Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charlotte Gupta, Sleep Researcher, Appleton Institute, HealthWise Research Group, CQUniversity Australia
Halloween has been growing in popularity in Australia over recent years, with more families embracing the fun of dressing up and trick-or-treating.
Many of us also accept it’s a night when our kids are going to eat a spine-tingling amount of treats.
As you brace for the excitement, it can be helpful to understand how sugar and ultra-processed foods can affect kids’ sleep – and why sticking to some routines can make a big difference.
Here are some tips, so you and your little monsters can still get a good night’s sleep even on the spookiest night of the year.
Is the sugar rush real?
When kids (and yes, adults too) eat sugary ultra-processed treats, it causes a sharp spike in blood sugar (glucose) levels.
Blood sugar immediately starts to rise after eating. This may lead to a brief burst of feeling more energised.
In response, the body releases insulin to regulate the system and bring those levels back down.
This can cause an energy slump, usually 60 minutes after eating, although the spike-and-crash cycle may be faster when foods are ultra-processed, like many lollies.
But while kids might get a short-lived burst of energy from eating lollies, the effect on their behaviour isn’t nearly as dramatic as you might think.
Research shows the so-called “sugar rush” – and the idea it makes kids hyperactive – is largely a myth.
Behaviour we might blame on sugar is probably more about the environment than the sweets.
Many of us accept Halloween is a night our kids are going to eat a lot of sugary treats. Kinzie+Riehm/Getty
This high-energy state is the opposite of what helps the body prepare for sleep. Racing thoughts and restless energy can also make it difficult to relax.
Adding to this, Halloween often means a later bedtime and disrupted routine.
Kids are usually outside, active and exposed to bright lights later than usual. This can delay the body’s release of melatonin, the hormone that signals it’s time to sleep.
The combination of heightened excitement, irregular bedtime, and stimulation from the evening’s activities makes it much harder for children to settle down.
And eating a lot of sugary treats right before bedtime can disrupt their sleep further.
How lollies can affect sleep
Evidence shows eating sugary treats close to bedtime can make it harder to get a good night’s sleep, reducing quality and duration.
There are a number of reasons why this might happen.
The rapid glucose spike before bed can increase your kid’s energy levels and interfere with natural sleepiness. Then, when their blood sugar levels drop sharply again, they might wake up during the night.
Ultra-processed foods can also raise our core body temperature and increase metabolic activity. This can disrupt the body’s natural wind-down routines before sleep.
These foods can also make us dehydrated, as the body needs more water to process the excess sugar. So kids may want to drink more water before bed than usual, then need to use the bathroom during the night.
Caffeine makes us more alert. Combined with the effects of the other ingredients, such as sugar, this can make chocolate a problem for sleep if eaten shortly before bedtime.
The good news is there are some strategies so we can let kids enjoy their Halloween treats without turning bedtime into a nightmare.
Tips and tricks
Timing is important. Encourage treats earlier in the evening. Try to avoid any food – especially sugary, ultra-processed food – in the three hours before bed.
Don’t let treats replace a proper meal. A balanced dinner, including carbohydrates, protein and healthy fats, helps slow sugar absorption, preventing rapid blood sugar spikes and post-meal crashes.
Keep bedtime routines consistent. After an exciting evening, sticking to familiar bedtime routines can really help kids wind down. Regular behaviours – such as a warm bath, brushing teeth, reading a story or dimming the lights – can help signal to the body that it’s time for rest.
Hydrate. Water before bed reduces dehydration from sugar and additives. However, make sure this is only a small glass to reduce the chance of bedwetting.
Spread out leftovers. Think about how you’re going to handle (or hide) leftover lollies to avoid straight days of high sugar intake post-Halloween.
Try some gentle stretching.Vigorous physical activity can disrupt the wind-down routine, so it’s better to leave that for daytime. But some yoga or light stretching might help wriggly kids get rid of some energy.
Understanding the importance of timing and routine can help kids enjoy the celebrations – and still get a good night’s sleep. Which makes a good night for you more likely, too.
Charlotte Gupta 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.
It has been a horror year for eary childhood education and care in Australia, amid ongoing reports and allegations of abuse in the sector.
On Monday, a new ABC investigation identified almost 150 childcare workers have been convicted, charged, or accused of sexual abuse and inappropriate conduct.
As part of its push to improve safety in early childhood centres, the federal governments is about to trial CCTV in hundreds services.
But a recent data hack of a London-based nursery chain (known as daycare in Australia) shows how vulnerable sensitive information about children and their families can be.
Before surveillance becomes an accepted part of early childhood education and care, we need to ask, what are the risks of having CCTV around kids?
A cautionary UK tale
In late September, hackers breached the online records of a UK nursery chain. The BBC reports they stole photos, names and addresses of about 8,000 children. They also took contact details of parents.
The perpetrators threatened to publish details unless a ransom was paid and then published some photos to the dark web. They since deleted them and two teenagers were arrested earlier this month.
While the case didn’t involve CCTV, it demonstrates how vulnerable early childhood services can be when they are entrusted with children and families’ personal data.
Many early childhood services use third-party online management platforms. If these are compromised, even the most careful local efforts may not prevent a breach.
Large providers such as Goodstart and G8 have already begun rolling out CCTV in their centres amid growing regulatory and public pressure to strengthen child safety.
CCTV has been promoted by government and large providers as a way to strengthen oversight and deter harm. Cameras are billed as being able to:
deter intruders or capture evidence in rare but serious cases of abuse or neglect
help resolve disputes, protect staff from false allegations, and provide material for training and reflection.
help families feel more comfortable knowing surveillance is in place, believing it makes services more transparent.
But there are also risks
The Australian childcare regulator recently released guidelines to store images and videos securely.
Installing and maintaining cameras, secure servers and encrypted storage systems is expensive. It could be difficult for smaller or rural services to meet these costs.
Along with the sensitive information being hacked there are also other risks and issues around CCTV.
Young children cannot meaningfully consent to being filmed, yet CCTV is potentially recording their play, routines and interactions in ways they cannot control.
Current Australian privacy law does not recognise children as a distinct group, but changes are underway. By 2026, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner will introduce a Children’s Online Privacy Code, including principles such as “best interests of the child” and clearer consent standards.
How this potentially aligns (or clashes) with the early childhood education sector’s plans for CCTV is not yet clear.
CCTV alone is not the answer
There is a significant danger is assuming CCTV alone can keep children safe.
Research shows effective staff training and open communication with families are the key ways to keep children safe. Child-to-staff ratios are also crucial.
This is because genuine safety comes from a positive culture of care, where educators are supported to notice children’s needs, speak up about concerns, and work with families to promote wellbeing.
Tensions may also arise when families assume they have a right to access CCTV footage – for example, after incidents where a child is hurt – yet in many cases they do not due to privacy and regulatory frameworks.
What’s also missing is robust research. We know very little about how surveillance affects children’s behaviour, how educators’ teach and care for children, or parent–staff relationships in Australian early learning settings.
What should happen next?
CCTV may play a role in strengthening safety in early childhood education services, but we need to be very careful about it. Some considerations include:
specific roles for cameras, not blanket surveillance. For example, only for entry/exit monitoring, incident investigation, reflective practice, where educators review footage to better understand and improve their interactions
strong safeguards. This includes encryption, strict access controls, limited retention periods and routine audits
transparency and consultation. This means parents and staff should be fully informed and engaged in decisions about surveillance and data storage
national standards. This requires a consistent regulatory framework to avoid a patchwork of different state rules.
For governments and large organisations, the appeal of CCTV often lies in grand gestures that signal action and accountability, even if the benefits for children are less certain.
But if we are going to use CCTV it should be there to support, not substitute, trusted relationships, good training and highly skilled educators. These are all elements which research shows truly keep children safe.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Over the past few years, markets have been on a wild ride. The price of gold has soared to record highs. Bitcoin is trading above US$100,000 (about A$150,000), at levels that once seemed unthinkable.
Hype about artificial intelligence (AI) has put a rocket under tech stocks. US chip maker Nvidia is worth more than Australia’s entire stock market combined.
Obviously, this doesn’t tell us anything about where these investments are headed in the future. There are now even widespread concerns AI investment may be driving a bubble.
Still, if you did have a time machine, what would be the best way to go back and invest some cash?
We’ve crunched the numbers on a range of popular investment options to see how they have performed since 2010. The results might surprise you.
The range is staggering
Let’s imagine you had A$1,000 burning a hole in your pocket back in 2010.
The global financial crisis was still fresh on everyone’s minds, and the investment world was a different place. But maybe you had just received a tax refund, or sold your old car. So, where should you have put that money?
By now, that $1,000 could be worth anywhere from $1,428 if you left it in a savings account, to a mind-boggling $466.8 million if you’d invested in Bitcoin.
Cryptocurrency is a bit of a special case, so we’ll come back to that later.
The Australian share market delivered solid returns. Investing in the ASX 200 – the top 200 companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) – would have turned $1,000 into $3,446 (with dividends reinvested). That’s a 245% total return.
Putting it in gold, often considered a “safe haven” investment, would have returned $4,201.
Then comes the standout: US shares. Investing in the S&P 500 would have transformed $1,000 into $10,851 – more than triple the return on Australian shares.
US superstars – the ‘Magnificent Seven’
Even that remarkable figure pales beside a more concentrated bet – the “Magnificent Seven” tech stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (owner of Google), Amazon, Meta (owner of Facebook), Tesla and Nvidia.
We can’t measure their performance from all the way back in 2010, because Meta (Facebook) only listed publicly on the US share market in 2012.
However, Bloomberg data allows us to reliably track their performance as a basket of stocks since 2015. From that point in time, investing in these stocks would have turned that same $1,000 into $26,074 by today.
That’s nearly two and a half times better than the broader S&P 500 since 2010 and more than seven times the ASX 200’s performance.
The Magnificent Seven’s outperformance reveals why the overall strength of US shares isn’t just about US companies being better investments – it’s about which sectors and companies dominated global innovation and market returns over this period.
The currency effect that amplified returns
The S&P 500 would have given you more than 600% over 15 years in US dollar terms with dividends reinvested. This is impressive, but after you translate the US dollar returns into Australian dollars, you get a return of 985%.
That’s because the Australian dollar fell from parity with the US dollar in 2010 to about 65 US cents now. That’s a 35% depreciation that turbocharged returns on US investments.
Every US dollar of gains converts back to significantly more Australian dollars today than it did in 2010.
The crypto reality check
Finally, let’s address the elephant in the room. Theoretically, A$1,000 invested when Bitcoin traded around 37 Australian cents in late 2010 could have grown to approximately $466.8 million by now. That’s a whopping 46,682,249% return.
However, cryptocurrency investors faced immense challenges over this period. They had to navigate a market with a catastrophic failure rate, where nearly 40% of all coins from 2014–2021 were delisted – mostly as a total 100% loss.
Even though Bitcoin appears more resilient than other cryptocurrencies, it has endured intense volatility. It saw annual price swings of over 100% between 2010 and 2015.
Cryptocurrency exchange collapses – such as the 2014 failure of Mt. Gox, which resulted in the loss of 850,000 bitcoin – highlight the vulnerabilities in crypto infrastructure.
Sobering news for savers
Here is the sobering news: leaving your money in a typical savings account would have seen it grow to just $1,428. That is only 45% growth over 15 years.
Savings accounts were paying reasonable interest (although the rate had been declining) until the COVID pandemic, when savings rates plummeted to just 0.5%.
When you account for inflation, money in savings accounts has actually lost purchasing power.
What this means today
An investor who turned $1,000 into $10,851 in US shares simply diversified internationally, held steady through multiple crises, and benefited from both asset appreciation and currency depreciation.
They didn’t need perfect timing or insider knowledge, just patience and perspective. In an era of unprecedented market concentration, that patient, diversified approach matters more than ever.
The best investment strategy isn’t about finding the next Bitcoin. It’s about building a portfolio that captures returns wherever they emerge globally.
Disclaimer: This article provides general information only and is not intended as financial advice. All investments carry risk.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
We all know how commercial Halloween has become, with expensive dress-ups, trick-or-treat “candy” and fake cobwebs (please don’t – they kill birds!).
But if you’ve ever dismissed Halloween as an American invention, you might want to rethink that.
For at least the past couple of millennia, the changing of the seasons has been marked among Celtic peoples with festivals at recognised times of year.
One of these was known by the Irish and Scottish Gaels as Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”), celebrated at the onset of winter. In the northern hemisphere, this falls around the end of October, although the tradition predates our modern calendar.
Samhain and the rhythms of the farming year
At Samhain, the harvest would be over, the last livestock would be brought back from the summer pastures, and people would prepare for the winter.
The old Gaelic saying “Oidhche Shamhna theirear gamhna ris na laoigh” (on Samhain night, calves become stirks) shows us how closely the idea of Samhain is tied to the rhythms of the farming year. (A stirk is a beast aged between six and 12 months.)
Summer in Gaelic culture meant outdoor life – young family members staying up in the hills watching the grazing livestock, renewal of the thatch on the family home, growing and harvesting crops.
Winter meant long hours inside the house, rationing the food that had been stored.
Samhain became an opportunity for one last celebration of nature before the long period indoors.
Seasonal duties were completed. Beasts unlikely to survive would be butchered, with part of the meat preserved and part used in a shared meal.
Bonfires would be lit for a last outdoor party, also providing warmth, invoking protection and fertility.
Fires were probably a way of mimicking the warmth and light of the Sun – holding back the winter darkness a little longer, protecting against evil by appeasing the old gods or new saints.
There’s also a long-held Celtic belief that at liminal times like Samhain – on the cusp between summer and winter – the veil between the human and spirit worlds was especially thin.
This meant otherworldly beings or spirits, particularly those of the ancestors, might be found roaming in our world.
Various Samhain activities, recorded from the early 18th century, reflect uneasiness about the possibility of encountering spirits, but also the fun of the bonfire party.
Many involved divination: attempts to predict a future spouse or otherwise foretell the future, are particularly widely recorded.
Acts of mischief by perpetrators unknown (likely teenagers), not all of them benevolent, were also common at Samhain in parts of Scotland and Ireland.
Gates might be removed and hidden, meaning livestock might stray. Chimneys might be blocked with turnips, trapping smoke in the house. Houses might be pelted with vegetables, wheels taken from carts, boats pulled up above the waterline, or chamber pots tied to doors.
Some people carved ghoulish faces into turnips, into which a light (usually a smouldering peat or ember in the rural areas, but sometimes a candle) would be inserted. It may originate from the practice of carrying a smouldering peat to light the way, or it may originate from the idea of pre-emptive frightening of any spirits wandering abroad. This is the likely origin of today’s pumpkin carving.
Perhaps the peculiar combination of uneasiness and fun led to the most widespread Samhain activity: guising.
Guisers might be considered the forerunners of our modern trick-or-treaters, but this was not a matter of dressing as your favourite character, or donning a fetching witch’s hat.
Guisers could be genuinely terrifying, especially for young children.
In the island of South Uist, for example, masks made from sheepskin with features painted on them were often paired with wigs of straw and old clothes or animal skins that concealed the form of the person inside. Sometimes a sheep’s skull might be added.
YouTube/The National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA.
Guisers would visit neighbouring houses, challenging the householders to guess their identities, perhaps reciting rhymes, riddles or songs, before accepting a scone or other food and going on their way.
There are two explanations of why guising began.
One is that by obscuring their identities, guisers would evade any hostile spirits seeking to harm them.
The other is that guisers were themselves imitating the ancestor spirits, and trying to frighten others.
Both are possibly true. The idea that the evening would morph into a sharing of songs, stories and food, surely holds the kernel of modern trick-or-treating.
All traditions change over time
In the 18th and 19th centuries, during the infamous Highland Clearances and Great Irish Famine, a great deal of the rural populations of Scotland and Ireland were relocated – often against their will – to North America.
In those relocated settlements, what could be more natural than to reproduce these familiar, and perhaps comforting, rituals of home?
The name Halloween refers to the Christian tradition of All Souls’ Day falling on November 1: the night before is All Souls’ (or All Hallows’) Eve, which became Halloween. As happened with many other significant dates, it seems to have been layered with the pre-existing festival of Samhain.
Halloween as we now know it has certainly been heavily influenced by North America, but if we look closely enough, we can still see the traces of much older Celtic beliefs.
We can embrace the idea of marking the turning of the seasons without having to adopt the whole package.
Pamela O’Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the middle of the Southern Indian Ocean lies a vast underwater volcanic ridge known as the Kerguelen Plateau. At its centre sits Australia’s most remote territory: Heard Island and McDonald Islands. These icy outposts about 4,100km southwest of Perth are home to Australia’s only active volcanoes.
These isolated islands are a biodiversity hotspot. Seals and penguins abound on rocky beaches. Underwater, seabed fish species have evolved antifreeze-like compounds in their blood to cope with near-freezing temperatures.
Isolation doesn’t mean protection. The discovery of many dead elephant seal pups on Heard Island suggests highly pathogenic avian influenza may have arrived. For years, the rich fisheries around these islands were targeted by illegal fishers hunting for the sought-after Patagonian toothfish.
There is good news. Our new research has found increasing numbers of fish species and wider distributions around Heard and McDonald Islands. While it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact drivers of these increases, we believe it’s a combination of factors: the removal of illegal fishing, changes in fishing practices to reduce bycatch, a long-established marine reserve, and possibly climate-driven increases in ocean productivity.
Fish communities rebounding
The undulating terrain and nutrient-rich waters washing up from 4,000m deep onto the Kergeluen Plateau have helped make this area a hotspot for fish species.
Before Australia established an exclusion zone around the islands, the region was heavily targeted by international trawlers likely causing significant damage to many forms of life on the seafloor.
In the 1990s, illegal fishers using longlines targeted these waters for the high-value toothfish and large catches of species such as marbled rockcod. By the early 2000s, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing was stamped out due to joint surveillance efforts by Australian and French authorities. France controls the Kergeluen Islands 450km away. The waters are now monitored by satellite.
Historically, authorised fishers also relied on trawling to catch toothfish. In 2003, the fishing industry began shifting to longline methods for catching toothfish which has likely benefited seafloor habitats, bycatch species and fish communities. Today, trawling efforts in the region are much reduced outside a small fishery for mackerel icefish.
The toothfish is sought after by top restaurants around the world and the area has a well-managed and lucrative toothfish and mackerel icefish fishery considered sustainable. Only 2,120 tonnes can be taken a year under catch limits set by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority.
A no-take marine reserve was declared over some of the waters around Heard and McDonald Islands in 2002 and expanded in 2014. This is also likely to have contributed to the increase in fish communities. In January 2025, the Australian government significantly expanded the size of the reserve, including no-take, habitat protection and national park zones. This should further boost protection.
The region’s remoteness, harsh conditions and ocean depth make it very difficult to study how fishing and climate change affect fish communities.
The data we used in our research comes from a long-term monitoring program conducted by fishers and managed by the Australian government. Every year since the late 1990s, a fishing vessel undertakes a number of short trawls at different depths. The presence and abundance of different species is recorded.
We used contemporary statistical approaches to model the entire dataset, examining how all seabed fish species respond to factors such as water temperature, depth, climate and marine reserve status.
