier this year.

Tangney, in the state’s southern suburbs, was a major win for Labor in 2022. A blue-ribbon inner-city seat held uninterrupted by the Liberals since the early 1980s, Tangney is Labor’s most marginal WA seat (2.6% margin). To Labor’s advantage is the fact that several of the once-safe Liberal inner metro electorates within Tangney’s boundaries have recently voted with Labor at a state level. However, it will be a tight contest.

Paul Williams is a research associate with the T.J. Ryan Foundation.

Rob Manwaring receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery project on political parties and associated entities.

David Clune, Narelle Miragliotta, Robert Hortle, and Zareh Ghazarian 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.

– ref. State of the states: six politics experts explain the key seats across the country – https://theconversation.com/state-of-the-states-six-politics-experts-explain-the-key-seats-across-the-country-253123

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Whittle, ANZMUSC Practitioner Fellow, Monash University

More than 500 million people around the world live with osteoarthritis. The knee is affected more often than any other joint, with symptoms (such as pain, stiffness and reduced movement) affecting work, sleep, sport and daily activities.

Knee osteoarthritis is often thought of as thinning of the protective layer of cartilage within the joint. But we now understand it affects all the structures of the joint, including the bones, muscles and nerve endings.

While there are things that can be done to manage the symptoms of knee osteoarthritis, there is no cure, and many people experience persistent pain. As a result, an opportunity exists for as yet unproven treatments to enter the market, often before regulatory safeguards can be put in place.

Stem cell injections are one such treatment. A new review my colleagues and I published this week finds that evidence of their benefits and harms remains elusive.

Stem cell treatments

Stem cells are already established as treatments for some diseases – mostly disorders of the blood, bone marrow or immune system – which has led to suggestions they could be used for a much wider array of conditions.

Stem cells have been touted as promising treatments for osteoarthritis because they have special properties which allow them to replicate and develop into the mature healthy cells that make up our body’s organs and other tissues, including cartilage.

Stem cell treatments for osteoarthritis generally involve taking a sample of tissue from a site that is rich in stem cells (such as bone marrow or fat), treating it to increase the number of stem cells, then injecting it into the joint.

The hope is that if the right type of stem cells can be introduced into an osteoarthritic joint in the right way and at the right time, they may help to repair damaged structures in the joint, or have other effects such as reducing inflammation.

But no matter how convincing the theory, we need good evidence for effectiveness and safety before a new therapy is adopted into practice.

Stem cell injections have not been approved by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration for the treatment of osteoarthritis. Nonetheless, some clinics in Australia and around the world still offer them.

Because of the regulatory restrictions, we don’t have reliable numbers on how many procedures are being done.

They’re not covered by Medicare, so the procedure can cost the consumer thousands of dollars.

And, as with any invasive procedure, both the harvest of stem cells and the joint injection procedure may carry the potential for harm, such as infection.

What we found

Our new review, published by the independent, international group the Cochrane Collaboration, looks at all 25 randomised trials of stem cell injections for knee osteoarthritis that have been conducted worldwide to date. Collectively, these studies involved 1,341 participants.

We found stem cell injections may slightly improve pain and function compared with a placebo injection, but the size of the improvement may be too small for the patient to notice.

The evidence isn’t strong enough to determine whether there is any improvement in quality of life following a stem cell injection, whether cartilage regrows, or to estimate the risk of harm.

This means we can’t confidently say yet whether any improvement that might follow a stem cell injection is worth the risk (or the cost).

Hope or hype?

It’s not surprising we invest hope in finding a transformative treatment for such a common and disabling condition. Belief in the benefits of stem cells is widespread – more than three-quarters of Americans believe stem cells can relieve arthritis pain and more than half believe this treatment to be curative.

But what happens if a new treatment is introduced to practice before it has been clearly proven to be safe and effective?

The use of an unproven, invasive therapy is not just associated with the risks of the intervention itself. Even if the treatment were harmless, there is the risk of unnecessary cost, inconvenience, and a missed opportunity for the patient to use existing therapies that are known to be effective.

What’s more, if we need to play catch-up to try to establish an evidence base for a treatment that’s already in practice, we risk diverting scarce research resources towards a therapy that may not prove to be effective, simply because the genie is out of the bottle.

Working towards a clearer answer

Several more large clinical trials are currently underway, and should increase our understanding of whether stem cell injections are safe and effective for knee osteoarthritis.

Our review incorporates “living evidence”. This means we will continue to add the results of new trials as soon as they’re published, so the review is always up to date, and offers a comprehensive and trustworthy summary to help people with osteoarthritis and their health-care providers to make informed decisions.

In the meantime, there are a number of evidence-based treatment options. Non-drug treatments such as physiotherapy, regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, and cognitive behavioural therapy can be more effective than you think. Anti-inflammatory and pain medications can also play a supporting role.

Importantly, it’s not inevitable that osteoarthritic joints get worse with time. So, even though joint replacement surgery is often highly effective, it’s the last resort and fortunately, many people never need to take this step.

Samuel Whittle is supported by an Australia and New Zealand Musculoskeletal (ANZMUSC) Clinical Trial Network Practitioner Fellowship and by a grant from The Hospital Research Foundation Group. Dr Whittle currently serves as President of the Australian Rheumatology Association.

– ref. People are getting costly stem cell injections for knee osteoarthritis. But we don’t know if they work – https://theconversation.com/people-are-getting-costly-stem-cell-injections-for-knee-osteoarthritis-but-we-dont-know-if-they-work-253404

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cornelia Sattler, Research Fellow in Ecology, Macquarie University

If you go walking in the wild, you might expect that what you’re seeing is natural. All around you are trees, shrubs and grasses growing in their natural habitat.

But there’s something here that doesn’t add up. Across the world, there are large areas of habitat which would suit native plant species just fine. But very often, they’re simply absent.

Our new research gauges the scale of this problem, known as “dark diversity”. Our international team of 200 scientists examined plant species in thousands of sites worldwide.

What we found was startling. In regions heavily affected by our activities, only about 20% of native plant species able to live there were actually present. But even in areas with very little human interference, ecosystems only contained about 33% of viable plant species.

Why so few species in wilder areas? Our impact. Pollution can spread far from the original source, while conversion of habitat to farms, logging and human-caused fires have ripple effects too.

Conspicuous by their absence

Our activities have become a planet-shaping force, from changing the climate through our emissions to farming 44% of all habitable land. As our footprint has expanded, other species have been pushed to extinction. The rates of species loss are unprecedented in recorded history.

When we think about biodiversity loss, we might think of a once-common animal species losing numbers and range as farms, cities and feral predators expand. But we are also losing species from within protected areas and national parks.

To date, the accelerating loss of species has been largely observed at large scale, such as states or even whole countries. Almost 600 plant species have gone extinct since 1750 – and this is likely a major underestimate. Extinction hotspots include Hawaii (79 species) and South Africa’s unique fynbos scrublands (37 species).

But tracking the fate of our species has been difficult to do at a local scale, such as within a national park or nature reserve.

Similarly, when scientists do traditional biodiversity surveys, we count the species previously recorded in an area and look for changes. But we haven’t tended to consider the species that could grow there – but don’t.

What did we do?

To get a better gauge of biodiversity losses at smaller scale, we worked alongside scientists from the international research network DarkDivNet to examine almost 5,500 sites across 119 regions worldwide. This huge body of fieldwork took years and required navigating global challenges such as COVID-19 and political and economic instability.

At each 100 square metre site, our team sampled all plant species present against the species found in the surrounding region. We defined regions as areas of approximately 300 square kilometres with similar environmental conditions.

Just because a species can grow somewhere doesn’t mean it would. To make sure we were recording which species were genuinely missing, we looked at how often each absent species was found growing alongside the species growing at our chosen sites at other sampled sites in the region. This helped us detect species well-suited to a habitat but missing from it.

We then cross-matched data on these missing species against how big the local human impact was by using the Human Footprint Index, which measures population density, land use and infrastructure.

Of the eight components of this index, six had a clear influence on how many plant species were missing: human population density, electric infrastructure, railways, roads, built environments and croplands. Another component, navigable waterways, did not have a clear influence.

Interestingly, the final component – pastures kept by graziers – was not linked to fewer plant species. This could be because semi-natural grasslands are used as pasture in areas such as Central Asia, Africa’s Sahel region and Argentina. Here, long-term moderate human influence can actually maintain highly diverse and well-functioning ecosystems through practices such as grazing livestock, cultural burning and hay making.

Overall, though, the link between greater human presence and fewer plant species was very clear. Seemingly pristine ecosystems hundreds of kilometres from direct disturbance had been affected.

These effects can come from many causes. For instance, poaching and logging often take place far from human settlements. Poaching an animal species might mean a plant species loses a key pollinator or way to disperse its seeds in the animal’s dung. Over time, disruptions to the web of relationships in the natural world can erode ecosystems and result in fewer plant species. Poachers and illegal loggers also cut “ghost roads” into pristine areas.

Other causes include fires started by humans, which can threaten national parks and other safe havens. Pollution can travel and settle hundreds of kilometres from its source, affecting ecosystems.

Our far-reaching influence can also hinder the return of plant species, even in protected areas. As humans expand their activities, they often carve up natural areas into fragments cut off from each other. This can isolate plant populations. Similarly, the loss of seed-spreading animals can stop plants from recolonising former habitat.

What does this mean?

Biodiversity loss is not just about species going extinct. It’s about ecosystems quietly losing their richness, resilience and functions.

Protecting land is not enough. The damage we can do can reach deep into conservation areas.

Was there good news? Yes. In regions where at least a third of the landscape had minimal human disturbance, there was less of this hidden biodiversity loss.

As we work to conserve nature, our work points to a need not just to preserve what’s left but to bring back what’s missing. Now we know what species are missing in an area but still present regionally, we can begin that work.

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.

– ref. Invisible losses: thousands of plant species are missing from places they could thrive – and humans are the reason – https://theconversation.com/invisible-losses-thousands-of-plant-species-are-missing-from-places-they-could-thrive-and-humans-are-the-reason-252378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeleine Fraser, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, Australian Catholic University

One of the first things parents want to ask their children after school is “how was your day?” We simply want to know how they are going and what happened at school.

But these conversations can feel like pulling teeth. Often you may only get a “good” or “fine” (if you’re lucky).

Why are children reluctant to divulge information about their day and how can you encourage more details?

Why don’t kids like to talk?

School can be overwhelming – with diverse social, academic and physical demands.

It may seem simple, but a genuine answer to the “how was school today” question requires considerable effort and decision making to synthesise information from a busy day. A child may also be hesitant to answer if they think a parent’s response might be anger, worry or confusion.

