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

An independent inquiry has strongly condemned the politicisation of appointments to government boards, declaring present processes have “let down the Australian people” and are not fit for purpose.

In her report former public service commissioner Lynelle Briggs has recommended a very detailed appointment process, with checks and balances, to restore integrity, which would put considerable limits on ministerial discretion.

But the government has rejected much of the constraint that Briggs’ plan would impose on ministers. Instead, Minister for the Public Service Katy Gallagher announced on Tuesday an “appointment framework” that is much looser and allows wider ministerial discretion than Briggs urges.

At a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday, Gallagher faced tough questioning from the opposition and crossbenchers over the government’s handling of, and response to, the report.

The Albanese government commissioned the Briggs report and received it in August 2023. It resisted pressure from the Senate for its release, saying it was still working on it.

One key recommendation the government has rejected is that politicians and their staffers should not be appointed to government boards within six months of leaving government positions, or 18 months in ministers’ portfolio areas.

Gallagher said the government didn’t believe people should be excluded if they had the necessary skill set.

It will also not take up the recommendation that for six months before the last possible election date, no ministerial board appointments should be made that have not been progressed through the standard appointment process.

Briggs’ inquiry focused on some 200 governing and decision-making boards. Given it was appointed early in Labor’s term, much of the attention looked backward at the Coalition government.

“The extent of what are perceived as political appointments in recent years has contributed to a climate where public trust in government has been undermined,” the report says.

“Too often the practice in recent years has been to appoint friends of the Government to boards, either as a reward for past loyalty or to ensure alignment with government priorities and all too often these appointments have looked like forms of patronage and nepotism that should have no place in the modern Australian society,” Briggs says.

“I found that the current board appointment arrangements are not fit for purpose. They have let down the Australian people, undermined the integrity and effectiveness of the public sector and exposed Ministers to unnecessary risk,” she says.

“They do not provide Ministers with a disciplined and structured appointments process that ensures a broad, relevant, and diverse skill set for their boards. They do not provide Ministers with the support that they need to find the best candidates and make appointment decisions. They do not always provide the best people for the job.

“When the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand found themselves in similar circumstances, they acted to introduce or restore independence to appointment processes.”

Briggs’ detailed model for board appointments would advertise all board positions, and include a range of candidate search and talent management arrangements to improve board diversity and quality.

“The model still provides for Ministers to make direct appointments but puts transparent and clear process around those decisions.”

The report urges its recommended processes be enshrined in a new act of parliament but the government has not accepted this.

Gallagher said in estimates that the government had responded to 19 of the 30 recommendations with the framework, a further three were covered by guidance, three were subject to further consideration and five recommendations were not covered by the framework.

Among the principles set out in the government’s framework is that ministers “have flexibility to implement selection processes suitable for sourcing the best candidates for appointments within their portfolio(s)”.

Independent senator David Pocock said, “It is very disappointing that the Albanese Government has refused to accept the full suite of recommendations from the Briggs Review designed to stop the rampant jobs for mates culture that exists in federal politics.

“I’ve worked hard with all non-government senators to secure the release of the Briggs review. Now it’s clear why the Albanese government was hiding it for two years.”

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. Albanese government shies away from tougher recommendations from ‘jobs for mates’ inquiry – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-shies-away-from-tougher-recommendations-from-jobs-for-mates-inquiry-270790

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Butler, Professor and Program Head, Justice Health Research Program, UNSW Sydney

In April 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared domestic and family violence a “national crisis” calling for proactive responses that “focus on the perpetrators and focus on prevention”.

The issue hasn’t really improved since then.

But a world-first trial from the University of New South Wales and University of Newcastle, which tested whether medicine can reduce violence and domestic violence, may offer a new way forward.

A comprehensive approach to a complex problem

The trial tested whether sertraline – a commonly prescribed antidepressant – could reduce violent reoffending in impulsive men.

We screened 1,738 men in NSW between 2013 and 2021, ultimately randomising 630 participants to receive either sertraline or placebo in a “double-blind” trial. This means researchers, nurses, psychiatrists and participants didn’t know which men were on sertraline or placebo.

Most participants were recruited through community corrections offices and courts.

The results for the effect of sertraline for general violence were inconclusive.

However, those who took sertraline showed significant reductions in domestic violence reoffending:

• at 12 months, offending was lower in the sertraline group (19.1%) compared to placebo (24.8%)
• at 24 months, offending was lower in the sertraline group (28.2%) compared to the placebo group (35.7%).

For men who took their medication more consistently, the reduction in reoffending reached 30% at 24 months.

How does sertraline work?

The antidepressant sertraline works by enhancing serotonin functioning in the brain, which plays a crucial role in regulating impulse control and emotional responses.

For highly impulsive men, this directly addresses a key driver of violence – the inability to pause and regulate emotional reactions.

Domestic violence frequently involves emotionally charged, impulsive reactions in intimate relationships. The type of anger and aggression in these reactive contexts is theorised to be most responsive to regulating brain serotonin neurotransmission.

General violence is far more diverse, including premeditated acts that are typically less reactive.

During an initial four-week period before randomisation, all participants received sertraline and we observed a:

• 55% reduction in depression
• 44% in psychological distress
• 35% in anger
• 25% in irritability
• 20% in impulsivity.

These changes occurred before most of the trial’s psychosocial supports could take full effect, demonstrating the medication’s direct impact.

