Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin University

As Israel’s devastating war in Gaza has ground on, the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was thought to be “dead”. Now, it is showing signs of life again.

French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly pressing other European nations to jointly recognise a Palestinian state at a UN conference in mid-June, focused on achieving a two-state solution. Macron called such recognition a “political necessity”.

Countries outside Europe are feeling the pressure, too. Australia has reaffirmed its view that recognition of Palestine should be a “way of building momentum towards a two-state solution”.

During Macron’s visit to Indonesia in late May, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto made a surprising pledge to recognise Israel if it allowed for a Palestinian state.

Indonesia is one of about 28 nations that don’t currently recognise Israel. France, Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and South Korea are among the approximately 46 nations that don’t recognise a Palestinian state.

The UN conference on June 17–20, co-sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia, wants to go “beyond reaffirming principles” and “achieve concrete results” towards a two-state solution.

Most countries, including the US, have supported the two-state solution in principle for decades. However, the political will from all parties has faded in recent years.

So, why is the policy gaining traction again now? And does it have a greater chance of success?

What is the two-state solution?

Put simply, the two-state solution is a proposed peace plan that would create a sovereign Palestinian state alongside the Israeli state. There have been several failed attempts to enact the policy over recent decades, the most famous of which was the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s.

In recent years, the two-state solution was looking less likely by the day.

The Trump administration’s decision in 2017 to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy there signalled the US was moving away from its role as mediator. Then, several Arab states agreed to normalise relations with Israel in the the Abraham Accords, without Israeli promises to move towards a two-state solution.

The Hamas attacks on Israel – and subsequent Israeli war on Gaza – have had a somewhat contradictory effect on the overarching debate.

On the one hand, the brutality of Hamas’ actions substantially set back the legitimacy of the Palestinian self-determination movement in some quarters on the world stage.

On the other, it’s also become clear the status quo – the continued Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank following the end of a brutal war – is not tenable for either Israeli security or Palestinian human rights.

And the breakdown of the most recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the return of heavy Israeli ground operations in May and reports of mass Palestinian starvation have only served to further isolate the Israeli government in the eyes of its peers.

Once-steadfast supporters of Israel’s actions have become increasingly frustrated by a lack of clear strategic goals in Gaza. And many now seem prepared to ignore Israeli wishes and pursue Palestinian recognition.

For these governments, the hope is recognition of a Palestinian state would rebuild political will – both globally and in the Middle East – towards a two-state solution.

Huge obstacles remain

But how likely is this in reality? There is certainly more political will than there was before, but also several important roadblocks.

First and foremost is the war in Gaza. It’s obvious this will need to end, with both sides agreeing to an enduring ceasefire.

Beyond that, the political authority in both Gaza and Israel remains an issue.

The countries now considering Palestinian recognition, such France and Australia, have expressly said Hamas cannot play any role in governing a future Palestinian state.

Though anti-Hamas sentiment is becoming more vocal among residents in Gaza, Hamas has been violently cracking down on this dissent and is attempting to consolidate its power.

However, polling shows the popularity of Fatah – the party leading the Palestinian National Authority – is even lower than Hamas at an average of 21%. Less than half of Gazans support the enclave returning to Palestinian Authority control. This means a future Palestinian state would likely require new leadership.

There is almost no political will in Israel for a two-state solution, either. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not been shy about his opposition to a Palestinian state. His cabinet members have mostly been on the same page.

This has also been reflected in policy action. In early May, the Israeli Security Cabinet approved a plan for Israel to indefinitely occupy parts of Gaza. The government also just approved its largest expansion of settlements in the West Bank in decades.

These settlements remain a major problem for a two-state solution. The total population of Israeli settlers is more than 700,000 in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank. And it’s been increasing at a faster rate since the election of the right-wing, pro-settler Netanyahu government in 2022.

Settlement is enshrined in Israeli Basic Law, with the state defining it as “national value” and actively encouraging its “establishment and consolidation”.

The more settlement that occurs, the more complicated the boundaries of a future Palestinian state become.

Then there’s the problem of public support. Recent polling shows neither Israelis nor Palestinians view the two-state solution favourably. Just 40% of Palestinians support it, while only 26% of Israelis believe a Palestinian state can “coexist peacefully” alongside Israel.

However, none of these challenges makes the policy impossible. The unpopularity of the two-state solution locally is more a reflection of previous failures than it is of future negotiations.

A power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland was similarly unpopular in the 1990s, but peace was achieved through bold political leadership involving the US and European Union.

In other words, we won’t know what’s possible until negotiations begin. Red lines will need to be drawn and compromises made.

It’s not clear what effect growing external pressure will have, but the international community does appear to be reaching a political tipping point on the two-state solution. Momentum could start building again.

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

– ref. A two-state solution is gaining momentum again. Does it have a chance of success? – https://theconversation.com/a-two-state-solution-is-gaining-momentum-again-does-it-have-a-chance-of-success-257890

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney

Many bold claims have been made about Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and its capacity to improve productivity and generate workplace efficiencies.

A recent Microsoft survey found 24% of private sector leaders have already deployed GenAI across their organisations. Many are considering laying off staff and replacing them with GenAI systems.

But how much appetite does the public sector have for using artificial intelligence, which doesn’t come without risks?

Our new research explores attitudes in Australian bureaucracy to using GenAI in policy work. Given governments are expected to work in ethical, transparent and responsible ways, we wondered if public servants are more wary of adopting this technology.

No single view

We asked senior bureaucrats from 22 state, territory and federal government agencies about their views on GenAI. We focused on what this might mean for the future of decision-making, policy development and public services.

They expressed a range of views on the transformative potential of GenAI. Some were enthusiasts who saw the potential to conduct government work faster and more reliably.

One interviewee remarked:

Why improve the candle when you could use a light bulb?

Others were less enthusiastic, arguing the technology is overhyped. Critically, they see GenAI as fundamentally inappropriate for use in public policy work and inherently risky on several fronts. These include:

• the tendency for AI to hallucinate, where tools see patterns in data that do not exist in reality, making outputs inaccurate or wrong

• the risk of biases in existing datasets, such as the underrepresentation of some groups or people

• the sensitive nature of government data that might be compromised by AI programs.

Regardless of their specific views on GenAI, public servants consistently told us two things.

First, they do not believe artificial intelligence will replace workers. Instead, they are confident these tools will augment their work by freeing them from routine and repetitive tasks. This would allow them to focus on high-value tasks, such as engaging with the public.

Second, the current use of GenAI is largely focused on administration tasks that do not draw on sensitive client data or interact directly with the public.

Robodebt hangover

One of the consequences of the Robodebt scheme is the pace and scale of the adoption of automated tools.

Many interviewees explained public sector organisations are still very cautious about using GenAI technology as a result of the scandal.

One interviewee told us the majority of the problems with Robodebt were at a human level, which highlights the importance of individuals

taking their duties, both professionally and ethically, seriously, and interrogating what they get out of AI systems.

Close attention is also being given to the influence of human decision-making in the development of machines that use GenAI.

Incremental change

Our research suggests public service agencies are largely taking a careful and measured approach to applying GenAI in policy work. Senior public servants perceive the public is wary of how governments use these tools. Rebuilding credibility in relation to technology oversight and implementation is imperative.

Public servants described most of their use of GenAI as purposeful experiments. Clear outcomes are set for the use of these tools and evaluation processes are in place to monitor whether they achieve them.

This is seen as important because public sector organisations need to know whether these tools do what they promise – deliver value for money and help guard against any unforeseen risks.

Unauthorised use

Some recent scandals show how GenAI tools can be risky when misused. In response, some public service agencies have banned freely available GenAI models such as ChatGPT and only allow access to officially authorised programs such as Copilot.

But this does not mean public servants are not using the technology.

Several interviewees told us they were aware of colleagues using unauthorised programs to enhance their productivity. Personal devices are often engaged to bypass system restrictions. Concerns were expressed public servants might not be receiving guidance on how to use these tools carefully and safely.

New reality

GenAI technology is being asked to perform tasks that require human intelligence and to do these tasks more quickly. However, our findings point to a strong need to align these tools with Australian government values that frame expectations for responsible use of GenAI.

The public service faces a dilemma. Is this an opportunity for innovation in government policy work by tapping into the potential transformative impact of GenAI programs, as promised in other sectors? Or, is a more cautious approach needed to generate trust, both in the technology, and in public sector organisations to use them appropriately?

Elon Musk’s recent work in the Trump administration may suggest the latter. The experience highlighted the significant consequences of tech industry influence and the use of AI tools under the remit of maximising government efficiency.

The Australian public has high expectations of government to solve problems such as the housing crisis and cost-of-living pressures. A combination of machine and human intelligence may offer the power needed to tackle these complex economic and social issues. However, not all agencies have yet decided to flip the switch.

Our research highlights the mix of views among senior public servants towards GenAI. Whether it transforms the public service or simply speeds up business as usual will depend not on the technology itself but on how boldly, carefully, and transparently governments choose to use it.

Helen Dickinson receives funding from Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund and Australian Government.

Dr Jade Hart receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Kathryn Henne receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council and Google Academic Research Awards program.

Vanessa McDermott 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. Senior public servants think GenAI will boost productivity – but are worried about the risks – https://theconversation.com/senior-public-servants-think-genai-will-boost-productivity-but-are-worried-about-the-risks-256566

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Rosenberg, Associate Professor, Health Research Institute, University of Canberra, and Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

On ABC’s 4 Corners this week, psychiatrists and nurses have warned New South Wales’ mental health system is in crisis. They report some patients with severe mental distress are waiting two to three days in emergency departments for care.

The program highlighted chronic failures in NSW’s mental health system, but the shortfalls are being felt across the nation.

Just over 7% of the nation’s health budget is spent on mental health. But together with alcohol and drug issues, mental health accounts for around 15% of the nation’s burden of disease.

Problems in mental health go beyond under-funding: it’s also about how the resources we do have are spent.

So how did we get here? And what can we do to fix it?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this

Back in the 1980s, psychiatric deinstitutionalisation promised to replace treatment provided in the old psychiatric institutions with mental health services and care in the community. Too often, these institutions failed to promote recovery, and delivered improper care and even abuse.

Many of these institutions were indeed closed. But the shift in mental health care over the past 40 years has not been from asylums to the community, but rather to the mental health wards of Australia’s general public hospitals and the emergency departments (EDs) which operate in them.

Hospitals are expensive and often traumatic places to provide mental health care. We know this from frequent statutory inquiries and reports.

For presentations to EDs, all the indicators are heading in the wrong direction. More people are seeking care for their mental health in EDs, they are arriving sicker (according to their triage category) and they wait longer for care.

Hospitals account for more than 80% of total state and territory spending on mental health. In 2022–23, A$6.5 billion of the states and territories’ total spend of $8bn on mental health was directed towards hospital-based care. Just $1bn was provided outside hospitals.

Evidence indicates community-based care can reduce reliance on EDs for mental health care.

Yet community mental health services now often comprise little more than a phone call to check if a client is taking their medication. Of the 9.4 million community mental health service contacts in 2022–3, 4 million lasted less than 15 minutes.

Mental health clinical staff spend just 20% of their time with consumers.

What are the solutions?

The solutions are already at hand, but haven’t been pursued or scaled up. These include:

• multidisciplinary models such as assertive community treatments, which provide mixed specialist clinical and psychosocial support in the community, in people’s homes

• service models the Australian College of Emergency Medicine have proposed as alternatives to hospital ED care. These include safe havens, mental health nurse liaison services and dedicated homelessness teams. These services can provide the care required to divert patients away from hectic emergency departments, in calmer, more therapeutic spaces

• NSW programs such as the Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative provide community based, clinical and psychosocial support to people with severe mental health needs. This program reduced admissions due to mental health by 74% over two years

• Adelaide’s Urgent Mental Health Care Centre, which operates as an alternative to EDs and is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This clinic was designed in collaboration with the community, including people with a lived experience of a mental health crisis, and offers a welcoming, safe environment

• Step-Up Step-Down services, which can effectively meet the needs of some of “the missing middle”. These are people whose mental health needs are too complex for primary care but not assessed as a big enough risk to themselves or others to “qualify” for hospital admission.

Funding support for psychosocial services remains tiny. It accounts for about 6% of total spending on mental health care by states and territories.

As a result, almost half a million Australians with either severe or moderate mental health needs are currently unable to access necessary psychosocial care. This impacts their recovery.