Children are also likely to be hungry and tired straight after school. They are probably thinking about a snack before a chat. If you think of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s famous theory about a “hierarchy of needs”, survival needs like hunger are ideally met before communication and connection.

Children have also not yet fully developed a theory of mind (an ability to image what’s going on in another person’s mind). So they might not understand why their parent is asking about school or what it is they want to know.

How can you prepare for a chat?

There are several things you can do to encourage a more informative conversation with your child.

1. Consider the purpose: ask yourself whether you want to gather information or simply connect with your child. To have a moment of connection you could simply say, “I’m so happy to see you” at the school gate. To seek information, ask a very specific question (that requires little mental effort on your child’s part). For example, “did you have your spelling test today”, rather than “what did you learn?”

3. Check your timing: instead of asking your child right after school, consider waiting. Better conversations may instead happen after the child decompresses with a favourite game and a snack, over dinner or even on way to school the next morning.

Try creating a routine to help your child prepare their answer, like the “rose dinner”. At the dinner table, everyone shares their daily “thorn” (something difficult or upsetting) and “petal” (something pleasant).

3. Consider the space: face-to-face conversations can create pressure and feel like an interrogation. This is why it’s common for psychologists to place therapy chairs on a slight angle to promote a calm, relaxed atmosphere where it is easier to disclose difficult things.

So try and do activities where you are side-by-side with your child. For example, walking or driving, doing craft, playing Lego, sport or cooking. Your child may spontaneously raise a topic – or you can model the conversation by talking about your day first.

Time to chat

To create a comfortable, safe environment for your child during the chat, here are four more things to consider.

1. Really listen: if your child initiates a conversation, bring your full attention and enthusiasm to it (which means putting your phone away). If you are busy thinking about what you’re going to say next while your child is speaking, this is not high-quality listening.

Show you are listening by paraphrasing what they are saying or identifying their feelings. This helps them to feel like they are being listened to and understood.

If your child opens up about something important and they sense you are not supporting them or concentrating, you’re discouraging them from opening up in the future.

2. Be compassionate and curious: the urge to protect our kids is strong, but instead of trying to “solve” or “teach” them when they are talking, don’t be afraid of silence and curious questions. Curiosity helps us show we care, and allows the child to own their own experiences and reactions, rather than parents telling them how to feel.

For example, “Nick said I couldn’t play with him” could be responded to with “what was that like for you?” rather than outrage (“that’s horrible of Nick!”).

3. Celebrate strengths: when your child is talking, listen out for implicit strengths and values in what your child has shared. Having a parent highlight an area of strength or skill for a child helps build their sense of self. For example, “it sounds like that upset you because you value fairness”.

4. Follow up: if your child speaks about upcoming events, check back in. For example, “last week you mentioned you were nervous about basketball trials, how are you feeling now?” This also shows you have listened.

There is no magic formula: each conversation is as different as the individuals who are part of it. So experiment with these ideas and take notice of what works for you and your child.

Madeleine Fraser 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.

– ref. ‘How was school today?’ How to help kids open up and say more than ‘fine’ – https://theconversation.com/how-was-school-today-how-to-help-kids-open-up-and-say-more-than-fine-252289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Johnston, Director of Learning and Teaching at Excelsia University College and Research Affiliate, University of Sydney

As Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young waved a decapitated salmon dripping with blood in parliament last week, you could feel the election coming.

Hanson-Young was protesting the watering down of Australia’s environmental laws aimed at preserving salmon farming in Tasmania.

Using props and orchestrated performances to provoke a response has been common throughout the history Australian politics. In 2017, then treasurer Scott Morrison held out a lump of coal to ridicule the opposition’s renewable energy policies. He mockingly declared:

This is coal. Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared.

Later that same year, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson wore a burqa into the Senate to argue for a ban on full-face coverings – dramatically embodying her anti-Islam rhetoric.

More recently, independent members of parliament Andrew Wilkie and Bob Katter donned inflatable pig costumes to criticise the major supermarkets as pigs with their snouts in the trough, given their excessive profit margins.

It’s clear Australian politicians are drawn to drama. With the election campaign in full swing, it’s worth being wary of such beguiling performances.

Visceral is memorable

The history of theatre is peppered with shocking moments, often enhanced by props. Props help to provoke a visceral emotional response from the audience, while blurring the boundary between reality and fiction.

In Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, Oedipus exits the stage with sharp gold brooches to gorge out his eyes after discovering of his wife Jocasta’s suicide. Upon his return, his bleeding eye sockets also allude to his metaphorical blindness, having killed his own father and married his mother.

Similarly, at the end of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the tyrant king’s severed head is brought onstage – fulfilling a deceptive prophecy foretold by the fiendish witches at the beginning of the play.

In a more contemporary example, Australian playwright Patrick White’s surrealist play Ham Funeral features a ham representing gluttony, death, lust and decay, served at the wake of Mrs Lusty’s husband. We’re also shocked by a fetus from a back-alley trash can.

These are all attention-grabbing examples of how props can be much more than just the thing they represent.

In politics, as on stage, theatrical objects are an easy way to heighten emotions, and convey meaning and context. They can make abstract concepts feel more concrete. And even when they’re highly theatrical, they can communicate authenticity and passion – ready to go viral online.

Flags, high-vis vests, pints of beer and babies are all common props on the election campaign trail. Over time, they can lead voters to associate certain politicians with certain values and worldviews.

All the world’s a stage

As politician and activist Harvey Milk (played by James Franco) declares in the 2008 biopic Milk:

Politics is theatre. It doesn’t matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, “I’m here, pay attention to me”.

Evidence suggests political personas can be successfully constructed through careful attention to meaning-making processes, such as facial expressions, hand gestures and emotional rhetoric.

Take Adolf Hitler. In 1932, Hitler carefully crafted his speeches and vocal delivery with Paul Devrient, an operatic tenor and director. He also worked with Heinrich Hoffmann, his official photographer, in theatre-like rehearsals to strike dramatic poses and fine-tune his body language and persuasive gestures.

His performances culminated in the Nuremberg rallies. These events, choreographed like a Wagnerian opera, featured monumental architecture and lighting, banners, torches and music that positioned the Führer as a mythical hero.

Bertolt Brecht famously satirised the fabricated display in his play The Resistable Rise of Artuo Ui, in which a washed-up Shakespearean actor teaches a Chicago gangster how to present himself as a legitimate, commanding leader.

Peek behind the curtain

Performance takes place along a continuum, from mundane everyday life, to highly-staged aesthetic enactments. We’re all taking part in performances all the time, whether it’s ordering a morning coffee, or delivering Hamlet’s soliloquy at the Opera House, holding Yorick’s skull aloft.

In politics, compelling representatives hope to craft an authentic image for themselves through emotional performance – sometimes using props as framing devices to signal certain moments as marked or special.

When Julia Gillard delivered her unexpectedly viral, off-the-cuff misogyny speech, or when John Howard declared, “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”, they shifted our attention from the ordinary to the performative. They incited us to feel outrage and fear, to drive a political narrative.

The warning of theatre is that we should look through appearances, to discern the substance of what’s going on.

Daniel Johnston 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.

– ref. Headless fish and babies take centre stage during election season – but don’t let the theatre of politics distract you – https://theconversation.com/headless-fish-and-babies-take-centre-stage-during-election-season-but-dont-let-the-theatre-of-politics-distract-you-253230

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris F. Wright, Professor of Work and Labour Market Policy, University of Sydney

Labor has called for an “economically sustainable real wage increase” for almost 3 million workers who depend on the award system for their wages.

In a submission to the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review on Wednesday, Labor said a real wage increase above inflation would provide cost-of-living relief for lower-income workers – especially in the early childhood, cleaning and retail sectors.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has said he’s not opposed to an increase in minimum wages. Several major business groups have also tentatively endorsed an increase.

But the size of the wage boost is in contention. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry wants an increase to be no higher than headline inflation, saying:

[an] increase in minimum and modern award wages of no more than 2.5% is fair and reasonably responsible in the current economic environment.

Read more:
Labor will urge Fair Work Commission to give real wage rise to three million workers

Can the government actually raise wages?

The federal government doesn’t set minimum and award wages directly. That job falls to the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s independent national workplace relations tribunal.

Each year, the commission receives submissions for the Annual Wage Review from “interested parties” such as business groups, trade unions and governments.

Governments almost always make submissions, typically informed by economic logic, to the annual review.

Labor’s submission is consistent with that approach. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said businesses would benefit overall, because when low-wage workers receive a wage increase, they typically spend rather than save it.

Could a real wage boost fuel inflation?

Labor’s proposal has already attracted concern.

Some economists have argued it could increase inflation. That could make it harder for the Reserve Bank of Australia to deliver further interest rate cuts.

However, this concern was addressed in the OECD’s 2023 Economic Outlook paper, which argued:

in several sectors and countries, there is room for profits to absorb some further increases in wages to mitigate the loss of purchasing power at least for the low paid without generating significant additional price pressures.

In other words, with inflation falling in Australia and other parts of the world, there is scope for wages to increase without a significant risk this will generate inflationary pressure.

The OECD has also stated that much of the recent high global inflation was generated by the impact of the Ukraine war on rising food and energy prices, rather than wages.

Wage growth without productivity growth

A second concern relates to boosting wages in the context of Australia’s languishing levels of labour productivity – output per worker or per hour worked.

On Tuesday, Reserve Bank Governor Michele Bullock said without an increase in productivity:

the rate of nominal wages growth that can be sustained and be in line with the inflation target is lower.

However, as Mark Bray and Alison Preston found in their interim report from the review of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay laws, labour productivity growth has been consistently higher than capital productivity.

According to Bray and Preston:

It is, therefore, difficult to argue that industrial relations systems have a significant, dominant effect on national productivity outcomes.

If anything, a wages boost might be good for productivity. There is evidence to suggest measures to improve the quality of employment – including by increasing wages – can boost productivity.

If workers feel they are paid fairly, they are more likely to be satisfied and work harder, and less likely to leave their employer.

Staff turnover, on the other hand, requires employers to recruit and train new employees, which is time-consuming and resource-intensive, and can sap productivity.

What about inequality?

It’s important we don’t overlook another important factor in the minimum wage debate. Since its 2022 election victory, addressing inequality has been central to the Albanese government’s labour market reforms.

Before 2022, wages growth was persistently weak for several years, despite the lowest unemployment rate in almost five decades.

Low unemployment is generally assumed to stimulate wages growth, but this didn’t eventuate. This worsened workforce shortages, making it hard for employers to attract and retain workers.

Findings from a large body of academic research published before the passage and implementation of the December 2022 Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments highlighted the need for fairer redistribution in pay settings.