One participant with significant prison time told us:

I was in a road rage situation, a guy jumped out of his car, having a go at me, and any other time I would have smashed him. But I just said, ‘mate go away before the police are called’. I dead set believe it was due to the medication. I feel proud, it’s been a long time but hey, I’ve finally got control of myself.

The crucial role of comprehensive support

The medication’s effectiveness depended on participants actually taking it and staying engaged long enough for it to work. This is where the comprehensive support provided became essential.

Many participants had issues such as homelessness, untreated mental health disorders, substance use, relationship crises, disengagement from health services and conflicts with government institutions.

Many men had “fallen through the cracks”, because their cases are too complex for mental health services or standard corrections programs. This in turn means they were unable to access the support they needed.

We realised administering medication without addressing these broader psychosocial needs would be failing in our duty of care.

So our study evolved to include a comprehensive support model, combining pharmacotherapy with trauma-informed clinical counselling, proactively following up participants, 24-hour crisis support, helping the men navigate support services and partner safety planning.

This proved crucial for higher engagement, which led to better outcomes.

Perhaps most strikingly, sertraline reduced the rate of repeated domestic violence offending (more than one offence in 24 months) by 44% compared to placebo.

These findings reveal a key relationship: sertraline improves a range of behavioural measures and reduces impulsivity. Meanwhile comprehensive psychosocial support addresses the trauma, social disadvantage and unmet needs that maintain patterns of emotional reactivity and violence.

As one participant reflected:

I’ve evolved […] I was actually stepping back and listening to what other people had to say before I blew my top.

What about partners and family members?

Our research revealed 96% of partners reported maintained or increased safety, 85% observed positive behavioural changes (in the men) and 77% reported improved personal wellbeing.

One partner noted:

I used to sleep with a hammer under my bed. Since he started this medication, I can sleep more easily, and I don’t need to sleep with the hammer anymore.

Reframing domestic violence

When we help men address the psychological, relational and social factors that drive their domestic violence, we’ve shown we can prevent harm before it occurs.

The men in our trial had extensive trauma histories, with many having experienced childhood abuse, marginalisation and conflict with government institutions

This perspective by no means diminishes the devastating harm and impact of domestic violence or the need for essential victim supports. Nor does it reduce the importance of addressing structural determinants of domestic violence such as gender inequality or outdated cultural norms.

But the current crisis demands evidence-based interventions that can reduce domestic violence now, while complementary efforts continue to support victims.

A way forward

Our trial demonstrated this approach is cost-effective: at about A$7,000 per participant annually versus $150,000 for incarceration.

The model’s independence from mainstream services proved crucial for engagement. Operating through a university research program rather than government systems helped build trust with men who had extensive negative experiences with institutions.

We do not claim our approach to be a silver bullet, but it deserves serious consideration as a proven intervention in the domestic violence prevention ecosystem, and could be implemented now.

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. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, contact 000. Men’s Referral Service (call 1300 766 491) offers advice and counselling to men looking to change their behaviour.

Tony Butler receives funding from National Health & Medical Research Council.

Lee Knight has been involved in projects funded by the NHMRC and government grants, and is board director for Australian Kookaburra Kids Foundation.

Peter William Schofield a director of the Neuropsychiatry Service of Hunter New England Health.

Rhys Mantell receives PhD scholarship funding from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

Emaediong I. Akpanekpo 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. Giving men a common antidepressant could help tackle domestic violence: world-first study – https://theconversation.com/giving-men-a-common-antidepressant-could-help-tackle-domestic-violence-world-first-study-270968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

The rise of GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro has been nothing short of meteoric. Originally developed to treat diabetes, these drugs are now widely used for weight loss and have become household names.

But alongside headlines of dramatic transformations are reports of an increased risk of suicidal thoughts and unwanted pregnancies after contraception failures.

So what are the risks? And what should you do if you are taking these medicines?

How do these drugs work?

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs are medicines used to treat type-2 diabetes and obesity. They work by reducing blood sugar levels and reducing appetite.

Five medicines in this category are approved for use in Australia:

• Mounjaro (tirzepatide)
• Ozempic (semaglutide)
• Wegovy (semaglutide)
• Saxenda (liraglutide)
• Trulicity (dulaglutide).

These drugs have been around for the past decade but rose in popularity in recent years, with the help of Hollywood celebrities.

The most common side effects of GLP-1 medicines are related to digestion: nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, indigestion, stomach pain and constipation. These tend to be mild and either go away with time or become more tolerable.

But more concerning side effects have prompted Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) to issue new warnings this week about suicidal thoughts and the lower effectiveness of oral contraceptives.

Read more:
Considering taking Wegovy to lose weight? Here are the risks and benefits – and how it differs from Ozempic

Risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour

In the 12 months to November 2025, there were 20 cases of suicidal thoughts reported in the Australian Database of Adverse Events Notifications which coincided with the use of a GLP-1 medicine.

This is consistent with published scientific data. A 2024 study found a link between GLP-1 medicines and a 106% increase in the risk of suicidal behaviour.

An analysis of World Health Organization data also found a link between semaglutide use and suicidal thoughts.

But not all the evidence supports a link between GLP-1 drugs and suicidal thoughts.

A separate 2024 sudy analysed the data of more than 1.8 million patients who were taking the medicines for either weight loss or diabetes. It found a lower, not higher, risk of new or recurring suicidal thoughts when compared with patients who were not taking a GLP-1 medicine.

How can these drugs affect contraception?