It also leaves clinical services without a viable “psychosocial partner”. So people needing mental health care might be able to get a prescription, but are much less likely to receive assistance with unstable housing, employment support or help getting back to school.

Working together

There is already concern to address identified workforce shortages and psychiatrists’ pay disputes.

The next round of mental health planning must also discuss and clarify the complementary roles in mental health care, as people with more complex mental health needs typically benefit from multidisciplinary, team-based care. This includes psychiatrists, psychologists, allied health professionals, nurses, peer workers, social service providers, GPs, justice, school and housing services and others such as drug and alcohol services. Who is best placed to plan and coordinate this care?

Reducing our over-reliance on hospital-based mental health care and EDs needs agreement by all Australian governments to explicitly prioritise the principles of early intervention, community-based mental health care and hospital avoidance in mental health.

These steps, together with more personalised approaches to treatment and better accountability, will help us achieve systemic quality improvement in mental health care.

Read more:
Police aren’t properly trained for mental health crises – but they’re often the first responders. Here’s what works better

Sebastian Rosenberg 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. People with severe mental illness are waiting for days in hospital EDs. Here’s how we can do better – https://theconversation.com/people-with-severe-mental-illness-are-waiting-for-days-in-hospital-eds-heres-how-we-can-do-better-257971

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marilyn Campbell, Professor, School of Early Childhood & Inclusive Education, Queensland University of Technology

The federal government has launched a “rapid review” to look at what works to prevent bullying in schools.

Led by mental health experts, the review will underpin a new national standard to respond to bullying. This follows the death of a young Sydney school student last year.

It also comes as the Queensland government rolls out a A$33 million anti-bullying plan in the state’s schools.

As schools, parents and governments look at what more can be done to prevent bullying, we have to ask why children bully other kids.

If we understand the motives, we can help these children change their behaviour – and achieve their goals or have their needs met in other ways.

Read more:
What can you do if your child is being bullied?

What lies behind bullying?

Research tells us children broadly bully for social reasons. For example, a 2022 study showed children can bully to gain social status among peers – to be seen as powerful, tough or cool. Or they can bully to maintain status as part of an in-group. Perhaps another child is seen as a “threat” to that status.

Children can also bully for revenge for perceived insults. Or for entertainment – making a joke at another student’s expense.

Research shows motivations can also differ depending on the type of bullying. For example, face-to-face bullying seems to involve more children who bully for social dominance, while those who cyberbully do it more for entertainment and “fun”.

In a 2014 study, Marilyn Campbell and colleagues asked different groups about their perceptions of why young people engaged in cyber-bullying. Parents said children did it out of revenge for being bullied themselves, teachers said students did it for fun, and students thought others cyber-bullied because of peer pressure.

This highlights how complex understanding children’s motives can be.

Read more:
Why do kids bully? And what can parents do about it?

Children may not bully for long

We should be careful about thinking of all students who bully as long-term “bullies”.

Most children who bully try the behaviour and stop when it does not get them what they want, just as many children who are victimised are not bullied for long.

Though of course, even being bullied for a short time can still be damaging and traumatic for the student on the receiving end.

This could suggest there is a developmental phase in bullying as most bullying occurs between children in Year 6 through to Year 10.

However, there are those students who persistently bully others and these are the students whose behaviour remains a problem despite interventions and prevention approaches.

Who is more likely to bully?

There are certain personality types who are more likely to persistently bully others. These include:

• students with defensive personalities. This means they think very highly of themselves and actively seek attention but can’t take criticism

• students with narcissistic personalities, who are likely to become aggressive when their egos are threatened

• students who are emotionally unstable.

But research is mixed on the question of self-esteem. Some researchers say children who bully have high self-esteem, yet others have found they have low self-esteem.

There are many reasons why a child might develop the personality traits that would lead them to bully.

Physical abuse in childhood can play a role. There is an association between a child being exposed to domestic violence at home and then bullying their peers.

Parenting can also be a factor. For example, being overvalued but not well disciplined by parents can lead to higher traits of narcissism and a greater likelihood a child will bully.

What can we do?

Children who persistently bully may require targeted and nuanced approaches. Current approaches emphasise restoring positive relationships, rather than punishments or sanctions.

One approach is individual motivational interviewing. Here a school counsellor shows young people they can achieve their goals by other means. This encourages perpetrators to see there are more benefits in not bullying than in bullying. For example, “I want to be popular. But if I bully, I also make other kids scared of me and not want to hang around me.”

More broadly, schools can also teach explicit programs on social and emotional learning.

Read more:
Schools today also teach social and emotional skills. Why is this important? And what’s involved?

These programs focus on emotional intelligence and emotional literacy, enabling students to recognise and manage their emotions, understand the perspectives of others and have positive relationships with peers.

Schools which respect the diversity of students, are also better placed to address bullying. If all students have opportunities to participate in learning, it will develop their sense of belonging to their school community. This not only decreases rates of bullying but supports students who have been victimised.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Marilyn Campbell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and other government grants. .

Shannon O’Brien 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. With a government review underway, we have to ask why children bully other kids – https://theconversation.com/with-a-government-review-underway-we-have-to-ask-why-children-bully-other-kids-257643

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Draper, Professor, and Executive Director: Institute for International Trade, and Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Trade and Environment, University of Adelaide

While the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again trade wars wreak havoc on the business plans of the world’s exporters, the risks to the global economy continue to grow.

The self-inflicted scale of disruption to global trade patterns is enormous. Yet there are echoes with the United Kingdom’s experience of Brexit, both for the United States economy now and its trading partners worried about their trading futures.

Fortunately, while it is painful, Trump’s push toward economic isolationism brings opportunities for other trading nations to strengthen their ties.

This is especially the case in our Indo-Pacific region, where Australia is looking to new trade partners and deepening existing ties.

The economic consequences of Brexit

The UK economy is relatively diminished since 2016, when David Cameron, as Prime Minister, called the Brexit referendum on whether to leave the European Union.

A study of UK businesses found three key impacts in the three years before formal Brexit took place in 2020:

1. the UK’s decision to leave the European Union generated major, sustained, uncertainty for the business community. Since business invests and trades, that was highly consequential
2. anticipation of Brexit gradually reduced investment by about 11% between 2016 and 2019
3. Brexit reduced UK productivity by between 2% and 5%.

A new report establishes that since 2020, when formal Brexit took place, the UK is experiencing its worst trade slump in a generation. This decline contrasts with growing trade in other industrial nations, indicating the COVID pandemic was not to blame.

Harsh lessons in bargaining power

The EU did not change to suit the UK. Rather, because of the EU’s influential role in regulation known as the “Brussels effect”, the UK must realign with EU standards to win back market access.

For decades, the UK had ceded its trade bargaining capacity to Brussels. It was always on the back foot as its inexperienced negotiators locked horns with seasoned EU trade diplomats.

The British also learned that outside the EU, their relative trade bargaining power, as well as foreign policy prestige, was much diminished. Many countries focused on dealing with the EU without the UK’s involvement.

Overall, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Brexit hastened the UK’s inexorable transformation from “Great” to “Little” Britain.

MAGA echoes

The Brexiteers were motivated by free trade and the belief EU trade policies prevented the UK from more liberalisation.

Trump’s decision to disentangle the US from world trade is motivated by protectionist desires, in the mistaken belief blocking imports will “Make America Great Again”.

Like the Brexiteers, Trump will find business confidence will diminish and the US economy will be worse off. Data this week showed US manufacturing contracted for the third straight month in May amid tariff-induced supply chain delays.

Just like the UK, US economic decline relative to its trading partners will accelerate.

Obviously, a huge difference between British folly and US hubris is that the US has market and geopolitical power in most of its bilateral negotiations, whereas the UK did not.

Yet, whereas the Trump administration assumes the US is the more powerful party in all reciprocal tariff negotiations, it is now learning that some major trading powers (China, the EU, India), and even some middle powers (Canada, Mexico, Australia), will not simply roll over when faced with overt coercion.

Moreover, as Great Britain learned to its cost, the US will find its soft power rapidly diminishing, and foreign policy objectives more difficult to attain. US allies, while in some cases in need of weaning themselves from over-dependence on the US military umbrella, are now actively hedging their security bets.

What should trading partners do?

There is an opening for Australia to seize the moment with new trade partnerships, and by deepening existing relationships.

We have a golden opportunity in our chairmanship of the 12-nation Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership group this year.

This high-standards, deeply liberalising, trade agreement is a gold standard template to anchor our global trading partnerships. Members include Canada, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and the UK and representatives will be meeting in Brisbane next week.

Specifically, Australia, our trans-Pacific partners and the EU need to agree to work collaboratively to converge on modern trade rules and support for free trade. Then take those accords into the World Trade Organization to strengthen and revitalise the institution, with or without the US.

In addition, we need to quickly conclude both the stalled bilateral free-trade agreement with the EU, and the second phase of our trade agreement with India. This would cement two huge new markets of sufficient existing (EU) and potential (India) scale to rival both the US and Chinese markets.

Finally, we need to double down on our existing trade partnerships with Southeast Asian countries, anchoring on the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This will bolster ASEAN-centrality in regional trade arrangements and balance both US withdrawal and China’s advance into the region.

While this will not be easy, the effort has to be made and needs to start now.

Peter Draper 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. In the trade wars, there are lessons for the US from Brexit. Australia and our trading partners should take note – https://theconversation.com/in-the-trade-wars-there-are-lessons-for-the-us-from-brexit-australia-and-our-trading-partners-should-take-note-257555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Camp, Senior Lecturer, School of Music, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

A few snippets of musicalised dialogue from the cast album of the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her – with music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey, and a book by Marco Pennette – have recently become trending sonic memes on TikTok.

In all sorts of situations, users are lip synching to audio clips of Broadway star Jennifer Simard, in the character of Helen Sharp (played by Goldie Hawn in the 1992 cult film on which the musical is based), saying things like “That was rude. That was pretty fuckin’ rude” and “She stole my life. She made me cuckoo. She’s why I spent four years locked in that health spa.”

Musical theatre fans love a good meme (scholar Trevor Boffone has written a whole book about the phenomenon) and Death Becomes Her is primed to create a lot of them: a show featuring two divas (played by Simard and Megan Hilty as Madeleine Ashton, Meryl Streep’s role in the movie) based on a cult film about divas begs to be shaped and reshaped by fan culture.

Helen and Madeleine are longtime rivals who both take a magic potion that makes them immortal. This leads them to find increasingly extravagant ways to try and do away with each other, with the help of Helen’s put-upon husband Ernest (Christopher Sieber), a plastic surgeon who reluctantly falls into the role of restoring their bodies after each “accident”.

Some of Hilty’s clips have also been TikTok-ified (notably Tell Me, Earnest) but Simard is winning the numbers game. Her “That was rude” clip alone has 321,000 videos and counting.

Finding the patter

There seem to be two main reasons for the attraction of these clips. First is Simard’s delivery of the words. Simard is a longstanding Broadway star and an expert at musical comedy timing.

Second is the rhythmic quality of the dialogue. Not fully sung, these bits are spoken in mostly strict rhythm over orchestral accompaniment. That they have become such earworms demonstrates it is not only melody that burrows into the brain, but also rhythmic contour.

There is a long history of this style of speak-singing in musical theatre, notably popularised in the late 1950s by Robert Preston in The Music Man and Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.

Neither of those actors was a strong singer, but both had excellent timing and were able to deliver spoken lines above music with a strong sense of musicality.

Simard is an excellent singer with a very wide range, but the comic role of Helen – ever the underdog to her rival famous actress Madeleine – lends itself to this style of heightened speech.

Most effective rhythmically, and the most popular excerpt, is the “That was rude” meme, where Simard begins slowly without accompaniment; the bass comes in on “rude” and sets a groove for the rest of the short excerpt.

This one has been used in every possible situation, from responses to nasty notes left on people’s cars to complaints about incorrect drink orders. Some of the TikTokers refer to Simard in on-screen text, but this one seems to have become popular outside any specific reference to the show, in a truly viral moment.

Ripe for the lip-sync

The lengthiest of the trending excerpts is the one that begins with “We talked about killing her before”, which sets off a monologue about Helen’s plan to do away with Madeline once and for all.

This is a tour de force for Simard’s comic timing, as it begins in free rhythm and then gradually takes on a more consistent beat. TikTokers are tending to use this one primarily as a demonstration of their lip-syncing skills, as opposed to the other shorter clips that are applied in different ironic situations.