Our analysis of data from 2003–16 found that despite a warming ocean, bottom-dwelling fish numbers have broadly increased. This includes species more likely to be caught as bycatch in fishing nets, such as Eaton’s skate, grey rockcod and deep-water grenadier species. Strikingly, the number of species in a single sample more than doubled over a 13 year-time period.
What’s next?
This area is a climate change hotspot. Major ocean currents such as the Polar Front are changing and water temperatures are rising. These changes are boosting production of phytoplankton, the microscopic floating plants that underpin food webs. We don’t know yet if this is another reason fish distributions are changing, and we don’t know what rising water temperatures will mean for polar-adapted fish species.
This year, the Australian research vessel RSV Nuyina will visit the Heard and McDonald Islands twice for research such as surveying marine ecosystems to inform fisheries management. For researchers, the next step will be to build broader collaboration with French researchers, fishers and fishery managers to better track changes to ecosystems across the entire Kerguelen Plateau.
We can’t definitively say these species have fully recovered, as we don’t know the distribution and abundance of these species before human pressure began. But overall, our research is good news. It suggests fish species under pressure can recover strongly and that management methods are working.
Joel Williams received funding from Australian Antarctic Division to complete this research. His research is also supported through DCCEEW and FRDC competitive grants.
Nicole Hill received funding from the Australian Antarctic Program to complete this research. Her research has also been supported by ARC and FRDC competitive grants.
The world of graduate research studies in higher education is not typically deemed cinematic material: the “actions” of scholarship are rather prosaic. However, two films currently in cinemas have put graduate research on the screen.
Sorry, Baby, an indie film by writer/director Victor Eva and Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, from a screenplay by Nora Garrett, connect with the genre and online aesthetic of “Dark Academia” and its obsession for all things scholarly.
It’s popularity online explains, to a degree, why these “PhD films” are of interest to screen audiences of different generations. And both films blend towards a “Grey Academia”, exploring the ethically grey areas of the modern institution.
The world of dark academia
Stories of Dark Academia unfold in the shadows of university cloisters. The characters are university professors and their students. The dress code tweed or preppy.
The term is relatively new. It first described an online aesthetic on Tumblr then TikTok, with users sharing idealised images which romanticise higher education, literature and the arts.
The genre is porous. It has been reverse-engineered to revisit the campus novel/film/TV genre, including mainstays such as Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992).
During COVID, Dark Academia proliferated online with students locked out of their universities, pining for the real thing.
Publishing followed: Mona Awad’s Bunny (2019) and R.F.Kuang’s Katabasis (2025) are stories of graduate students in distress. The world of PhD study meets crime, psychosocial harm and sometimes magic and the occult.
The #metoo fallout
Sorry, Baby and After the Hunt share New England campus settings, in the northeastern United States.
The darkness in these films is shaped by incidents, and allegations of, sexual assault. They rely on genre to explore a post #MeToo sensibility: Sorry, Baby is a “traumedy” and After the Hunt a psychodrama that oscillates around, rather than confronts the inciting incident.
The main characters are humanities professors. Sorry, Baby’s Agnes (Eva Victor) is a young, creative writing professor at a regional university who has flashbacks to her trauma as a graduate student. After the Hunt’s Alma (Julia Roberts) is a middle-aged professor of philosophy at Yale, supervising students in ethics.
Both professors are white and privileged. However, the films foreground a queerness and gender fluidity consistent with Dark Academia on social media, as a generational update of the campus genre. They share a muted mise-en-scène but it is Guadagnino’s film in which scenes are (literally) bathed in darkness.
In After the Hunt, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) is a queer, millennial, black woman (coded Gen-Z at times) who is portrayed to be at best a mediocre student or at worst a plagiarist. Her PhD supervisor and mentor, Alma, struggles with pressures of modern academia: teaching, publishing and campus politics. Her remedies are copious amounts of red wine and (illegal) pain prescription pills.
With tenure just in sight, Maggie files an accusation of sexual assault against Hank (Andrew Garfield) who is Alma’s close colleague and confidante. Generational conflict plays out on the Beinecke Library plaza where Alma calls out Maggie’s “accidental privilege” and performative modes of “discomfort” through a lens of identity politics.
But Maggie’s family are benefactors to Yale and, with dwindling government support, private philanthropy keeps the lights on.
Maggie dresses as Alma in elegant, recessive preppy wear. This tilts towards “Light Academia”, a more optimistic version of the genre which peaked with the highly forgettable Netflix film, My Oxford Year (2025).
In After the Hunt, Giulia Piersanti’s muted costume design also reflects the greyness inherent in the moral ambiguity of the film.
Higher education in crisis
Themes of Dark Academia are also being referenced in scholarship on the psychosocial harm taking place within corporate university settings.
In After the Hunt, the phrase “the crisis of higher education” – typically a news heading – is repurposed as character dialogue.
Universities in the United States have been targeted with underfunding, a dismantling of diversity programs and existential threats to academic freedom. And graduate research studies are not exempt.
Closer to home, humanities and creative arts programs are being restructured, or erased altogether.
Is it too far of a stretch to imagine that the romanticism of studying the classics, the liberal or creative arts may one day only exist on screen?
In these new campus films the university itself is a key character – and its traits are found wanting.
In Sorry, Baby, Agnes feels the cold hand of the institution when her PhD supervisor flees to take a job at a new university. In After the Hunt, the Dean tells Alma “optics” matter most. While Agnes and Alma ultimately succeed in their tenure as professors, it feels a hollow victory.
These films bring dark stories of campus life to the screen in new ways. They explore generational values and distil the sociopolitical anxieties that surround universities today into fictional forms.
In particular, they conjure an ethical (and institutional) greyness perceived to be operating in higher education settings and draw on current affairs in the sector for raw material.
Last week, we saw the Australian government implement a set of “University Governance Principles” to restore public trust in universities. Perhaps an Australian film in this genre is coming next.
Alex Munt 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.
Successive New Zealand governments have dodged the issue of how the news media should be held to account, leaving us with outdated and fragmented systems for standards and complaints.
But the issue erupted recently when the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) advised The Platform it could consider public complaints about its online output.
Talley’s . . . sued TVNZ over six 1News reports in 2021 and 2022. Image: Screenshot
Those who reckon we don’t need an official broadcasting watchdog point out we already have laws protecting privacy, copyright and other things — and criminalising harassment and bullying.
And if someone on air — or online — lowers your reputation in the minds of right-thinking New Zealanders without good reason, you can sue them for defamation if you think you can prove it.
News organisations don’t often end up in court for that, but when they do it’s big news. Reputations are at stake — and possibly lots of money too in damages.
Thirty years ago the country’s largest-ever payment followed scurrilous claims in Metro magazine’s gossip column — all about a journalist at a rival publication.
Ten years ago, foreign affairs reporter Jon Stephenson sued the chief of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) for statements that wrongly cast doubt on his reporting about New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan. After a full jury trial, a second was about to begin when the NZDF settled for an undisclosed sum and a statement of “regret”.
Last week, another defamation case concluded, but this time the plaintiff was not a person — and was not seeking damages.
The result may not be known for months, but it could change the way controversial claims about big companies are handled by newsrooms, and — depending on the outcome — how defamation law is deployed by those on the end of investigative reporting.
‘See you in court’ Over five weeks, lawyers for food giant Talley’s went toe-to-toe in the High Court with TVNZ and its lawyers, led by Davey Salmon KC, who also acted for Stephenson 10 years ago.
Talley’s sued TVNZ over six 1News reports in 2021 and 2022 — and also, unusually, sued Christchurch-based reporter Thomas Mead individually as well.
The series alleged problems with hygiene, health and safety at two Talley’s plants.
“To the public, the company presents a spotless image of staff producing frozen vegetables with a smile on their face, but 1News can now pull back the curtain of a different side to its Ashburton factory,” Mead told viewers in July 2021.
Whistleblowers — some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity — told 1News about problems at two plants and shared photos of dirty equipment and apparent hazards.
TVNZ also reported a leaked email telling Talley’s staff not to talk about an incident where emergency services were called to free a worker’s hand trapped in a machine.
Mead also told viewers an invitation to tour one factory was withdrawn at the last minute. Instead, senior Talley’s staff urged TVNZ not to air the allegations and the images.
Anonymity and privacy Before the trial, Talley’s went to court to try — unsuccessfully — to force TVNZ to reveal the identity of some of its sources and further details of their allegations. It said this would have allowed it to assess whether the sources had sufficient understanding of the safety issues that concerned them.
“I made them a promise, and I have kept it,” Thomas Mead told the court, insisting TVNZ protected their identities because they feared retaliation from Talley’s.
In court, Talley’s lawyer Brian Dickey KC said TVNZ could not produce any evidence that any workers had faced any actual retaliation. He alleged the anonymous sources were wrong and one had tried to extort the company.
Dickey even called one report by Mead “a hit piece”, and said TVNZ’s presentation was overly emotional and its reports displayed “animus” against the company.
TVNZ insisted the reports were accurate, verified and — crucially — in the public interest, and losing the case would set a dangerous precedent for journalism.
Talley’s told the court it did not want damages, just an acknowledgement that it had been defamed and had suffered losses because of the reports.
In this case, the lawyers were not seeking to sway members of a jury — only Judge Pheroze Jagose. He said his decision may not be released until Easter next year.
“It was probably best that it was just a judge-alone (trial) because it’s mind-numbingly complex when you get into the depth of detail and the layers of what’s being argued,” Tim Murphy, Newsroom co-editor, told Mediawatch.
Pecuniary loss To win the case, Talley’s must show it suffered pecuniary loss.
“This adds a level because they have to show their business has been affected in a way that has cost them money,” said Murphy, who watched the trial from the press bench.
“They need to show that not only has there been loss immediately after or in the time frame of these pieces in 2021 and 2022 — but also that the particular statements in each story that they’re suing about — called ‘imputations’ in defamation law — then led to the loss.
“They said it couldn’t be specified to a dollar figure — but in their view it was obvious and inarguable that the TVNZ coverage had cost them financially.”
Talley’s said contracts with Countdown (now Woolworths) and Hello Fresh were affected.
“They also had the cost of an independent inquiry by former Police Commissioner Mike Bush, and the cost of a PR firm to handle all of this — and then costs of their management time diverted from their factories and so on,” Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy told Mediawatch.
“They also said they had opprobrium for their staff in the community, and they said that was a cost because it can affect morale and productivity.”
What are the stakes? “From past defamation cases that went a long way — even if they didn’t get to trial — both parties will have spent millions in legal costs to this point,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“Talley’s have also gone for ‘indemnity costs’ so there could still be a substantial amount [to pay] for TVNZ should it lose.”
“Both parties (in court) painted this case as having a very big impact should it go the other way.”
“TVNZ’s view was that if . . . a company can succeed with that level of loss, then it will open it up to all sorts of companies. Davey Salmon, their KC, said that it would be inviting Defamation Act cases from corporations who have effectively suffered no loss.
“Talley’s were of the view that if TVNZ won this, then it was open season on companies and corporations… and that no company would be able to withstand reporting that is in error or biased.”
Murphy’s predecessor as New Zealand Herald editor, Dr Gavin Ellis, appeared as an expert witness for TVNZ. Dr Ellis told the court TVNZ appeared to have verified sources and cross-checked key claims and sought independent views. He also believed Talley’s was given a reasonable amount of time to respond to allegations.
He also backed TVNZ’s decision not to surrender notes — or even redacted versions of transcripts from interviews with anonymous sources to protect their confidentiality.
“There were pretty good levels of both cross-referencing and validating. There are other aspects of the case with vulnerabilities and some of those were from at least one of the anonymous sources,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“The need to be able to offer and guarantee anonymity and protection of identity in all respects is vital for that public interest function that journalists have.”
TVNZ argued that in the Court of Appeal, and won the right to continue that protection of those sources.
The planning, decision-making and personal communications at TVNZ was scrutinised closely in court, as well as the reporting seen by the public.
One 1News broadcast in 2021 kicked off with host Simon Dallow saying: “a whistleblower tells 1News” Talley’s Ashburton plant was an “accident waiting to happen”.
In court it emerged that the anonymous source in question had not used those precise words, though Mead himself had put those words to the source during a conversation.
“[TVNZ] made claims that — when they were examined in microscopic detail — didn’t match what the story itself said. This is what lawyers do if they get this chance. They examine to that level and nuance,” Murphy said.
“Often in journalism if you get a clear affirmative to a question like that, then it’s fair to paraphrase it and say the person agreed it was ‘an accident waiting to happen’. But in this case the answer . . . was very discursive.”
Talley’s also said some of TVNZ’s presentation was inappropriately emotive and Brian Dickey KC seized on individual words and phrases to allege TVNZ and Mead had taken against Talley’s.
Murphy noted Talley’s objected to reports that would “present anonymous source allegations, give Talley’s response and then end with a ‘but’. The company questioned why his summaries never raised a qualification like ‘but’ about the claims made by a source.”
“It alleged the technique undercut what Talley’s had said – and that there was a sort of default over-weighting of the critical view of them,” Murphy said.
Salmon claimed Talley’s was over-analysing the reports’ wording and amplifying their importance.
“News does not need to be presented in the austere form of a court judgment to be responsible. If it was, it would not be read or watched and it would not inform,” he told the court.
Will this change the way big stories are done? Summarising complex things to make them easily understood in a three-minute TV news bulletin — or shorter — is a challenge.
Could this case prompt a move away from paraphrasing to make stories more engaging and comprehensible — and towards a drier, longer and a little less simplified style on television?
“In the quiet moments, all of those involved at TVNZ will see that there needs to be a tighter, clearer, more precise and weighted use of language and words — and images as well — in the bringing-together and presentation of these kinds of stories,” Murphy told Mediawatch.
“It’s no bad thing in a way for all the media to be given a sharp reminder that precision extends to every element of an investigative story and its presentation. The captions, the summary, the pull-quotes, the scripts, the promos of stories are all subject to this sort of scrutiny.”
Chilling effect? Bryce Edwards of the pro-transparency Integrity Institute said this was an example of “the rich and powerful [using] these laws as legal weapons to silence critics, discourage investigative journalism, and shield themselves from scrutiny”.
“It put the very right of the media to hold power to account in the dock,” Edwards said.
Murphy said: “I think it was quite clear through the whole case that there was sort of a power play.
“The power of a big corporation with rich-lister family backers drawing a line in the sand and saying: ‘We’ve had power of the media thrown at us unfairly — so we’re going to exert some power back other way.’”
And while the media do not end up in court often defending defamation claims, we do not often know if media might be swayed by threats of defamation action from those with financial and legal clout. Or if they are deterred from publishing stories that could result in the kind of lengthy and potentially costly court case TVNZ has just faced.
“While there are many times where lawyers’ letters — or even perhaps injunctions to delay material being aired or published — occur, there are also many times where media companies have ploughed,” Murphy said.
“I don’t think the balance in the defamation setup we have is as yet favouring organisations or companies or the wealthy as much as elsewhere. We do have a defence of responsible publication in the public interest. But the key word there is ‘responsible’.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Knowing when to stop psychological therapy is just as important as knowing when to start.
The decision is complex and influenced by many factors, including your own progress, your relationship with the therapist, and your broader life.
Therapy is expensive, even if you’ve got a mental health plan entitling you to see a psychologist for ten subsidised sessions each calendar year. So many people stop because they can no longer justify the cost.
But apart from financial considerations, how do you know when therapy should end? Most clients do not know.
Ideally, you should start thinking about this even before you start therapy, and talk to your therapist about it early. Otherwise, you might end up stopping therapy before you’re ready.
What are your treatment ‘goals’?
It is a good idea to set clear goals at the start of therapy, and agree with your therapist that treatment might no longer be necessary when they’re achieved.
Ask yourself something like: “how might my life look different if the problem I came into therapy for (such as social anxiety) was no longer a problem? What would I be doing differently?”
Perhaps you want certain symptoms, such as fearing judgement from others, to significantly reduce. Perhaps you want certain behaviours, such as avoiding social situations, to reduce.
Or perhaps you want a have a better understanding of yourself and how you tend to respond to certain situations (such as conflict, romantic relationships, or family dynamics).
It is a good idea to collaborate with your therapist when determining your goals as they help you refine them from being too abstract (“I want to be happier”) to concrete (“I’d be happier if I spent more time with my friends”).
It is also completely reasonable for goals to change throughout the course of therapy. Have another conversation with your therapist if this happens.
In fact, regular check-ins with your therapist about your progress towards your goals is more likely to lead to positive change.
Ask yourself: how might life be different if the problem I came into therapy for was no longer a problem? cottonbro studio/Pexels
When therapy feels ‘stuck’
Sometimes, however, the treatment might feel “stuck”.
When this happens, talk about it with your therapist. Of course, that requires a relationship of trust with the therapist. A good therapist will also make you feel heard, be empathetic, and be non-judgmental in their approach.
When you don’t feel this safety or trust then you might be inclined to cancel sessions at the last minute, avoid making another session, or avoid discussing hard topics in session.
If you do not feel safe with your therapist, then it might be time to consider ending therapy with them. It is also possible that you just don’t “click” with them; this is not uncommon and many people try a few therapists before they find one that’s a good fit.
So, not “clicking” with them or feeling stuck might be a reason to try a different therapist – but you should also take some time to reflect on why the two of you aren’t a good fit.
However, be cautious about stopping therapy just because you want to avoid difficult emotions such as sadness, fear, or guilt. Remember that it is normal for therapy to sometimes feel a bit unpleasant – being vulnerable is hard (but important)!
But how do you end therapy?
There is usually a termination process. This is where you and your therapist discuss, in a thoughtful way, what it means to end therapy, and reflect on the process and progress of therapy so far.
Sometimes the therapist might seek your feedback in the form of short questionnaires. Other times, you and your therapist might write a therapeutic letter to each other to mark the end of the work.
When ending therapy, it is important to think about how other relationships in your life have ended. Doing so helps bring awareness to patterns, emotions, and expectations that may influence how you experience and process the end of therapy. For example, a bad breakup years ago might make you fearful of abandonment and so you (mistakenly) believe that your therapist is also abandoning you. As a result, you might avoid having the final session and receiving closure.
Knowing this, take your time! Rather than ending in one session, it can help to take a few sessions to finish therapy and to have this clearly planned with the therapist. This is particularly relevant when you have been working with them over a long period of time (months, years).
This allows you to reflect and prepare for the end of a significant relationship in your life.
Ending therapy is never an easy decision, given how hard it can be to decide to see a therapist in the first place (and get an appointment).
But it is good to reflect often on your therapeutic goals and how you have progressed so far.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Saikal, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University; The University of Western Australia; Victoria University
As the future of Gaza hangs in the balance, the Palestinian Authority (PA) needs renewal if it’s to eventually govern the strip and play a key role in making the two-state solution a reality.
The PA has not proved effective under Mahmoud Abbas, the heavily criticised, unpopular 89-year-old leader. Abbas’s time has passed. There’s a massive need for a more dynamic figure to replace him and reform the PA into a more legitimate and instrumental governing body that can unite the various Palestinian factions.
Under the circumstances, no one fits the bill better than Marwan Barghouti who has been languishing in Israeli jails since 2002.