Oral contraceptives work by using hormones to prevent the releases of eggs from the ovaries and to thicken the cervical mucus. This latter effect makes it difficult for sperm to reach and fertilise an egg.

These effects are only triggered when pregnancy-related hormones are at a high enough level. If GLP-1 medicines affect how the body absorbs hormones in oral contraceptives, hormone levels may not reach concentrations high enough to prevent pregnancy.

Researchers first raised the potential for GLP-1 medicines to affect oral contraceptives in 2003.

The ability for GLP-1 medicines to affect oral contraceptives may vary between drugs. A review that examined the link between tirzepatide and oral contraception found that this specific drug had a higher impact on hormone absorption when compared with other GLP-1 drugs.

A study of semagutide published in 2015 found the drug did not affect the amount of hormone that was absorbed into the body when patients were given the commonly used oral contraceptive pills ethinylestrdiol or levonorgestrel.

But a more recent study in 2025 concluded that both tirzepatide and oral semaglutide were able to affect oral contraceptive hormone levels.

GLP-1 drugs should not affect the efficacy of IUDs or other long-acting (implanted) contraceptives as they are not reliant on hormones being absorbed from the stomach.

I’m taking one of these drugs, what should I do?

The TGA recommends that if you’re taking GLP-1 medicines, you should tell your doctor if you experience new or worsening depression, suicidal thoughts, or any unusual changes in mood or behaviour.

For women taking the GLP-1 drug tirzepatide and oral contraceptives, the TGA advises either switching to a non-oral contraceptive (like an implant), or adding a barrier method of contraception for four weeks after first taking the GLP-1 medicine, or any time you increase the dose of tirzepatide.

A GLP-1 drug should not be used during pregnancy, as it may affect fetal grown. The adverse events database has also reported cases of miscarriages in women who were at the time taking semaglutide or tirzepatide.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467

Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd (a medical device company) and was previously a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. He is a member of the Haleon Australia Pty Ltd Pain Advisory Board. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design and testing.

– ref. Taking a drug like Ozempic? What you need to know about risks of suicidal thoughts and contraception failure – https://theconversation.com/taking-a-drug-like-ozempic-what-you-need-to-know-about-risks-of-suicidal-thoughts-and-contraception-failure-271082

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jake Goldenfein, Senior Lecturer, Law and Technology, The University of Melbourne

Today, the Albanese Labor government released the long-awaited National AI Plan, “a whole-of-government framework that ensures technology works for people, not the other way around”.

With this plan, the government promises an inclusive artificial intelligence (AI) economy that protects workers, fills service gaps, and supports local AI development.

In a major reversal, it also confirms Australia won’t implement mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI. Instead, it argues our existing legal regime is sufficient, and any minor changes for specific AI harms or risk can be managed with help from a new A$30 million AI Safety Institute within the Department of Industry.

Avoiding big changes to Australia’s legal system makes sense in light of the plan’s primary goal – making Australia an attractive location for international data centre investment.

The initial caution is gone

After the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 ushered in a generative AI boom, initial responses focused on existential risks posed by AI.

Leading AI figures even called for a pause on all AI research. Governments outlined plans to regulate.

But as investment in AI has grown, governments around the world have now shifted from caution to an AI race: embracing the opportunities while managing risks.

In 2023, the European Union created the world’s leading AI plan promoting the uptake of human-centric and trustworthy artificial intelligence. The United States launched its own, more bullish action plan in July 2025.

The new Australian plan prioritises creating a local AI software industry, spreading the benefit of AI “productivity gains” to workers and public service users, capturing some of the relentless global investment in AI data centres, and promoting Australia’s regional leadership by becoming an infrastructure and computing hub in the Indo-Pacific.

Those goals are outlined in the plan’s three pillars: capturing the opportunities, spreading the benefits, and keeping us safe.

What opportunities are we capturing?

The jury is still out on whether AI will actually boost productivity for all organisations and businesses that adopt it.

Regardless, global investment in AI infrastructure has been immense, with some predictions on global data centre investments reaching A$8 trillion by 2030 (so long as the bubble doesn’t burst before then).

Through the new AI plan, Australia wants to get in on the boom and become a location for US and global tech industry capital investment.

In the AI plan, the selling point for increased Australian data centre investment is the boost this would provide for our renewable energy transition. States are already competing for that investment. New South Wales has streamlined data centre approval processes, and Victoria is creating incentives to “ruthlessly” chase data centre investment in greenfield sites.

Under the new federal environmental law reforms passed last week, new data centre approvals may be fast-tracked if they are co-located with new renewable power, meaning less time to consider biodiversity and other environmental impacts.

But data centres are also controversial. Concerns about the energy and water demands of large data centres in Australia are already growing.

The water use impacts of data centres are significant – and the plan is remarkably silent on this apart from promising “efficient liquid cooling”. So far, experience from Germany and the US shows data centres stretching energy grids beyond their limit.

It’s true data centre companies are likely to invest in renewable energy, but at the same time growth in data centre demands is currently justifying the continuation of fossil fuel use.

There’s some requirement for Australian agencies to consider the environmental sustainability of data centres hosting government services. But a robust plan for environmental assessment and reporting across public and private sectors is lacking.

Who will really benefit from AI?

The plan promises the economic and efficiency benefits of AI will be for everyone – workers, small and medium businesses, and those receiving government services.

Recent scandals suggest Australian businesses are keen to use AI to reduce labour costs without necessarily maintaining service quality. This has created anxiety around the impact of AI on labour markets and work conditions.