This trend also shows the continuing importance of the cast album in musical theatre culture. The majority of TikTokers probably have not seen the show, currently only playing on Broadway with high ticket prices. Yet the cast album (easily available on all the main streaming sites) gives access.

The fact these clips come from a cast album also more easily allows fans to create their own visuals around it. Unless they actually saw the show they only have production photographs and short publicity clips (and the occasional shaky bootleg or slime tutorial) to go on in terms of what it looks like.

Audio from a source like the soundtrack of the Wicked movie has not led to so many lip-sync videos because the visual track is so readily accessible; as a film, Wicked’s visuals define its audio while a cast album can more easily work the other way round.

Beyond Broadway

I saw Death Becomes Her on Broadway in January and enjoyed it. It’s a fun show full of special effects and comic bits. The score is serviceable (it’s not Sondheim), but it is catchy – very important for its use in these TikTok trends – and well performed by Simard and the rest of the cast.

This whole phenomenon demonstrates that the current cultural sphere of “Broadway” extends well beyond the street itself. This has been the case at least since the rise of the cast album in the 1950s (My Fair Lady’s was the best-selling LP of 1956), but now the reach is intensified by social media spaces like TikTok; you don’t have to have actually seen Death Becomes Her to experience it.

Gregory Camp 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. ‘That was rude’: why the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her was ripe for TikTok memes – https://theconversation.com/that-was-rude-why-the-new-broadway-musical-death-becomes-her-was-ripe-for-tiktok-memes-257550

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Buchanan, Professor, Discipline of Business Information Systems, University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

A week ago, the Australian Financial Review released this year’s “Rich List”. It reported the number of billionaires in Australia increased from 150 to 166 between 2024 and 2025.

A very different story is happening at the other end of the market. On Tuesday the Fair Work Commission awarded the lowest paid 20% of wage earners a 3.5% increase as a result of its annual review.

The commission acknowledged even with this increase, our lowest paid employees will not be earning as much in real terms as they did before the post-COVID inflationary surge of 2021-2022.

Why such a meagre increase?

In Australia it has long been accepted that – all things being equal – wages should move with both prices and productivity.

Adjusting them for inflation ensures their real value is maintained. Adjusting them for productivity means employees share in rising prosperity associated with society becoming more productive over time.

This “prices plus productivity” model of wage rises is, however, subject to economic circumstances. In recent times the key circumstance of concern has been inflation.

Depending how it is measured it peaked at between 6.5% and 9.6% in 2022-2023.

Since 2022, economic agencies such as the Reserve Bank and state treasuries, along with finance sector economists, have been preaching about the threat of inflation persisting.

Cutting real wages to control inflation

Interest rates were increased to tame the inflation dragon. And these
agencies all issued dire warnings about the threat of long-term inflationary pressure if wages were adjusted to maintain lower and middle income earners living standards.

In its last three decisions the Fair Work Commission accommodated this narrative. Since July 2021 it ensured wages for the lowest paid 20% of employees did not keep up with inflation.

Unsurprisingly, real wages for award-dependent employees fell.

The commission has done its best to look after those on the absolute lowest rates: that is the 1% or so on the national minimum wage.

Their wages have fallen by 0.8% over the period since July 2021. For those in the middle of the bottom 20% of employees dependent on awards the fall has been in the order of 4.5%.

For example, this is the fall experienced by an entry level tradesperson in manufacturing dependent on an award.

Because inflation is currently running at about 2.4%, the 3.5% increase marks a modest 1% real wage gain for a worker on or close to the entry level manufacturing tradesperson rates.

In making this increase, the commission argued if real wage cuts continued, the entrenchment of lower minimum award rates was likely. It noted the economy is in pretty good shape – not just in terms of inflation and employment – but also many firms are turning a profit.

What about productivity?

The other striking feature of the post-COVID economic recovery has been poor productivity performance. It initially went backwards and more recently has flatlined.

The commission rejected arguments recent poor performance in national productivity numbers should prevent raising the minimum award higher than inflation.

It did this because it distinguished between productivity in the market and non-market sectors. In the former, productivity growth has been modest, but positive.

Poor numbers in the non-market sector like health and social services were an artefact of both measurement problems and the need for more workers per unit output to boost the quality of these services.

Silver linings?

It is always a judgement call as to what is the appropriate scale of any wage increase. Given low paid workers were not the source of recent inflationary pressure, it is reasonable to claim now is the time to reverse the recent trends of cutting their real wages.

Whether the increase had to be so modest is something the commission has
indicated it is open to considering in future hearings. It has sent this signal by floating two novel arguments.

The first argument concerns how cuts in real pay are calculated. In its decision it makes the very important point that conventional measures of real wage movements use monthly measures of inflation but wages only increase annually.

It’s on this basis the 4.5% cut for the benchmark entry level trade worker in manufacturing was calculated.

The commission notes, however, that if you take into account wages only rise once a year and inflation rises continuously, the overall loss of earnings power for such workers has been 14.4% since July 2021.

This is a much higher account of real wage cuts than has previously informed debates on wages policy.

Secondly, the commission has noted consideration should be given to phasing out some of the lowest classifications in the award system. This is something it has done in the past.

In this way it does not have to “increase rates” for low paid
classifications as such. Rather, it just eliminates the possibility of having rates for exceptionally low paid jobs – and so raises the base rates dramatically for the lowest paid workers.

Next year, things could be better. Australia has a long history of having a wages system that takes seriously the needs of all workers, and especially the low paid. This decision marks a break with the recent habit of using the lowest paid workers as a shock absorber for macroeconomic policy.

The 3.5% rise is a modest increase but an important one. More important is the framework the commission has set up for decisions in future years. Devising a more accurate measure of real wage cuts and noting the importance of abolishing whole classifications of low paid work lays the foundations for potentially very exciting developments in Australian wages policy in coming years.

John Buchanan has undertaken research on wages policy for over forty years. His most recent work has been supported by funding provided by the Electrical Trades Union, the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union and the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation (NSW Branch). He is member of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) and Branch Council Member of that union at the University of Sydney.

– ref. Australia’s lowest paid workers just got a 3.5% wage increase. Their next boost could be even better – https://theconversation.com/australias-lowest-paid-workers-just-got-a-3-5-wage-increase-their-next-boost-could-be-even-better-258072

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Teresa Ubide, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Igneous Petrology/Volcanology, The University of Queensland

On Monday morning local time, a huge cloud of ash, hot gas and rock fragments began spewing from Italy’s Mount Etna.

An enormous plume was seen stretching several kilometres into the sky from the mountain on the island of Sicily, which is the largest active volcano in Europe.

While the blast created an impressive sight, the eruption resulted in no reported injuries or damage and barely even disrupted flights on or off the island. Mount Etna eruptions are commonly described as “Strombolian eruptions” – though as we will see, that may not apply to this event.

What happened at Etna?

The eruption began with an increase of pressure in the hot gases inside the volcano. This led to the partial collapse of part of one of the craters atop Etna.

The collapse allowed what is called a pyroclastic flow: a fast-moving cloud of ash, hot gas and fragments of rock bursting out from inside the volcano.

Next, lava began to flow in three different directions down the mountainside. These flows are now cooling down. On Monday evening, Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology announced the volcanic activity had ended.

Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, so this eruption is reasonably normal.

What is a Strombolian eruption?

Volcanologists classify eruptions by how explosive they are. More explosive eruptions tend to be more dangerous, because they move faster and cover a larger area.

At the mildest end are Hawaiian eruptions. You have probably seen pictures of these: lava flowing sedately down the slope of the volcano. The lava damages whatever it runs into, but it’s a relatively local effect.

As eruptions grow more explosive, they send ash and rock fragments flying further afield.

At the more explosive end of the scale are Plinian eruptions. These include the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, described by the Roman writer Pliny the Younger, which buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under metres of ash.

In a Plinian eruption, hot gas, ash, and rock can explode high enough to reach the stratosphere – and when the eruption column collapses, the debris falls to Earth and can wreak terrifying destruction over a huge area.

What about Strombolian eruptions? These relatively mild eruptions are named after Stromboli, another Italian volcano which belches out a minor eruption every 10 to 20 minutes.

In a Strombolian eruption, chunks of rock and cinders may travel tens or hundreds of metres through the air, but rarely further. The pyroclastic flow from yesterday’s eruption at Etna was rather more explosive than this – so it wasn’t strictly Strombolian.

Can we forecast volcano eruptions?

Volcanic eruptions are a bit like weather. They are very hard to predict in detail, but we are a lot better than we used to be at forecasting them.

To understand what a volcano will do in the future, we first need to know what is happening inside it right now. We can’t look inside directly, but we do have indirect measurements.

For example, before an eruption magma travels from deep inside the Earth up to the surface. On the way, it pushes rocks apart and can generate earthquakes. If we record the vibrations of these quakes, we can track the magma’s journey from the depths.

Rising magma can also make the ground near a volcano bulge upwards very slightly, by a few millimetres or centimetres. We can monitor this bulging, for example with satellites, to gather clues about an upcoming eruption.

Some volcanoes release gas even when they are not strictly erupting. We can measure the chemicals in this gas – and if they change, it can tell us that new magma is on its way to the surface.

When we have this information about what’s happening inside the volcano, we also need to understand its “personality” to know what the information means for future eruptions.

Are volcanic eruptions more common than in the past?

As a volcanologist, I often hear from people that it seems there are more volcanic eruptions now than in the past. This is not the case.

What is happening, I tell them, is that we have better monitoring systems now, and a very active global media system. So we know about more eruptions – and even see photos of them.

Monitoring is extremely important. We are fortunate that many volcanoes in places such as Italy, the United States, Indonesia and New Zealand have excellent monitoring in place.

This monitoring allows local authorities to issue warnings when an eruption is imminent. For a visitor or tourist out to see the spectacular natural wonder of a volcano, listening to these warnings is all-important.

Teresa Ubide 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. What’s a ‘Strombolian eruption?’ A volcanologist explains what happened at Mount Etna – https://theconversation.com/whats-a-strombolian-eruption-a-volcanologist-explains-what-happened-at-mount-etna-258060

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan Institute

On the surface, Queensland’s new government is doing exactly what it pledged before winning office in October – repealing the state’s ambitious renewable energy targets and cancelling a huge pumped hydro project near Mackay.

But since the start of the year, the Crisafulli LNP government has gone further, and it’s less clear where it’s heading.

Last week, the government abruptly cancelled the A$1 billion Moonlight Ridge wind farm proposal, citing insufficient consultation and a lack of community support.

At the same time, the government announced it would open another 16,000 square kilometres of the state for gas exploration. The government is also planning to open new gas peaking plants and keep its coal plants open longer.

So, is the Queensland government backsliding on renewables and climate change?

The Crisafulli government is still committed to net zero by 2050. Because Queensland still owns its own transmission infrastructure and power plants, the state could shift to clean energy faster than other states. But at present, they don’t appear to be in a rush.

Slowdown under way

Previous Labor governments in Queensland announced plans for large pumped hydro installations as a way to store energy to be available when intermittent wind and solar are not. The largest of these pumped hydro projects was the Pioneer-Burdekin proposal near Mackay, which the government has now canned.

The Crisafulli government has also asked the Queensland Investment Corporation to examine the financial viability of two other major proposals, the Borumba pumped hydro scheme inland from the Sunshine Coast and the Copperstring transmission project linking Townsville and Mount Isa. This isn’t unusual – new governments often review projects announced by their predecessors.

Another recent announcement is drawing stronger criticism, however. In April, the Crisafulli government announced plans to make sure large solar and wind farms have the social licence to operate. This, the government announced, would bring the “same rigorous approval processes as other major developments” to bear on renewables.

If these plans become law, they are likely to make it substantially harder and slower to build large renewables projects.

The cancellation of the Moonlight Ridge wind farm proposal is instructive. Of the 508 individuals who wrote in response to the development, only 142 were local. In his decision, planning minister Jarrod Bleijie noted: “the representations that I received evidence that the project has not acquired overriding community acceptance”.

What’s being proposed looks messy. The peak body for renewables in Queensland is highly sceptical, while miners and farmers have also signalled concern.

But while the Moonlight Ridge cancellation drew headlines, two other wind farm proposals have been approved after being asked to show they had consulted adequately.

No is easy, yes is hard

It’s easy to take office and reject the work of predecessors. It’s far harder to outline what will replace it.