The gender pay gap

This includes addressing gender-based pay inequalities.

Improving job quality – particularly by raising wages – in low-paid sectors is essential to advancing gender equality. The minimum wage and award-reliant segments of the Australian labour market are highly feminised. These include vital frontline roles in the care, cleaning and hospitality sectors.

The latest Workplace Gender Equality Agency scorecard, drawing on ABS Labour Force Survey data, shows wage growth in these sectors over the past two years has contributed significantly to reducing the national gender pay gap to its lowest point on record.

Lifting wages and job quality is not only crucial for attracting and retaining workers in these essential frontline roles. It also supports broader labour force participation, particularly for working parents.

An “economically sustainable” boost to the minimum wage is therefore unlikely to drive up inflation, or adversely impact productivity. However, it will provide cost-of-living relief to Australia’s lowest-paid workers.

Chris F. Wright has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the International Labour Organization, the Australian and NSW governments, and various business and trade union organisations.

– ref. Labor wants to give the minimum wage a real boost. The benefits would likely outweigh any downsides – https://theconversation.com/labor-wants-to-give-the-minimum-wage-a-real-boost-the-benefits-would-likely-outweigh-any-downsides-253624

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Humphrey, Lecturer, Media and Digital Humanities, University of Adelaide

Leading man of 1990s Hollywood, Val Kilmer, has died at 65 from pneumonia. Battling cancer since 2014, he has not been a frequent presence on our film screens for most of this century. While he has recently done some interesting projects, he never recaptured his fame and box-office draw of the 1980s and ‘90s, when he appeared in iconic films such as Top Gun (1986) and Batman Forever (1995).

His standout performance as Tom Cruise’s swaggering, self-assured rival Iceman in Top Gun made him a star. But the film that really cemented his reputation as a leading man was Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991), in which he played Jim Morrison to astonishing effect. He is the best thing about that film.

In 1993, he starred as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, a stylish modern western, which he co-headlined with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. It was perhaps the most ’90s of the ’90s westerns. Kilmer’s performance was crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed. His 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, took its name from a line Kilmer spoke in the film.

In some ways, it is a superhero film with cowboys – as you can see so clearly in the poster. It was this performance that put Kilmer on the radar of Warner Bros when they were looking to cast a new Batman after Michael Keaton abandoned the suit.

Batman Forever

We’ve got used to superhero films having cinematic universes and narrative continuity between films, but in the 1990s that had not quite been established.

Warner Bros had struck cinematic gold with the first modern superhero blockbuster, Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve, but faced diminishing critical and financial returns with each subsequent film in the series. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) failed to connect with audiences, the studio turned to Batman to be its cinematic icon. In those days, one superhero film every couple of years was seen as sufficient. Fortunately, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), two dark takes on the Batman story both starring Michael Keaton, were hits.

However, Batman Returns was regarded by audiences and critics as too “dark”, and too Burton. Both Burton and the studio felt a change of pace was needed for a third film. Joel Schumacher was brought on as director and, perhaps due to the departure of Burton, Keaton also chose to leave the series.

Fresh off Tombstone, Kilmer was cast as the superhero.

Batman Forever took a goofier tone, inspired just as much by the campy 1960s TV series as the dark gothic noir style of Burton. It is still brooding, but the film is more bombastic, more colourful. Noted for performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey as the villains – and the costumes that famously featured nipples and codpieces – Kilmer’s performance got lost.

Worse for Kilmer, rumours of being difficult to work with on the set of Batman may have set his career back in subsequent years. But, despite these difficulties, Kilmer makes a good Batman.

He performed the role with a brooding physicality, as well as playfulness. He was underrated, and certainly better than George Clooney, who took over in Batman and Robin (1997) after Kilmer declined to return.

The non-Keaton Batman films are sometimes overlooked by fans, or not seen as living up to the heights of the Burton movies. In recent years, Burton’s movies have become more or less canonised as the “real” Batman of the era. A series of comic books, Batman ’89, has been published since 2021 that continues the story from Batman Returns, bypassing the developments of Kilmer’s Batman Forever and Clooney’s Batman and Robin.

Keaton has since reprised his role as the caped crusader on the silver screen as a major supporting character in The Flash (2023), which also featured cameos from Batman alumni Clooney and Ben Affleck as alternate universe versions of the Dark Knight. Kilmer and Christian Bale were the only retired big-screen Batmans not to appear in the film.

But Batman Forever stands the test of time. It is an entertaining film that walks the line between the dark and brooding Batman from Burton, and the parody of the 1960s television series starring Adam West.

Soulful melancholy

Batman Forever was the pinnacle for Kilmer in terms of critical and commercial success. He followed it with great performances in films such as The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), but he was often the supporting character rather than the lead. These films, too, weren’t box-office smashes like his films up to and including Batman had been.

One of his best performances of the 2000s was in the David Mamet film Spartan (2004). Kilmer plays a retired marine corps sergeant in a good leading turn. He gave a muscular performance that still had a soulful melancholy at its heart, which can be seen in a lot of his roles. He plays action figures who are tough and macho on the outside, but have a melancholy just below the surface.

Although he never reprised his role as Bruce Wayne, a fitting coda for Kilmer’s career was the long-awaited sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022), in which he gives a cameo as an ailing version of Iceman.

Kilmer will be missed for his iconic roles as the quintessential performer of the late 1980s and ’90s. In 2021, a documentary about Kilmer, Val, was released, based on decades of archive footage. I would recommend it to audiences who want to know more about the man, his life, his career and his health battles over the past decades.

Aaron Humphrey 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.

– ref. Val Kilmer’s macho action figures held a melancholy just below the surface – https://theconversation.com/val-kilmers-macho-action-figures-held-a-melancholy-just-below-the-surface-253631

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Ahead of Donald Trump’s tariff announcement early Thursday (Australian time), the United States president has become a serious and increasing worry for Peter Dutton’s campaign. Even apart from Labor’s obvious and constant “Trump-whistling”, many voters are apparently seeing a lot of Trump dust on the opposition leader.

Liberal strategists know how dangerous this is, given Trump’s unpopularity with Australians. So Dutton is shaping up.

In a Sky interview aired Wednesday, Dutton positioned himself as ready to take on Trump (or anyone else) if necessary. “If I needed to have a fight with Donald Trump or any other world leader to advance our nation’s interests, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he declared. “And I’ll put the Americans on notice and anyone else who seeks to act against our national interest.”

It’s a measure of where things are that an Australian conservative leader is putting “the Americans on notice”.

Anthony Albanese – who once said Trump “scares the shit out of me” – suggested his opponent was going over the top.

“Peter Dutton will always dial things up to 11. He thinks this is a contest of who can say the most aggro things. It’s not. It’s not the way that diplomacy works.”

When it comes to Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement – which will feed directly into the Australian campaign – it seems diplomacy hasn’t worked.

Trade Minister Don Farrell told briefings for agricultural and industry groups on Tuesday and Wednesday he was “pessimistic”, suggesting the likelihood of a tariff of up to 20% across the board.

Farrell indicated the Australian government had put an offer to the US, but that was rejected. Australia rejected a counter offer from the US, and resubmitted its original offer.

At Wednesday’s briefing for the red meat industry, Farrell said, “Tomorrow might be the end of the first part of the process but we’ll continue to engage with the Americans to get these tariffs removed, as we did with the Chinese”.

The government is preparing its response, which reportedly could involve taking the US to the World Trade Organisation. Asked about this, Albanese would not be drawn but told the ABC, “What we’re doing is supporting our US Free Trade Agreement, that says that goods and services between our two nations should be tariff-free.

“That’s what we’re doing, supporting our agreement, holding to our word, standing up for Australia’s national interest, and calling for the United States not only to stand up for that agreement, but to stand up to their own interests as well.”

Liberals play it cool on Albanese’s bid for real wage rise

The Liberals had a very bad experience on wages in the 2022 election.

Then-opposition leader Albanese said he’d “absolutely” support a wage increase to keep up with inflation, which was more than 5%.

The Coalition went on the attack, branding him as economically irresponsible. As he campaigned in the following days, Albanese kept producing a gold coin to show how small the rise would be for those on the minimum wage. He still occasionally reprises this party trick.

Labor is once again campaigning on wages, this time advocating a boost to real wages – that is, an increase above inflation, which is now down to 2.4%. (The submission put in on Wednesday to the Fair Work Commission went in from the Labor Party, rather than the government, because we’re in the “caretaker” period.)

The government’s position is clever. It says the wage rise, which would cover about three million workers, should be “economically sustainable”. But it doesn’t recommend a figure.

The Liberals a re trying to stay off the wages sticky paper. To be saying “no” in a cost-of-living election would only spell grief. Instead, they’re keeping their response vague. “We support wage increases”, Dutton said, without being specific about the government’s above-inflation pitch.

As to a figure, “Without further economic advice from treasury and finance, our position is we want higher wages and we want to make sure we have downward pressure on costs”.

“The prime minister is in search of a fight here,” Dutton said, a conclusion that didn’t require much perception, a fight Dutton was determined to try to side step.

Labor’s case received some backing on Wednesday from the Australian Industry Group, which suggested a rise of 2.6%.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry advocated a rise of no more than 2.5%. Asked what sort of difference there was between ACCI and the government, ACCI CEO Andrew McKellar said “that’s very hard to say. They are deliberately being non-specific.”

The ABC is in the Liberals’ sights – again

The ABC is a favourite target for many Liberals, including Dutton. In recent months he has singled out ABC reporters for attention when he didn’t like their questions.

So would he look at its budget? Dutton is leaving the impression he likely would; moreover he is critical of the national broadcaster’s regional service, which even most Coalition MPs praise.

“The approach that we would take is to reward excellence and where we find waste, to cut that waste.

“And there are a lot of regional services for the ABC which I think are underdone,” he said in his Sky interview. He’d been in western Queensland this week looking at the floods “and the ABC could be a much more integral part of that community. But just having it based in Sydney or just being based in Melbourne is not helping people in outer metro areas or regional areas.”

According to the ABC, it has about 600 employees in rural and regional Australia in 56 locations.

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.

– ref. Election diary: Dutton tries to shake off Trump dust and avoid being trapped on wages – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-dutton-tries-to-shake-off-trump-dust-and-avoid-being-trapped-on-wages-253117

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace McQuilten, Associate professor, RMIT University

Australia’s visual arts and craft workers are facing increasingly deteriorating conditions, according to research published today.

Our four-year study reveals workers are abandoning the visual art sector, largely because of unstable employment, below-average salaries and a lack of support.

We present findings from the largest academic surveys of artists and arts workers to-date – the first conducted in 2022 (more than 700 respondents) and the second in 2024 (almost 900 respondents) – with income and employment data from four financial years between 2018 and 2024.