Australia’s AI plan tackles this through promoting worker development, training and re-skilling, rather than protecting existing conditions.

The Australian union movement will need to be active to make the “AI-ready workers” narrative a reality, and to protect workers from AI being used to reduce labour costs, increase surveillance, and speed up work.

The plan also mentions improving public service efficiency. Whether or not those efficiency gains are possible is hard to say. However, the plan does recognise we’ll need comprehensive investment to unlock the value of private data holdings and public public data holdings useful for AI.

Will we be safe enough?

With the release of the plan, the government has officially abandoned last year’s proposals for mandatory guardrails for high-risk AI systems. It claims Australia’s existing legal frameworks are already strong, and can be updated “case by case”.

As we’ve pointed out previously, this is out of step with public opinion. More than 75% of Australians want AI regulation.

It’s also out of step with other countries. The European Union already prohibits the most risky AI systems, and has updated product safety and platform regulations. It’s also currently refining a framework for regulating high-risk AI systems. Canadian federal government systems are regulated by a tiered risk management system. South Korea, Japan, Brazil and China all have rules that govern AI-specific risks.

Australia’s claim to have a strong, adequate and stable legal framework would be much more credible if the document included a plan for, or clarity about our significant law reform backlog. This backlog includes privacy rights, consumer protection, automated decision-making in government post-Robodebt, as well as copyright and digital duty of care.

Ultimately the National AI Plan says some good things about sustainability, sharing the benefits, and keeping Australians safe even as the government makes a pitch for data centre investment and becoming an AI hub for the region.

Compared with those of some other nations, the plan is short on specificity. The test will lie in whether the government gives substance to its goals and promises, instead of just chasing the short-term AI investment dollar.

Jake Goldenfein receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society and through the ARC Discovery Scheme.

Christine Parker receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

Kimberlee Weatherall receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society and the ARC Linkage Scheme. She is Co-Director of the University of Sydney’s Centre for AI, Trust and Governance which receives funding from a range of sources as declared on the Centre’s website.

– ref. Australia’s national AI plan has just been released. Who exactly will benefit? – https://theconversation.com/australias-national-ai-plan-has-just-been-released-who-exactly-will-benefit-270981

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Imogen Richards, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University

This year, a series of rallies organised by neo-Nazi groups in Australian cities sparked public outrage and concern about the extreme right.

Yet, some media coverage of the rallies downplayed the role neo-Nazis played in what they called “anti-immigration rallies”. Other commentators misrepresented statistics on net migration.

Politicians, meanwhile, traded barbs about who was to blame for far-right demonstrators on city streets.

In the United States, there was a similarly muddled response to a recent scandal involving genocidal, racist text messages among young Republican leaders.

The messages included racist slurs, praise for Adolf Hitler and jokes about gas chambers. Yet, Vice President JD Vance dismissed them as “edgy, offensive jokes” and called the backlash “pearl clutching”.

The scandal did have repercussions for the Young Republicans, and some senior Republican leaders did condemn the messages. But the fact Vance and others could even think to minimise such vile language speaks to the way far-right politics and sentiments have been normalised today – especially by some in the mainstream media.

As detailed in a book I recently edited, The Far Right and the Media: International Trends and Perspectives, mainstream journalism does not simply cover far-right politics from a critical distance, it also helps define what counts as politically acceptable.

And in many ways, the media is failing in this regard.

Euphemisms and evasion

The first problem has to deal with language itself. When describing the far right, some media outlets reach for softening descriptors such as “populist”, “controversial” or “anti-establishment”, avoiding more accurate terms like “racist” or “authoritarian”.

These linguistic choices are not merely stylistic; they also determine how audiences interpret events and understand what is politically at stake.

Studies of Spanish and Portuguese media have shown, for example, how journalists labelled far-right parties such as VOX and Chega as simply “conservative”, rarely acknowledging their ideological roots in racial nationalism.

In Germany, reporting on the misogynist incel movement has frequently reduced gendered violence to a matter of individual pathology instead of linking it to broader ideological networks of the far right.

In Australia, the mainstream media often treats racialised fears about demographic “threats” as legitimate national concerns.

For example, some commentary has suggested immigration will hurt “Australia’s way of life” or “provoke more internal hostility”. This is frequently framed as a neutral worry about the country’s future.

Yet, this framing overlooks how such claims draw on historical, settler-colonial logic that has cast both First Nations peoples and non-white migrants as populations to be controlled or contained.

When spectacle replaces substance

Sensationalist media coverage of far-right groups can also ensure their views are amplified. And far-right actors have long understood how to manipulate the media by provoking outrage, knowing such acts guarantee attention.

Under commercial pressure, news outlets often take the bait, producing stories that inflate the significance of far-right agitation while neglecting the deeper social and economic conditions that sustain discriminatory politics.

This, in turn, helps to normalise hateful rhetoric.

Research from Loughborough University illustrated this dynamic during the United Kingdom’s 2024 election campaign. Far-right Reform leader Nigel Farage was the third-most-covered political figure, despite his party’s limited electoral prospects. The volume of attention far outweighed his political relevance at the time.

Reform UK was also the only political party to feature in more “good” news than “bad”, the study found.

In this way, visibility achieved through sensationalism can function as a proxy for legitimacy.

False balance and the illusion of neutrality

This emphasis on spectacle over substance is compounded by another long-standing journalistic practice: the performance of balance.