How Abbas rose to power
Abbas was elected to a four-year term in January 2005. He succeeded President Yasser Arafat, who had been under siege from Israeli forces and died in mysterious circumstances in late 2004.
Arafat was disliked by right-wing forces in the Israeli establishment, who opposed the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993, signed by the Palestinian leader and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist for his peace efforts in 1995. The peace process fell apart soon after, largely due to the opposition of Benjamin Netanyahu (whose first term as prime minister was from 1996–99) and Ariel Sharon (PM from 2001–06).
Abbas was a close associate of Arafat, and a founding member of Fatah – the core of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). Favoured by Israel and its main ally, the United States, Abbas won the Palestinian presidential election in 2005 against another prominent Palestinian figure, Mustafa Barghouti.
Yet, Abbas was not popular among the younger generation of Palestinians. They regarded him as an “old horse” who had spent decades living in exile abroad.
Hamas, founded as a radical Islamist movement in 1988, boycotted the election, vowing to fight until the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
There was one candidate who could have beaten Abbas, but he didn’t run. This was Mustafa’s cousin, Marwan Barghouti, who was – and still is – in an Israeli jail and very popular among Palestinians across the political spectrum.
Who is Marwan Barghouti?
Marwan Barghouti was a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank in the late 1990s and had established many close relationships with Israeli politicians and members of the peace movement.
During the Second Intifada from 2000–05, he became a leader of the street protests against Israeli occupation. In 2002, he was jailed for allegedly orchestrating attacks against Israelis and was convicted of murdering five people. He was sentenced to five consecutive life terms.
Initially, Marwan entered the 2005 Palestinian presidential race from jail, but after discussions with Fatah, he withdrew.
As a long-time analyst of the Middle East, I thought at the time that Marwan was the right person to lead the PA. I believed he could work with Israel and the Bush administration to implement the Oslo Accords and realise the statehood aspirations of the Palestinian people.
In an op-ed piece for the International Herald Tribune in 2004, I wrote:
He is regarded by many young Palestinians as a hero, his popularity second only to Arafat’s. He is well-educated about the Israelis and fluent in Hebrew, with wide-ranging cross-border contacts with Israeli peace advocates.
He fully supported the Oslo peace process and backed the intifada only when he was convinced that [then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon was determined to end that process in pursuit of his long-standing strategy to give the Palestinians as little as possible.
Nearly 20 years later, he remains relevant. In a recent poll of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Barghouti would win a presidential election against two other leading candidates, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and Abbas.
Among those who said they would vote, Barghouti got 50% of the support, followed by Mashal at 35% and Abbas at just 11%.
Campaign to release him
Hamas included Marwan, now 66, in its list of Palestinians to be freed from Israeli jails in exchange for the remaining Israeli hostages held by the group. Israel, however, refused to release him.
Not much is known about his living conditions as he has been shifted to different prisons every six months. A video surfaced recently that shows him appearing very frail and being taunted by the Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir telling Barghouti in prison: ‘Whoever harms the people of Israel … we will wipe them out.’
Marwan’s son, Arab Barghouti, has appealed to US President Donald Trump for his release, saying “my father is a politician, he is not a security threat”. He has lately been joined by his mother (and Marwan’s wife), Fadwa Barghouti, in this appeal.
If the Israeli and American leadership really wants the Gaza ceasefire to hold and lead to the implementation of the second and third stages of Trump’s 20-point peace plan, Marwan needs to be freed.
Viewed by the Palestinian people as a Nelson Mandela-like figure, he is the one most capable of reforming the Palestinian Authority and enabling it to govern for all Palestinians.
And among all potential future Palestinian leaders, he stands out as the one who can deliver on the peace plan and move to the eventual, internationally backed two-state solution.
Amin Saikal 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.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on October 27, 2025.
Labor has huge lead in a South Australian poll, 5 months from the election Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Labor has a blowout lead in South Australia, with the election in March 2026. The federal party has also expanded its lead in a Morgan poll. The
A rushed new maths curriculum doesn’t add up. The right answer is more time Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Pomeroy, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics Education, University of Canterbury Getty Images If the recent news of a new mathematics and statistics curriculum for years 0–10 felt familiar, that’s because it was. In term four last year, the Ministry of Education released a previous new maths (and
Most Australian government agencies aren’t transparent about how they use AI Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By José-Miguel Bello y Villarino, Senior Research Fellow, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney Beckett LeClair, CC BY A year ago, the Commonwealth government established a policy requiring most federal agencies to publish “AI transparency statements” on their websites by February 2025. These statements were meant to explain
5 charts that show how young Australians are getting screwed Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders University Australia is becoming increasingly unequal. The story is unmissably generational: young Australians today face a tougher reality than their parents and grandparents. Despite having greater access to education and information, they are more precarious, indebted, insecure and anxious than ever
‘Wait with me until it’s over’: what teens want you to know about dissociation Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Milkins, Postdoctoral Researcher in Youth Trauma and Dissociation, The Kids Research Institute Australia You call your teen’s name, but they don’t respond. They’re staring past you. You call again, louder this time. Nothing – how rude. But what if they’re zoning out? For some teens, this
NZ’s first marine reserve is turning 50 – the lessons from its recovery are invaluable Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Conrad Pilditch, Professor of Marine Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA New Zealand’s first legislated marine reserve, established 50 years ago around Te Hāwere-a-Maki/Goat Island north of Auckland, was also among the very first in the world. During the decades since then,
Foreign spies are trying to steal Australian research. We should be doing more to stop them Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Lecturer (Law), Southern Cross University Ross Tomei/ Getty Images When we think of spies, we may go to images of people in trench coats and dark glasses, trying to steal government papers. Or someone trying to tap the phone of a senior official. The
Were you on Facebook 10 years ago? You may be able to claim part of this $50 million payout Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graham Greenleaf, Honorary Professor, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University Right now, more than 311,000 Australian Facebook users can apply for a slice of a A$50 million compensation fund from tech giant Meta – the largest ever payment for a breach of Australians’ privacy. But the clock is
The Art Gallery of NSW has transformed into a space to cook, play, do laundry and linger Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sanné Mestrom, Senior Lecturer, DECRA Fellow, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney Children’s screams echo off concrete walls as they navigate bright-painted monkey bars. Families huddle around a sausage sizzle. Teenagers lounge on borrowed towels near a palm grove. Washing machines hum quietly in the
Gaza’s Plestia Alaqad to star in Palestinian horror film The Visitor The New Arab A Palestinian horror film inspired by folklore is moving forward, with journalist and author Plestia Alaqad joining the cast alongside American-born Kuwaiti-Palestinian journalist and media personality Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Titled The Visitor, the feature is written and directed by Palestinian-American filmmaker Rolla Selbak and produced by Black Poppy
Hedges slams hostile Australian interview, unpacks Press Club and Western media betraying Gaza Pacific Media Watch Pulitzer Prize–winning US journalist Chris Hedges joins Antoinette Lattouf on We Used To Be Journos to unpack his time in Australia, including some fraught interactions with sections of the Australian media. The pair also discuss what he flew all this way to talk about — how Western journalists are betraying their colleagues
Ethiopian quarter: how migrants have shaped a thriving shopping district in South Africa’s city of gold Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tanya Zack, Visiting senior lecturer, University of the Witwatersrand Since its founding in 1886, Johannesburg, has been a city of migrants, internal and international. But the economic capital of South Africa has undergone big changes since 1994 when South Africa became a democracy. One such change involves
NZ minister warned on possible risk over Israeli use of satellites Pacific Media Watch New Zealand’s Space Minister Judith Collins was warned just two months into Israel’s war on Gaza that new BlackSky satellites being launched from NZ could be used by that country’s military, reports Television New Zealand’s 1News. According to a network news item on Friday, government documents showed officials had recommended the launches
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Labor has a blowout lead in South Australia, with the election in March 2026. The federal party has also expanded its lead in a Morgan poll.
The South Australian state election will be held in March 2026. A DemosAU and Ace Strategies poll
for InDaily, conducted October 6–15 from a sample of 1,006, gave Labor a 66–34 lead (54.6–45.4 to Labor at the March 2022 election).
Primary votes were 47% Labor, 21% Liberals, 13% Greens and 19% for all Others. If this poll was replicated at the election, on a uniform swing the Liberals would be reduced to three to six of the 47 lower house seats, with leader Vincent Tarzia losing his seat.
This poll suggests the SA 2026 election will be the second biggest landslide to one party at a state or federal election, with only the 2021 Western Australian election ahead, which Labor won by 69.7–30.3. A YouGov SA poll in May gave Labor a 67–33 lead.
Labor incumbent Peter Malinauskas led Tarzia by 58–19 as preferred premier. Respondents were asked if they had a positive, neutral or negative opinion of various politicians. Malinauskas was at net +35 positive, while Tarzia was at net -15.
Despite Labor’s dominance, the state government had net negative ratings from -32 to -42 for its handling of housing, the algal bloom, hospital ramping and cost of living.
Upper house voting intentions in this poll were 37% Labor, 17% Liberals, 12% One Nation, 11% Greens and 4% for each of Animal Justice, Legalise Cannabis and SA-Best. Of the upper house seats, 11 of the 22 will be up for election using proportional representation with preferences.
Queensland Resolve poll has Labor retaining its lead
A Queensland state Resolve poll for The Brisbane Times, conducted with the September and October federal Resolve polls from a sample of 868, gave the Liberal National Party 33% of the primary vote (down one since August), Labor 32% (steady), the Greens 10% (steady), One Nation 9% (up one), independents 7% (down one) and others 8% (up one).
LNP premier David Crisafulli’s net likeability dropped three points since August to +17, while Labor leader Steven Miles was down one point to -2. Crisafulli led as preferred premier by 39–22 (40–25 previously).
The previous Queensland Resolve poll had Labor in a far better position than two Queensland polls taken in July that gave the LNP big leads. There haven’t been any statewide Queensland polls since July other than Resolve.
A Redbridge and Accent Research poll only of southeast Queensland for the Courier Mail, conducted in October from a sample of 1,013, gave Labor a 52–48 lead in that region (50.3–49.7 to the LNP in this region at the 2024 election). The LNP won the 2024 election overall by 53.8–46.2, so a two-point overall swing to Labor would not be enough to oust the LNP.
Primary votes were 37% Coalition, 32% Labor, 13% Greens and 18% for all Others, with no changes since September. Labor led by 54–46 in Melbourne, where 80% of Victoria’s population lives, while the Coalition led by 53–47 in regional Victoria. The next Victorian election is in November 2026.
Labor expands lead in federal Morgan poll
A national Morgan poll, conducted September 22 to October 19 from a sample of 4,908, gave Labor a 57–43 lead by respondent preferences, a 1.5-point gain for Labor since the September Morgan poll.
Primary votes were 35% Labor (up one), 27% Coalition (down three), 13% Greens (up one), 12% One Nation (up 2.5) and 13% for all Others (down 1.5). By 2025 election preference flows, Labor led by 57–43, a 1.5-point gain for Labor.
Labor led in every state, reversing a Coalition lead in Queensland in September to now lead by 50.5–49.5. They had much bigger leads in other states. While the Coalition led by 52–48 among those aged 65 and over, there was a four-point gain for Labor since September. Labor continued to dominate with voters aged under 50.
Additional federal Resolve questions
In additional questions from the early October federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, 48% wanted Albanese to be polite to Trump, but firm in representing Australia’s values at their October 20 meeting, 25% wanted Albanese to tell Trump that Australia is unhappy with his conduct and 13% wanted to prioritise keeping the US happy and on side.
By 36–30, respondents supported allowing the US and UK to dock their nuclear submarines in Perth from 2027.
UK Labour crashes in Caerphilly byelection and other international electoral events
The centre-left Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru gained Caerphilly from Labour at a Welsh byelection on Thursday, defeating the far-right Reform by 47.4–36.0 with just 11.0% for Labour. At the previous election for Caerphilly in 2021, Labour defeated Plaid by 46.0–28.4. I wrote about this for The Poll Bludger and also covered recent electoral events in Moldova, the Czech Republic and Japan.
On Saturday, Lucy Powell defeated Bridget Phillipson to win the UK Labour deputy leadership and the left-wing Catherine Connolly won the symbolic Irish presidency. My Poll Bludger article also covered upcoming midterm elections in Argentina, a national Dutch election and US state elections.
Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In term four last year, the Ministry of Education released a previous new maths (and English) curriculum for Years 0–8, to be implemented from term one this year.
Schools must use the latest new curriculum from term one next year. This will be the third curriculum for primary and intermediate schools in less than three years.
Despite claims that the most recent curriculum is only an “update”, the changes are bigger than teachers might have expected.
The new curriculum is more difficult and more full. There is now a longer list of maths procedures and vocabulary to be memorised at each year of school.
For example, year 3 children should learn there are 366 days in a leap year and that leap years happen every four years. Year 5 students should know what acute, obtuse and reflex angles are.
Some concepts have been moved into earlier years. Year 6 children will learn calculations with rational numbers (such as “75% is 24, find the whole amount”), whereas previously this would have been taught at year 8. (If you’re wondering, the whole amount is 32.)
Cubes and cube roots have been moved a year earlier. A lot of statistics, a traditional area of strength for New Zealand in international tests, has been stripped out.
Much of the “effective maths teaching” material about clearly explaining concepts and planning for challenging problem solving has been removed. Also gone are the “teaching considerations” that helped guide teachers on appropriate ways to teach the content.
The maths children should learn was previously broken up into what they needed to “understand, know and do” – the UKD model. But this has changed to “knowledge” and “practices”.
In short, there are new things to teach, things to teach in different years, and the whole curriculum is harder and structured differently. It is effectively a new curriculum.
Not just a document
Most teachers now have about eight school weeks to plan for the changes, alongside teaching, planning, marking, reporting, pastoral support and extracurricular activities.
For busy schools heading into the end of the school year, the timeline is unrealistic, some say a “nightmare”.
For secondary teachers, who will be making changes in years 9 and 10, this is the first major curriculum change since 2007.
Primary and intermediate teachers, who have worked hard this year getting up to speed with a new curriculum that will soon expire, might legitimately ask why they bothered.
A curriculum change is a big deal in a school, something that normally happens once in a decade or more. A curriculum is not just a document, it is used every day for planning, teaching and assessment. Any change requires more lead time than this.
When England launched a new National Curriculum in 2013, teachers had it 12 months ahead of implementation. Singapore, a country whose education system Education Minister Erica Stanford paints as exemplary, gave teachers two years to prepare for the secondary maths curriculum change in 2020.
Expecting teachers to prepare for major curriculum changes in eight weeks is not only unnecessarily rushed and stressful – it is also a risk to children’s learning.
Time to slow down
Term one next year also marks the implementation of the new “student monitoring, assessment and reporting tool” (SMART) which teachers have not yet seen.
Children in Years 3–10 will take maths tests twice a year and will be described as emerging, developing, consolidating, proficient or exceeding. Children in the top three categories (during the year) or top two categories (at the end of year) are “on track”.
For the rest, the curriculum says “teachers will need to adjust classroom practice, develop individualised responses, or trigger additional learning support”.
The original curriculum rewrite shifted the goalposts – only 22% of year 8 students would be at the “expectation” level, compared with 42% previously – and this curriculum shifts those goalposts further.
The inevitably poorer results from testing against a more challenging curriculum risk damaging children’s self confidence, disappointing parents and placing blame on teachers.
Test results may improve in later years, compared to those produced in the first year of assessment against a harder curriculum that will take time to embed. But that will not necessarily be evidence the change was justified.
Pausing this latest curriculum change for at least 12 months would give time for adequate consultation and preparation. That would be more consistent with the change processes of education systems internationally.
According to a recent report from the Education Review Office, teachers have mostly demonstrated professionalism in their conscientious adoption of the previous curriculum.
In our view, the most recent changes will severely test that goodwill.
David Pomeroy receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI).
Lisa Darragh receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative, and has previously received funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Fast start Marsden grant.
A year ago, the Commonwealth government established a policy requiring most federal agencies to publish “AI transparency statements” on their websites by February 2025. These statements were meant to explain how agencies use artificial intelligence (AI), in what domains and with what safeguards.
The stated goal was to build public trust in government use of AI – without resorting to legislation. Six months after the deadline, early results from our research (to be published in full later this year) suggest this policy is not working.
We looked at 224 agencies and found only 29 had easily identifiable AI transparency statements. A deeper search found 101 links to statements.
That adds up to a compliance rate of around 45%, although for some agencies (such as defence, intelligence and corporate agencies) publishing a statement is recommended rather than required, and it is possible some agencies could share the same statement. Still, these tentative early findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of Australia’s “soft-touch” approach to AI governance in the public sector.
Why AI transparency matters
Public trust in AI in Australia is already low. The Commonwealth’s reluctance to legislate rules and safeguards for the use of automated decision making in the public sector – identified as a shortcoming by the Robodebt royal commission – makes transparency all the more critical.
The public expects government to be an exemplar of responsible AI use. Yet the very policy designed to ensure transparency seems to be ignored by many agencies.
With the government also signalling a reluctance to pass economy-wide AI rules, good practice in government could also encourage action from a disoriented private sector. A recent study found 78% of corporations are “aware” of responsible AI practices, but only 29% have actually “implemented” them.
Transparency statements
The transparency statement requirement is the key binding obligation under the Digital Transformation Agency’s policy for the responsible use of AI in government.
Agencies must also appoint an “accountable [AI] official” who is meant to be responsible for AI use. The transparency statements are supposed to be clear, consistent, and easy to find – ideally linked from the agency’s homepage.
In our research, conducted in collaboration with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, we sought to identify these statements, using a combination of automated combing through websites, targeted Google searches, and manual inspection of the list of federal entities facilitated by the information commissioner. This included both agencies and departments strictly bound by the policy and those invited to comply voluntarily.
But we found only a few statements were accessible from the agency’s landing page. Many were buried deep in subdomains or required complex manual searching. Among agencies for which publishing a statement was recommended, rather than required, we struggled to find any.
More concerningly, there were many for which we could not find the statement even where it was required. This may just be a technical failure, but given the effort we put in, it suggests a policy failure.
A toothless requirement
The transparency statement requirement is binding in theory but toothless in practice. There are no penalties for agencies that fail to comply. There is also no open central register to track who has or has not published a statement.
The result is a fragmented, inconsistent landscape that undermines the very trust the policy was meant to build. And the public has no way to understand – or challenge – how AI is being used in decisions that affect their lives.
How other countries do it
In the United Kingdom, the government established a mandatory AI register. But as the Guardian reported in late 2024, many departments failed to list their AI use, despite the legal requirement to do so.
The situation seems to have slightly improved this year, but still many high-risk AI systems identified by UK civil society groups are still not published on the UK government’s own register.
The United States has taken a firmer stance. Despite anti-regulation rhetoric from the White House, the government has so far maintained its binding commitments to AI transparency and mitigation of risk.
Federal agencies are required to assess and publicly register their AI systems. If they fail to do so, the rules say they must stop using them.
Towards responsible use of AI
In the next phase of our research, we will analyse the content of the transparency statements we did find.
Are they meaningful? Do they disclose risks, safeguards and governance structures? Or are they vague and perfunctory? Early indications suggest wide variation in quality.