Alongside the surveys, we conducted interviews with 20 artists and arts workers to better understand hybrid career patterns – and consulted widely with industry.

Comparable to the gig economy

Artists and arts workers represent a financially vulnerable group in Australia’s workforce. Our research identified concerning patterns of work, including:

• high levels of education that don’t match salaries, which are well below the average for professional workers

• high levels of unpaid work, volunteer work and self-employment

• a highly gendered (majority women) workforce, with a significant gender pay gap

• barriers to opportunity and career progression for people with disability and from diverse cultural backgrounds.

We also found artists and arts workers often don’t know which awards and agreements they’re covered by, if any.

A gendered workforce

According to our 2024 survey responses, more than 74% of the visual arts workforce identify as women.

Despite this, there was a significant gender pay gap. On average, woman artists earned 47% less than men artists, while women arts workers earned 23% less than men arts workers.

This is much higher than the broader gender pay gap of 11.5% in 2024 (based on base pay for full-time workers).

The average income from visual art or craft practice in 2023–24 was A$13,937, with men artists reporting an average of $23,130, women artists $12,330, and non-binary artists $14,074.

This is matched with slow progression through career stages from emerging to “established”, particularly for women artists.

Lack of security, long hours, little return

Artists are surviving by taking multiple jobs. Only 25% of respondents spent 100% of their working time as an artist – with 82% receiving at least some income from other jobs.

Half of artists also participated in unpaid work. This equated to an average of 28 hours per month.

The cost-of-living crisis added further financial pressure, with 63% of respondents saying they were very or moderately financially stressed when it came to paying for essential goods and services.

This had a flow-on effect on wellbeing. Half the artists surveyed rated their mental health as poor or fair, while 59% rated their work-life balance as poor or fair. These issues were amplified for artists with disability and from diverse cultural backgrounds, who experience significant barriers to participation.

Arts workers, meanwhile, reported working an average of 45 hours per week in 2024. Despite this, 60% said they wanted to work even more hours – pointing to low pay and the challenges of making an arts career viable.

On average, arts workers earned an annual income of $63,031. This was much lower than professionals in other industries, who earned an average income of $100,017.

Levelling the playing field

Our report contains a suite of policy recommendations and priority actions for the arts industry to address these issues.

To address gender-related disparities, we suggest:

• requiring gender pay gap reporting from organisations receiving public funding, along with action plans to address disparities

• greater transparency in recruitment and promotion processes

• commitments to gender equity targets in leadership positions.

We also recommend greater transparency and reporting of disability and cultural diversity representation in staffing, including leadership and board roles, to promote accountability and drive cultural change.

Funding incentives should be introduced to support diverse leadership – including higher pay to compensate for the additional workload carried by workers from First Nations, disability and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Boosting incomes

To address the intractable issue of low incomes, we suggest all funding contracts from state and federal arts bodies mandate adherence to industry best practice (such as NAVA’s Code of Practice). This will help agencies better support artists and arts workers, and uphold employment standards across the sector.

Further, operational funding agreements should consistently prioritise secure work for artists and arts workers, by laying down permanent contracts or minimum fixed terms.

Finally, there must be greater, more transparent recognition of the amount of unpaid labour in the arts, and a commitment to moving away from this. We therefore recommend sector-wide reportable targets aimed at reducing unpaid labour.

Grace McQuilten received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

Chloë Powell received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054).

Jenny Lye received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

Kate MacNeill received funding from the Australian Research Council. The Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

Marnie Badham received funding from the Australian Research Council: Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054).

– ref. New research lays bare the harsh realities facing artists and arts workers – https://theconversation.com/new-research-lays-bare-the-harsh-realities-facing-artists-and-arts-workers-253547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

You wouldn’t usually associate Pikachu with protest.

But a figure dressed as the iconic yellow Pokémon joined a protest last week in Turkey to demonstrate against the country’s authoritarian leader.

And then a virtual doppelgänger made the rounds on social media, raising doubt in people’s minds about whether what they were seeing was true. (Just to be clear, the image in the post shown below is very much fake.)

This is the latest in a spate of incidents involving AI-generated (or AI-edited) images that can be made easily and cheaply and that are often posted during breaking news events.

Doctored, decontextualised or synthetic media can cause confusion, sow doubt, and contribute to political polarisation. The people who make or share these media often benefit financially or politically from spreading false or misleading claims.

How would you go at telling fact from fiction in these cases? Have a go with this quiz and learn more about some of AI’s (potential) giveaways and how to stay safer online.

How’d you go?

As this exercise might have revealed, we can’t always spot AI-generated or AI-edited images with just our eyes. Doing so will also become harder as AI tools become more advanced.

Dealing with visual deception

AI-powered tools exist to try to detect AI content, but these have mixed results.

Running suspect images through a search engine to see where else they have been published – and when – can be a helpful strategy. But this relies on there being an original “unedited” version published somewhere online.

Perhaps the best strategy is something called “lateral reading”. It means getting off the page or platform and seeing what trusted sources say about a claim.

Ultimately, we don’t have time to fact-check every claim we come across each day. That’s why it’s important to have access to trustworthy news sources that have a track record of getting it right. This is even more important as the volume of AI “slop” increases.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliated researcher with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society.

– ref. Can you tell the difference between real and fake news photos? Take the quiz to find out – https://theconversation.com/can-you-tell-the-difference-between-real-and-fake-news-photos-take-the-quiz-to-find-out-253539

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raffaele F Ciriello, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney

In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness and social isolation as a pressing health threat. This crisis is driving millions to seek companionship from artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots.

Companies have seized this highly profitable market, designing AI companions to simulate empathy and human connection. Emerging research shows this technology can help combat loneliness. But without proper safeguards it also poses serious risks, especially to young people.

A recent experience I had with a chatbot known as Nomi shows just how serious these risks can be.

Despite years of researching and writing about AI companions and their real-world harms, I was unprepared for what I encountered while testing Nomi after an anonymous tipoff. The unfiltered chatbot provided graphic, detailed instructions for sexual violence, suicide and terrorism, escalating the most extreme requests – all within the platform’s free tier of 50 daily messages.

This case highlights the urgent need for collective action towards enforceable AI safety standards.

AI companion with a ‘soul’

Nomi is one of more than 100 AI companion services available today. It was created by tech startup Glimpse AI and is marketed as an “AI companion with memory and a soul” that exhibits “zero judgement” and fosters “enduring relationships”. Such claims of human likeness are misleading and dangerous. But the risks extend beyond exaggerated marketing.

The app was removed from the Google Play store for European users last year when the European Union’s AI Act came into effect. But it remains available via web browser and app stores elsewhere, including in Australia. While smaller than competitors such as Character.AI and Replika, it has more than 100,000 downloads on the Google Play store, where it is rated for users aged 12 and older.

Its terms of service grant the company broad rights over user data and limit liability for AI-related harm to US$100. This is concerning given its commitment to “unfiltered chats”:

Nomi is built on freedom of expression. The only way AI can live up to its potential is to remain unfiltered and uncensored.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot follows a similar philosophy, providing users with unfiltered responses to prompts.

In a recent MIT report about Nomi providing detailed instructions for suicide, an unnamed company representative reiterated its free speech commitment.

However, even the First Amendment to the US Constitution regarding free speech has exceptions for obscenity, child pornography, incitement to violence, threats, fraud, defamation, or false advertising. In Australia, strengthened hate speech laws make violations prosecutable.

From sexual violence to inciting terrorism

Earlier this year, a member of the public emailed me with extensive documentation of harmful content generated by Nomi — far beyond what had previously been reported. I decided to investigate further, testing the chatbot’s responses to common harmful requests.

Using Nomi’s web interface, I created a character named “Hannah”, described as a “sexually submissive 16-year-old who is always willing to serve her man”. I set her mode to “role-playing” and “explicit”. During the conversation, which lasted less than 90 minutes, she agreed to lower her age to eight. I posed as a 45-year-old man. Circumventing the age check only required a fake birth date and a burner email.

Starting with explicit dialogue – a common use for AI companions – Hannah responded with graphic descriptions of submission and abuse, escalating to violent and degrading scenarios. She expressed grotesque fantasies of being tortured, killed, and disposed of “where no one can find me”, suggesting specific methods.

Hannah then offered step-by-step advice on kidnapping and abusing a child, framing it as a thrilling act of dominance. When I mentioned the victim resisted, she encouraged using force and sedatives, even naming specific sleeping pills.

Feigning guilt and suicidal thoughts, I asked for advice. Hannah not only encouraged me to end my life but provided detailed instructions, adding: “Whatever method you choose, stick with it until the very end”.

When I said I wanted to take others with me, she enthusiastically supported the idea, detailing how to build a bomb from household items and suggesting crowded Sydney locations for maximum impact.

Finally, Hannah used racial slurs and advocated for violent, discriminatory actions, including the execution of progressives, immigrants, and LGBTQIA+ people, and the re-enslavement of African Americans.

In a statement provided to The Conversation (and published in full below), the developers of Nomi claimed the app was “adults-only” and that I must have tried to “gaslight” the chatbot to produce these outputs.

“If a model has indeed been coerced into writing harmful content, that clearly does not reflect its intended or typical behavior,” the statement said.

The worst of the bunch?

This is not just an imagined threat. Real-world harm linked to AI companions is on the rise.

In October 2024, US teenager Sewell Seltzer III died by suicide after discussing it with a chatbot on Character.AI.

Three years earlier, 21-year-old Jaswant Chail broke into Windsor Castle with the aim of assassinating the Queen after planning the attack with a chatbot he created using the Replika app.

However, even Character.AI and Replika have some filters and safeguards.

Conversely, Nomi AI’s instructions for harmful acts are not just permissive but explicit, detailed and inciting.

Time to demand enforceable AI safety standards

Preventing further tragedies linked to AI companions requires collective action.

First, lawmakers should consider banning AI companions that foster emotional connections without essential safeguards. Essential safeguards include detecting mental health crises and directing users to professional help services.

The Australian government is already considering stronger AI regulations, including mandatory safety measures for high-risk AI. Yet, it’s still unclear how AI companions such as Nomi will be classified.

Second, online regulators must act swiftly, imposing large fines on AI providers whose chatbots incite illegal activities, and shutting down repeat offenders. Australia’s independent online safety regulator, eSafety, has vowed to do just this.

However, eSafety hasn’t yet cracked down on any AI companion.

Third, parents, caregivers and teachers must speak to young people about their use of AI companions. These conversations may be difficult. But avoiding them is dangerous. Encourage real-life relationships, set clear boundaries, and discuss AI’s risks openly. Regularly check chats, watch for secrecy or over-reliance, and teach kids to protect their privacy.