Some media outlets feel compelled to bring balance to stories about those with far-right views by including their denials, justifications or attempts to distract.

In the US, this is the product of decades of industry restructuring. The Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 was formative in this transformation. Not only did it create a path for explicitly partisan media outlets to emerge, it also encouraged mainstream organisations to perform neutrality through superficial “both-sides” reporting.

The coverage of the Young Republicans clearly illustrates this. Rather than examining how racism became embedded within party youth networks, some reporting drew parallels with violent text messages sent by a Democratic candidate for attorney-general in Virginia.

Other media outlets quoted White House officials seeking to divert attention to the Democrats in the same way – in the name of balance.

This reduced the Young Republicans scandal to just another partisan talking point, instead of a moment of reckoning.

Rethinking the media’s role

Through these ways of framing stories, media institutions have functioned as active, if often ambivalent, participants in shaping far-right visibility, rather than as passive conduits exploited by opportunistic actors.

What’s necessary – and entirely possible – is coverage that accurately describes far-right ideology for what it is, situates it within historical and social contexts, and resists the privileging of spectacle over substance.

Only by understanding these dynamics can news organisations begin to counter the forces they so often, however unintentionally, help to sustain.

Imogen Richards 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. Euphemisms and false balance: how the media is helping to normalise far-right views – https://theconversation.com/euphemisms-and-false-balance-how-the-media-is-helping-to-normalise-far-right-views-267418

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Zylstra, Research Associate, University of New South Wales, and Adjunct Associate Professor, Curtin University

Every year, government workers around Australia start fires in the bush. The idea behind these prescribed burning programs is that removing dry leaves and branches reduces the chance of bigger, more dangerous fires. Over many decades, prescribed burning has settled into a dogma – an unquestionable good.

This line of thinking dates back to the 1939 Stretton Royal Commission, which followed the catastrophic Black Friday fires. To avoid future devastation, Judge Leonard Stretton called for large-scale prescribed burning to reduce fire fuel.

But Stretton’s crucial main judgement is often omitted from the story. In his judgement, Stretton singled out burning forests to promote pasture as a root cause of Black Friday:

the fire stimulated grass growth; but it encouraged scrub growth far more. Thus was begun the cycle of destruction which cannot be arrested in our day.

If shrubby regrowth is the real problem, why did Stretton call for more prescribed burning? His reasoning: it was too late to change course. Any forest “in a dangerous condition” of dense regrowth had to be cleared or burned.

As our new research on southwestern Australia’s karri and jarrah forests shows, Stretton’s lesser-known comments might hold a solution: burn far less to stop fire-prone regrowth making the next fires worse.

Of bushfire and scrub

For millennia, Australia’s First Nations burned small areas with extraordinary control and precision, sometimes leaving vast landscapes deliberately unburnt. This regime produced a low fire risk landscape of old, open forest, interspersed with a mosaic of areas burnt very frequently.

In comparison, British colonisers used large-scale fires to clear leaf litter and promote pasture for cattle and sheep.

For instance, after years of setting fires along the lower Snowy River, the seasoned bushman K.C Rogers described how the original forests had been converted into “almost impenetrable peppermint scrubs”.

As an unnamed Gundungurra elder once told journalist Dame Mary Gilmore:

[settlers] lit them and let them run like a child that loved destruction.

In his testimony to the 1939 Royal Commission, the Commonwealth Inspector-General of Forests, Charles Lane Poole, said:

the thickening up of our forests is entirely due to fire and the exclusion of fire will render them less susceptible to fire

What Rogers describes as “scrubs” and Lane Poole as “thickening” are the same thing: dense regrowth of fire-prone shrubs after fire.

Plants can calm a fire or feed it. Vegetation near the ground can easily ignite and even carry fire into the canopy, but vegetation high above the ground works to slow the winds fanning the flames. Burning or logging mature forests can lead to decades of higher fire risk.

Short term gain, long-term pain?

Prescribed burning resets the clock, giving a few short years with an open understorey. But the void is soon filled by flammable fast-growing shrubs.

A dry, dense understorey makes bushfires more severe. The single strongest predictor of forest flammability is the height and density of the shrubby understorey.

The alternative is to stop burning and wait for long-term openness to return naturally, as Lane-Poole suggested. As forests age, taller plants able to calm a fire take light, water and nutrients, outcompeting shorter plants which feed fire. But Stretton judged this too risky, as forests left to recover naturally would “always remain dangerously inflammable”.

Official fire records show recovery time can vary from 21 years in ash forests in the Australian Alps, to 56 years in southwest karri and jarrah forests, to nearly a century in the fire-sensitive Great Western Woodlands running from the Nullarbor to the WA Wheatbelt.

Burning the southwest

Since the 1960s, the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) has used prescribed burns to reduce fuel load in southwestern forests.

“Fuel load” is a concept invented in the United States to describe layers of pine needles on pine forest floors. Our work shows it’s a poor fit for the Australian bush.

Burning off leaf litter in jarrah and karri forests clears the understorey for perhaps a year. Regrowing shrubs then create a dense understorey for about 50 years before opening up again.

In the southwest, large bushfires almost exclusively occur in forests thick with flammable regrowth. Around Sydney and the Blue Mountains, extreme fires are most common in recently burnt areas.

Challenging the norm

In 2022, the key research underpinning the WA conservation department’s burning regime was debunked.

The same year we published findings showing bushfires were occurring in dense shrubby regrowth. Scientists from the state conservation department responded, saying the department’s records contained flawed data and suggested ignoring all the records for old forests, which showed a decline in flammability over time.