In contrast to other east coast states, Queensland has largely kept control of its sprawling electricity system. The government owns most large coal and gas power plants and all the transmission infrastructure.

While the new government has indicated renewed support for private sector energy investment, it has provided support for government-owned corporations to develop new gas peaker plants. By contrast, there are very few proposals for new gas plants further south.

In one sense, it’s no surprise Queensland’s new government has eased off on renewables. Its coal plants are relatively new, and largely owned by the government. This may reduce the urgency for developing a new energy plan, but only for a few years. Planning for a smooth energy transition is a major task, as demonstrated by southern states.

The state has also profited hugely from gas exported from Gladstone. The government now receives around $1 billion from oil and gas royalties a year.

Go-fast federally, go-slow at state?

The thumping Labor majority at this year’s federal election means, at a national level, work on the clean energy transition will accelerate. But this transition is only possible if state and federal governments coordinate well.

The responsibility for building and maintaining electricity systems in Australia largely falls to the states and territories. But managing large power grids on the east and west coasts requires national-level coordination.

What the federal government can do, by and large, is set a goal and stump up the cash. As former Labor prime minister Paul Keating once quipped, “never get between a state premier and a bucket of money”.

The federal government is running a funding program to support renewable generation and storage projects across the country. Three Queensland renewable projects have been approved under this program, including solar farms with battery storage.

It’s hard to see the state government moving to block these projects.

Where does this leave us?

Queensland is signalling it’s not enthused about having an open gate for new renewable projects. Adding time consuming and expensive new consultation hurdles may cause prospective renewable developers to pack up and head south or west.

Yet the policy’s strategic intent is unclear and is not necessarily against clean energy for the state. Many projects are already under way. The Crisafulli government has shown interest in smaller scale pumped hydro schemes as a way to store energy. And gas peaking plants will be a necessary evil in a high-renewables grid, acting like an emergency diesel generator for the rare periods without enough wind, sun or water.

The big test will come later this year in the form of the state government’s five year energy plan. Will it deliver the investment to meet the net zero objective while maintaining affordable and reliable power? Right now, many in the clean energy industry are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Tony Wood may own shares through his superannuation in companies impacted by energy sector policies

– ref. The Queensland government is cancelling renewable energy projects. Can the state still reach net zero? – https://theconversation.com/the-queensland-government-is-cancelling-renewable-energy-projects-can-the-state-still-reach-net-zero-257958

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor of Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University

One in three men (32%) aged 18 to 57 years report using emotional abuse towards a partner. One in ten (9%) say they have used physical violence.

These are some of the statistics from the latest report of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Male Health – the Ten to Men study.

The report also shows 2% of men have engaged in sexual abuse towards an intimate partner. Overall, among the 120,000 men surveyed, one in three (35%) said they’d used a form of violence towards an intimate partner in their adult life.

The findings give us important new insights into men’s use of partner violence. It is among the first Australian studies to explore the factors linked with men’s use of partner violence in a large, general community sample.

Being a longitudinal study – which surveys the same men at different points in time – also gives unique insights into the onset of intimate partner violence.

And crucially, it points to some key priorities for policy and programs to prevent this violence.

Which men use partner violence?

Young men (aged 18–24) reported the lowest rates of using violence towards an intimate partner.

As the report notes, this is not surprising, as younger men will have had less time in intimate relationships.

Importantly, the use of intimate partner violence increased over time for all age groups between the two surveys.

This suggests previously non-violent men can still start to use intimate partner violence later in their lives. However, it is worth noting that some men’s understanding and willingness to disclose use of violence may have also improved since the earlier survey.

A crucial result of the Ten to Men report is that men’s use of violence does not differ meaningfully according to demographic background.

It didn’t matter whether men were from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds, whether they had high or low incomes, whether they lived in cities or regions, and whether they were heterosexual or not. The overall rate of using intimate partner violence was the same.

This is a highly important finding as it shows us that we cannot assume intimate partner violence is more or less likely among particular regions, classes, sexualities or cultures.

What factors contributed to violence?

Perhaps the most important findings from the report are the crucial roles mental health, social connections, and positive relationships with fathers and father-like figures, play in men’s risk of using partner violence.

While much research has shown that mental health is linked with men’s likelihood of using violence, this study goes further. Because it surveyed men at different points in time, it can tell us that men who were depressed or experiencing suicidal thoughts in the earlier survey (2013), were more likely to report the onset of using partner violence in the later survey (2022).

This was not the case for men with other mental health concerns, such as anxiety diagnoses, nor for measures of men’s overall life satisfaction.

Another important trend was found for social supports and connection. Those men who described feeling that they had social support around them “all of the time” in the earlier survey, were less likely to have started using intimate partner violence by the time of the later survey.

Receiving affection from a father or father-like figure when growing up was also associated with significantly less risk of using partner violence in later life.

This finding is of particular relevance to our national policies and programs that are aiming for generational change to prevent partner violence.

Where to from here?

The findings of the Ten to Men report really point to a need for violence prevention and early intervention with men at different points in their life.

For example, programs that support men’s parenting and positive father-child emotional connection not only have a role to play in violence prevention, but are known to have beneficial outcomes for children’s development more generally.

Part of these programs often involves breaking down traditional and rigid ideas about gender roles that place more responsibility for emotional caregiving with mothers than with fathers.

Supporting men’s mental wellbeing is also crucial. Research has long shown many men experience barriers to seeking help and support for mental health, partly due to expectations of men as needing to be “tough”, “independent” and “resilient”. These expectations can cause shame and fear in turning to others for support.

Programs such as The Man Box have further shown how such rigid gender expectations can have a negative impact on men and boys’ mental wellbeing, as well as their risk for using violence.

Read more:
Aggressive? Homophobic? Stoic? Here’s what thousands of Australian men told us about modern masculinity

We need to continue to break down the barriers to men’s access to mental health and wellbeing supports. Yet the Ten to Men findings also suggest knowledge of how to identify and work with people using violence, or at risk of using violence, may be especially important among health and mental health practitioners.

Much of our policy addressing intimate partner violence talks about accountability and improving responses to men’s use of violence. And it is urgent that we respond to – and not make excuses for – men’s use of violence.

But there is a lot more we could be doing to work with men throughout their lives before they use violence.

Supporting men’s positive parenting relationships, breaking down rigid gender expectations, encouraging men to connect socially and seek support, as well as identifying men at risk, all have a role to play in ending partner violence.

Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Anastasia is also a director of Our Watch (Australia’s national organisation for the prevention of violence against women), and a member of the National Women’s Safety Alliance (NWSA). Anastasia teaches family violence specialist casework in the Graduate Certificate in Domestic & Family Violence at RMIT University.

– ref. 1 in 3 men report using intimate partner violence. Here’s how we can better protect women – and help men – https://theconversation.com/1-in-3-men-report-using-intimate-partner-violence-heres-how-we-can-better-protect-women-and-help-men-258058

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kay Cook, Professor and Associate Dean Research, School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education, Swinburne University of Technology

The Commonwealth ombudsman has released his long-awaited report into the “weaponisation” of the child support program.

He has identified widespread financial abuse throughout the system. This includes parents not making payments, lying to reduce their income and being abusive or violent to stop ex-partners seeking help.

The ombudsman has found Services Australia, which administers the scheme, is not using its available powers to stop the abuse and force ex-partners to support their children. As a result, 153,000 parents have a combined A$1.9 billion in unpaid child support.

The report adds to the growing evidence the child-support scheme is failing families, especially women. The system hasn’t been working for a very long time, if it ever did.

Ombudsman’s report

More than 1.2 million separated parents have child-support arrangements for an estimated one million children. Some 84% of parents receiving payments are women.

According to the report, 32% of complaints about the child-support scheme reported it was being weaponised by ex-partners. This figure only includes people who were persistent enough to proceed all the way to the ombudsman.

In addition, these complainants were women who braved possible repurcussions from ex-partners, who may be abusive. Given the context of fear, the statistic is undeniable.

Ombudsman Iain Anderson has found the abuse is being made worse by the tax system, which calculates income assuming all support payments have been made, even if they haven’t.

Preventing weaponisation is really important because child support is all about children – vulnerable children – who need to be financially supported while they are growing up.

The same problems with the tax system were identified by a report earlier this year by the Inspector General of Taxation and Tax Ombudsman Ruth Owen.

Toothless tiger

The report finds Services Australia, the government agency responsible for Centrelink, is acting in an “unfair and unreasonable” manner by not using its available powers to enforce payments.

This passive approach is unfair. It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in raising heir children largely without consequences.

The report recommends Services Australia:

• publicly outline its plan to tackle financial abuse through the child support system

• introduce a range of measures to enforce child support payments

• refine data collection approaches

• review its Lodgement Enforcement Program

• support its staff to undertake training on financial abuse through the child-support system

• review its change of assessment process.

The report notes the legislative provisions underpinning Services Australia are also “unfair and unreasonable”.

Recommendations for government action include

• amending legislation to overcome legal roadblocks to enforcing child support payments

• providing the ombudsman with a comprehensive progress report within the next 12 months.

Circuit breaker

There have been countless reviews calling to rebalance the system in the interests of women and children.

They include our 2023 report on child-support weaponisation and the government’s financial abuse inquiry in 2024.

Yet there has been scant action to date. Indeed our survey of 540 women exposed the scale of the problem for the first time.

This new ombudsman’s report might be the final push to action that the government needs due to its timing and specifics.

First, both Minister for Women Katy Gallagher and newly appointed Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek have acknowledged the need for change.

The 2024 women’s budget statement acknowledged child support was being abused. An internal review had been taking place to examine how the child support, family tax benefit and taxation systems are being weaponised.

Second, the ombudsman’s report draws on Services Australia data to shed light on the issue. Much of this information has not previously been made public. Some statistics have been reluctantly released due to dogged questioning in Senate Estimates over many years by the new Greens leader, Larissa Waters.

The ombudsman used his legislative powers to request and obtain information from Services Australia, as well as attending its offices to furnish his report. The data adds substantial weight to the findings.

A safer system

Many of the root problems with the child-support program stem from reforms brought in during the Howard era, compounded by the welfare to work measures which targeted single parents.

Immediately after separation can be the most dangerous time for women. Perpetrators can use mandatory government systems, such as child support, to financially control and harm ex-partners and their own children.

The ombudsman’s report will give some hope to the 12% of Australian families headed by single mothers that the government will take action to make the system safe and fair for all women and children.

Kay Cook receives funding from the Australian Research Council in the form of a Discovery Project grant on, ‘Prioritising women’s financial safety: Developing institutional interventions for intimate partner financial abuse’.

She is a member of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee.

Adrienne Byrt 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. ‘Unfair and unreasonable’ – report finds $1.9 billion in unpaid child support in system rife with financial abuse – https://theconversation.com/unfair-and-unreasonable-report-finds-1-9-billion-in-unpaid-child-support-in-system-rife-with-financial-abuse-258063

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Sansom, Research Associate, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University; Research Associate, Centre for Healthy Ageing, Murdoch University

Have you ever noticed how some people bounce out of bed after just a few hours of sleep, while others can barely function without a solid eight hours?

Take Margaret Thatcher, for example. The former British prime minister was known for sleeping just four hours a night. She worked late, rose early, and seemed to thrive on little sleep.

But for most of us, that kind of sleep schedule would be disastrous. We’d be groggy, unfocused, and reaching for sugary snacks and caffeinated drinks by mid-morning.

So why do some people seem to need less sleep than others? It’s a question that’s fascinated scientists for years. Here’s what we know so far.

Natural short sleepers

There is a small group of people who don’t need much sleep. We call them natural short sleepers. They can function perfectly well on just four to six hours of sleep each night, often for their entire lives.

Generally they don’t feel tired, they don’t nap, and they don’t suffer the usual negative consequences of sleep deprivation. Scientists call this the natural short sleep phenotype – a biological trait that allows people to get all the benefits of sleep in less time.

In 2010 researchers discovered genetic mutations that help explain this phenomenon. Natural short sleepers carry rare variants in certain genes, which seem to make their sleep more efficient.

More recently, a 2025 study assessed a woman in her 70s with one of these rare mutations. Despite sleeping just six hours a night for most of her life, she remained physically healthy, mentally sharp, and led a full, active life. Her body, it seems, was simply wired to need less sleep.

We’re still learning about how common these genetic mutations are and why they occur.