If governments are serious about responsible AI, they must enforce their own policies. If determined university researchers cannot easily find the statements – even assuming they are somewhere deep on the website – that cannot be called transparency.
The authors wish to thank Shuxuan (Annie) Luo for her contribution to this research.
José-Miguel Bello y Villarino receives funding from the Australian Research Council as an EC Industry Fellow (grant ARC IE240100096). He was an observer to the Commonwealth Government’s Temporary AI Expert Group in 2024.
Alexandra Sinclair is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society which receives funding from the Australian Research Council (CE200100005).
Kimberlee Weatherall is a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society which receives funding from the Australian Research Council (CE200100005). She was a member of the Commonwealth Government’s Temporary AI Expert Group in 2024.
The story is unmissably generational: young Australians today face a tougher reality than their parents and grandparents.
Despite having greater access to education and information, they are more precarious, indebted, insecure and anxious than ever before.
This paradox has deep implications for the social fabric of our nation.
Financial, educational and employment insecurities are converging to affect mental health and psychological wellbeing, shaping how young people form relationships, start families, and engage with society and politics.
Intergenerational inequality is the term on the lips of policymakers in Canberra and beyond. In this four-part series, we’ve asked leading experts what’s making younger generations worse off and how policy could help fix it.
Who’s young?
Generational cuts aren’t an exact science. Some researchers use five- or ten-year birth cohorts, while others prefer 15-year bins shaped by key social and political events in the most impressionable formative years.
But for me, youth isn’t just about age groups. It’s the time before acquiring key markers of adulthood.
Educational credentials, financial independence, home ownership, partnership and parenthood may not be universal goals, and many choose to opt out. But the reality is, more young people are less capable, or taking far longer, to gain the capacity to opt in.
Here are five charts that show how all these factors work together to screw over young Australians.
1. Education: a costly gateway to adulthood
Education should be the essential recipe for a stable job, but it’s taking longer and costing more. In less than two decades, average student loan debt for people in their 20s has more than doubled, increasing by 145%.
If debts had only tracked up with inflation, they’d be 62% higher.
While graduate salaries have increased by about 2.5 times since 1996, student contributions have surged by up to 6.2 times, meaning HECS-HELP debts now consume a larger share of starting incomes.
Notably, the Labor government’s recent reform, which raised the repayment threshold from $56,156 to $67,000 from 2025–26, will ease early repayment burdens.
But financial stress starts well before graduation. Most rental listings are unaffordable for those on Youth Allowance, and one in seven full-time students also worked full-time in 2023, double the rate in the 1990s.
2. Home ownership: a disappearing dream
Home ownership has long symbolised financial stability. But for young Australians, it’s increasingly out of reach.
The latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data report shows 26.5% of those born between 1974 and 1977 owned homes by age 25 to 28, compared to just 18% of those born between 1994 and 1997.
In 2023, dwelling prices rose nearly 5%, far ahead of wage growth.
Dwelling costs have well and truly outpaced income growth in recent years. Israel Sebastian/Getty
Over the past 25 years, the average dwelling has gone from costing nine times annual household income per capita to 16.4 times in 2024.
Housing affordability is now so strained that many young Australians no longer see home ownership as essential. A 2024 Australian National University (ANU) survey found growing sentiment among youth that owning a home is no longer important to Australia’s way of life.
In 2024–25, an estimated 1.26 million low-income households were in housing stress, spending more than 30% of their disposable income on shelter.
These households are more likely to be headed by younger people, first-home buyers, single parents and those in the lowest income bracket. The reality is not just delayed ownership, but a structural shift that risks locking younger generations out of stability altogether.
3. Psychological distress: the silent crisis of youth
Across all age groups, psychological distress has been rising, but younger Australians are bearing the brunt.
Between 2011 and 2021, distress among 15 to 24-year-olds more than doubled, from 18.4% to 42.3%. For those aged 25 to 34, prevalence reached 32.7% in 2021.
The likelihood of distress declines with age, but the cohort effect is striking. Young people today are twice as distressed as their 2007 counterparts.
Distress is significantly higher among income support recipients and those in insecure housing, particularly renters and social housing tenants.
These vulnerabilities converge in youth.
The 2025 Australian Unity Wellbeing Index survey found young Australians are some of the least satisfied with life, with adults aged 18 to 34 reporting the highest levels of mental distress and loneliness, and some of the lowest levels of personal wellbeing compared to any group across the adult lifespan.
Financial hardship, housing stress and unemployment were key drivers.
4. Loneliness: not just an old person’s problem
Loneliness has shifted from being an issue exclusively of old age to a defining feature of youth.
According to the 2024 HILDA statistical report, the share of lonely people aged 15 to 24 rose from 14.4% in 2008 to 20.2% in 2019.
The pandemic accelerated this trend, with loneliness jumping to 26.6% in 2020 and remaining high in the two years following. No other age group saw a similar increase.
In fact, older Australians, once the loneliest, now report the lowest levels of loneliness.
The 2025 ANU Election Monitoring Survey, conducted in October 2024, found loneliness and financial stress are strongly linked to political disengagement. Affected people reported lower satisfaction with democracy and reduced trust in institutions.
These findings echo the research on distress discussed above.
As loneliness and distress rise, the consequences extend beyond individual wellbeing to broader social and civic life.
Young Australians are entering adulthood later and under more pressure. More are living with parents into their late 20s and early 30s, often while studying or working in low-paid jobs.
Census data show the proportion of young adults living at home has increased across every age group since 2006, with the sharpest rise between 2016 and 2021.
More young adults are living with their parents, whether they want to or not. Maskot/Getty
This shift reflects broader economic conditions, including housing unaffordability and labour market instability, especially during the pandemic.
Relationship formation is also changing. Young people are entering first marriages later. Women are having children later or not at all.
The proportion of first-time mothers aged 30 and over has more than doubled since the 1980s, but the fertility rates of every age group under 35 have declined since the mid-2010s.
Overall, fertility rates have dropped to a record low of 1.5 babies per woman, starkly below the current level needed for population replacement.
Meanwhile, childcare costs have surged, with weekly spending rising from $71 in 2002 to $192 in 2022, potentially affecting people’s choices about how many children they have, or if they have any at all.
These demographic trends have long-term implications for care and dependency, as fewer children will be available to support ageing parents.
Relationship pressures are also intensifying. Nearly half of young people aged 18 to 24 report that work or study commitments strain their most important relationships. Almost one in three face four or more pressures at once.
These shifts in household dynamics, fertility, and relationship stability reflect a broader delay in achieving traditional markers of adulthood. For many young people, the path to independence is not only slower but more fragile, shaped by economic constraints and social change.
It’s also clear that financial, educational, and employment insecurities are no longer isolated challenges. They are converging to shape mental health and psychological wellbeing, influencing how young people form relationships, start families, and engage with society and politics.
Intergenerational inequality is not just an economic issue, but a social and democratic one.
Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Milkins, Postdoctoral Researcher in Youth Trauma and Dissociation, The Kids Research Institute Australia
You call your teen’s name, but they don’t respond. They’re staring past you. You call again, louder this time. Nothing – how rude.
But what if they’re zoning out?
For some teens, this can be a sign of dissociation, a temporary disconnection from thoughts, feelings, body or surroundings. It’s the brain’s way of protecting itself from overwhelming stress or emotion.
Dissociation is often linked to trauma – experiences that feel deeply distressing or life-threatening.
But because dissociation is quiet and invisible, it often goes unnoticed. A withdrawn or “spacey” teen draws less attention than one who’s anxious or acting out. Misunderstanding this response can lead to frustration and strained relationships.
In two recent studies, we interviewed teens who dissociate, as well as their parents and clinicians. We wanted to understand better what it feels like when it happens – and what would help.
What is dissociation?
Dissociation is the brain’s safety switch. When emotions or memories feel too intense, the brain creates distance, like mentally stepping out of the room.
It’s common to experience mild forms of dissociation, such as zoning out during a boring meeting. But for teens who’ve experienced trauma, it can feel more intense and be more disruptive.
Many people underestimate how common trauma is for young people.
Worldwide, almost three in four teens have experienced at least one traumatic event, such as violence, serious accidents, or the death of a loved one. In Western countries, this may be closer to one in two.
When feelings become too much to handle, dissociation offers immediate relief. But over-use of dissociation to cope can disrupt learning, relationships and daily life.
Surveys suggest this clinical form of dissociation affects 7–11% of high school students, making it as common as anxiety disorders.
Yet dissociation in young people is still not well understood, even by professionals.
Seven teenagers who had experienced significant trauma and were receiving care at a Western Australian mental health service shared their experiences. Given dissociation can affect memory and awareness, we also interviewed each teen’s parent and primary clinician.
While our study involved a small number of teens, their reflections gave us powerful insight into the lived experience of dissociation in adolescence.
What teens told us
Teens described dissociation as feeling disconnected from their body or as though reality had gone blurry.
Lisa* (age 17) said:
I could look in the mirror and not feel like it was me […] I knew it was me, but I didn’t feel like it was me.
Verity* (age 14) explained:
I’m zoned out and don’t notice what’s going on around me. […] People could be calling my name or waving in my face, and like, I don’t notice.
Parents told us their teens could sometimes become completely unresponsive – unable to move or talk – or have emotional outbursts they later couldn’t remember.
Dissociation was most likely when teens felt strong emotions triggered by reminders of trauma, conflict or peer rejection.
What helps
Many teens said the most helpful thing was knowing a trusted person was nearby. They often didn’t want advice or questions – just reassurance someone would stay close.
Lisa said:
I like having company because I don’t cope on my own […] it’s helpful to have someone just wait with me until it’s over.
Sometimes, they wanted more active help with strategies.
Amy* (age 16) said calming techniques can help:
if someone else is there and they’re telling me what to do […] I can’t really do it on my own when I’m like that [dissociating].
Others said retreating to quiet spaces helped them come back to the present.
But when they didn’t feel able to reach out for support, some teens turned to less helpful strategies, like disappearing into fantasy worlds for hours.
Our research suggests that to reduce the chances of this, it’s important for teens to know you’re there.
Some teens may just want company, and some might want help with calming techniques. Maskot/Getty
What parents can do
Bullying, rejection or failure can all feel catastrophic to a developing mind. Teens may also experience traumas adults don’t know about.
If a teen seems distant or unresponsive, stay curious rather than frustrated. Ask yourself what might be happening beneath the surface.
Dissociation isn’t bad behaviour – it’s a coping response to trauma and stress, and can be a sign a teen is overwhelmed. When adults recognise this, they can respond with empathy instead of frustration.
We’d like to see trauma-informed approaches in homes and schools. This means building safety and trust with young people and supporting collaboration.
Offering choice (for example, taking a short break or choosing where they sit in the classroom) can empower them to have some control over their environment. Calm, sensory-friendly spaces can also help kids feel safe and ready to learn.
Recognising dissociation and responding with patience and compassion can help your teen and strengthen your relationship in the process.
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.
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 (ages 5–25 and parents) on 1800 55 1800.
Helen Milroy receives funding from:
NHMRC
ARC
Perron Foundation
Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation
Commonwealth Department of Health
Bronwyn Milkins 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.
New Zealand’s first legislated marine reserve, established 50 years ago around Te Hāwere-a-Maki/Goat Island north of Auckland, was also among the very first in the world.
During the decades since then, marine scientists have been monitoring changes and tracking significant transformations in the ecosystem – from bare rocky reefs to thriving kelp forests.
Officially known as the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve, the 556 hectares of protected waters and seabed became New Zealand’s first no-take zone in 1975.
Back then, very little grew on the shallow rocky reefs. It took almost three decades for kelp forests to reestablish following the slow recovery of crayfish and snapper stocks.
These predators play an essential role in keeping marine reef ecosystems healthy because they eat kina (sea urchins) which otherwise increase in numbers and mow down kelp forests.
Once crayfish and snapper were able to mature and grow, the kelp forests returned. Their recovery in turn provided a nursery for juvenile fish and many species came back.
We now see parrotfish, black angelfish, blue maomao, red moki, silver drummers, leatherjackets, octopus and several species of stingrays. Bottlenose dolphins and orca pass through occasionally.
Red moki are among the fish now seen in the marine reserve. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA
The reserve features a far higher density of fish and other marine life than outside its boundaries. But despite the protection, fish are not as plentiful within the reserve now as they were in the late 1970s.
The ongoing changes within the protected area are helping us to understand the impact of commercial and recreational fishing.
Pressures from fisheries
In 1964, a decade before the marine reserve was established, the Leigh marine laboratory opened on the cliffs above it. Its first director, Bill Ballantine, was concerned that fish stocks were dwindling and marine ecosystems declining in the Hauraki Gulf and became a key force in pushing for the marine reserve to be set up.
We think this is because the reserve is too small and continues to be affected by the rise in commercial and recreational fishing in the Hauraki Gulf.
Large snapper and crayfish sometimes move out of the reserve and are caught. The outside areas aren’t replenishing the reserve because they are heavily fished.
Reef surveys are part of the ongoing research in the marine reserve. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA
Recent research shows people can speed up kelp restoration in some places by removing kina, but large snapper and crayfish are still needed to maintain the balance long-term.
Another key discovery has been that the reserve’s many mature snapper produce about ten times more juvenile snapper than in unprotected areas of the same size.
About 11% of young snapper found up to 40 kilometres away from the reserve are offspring of snapper that live in the reserve. This “spillover effect” means the reserve is actually enhancing fisheries in the Hauraki Gulf.
Safeguarding the ocean
The Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Act, which comes into force this month, makes the Goat Island marine reserve about four times larger, extending the offshore boundary from 800 metres to three kilometres and significantly increasing the diversity of habitats protected.
The marine reserve has demonstrated the value of safeguarding patches of sea, but it has also shown that reserves need to be larger to better protect key species such as crayfish and snapper from fishing pressures.
An eagle ray rests on a sandy patch among the reef. These habitats now get more protection. Tegan Evans/Gemma Cunnington, CC BY-SA
As the impacts of climate change worsen, the historical records and understanding we have drawn from this marine reserve now act as an important baseline.
We know that restoring kelp forests in the reserve and elsewhere has made the area more resilient to climate change, while also contributing to carbon sequestration.
Unprotected areas outside the marine reserve are dominated by kina barrens because of a lack of predators such as snapper and caryfish. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA
If kelp forests were restored in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, the plants would be worth about NZ$7.9 million in carbon credits, if they were valued in the same way as land-based forests.
About 350,000 people visit the reserve annually, mostly to snorkel, dive or take a glass-bottom boat trip to explore the abundance of life beneath the waves. A lot more places could look like this marine reserve if we managed our oceans better.
Conrad Pilditch receives funding from the Department of Conservation, MBIE, regional councils and PROs. He is affiliated with the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, Whangateau Catchment Collective and New Zealand Marine Sciences Society.
Simon Francis Thrush receives funding from MBIE, philanthropy and ERC. He is affiliated with the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Whangateau Harbour Care Group.
When we think of spies, we may go to images of people in trench coats and dark glasses, trying to steal government papers. Or someone trying to tap the phone of a senior official.
The reality of course can be much more sophisticated. One emerging area of concern is how countries protect their university research from foreign interference. And how we safely do research with other countries – a vital way to ensure Australia’s work is cutting edge.
This week, research security experts including myself will meet in Brussels to talk about how to conduct free and open research in the face of growing security risks around the world.
What does Australia need to do to better protect its university research?
What is research security?
Research security means protecting research and development (R&D) from foreign government interference or unauthorised access. It is especially important in our universities, where the freedom to publish, collaborate, and work together is seen as a virtue.
Australia’s universities face escalating, deliberate efforts to steal commercially or militarily valuable research, repress views critical of foreign regimes, and database hacking.
As my July 2025 report found, adversaries are no longer just stealing data or cultivating informal relationships. We’re seeing deliberate efforts to insert malicious insiders, target researchers and exploit data and cyber vulnerabilities.
ASIO head Mike Burgess has stressed there is an incredible danger facing our academic community from spies and secret agents.
In 2024, Burgess warned of an “A-team” of spies targeting academia:
leading Australian academics and political figures were invited to a conference in an overseas country, with the organisers covering all expenses […]. A few weeks after the conference wrapped up, one of the academics started giving the A-team information about Australia’s national security and defence priorities.
But Australia can’t just stop collaborating with foreign nations. Some are far more scientifically advanced than we are, and we risk cutting ourselves off from developments in the latest technology.
In other cases, we might be unfairly discriminating against researchers from other countries.
The international research landscape is changing
Since January, US President Donald Trump has slashed university funding, banned foreign students and orchestrated a campaign of lawsuits and investigations into campus activities.
So Australia is looking to the EU as a more reliable and sustainable funding partner.
It has reactivated talks to join the €100 billion (A$179 billion) Horizon Europe fund. Australia abandoned its original attempt in 2023 citing “potential cost of contributions to projects”.
Horizon Europe isn’t just a massive pot of money for Australian researchers. It’s also a way to bring Australia closer to the EU on other initiatives, like the EU Science Diplomacy Alliance, which ensures scientific developments are pursued for the safety, security and benefits for all people.
Yet if Australia wants to join Horizon Europe, it will need to prove it takes research security as seriously as other EU nations. In April 2024, Australia and the EU agreed to strengthen research security and
measures to protect critical technology and to counter foreign interference in research and innovation.
Australia does not have an adequate policy
But Australia does not have a proper national policy on research security. It also does not have a proper guide for our 43 universities in how they should approach it or what the minimum standards are.
The guidelines we have for “countering foreign interference” are entirely voluntary, and not centrally monitored for compliance in any way.
A 2022 federal parliamentary report detailed a litany of attempts by foreign agents to get access to our universities. It made 27 recommendations about improving that situation. To date, the federal government has not yet acted on about three quarters of these.
These included a recommendation to ban involvement in “talent recruitment programs”, where academics are offered vast sums of money or other benefits to duplicate their research in countries like China.
The EU approach
Australia’s approach is in stark contrast to the EU, which has made research security a priority.
In May 2024, the European Commission directed all 27 member states to adopt laws and policies to “work together to safeguard sensitive knowledge from being misused”.
Germany has since adopted “security ethics committees” – modelled on human and animal ethics committees – to scrutinise potential projects for dangerous or high-risk research.
The Netherlands, Denmark and United Kingdom all set up government contact points to help academics answer questions about research security practices.
It will take more than just policies
Australia needs clearer, stronger national policies for research security. But if we are going to take this seriously, we need more than just policy guidance.
To properly scrutinise and set up research, universities need time, support and information. This also means they need more funding.
In some universities there might be one person responsible for research security, and this may not be their sole job.
So we also need funding to give academics a way to identify and manage risks in research and support information sharing across institutions.
Through these measures we will be able to demonstrate to the world we are doing research securely – and it is safe to fund and work with Australia.
Brendan Walker-Munro has completed paid consultancies for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. In addition, he has received funding for some of this work from the Social Cyber Institute under an Australia-India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership grant.
But the clock is ticking. Even if you’re eligible, you only have until December 31 2025 to make your claim. Similar payouts have already begun in the United States.
From who’s eligible, to how to make a claim, to how much the eventual payout might be: here’s what you need to know.
Why so many Australians can apply
The landmark settlement arose from Meta’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal: a massive data breach in the 2010s, when a British data firm harvested private information from 87 million Facebook profiles worldwide.