But 98.4% of those old forest records were sound, according to their criteria. When we removed only the flawed ones, our findings became stronger.

We also used advanced modelling to understand how fire risk falls in mature forests: over time, low, dry shrubs are replaced by with taller, less-fire prone plants and trees.

Less fire – in a hotter world?

Would it be worth removing the short-term defence of prescribed burning to bring forests back to a less flammable state?

In our new study, we examined whether phasing out prescribed burning could help Australian forests endure climate change. The answer was clear: it’s entirely possible to stop the cycle of fire feeding more fire, and help forests endure new climatic conditions.

Official records show 77% of all areas burned in over 500,000 hectares of forested southwest national parks this century were due to prescribed burns. Of the remaining burned area, 20% burned from escaped prescribed burns and 23% from backburning done under a key efficiency indicator creating incentives for low cost backburns over direct firefighting. American studies show shifting from direct firefighting to backburning can triple the area burnt annually.

If large-scale prescribed burning and incentives to backburn ended, the area burned annually would immediately fall 87%, leaving only fires started by lightning, accident or arson.

But would fuel accumulate and drive uncontrollable fires? In our new research, we tested this common assumption using previously measured historic trends for the area as a whole and found southwest forests easily passed through the most flammable stages and matured into low-fire environments.

Our modelling suggests less area would be burned in the hotter, drier climate of 2100 than it is today if both widespread burning policies were ended.

What should authorities do?

When Stretton called for more prescribed burns, it was to reduce the risk of new conflagrations. But the megafires have continued. The Black Summer fires of 2019–20 were Australia’s worst to date. They happened despite record prescribed burning in national parks in New South Wales.

Humans have a deep-seated desire to intervene in nature. But our research shows long-unburnt forests act to limit fire without human intervention – even as the climate changes.

Moving away from routine burns doesn’t mean being idle. Authorities need to heavily invest in rapid fire detection and attack, better resourcing firefighters, training and employing many more specialist remote area firefighters and exploring fire-fighting drones.

It’s important to note our research focuses on southwestern forests. Many other Australian forests types also become more flammable through burning. But we haven’t yet crunched the numbers to see if it’s possible to age these forests through the shrubby, fire-prone intermediate phase.

Even so, what we’ve found so far is good news. Terrifying bushfires could become smaller and more manageable – if we overcome the drive to burn the bush.

In a response, a WA DBCA spokesperson said:

Prescribed burning is the State’s main risk mitigation strategy for protecting the community and environment from the devastating impacts of large bushfires. Lower fuel loads result in lower intensity and slower spreading bushfires in summer conditions.

[DBCA] research confirms that prescribed burning is effective in reducing the frequency, severity and size of bushfires in south west forests when at least 45 per cent of the landscape has a fuel age of less than six years since last burnt.

Removing fire from fire-prone ecosystems often leads to high severity fires, as seen in a range of significant bushfires that have occurred in Australia and overseas. Claims that forest flammability declines with age rest on data that remain inadequate. Following these recommendations would be unwise as it would likely lead to substantially increased bushfire risk and impact for many decades.

Philip Zylstra has previously received funding from the NSW Government, the Koorabup Trust, the Wettenhall Foundation, and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Leeuwin Group of Scientists.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government, the NSW Government, and the Victorian Government.

David Lindenmayer is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the American Academy of Sciences, the Ecological Society of America, and the Royal Zoological Society of NSW.

– ref. In 1939, a Royal Commission found burning forests leads to more bushfires. But this cycle of destruction can be stopped – https://theconversation.com/in-1939-a-royal-commission-found-burning-forests-leads-to-more-bushfires-but-this-cycle-of-destruction-can-be-stopped-269099

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kidson, Associate Professor in Educational Leadership, Australian Catholic University

Last week, police confirmed four students at Victorian boarding school Ballarat Grammar had been cautioned over a series of “strappings” of younger students. This followed other allegations of hazings and abuse at the school, which emerged earlier this year. Some of these dated back decades.

Last month, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority took the extraordinary step of stopping Ballarat Grammar from enrolling future students into its boarding community because of ongoing concerns about student welfare and safety.

These responses have cast a spotlight on the place and culture of boarding schools in Australia, less than a decade on from the royal commission into child sex abuse in institutions.

How can boarding schools keep students safe? And why do why do they still exist?

How do boarding schools provide safe environments?

When students board, they are sleeping, eating and socialising at school around the clock. This means extra safeguards are needed, such as safe and age appropriate supervision of students overnight (often via staff on site and secure and alarmed accommodation), regular social activities, and facilitating healthy and timely connection with families and the wider community.

There are also a range of formal expectations boarding schools must meet, particularly around keeping children safe and happy.

State regulators expect boarding schools to “ensure the safety and welfare of boarders” and proactively manage “anti-bullying and harassment”, including cyber-bullying.

The Australian Boarding Schools Association also has its own boarding standard, endorsed by Standards Australia, which requires boarding schools to keep students safe, and ensure staff are well trained and managed.

These reflect the national principles for child safe organisations, developed in response to the child sex abuse royal commission.
The standard includes:

• a trained person be accessible at all times who can administer and manage CPR, allergic reactions, diabetes and epilepsy

• regular reviews of critical incidents and injuries

• working with children clearances for all personnel

• programs promoting social responsibility among students.

Is more needed?