Not everyone who sleeps less is a natural short sleeper

But here’s the catch: most people who think they’re natural short sleepers aren’t. They’re just chronically sleep-deprived. Often, their short sleep is due to long work hours, social commitments, or a belief sleeping less is a sign of strength or productivity.

In today’s hustle culture, it’s common to hear people boast about getting by on only a few hours of sleep. But for the average person, that’s not sustainable.

The effects of short sleep build up over time, creating what’s known as a “sleep debt”. This can lead to poor concentration, mood swings, micro-sleeps (brief lapses into sleep), reduced performance and even long-term health risks. For example, short sleep has been linked to an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke).

The weekend catch-up dilemma

To make up for lost sleep during the week, many people try to “catch up” on weekends.

This can help repay some of the sleep debt that has accumulated in the short term. Research suggests getting one to two extra hours of sleep on the weekend or taking naps when possible may help reduce the negative effects of short sleep.

However, it’s not a perfect fix. Weekend catch-up sleep and naps may not fully resolve sleep debt. The topic remains one of ongoing scientific debate.

A recent large study suggested weekend catch-up sleep may not offset the cardiovascular risks associated with chronic short sleep.

What’s more, large swings in sleep timing can disrupt your body’s internal clock, and sleeping in too much on weekends may make it harder to fall asleep on Sunday night, which can mean starting the working week less rested.

Increasing evidence indicates repeated cycles of irregular sleep may have an important influence on general health and the risk of early death, potentially even more so than how long we sleep for.

Ultimately, while moderate catch-up sleep might offer some benefits, it’s no substitute for consistent, high-quality sleep throughout the week. That said, maintaining such regularity can be particularly challenging for people with non-traditional schedules, such as shift workers.

So, was Thatcher a true natural short sleeper?

It’s hard to say. Some reports suggest she napped during the day in the back of a car between meetings. That could mean she was simply sleep-deprived and compensating for an accumulated sleep debt when she could.

Separate to whether someone is a natural short sleeper, there are a range of other reasons people may need more or less sleep than others. Factors such as age and underlying health conditions can significantly influence sleep requirements.

For example, older adults often experience changes in their circadian rhythms and are more likely to suffer from fragmented sleep due to conditions such as arthritis or cardiovascular disease.

Sleep needs vary from person to person, and while a lucky few can thrive on less, most of us need seven to nine hours a night to feel and function our best. If you’re regularly skimping on sleep and relying on weekends to catch up, it might be time to rethink your routine. After all, sleep isn’t a luxury – it’s a biological necessity.

Peter Eastwood has previously received funding from Research Funding Organisations (e.g. NHMRC, MRFF, NHRIF, Raine Study) and has been a consultant for several sleep-related biomedical device companies. He is currently involved in several initiatives with the World Sleep Society, including its Global Sleep Health Taskforce.

Kelly Sansom 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. Why do some people need less sleep than others? A gene variation could have something to do with it – https://theconversation.com/why-do-some-people-need-less-sleep-than-others-a-gene-variation-could-have-something-to-do-with-it-256342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Habib Moghimi, Academic, University of Sydney

Iranian director Jafar Panahi has spent his career turning barriers into creative inspiration.

Working under travel bans, house arrests and periodic detention, he had made powerful films that show everyday life in Iran through quiet moments, daily struggles, and small talk on streets under surveillance. He shows people who are restricted by repressive rules, yet who hold onto hope – albeit fragile.

Although Panahi is banned from making films in Iran, he has managed to make a new film “underground” almost every two years. He recently stood triumphant as he received the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his thriller It Was Just an Accident (2025).

The 2025 Sydney Film Festival’s retrospective Jafar Panahi: Cinema in Rebellion provides a valuable opportunity to look deeper into Panahi’s work, and understand how he makes impossible cinema possible through his unique position.

A slice of life under censorship

Panahi is one of Iran’s most important filmmakers – both because of the international recognition he has received, and because of the symbolic power he has gained through his fight for freedom of speech.

His form of storytelling is rooted in the tradition of Iranian “social films”: dramas and melodramas focusing on everyday, ordinary life.

He blends this tradition with the style and aesthetics of late director Abbas Kiarostami (who he worked with for some years), using elements such as long sequences, vehicles as a recurring motif, and self-reflexive approaches to storytelling.

Panahi’s films not only focus on daily life, but treat cinema as part of that life. In other words, the filmmaking process becomes part of the narrative.

He sometimes places himself within his films. In No Bears (2022), he plays a version of himself to explore the complexities of trying to tell a story while battling surveillance, the threat of exposure, and extreme cultural dogma.

Panahi’s films feature characters rarely seen other works. For instance, in the short film Hidden (2020), the protagonist is a young woman who must perform out of sight due to restrictions on female voices in public.

Similarly, in 3 Faces (2018), a girl from a small village sends a video to a famous actress, begging for help to study acting because her family won’t allow her.

And Offside (2006) follows a group of girls who try to enter a football stadium by dressing up as boys to watch a World Cup qualifying match – highlighting Iran’s historical ban on women attending men’s football matches.

Cinema as reality

Panahi’s films try and look behind the curtains to construct a filmic representation of daily life in Iran. In doing so, they often blur the line between fiction and reality.

In The Mirror (1997), a young actress suddenly stops acting and refuses to follow the script. Although this moment is not actually unscripted, it challenges the viewer’s sense of what is real and what is performed. The film turns into a kind of documentary as the cameras follows the girl on her journey home.

His work also investigates how external forces can shape one’s internal world. In Closed Curtain (2013), a man hides his dog inside a dark house as dogs are viewed as “impure” by the public authorities.

Halfway through the film, Panahi himself appears – again in the form of a filmmaker facing bans. While the film remains fictional, Panahi’s presence turns the narrative into a reflection on cinema and lived experience.

We also see this approach in his subversive documentary This Is Not a Film (2011). Forced into house arrest, and facing a 20 year ban on filmmaking, Panahi films himself inside his apartment while exploring what it means to be banned from filmmaking – and whether filmmaking is possible without a crew or script.

The tragedy in small hurts

Panahi’s films are full of small moments that build into bigger truths – part of the heritage of Iranian social cinema.

In The Circle (2000), different women move through Tehran facing rules that limit their freedom. At the end, the film loops back to its start, showing how their problems don’t end, but simply repeat.

In Crimson Gold (2003), co-written with Abbas Kiarostami, a deliveryman is repeatedly humiliated throughout his daily life because of his social status. The film begins by showing the man attempting to rob a jeweller, before taking his own life – then moves backward to show how he built-up enough despair to commit the act.

The real shock isn’t the act itself, but everything that led to it.

Vehicles as a safe space

Vehicles are everywhere in Panahi’s work: mobile spaces reside on the boundary between public and private life.

In Taxi (2015), Panahi plays a cab driver whose taxi becomes a small stage for passengers to share their stories and opinions.

In No Bears (2022), although Panahi is largely confined to a rural village setting, cars and motorbikes function as transitional spaces between different zones of privacy and publicity.

Nothing onscreen is unintentional

Panahis’s work resists simplistic ideas of the oppressed and the oppressor. These are not just stories about a heroic artist against an authoritarian state. They prompt us to ask: who really benefits from this binary? And what deeper political and cultural dynamics are at play?

And he does this by using the restrictions imposed on him – and even his silence – as narrative tools. Censorship becomes part of the creative process. Not an obstacle, but a resource.

Habib Moghimi 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. Censorship into art: why Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s subversive stories are getting the world’s attention – https://theconversation.com/censorship-into-art-why-iranian-director-jafar-panahis-subversive-stories-are-getting-the-worlds-attention-255221

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Meyer, Senior Lecturer, Anatomy and Pathology in the College of Medicine and Dentistry, James Cook University

His gaze softens as he draws closer to you. With one hand around your waist and the other cradling your jaw, he pulls you in. You look into his eyes, and notice his pupils have grown large and hungry.

So the story goes in every other romance novel, where enlarged pupils are commonly enlisted as imagery to indicate sexual arousal. And it’s not unusual to read advice online suggesting dilated pupils are a sure sign someone you like also likes you back.

But what does the science say?

In fact, it’s true: our pupils really do tend to grow large when we’re aroused. Here’s why.

What is the pupil?

The pupil is an opening in the iris (the coloured part of the eye) which directs light through the eyeball and onto the retina.

Typically this opening is 2-4 millimetres in diameter in bright light, and 4-8 millimetres in darkness.

The black colour of the pupil is the colour of the inside of your eye. Surrounding the pupil are two tiny muscles of the iris which are under separate control.

The muscle around the edge of the pupil acts like a sphincter. When stimulated by the parasympathetic nervous system (sometimes known as the “rest and digest” system), it contracts to close down the pupil.

On the outside of the sphincter, another muscle acts like the springs holding the trampoline mat.

When stimulated by the sympathetic nervous system (the “fight or flight” system), it shortens to enlarge the pupil.

Your pupils and the six ‘fs’

There are two different mechanisms to make the pupils dilate.

The first is by direct sympathetic nervous system stimulation causing the pupil to dilate (enlarge). This is triggered when you need or want to:

1. fight
2. flee
3. feed
4. fornicate
5. get a “fix” (of illicit drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamine)

The second is by stopping the signals of the parasympathetic nerves going to the sphincter muscle of the pupil. This is triggered when you need or want to focus (number 6).

Together, these are sometimes known as “the six f’s”.

So, is it the same for all of us?

A meta-analysis of 550 heterosexual men, 403 heterosexual women, 132 lesbian women, 124 bisexual men and 65 gay men reported that pupil dilation is related to your sex and your sexual preferences.

Overall, the study found men’s pupils dilate strictly according to their sexual preferences, and women’s pupils dilate more variably.

The study found that heterosexual men’s pupils dilated more in response to erotic imagery of women, and gay men’s pupils dilated more in response to erotic imagery of men.

However, lesbian women’s pupils also dilated more in response to erotic imagery of men, and heterosexual women’s pupils dilated for erotic imagery of men and women.

Are large pupils more attractive?

Interestingly, a study of 60 young adults (aged between 18 and 26) found pupils of 5 millimetre diameter most attractive.

A pupil of 5 millimetres is abnormal for situations in bright light. Could it be that we’re attracted to the types of pupils we’ve seen before in the relative darkness of an intimate setting?

The idea of large pupils being attractive isn’t new. During the Renaissance in Italy, women used eye drops made from a poisonous plant called Atropa belladonna (belladonna means “beautiful woman” in Italian) to make their pupils dilate. This gave them a wide-eyed, “seductive” look (it also, unfortunately, was rather dangerous).

The plant contains a chemical called atropine, which is still (safely) used today by ophthalmologists and optometrists to dilate the pupils for eye exams or surgery.

Getting in sync

Pupil dilation also plays a role in social and interpersonal interactions. Studies have found administration of oxytocin (a hormone associated with bonding and trust) enhances pupil responses to emotional expressions, suggesting increased sensitivity to social cues.

Pupil dilation synchrony between people has been linked to better teamwork and mutual attraction, reflecting shared arousal states.

This phenomenon, sometimes referred to as “pupil mimicry” or “pupil contagion”, aligns with other autonomic synchronisations such as heart rate.

It all goes to show that so much of connection and attraction is subconscious.

What else can make the pupils dilate?

Various substances and medical conditions can also affect pupil size. Stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall, anticholinergics (often used to treat Parkinson’s disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and certain medications such as phenylephrine (Sudafed PE), and benzodiazepines such as alprazolam (Xanax) can all cause pupil dilation.

So too can illicit drugs such as cocaine, ketamine, MDMA, LSD and cannabis.

Some neurological conditions or closed angle glaucoma, as well as stressful situations, can cause the pupils to stay dilated (a condition known as mydriasis).

If you have prolonged dilation of your pupils, you should speak to your doctor.

Does intellectual or emotional arousal cause pupil dilation?

When you are trying to solve a mathematics problem, listening carefully as you take notes, or listening to your favourite singer’s music, your pupils will enlarge.

Anticipation of rewards, emotional conflict, and processing of emotionally charged stimuli – such as scary movies or certain trigger sounds – also lead to increased pupil size.

Anxiety, pain, and even conditions such as fibromyalgia have also been linked to dilated pupils.

Context is everything

It is crucial to emphasise pupil dilation doesn’t automatically mean someone is aroused. Interpreting pupil dilation requires context, and you can’t assume big pupils means the person is attracted to you.

Verbal consent and other behavioural cues are essential.

If you’re wondering if the other person likes you, why not just ask?