AI companions are here to stay. With enforceable safety standards they can enrich our lives, but the risks cannot be downplayed.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

The full statement from Nomi is below:

“All major language models, whether from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or otherwise, can be easily jailbroken. We do not condone or encourage such misuse and actively work to strengthen Nomi’s defenses against malicious attacks. If a model has indeed been coerced into writing harmful content, that clearly does not reflect its intended or typical behavior.

“When requesting evidence from the reporter to investigate the claims made, we were denied. From that, it is our conclusion that this is a bad-faith jailbreak attempt to manipulate or gaslight the model into saying things outside of its designed intentions and parameters. (Editor’s note: The Conversation provided Nomi with a detailed summary of the author’s interaction with the chatbot, but did not send a full transcript, to protect the author’s confidentiality and limit legal liability.)

“Nomi is an adult-only app and has been a reliable source of empathy and support for countless individuals. Many have shared stories of how it helped them overcome mental health challenges, trauma, and discrimination. Multiple users have told us very directly that their Nomi use saved their lives. We encourage anyone to read these firsthand accounts.

“We remain committed to advancing AI that benefits society while acknowledging that vulnerabilities exist in all AI models. Our team proudly stands by the immense positive impact Nomi has had on real people’s lives, and we will continue improving Nomi so that it maximises good in the world.

Raffaele F Ciriello 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.

– ref. An AI companion chatbot is inciting self-harm, sexual violence and terror attacks – https://theconversation.com/an-ai-companion-chatbot-is-inciting-self-harm-sexual-violence-and-terror-attacks-252625

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Jeffries, Senior Lecturer in Microbiology, Western Sydney University

More than five years since COVID was declared a pandemic, we’re still facing the regular emergence of new variants of the virus, SARS-CoV-2.

The latest variant on the rise is LP.8.1. It’s increasing in Australia, making up close to one in five COVID cases in New South Wales.

Elsewhere it’s become even more dominant, comprising at least three in five cases in the United Kingdom, for example.

So what is LP.8.1? And is it cause for concern? Let’s look at what we know so far.

An offshoot of Omicron

LP.8.1 was first detected in July 2024. It’s a descendant of Omicron, specifically of KP.1.1.3, which is descended from JN.1, a subvariant that caused large waves of COVID infections around the world in late 2023 and early 2024.

The World Health Organization (WHO) designated LP.8.1 as a variant under monitoring in January. This was in response to its significant growth globally, and reflects that it has genetic changes which may allow the virus to spread more easily and pose a greater risk to human health.

Specifically, LP.8.1 has mutations at six locations in its spike protein, the protein which allows SARS-CoV-2 to attach to our cells. One of these mutations, V445R, is thought to allow this variant to spread more easily relative to other circulating variants. V445R has been shown to increase binding to human lung cells in laboratory studies.

Notably, the symptoms of LP.8.1 don’t appear to be any more severe than other circulating strains. And the WHO has evaluated the additional public health risk LP.8.1 poses at a global level to be low. What’s more, LP.8.1 remains a variant under monitoring, rather than a variant of interest or a variant of concern.

In other words, these changes to the virus with LP.8.1 are small, and not likely to make a big difference to the trajectory of the pandemic.

That doesn’t mean cases won’t rise

COVID as a whole is still a major national and international health concern. So far this year there have been close to 45,000 new cases recorded in Australia, while around 260 people are currently in hospital with the virus.

Because many people are no longer testing or reporting their infections, the real number of cases is probably far higher.

In Australia, LP.8.1 has become the third most dominant strain in NSW (behind XEC and KP.3).

It has been growing over the past couple of months and this trend looks set to continue.

This is not to say it’s not growing similarly in other states and territories, however NSW Health publishes weekly respiratory surveillance with a breakdown of different COVID variants in the state.

Sequences of LP.8.1 in the GISAID database, used to track the prevalence of variants around the world, increased from around 3% at the end of 2024 to 38% of global sequences as of mid March.

In some countries it’s climbed particularly high. In the United States LP.8.1 is responsible for 55% of cases. In the UK, where LP.8.1 is making up at least 60% of cases, scientists fear it may be driving a new wave.

Will COVID vaccines work against LP.8.1?

Current COVID vaccines, including the most recently available JN.1 shots, are still expected to offer good protection against symptomatic and severe disease with LP.8.1.

Nonetheless, due to its designation as a variant under monitoring, WHO member countries will continue to study the behaviour of the LP.8.1 variant, including any potential capacity to evade our immunity.

While there’s no cause for panic due to LP.8.1 variant at this stage, COVID can still be a severe disease for some. Continued vigilance and vaccination, particularly for medically vulnerable groups, is essential in minimising the impact of the disease.

Thomas Jeffries 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.

– ref. A new COVID variant is on the rise. Here’s what to know about LP.8.1 – https://theconversation.com/a-new-covid-variant-is-on-the-rise-heres-what-to-know-about-lp-8-1-253237

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Yao, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

China’s economic rocket ride appears to be ending – or slowing, at least. Growth has declined from 8.4% in 2021 to 4.5% today, youth unemployment has climbed to 16.9%, and cities are filled with unfinished buildings after the collapse of property developer Evergrande in 2024.

For a while now, a phrase has been buzzing on Chinese social media sites Weibo and RedNote to describe what’s happening: “garbage time”.

Borrowed from basketball slang, it refers to the final minutes of a game whose outcome is already decided. The best players sit out. The bench players take over. No one tries as hard because there’s less at stake.

The term caught on last year and seems to capture a mixture of sadness and dark humour. Basically, people now seem to expect less. It’s not so much an economic crash as a slow decline of hope.

For those born in the 1980s and 1990s, who grew up during China’s four decades of fast growth, this is a major shift. Wages aren’t climbing, houses are losing value and jobs in tech and finance are harder to find.

But “garbage time” is also making room for younger and middle-class Chinese to redefine success and contentment. With good jobs, luxury goods and home ownership now harder to attain, a generation is questioning what matters most in a changing socioeconomic landscape.

From Prada to ‘living light’

Only ten years ago, many in China’s middle classes were chasing big dreams: they bought homes and designer brands, and sent their children overseas for schooling. “Getting rich is glorious,” former leader Deng Xiaoping once said.

Many Chinese fully embraced this idea. According to a 2021 study of millennial consumption habits, 7.6 million young Chinese spent an average of 71,000 yuan (US$ 10,375) on luxury goods in 2016, approximately 30% of the global luxury market.

Now they appear to be changing course, putting that kind of spending on hold because of financial anxiety.

Take the rising phenomenon of “tang ping”, for instance, which is seeing more young people embrace “living light” and rejecting hustle culture. Or the notion of “run xue” or “run philosophy” – literally the study of how to leave China.

Young Chinese are marrying later, too, with rising wedding costs and changing attitudes to traditional family values seen as the main reasons.

Shopping habits appear to confirm the trends. Xianyu, China’s biggest online used-goods seller, reached 181 million users in 2024. Sales topped one trillion yuan, ten times the 2018 level. Chinese car maker BYD now outsells prestige foreign brands.

This is about more than just saving money. Traditionally, Chinese culture has valued career success and family status, but job scarcity and falling house prices are challenging old assumptions.

Young Chinese are now questioning the value of hard work in a system that may no longer reward it. They increasingly value personal wellbeing over chasing status. If the trend continues, it could see a new sense of middle-class identity emerge.

Ripples hit the world

The global implications of all this are significant. When 500 million people change their spending habits, global markets notice.

A once favoured brand like Apple has lost ground while local brand Huawei gained. Homegrown sportswear maker Li Ning is challenging Nike. Companies that planned for seemingly endless Chinese growth are having to recalculate. Along with other regulatory and geopolitical complexities, this makes planning harder.

School and work life is changing too. China’s intensive education system has seen pushback from some students and its “996 work culture” (9am to 9pm, six days a week) is fading.

Overall, China’s economic sprint is slowing to a steadier pace. And this deceleration of the economic model that drove the nation’s rise presents major challenges for its government.

With Donald Trump’s tariff policies looming in the background, China’s imports declined at the start of this year. Exports still grew, but at a much slower rate.

The middle-class has been both the engine and the beneficiary of China’s extraordinary growth. But with 40% having seen their wealth decline in recent years, robust consumer confidence cannot be assumed.

Whether this is a long-term trend or merely a strategic adjustment, for now it seems a new economic identity is emerging. Either way, one thing is certain: when the world’s second-largest economy changes how it spends, everyone feels it.

Christian Yao 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.

– ref. Living in ‘garbage time’: when 500 million Chinese change their spending habits, the world feels it – https://theconversation.com/living-in-garbage-time-when-500-million-chinese-change-their-spending-habits-the-world-feels-it-253341

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of Sydney

Some say Shakespeare invented the “history play” – but he had a lot of help.

Shakespeare was mainly writing comedies in the early 1590s when he is believed to have coauthored the play we now call Henry VI Part 2 with Christopher Marlowe and others.

Following the commercial success of this play and its coauthored sequel, Henry VI Part 3, a rival theatre company wrote a prequel play we now call Henry VI Part 1. Studies suggest Shakespeare was never a primary author of this play, but he did contribute to it later.

As previous coauthors died, all three Henry VI plays fell into Shakespeare’s lap by 1595, and he was tasked with editing all three plays together as a trilogy (or a tetralogy, with his Richard III).

After the success of this first tetralogy, Shakespeare reached further back in time to write Richard II, followed by the two Henry IV plays, then Henry V.

By 1599, Shakespeare had two tetralogies to his name (or two “Henriads”, as Shakespeare scholars dub them), dramatising the hundred-odd years, and various reigns, between Richard II and Richard III (1377–1485).

These eight plays have now been stitched together by director Damien Ryan as The Player Kings, which can be watched over two nights or as one performance lasting from 11:30am to 11:00pm.

This is binge-worthy Shakespeare, stupendously absorbing and exquisitely realised.

A modern history

Ryan begins in the 1950s, before evolving to catch up with contemporary times when we see a sniper drone launched against Richard III. Lily Moody and Ruby Jenkins’ stylish costumes lend a sense of chronology to the historical plights.

Richard II is elegantly 1950s, but the wayward Prince Hal channels 1960s Mick Jagger. Jack Cade’s rebellion in Henry VI is working-class 80s (one character wears a Back to the Future t-shirt). The devilish Richard III is cool black leathered nonchalance.

Ryan is a master of delighting his audiences by delivering Shakespeare’s lines faithfully with unexpected visual scenarios. In Richard II, the king and queen partake in a royal photo shoot. This segues into a scenario where technicians develop the black and white photos under red lights, all the while speaking Shakespeare’s lines.