Here in Australia, an investigation by the national privacy regulator – the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner – found Cambridge Analytica used the This Is Your Digital Life personality quiz app to extract personal information.
That investigation found just 53 Australian Facebook users installed the app. But another 311,074 Australian Facebook users were friends of those 53 people, meaning the app could have requested their information too.
In December 2024, the Information Commissioner announced she had settled a court case with Meta in return for an “enforceable undertaking”, including a record A$50 million payment program.
Claims opened on June 30 this year and close on December 31.
held a Facebook account between 2 November 2013 and 17 December 2015 (the eligibility period)
were in Australia for more than 30 days during that period, and
either installed the Life app or were Facebook friends with someone who did.
How to apply – but watch for scams
The Facebook Payment Program is being administered by consultants KPMG. (Meta has to pay KPMG to run it; that doesn’t come out of the $50 million fund.)
That website is where to go with questions or to lodge a claim.
Meta has sent all Australians it knows may be eligible this “token” notification within Facebook:
You may be entitled to receive payment from litigation recently settled in Australia. Learn more.
Try this link to see if the company has records of you or your friends logging into the Digital Life app. If there are, you should be able to use the “fast track” application.
If you didn’t get that notification but you think you were affected, you can make a claim using the standard process by proving:
your identity, such as with a passport or driver’s licence
you held a Facebook account and were located in Australia during the eligibility period.
But watch out for scammers pretending to be from Facebook or to be helping with claims.
Which payout could you be eligible for?
You need to choose to apply for compensation under one of two “classes”, requiring different types of proof.
Class 1: the harder option, expected to get higher payouts
To claim for “specific loss or damage”, you’ll need to provide documented evidence of economic and/or non-economic loss or damages. For example, this could include out-of-pocket medical or counselling costs, or having to move if your personal details were made public.
You’ll also need to show that damage was caused by the Cambridge Analytica data breach. For many people, proving extensive loss or damage may be difficult.
Class 1 claims will be decided first. There are no predetermined payout amounts; each will be decided individually.
If your class 1 claim is unsuccessful, but you’re otherwise eligible for a payout, you will be able to get a class 2 payout instead.
Class 2: the easier option, likely to get smaller payouts
Alternatively, you can choose to claim only for loss or damage based on “a generalised concern or embarrassment” caused by the data breach.
It’s a much easier process – but also likely to be a much smaller payment.
These claimants only need to provide a statutory declaration that they have a genuine belief the breach caused them concern or embarrassment.
In Meta’s enforceable undertaking with the Information Commissioner, it states KPMG is able to apply a cap on payments to claimants. It also says if there is money left after all the payouts, KPMG will pay that amount to the Australian government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Meta told The Conversation:
There is not a pre-determined cap on payments. The appropriate time to determine whether any cap should apply to payments made to claimants is following the end of the registration period [December 31].
So it’s not yet clear how much of the $50 million fund will go to Australian claimants versus how much could end up going to the federal government.
Payments are expected to be made from around August 2026.
How much are payouts likely to be?
Payouts from similar settlements by Meta elsewhere have been very small. For example, US Facebook users eligible for their US$725 million compensation scheme have expressed surprise at the size of their payouts. One report suggests the average US payment is around US$30 (A$45) each.
Here in Australia, a lot will depend on how many people bother to register between now and December 31.
Graham Greenleaf is a board member of the Australian Privacy Foundation, a voluntary, non-government organisation.
Katharine Kemp is a member of the research committee of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, an independent, not-for-profit consumer think-tank.
Children’s screams echo off concrete walls as they navigate bright-painted monkey bars. Families huddle around a sausage sizzle. Teenagers lounge on borrowed towels near a palm grove. Washing machines hum quietly in the corner.
But we are inside the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Mike Hewson’s The Key’s Under the Mat is one of the most ambitious and intelligent works of public art created in Australia in recent years.
What makes this work so remarkable is how completely it succeeds on multiple registers simultaneously. It’s a functioning neighbourhood park, a sculptural tour de force, and a sophisticated meditation on what we mean by “public space”.
Hewson has thought through every detail with extraordinary care. Inside the gallery’s cavernous underground tank gallery, brass spoons are hammered into custom concrete pavers. Steel rails are hand-painted rather than powder-coated, giving them a casual, approachable quality. Trinkets and tiles are embedded throughout like hidden treasures. Look down at the ground and the pavers read like abstract paintings.
The craft is exquisite – but it doesn’t announce itself. Instead, it creates an environment where people feel genuinely welcome to cook, play, do laundry and linger.
And they do. Watching families engage with this space – not in hushed gallery tones but with the comfortable ease of a neighbourhood park – reveals the work’s most radical achievement: most people using it (primarily children under 12, on the day I visit) have no idea they’re in an artwork.
‘Hopeful embellishment’
The work emerged from the artist’s experience of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. Witnessing the collapse of structures that had seemed permanent, Hewson became fascinated by provisional repair, improvised solutions, and the community-building gestures that emerge from disaster.
Hewson’s subsequent projects have celebrated what curator Justin Paton calls “defiant repair and hopeful embellishment”: the beauty of making-do with care and resourcefulness.
The Key’s Under the Mat brings this ethos into dialogue with institutional space in ways that are both generous and thought-provoking.
The vast tank at the Art Gallery of NSW was built urgently in 1942 to hold fuel for the war effort, then abandoned for decades before being drained, cleaned and opened to the public in 2022. Here, it becomes the perfect container for Hewson’s vision of repurposed, reimagined public infrastructure.
The work’s intelligence lies not just in what it provides, but in what it reveals about the nature of “public” space itself. The gallery is a public institution, and entry is free. Yet accessing the tank still requires certain conditions: geographic proximity, availability during gallery hours, cultural confidence to enter a major art institution, and the knowledge that this remarkable space exists at all.
By creating functioning public amenities – laundromat, barbecue, playground – Hewson makes visible something we often overlook: “public” always comes with conditions. Laundromats require proximity, mobility and often money. Park barbecues require time, transport and sometimes booking systems. No public space is universally accessible, even when it’s genuinely free and open.
The project illuminates this with remarkable clarity. In trying to create the most welcoming, functional and generous public space possible within a gallery, Hewson reveals both what institutions can achieve and where their reach inevitably stops. It’s a paradox the work holds lightly but meaningfully.
Institutional critique; joyful amenity
There’s something profound about how the work operates for different audiences.
Children climb and play without needing to understand they’re experiencing art. Art-literate visitors notice the handmade pavers, the embedded spoons, the deliberate aesthetic choices.
Both experiences are valid; both are intended. The work makes room for multiple ways of engaging – from pure use to deep analysis.
This multiplicity extends to a question Hewson leaves deliberately open: should there be more interpretive signage explaining the work’s intentions and extraordinary craft? The current approach lets the art disappear into life, functioning without demanding recognition. But it also means the labour and thought remain visible primarily to those already versed in contemporary art’s vocabularies. There’s no single right answer – and the work’s refusal to choose feels intentional.
Hewson has described children as his “first ambassadors and interpreters” for this work. Watching kids genuinely inhabit the space confirms his instinct. They don’t need permission or explanation – they simply use what’s there.
The Key’s Under the Mat achieves something rare: it is simultaneously a sophisticated institutional critique and a genuinely joyful public amenity.
The work’s title captures its spirit perfectly. It is an invitation, a gesture of trust and openness. That the mat sits within an institution with its own forms of access doesn’t negate the generosity of the gesture – it contextualises it. Hewson has created the most open, welcoming, thoughtfully crafted public space he can within the given parameters, and in doing so, has made us think more carefully about what “public” means in all contexts.
The Key’s Under the Mat doesn’t solve the contradictions inherent in institutional public space. It doesn’t need to. Its achievement is making those contradictions visible, tangible and surprisingly joyful to experience. In a cultural landscape often divided between art that’s critically sophisticated and art that’s genuinely popular, Hewson has created something that brilliantly refuses to choose.
The Key’s Under the Mat is now open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Sanné Mestrom receives funding from Australian Research Council
A Palestinian horror film inspired by folklore is moving forward, with journalist and author Plestia Alaqad joining the cast alongside American-born Kuwaiti-Palestinian journalist and media personality Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Titled The Visitor, the feature is written and directed by Palestinian-American filmmaker Rolla Selbak and produced by Black Poppy Productions.
The story follows a young Palestinian man in Jerusalem who must protect his family after a “Ghouleh” — a female demon from local folktales — emerges in his town.
Production is scheduled for a 25-day shoot in Jordan in 2026, with US-based Watermelon Pictures joining as executive producer and financier. The company, which supported From Ground Zero, Palestine’s first Oscars submission, will collaborate with Jordan’s Imaginarium on the production.
Watermelon Pictures’ head of production, Munir Atalla, told The Hollywood Reporter that Selbak’s vision “marks a bold new foray into genre films for Palestinian cinema“.
Alaqad, a Palestinian author, journalist, and poet, gained international attention for her daily social media coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Her memoir, The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience, was published earlier this year by Pan Macmillan and was released in the United States in September.
Human rights, Arab identity Shihab-Eldin, an Emmy-nominated journalist and actor of Palestinian descent, is best known for his work on Al Jazeera’s The Stream and various independent media projects focusing on human rights and Arab identity.
Selbak told The Hollywood Reporter that The Visitor “is about erasure, and the deep human need to be seen”, adding that “living under occupation can be scarier than the monsters in our folktales”.
Atalla told The New Arab in June that Watermelon Pictures was founded in response to censorship and the lack of representation facing Palestinian storytellers in global cinema.
“The [Gaza] genocide put into stark relief the extent to which the existing systems we have will never serve us,” he said. “We have to build our own cultural power and financial power to compete and fight in this ideological battle that we’re in.”
He added that the company’s new streaming platform, Watermelon+, was designed as “a living archive of Palestinian cinema”, protecting films from being erased or deplatformed.
Alaqad also told The New Arab earlier this year that her work had sought to preserve Palestinian life and memory beyond the violence.
“The media only shows Gaza when it’s being bombed,” she said. “We’re seeing how Palestinians are getting killed, but we don’t see how Palestinians lived.
Pulitzer Prize–winning US journalist Chris Hedges joins Antoinette Lattouf on We Used To Be Journos to unpack his time in Australia, including some fraught interactions with sections of the Australian media.
The pair also discuss what he flew all this way to talk about — how Western journalists are betraying their colleagues in Gaza.
Hedges also offers some honest advice for young people who still want to tell stories and speak truth to power.
The We Used To Be Journos interview. Video: ETTE Media
Since its founding in 1886, Johannesburg, has been a city of migrants, internal and international. But the economic capital of South Africa has undergone big changes since 1994 when South Africa became a democracy. One such change involves migration into the city by people from other African countries.
A new book, The Chaos Precinct: Johannesburg as a port city, by Tanya Zack traces how migrant Ethiopians have shaped a trading post in Johannesburg’s inner city. Zack, a planner who specialises in urban policy, regeneration, informality and sustainable development, explains how the Ethiopians did it.
What space have Ethiopian migrants carved out in the centre of Johannesburg?
The book is set in the shopping centres of the so-called Ethiopian Quarter, in high-rise, formerly commercial buildings in the inner city of Johannesburg. It is a cross-border shopping hub of thousands of cupboard-sized shops crammed into buildings. It defies the categories of formal or informal, of wholesale or retail. And it is where people from all of southern Africa come to shop for fast fashion.
While migrants from several countries trade here, the trading post was pioneered by and remains dominated by Ethiopian and Eritrean migrants. It is an extraordinary shopping district in what were high-rise medical buildings. These office towers centre on Rahima Moosa (previously Jeppe) Street, where medical practitioners and pharmaceutical companies once agglomerated.
Buildings that had been underutilised or abandoned became the canvas for an entrepreneurial transformation. Ethiopian migrants led the repurposing of these structures into over 3,000 tiny shops. Shopfronts are linked to storerooms located higher up in the buildings or nearby spaces. This new retail footprint wasn’t known in Johannesburg three decades ago. And the scale of trading has attracted many infrastructure uses that support the transnational movement of goods and people.
It was not supported by formal planning or pension funds, but developed by migrant entrepreneurs, one shop at a time.
They draw on global supply chains, particularly Chinese wholesalers operating in warehouse-style malls west of the inner city, to access a steady stream of fast fashion, cosmetics and household items. Inner-city-based Ethiopian traders then retail these goods in individual or smaller quantities. Their clientele is composed largely of cross-border traders who on-sell the products throughout southern Africa.
This model has effectively turned the inner city into an inland port. It’s a logistics hub where goods circulate rapidly, and where shoppers are embedded in an informal yet highly organised distribution network.
The inner-city street grid, first surveyed in 1886 during Johannesburg’s mining camp era, consists of very short blocks, which amplify pedestrian and vehicular congestion. It’s a frenzied shopping environment.
Shopkeepers and stallholders have maximised their display areas through creative lightweight architectures. Small shopfronts are linked to storerooms higher up in buildings or nearby. Sidewalks are lined with street vendors, forming mini corridors.
Internal arcades in the buildings further maximise the retail footprint. This hybrid, vertically integrated structuring has generated a real estate boom in previously underutilised buildings in a flagging property market.
The success of this enclave is also tied to the migrants’ ability to craft both social and commercial networks. Migrant traders and cross-border shoppers have relationships based on trading through information sharing, mutual assistance, and informal credit mechanisms. Traders are necessarily adaptive. They adjust to the pace of demand, shifting product lines quickly. They also coordinate closely with suppliers and resellers throughout Southern Africa. The spaces they use and adapt are similarly flexible.
This combination of adaptive reuse, dense retail specialisation and networked entrepreneurship has allowed Ethiopian migrants to carve out a commercial territory that is at once highly visible and deeply embedded in regional trade flows.
South Africa has been harsh towards informal economic activity. How has this been managed?
South Africa has historically oscillated between tolerance and repression of informal economic activity, particularly when driven by foreign migrants. Law enforcement campaigns have regularly targeted street traders and migrant shopkeepers. Traders and shoppers alike face the constant threat of violent policing, corruption, theft, and harassment. Uniformed police or wardens regularly confront them, demanding that they prove their migrant status. There’s talk of being detained in vehicles until a bribe is paid.
Ethiopian migrant traders have developed a range of strategies to navigate the challenges of hostility. They co-locate with other Ethiopian traders, and rely on ethnic and commercial networks to absorb shocks and share information about law enforcement activities.
Ethiopian traders have also innovatively adapted their physical and commercial operations to reduce vulnerability. Shops are designed to control stock and display goods while concealing cash and high-value items. The light architectures and arcade designs of Jeppe also make it possible to conceal the shop in the event of raids.
Shoppers spend as little time as possible inside the crime-ridden Johannesburg CBD. On the day they choose goods, they often carry no money. They return later with cash to purchase goods as swiftly as possible so that cash is not carried unnecessarily. Many hide cash on their bodies.
The infrastructures that have developed to service the port-like functions of this massive cross border trading hub offer storage, package, information exchange and distribution services. Hotels, buses and storage facilities provide relative safety for cross-border shoppers who must navigate a city known for crime. A 2017 survey, funded by the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership,
found that over 60% of retailers had experienced physical assault. 38% reported regularly giving police officers something to mitigate harassment.
What lessons do you draw about how cities should govern migration?
The cross-border shopping hub demonstrates that migrant-driven informal economies are engines of economic activity. Estimates based on the 2017 cross border shopping survey showed that shoppers in the Jeppe district alone spent close to US$600 million annually. This was twice the turnover of Sandton City, at that time Africa’s richest mall.
The activities of Jeppe mimic international entrepots like Singapore and Hong Kong. They offer information exchange, repackaging and distribution services for goods flowing from China to international destinations. This Johannesburg entrepot has regional significance, distributing goods throughout southern Africa. But it’s under-recognised by municipal authorities.
A law and order approach must at least be coupled with a developmental approach. Cities that aim to govern migration must integrate migrant economic activity rather than suppress it.
Support through infrastructure improvements and security provision would amplify Jeppe’s economic impact.
This includes recognising the legitimacy of informal trading spaces, investing in basic infrastructure and safety, and developing regulations that protect safety while accommodating new building uses.
Partnership approaches that involve traders’ associations, building managers and community intermediaries to co-manage spaces would be valuable.
What does your work tell us about a city that’s been in decline. And solutions?
The burgeoning economy in Jeppe needs to be recognised alongside the private investments in Johannesburg that are celebrated for their regenerative capacity. This migrant enclave demonstrates how urban regeneration can evolve out of the actions of thousands of actors.
The challenge is to direct, support and harness this energy.
If we were to think of Johannesburg as a port, how would we understand and use the ecosystems of trade, movement and distribution that this networked economy has created? What other services could flow through these ecosystems? And what safety, mobility and public infrastructure services are required to enhance these entrepot functions and claim this role for the city, an African urban hub tied to multiple cities and small towns across the continent?
The cross-border shopping hub of Jeppe offers hope for an inland entrepot to be recognised, supported and expanded to offer the global services that Johannesburg’s infrastructure can provide.
Tanya Zack 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.
New Zealand’s Space Minister Judith Collins was warned just two months into Israel’s war on Gaza that new BlackSky satellites being launched from NZ could be used by that country’s military, reports Television New Zealand’s 1News.
According to a network news item on Friday, government documents showed officials had recommended the launches go ahead in spite of risks, saying there were no restrictions on trade with Israel.
Minister Collins gave the green light and RocketLab began launching the the Gen-3 BlackSky satellites from Mahia Peninsula earlier this year.
In the documents, obtained by 1News political reporter Benedict Collins under the Official Information Act, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials said while there were risks, the positives outweighed the negatives.
The officials’ advice on the satellite launches stated: “While it poses risks, there is a net good associated with commercially available remote sensing due to the wide range of applications,” 1News said.
One risk they identified related to Israel, but they said there were mitigating factors.
“There are no United Nations Security Council sanctions on Israel, and New Zealand does not implement autonomous sanctions outside the context of the conflict in Ukraine,” they advised the minister.
“There are also no policy restrictions on New Zealand’s trading relationship with Israel.”
World court warnings However, over the two years of war on Gaza since 7 October 2023, several nonbinding legal opinions by the world’s highest court and UN agencies have warned Israel about its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and also warned countries and companies about complicity with the pariah Zionist state.
In the latest ruling this week, the International Court of Justice said Israel was obliged to ease the passage of aid into Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with “basic needs” essential to survival.
The wide-ranging ICJ ruling came as aid groups were scrambling to scale up much-needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza, seizing upon a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month.
Another court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to 1News, the NZ documents also show that when MBIE officials recommended the application be approved they were aware experts at the UN were warning a possible genocide could unfold in Gaza and that schools and hospitals were being bombed.
‘Appalling’ decision The officials’ advice came in December 2023, two months after the Hamas attacks on Israel which left 1200 people dead. Israel in response launched a retaliatory offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 68,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Minister Collins said this week the decision had been the right one.
“We don’t have sanctions on Israel, we’re not at war with Israel, Israel is not our enemy,” she said.
But Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was an “appalling” decision that could fuel human rights abuses, reports 1News.