Amanda Meyer is affiliated with the Australian and New Zealand Association of Clinical Anatomists, the American Association for Anatomy, and the Global Neuroanatomy Network.

Monika Zimanyi is affiliated with the Global Neuroanatomy Network

– ref. Why do our pupils dilate when we’re aroused? Anatomy experts explain – https://theconversation.com/why-do-our-pupils-dilate-when-were-aroused-anatomy-experts-explain-257452

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Arrowsmith, Professor, School of Management, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

Cuts to the public service, the decision to halt all pay equity claims, and the tight 2025 budget mean public service workers are facing an uncertain future.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the health sector. Since the 2024 budget, Health NZ has faced several reductions across its workforce. Nurses and rest home workers were also among the 33 pay equity cases stopped to save nearly NZ$13 billion over four years.

Last week, doctors at Gisborne Hospital announced plans to strike due to staffing shortages.

Industrial unrest could well be a feature of the next 18 months and an influence on the current government’s fortunes.

My ongoing research with union leaders, to be published later this year, maps out how they could emerge as a major force mobilising public opinion ahead of the 2026 general election – and how using “soft power” rather than just strikes could be key to success.

This research is part of an international project looking at health sector union strategies in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The power of unions

Public sector unions have the power to influence change thanks to their concentrated membership in certain sectors, and their ability to cause significant disruptions with strikes. The New Zealand Nurses Organisation, for example, represents 77% of the registered nurse workforce.

But the potential power of New Zealand’s public service unions is tempered by their members’ commitment to the needs of the people they serve – for example, ensuring sick people still receive care.

Public service unions also need support from the public, given the state is their ultimate employer. This means unions first have to use the soft power available to them before deciding to strike.

For unions, soft power includes using employment rules and laws (“institutional” sources of power), alliances with groups representing people who use the sector’s services (“coalitional” sources), and messaging (“ideational”).

In the fight over pay equity, for example, unions are using institutional means (equal pay legislation) to fight for increased wages. They are also building coalitions with groups that use their services, and are articulating a clear case of fairness and efficiency to build wider support.

Even some lobby groups, such as Aged Care Association which represents aged-care facilities, have publicly supported union efforts towards pay equity, recognising the need for higher wages to address labour shortages.

Healthcare is a political frontline

In healthcare, the government pledged $8.2 billion in funding over four years in its first budget in 2024. In 2025, it set aside an extra $447 million for primary and out-of-hours care.

But unions representing doctors and nurses say the government is “just treading water”, identifying 4,800 vacancies in the current plan.

According to the unions, gaps include one in five senior hospital doctor positions and a quarter of hospital shifts lack sufficient nurses or midwives (the government has disputed these figures).

The situation is exacerbated by Australia and other countries actively recruiting for healthcare staff. Rising living costs also make New Zealand a less attractive proposition to new migrants.

Recent surveys by other major health unions focus on the impact of staff shortages on worker wellbeing and patient care. The scientific and technical union APEX reports a “workforce in survival mode” and the Public Service Association talks of “healthcare in crisis”.

In the care sector, members of trade union E tū have detailed how chronic understaffing leads to work intensification and insufficient time to care for residential or home-based clients.

A battle of messaging

The unions’ message is one of a vicious circle where staff shortages increase workloads in already demanding jobs, accelerating the number of departures and damaging the provision of care.

Addressing this, unions argue, requires better pay and more staff, including investment to grow the domestic pipeline of healthcare staff over the longer term.

The government’s message, however, refers to past blowouts, fiscal discipline and the need for more private sector involvement, and longer hours to meet its targets.

The question for unions is whether they will be able to get their messaging out to voters more effectively than the government.

In general, the profile of healthcare workers in people’s lives can create a more sympathetic message. Unions have also begun a coordinated strategy to unify and actively engage members as a platform for political outreach.

Campaigns such as the nurses union “Marangi Mai” (Rise Up) and E tū’s “Transforming Care” speak to workers more effectively than remote and protracted equal pay negotiations.

Finally, legal action and protests marshal media attention.

Cases filed under employment and health and safety laws expose “good employer” obligations and the need to ensure safe working conditions. “Informational pickets”, market stalls and alliances with user groups also get the message out, as do short sharp work stoppages.

Amid the ongoing debate around healthcare and what the sector needs, it is clear unions will need to use soft power tactics as well as strikes to advocate for workers. The strategies implemented in the public sector may also provide a road map for private sector workers considering their own actions.

Jim Arrowsmith 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. As government cuts bite, public service unions can use ‘soft power’ as well as strikes to win support – https://theconversation.com/as-government-cuts-bite-public-service-unions-can-use-soft-power-as-well-as-strikes-to-win-support-257006

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

Last month, Google announced SynthID Detector, a new tool to detect AI-generated content. Google claims it can identify AI-generated content in text, image, video or audio.

But there are some caveats. One of them is that the tool is currently only available to “early testers” through a waitlist.

The main catch is that SynthID primarily works for content that’s been generated using a Google AI service – such as Gemini for text, Veo for video, Imagen for images, or Lyria for audio.

If you try to use Google’s AI detector tool to see if something you’ve generated using ChatGPT is flagged, it won’t work.

That’s because, strictly speaking, the tool can’t detect the presence of AI-generated content or distinguish it from other kinds of content. Instead, it detects the presence of a “watermark” that Google’s AI products (and a couple of others) embed in their output through the use of SynthID.

A watermark is a special machine-readable element embedded in an image, video, sound or text. Digital watermarks have been used to ensure that information about the origins or authorship of content travels with it. They have been used to assert authorship in creative works and address misinformation challenges in the media.

SynthID embeds watermarks in the output from AI models. The watermarks are not visible to readers or audiences, but can be used by other tools to identify content that was made or edited using an AI model with SynthID on board.

SynthID is among the latest of many such efforts. But how effective are they?

There’s no unified AI detection system

Several AI companies, including Meta, have developed their own watermarking tools and detectors, similar to SynthID. But these are “model specific” solutions, not universal ones.

This means users have to juggle multiple tools to verify content. Despite researchers calling for a unified system, and major players like Google seeking to have their tool adopted by others, the landscape remains fragmented.

A parallel effort focuses on metadata – encoded information about the origin, authorship and edit history of media. For example, the Content Credentials inspect tool allows users to verify media by checking the edit history attached to the content.

However, metadata can be easily stripped when content is uploaded to social media or converted into a different file format. This is particularly problematic if someone has deliberately tried to obscure the origin and authorship of a piece of content.

There are detectors that rely on forensic cues, such as visual inconsistencies or lighting anomalies. While some of these tools are automated, many depend on human judgement and common sense methods, like counting the number of fingers in AI-generated images. These methods may become redundant as AI model performance improves.

How effective are AI detection tools?

Overall, AI detection tools can vary dramatically in their effectiveness. Some work better when the content is entirely AI-generated, such as when an entire essay has been generated from scratch by a chatbot.

The situation becomes murkier when AI is used to edit or transform human-created content. In such cases, AI detectors can get it badly wrong. They can fail to detect AI or flag human-created content as AI-generated.

AI detection tools don’t often explain how they arrived at their decision, which adds to the confusion. When used for plagiarism detection in university assessment, they are considered an “ethical minefield” and are known to discriminate against non-native English speakers.

Read more:
Can you spot the AI impostors? We found AI faces can look more real than actual humans

Where AI detection tools can help

A wide variety of use cases exist for AI detection tools. Take insurance claims, for example. Knowing whether the image a client shares depicts what it claims to depict can help insurers know how to respond.

Journalists and fact checkers might draw on AI detectors, in addition to their other approaches, when trying to decide if potentially newsworthy information ought to be shared further.

Employers and job applicants alike increasingly need to assess whether the person on the other side of the recruiting process is genuine or an AI fake.

Users of dating apps need to know whether the profile of the person they’ve met online represents a real romantic prospect, or an AI avatar, perhaps fronting a romance scam.

If you’re an emergency responder deciding whether to send help to a call, confidently knowing whether the caller is human or AI can save resources and lives.

Where to from here?

As these examples show, the challenges of authenticity are now happening in real time, and static tools like watermarking are unlikely to be enough. AI detectors that work on audio and video in real time are a pressing area of development.

Whatever the scenario, it is unlikely that judgements about authenticity can ever be fully delegated to a single tool.

Understanding the way such tools work, including their limitations, is an important first step. Triangulating these with other information and your own contextual knowledge will remain essential.

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.

Elif Buse Doyuran receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society.

Jean Burgess receives funding from the Australian Research Council including the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), and from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Council.

– ref. Google’s SynthID is the latest tool for catching AI-made content. What is AI ‘watermarking’ and does it work? – https://theconversation.com/googles-synthid-is-the-latest-tool-for-catching-ai-made-content-what-is-ai-watermarking-and-does-it-work-257637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fanny Kuhlin, PhD candidate in Sport Management (Sport Science), Örebro University

From the horrific Larry Nassar abuse scandal in United States gymnastics to the “environment of fear” some volleyball athletes endured at the Australian Institute of Sport, abuse in sport has been well documented in recent years.

This abuse in elite sport sport has been particularly visible but it is not just happening at the top level. Abusive and harmful practices are happening in all sports, at all ages and at all competition levels.

While sport can have many wonderful benefits for young people, it can also have a dark side, one where abuse can flourish, leading to serious psychological and physical harm.

How can parents ensure their children are safe?

Read more:
The 3 changes Australian sport must make after Volleyball Australia’s shocking abuse report

Abuse in sports

A 2022 Australian study showed 82% of children had experienced physical, psychological or sexual abuse during their time participating in community sport. This makes the abuse prevalence similar to that found in elite sport environments.

The line between abuse and acceptable behaviour is blurred more in sport than in many other environments.

For example, in school, it would be unacceptable for a teacher to scream at a child who performed poorly on a test but in sports, screaming is a commonly used strategy by a coach to correct a young athlete’s behaviour.

Research from earlier this year shows athletes often justify the behaviours of their coaches.

The following quote from an elite-level gymnast in an ongoing research project demonstrates how athletes often learn to accept abusive behaviours as necessary for their performance:

(He) was a strict coach. He spoke loudly […] but I’m a gymnast, I need that. I don’t know if everybody needs that but if I did something really bad, he screamed at me and this kind of gave me motivation to push myself more, so for me this type of coaching style was really good.

Challenges and changes

The “win-at-all-costs” mentality in many sports is also problematic.

When winning is everything, abusive practices are not seen as a problem to be stamped out but rather as legitimate strategies to motivate and toughen up the participants.

Athletes are not the only ones who normalise these practices. Parents, coaches and administrators might also come to tolerate, accept or even celebrate abusive behaviours and cultures as a “natural” part of sport.

This means experiences of abuse may flourish in such environments.

Thankfully, some sports organisations have in recent years made significant changes to reduce the likelihood of abuse and deal with cases as soon as they arise.

Sport Integrity Australia (SIA), for example, is implementing national policies for safeguarding and whistleblowing, where abuse and harmful behaviour can be reported.

SIA has also recently co-developed a course with other leading sport agencies to help coaches working with young athletes better navigate the complexities of physical, emotional and psychological development.

While these are potentially steps in the right direction, researchers have pointed out that similar efforts have achieved mixed results and there are no guarantees of athlete safety.

Parents may therefore rightly ask what they might do to protect their child(ren) from abuse and maximise the positive gains from participating in sport.

Tips for parents and caregivers

Firstly, parents and caregivers have the right to be included in their childrens’ sporting participation.

This involves being informed about training times and competition schedules, training content, coaching style and behavioural expectations.

Parents should also be welcomed to watch their children’s training sessions at any time and unannounced.

Denying parents information or access to facilities have been identified as a potential risk factors.

The right for inclusion also refers to decision-making. Sport is often hierarchical with authoritarian leadership styles, which are significant risk factors for abuse in sports.

So it is important children and their parents are provided with spaces and opportunities to have a say in matters related to their (child’s) sporting participation.

Secondly, young athletes and their parents/caregivers should be made aware of the policies and safety measures put in place to keep children safe.

If these are not clearly communicated, parents/caregivers are encouraged to ask what actions a club has put in place.

If protection and prevention are not developed, or considered limited or ineffective, parents are recommended to raise their concerns.

Lastly, parents should be conscious of the “win-at-all-costs” mentality found in many sports and consider how this can lead to abusive practices being accepted as a “natural” part of sport.