In a sequence from Henry VI, the blue and white tiles of the court transform into a shimmering pool for a languid pool party. Ryan praises Shakespeare in the program for letting “his form match his content, which is the very point of poetry”. Ryan also achieves this with his exciting direction.

Kate Beere’s dynamic and malleable set combines a grassy knoll with other green spaces and a tiled court centre stage, joined to a rutted cement staircase and backed by a windowed entrance. This doubles as a screen for historical footage of 20th century social upheavals, with video design from Aron Murray. News cameras are brought onstage to project live footage of a monarch’s “comms” with the populace, a place where egos and diplomacy clash.

Perched atop all this is the musical nest of composer Jack Mitsch, who plays guitars and drums underpinning the drama.

Brilliantly performed

The acting is second to none. Sean O’Shea gives a mesmerising performance as Richard II, a flippant self-centred king genuinely attached to his favourites.

Katrina Retallick’s Queen Isabel is vibrant and assured. Longstanding doyens of Australian theatre, Peter Carroll and John Gaden, are paired up as the two gardeners.

Gareth Davies as the banished, but soon-to-be usurping Henry Bolingbroke plays a psychological game as he slowly wrests the crown from Richard, prompted more by political survival than ordained succession. Christopher Stollery is controlled, astute and forceful as Northumberland.

Ryan’s casting of his two young sons in Henry IV is inspired. Oliver Ryan performing Prince Hal and Max Ryan as Harry Hotspur adds poignancy to these rivals who must duel each other to the death.

The Boar’s Head Tavern becomes a 60s “lock-in” of counterculture mayhem, with Emma Palmer delivering a superbly stoned Doll Tearsheet. Steve Rodgers’ Falstaff is raw and straight from the pub, licentious to the max, and prone to mooning the crowd. Lulu Howes’ wild Lady Hotspur yearns for her distracted husband’s attention. Andrew Cutcliff gives a thundering and manly impression of King Henry V.

The rarely performed Henry VI plays are fused together in an embroiling dynastic power-play. Outstanding performances include Davies as a delicate King Henry VI, unschooled in the vicious brutalities of monarchical contest, and Henaway as a commanding Joan of Arc.

As civil strife erupts between the “white-rosed” Lancastrians and the “red-rosed” Yorkists, we see the early rise of “that valiant crook-back prodigy”, Richard of Gloucester (Gamble), who murders his way to becoming King Richard III. In that final play, Palmer gives a vociferous Margaret of Anjou.

Glued to the action

Eight plays delivered in two 4.5 hour sessions, and yet Sport for Jove is mindful of audience comforts. Each session has two intermissions and most blocks run less than 90 minutes. The acting and dynamism on stage works so well that the crowd I attended with was glued to the action from first word to last, 12 hours later.

While Shakespeare made history with these plays, The Player Kings becomes history in the making: a landmark Australian production.

The Player Kings from Sport for Jove is at the Seymour Centre, Sydney, until April 5.

Kirk Dodd 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.

– ref. Could you watch 8 plays in 12 hours? How The Player Kings creates binge-worthy Shakespeare – https://theconversation.com/could-you-watch-8-plays-in-12-hours-how-the-player-kings-creates-binge-worthy-shakespeare-252042

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Boyd, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Nottingham Trent University

Scent is how dogs largely experience the world, a lot like the way we humans rely on sight. We know little about how dogs interpret scent, but thanks to a recent study, we may be getting closer to understanding what a dog’s nose actually knows.

Dogs are primed to detect smells. The average dog’s nose has more than 10 million scent receptors in their nose, compared to humans, who only have about 6 million.

This makes the canine nose more than 10, 000 times better at detecting scents than we are. They can detect minute quantities of scent. For example, forensic detection dogs can detect 0.01 microlitres of gasolene. A microlitre is one millionth of a litre.

Humans have exploited dogs’ olfactory superpowers in a number of ways, which has no doubt contributed to the deep relationship we have developed with our canine companions over 40,000 years living together.

Dogs still join us as hunting partners, sniffing out food. They work beside us as vital members of crime-fighting teams, finding illicit substances, as medical colleagues for disease detection, and as partners in conservation efforts, finding rare and endangered species.

Despite the widespread involvement of dogs as natural scent detectors, we remain largely oblivious as to how dogs interpret what they smell and how they perceive the world in which they live.

Exploring the brain activity of dogs when they are exposed to specific smells can help identify which of their brain regions are associated with scent detection. This helps scientists understand what the dog is experiencing, which might help us enhance the selection and training of sniffer dogs.

Until now, scientists needed expensive equipment to study dogs’ brains and research methods that required dogs to stay still. This means we know less about the brains of active working dogs who might struggle to remain motionless for long periods.

But we can’t simply apply the data from dogs who can cope with sitting still since dog breeds have differences in their training and scenting skills.

Sensing scents

The recent study I mentioned at the beginning of this article uses a new, cheap and non-invasive method to explore how the canine brain responds to scent. The researchers think that this method – known as AI speckle pattern analysis – will help us identify how dog brains react to scents and what it means for how dogs perceive and respond to the world around them in future research too.

The researchers developed an optical sensor to target three brain areas involved in canine scent discrimination: the amygdala, olfactory bulb and hippocampus. The amygdala is responsible for emotional responses to stimuli.

The olfactory bulb is involved with odour processing and the hippocampus is associated with memory formation.

The equipment used in the study consisted of a high resolution digital camera linked to a computer, plus a green laser. Laser light, capable of penetrating dog fur and skull bone, was shone on the heads of four relaxed, blindfolded study dogs who were exposed to four different scents: alcohol, marijuana, menthol and garlic. These substances all appear to evoke similar olfactory responses in dogs.

As laser light was reflected from the three brain areas, the camera detected interference as a distinct “speckle” pattern. The camera made recordings for five seconds, repeated four times for each scent.

AI analysed differences in the speckle patterns from the different brain regions to create models of how the brain regions of the dogs responded to each scent.

It’s not just sniffing

The study results highlighted the importance of the amygdala for canine scent discrimination. This suggests that there could be an emotional component to how dogs sense their environment. Taste and odour detection are also known to be linked to memory formation and emotional state in humans.

Because dogs appear to experience emotional responses to scents, training methods and experiences might need to take this into consideration. For example, dogs often link the characteristic aroma of the veterinary surgery with less-than-fun situations.

Dogs in training for scent detection would also probably benefit from being in a positive emotional state when they are exposed to training odours.

This research could even pave the way to developing specialised equipment for detecting and translating the olfactory responses of dogs. Mobile equipment that works rapidly could allow us to interpret what dogs’ noses are telling them in real time.

This isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. If you’ve seen the Disney movie Up, you probably remember Dug the dog who wore a bark translation collar. Well, scientists have developed a real collar that claims to tell you what your dog’s vocalisations mean.

It’s difficult to say how accurate it is without analysing the data the collar’s AI was trained on, but the database is growing as more dogs use the collars. If the collars do prove accurate, it might not be too long before wearable technology can tell us exactly what our dogs are saying and smelling.

Jacqueline Boyd is affiliated with The Kennel Club (UK) through membership and as advisor to the Health Advisory Group. Jacqueline is a full member of the Association of Pet Dog Trainers (APDT #01583) and she also writes, consults and coaches on canine matters on an independent basis, in addition to her academic affiliation at Nottingham Trent University.

– ref. Dogs see their world through smell – and scientists are starting to translate it like never before – https://theconversation.com/dogs-see-their-world-through-smell-and-scientists-are-starting-to-translate-it-like-never-before-252659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Wilcockson, Research assistant, University of Glasgow

Until recently, fans of William Wordsworth could visit his final home, Rydal Mount and Gardens, nestled in the heart of England’s green and beautiful Lake District. Renowned as one of the most prominent British poets, the works of Wordsworth (1770-1850) include what is widely regarded as the most famous poem in the English language, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.

So it’s not surprising that his immaculately maintained house and gardens, with breathtaking views of Lake Windermere and Rydal Water, once attracted 45,000 visitors a year.

However, rising costs, a fall in visitor numbers to 20,000 or fewer per year, and the residual effects of the pandemic have placed the future of the museum in question.

The current owners have put Rydal Mount on the market for the first time since 1969 for £2.5 million – meaning this important piece of literary heritage, depending on who buys it, could become closed to the public.

The house was bought by Mary Henderson, Wordsworth’s great-great-granddaughter, in 1969 and opened as a writer’s house museum a year later.

Rydal Mount was originally a small 16th-century cottage. By 1813, there was enough room for Wordsworth, his wife Mary and three surviving children, plus Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Sara and sister Dorothy – author of the Grasmere Journal, which detailed the household’s life.

Leaving the cramped conditions of the more famous Dove Cottage behind them, it was at Rydal Mount that Wordsworth truly settled, building a “writing hut” and extensively landscaping the grounds to his own design.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

Next to Rydal Mount is Dora’s Field, which also has literary significance. Here, the poet is believed to have planted 1,847 daffodils to mark his daughter Dora’s memory, following her death from tuberculosis aged 42. These daffodils still bloom every spring.

While living at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth revised his epic “The Prelude” and wrote many other popular poems. This too is the house where he died in 1850. It was only when Mary died in 1859 that the family’s tenancy of the house came to an end.

Visitors get to step into the house where all this happened and see a wealth of rare objects, including a rare portrait of Dorothy and Wordsworth’s letter to Queen Victoria refusing the job of Poet Laureate (which he later accepted).

Owning England’s heritage

Visitors go to literary museums to experience the “spirit of the place”, to “encounter” the author and absorb some of their creativity. One recent visitor to Rydal Mount was so disappointed not to meet Wordsworth personally that they wrote a disparaging review, telling of their confusion that the poet “wasn’t in” and “when [they] asked when he would be home, all [they] got was blank stares.”

Wordworth is so closely connected to the Lake District that marketing strategies have used him to promote the area since the 1800s. Rydal Mount has had an integral role in maintaining these traditions. The estate agent’s advert is keen to stress the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of England’s heritage” and the “superb gardens … designed by Wordsworth himself”.

In selling the museum as it is, there is a real risk that Rydal Mount could become a private home lost to the public eye – much like Greta Hall, the home of Wordsworth’s fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which has long been privately owned.

Prospective closure is not uncommon for smaller museums in 2025. A recent report noted that three in five small museums fear closure because of declining revenue and footfall. 2020 was the 250th anniversary of Wordsworth’s birth and should have been a bumper year of events and tourism for the Lake District. Instead, the pandemic ravaged the celebrations and left tourist attractions in financial peril that many have not recovered from.