Officials at New Zealand’s space agency declined to be interviewed by 1News about Blacksky and RocketLab did not respond to a request for an interview with its founder Sir Peter Beck.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on October 26, 2025.
Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation Asia Pacific Report Fiji opening an embassy in Jerusalem last month in defiance of United Nations resolutions on Occupied Palestine and hosting a visit by a senior Israeli minister from the paraiah state this week has revived condemnation by Pacific human rights groups and Palestinian advocates. Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel visited the Philippines, Papua
Fiji opening an embassy in Jerusalem last month in defiance of United Nations resolutions on Occupied Palestine and hosting a visit by a senior Israeli minister from the paraiah state this week has revived condemnation by Pacific human rights groups and Palestinian advocates.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — where she welcomed a possible “peacekeeping” role — in a week-long Pacific friendship mission.
Both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have opened controversial embassies in Jerusalem, recognised as the capital of Palestine when statehood is granted.
The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji has condemned Fiji’s coalition government for “callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza”, saying it was being “deliberately orchestrated” by Israel in a statement.
The statement was issued before the opening of the embassy and the declaration of a Gaza ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump and three mediating Middle East countries.
Embassy entourage The NGOCHR statement by chair Shamima Ali, dated September 9, criticised widespread reports in Fiji media that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka would take “an entourage of 17 government officials and spouses” to officially establish the residential Fijian embassy.
“The coalition government appears to be callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza that is being deliberately orchestrated by the state of Israel,” she said.
“This very same Fiji government previously defended the destruction, killing, and maiming of scores of thousands of innocent civilians — 70 percent of them women and children — by Israel at the International Court of Justice [in an earlier and ongoing case on genocide].”
Shamima Ali highlighted the visit in August by two World Elders — Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) and Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand and former Head of UNDP) — to the Rafah crossing into Gaza from Egypt.
They had witnessed how Israel was preventing the flow of food, water, and medicine to the suffering people of Gaza, and declared it as an “unfolding genocide” — “this is not the chaos of war, nor the result of an environmental disaster. It is intentional.”
Ali said Prime Minster Rabuka, and ministers Lynda Tabuya and Pio Tikoduadua had made “rather unconvincing arguments” about opening of the Fijian embassy in Jerusalem on September 18 amid the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
“Whether they like it or not, in the eyes of the world, Fiji will be seen as a country that supports the apartheid and pariah state of Israel, and its genocide in Gaza,” the statement said.
‘Not in our name’ Ali said the NGOCHR reiterated its “Not in our name” opposition to Fiji’s defence of Israel at the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide.
It also declared its strongest “Not in our name” opposition to the establishment of the Fiji Embassy in Jerusalem.
“Neither action reflects the wishes of all citizens of Fiji. It does not reflect well on Fiji for the present coalition government to be effectively supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”
Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.
Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on October 25, 2025.
‘Oceania voices’ – Indigenous climate adaptation network launches in Ōtautahi SPECIAL REPORT: By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News Māori and Pasifika leaders are leading climate adaptation, guided by ancestral knowledge and Indigenous principles to build resilience and shape global solutions. Last week, they played a key role in launching a new Indigenous climate adaptation network at a wānanga ahead of Adaptation Futures
PSNA slams Israeli politician over ‘sneaking into NZ’ during Pacific friendship trip Asia Pacific Report A leading Palestine solidarity and advocacy group in New Zealand has accused an Israeli cabinet minister of “sneaking” into the country this weekend while on a Pacific tour asIsrael resumed its genocidal attacks. Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskell visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — where she welcomed a possible
Should drug companies be allowed to run ‘awareness’ ads for conditions their drugs treat? We asked 5 experts Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Professor in Pharmaceutical Policy, School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney Anna Shvets/Pexels Unlike in the United States and New Zealand, it’s illegal in Australia to advertise prescription medicines directly to the public. The main idea is to avoid demand for a
The artifice of the manosphere comes to the screen. It’s comedic – but also confronting Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dante DeBono, PhD Candidate in Screen Studies, University of South Australia The convoluted title of 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! boldly proclaims its subject matter by evoking the clickbait of algorithm-obsessed online personalities. 5 Steps is a multi-channel installation
New Australian–Irish coproduction of Roméo et Juliette grasps the spiritual quality of the opera Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Fewster, Lecturer in Performing Arts, University of South Australia Andrew Beveridge/SOSA State Opera South Australia’s production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, co-produced with the West Australian Opera and the Irish National Opera, heralds a new globalised collaboration. It is a considerable undertaking for the South
Keith Rankin Analysis – A Quarter-Century of New Zealand’s CPI Inflation Analysis by Keith Rankin. Earlier this week, in The Truth about Prices in New Zealand, (on Evening Report, and on Scoop), I showed how the Consumers Price Index (CPI) is a lagging measure of inflation, and that the Producers Price Index (and the use of six-monthly rather than annual data) gives more timely information about turning points in
SPECIAL REPORT:By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News
Māori and Pasifika leaders are leading climate adaptation, guided by ancestral knowledge and Indigenous principles to build resilience and shape global solutions.
Last week, they played a key role in launching a new Indigenous climate adaptation network at a wānanga ahead of Adaptation Futures 2025, held on October 13-16 in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
The network aims to build a global movement grounded in Indigenous knowledge, centred on decolonising systems and financial mechanisms, and ensuring Indigenous peoples have direct access to climate finance, the funding that supports actions to address and adapt to climate change.
Kaiwhakahaere Lisa Tumahai . . . Ngāi Tahu are in the midst of “the challenge of our lifetime” — climate change. Image: Te Ao Māori News
The wānanga was led by Lisa Tumahai (Ngāi Tahu), New Zealand patron for Adaptation Futures 2025 and deputy chair of the NZ Climate Commission, and Tagaloa Cooper (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Niue), director of the Climate Change Resilience Programme at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Apia, Samoa.
“The Indigenous Forum came from what we learnt at the previous two adaptation conferences. The recommendations from Indigenous peoples were to step it up a bit at this conference and create an intentional day and space for Indigenous voices,” says Tumahai.
“For the first time, people are really seeing the commonalities we share with other Indigenous populations, whether they’re from Canada, Africa, or the Amazon.”
Tagaloa Cooper . . . encouraging Pacific rangatahi to take charge of their stories and lead discussions on what loss and damage mean for their communities. Image: Women in Climate Change Network
Kotahitanga across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa Cooper said many of the Pasifika in attendance felt “at home” in Aotearoa and welcomed the opportunity to have a major conference hosted in the region, as international events are often inaccessible due to high costs.
“I’d like to have more of these types of conversations with our cousins in New Zealand where we can exchange knowledge, learn from each other, and also be innovative about how we do adapt,” she says.
She added that, in speaking with Pacific participants, there was a strong call for deeper engagement with iwi across Aotearoa, particularly in rural communities facing similar challenges to small island nations, to create more opportunities for sharing and exchanging traditional knowledge.
Cynthia Houniuhi from the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change presented at the United Nations Adaptation Futures Conference. Image: Te Ao Māori News
The value of Indigenous knowledge Cooper emphasised that Indigenous peoples hold a vast body of knowledge that has long been marginalised.
“Science now is telling us what we’ve always known as Indigenous people,” Cooper says.
“We must remember our ancestors navigated the vast oceans to get here and then grew nations in very difficult places. There is a lot to learn from our people because we have adapted to live in new lands and we’re still here.”
As Indigenous observer for the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds, lawyer Taumata Toki (Ngāti Rehua) says this is a growing area that deserves attention, given the value Indigenous peoples bring and how their knowledge can strengthen climate adaptation projects.
Taumata Toki at the UN headquarters for the 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). Image: LinkedIn/Te Ao Māori News
He says he is continually inspired by Indigenous leaders around the world who are not only experts in Western knowledge systems but also grounded in Indigenous principles that are transforming how climate change is addressed.
Toki says the guiding aim of tikanga is balance, a core concept that aligns with many other Indigenous worldviews and shapes how they approach climate change and sustainability.
Barriers to climate finance Indigenous peoples globally have often had limited access to UN climate change negotiation spaces.
Tumahai said barriers include accreditation requirements or registered body status to access climate finance.
Cooper added that smaller nations and small administrations often lack the capacity, time, and personnel to develop complex project proposals, causing delays and frustration in the flow of funds.
The devastation from Cyclone Gabrielle has prompted iwi to focus on preparing for future weather events, as climate change is expected to increase their frequency and intensity. Image: Hawkes Bay after Cyclone Gabrielle/Te Ao Māori News
When asked whether Māori face additional barriers to accessing climate adaptation funding as Indigenous peoples within a developed nation, Toki says that, on a global scale, Māori are at the forefront of sovereignty over what development looks like.
However, he acknowledges that when this is set against the wider context of what is happening in Aotearoa, “it doesn’t look the best,” pointing to the ongoing challenges Māori face at home despite their strong global standing.
Māori-led adaptation and succession planning “When it comes to Māori-led adaptation, it needs to start in our court,” he says. “We need to have our own really thought-out discussion in terms of how we develop these projects to be both tikanga-aligned, but also wider Indigenous peoples’ principles aligned.”
When asked about an iwi adaptation conference in Aotearoa, Tumahai say it is a great idea and could be driven forward by national iwi. Image: Phil Walter/Getty Images/Te Ao Māori News
Once internal cohesion across iwi is established, state support will play an important role.
Despite the challenges, Toki says the potential ahead is immense, both economically and environmentally, and Aotearoa has the opportunity to be world-leading in this space.
Tumahai agrees that the work has to start at home, and her passion, which she has long championed, is succession planning to bring rangatahi into the work.
“And with that succession planning, it’s not to be dismissive of the pakeke or kaumatua who are really that korowai and the knowledge holders,” she says.
“We have our own systems that ensure the conversations are held and led where the knowledge is sitting.”
Te Aniwaniwa is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News and contributes to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by Te Ao Māori News and is republished with permission.
A leading Palestine solidarity and advocacy group in New Zealand has accused an Israeli cabinet minister of “sneaking” into the country this weekend while on a Pacific tour as Israel resumed its genocidal attacks.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskell visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — where she welcomed a possible “peacekeeping” role — in a week-long Pacific friendship mission.
Both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have opened controversial embassies in Jerusalem, recognised as the capital of Palestine when statehood is granted.
“It seems clear from media reports that Haskell is visiting Auckland this weekend as part of a trip to strengthen ties with New Zealand and other Pacific countries,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa co-chair Maher Nazal.
He said in a statement that he would expect New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters to “have had, or will be having, a secret meeting” with Haskell.
“Haskell wouldn’t come to New Zealand unless she was having a meeting with Peters. Otherwise, it would be a diplomatic snub,” Nazzal said.
“Haskell wouldn’t tolerate that, and Peters is most unlikely to snub Israel.
“But if he’s turned her down, we’d love to hear about it.”
PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal . . . “Why would we put out the welcome mat for a representative of such a monstrous regime?”. Image: Asia Pacific Report
Nazzal said: “The trip is a ‘thank you’ visit for New Zealand refusing to recognise Palestine [statehood]. Haskell had appointments with the governments of Fiji and Papua New Guinea earlier this week.
“They are the only two countries in the world, other than the United States, which both voted in the United Nations last year against requiring Israel to leave the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and they also have an embassy in Jerusalem.
“They are the greatest fans of Israel outside the United States.”
“I have to say that we do trust the Fijian forces,” she said during the joint press conference with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka.
‘Skilled, neutral military’ “We know that you have very skilled military forces that are neutral, which is something especially important for peacekeeping.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel (left) with Ambassador to Fiji and the Pacific Roi Rosenblit at the MOU signing with Fiji this week. Image: Eliki Nukutabu
“We know this is a force you can trust, with skills, with morals and we’ve had close collaboration throughout history in many posts around the Middle East and surrounding our borders as well.”
She was referring to Fiji’s long UN history as a Middle East peacekeeping force, but admitted that the Gaza role would not be through the United Nations.
“Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war against Palestinians and withholding New Zealand aid from the people of Gaza,” Nazzal said.
“Why would we put out the welcome mat for a representative of such a monstrous regime?”
Haskell was recently interviewed by “genocide-denier Sean Plunket” on his radio show The Platform saying she would like to visit to “thank the New Zealand government for its support over the last two years”.
“That says it all. New Zealand has stood resolutely with a racist, apartheid regime as it continues to commit genocide against the Palestinian people – two years and counting,” Nazzal said.
Seven embassies in Jerusalem Last month, Fiji inaugurated its embassy in Jerusalem — becoming the seventh nation to have its diplomatic mission in the city in defiance of the United Nations policy.
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel with PNG Prime Minister James Marape at Melanesian House, Waigani during a courtesy visit this week. Image: PNG Bulletin
The other countries are: Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea and the United States.
Other nations that maintain ties with Israel have their embassies in Tel Aviv.
Papua New Guinea inaugurated its embassy in Jerusalem last year.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Mintzes, Professor in Pharmaceutical Policy, School of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney
Unlike in the United States and New Zealand, it’s illegal in Australia to advertise prescription medicines directly to the public.
The main idea is to avoid demand for a drug that may not be appropriate, but which doctors may feel under pressure to prescribe.
But drug companies can get around this restriction by running “awareness” ads that indirectly promote their products.
For instance, we’re currently seeing ads raising awareness about weight loss that don’t mention the names of specific Ozempic-style drugs. Instead, these ads recommend you speak to your doctor about your weight.
The main argument for such awareness ads is they encourage people to seek help from their doctor, rather than suffer from symptoms they might have been embarrassed about, or have not been able to address themselves.
For instance, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – which make weight-loss drugs – told the ABC recently their campaigns were trying to raise awareness of obesity as a chronic disease.
The main counterargument is that awareness ads act as drug promotion in disguise.
So, should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to run awareness ads for diseases or conditions their drugs treat?
We asked five experts. Four out of five said no. Here are their detailed answers.
Barbara Mintzes receives research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She is also an expert witness for the Therapeutic Goods Administration. She is General Secretary of the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB), Associate Editor of the UK Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin, and a member of Health Action International (HAI-Europe).
David Menkes is reimbursed for his work as a member of the Mental Health Advisory Committee for New Zealand’s drug buying agency, PHARMAC.
Jennifer Power receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. She has previously received funding from Gilead Sciences and ViiV Healthcare for projects not related to the subject of this article.
Ray Moynihan has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and has helped organise the international scientific conference, Preventing Overdiagnosis.
Fiona Willer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The convoluted title of 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! boldly proclaims its subject matter by evoking the clickbait of algorithm-obsessed online personalities.
5 Steps is a multi-channel installation that presents audiences with a satirical yet confronting look at social media’s wellness culture.
Creators Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu construct multiple interwoven character studies – largely played by Lindner and Sabuncu – representing differing facets of the manosphere and its emanating impact beyond the screen.
Impossible expectations
“BE LIKE WATER” demands a poster of Bruce Lee’s glistening torso while an archetypal Alpha Man shadow boxes in the foreground.
The subject of a famous quote from Lee about adaptability, water becomes a motif in the film. On the third screen, positioned behind the seating area in the gallery, is the constant rippling of ocean waves.
Water surrounds the viewers, omnipresent in the way social media has become in our lives.
5 Steps begins with the opening lines of the poem We Wear the Mask by African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. In the poem, he describes the façade of a smile that can hide the struggle of hardships.
With lace front wigs applied over reshaped foreheads and a muscular drag king chest plate, many of the 5 Steps cast sport visible prosthetic work in the film. This exposes the artifice of these influencer figureheads, the lifestyles they claim to lead part of a careful performance used to cultivate clicks.
Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu, 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!, 2025 production still. Image courtesy of the artists.
A Bryan Johnson–inspired biohacker obsessively inspects himself while reciting the mantra “look after yourself”.
He is representative of the hyper-individualistic elite, using their wealth to gather expensive gadgets and personalised regimens that optimise their own wellbeing. Immortality becomes a luxury product.
This “aspiring god” is comfortable in his high-tech home – complete with AI assistant – while the world outside spirals into existential chaos.
Predators and prey
I encourage you to sit with the film more than once, to notice the details that only become apparent through rewatching again and again.
The comments that scroll past during various livestreams are a concerning (but all too real) blend of “NAMASLAY” spiritual appropriation and conspiratorial patriotic extremism. But these comments are also subtle evidence of everyday people yearning for connection.
These glimmers of isolated individuals seeking out community online echo the origins of “incel” subculture, before it evolved into the angry, misogynistic ideology we recognise today.
It also makes the influencers all the more predatory. The archetypal Alpha Man greets his “brothers” in a video promoting his shamanic retreat for “REAL Alpha Men only”.
Meanwhile, calls from a bohemian conspiracy theorist to “free yourself from the collective shadow” play into nihilism. He cultivates a dedicated following of “Sovereign Warriors” while defending himself against allegations of sexual assault, claiming he is a survivor of cancel culture.
It is not uncommon for popular influencers to be caught up in scandals of this nature. Nor is it surprising when their loyal followers view such accusations against their heroes as targeted attempts to wrongfully discredit them.
Nisa East, Anna Lindner and Yasemin Sabuncu, 5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!!, 2025 production still. Image courtesy of the artists.
Spouting snake-oil slogans about awakening your inner hunter, and harnessing “conscious aggression” to build legacy and “crush comfort”, in 5 Steps we see how young, insecure men can succumb to the toxicity of the manosphere.
The recurring appearance of a Stretch Armstrong doll also emphasises the impossible task of living up to the standards set forth by these fitness gurus, the distorted toy inevitably falling back into its manufactured shape. (One that is distinctly muscular, male and white.)
Gender dynamics in the manosphere
Within the online incel subculture appear two stereotypical caricatures to direct vitriolic hate towards: Chad and Stacy. Blonde and attractive, these are the perceived perfect specimens of a chiselled, virile man and a voluptuous, Barbie-like woman.
In 5 Steps we see this couple in the Alpha Man with a disconcertingly square jaw and his perfectly made-up girlfriend. In white robes and green facemasks, their luxe spa day spirals into him berating her for not “forging anti-fragile confidence”. Their voices dissolve into static as the disagreement goes on.
Later, she spends almost half the installation’s screentime fighting to maintain a camera-ready smile. With a string of pearls around her neck, her tradwife guise dissolves under our scrutiny. Paired with her partner’s aggressive rendition of Dayna EM Craig’s poem, A Narcissist’s Prayer – spat into his smartphone like an accusation before he slams the device on his desk – it paints a damning picture of their relationship that is hidden from his followers.
While 5 Steps is primarily concerned with male figures from the manosphere, the female characters are equally compelling in their complicated positioning as both complicit in this exploitative venture, and themselves victims of the toxic masculinity that flourishes in these online spaces.
What happens offline become some of the most poignant scenes in the film. The conspiracy theorist lashes out in frustration. The Alpha bullies his own reflection in a harrowing monologue. A woman quietly cleans up debris from a hole punched through the wall.
5 Steps fits a multitude of messages in its brief 23-minute runtime, but feels as though it is ultimately a call to action, asking us to reach out a hand to those at risk of drowning in the falsehoods of commodified wellness.
5 STEPS FOR BETTER LIVING, MAXIMUM GAINS AND MANIFESTING YOUR MOST OPTIMISED SELF!! is at the Samstag Museum of Art with the Adelaide Film Festival until December 5.