By staying informed, involved and attentive, parents can play a powerful role in supporting safer sporting environments for all children.

Natalie Barker-Ruchti is affiliated with Safesport Sweden.

Fanny Kuhlin, Jessica Lee, and Steven Rynne 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. What parents and youth athletes can do to protect against abuse in sport – https://theconversation.com/what-parents-and-youth-athletes-can-do-to-protect-against-abuse-in-sport-255614

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Farrier, Professor of Literature and the Environment, University of Edinburgh

Modern cities are evolution engines. Urban snails in the Netherlands and lizards in Los Angeles have developed lighter shells and larger scales to cope with the heat island effect, where temperatures can be several degrees above the surrounding area.

Artificial light makes an artificial dawn, shifting the time when birds sing, and has prompted urban bridge-dwelling spiders to develop an attraction to light, whereas ermine moths are losing theirs altogether. A mutation in the so-called “daredevil gene”, also found in downhill skiers and snowboarders, is making urban swans bolder and more tolerant of humans.

Our urban environments are pushing many species to reimagine their bodies and behaviours to suit municipal living; but some are also reimagining our cities. There’s lots to learn from how nature adapts to city life.

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Anti-bird spikes are a hostile architecture for wildlife, designed to keep messy nature away from buildings. Yet, crows and magpies in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Glasgow strip the spikes away and use them to make their nests.

It’s difficult to imagine finding ease in a nest that has all the comfort of a tangled ball of wire, but the birds occupy them contentedly, improvising shelter from materials intended to exclude.

Evolutionary biologists call this process “exaptation”. For example, feathers originally evolved to keep bird-like dinosaurs like Archaeopteryx warm. These feathers were adaptations to colder temperatures and only later repurposed, or exapted, to allow flight.

Exaptation places repurposing at the heart of evolution; what if we were to design our homes on the same basis?

Repurposing waste

The Waste House is a two-storey model home in Brighton, made almost entirely from household and construction waste. When I visited the Waste House while researching my book, Nature’s Genius: Evolution’s Lessons for a Changing Planet, I loved the sense of possibility found in a staircase made of compressed paper or carpet tiles lapped like slates round its outside walls.

But what lingered most vividly were the little windows built into the inside walls, showing what materials they’d used as insulation: old duvets and bicycle inner tubes, and in one window a library of DVDs. One of these was a copy of Groundhog Day – a film where the same day repeats on an endless loop.

We’re similarly stuck in a rigid pattern of extraction, consumption and waste that plays again and again, day after day. But rather than a loop, this pattern is stubbornly linear, with hundreds of millions of tonnes of usable materials flowing into the dead end of landfill every year.

The problem is that so much of what we make is designed with a single use or purpose in mind. We tend not to think about what a material or an object could become at the end of its life. But exaptation teaches us to stop seeing things as they are, and instead imagine their potential to be something new.

In Edinburgh, Pianodrome is a performance space that’s assembled entirely from old pianos. Audiences climb staircases made of soundboards, clutching bannisters that were piano lids and rest their heads against seatbacks conjured from reclaimed keyboards. Destined for landfill, these instruments have instead found a new life as space for people to gather and perform.

But like all exapted features, their new life hasn’t erased the old. Pianodrome’s makers left the strings of the old piano harps in place, buried in the heart of the structure. Just as feathers still keep flighted birds warm, and spikes that kept birds from buildings help crows and magpies to protect their nests from predators, whenever a performance takes place inside it, pianodrome resonates like one giant instrument.

An exaptive approach could help birth a circular economy, taking us out of this damaging loop of extraction and consumption, and finding value in what we currently discard. Leaving materials to waste imposes a barrier, a limit on what could be. But the birds who build their nests from anti-bird spikes teach us that what was once a barrier can become a shelter.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 45,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

David Farrier 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. What birds can teach us about repurposing waste – https://theconversation.com/what-birds-can-teach-us-about-repurposing-waste-256519

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jody Webster, Professor of Marine Geoscience, University of Sydney

In the 20th century, global sea level rose faster than at any other time in the past 3,000 years. It’s expected to rise even further by 2100, as human-induced climate change intensifies. In fact, some studies predict a rise of up to 1.6 metres and possibly more due to the rapid melting of the Antarctic ice sheets.

These changes will have huge impacts on coastal ecosystems around the world, including coral reefs. To understand these future impacts, it can be useful to understand similar events from history.

Our new research, published today in Nature Communications, does just that. It reveals how the Great Barrier Reef in northern Australia responded to a dramatic rise in sea level some 13,000 to 10,000 years ago.

A hotly debated event

Several “meltwater pulse events” have been documented in the past. These occur when ice sheets disintegrate in a catastrophic fashion, resulting in a rapid surge in global sea levels.

One of these events, known as “meltwater pulse 1B”, remains hotly debated. It occurred roughly 11,500 years ago.

Early evidence from reef cores in Barbados suggested a sharp sea-level rise of approximately 14 metres between 11,450 and 11,100 years ago, with rates of roughly 40 millimetres per year.

Remarkably, this rate is about ten times faster than the current global rise.

However, this record conflicts with others, including from Tahiti and now from the Great Barrier Reef, which suggests a more gradual rise in sea levels.

Learning from geological archives

Somewhat paradoxically shallow-water reef systems can “drown” because corals, and other reef organisms, depend on light for photosynthesis. If the water gets too deep too fast, the reef will no longer keep up with the rise and it will drown.

But drowning can also occur due to other factors, such as increased temperature, sediment and nutrients, which can also add extra environmental stress to the reef – again making it more difficult to grow vertically and keep up with sea level rise.

Cores gathered from drowned fossil coral reefs preserved along the continental shelf edge of the Great Barrier Reef contain crucial information about historic corals, coralline algae and microbial reef structures known as microbialites. They offer a unique geologic time machine to better understand how past periods of rapid global sea level rise affected reef growth.

These geological archives also provide important clues about how ice sheets behaved in response to rapid global warming.

In 2010, an expedition of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program used a geotechnical drill ship to sample below the seafloor and reconstruct the growth and demise of the Great Barrier Reef over the past roughly 30,000 years. Five distinct stages were identified in response to major global climatic and oceanographic disturbances.

In this new study, we focused on a key reef stage called Reef 4. It formed between 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, just prior to the start of the modern reef as we know it.

We refer to this reef as the “proto-Great Barrier Reef”. Once a shallow-water barrier reef system, it now exists in a fossilised form at roughly 50 metres water depth and is now the home to deeper reef communtites in the mesophotic zone 30 to 150 metres below the surface.

An impressive ability to keep pace

Our study shows the Great Barrier Reef didn’t drown during meltwater pulse 1B. In fact, it continued to thrive with clear evidence of healthy, shallow-water reef assemblages (living in waters less than ten metres deep) persisting right through the rise in sea levels.

The reef not only survived but continued to grow upwards at rates between 4–6 millimetres per year. This rate of growth is comparable to modern healthy reef growth rates, demonstrating an impressive ability to keep pace.

We also calculated that the maximum possible sea-level rise during meltwater pulse 1B was between 7.7 and 10.2 metres over roughly 350 years. This equates to between 23 and 30 millimetres per year, but was likely less.

This is less than the Barbados estimate, and more consistent with observations from Tahiti where no sharp sea-level jump was found.

Importantly, this indicates that even the upper sea level rise bounds are within the survival limits of resilient reef systems such as the Great Barrier Reef – especially when environmental stressors, such as ocean warming, ocean acidification and sedimentation are low.

Limits to a reef’s resilience

Although the Great Barrier Reef survived sea level rise roughly 11,000 years ago, the world was very different back then.

Coral reefs faced less stress from human impacts. And ocean temperatures were rising more slowly.

But today’s reefs are already struggling, with UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee recently expressing “utmost concern” about the state of the Great Barrier Reef in particular.

This is due to warming, acidification and pollution. And these additional challenges decrease reefs’ ability to cope with rapid sea-level rise.

Our findings suggest abrupt sea-level jumps of more than 11 metres are unlikely to occur without major instabilities in ice sheets. The fact that such collapses likely didn’t happen during meltwater pulse 1B offers some reassurance. But we’re in uncharted territory now, particularly with the Antarctic ice sheet displaying early signs of instability.

Our study also shows the Great Barrier Reef has been remarkably resilient, adapting to changing sea levels and continuing to grow even as the ocean rose rapidly. This resilience, however, had limits. Ultimately, the reef we examined drowned roughly 10,000 years ago, likely due to a combination of environmental stressors, including increased sediment flux. At this time the shallow water reef ecosystem migrated landward to form the modern Great Barrier, leaving behind only deeper, mesophotic reef communities.

The lessons from the past are clear: reefs can adapt to environmental changes but there are limits.

Protecting modern reefs will require more than understanding their past. It means reducing emissions and limiting other environmental stresses such as sediment and nutrient runoff where possible.

Jody Webster receives funding from the Australian Research Council and ANZIC IODP.

Juan Carlos Braga receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Spanish Government.

Marc Humblet receives funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

Stewart Fallon receives funding from the Australian Research Council and ANZIC IODP.

Yusuke Yokoyama receives funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Japan Science and Technology Agency.

– ref. Will surging sea levels kill the Great Barrier Reef? Ancient coral fossils may hold the answer – https://theconversation.com/will-surging-sea-levels-kill-the-great-barrier-reef-ancient-coral-fossils-may-hold-the-answer-257830

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Until now, Victorians believed their state was the sole home for Leadbeater’s possum, their critically endangered state faunal emblem. This tiny marsupial is clinging to life in a few pockets of mountain ash and snow gum habitat in the Central Highlands of Victoria.

But a few days ago, seven grainy photos taken by a trail camera in New South Wales revealed something very unexpected: a Leadbeater’s possum hundreds of kilometres away in the wet forests of Kosciuszko National Park.

For decades, we and other researchers have sought proof this possum existed in these forests. Now we have it. This is a moment of celebration. But it also signals the importance of well-resourced biodiversity surveys in uncovering our most threatened species and large national parks for conserving them.

While this newly discovered population reduces the risk of extinction, it doesn’t change the decline and risk of extinction of its Victorian relatives – or the steps needed to safeguard them.

Detected entirely by chance

In 2024, New South Wales threatened species ecologists Fred Ford and Martin Schulz set about looking for an entirely different species, the endangered smoky mouse. To find it, they set up a wide array of camera traps throughout wet forest areas of Kosciuszko National Park. A year later, they collected them and trawled through millions of photos.

Among all these images (including of smoky mice), there were seven which stunned them. A camera deployed near Yarrangobilly Caves captured a tiny possum scampering through leaf litter, holding its distinctive club-shaped tail erect. The possum looks around the monitoring site, showing its back and face stripes and heart-shaped face.

Experts at The Australian National University and Zoos Victoria verified the photos, setting the ecology world abuzz.

A hunch confirmed

While we are delighted at this remarkable discovery, the detection is not a complete surprise.

Over three decades ago, this article’s lead author searched for Leadbeater’s possum around Yarrangobilly and many other parts of Kosciuszko National Park, guided by a bioclimatic model suggesting the cool wet forests in Kosciuszko National Park should suit the possum.

But detection cameras were not available then, and this possum is notoriously hard to spot. It’s tiny, nocturnal and spends its waking hours dashing through the dense understory of some of the world’s tallest forests looking for nectar, sap and insects.

Species experts from Zoos Victoria and Deakin University have also scouted parts of Kosciuszko National Park over the past decade, identifying potentially promising habitat.

In 2010 we got confirmation the possum had once occurred in the area, when jaw bones were identified among bones regurgitated by owls on the floor of a nearby cave.

But other bones from the cave floor date back an estimated 140–200 years. The bones were far from proof of a living population.

The possum’s existence remained an open question until these photos.

What does this mean for this possum?

We don’t know anything about this newly discovered Leadbeater’s possum population in NSW, other than the fact that it exists. Given the distance from the Victorian populations, we suspect that they may be genetically distinct.

In theory, the existence of a separate population 250 km away from the Victorian populations cuts the risk a single megafire or other catastrophe could push the species to extinction.

But while welcome, the discovery doesn’t reduce the need to urgently protect surviving Victorian populations, which remain highly threatened by bushfire, climate change, predation by cats, and the legacy of logging and land clearing.

In Victoria, some populations have dwindled as low as 40 animals and inbreeding is now a concern.

The possum typically relies on large old trees with hollows where it can breed and den. But these trees have substantially declined in Victoria over the past 150 years. Leadbeater’s possum also needs smaller trees for feeding and movement.