As the Productivity Commission has noted, schools are already burdened with multiple layers of existing bureaucracy, and there’s clearly no shortage of requirements, policy and processes in place for boarding schools.

What’s unclear is why some schools are still not meeting them.

Research shows when schools do not actively promote empathy among students, it can make bullying worse.

Research also suggests schools should run anti-bullying programs among students who board, both before and after they start at the school. A study involving Indigenous students also shows programs teaching social and emotional skills can boost students’ capacities to seek and give help, and to manage conflict.

Why does Australia have boarding schools?

There are almost 21,000 students who board in Australia.

There are more than 200 boarding schools in all states and territories. This is just over 2% of the nearly 10,000 schools spread across the nation. Of these, most are co-educational (117), nearly a quarter are only for girls (50). The smallest proportion are only for boys (35).

Many began in the 19th century in response to the growth of settled and farming communities increasingly distant from major cities. While most have some religious foundation, there are some government boarding schools.

They vary significantly in size. At St Joseph’s College in Sydney, around half of its 1,100 students board. Down the road at Wenona, only 50 of the more than 1,300 students are boarders. Some schools offer weekly boarding.

Do boarding schools help students?

Typically, families will send a child to boarding school to access schooling that is not available close to home. Some will also do so because of long-standing family connection or religious association.

When we compare day students and boarding students at the same schools research suggests there is little difference in terms of their motivation and overall achievement. That is, there is no significant “advantage” to boarding. But this does not consider how many boarders come from rural and remote locations who do not have the same sorts of opportunities as metropolitan-based students, such as facilities, programs and specialist teachers.

Students who board have noticeably better school achievement outcomes, when compared to students who continue to attend schools in rural communities.

Research shows boarding schools can be positive for Indigenous students in particular in terms of their wellbeing and health outcomes. There is also some evidence boarding schools help build academic motivation for Indigenous students.

But boarding schools are are only successful in these respects if they have cultures and systems to support students into the school. This can include mentors, help with scholarship processes, and facilitating ongoing connection with kin and Country.

So boarding schools form part of the diverse landscape of Australian schools. When run well, they give young people learning opportunities they would not have at home.

There is no shortage of standards to ensure these environments are safe – but we need positive and caring cultures to make sure schools are meeting them.

Paul Kidson was an executive teacher and assistant head of a boarding house at Ballarat Grammar School between 2003-2004.

– ref. What makes a healthy and safe boarding school culture? – https://theconversation.com/what-makes-a-healthy-and-safe-boarding-school-culture-270973

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Courtney Addison, Senior Lecturer, School of Science in Society, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Conservationists have long anticipated the recent announcement that the national effort to eradicate possums, stoats and rats will now include feral cats.

But the government’s decision steers New Zealand’s Predator Free 2050 mission into potentially fractious territory.

It suggests conservation messaging has effectively recast wild-living cats as predators. In doing so, they become the kind of problem that can be solved through the conventional logic of pest control.

The new policy rests on a crucial distinction between feral cats and others, and hinges on their degree of human attachment. A feral cat has no human relationships, while domestic and stray cats have greater involvement in human worlds.

Legally, feral cats are already classified as pests and research suggests this designation is broadly accepted. But as one pest control operator recently told me, even a pet cat in a cage looks and acts feral if it is trapped and afraid.

Conversely, stray and feral cats are often re-homed and made into loving companions. Indeed, cats show remarkable behavioural flexibility – a reminder that deterministic assumptions about species can be risky.

Making feral cats a target species also reflects culture change in real time. There is nothing “natural” about which animals we choose to kill and which we choose to protect.

Although some species’ deaths are widely normalised – think of the few animals we kill in their millions for food – that sense of normality is shaped by deliberate efforts to frame certain animals in particular ways.

As several commentators have noted, the idea of eradicating cats caused public dismay only a decade ago. Today, it is not only thinkable, but doable.

How cats became Predator Free’s next target

The culture shift is likely due to several things, possibly including a growing confidence in the Predator Free mission, careful coalition building by the National Cat Management Group, and a wave of research into cats’ ecological impacts.

We have also heard sustained and strategic messaging from Predator Free that describes cats as “among the most devastating predators in Aotearoa”.

But feline flexibility – cats’ ability to be both a smoochy pet and a stealthy killer, potentially both over the course of a lifetime or even a day – might also be cause for caution.

At a recent Predator Free hui, for instance, one volunteer asked for tips on what to do with a trapped cat. The cautionary response was that the cat might be shot or possibly bludgeoned. (The Animal Welfare Act prohibits drowning because of its cruelty.)

This is quite different from the trapping methods mainly used now, and from the kinds of lethal actions volunteer trappers normally carry out.

Current guidelines say kill traps should only be used in very remote areas; everywhere else, live-capture cage traps are the only option. The result, as you’d expect, is a live, enclosed cat.

Kill traps that meet National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee standards are a kind of “moral delegate”. They remove some of the ethical complexity from the act of killing and make the job more straightforward.

Killing live-trapped cats could instead invite a degree of moral reflection –perhaps even prompt a wider conversation about animal welfare.

Predator Free 2050’s 2020 strategy made no mention of animal welfare, beyond citing the Animal Welfare Act. And its latest research strategy is similarly focused elsewhere.

But the addition of feral cats to the official predator list is an opportunity to engage with these difficult questions. Should anyone be able to kill a trapped cat? What standards and protocols might be necessary?

The cultural catch with cats

It’s easy to see why welfare has not been front and centre of pest control conversations to date.