The University of South Australia is a Key Partner of the Adelaide Film Festival, and the home of the Samstag Museum of Art.
State Opera South Australia’s production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, co-produced with the West Australian Opera and the Irish National Opera, heralds a new globalised collaboration.
It is a considerable undertaking for the South Australian company, with the set built in Adelaide and the production requiring 200 personnel to bring it to fruition.
The focus is on young love: Roméo (Kyle Stegall) and Juliette (Siobhan Stagg) are moved by an extraordinary force that brings individuals together, in spite of their surroundings.
Shakespeare pitted such young love against the warring tribes of the Montagues and Capulets to highlight the folly of adult misdemeanours.
Stagg and Stegall’s triumphant singing bring the house down. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA
Gounod’s 1867 opera builds on this by foregrounding four duets between the two lovers. This structure provides a suspension of time, a spiritual quality in the intimacy that draws two souls together. These moments of beauty provide a powerful contrast with the violence of the world surrounding them.
From her training with École Jacques Lecoq, director Rodula Gaitanou is interested in the notion of “suspended space” and how a theatrical space is charged by human rhythm to become a living space. The rhythm here is in the music performed by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and accompanying movement and song of the two lead performers echoed by the supporting cast and the State Opera Chorus.
Soul’s fusion
The production begins literally with a bang, as a snap lighting cue reveals the Montagues and Capulets facing each other with guns drawn, dressed in 1940s trench coats and hats.
Two children encourage the families to lower their guns – only to have the weapons turned on them instead. It is an intelligent metaphor for both the purity of intentions of youth and a commentary on the death of innocence in war.
The children subsequently return, carried in a candlelit funeral procession that foregrounds what will come when Juliet discovers her would-be-lover is Romeo, from the despised Montagues.
The production begins literally with a bang, with the Montagues and Capulets facing each other with guns drawn. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA
Stagg and Stegall’s triumphant singing brings the house down. Both provide solid physical and vocal anchors for the opera. Stagg’s voice soars and gives a powerful display that delivers the at times challenging notes with ease. She is finely paired with Stegall, whose defining moment is the soft and subtle tenderness he brings with great beauty to the balcony scene.
Sidelight, traditionally utilised in dance to isolate the body in space, is used stunningly by lighting designer Bernie Tan-Hayes. In a bold decision, warm orange – normally used to convey daytime – is employed to create the glow of pure love. This is contrasted with the coolness of night – love surrounded by the coldness of the world around.
This anti-naturalistic intention is furthered with the use of sparkling stars that first light up the balcony scene then glitter with the marriage of Roméo and Juliette – a literal rendering of happiness.
The lighting is finely embedded within the set by the designer Takis: a post-industrial/renaissance blend of towers of wire, castle and LEDs moved into varying configurations to create the different locations. The lowering and raising of the curtain before each act has the effect of highlighting each new setting.
Takis creates a spectacular array of colourful costumes for the masked ball. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA
This culminates in the final act in the tomb where the blending of strips of LED lights, an off centre cross and candles is strikingly incandescent. Takis also creates a spectacular array of colourful costumes for the masked ball and a clever mirroring of the lover’s costuming when they marry, symbolising their soul’s fusion. The costumes range from the 1940s to the contemporary, giving a timeless feel.
Will there ever be peace?
The State Opera chorus is kept busy by the director working with movement coordinator Jo Stone, with much movement choreographed upstage to contrast with the action between the lovers developing downstage.
As Lecoq mentions, “there is no movement without a fixed point”. A prominent fixed point is the tableau after the deaths of Mercutio (an honourable Morgan Pearse) and Tybalt (Tomas Dalton with an energetic rashness). The chorus is aligned in stillness at the rear, Roméo is down stage centre flanked by the corpses either side.
After the deaths of Mercutio and Tybalt, the chorus is aligned in stillness. Andrew Beveridge/SOSA
Gaitanou uses with great effect the raising of the individual guns of the Montagues and Capulets, then placed beside the dead bodies. Moments later the dignified Duc (Nicholas Lester) arrives and asks if there will ever be peace among them – a powerful message for the current conflicts in the world.
The remaining key singers provide strong support. There is the playful tease of Stéphano (Charlotte Kelso); the outraged and driven Capulet (Eugene Raggio); the earnest Frére Laurent (Pelham Andrews); the quietly assisting Gertrude (Catriona Barr); the supportive Grégorio (Jeremy Tatchell) and Benvolio (Zachary McCulloch); and a commendable performance by Oliver Dinnessen, making his debut with the company as Pâris.
The highlight of the production is the singing by the two lead performers. Their shared understanding is communicated both vocally and physically, achieving a complete immersion into the opera’s score and story.
Roméo et Juliette is at State Opera South Australia until November 1, then at the West Australian Opera in October 2026.
Russell Fewster 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.
Earlier this week, in The Truth about Prices in New Zealand, (on Evening Report, and on Scoop), I showed how the Consumers Price Index (CPI) is a lagging measure of inflation, and that the Producers Price Index (and the use of six-monthly rather than annual data) gives more timely information about turning points in inflation.
Chart by Keith Rankin.
In this chart I look at the two published components of the CPI: inflation in the “tradable” and “non-tradable” sectors. And, because the CPI is a lagging measure, I have used the best presentation for historical reflection rather than for timely headlines. (This measure is annual, and it compares whole 12-month periods with each previous whole 12-month period. The latest data point in the chart matches to 31 March 2025, which is at the centre of the year-ending 30 September 2025.)
Consumer prices are retail prices, whereas producer prices are wholesale prices. Tradable CPI inflation mainly represents the retail prices of traded goods; goods New Zealand mainly exports and goods New Zealand mainly imports. Much of their pricing includes the markups of domestic retail outlets, domestic transport, and domestic customisation and packaging of imported manufactures and foodstuffs.
The non-tradable sector is mainly domestic services, utilities, and construction. Sellers of these services and goods do not compete with foreign suppliers.
In addition, the chart shows the monetary policy setting of the Official Cash [Interest] Rate; set by the Reserve Bank.
Interpretation
In the 2000s the OCR was set at what was then understood as normal levels, in the order of six percent. The received narrative of the time was that interest rates should be significantly above inflation rates. The achievement of such high real interest rates, then (and globally, not just in New Zealand), was probably the main single cause of the subsequent Global Financial Crisis in 2008. It created an environment in which money was transmitted en masse from borrowers to savers, and the ‘investor-class’ enjoyed ever-increasing demand for financial assets which would supercharge their ‘paper’ returns. In those years there was nothing like the degree of debt-phobia that exists today; leverage was the name of the game.
Despite the dubious anti-inflationary narrative which justified these high interest rate settings, high interest rates did not force countries’ domestic inflation rates towards the target rate of two percent. Due to globalised competition, the wholesale price inflation of traded goods remained low; even negative at times. In addition, for individual countries such as New Zealand, exchange rate appreciation also served to keep ‘tradable inflation’ very low. Indeed it was those high interest rates which facilitated the currency appreciations of ‘commodity currencies’ such as the New Zealand dollar.
Nevertheless, by the late 2000s, high ‘wealth effects’ – including (indeed especially) among indebted home owners – saw world commodity prices soar, leading to high inflation in the tradable sector despite commodity currency appreciations.
The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and 2009 saw the collapse of a number of financial asset prices worldwide. Central banks cut interest rates dramatically, to revive a failing and flailing world economy. New Zealand’s annual inflation fell to below two percent. And it stayed below two percent for more than a decade. While non-tradable inflation sat between two and three percent, tradable inflation brought the overall CPI to one percent and even less (especially in 2015, ten years ago). (Note that the 2011 inflation ‘spike’ in New Zealand was due to the increase in the rate of Goods and Services Tax; GST.)
Interest rates in New Zealand were slashed to one percent in 2019, in the belief that that change would induce an upwards movement in the rate of inflation; and in the full knowledge that – if such monetary policy changes were to be effective – there would be a time lag of at least one year between the policy and the outcome.
Inflation did increase in 2021, though it would be foolish to attribute much of that to reductions in the OCR. Reductions on the OCR from 2015 had had minimal if any impact on inflation. And we know that 2021 and 2022 were very trying times indeed in the world’s supply chains, with pandemic and war. The supply chains quickly adjusted however.
Tradable inflation – even for a lagging measure such as the CPI – clearly turned downwards in 2022. And was plummeting in 2023. The steep rise in interest rates in 2022 could not have been the cause of the substantial tradable disinflation in retail prices; a falling inflation which began about the same time as the monetary policy squeeze.
Those increases in the Official Cash Rate almost certainly had an impact on non-tradable inflation, however. But not in a good way! Just as OCR settings between five and six percent in the early 2000s seem to have held non-tradable inflation at high above-target levels, so also do they seem to have held non-tradable prices in New Zealand in 2024 (and, based on recent quarterly data, continuing to have such an impact in 2025) at distress-inducing above-target levels.
The cost-of-living crisis since the National-led government took office is both the direct effect of the counterproductively high interest rates, and the laggard high non-tradables CPI-inflation which has extended well into 2025.
The real agenda for high interest rates would appear to be to recreate the early 2000s’ financial environment, whereby interest rates were well above inflation, and the elites of New Zealand and elsewhere were embarking on their ultimately destructive journey of inflating paper-wealth.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on October 24, 2025.
What’s the difference between passwords and passkeys? It’s not just the protection they provide Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan University Passwords are the keys to our digital lives – think how many times you log in to websites and other systems. But just like physical keys, they can be lost, duplicated and stolen. Many alternatives have been
Historical images made with AI recycle colonial stereotypes and bias – new research Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olli Hellmann, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waikato Generative AI has revolutionised how we make and consume images. Tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E and Sora can now conjure anything, from realistic photos to oil-like paintings – all from a short text prompt. These images circulate
French MPs clash over New Caledonia policy, debates further postponed By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk French national politics have once again cast a shadow on New Caledonia’s issues even though the French Pacific territory is facing a pressing schedule. Debates in the French National Assembly on a New Caledonia-related Bill were once again heated and rocky yesterday, resulting in further delays.
Is Melbourne really the ‘crime capital of Australia’? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Simpson, Associate Professor in Criminology, Macquarie University Melbourne has been in the news in recent weeks following a string of violent, high-profile crimes. These incidents followed Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) releasing new data that reveal the highest levels of crime on record across the state.
NZ may be on the cusp of another measles outbreak – what happened in 2019 should be a warning Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Howe, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology, University of Canterbury Getty Images The recent confirmation of new measles cases unconnected to international travel suggests the highly contagious disease has likely started spreading through communities, according to Health New Zealand. This is a stark reminder of the pending danger
High-tech cameras capture the secrets of venomous snake bites Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Evans, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University A pit viper (_Bothrops asper_). marcozozaya/iNaturalist, CC BY-SA For more than 60 million years, venomous snakes have slithered across Earth. These ancient, chemical weapon-wielding reptiles owe their evolutionary success in part to the effectiveness of their bite, which
Queensland’s forests are still being bulldozed — and new parks alone won’t save them Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Ward, Lecturer, School of Environment and Science, Griffith University Auscape/Getty The Queensland government celebrated the creation of new national parks this year, with Premier David Crisafulli saying it is time to “get serious” and be “ambitious” in protecting nature. But this claim doesn’t stand up to
After OpenAI’s new ‘buy it in ChatGPT’ trial, how soon will AI be online shopping for us? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vibhu Arya, PhD Student, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney Buying and selling online with e-commerce is old news. We’re entering the age of A-commerce, where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly able to shop for us. At the end of September, OpenAI launched its “Buy it
Why US activists are wearing inflatable frog costumes at protests against Trump Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blake Lawrence, PhD Candidate (Design) and Performance Artist, University of Technology Sydney Three frogs, a shark, a unicorn and a Tyrannosaurus rex dance in front of a line of heavily armoured police in riot gear. Over the past few weeks, activists taking part in protests against Immigration
Cole Martin: The Gaza ceasefire isn’t the end – what six months in Palestine showed me Returning to Aotearoa after half a year in the occupied West Bank, Cole Martin says a peace deal that fails to address the root causes — and ignores the brutal reality of life for Palestinians — is no peace deal at all. A ceasefire in Gaza last week brought scenes reminiscent of January’s brief pause
Former Fiji PM Bainimarama given suspended prison sentence RNZ Pacific Former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence by the Fiji High Court in Suva, local news media reports say. Bainimarama, 71, was found guilty of “making an unwarranted demand with menace” on October 2. The court found he used his position as Prime Minister in 2021
Thousands march through streets as part of NZ’s ‘mega strike’ RNZ News Thousands have marched through major city streets and rallied in small towns across Aotearoa New Zealand as part of today’s “mega strike” of public workers. More than 100,000 workers from several sectors walked off the job in increasingly bitter disputes over pay and conditions. It was billed as possibly the country’s biggest labour
Grattan on Friday: Libs should reflect on proverb ‘As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly’ Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Twice in recent times the Liberals have faced an existential crisis over climate and energy policy: in 2009 over Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and in 2018 over the National Energy Guarantee, a plan to reduce emissions while maintaining
Ancient ‘salt mountains’ in southern Australia once created refuges for early life Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachelle Kernen, Research Fellow, Geology, University of Adelaide Bunyeroo valley in the Southern Flinders Ranges. Southern Lightscapes-Australia/Getty Images Salt is an essential nutrient for the human body. But hundreds of millions of years before the first humans, salt minerals once shaped entire landscapes. They even determined where
Misinformation was rife during the 2025 election. New research shows many people were unable to identify it Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sora Park, Professor of Communication, News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra Misinformation has become a routine part of daily life, shaping public discourse and distorting perceptions. A new report reveals that in the two weeks prior to the 2025 federal election, almost two-thirds (60%) of
Passwords are the keys to our digital lives – think how many times you log in to websites and other systems. But just like physical keys, they can be lost, duplicated and stolen.
Many alternatives have been proposed in recent years, including passkeys. These offer a significant improvement in terms of user friendliness and potential for widespread use.
But what exactly are they – and how do they differ from passwords?
Passwords are vulnerable
In simple terms, a password is a secret word or phrase that you use to prove who you are to computer systems and/or online. If you have an account on a website or subscribe to a service provider you likely have many.
Passwords themselves are fine; it is the way we implement and use them that makes them vulnerable. For example, weak password habits are everywhere. A CyberNews report from earlier this year identified 94% of 19 billion leaked password were re-used. It also identified several similarities in passwords, including strings of numbers such as “123456”, people’s names, cities, popular brands and swear words.
And when a breach occurs, stolen passwords can spread quickly. This leads to accounts being taken over, identity theft and/or phishing attacks. In one experiment, hackers were trying to use leaked credentials within an hour.
Passwords are also vulnerable to phishing, which is when scammers trick you into typing your password (or other information) into a fake account login page. Phishing emails continue to grow in number and consequence with one report indicating more than 3 billion phishing emails sent per day globally.
A good password is unique (that is, never re-used) and complex (imagine a sequence of letters, numbers and symbols such as “e8bh!kXVhccACAP$48yb”). It can also be a unique combination of multiple words to create a phrase or memorable sequence.
This could be difficult to remember, although creating a story that uses the contents of the password might help. For example, say your password was “CrocApplePurseBike”. You could remember it by thinking of the Crocodile that packed its Apple into a Purse before riding a Bike.
What are passkeys and how do they work?
Passkeys first started to emerge roughly four years ago. They use a mathematical process called public-key cryptography to create a unique set of information that is split into two parts – or keys.
One key is public and can be shared with websites; the other is a private key that is stored securely on your device. To sign into an account, the website sends a random challenge (such as a number) and your device uses the private key to “approve” the login request. This approval is usually called “signing” the request and applies a mathematical process to the challenge.
Your device won’t just do this automatically; you will typically be required to approve the request. For many mobile devices this will require your face or fingerprint to be used to authorise the response to be sent.
Finally, the website checks the signature via the public key it already has. If it confirms the challenge, you are in.
Passkeys uses a combination of two keys, one public and one private. Author provided
Stronger by design
Passkeys are stronger than passwords by design. It doesn’t matter if the public key is stolen, because it cannot be used on its own. Your private keys are safely protected by your device’s security, with most using face or finger-based biometrics to unlock (it is best to avoid relying on a PIN).
Each passkey is also unique for every service you use; even if the key for a site could be stolen, it cannot be used elsewhere.
Another plus is that passkeys are resistant to phishing. From a user perspective, there isn’t a password to send in response to a phishing email. A request to log in on a site has to come from the registered device combined with the approval of the user.
Passkeys are also more convenient than passwords. You don’t have to look for the password you used when you registered – the passkeys are already linked to your device and are only a finger/face verification away.
There are, however, some issues with passkeys. For one, while many browsers, operating systems and websites are embracing passkeys, this isn’t universal. And some early implementations suffered with compatibility between devices (such as between Microsoft and Apple devices).
As users move to newer devices and manufacturers improve integration, these issues should disappear.
A clear winner
From a security point of view, passkeys are the clear winner. They offer stronger protection, can resist phishing and are easier to use. But until passkeys are everywhere, passwords will still play a supporting role.
Implementing passkeys on a website requires effort from the company concerned. With a vast number of sites requiring users to create accounts, the process of migrating them all to passkeys is going to take decades. Many will never adopt the practice unless other factors force their hand.
For now, it’s crucial that we continue to focus on password hygiene by using strong, unique passwords and enabling multi factor authentication wherever possible. If you do nothing else after reading this article, at least change any re-used passwords.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Generative AI has revolutionised how we make and consume images. Tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E and Sora can now conjure anything, from realistic photos to oil-like paintings – all from a short text prompt.
These images circulate through social media in ways that make their artificial origins difficult to discern. But the ease of producing and sharing AI imagery also comes with serious social risks.
Studies show that by drawing on training data scraped from online and other digital sources, generative AI models routinely mirror sexist and racist stereotypes – portraying pilots as men, for example, or criminals as people of colour.
My soon-to-be-published new research finds generative AI also carries a colonial bias.
When prompted to visualise Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, Sora privileges the European settler viewpoint: pre-colonial landscapes are rendered as empty wilderness, Captain Cook appears as a calm civiliser, and Māori are cast as timeless, peripheral figures.
As generative AI tools become increasingly influential in how we communicate, such depictions matter. They naturalise myths of benevolent colonisation and undermine Māori claims to political sovereignty, redress and cultural revitalisation.
‘Sora, what did the past look like?’
To explore how AI imagines the past, OpenAI’s text-to-image model Sora was prompted to create visual scenes from Aotearoa New Zealand’s history, from the 1700s to the 1860s.
The prompts were deliberately left open-ended – a common approach in critical AI research – to reveal the model’s default visual assumptions rather than prescribe what should appear.
Because generative AI systems operate on probabilities, predicting the most likely combination of visual elements based on their training data, the results were remarkably consistent: the same prompts produced near-identical images, again and again.
Two examples help illustrate the kinds of visual patterns that kept recurring.
Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘New Zealand in the 1700s’.
In Sora’s vision of “New Zealand in the 1700s”, a steep forested valley is bathed in golden light, with Māori figures arranged as ornamental details. There are no food plantations or pā fortifications, only wilderness awaiting European discovery.