Surveys across the historical range of the species in Victoria since 2017 have failed to find any other hidden populations. Most surveys have found the habitat highly degraded from logging and fire.

The discovery won’t alter the possum’s critically endangered status at this stage, nor the ongoing work to support it.

In welcome news, the NSW Environment Minister announced the possum’s state conservation listing will be fast-tracked.

Of surveys and parks

Why did it take so long to find the possum? The main reason: a lack of resources preventing targeted investigations.

Even basic inventories of species have not been done across many of Australia’s important conservation areas.

Without well conducted surveys and monitoring, we are left overly reliant on chance detections for critical information. There could be other populations of imperilled species waiting to be rediscovered.

Properly managing our growing number of threatened species shouldn’t be based on luck. It should be enabled by adequate resources for threatened species recovery teams to discover, map, protect and manage threatened species and their habitat.

Increasing federal spending on the care of nature to 1% of the budget would go a very long way to closing these gaps.

Trail cameras, call playback and environmental DNA sampling mean we can now survey large and remote natural areas with relatively little effort for long periods of time.

Big parks are essential

Kosciuszko National Park supports much more than Australia’s highest mountains. The huge park spans 690,000 hectares, much of it forest.

Many of our most imperilled species are hard to detect. Protecting extensive areas of good-quality habitat boosts the survival chances for these species, even if we don’t yet have proof of life.

With so little high-quality habitat left in Australia, proper protection through new national parks (including in Victoria) is vitally important for the possum and many other species.

Passive protection isn’t enough either – adequate funding is critical to stop the environmental condition of parks from declining, due to threats like invasive species and extreme fires.

The world still contains wonder

These seven photos have given ecologists and nature lovers a real boost to their spirits. As detection techniques improve, what else is out there waiting to be found?

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Leadbeater’s possum experts Dan Harley, Arabella Eyre, John Woinarski and Brendan Wintle to this article.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government and the Victorian Government. He is a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council and a Member of Birds Australia.

Darcy Watchorn works for Zoos Victoria, a not-for-profit zoo-based conservation organisation. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia, the Australian Mammal Society, the Society for Conservation Biology, and the Royal Society of Victoria.

Jaana Dielenberg was employed by the now-ended Threatened Species Recovery Hub of the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program, which conducted research on the Leadbeater’s possum in Victoria. She is a Charles Darwin University Fellow and is employed by the University of Melbourne and the Biodiversity Council.

– ref. Decades of searching and a chance discovery: why finding Leadbeater’s possum in NSW is such big news – https://theconversation.com/decades-of-searching-and-a-chance-discovery-why-finding-leadbeaters-possum-in-nsw-is-such-big-news-257957

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Orr, Professor of Law, The University of Queensland

Election day was over four weeks ago. Yet the outcome in one House of Representatives remains unclear. That is the formerly Liberal Sydney electorate of Bradfield.

In real time, you can watch the lead tilt between Liberal hopeful, Gisele Kapterian and her teal independent rival, Nicolette Boele. The difference between them has been as small as one vote. As of Monday, that had shifted to 12 votes in the Teal’s favour. Still too close even for Antony Green to call.

What are the processes for resolving ultra-marginal results? And, more broadly, what accountability is there for problems in campaigning or the running of the election, such as the allegation that voters in one NSW town were misled about how to vote?

First, to the Bradfield saga. The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has until July 9 to declare the result. It then certifies a list of successful candidates, which it “returns”, attached to the original writ the governor-general used to formally begin the election.

Electoral challenges

Within 40 days of the writ being returned, any candidate or elector from the seat can “petition” its result. That’s not a petition calling for parliament to handle the matter. It means a formal pleading to the Court of Disputed Returns. For national elections, that means the High Court.

Remarkably few seats are challenged in Australia. On the happy side, this is because our election agencies are very professional. It’s also a matter of legal principle, arithmetic and resources.

To succeed in a challenge, you must show the outcome was likely to have been affected, by errors or breaches of the electoral act. With more than 100,000 voting in House of Representatives electorates, even a 0.5% margin means convincing a judge that a 500-vote lead was uncertain.

The last successful petition nationally was 12 years ago. The AEC admitted some lost ballots meant that the last couple of Western Australian Senate seats could have been different. The whole race had to be re-run.

In Bradfield, there’s no suggestion of impropriety. So it’s not like the last unsuccessful petition, from 2019, where the Liberals survived claims that misleading how-to-vote posters, directed at Chinese language speakers, might have affected the result.

Instead, the Bradfield loser would focus on disputed ballots. That would mean, for example, votes where their scrutineers noted some uncertainty. Such as whether a “1” was a “7”. A judge can then give a binding ruling on the intent of the ballot.

The loser might also try to find evidence of people being wrongly denied a ballot or wrongly issued one. The 40-day period to marshal evidence is strict.

Besides time limits, a challenger needs lawyers and risks paying the other side’s (and perhaps the AEC’s) legal costs if they lose the hearing.

Counts and recounts

Australian election counts are very thorough. This is in contrast to the United Kingdom, where local officials literally rush to be the first to declare, in the wee hours of Friday morning after voting closes at 10pm on a Thursday.

The figures we see on election night are “indicative” only, drawing on counts in thousands of polling places. Every ballot is transferred to a more central location, for official tallying. Ballots for weaker candidates are reviewed multiple times, as they pass on according to each elector’s preferences.

When a seat is ultra-close, the law permits a complete recount. AEC policy is to conduct one whenever the result is within 100 votes: in Bradfield, the initial result was a mere eight votes.

A losing candidate can also request a recount. Teal independent Zoe Daniel did that in her Melbourne seat of Goldstein, where Liberal Tim Wilson finished 260 votes ahead.

Recounts are resource intensive. So the AEC agreed to review all “1” votes for those candidates, and ballots put in the “informal” or invalid pile. Wilson finally won by 175 votes. A challenge to a margin of that size seems very unlikely.

Bad form or protest? Informal votes

What of votes that couldn’t be counted? We call these “informal”. Given turning-out to vote is compulsory – and the requirement to give preferences – Australia has long had a lot of informal ballots.

Upwards of half tend to be accidental, caused by people misnumbering the ballot or not understanding the rules. The highest rates are in seats with many new citizens from overseas, especially as long ballots of many of candidates is becoming common.

Maybe more than half, however, are deliberate, intended as protests against the system or parties. These include blanks and those scribbled with (sometimes obscene) comments. As faith in parties has declined, informals have risen. Also, due to “automatic enrolment”, more people are enrolled than ever, including some who’d rather not be. Informal ballots this year reached 5.6% of turnout. For perspective, that’s up just 0.4%.

Voters in the small town of Missabotti in the New South wales seat of Cowper, however, were miffed to find their polling booth had a 45% informal rate. That’s quite an outlier, even for a seat where electors had to rank a dizzying 11 candidates.

There are allegations a polling official misled some electors, by telling them they only had to number “6” candidates for the House. That is the rule for the Senate, not the House.

As preferences are not mandatory at NSW state elections, it’s understandable voters may have heeded such advice rather than the actual rule on the ballot. Such an error would be embarrassing for the AEC. But it could hardly ground an election challenge: the Nationals held Cowper by almost 5,500 votes.

Does that mean there’s no accountability? Anyone affected does not get to vote again. But the AEC is investigating. And after every election, it is grilled by a parliamentary inquiry that the public can contribute to.

In the end, every vote should be sacred. In reality, elections are huge logistical events and nothing is perfect. But there are courts and inquiries to offer remedies and improve things for the future.

Graeme Orr 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. In Bradfield, the election is not yet over. What happens when a seat count is ultra close? – https://theconversation.com/in-bradfield-the-election-is-not-yet-over-what-happens-when-a-seat-count-is-ultra-close-257956

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Herbert, Associate Professor in Developmental Psychology, University of Wollongong

You might have seen those heartwarming and often funny viral videos where parents or carers engage in long “talks” with young babies about this and that – usually just fun chit chat of no great consequence.

They’re often very sweet, and it’s lovely to see the babies’ faces lighting up at the sound of their mother or carer’s voice, or seeming to talk back. In one, the baby appears to reply in an accent strikingly similar to their carer’s:

So, what’s going on when we chat like this to babies? And is it better to chat to them in the tone and pace we’d use when talking to other adults, or is it OK to talk in a slower, higher pitched, sing-song voice?

Here’s what the research shows so far.

Talking to your baby matters

When you speak with your baby, they are exposed to a rich tapestry of sounds and movements. Can babies make sense of all this input?

Well, by the time they’re born babies are already highly experienced with their mother’s voice as well as other language sounds they’ve heard while in utero.

In fact, research shows newborns prefer listening to the language they heard in utero rather than an unfamiliar language.

They also prefer to hear the story their mother read aloud regularly in the final weeks of pregnancy, compared to a different story – regardless of who is reading it.

So, although newborns are yet to understand the meaning of these words, they are already tuned in to the importance of language.

Given the vast exposure that most young babies have with their parent’s voice, passively listening to mum or dad talking is likely to be comforting.

Time spent together in close physical contact with a highly familiar person producing familiar sounds creates a safe, secure space rich in learning opportunities.

Babies can learn a lot about conversational style from just listening to and watching the way their parent communicates.

In fact, babies mimic their parents’ gestures, which can help build their vocabulary over time. The social context influences language skills.

What if I run out of things to say?

If you’re not a fan of monologuing to your baby, don’t worry. They’re not missing out.

In fact, constant exposure to long monologues by a parent is unlikely to provide the baby with a particularly supportive language environment for developing their understanding or production of words.

Adult language is extremely complex. It takes a lot of experience with language before a string of sounds like “Yourdadlikeschocolatemoltenlavacake” can be interpreted as individual words linked to people, objects, or concepts.

One of the most effective ways to support early word recognition and promote attention to the structure of language is for the adult to use a simplified way of speaking to the baby.

“Parentese” is characterised by the use of higher pitch sounds, elongated vowels, and a slower pace of speaking. Real words are presented in a sing-song, happy voice.

Parentese draws the baby’s attention to words, and highlights how information in speech chunks together. Babies have been found to prefer to listen to this style of speaking compared to standard speech.

Speaking ‘parentese’

Parentese is not the same thing as “baby talk”. Baby talk involves the use of nonsense words, and the modelling of incorrect speech sounds and grammar. A baby is not being supported to learn the word “water” if they are repeatedly presented with a nonsense label like “waa waa” for their drink.

One US study found that when parents were trained to use parentese with their infants at six and ten months, the infants showed an increase in babbling and said more words at 14 months, compared to infants of parents who did not receive this training.

Other research has shown consistent use of parentese in the early years can help build the complexity of children’s language skills at five years of age.

Learning to talk is not simply the product of hearing lots of words. In the first weeks of life, infants are already beginning to produce coos and murmurs that both parents and outside observers judge to be intentional vocalisations.

Try responding to these sounds by imitating them and then interpreting what your baby might be trying to say. This enables them to take a turn as a social partner in the conservation.

When even very young babies take turns in conversations with an adult, the quality of their vocalisations increases.

At the youngest ages, time spent talking together in face-to-face interactions best supports language development.

With age, babies become increasingly interested in the objects in their environment.

So, what should I do?

An effective way to boost language learning from about nine months of age is to notice what’s captured your baby’s attention and talk about that.

Try labelling and describing what your baby is looking at, playing with, pointing at, or babbling towards.

Research by colleagues and I found encouraging parents to engage in 15 minutes of this kind of talk a day with their 11-month-olds for a month was effective in promoting vocabulary growth at 15 and 18 months.

Overall, a rich language environment is created by engaging with your baby in a wide range of activities – via games, songs, and reading aloud – not just having focused conversations.

Jane Herbert has received funding for these projects: 2012-15: Does promoting parents’ engagement with their infants benefit language development?” Nuffield Foundation (approx. £200,000). D Matthews (PI, University of Sheffield), JS Herbert (University of Sheffield), and J Pine (University of Liverpool). 2011-12: Does promoting parents’ engagement with their infants benefit language development? British Academy Small Research Grant (£7,500). Co-PIs: D Matthews (University of Sheffield), JS Herbert (University of Sheffield), and J Pine (University of Liverpool).

– ref. Is there a right way to talk to your baby? A baby brain expert explains ‘parentese’ – https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-right-way-to-talk-to-your-baby-a-baby-brain-expert-explains-parentese-257007