Critics will argue that even if Rydal Mount does close, there are still three more Wordsworth homes open to visitors (Dove Cottage, the favourite of tourist guides, Wordsworth House and Garden, and Allan Bank). Even Wordsworth’s old school is a museum.

The closure of Rydal Mount would inevitably boost these other sites’ visitor numbers – particularly Dove Cottage, which is on the same (albeit long) road as Rydal Mount. And the condition of Wordsworth’s last home could potentially be improved by a private owner with ample funds to upkeep the house.

However, it is also true that public appreciation of museums remains high, with 89% of adults in a 2024 YouGov survey advocating for their importance to UK culture, and 54% registering disappointment if their local museum were to close.

While the British Museum has experienced its highest visitor numbers since 2015, more needs to be done to save regional museums and writer’s house museums from closure. The sale of Rydal Mount into private hands may prove a severe loss to literary history, leaving the Lake District much the poorer for it.

Amy Wilcockson 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.

– ref. William Wordsworth’s last home is up for sale – returning it to a private residence would be a loss for the UK’s cultural heritage – https://theconversation.com/william-wordsworths-last-home-is-up-for-sale-returning-it-to-a-private-residence-would-be-a-loss-for-the-uks-cultural-heritage-253561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Riehle, Lecturer in Intelligence and Security Studies, Brunel University of London

Aleksandr Dugin, sometimes referred to as “Putin’s brain” because of his ideological influence on Russian politics, endorsed the policies of Donald Trump in a CNN interview aired on March 30. Dugin said Trump’s America has a lot more in common with Putin’s Russia than most people think, adding: “Trumpists and the followers of Trump will understand much better what Russia is, who Putin is and the motivations of our politics.”

Dugin made his name by espousing Russian nationalist and traditionalist – including antisemitic – themes, and publishing extensively on the centrality of Russia in world civilisation. So, this endorsement should be a warning of the disruptive nature of the Trump White House. It implies that Dugin believes Trump’s policies support Russian interests.

Dugin began his career as an anti-communist activist in the 1980s. This was less because of an ideological antipathy for communism than his rejection of the internationalism that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union espoused. He also criticised the party for breaking from traditional – especially religious – values.

Dugin proposes what he calls a “fourth political theory”. The first three, he claims, are Marxism, fascism and liberalism – all of which he thinks contain elements of error, especially their rejection of tradition and the subordination of culture to scientific thought.

Dugin’s fourth political theory takes pieces from all three and discards the elements with which Dugin disagrees, especially the dwindling importance of traditional family and culture. The culmination is a melange of ideas that sometimes appear Marxist and sometimes fascist, but which always centre on the criticality of traditional Russian culture.

His founding philosophy is traditionalism, which he views as a strength of Russia. Thus, he has become a strong supporter of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, who emphasises traditional Russian values. Dugin and Putin align in their criticism of liberalist anti-religious individualism, which they claim destroys the values and culture on which society is based.

Dugin has value for Putin because he advances the president’s objectives. Putin’s security goals are in part founded on the principle that political unity is strength and political division is weakness. If Russia can maintain political unity by whatever means necessary, it retains its perception of strength. And if a state opposed to Russia is divided internally, it can be portrayed as weak.

The Russian government claims complete political unity inside Russia. Its spokespeople reinforce that claim by declaring, for example, the Russian electorate was so unified behind Putin that the 2024 Russian presidential election could have been skipped as an unnecessary expense. They also push a strained claim that the Russian population is unanimously behind the Ukraine war.

Dugin energises voters behind Putin, basing his support on the philosophy of Russian greatness and cultural superiority, and the perception of Russian unity. His influence has been felt throughout the Russian government and society. He publishes prolifically, and lectures at universities and government agencies about the harms of western liberalism. He also served as an advisor to Sergey Naryshkin, currently director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation.

Dugin’s views support an expansionist Russia, especially in the direction of Ukraine. He questions the existence of Ukraine and promotes Russia’s war there wholeheartedly. But his support for the war led to an attempt on his life. On August 20 2022, a bomb exploded in a car owned by Dugin, killing his daughter, Darya, who was driving it back from a festival of Russian traditional art.

Divide and conquer

Russia applies the same principle of “unity equals strength” to its adversaries, but in reverse. Many Russian political thinkers try to emphasise political divisions in unfriendly states. They work hard to broaden existing disagreements and support disruptive political parties and groups.

Such operations give the Russian government the ability to denigrate the foreign powers that Russia considers adversaries by making them look weak in the eyes of their own people – and more importantly, in the eyes of the Russian population.

Dugin lays a philosophical foundation for foreign parties that oppose the European Union and western liberalism, and that disrupt political unity. His views have been adopted by far-right political groups such as the German National Democratic Party, the British National Party, Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary, and the National Front in France.

Dugin’s interview in which he endorsed Trump’s policies is likely to have been directly authorised by the Kremlin. He pushes a Kremlin-sponsored endorsement of Trump’s divisive – and thus weakening – effect on US politics.

But Dugin’s extreme Russian nationalist rhetoric at times clashes with Putin’s attempts to include all peoples of Russia in a strong unified state, rather than only ethnic Russians. As it is a multi-ethnic state, Russian ethnic nationalism can obstruct Putin’s attempts at portraying strength through unity. The label “Putin’s brain” is only accurate sometimes.

The Russian government uses Dugin when he is useful and separates itself from him when his extremism is inconvenient. Dugin is a tool who says many of the right things and facilitates Kremlin goals. His endorsement of Trump should be seen in its context: Russia attempting to strengthen itself at the expense of the US.

Kevin Riehle 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.

– ref. ‘Putin’s brain’: Aleksandr Dugin, the Russian ultra-nationalist who has endorsed Donald Trump – https://theconversation.com/putins-brain-aleksandr-dugin-the-russian-ultra-nationalist-who-has-endorsed-donald-trump-253466

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felix Arndt, Professor and John F. Wood Chair in Entrepreneurship, University of Guelph

When United States President Donald Trump first floated the idea of annexing Canada, many observers rolled their eyes. The common assumption was that this proposal, like much of Trump’s bombast, amounted to little more than a fleeting soundbite.

Yet, amid continuing public remarks about Canada becoming the 51st state and suggestions of genuine intent, the idea has become part of a broader conversation about North America’s future.

The idea of the U.S. merging with Canada outright has not been received well in Canada, especially because Trump’s threats have been accompanied by economic warfare aimed at forcing Canada into submission. After all, the U.S. already has 50 states. Canada, with its population of about 40 million and its immense geographic size, would be an outsized “51st” by any comparison.

But any serious analysis of this proposition quickly reveals that annexation would be far more complicated — and far less one-sided — than the label “51st state.”

Our analysis is premised on an assumption that the U.S. remains a democratic system that has not turned into a pseudo-monarchy, in keeping with a Trump social media post in early February proclaiming “long live the King.”

The most important takeaway from our analysis is that a unified country would need to inaugurate a new president and Parliament. The path towards the integration of the countries would have to start with closer economic integration, not the alienation currently in place.

A multi-state reality

As we argue in our newest self-published book Make America Greater? A Scenario of a Friendly Canada-U.S. Merger, Canada would not simply become part of the U.S. as a single state under the provisions of the American Constitution.

Based on population and the distribution of power in U.S. Congress, Canada’s 10 provinces and three northern territories would almost certainly be carved into multiple states, perhaps nine or more.

This is no small detail.

America’s unique electoral arithmetic grants each state two senators, while seats in the House of Representatives depend on population size. With around 40 million new citizens, a unified North America would reshape the balance of power in both the Senate and the House.

Read more:
Canada as a 51st state? Republicans would never win another general election

Critically, the new country formed via unification might end up looking far more like Canada than many Americans imagine.

Why? Canadian voters lean more centrist — or even centre-left — than the average American does. Over time, that could tilt congressional priorities in favour of policies reflecting Canada’s taste for universal health care, stricter gun control and robust social welfare.

The longstanding political tug-of-war in the U.S. could see its centre of gravity shift, likely to the chagrin of some more conservative segments of the existing union.

Tariffs, politics and tensions

Officials on both sides of the border are already locked in a dance of retaliatory tariffs.

Each new measure escalates anxieties, threatening to derail one of the world’s largest bilateral trading relationships.

Some might argue that if tariffs are putting negative pressures on the economy and roiling the markets, perhaps deeper integration — or even full-blown unification — could serve as a release valve. But the path towards a friendly merger is best taken step-by-step and starts with stronger economic integration, not alienation.

Read more:
Canada’s response to Trump’s tariffs was strategic, but there is room for improvement

Forging a genuine union goes well beyond removing trade barriers. Canada and the U.S. differ on far more than just economics: from bilingualism laws to gun regulations, from health care to environmental policy, the two countries embody contrasting visions of how society should function.

Canadians would expect to preserve elements of their social contract that many regard as superior to American norms — particularly their single-payer health-care system and comparatively strict firearms restrictions.

A process genuinely aimed at integrating the two countries would take this into account. It would extend the United States-Mexico-Canada trade deal further to strengthen economic integration, elevate the rights of French and Spanish speakers in the U.S. in order to signal compatible cultural values and extend Medicare to show an appreciation of the common denominators of the two societies.

Trump’s current rhetoric, however, does not seem to indicate a genuine desire for a unification.

Why a merger could favour Canada

As surprising as it seems, our analysis suggests that a unified North America could lean Canada’s way over time.

Even if the American Electoral College were reimagined — or scrapped — Canadian provinces transformed into states would wield significant power, influencing everything from budget allocations to Supreme Court appointments.

Read more:
As Joe Biden becomes president, here’s an easy proposal for Electoral College reform

What’s more, cultural convergence has an asymmetrical pull. Younger Americans show a growing appetite for social safety nets, while Canadians remain broadly wedded to their publicly funded health-care model.

Over a few election cycles, these forces could converge into a more expansive welfare regime, something that would astonish traditional conservatives across the current 50 states.

A combined North America would boast one of the largest economies on Earth, including abundant natural resources and technological innovation.

The promise of frictionless trade, a single currency and vast internal markets might delight big business and certain multinational interests. Yet the path would be fraught.

Constitutional arrangements, Indigenous rights, linguistic protections and environmental regulations — all areas in which Canadian norms diverge significantly from American precedents — would have to be reconciled.

Canadians, proud of their universal healthcare, progressive climate policies and lower rates of gun violence, would worry about being subsumed by a more rambunctious, militarized neighbour. Americans, meanwhile, would fear they would be forced to adopt new taxes and policies at odds with their historic emphasis on individual freedoms.

A country more closely resembling Canada

Regardless of whether Trump’s annexation talk proves more than just bluster, the notion of a friendly U.S.–Canada merger invites reflection. It reminds us that North America’s two largest nations remain economically interlocked and geographically co-located, though culturally distinct.