Until now, the Predator Free 2050 target species have been firm cultural outcasts, regarded as an ecological problem and laden with unfavourable symbolic associations. Cats, even feral ones, are a different beast.

Rather than being associated with viciousness, dirtiness and overpopulation like many other pests, cats are more commonly associated with companionship and cuteness.

Even their hunting skills have historically been a source of value and appreciation, as testified by the use of cats as “ratters” in workplaces, homes and ships.

Although only feral cats fall under the Predator Free remit, their domestic counterparts are already part of the conversation as well.

For example, the multi-stakeholder National Cat Management Group is proposing a National Cat Management Act as part of a broader, welfare-oriented cat strategy that encompasses feral, stray and companion animals.

This too raises questions about what kinds of social creatures we think cats are, or want them to be. Should they become family members who stay in the home? Or do people want cities and neighbourhoods where they encounter cats as well as birds in public spaces?

And what about us? What kind of “cat people” are we?

Courtney Addison is currently funded through the Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Marsden Fast Start fund.

– ref. NZ is taking aim at feral cats. Are we ready for the ethical and practical implications? – https://theconversation.com/nz-is-taking-aim-at-feral-cats-are-we-ready-for-the-ethical-and-practical-implications-270885

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Bond University

From causing a major phone outage to shutting down street lights across parks, suburbs and roads, copper theft has become a clear public safety risk.

Last week, Optus said a phone and mobile data outage that affected more than 14,000 people across south-east Melbourne was triggered by thieves trying to steal copper – and accidentally cutting the wrong cable.

Across the border, last month the South Australia government introduced a bill to crack down on scrap metal theft, particularly copper. That followed more than 2,000 scrap metal thefts from building sites in 2023-24, costing an estimated A$70 million a year – just in one state.

But why are people stealing copper? And what’s being done to stop it?

Why copper is so attractive to thieves

Copper theft has become a multi-billion problem worldwide. In Australia, thieves have recently gone as far as stealing copper memorial plaques from cemeteries.

Back in 2011, an Australian Institute of Criminology tipsheet described scrap metal theft as

a lucrative and attractive venture for thieves and a significant issue for the construction industry.

Scrap metal theft covers a range of metals including copper, steel, lead and aluminium. For instance, catalytic converters are sometimes stolen from cars so criminals can access the palladium, rhodium and platinum in them.

Overseas, a 2024 report found metal theft was costing the United Kingdom’s economy around £480 million (A$970 million) a year.

Scrap metals are among the world’s most recycled materials because of their wide availability. They can be sold to a scrap metal dealer, who then arranges for the metal to be melted and moulded for different uses.

Copper can be recycled again and again, without degrading in the process.

How rising copper prices can drive up thefts

A 2022 systematic review of how changing prices affect the rates of theft for different goods found a 1% increase in the price of a metal can be associated with a 1.2% increase in its theft.

Other past research has also shown that link. For instance, a 2014 UK study showed changes in the price of copper led to more recorded thefts of copper cable from British railways between 2006 and 2012.

The price of copper crashed in 2017 due to factors including a Chinese ban on scrap copper imports. But it has been rising again over the last five years, making it a more attractive target for criminals looking for a quick profit.

Australia’s patchwork response to costly thefts

Police have different powers in different states to tackle copper theft. And this lack of national coordination is part of the problem, as a 2023 Queensland inquiry found.

New South Wales first introduced a Scrap Metal Industry Act in 2016 to target its “largely unregulated and undocumented” scrap metal trade, which it said was “extremely attractive to criminals as a way to make some quick cash”. NSW also tightened its rules and penalties last year.

Victorian scrap metal businesses must also be registered, though under different rules. As in NSW, they’re banned from paying or receiving cash for scrap metal.

Last month, South Australia passed its Scrap Metal Dealers Bill, though it’s yet to come into force. It will give new powers to authorised officers to search, seize and remove evidence – aiming to make it harder to trade in stolen scrap metal.

In Queensland, during the 2024 election campaign, the Liberal National leader (now premier) David Crisafulli promised a legislative crackdown on metal theft.

That’s yet to happen. But the LNP government told the ABC last month it was “committed to cracking down on metal theft and is progressing that work”.

Copper theft has been costing Queensland’s state-owned electricity distribution operators about $4.5 million every year – prompting them to replace thousands of kilometres in underground and overhead copper cabling across southeast Queensland with less valuable aluminium.

A 2023 Queensland parliamentary committee inquiry into scrap metal theft heard that about 200 to 250 scrap metal and car wrecker businesses in Queensland had been operating illegally for years.

The inquiry concluded:

a coordinated approach by all Australian jurisdictions is the best method for combating scrap metal theft. For example, we have heard that stolen goods may be transported and sold interstate. Additionally, we have heard from industry stakeholders that stolen goods are being exported in shipping containers to international destinations where regulations are less prohibitive than in Australia.

Until we get a more coordinated approach, we can all play a role in stopping public thefts of scrap metal, particularly copper.

If you see someone acting suspiciously near electricity infrastructure or a building site, you can report it to police in your state or territory by calling 131 444.

Before joining Bond University, Dr Terry Goldsworthy served with the Queensland Police for 28 years, up to Detective Inspector, from 1985–2013.

– ref. Copper theft is hitting building sites, street lights – and now phones. How do we stop it? – https://theconversation.com/copper-theft-is-hitting-building-sites-street-lights-and-now-phones-how-do-we-stop-it-270781