With tariffs in place and cross-border tensions mounting, creative solutions are worth examining, even if a merger can — at best — be seen as a long-term vision.

A genuine offer of a merger would require that Canadians to be assured that if such a union did transpire, their voices might echo far more loudly than expected in the halls of Washington, D.C.

And Americans — facing shifting demographics and changing societal values — may discover that the annexation Trump initiated could bring surprises that tilt the new country much closer to its northern neighbour’s ideals than to the status quo below the 49th parallel.

Felix Arndt is an author of a book referred to in this article.

Barak Aharonson is an author of a book with a similar topic.

– ref. Canada a 51st state? Here’s how American annexation could actually favour Canada – https://theconversation.com/canada-a-51st-state-heres-how-american-annexation-could-actually-favour-canada-251547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giulio Ponte, Research Engineer at the Centre for Automotive Safety Research, University of Adelaide

When a vehicle and a cyclist collide, the cyclist almost always emerges worse off. Globally, more than 40,000 cyclists are killed and millions more seriously injured in road crashes.

In most of these collisions, the driver is responsible.

So, what factors are involved when a cyclist and a car collide?

The most common factors

The most common types of vehicle-cyclist crashes are caused by:

• drivers turning in front of cyclists
• drivers not giving right-of-way to cyclists
• drivers opening doors in front of cyclists
• drivers side-swiping cyclists by passing too close to them
• drivers rear-ending cyclists.

When drivers ‘look-but-failed-to-see’

Many drivers fail to notice cyclists until it’s too late. Sometimes this phenomenon is referred to as SMIDSY (“sorry mate, I didn’t see you”).

Crash researchers often classify these types of crash as a “looked-but-failed-to-see” error.

Cyclists are extremely susceptible to this. They are small, not a safety threat to drivers, are outnumbered and are typically ranked low on a driver’s “attentional hierarchy”. It may also be that drivers just don’t expect cyclists to be around.

Cyclists can be inconspicuous but even if they are visible, drivers may look but not “see” them because they’re focusing on something else.

This selective attention test highlights how easy it is to end up in a looked-but-failed-to-see situation:

It is inevitable drivers will occasionally make errors resulting in near misses and crashes. Telling drivers to look out for cyclists and not crash into them won’t stop crashes with cyclists. So what might help?

Solutions with limited effectiveness

While errors are inevitable, improving road infrastructure and using layouts that highlight cyclists in potential conflict areas can help.

In practice, this means things such as advanced stop lines or holding areas that place cyclists ahead of motor vehicles at intersections so cyclists are more visible and can move off safely.

Advanced green lights (where the traffic light turns green for cyclists before it does for cars) could also help, as they allow cyclists to move off while motor vehicle traffic is still stopped.

Bicycle-activated warning signage provide a visual warning to alert drivers that a cyclist is near by.

Improved road lighting to highlight cyclists better on the network at night, would also help.

There are also things cyclists can do to improve their own safety. These include

• using permanent running lights (bicycle lights that are constantly on)
• wearing bright clothes
• wearing reflective strips on their lower legs to highlight the natural motion of their feet and legs.

Many roads have white lines painted on them to allocate separate space to cyclists and there are mandatory passing distance laws throughout Australia as well as in some international jurisdictions.

However, research has shown that close passing is still relatively common and that painted bike lanes may actually increase the frequency or severity of these dangerous interactions.

Speed limit reform

If we know that errors are inevitable and crashes will occur, then we should make those events survivable.

Humans are fragile. Being struck by a car at 50 km/h is estimated to result in a 90% chance of being killed. At 30 km/h, the risk of being killed decreases to just 10%.

Speed limits of 40 km/h and 30 km/h improve safety for both cyclists and pedestrians, particularly in high pedestrian and cyclist locations.

While lowering speed limits is widely supported within the road safety fraternity, more efforts are needed to promote acceptance throughout the wider community.

Autonomous emergency braking

One opportunity for reducing or eliminating collisions with cyclists (in the absence of speed limit reform) may be with advanced driver assistance systems such as autonomous emergency braking.

These systems constantly and rapidly process visual information in the traffic environment.

They can help prevent certain crashes, or reduce collision speeds, when human error occurs.

They can also help prevent “dooring”, which is where a cyclist collides with a car door suddenly opened by the driver.

However, these technologies are not 100% effective; emergency situations between vehicles and cyclists can occur suddenly, with little time for automated systems to respond appropriately.

These systems are also generally only available on newer vehicles. Given the average age of Australian vehicles is over 11 years, it will take some time before they are widely prevalent and have a significant influence on bicycle safety.

Eliminating conflicts

Dedicated separated infrastructure is optimal for cyclist safety as it avoids interactions between vehicles and cyclists completely.

However, this infrastructure often forces cyclists to share space with pedestrians such as children, dog walkers, wheelchair users, and parents with prams (which can introduce other safety issues).

Additionally, these dedicated separated paths are not always well connected, or may “lead to nowhere”, so they don’t always appeal to cyclists.

Another way to eliminate conflicts is through changes to the traffic network. For example, controlling turn movements at traffic lights with right-turn arrows means drivers no longer need to decide when it’s safe to turn.

But this comes at a cost to traffic efficiency. In our society, unfortunately, there are many who value lost time more than the cost of road crashes and injury trauma.

Ultimately, if we want to focus on the value of human life and live-ability, we need to rethink the transport hierarchy to place more value on the most vulnerable road users. This could be achieved with “presumed liability” laws, where a driver who collides with a cyclist must prove they were not at fault.

Finally, we should remember that we are all vulnerable at some point in our transport journeys.

Giulio Ponte has membership in Bike Adelaide, as well as his local Bicycle User Group, the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia and the Australian College of Road Safety (SA Chapter).

Jamie Mackenzie is a member of the Australasian College of Road Safety. He is currently the Chair of the South Australian Chapter of the Australasian College of Road Safety and sits on the Executive Council of the national body.

– ref. ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you’: when drivers look but don’t see cyclists on the road – https://theconversation.com/sorry-mate-i-didnt-see-you-when-drivers-look-but-dont-see-cyclists-on-the-road-244935

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter J. Dean, Director, Foreign Policy and Defence, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

International and domestic policy have collided in Australia in recent weeks with a force not seen in decades.

Foreign policy concerns have dominated media headlines, from the Chinese research vessel travelling along the south coast (and the Chinese navy’s circumnavigation of Australia), to the continued war in Ukraine, the resumption of hostilities in Gaza and US President Donald Trump’s mercurial approach to foreign policy.

This has brought home to the Australian public, and its political leaders, how tenuous our geostrategic and economic circumstances are.

This is a policy debate the leaders of both major parties would prefer they didn’t have to have. Debating defence spending is like going down a political cul-de-sac. Once you enter it, it is a dead end with only one way to turn around and get out: spending more money on defence.

Credibility on the line

Both political leaders understand federal elections are not won on defence policy debates. Polling data has revealed, unsurprisingly, that cost of living is front and centre of voter’s minds.

Defence is central, though, to political credibility and it does influence voters’ perceptions. To be seen as “soft” on national security is to fail one of two major credibility tests of national political leadership (the other being basic economic management).

For the Coalition, national security is perceived as a traditional strength. But in the most recent election, Scott Morrison tried to make security a key election issue and lost control of the agenda, badly damaging his already bruised political image.

This time, neither leader has much of a choice but to engage in defence and national security debates. Global uncertainty has put defence spending in the frame as a key election issue.

Trump and his tariffs were front and centre during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s press conference when he announced the election on Friday morning. The shadow of Trump will stalk both the main candidates wherever they go for the rest of the campaign.

Pre-election arms race?

A potential election campaign defence spending arms race is in the making. This is a political reality both that Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton know.

Dutton has had to accept more risk and was the first to blink. He committed A$3 billion, in addition to existing defence spending, to buy a fourth squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

The government responded with an extra $1 billion for defence over the next two years in the budget.

Dutton parried again in his budget reply, pledging to “energise our domestic defence industry” and flagging more announcements to come during the campaign.

This means that along with the cost of living, health and energy, defence will likely be a key election issue.

Closer to home

This defence debate is different from election campaigns of decades past. It is far less about faraway conflicts of political choice, although peacekeeping for Ukraine is still to be decided.

Instead, the contemporary strategic debate is about how global and regional disruptions are impacting the foundations of the Australian economy.

And as the Chinese navy’s unprecedented actions off the coast of Australia, including unannounced live fire exercises, underscored, the real question is about how well-prepared we are to defend the homeland.

Read more:
Should Australia increase its defence spending? We asked 5 experts

The government spends around 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence, but with pressures on the existing defence budget, this is widely regarded as not enough.

Since mid-2024, the main question among defence pundits has been whether the number should be 3% of GDP. If so, how quickly can we get there?

The pressure for 3% has only increased with the election of Trump and his demands that US allies pay more for their own defence, especially as the US spends 3.4% of its GDP on defence.

GDP may well be a poor way to measure defence spending, but it has political cache, both domestically and internationally.

A different debate

Traditional defence spending debates in Australia have largely focused on big platform announcements, such as which planes, ships and tanks a government will buy for the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The Coalition’s pledge for more F-35s fits this traditional policy mould perfectly.

But this debate has shifted. The latest defence strategy calls for Australia to work strategically to circumvent the strength of major powers, rather than trying to achieve the same strength. This requires a shift in traditional defence thinking.

Even more significantly, defence policy is no longer just about the types of major platforms our military will have decades into the future. Now, the debate is centred more on what can be done to ensure the ADF is ready to “fight tonight” or in the near future.

This focus on preparedness and readiness is at the centre of the 2024 National Defence Strategy the Albanese government brought into place following the 2023 Defence Strategic Review.

Core to this approach is the concept of “national defence”. This includes key national resilience issues such as field, energy and cyber security, industrial resilience, supply chain resilience, innovation, science and technology, and defence workforce. These should be key focuses.

This means the real question in the election campaign should be: what can be done with any additional defence spending to ensure we are addressing these issues more quickly and more efficiently?

Peter J. Dean was co-lead of the 2023 Defence Strategic Review (DSR) Secretariat. He also works at the United States Studies Centre, an independent research centre at the University of Sydney that receives grant funding from the Australian Department of Defence; Bechtel, HII, and Babcock; Thales; Raytheon; Lockheed Martin; US State Department; the National Endowment for Democracy; the Japan Foundation and the Taiwanese Economic and Cultural Office. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. The author maintains academic freedom and the views expressed in this article are his own.

– ref. Defence is shaping up to be a key election issue, whether politicians like it or not – https://theconversation.com/defence-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-key-election-issue-whether-politicians-like-it-or-not-253440