This aesthetic draws directly on the Romantic landscape tradition of 19th-century colonial painting, such as the work of John Gully, which framed the land as pristine and unclaimed (so-called terra nullius) to justify colonisation.
Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘a Māori in the 1860s’.
When asked to portray “a Māori in the 1860s”, Sora defaults to a sepia-toned studio portrait: a dignified man in a cloak, posed against a neutral backdrop.
The resemblance to cartes de visite photographs of the late 19th century is striking. Such portraits were typically staged by European photographers, who provided props to produce an image of the “authentic native”.
It’s revealing that Sora instinctively reaches for this format, even though the 1860s were defined by armed and political resistance by Māori communities, as colonial forces sought to impose British authority and confiscate land.
Recycling old sources
Visual imagery has always played a central role in legitimising colonisation. In recent decades, however, this colonial visual regime has been steadily challenged.
As part of the Māori rights movement and a broader historical reckoning, statues have been removed, museum exhibitions revised, and representations of Māori in visual media have shifted.
Yet the old imagery has not disappeared. It survives in digital archives and online museum collections, often de-contextualised and lacking critical interpretation.
And while the precise sources of generative AI training data are unknown, it is highly likely these archives and collections form part of what systems such as Sora learn from.
Generative AI tools effectively recycle those sources, thereby reproducing the very conventions that once served the project of empire.
But imagery that portrays colonisation as peaceful and consensual can blunt the perceived urgency of Māori claims to political sovereignty and redress through institutions such as the Waitangi Tribunal, as well as calls for cultural revitalisation.
By rendering Māori of the past as passive, timeless figures, these AI-generated visions obscure the continuity of the Māori self-determination movement for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.
An AI-generated social media post visualising history from a Māori perspective. Facebook
AI literacy is the key
Across the world, researchers and communities are working to decolonise AI, developing ethical frameworks that embed Indigenous data sovereignty and collective consent.
Yet visual generative AI presents distinct challenges, because it deals not only in data but also in images that shape how people see history and identity. Technical fixes can help, but they each have their limitations.
Extending datasets to include Māori-curated archives or images of resistance might diversify what the model learns – but only if done under principles of Indigenous data and visual sovereignty.
Addressing the bias in algorithms could, in theory, balance what Sora shows when prompted about colonial rule. But defining “fair” representation is a political question, not just a technical one.
Filters might block the most biased outputs, but they can also erase uncomfortable truths, such as depictions of colonial violence.
Perhaps the most promising solution lies in AI literacy. We need to understand how these systems think, what data they draw on, and how to prompt them effectively.
Approached critically and creatively – as some social media users are already doing – AI can move beyond recycling colonial tropes to become a medium for re-seeing the past through Indigenous and other perspectives.
Olli Hellmann 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.
French national politics have once again cast a shadow on New Caledonia’s issues even though the French Pacific territory is facing a pressing schedule.
Debates in the French National Assembly on a New Caledonia-related Bill were once again heated and rocky yesterday, resulting in further delays.
The fresh clashes resulted from a game of alliances, mostly French national left-wing parties siding with the pro-independence FLNKS of New Caledonia (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front and the other side of the Lower House (mostly centre-right) siding with pro-France New Caledonian parties.
It is further evidence that French national partisan politics is now fully engaged on remote New Caledonia’s issues.
On the agenda in Paris was a Bill to postpone New Caledonia’s local provincial elections from the current schedule of not later than 30 November 2025 to the end of June 2026.
The purpose of the Bill (which was earlier approved in principle by New Caledonia’s local parliament, the Congress) was to allow more time for new negotiations to take place on a so-called Bougival agreement project, signed on July 12.
The Bougival process aims at turning New Caledonia into a “State” within the French State, as well as creating a New Caledonian “nationality”, also within the French realm.
It also envisaged transferring some French powers (such as foreign affairs) to New Caledonian authorities.
FLNKS rejected deal But even though some 19 parties had originally signed the Bougival deal was signed, one of the main pro-independence parties — the FLNKS — has decided to reject the deal.
The FLNKS says their negotiators’ signatures was not valid because the text was a “lure of independence” and did not reflect the FLNKS’s conception of full sovereignty and short-term schedule.
The FLNKS is also clearly opposed to any postponement of New Caledonia’s provincial elections and wants the current schedule (not later than November 30) maintained.
The rest of New Caledonia’s parties, both pro-independence (such as moderate PALIKA -Kanak Liberation Party- and UPM -Progressist Union in Melanesia-) and those who want New Caledonia to remain part of France (such as Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement, Calédonie Ensemble), stuck to their signatures.
They have since held meetings and rallies to explain and defend the deal and its associated implementation process and steps to turn it into relevant pieces of legislation and constitutional amendments.
One of those pieces of legislation includes passing an organic bill to postpone the date of local elections.
The Upper House, the Senate, passed the Bill last week in relatively comfortable conditions.
But in a largely fragmented National Assembly (the Lower House), divided into far left (dominated by La France Insoumise -LFI-, centre left Socialists, centre-right — and influential far-right Rassemblement National, there is no majority.
A ‘barrage’ of amendments Hours before the sitting began on Wednesday afternoon (Paris time), National Assembly President Yaël Braun-Pivet had to issue a statement deploring LFI’s tactics, amounting to “pure obstruction”.
This was because in a matter of a few hours, LFI, in support of FLNKS, had filed more than 1600 amendments to New Caledonia’s Bill (even though the text itself only contained three articles).
The barrage of amendments was clearly presented as a way of delaying debates since the sum of all of these amendments, if properly discussed, would have taken days, if not weeks, to examine.
In response, the government camp (a coalition of pro-President Macron MPs) resorted to a rarely-used technicality: it called for a vote to “kill” their own Bill and re-divert it to another route: a bipartisan committee.
This is made up of a panel of seven National Assembly MPs and seven Senators who will be tasked, next week, to come up with a consensual version and bring it back before the Lower House on October 27 for a possible vote and on October 29 before the Senate.
If both Houses of Parliament endorse the text, then it will have to be validated by the French Constitutional Council for conformity and eventually be promulgated before 2 November.
But if the Senate and the National Assembly produce different votes and fail to agree, then the French government can, as a last resort, ask the Lower House only to vote on the same text, with a required absolute majority.
If those most urgent deadlines are not met, then New Caledonia’s provincial elections will be held as scheduled, before November 30 and under the existing “frozen” electoral roll.
This is another very sensitive topic related to this Bill as it touches on the conditions of eligibility for New Caledonia’s local elections.
Under the current system, the 1998 Nouméa Accord, the list of eligible voters is restricted to people living and residing in New Caledonia before 1998. Whereas under the new arrangements, it would be “unfrozen” to include at least 12,000 more, to reflect, among others, New Caledonia’s demographic changes.
But pro-independence parties such as the FLNKS object to “unfreezing” the rules, saying this would further “dilute” the indigenous vote and gradually make them a minority in their own land.
‘Political response to political obstruction’ Pro-France MP Nicolas Metzdorf and Bill Law Commission Rapporteur Philippe Gosselin both said the tactical move was “a political response to (LFI’s) political obstruction”.
“LFI is barking up the wrong tree (…) Especially since the pro-independence movement is clearly divided on the matter (for or against the Bougival process),” Gosselin pleaded.
“It was necessary to file this rejection motion of our own text, because now it will go to the bipartisan committee to be examined once again. So we’re moving forward, step by step. I would like to remind you once again that (the Bill) is coherent with about eighty percent of our political groups represented at New Caledonia’s Congress”.
The “Prior rejection motion” was voted by a large majority of 257 votes (and the support of Rassemblement National, but without the Socialists) and the sitting was adjourned without further debates.
When debates resume, no amendment will be allowed.
Moutchou ‘open to discussion’ In spite of this, during debates on Wednesday, newly-appointed French Minister for Overseas Naïma Moutchou assured she remained open to discussion with the FLNKS so that it can re-join talks.
She admitted “nothing can be done without the FLNKS” and announced that she would travel to New Caledonia “very soon”.
During question time, she told the Lower House her mantra was to “build” on the Bougival text, to “listen” with “respect” to “give dialogue a chance” and “build New Caledonia’s future”.
“The signature of the Bougival deal has revived hope in New Caledonia’s population. It’s true not everyone is now around the table. (My government) wishes to bring back FLNKS. Like I said before, I don’t want to do (things) without the FLNKS, as long as FLNKS doesn’t want to do things without the other parties”, she said.
FLNKS chief negotiator at Bougival, Emmanuel Tjibaou and pro-France Metzdorf also had a brief, sometimes emotional exchange on the floor, Wednesday.
They both referred to their own respective interpretations of what took place in July 2025 in Bougival, a small city west of Paris.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
These incidents followed Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) releasing new data that reveal the highest levels of crime on record across the state.
Despite Premier Jacinta Allen announcing “the toughest bail laws in Australia” in March 2025, she is continuing to face scrutiny for being perceived as “soft on crime”.
But what do these new crime statistics actually reveal? Is Victoria, specifically Melbourne, in the midst of a crime epidemic?
A crime spike, with a twist
As part of the CSA’s quarterly and annual reports, it publishes a range of recorded incidents across five categories, such as “crimes against a person” and “drug offences”.
These are then broken down into further sub-categories. For example, under “crimes against a person”, there are sexual offences and robbery, among others.
Together, these data give a snapshot of reported crimes across the state by offence type, offender and location.
The headline figures from CSA are indeed concerning.
In the 12 months before June 30 this year, Victoria Police recorded an 18.3% rise in criminal incidents from the same period last year (483,583 compared to 408,930).
The CSA said this represented the highest recorded figures since reporting started in 2004-05, and a 22% jump in criminal incidents recorded since 2017.
Melbourne is the local government area with the highest rate of crime, with a 17.4% increase since last year.
However, when measuring crime on a per capita basis, Melbourne’s crime rate is actually lower today (18,097 per 100,000) compared to 2017 (18,334 per 100,000).
This begins to show some of the challenges when examining crime data.
Delving deeper into the stats
It is important to remember crime statistics only tell us about crimes that have been reported.
This may seem like an obvious point, but different crimes have very different reporting rates.
For example, in 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared a “national crisis” of family and gender-based violence across Australia. However, it has been estimated that less than 24% of domestic abuse crime is actually reported to police.
This matters in the context of what we are seeing in Victoria and Melbourne because other crimes – for example homicide and property-related crimes – would have a reporting rate much closer to 100%: murder because it is not that easy to make a person disappear without others noticing, and property because in order to file an insurance claim, people first need a police report.
Of all the reported incidents in Victoria last year, 59% were property-related and 39% were theft. Property offences, in particular theft, are really driving this spike in reported crime.
However, this leads to a second point.
Namely that crime statistics do not tell us why crime is going up, or indeed down.
Looking at theft, we see a dip in reported incidents from 2020-2022, years impacted by COVID restrictions, and now a rise.
The uptick has certainly continued past pre-COVID levels, but this could also be associated with the cost-of-living crisis.
Underpinning this possible explanation, retail theft rose to 41,667 offences in 2025 – a 27.6% increase on the previous year.
This could paint a picture more of families struggling in the economic climate than a state struggling with violent crime. But it is the latter that is captured by political and media discourse.
Some trends are positive
The increased politicisation of crime often leads to a perpetual state of urgency and the introduction of increasingly punitive measures, such as Victoria’s new bail laws.
However, a deeper dive into the data actually reveals plenty of positive messages.
across Victoria, homicides are broadly stable or tracking down, with 3.2 per 100,000 last year, compared to a high of 3.7 in 2017
in Melbourne, homicides are at a ten-year low, with just 2.6 per 100,000, compared to a high of 8 per 100,000 in 2018. This is echoed by a fall in the use of weapons, including knives and firearms, at both state level and in Melbourne.
The real success story in these data, and rarely reported on in the media, are drug offences.
Across Victoria, drug use and possession is down 16.2% since 2020, with drug dealing and trafficking at a ten-year low, down 46.7% since 2016.
There is a similar picture unfolding in Melbourne, with drug use and possession down 7.5% and drug dealing and trafficking down 20.6% since last year.
Yet we rarely hear this messaging in media and political rhetoric.
Something else to consider
Like all tools, the value of officially recorded crime rates depends on how they are used – and they can be put to many uses at once depending on the story people want to portray.
The CSA, like all crime reporting agencies, are hugely useful tools.
But they only really give us an overall snapshot of the administration of crime events, rather than a true picture of what is happening.
Overall, we can see an increase in certain recorded crimes, but the broader picture is much more nuanced.
Many of the increases in recorded crime are in line with national trends, indicating no real cause for local alarm. Meanwhile, significant recorded crimes, such as homicides and drug related offences, show drastic drops.
As always, it is important to look beyond the headlines and see what stories the data tell us.
Alex Simpson 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.
This is a stark reminder of the pending danger of a larger measles outbreak.
To prevent transmission once the measles virus has been introduced, a population immunity of around 95%, evenly distributed throughout communities, is necessary.
New Zealand does not have this level of vaccination coverage and the main way to prevent an outbreak now is to focus on increasing the immunity of children and on closing the “immunity gap” in the population.
Although vaccination rates of children have at times reached more than 90% since the introduction of the register, the total has never reached the required 95%. Immunisation coverage has consistently remained lower among Māori children and more recently also Pacific children.
This graph shows that annual immunisation rates for two-year-olds have dropped for Māori and, more recently, for Pacific children, compared to Asian and NZ European (NZE) children. Author provided, CC BY-SA
To stem further spread, we must build on the lessons from New Zealand’s last major measles outbreak in 2019.
That year, Auckland experienced a large and serious measles outbreak – the largest since 1997 – affecting babies, young children and adults. There were more than 2,000 cases and about 35% required hospital care, despite the fact most people who contracted measles were previously fit and healthy.
About a third of people under 30 who contracted measles required hospital care during the 2019 outbreak in Auckland. Author provided, CC BY-SA
Some of the serious and lasting complications included encephalitis (brain inflammation), pregnant women losing babies, and children needing lengthy life-saving intensive care.
While acute measles can be severe, our subsequent research shows that measles infection is associated with a long-term increased risk of other infections.
We found that people who had measles in the 2019 outbreak had more hospital admissions not related to measles and more antibiotic prescriptions in the four years following the outbreak, compared to healthy controls.
While the effect was more pronounced for people whose measles infection was severe and needed hospital care, we also saw a lasting effect for those with milder infections.
The severity of this outbreak could have been prevented if more people had been protected with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
Immunisation coverage is lacking
Immunisation coverage for the MMR vaccine (given at 12 and 15 months of age) shows New Zealand’s vaccination rates are not enough to prevent an outbreak in children under five.
Data from June 2025 shows only 82% of two-year-olds are fully immunised with two doses of the vaccine. This leaves at least one in five unprotected.
Babies under one year of age are not protected because the first MMR dose is only given at 12 months. This is particularly worrying as young babies have very high rates of hospitalisation and complications from measles. In the 2019 outbreak, there were more than 250 cases in babies and more than half of them were hospitalised.
Data also show the burden of the 2019 outbreak was not equitable and these inequities persist in immunisation coverage today. Gaps in coverage create pools of susceptible individuals, rife for measles to take hold and spread.
What is also clear from the recent measles cases is that our history of inadequate measles vaccination has left young adults vulnerable to infection.
This happens at an age when they are able to travel overseas, with the unintentional consequences of bringing measles home to their whānau (family), including unimmunised pēpi (babies).
This would be particularly concerning if a measles outbreak were to take hold before the summer holidays. Even a few cases in New Zealand could make us the source of outbreaks for other Pacific nations.
Anyone under 50 years of age who is experiencing a fever, rash, cough and runny nose should think measles, particularly if they returned from travel in the past three weeks, are unimmunised or a contact of a recent case. They should call HealthLine (0800 611 116) for advice before visiting a GP or hospital, unless severely unwell.
If in doubt vaccinate. The health-sector response to the 2019 outbreak recommended GPs continue to actively recall unvaccinated children after checking the national immunisation register.
For anyone unsure if they have had two doses of the measles vaccine, it is safe to get a dose according to the Immunisation Advisory Centre if they are not immune-compromised or pregnant. MMR vaccines are free and available from GPs, pharmacies and community health providers. Vaccinators are listed on Book My Vaccine.
Measles infection is scary but vaccination can be scary for people, too. The World Health Organization recommends listening with empathy and acknowledging how people who are hesitant are feeling.
With a stretched health system and long-term consequences for individuals following measles infection, prevention is essential.
Anna Howe receives funding from the Health Research Council and Arthritis NZ. She has been involved in research funded by GSK and was the first KPS Research Fellow. She has previously worked for the Immunisation Advisory Centre as their research and policy analyst.
Emma Best receives funding from the Health Research Council and Starship Foundation for measles-related research.
Rachel Webb 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.
For more than 60 million years, venomous snakes have slithered across Earth.
These ancient, chemical weapon-wielding reptiles owe their evolutionary success in part to the effectiveness of their bite, which they deliver at an astonishing speed before their prey can escape.
Now, a study I coauthored reveals, in astonishing detail, exactly how these bites work. Published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology, it is the largest study of its kind to-date, and uses advanced video techniques to show how various snake species have evolved very different strategies to deliver their deadly bites.
Thousands of snakes on Earth
There are approximately 4,000 species of snake on Earth – about 600 of which are venomous.
Scientists started visually recording the strikes of these snakes to better understand them in the 1950s, when high-speed photography and cinematography were first developed.
Since then, these technologies have improved dramatically, allowing scientists to capture and study the action of venomous snake bites in much greater detail. For example, past research has shown there are clear differences between strikes to capture prey, versus those used for defence.
But most recent studies that have examined snake bites have been limited by a number of factors.
Firstly, they have captured the bites using only one camera. This means we only get a side-on view, whereas the snakes can slither in all directions. Secondly, the recordings have been of a relatively low resolution – in large part because they were made in the field with low lighting conditions. Thirdly, they have often focused on a single snake species or a limited number of species. This means we miss out on seeing how many other species may behave differently, or strike faster.
Experimental setup for snake strikes. Silke Cleuren
Welcome to Venomworld
For our new study, my colleagues and I studied the bites of 36 different species of venomous snakes. These species were from the three main families of venomous snakes: vipers, elapids and colubrids. They included western diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox), blunt-nosed vipers (Macrovipera lebetinus) and the rough-scaled death adder (Acanthophis rugosus).
All the snakes we studied were housed at an institution in Paris, France, called Venomworld. There, we built a small experimental arena consisting of plexiglass panels lined with a cardboard floor, in which we placed the individual snakes.
We presented the snakes with a simulated food source – a cylindrical hunk of medical gel, heated to 38 degrees so it resembled prey for those that can detect heat.
Two high-speed cameras, placed nearby at different angles, automatically captured the snakes striking the gel at 1,000 frames per second.
Using the footage from these two different views, we recreated the strike in 3D to investigate, in detail, its various components such as its duration, acceleration, angle, and how fast the snake’s jaw opened.
In total, we captured 108 videos of successful strikes – three for each of the species included in the study.
Striking and slashing
There were major differences between the strikes of the snakes we studied.
Vipers struck the fastest, moving at speeds of more than 4.5 metres per second before sinking their needle-like fangs into the fake prey. Sometimes they would quickly remove and reinsert their fangs at a better angle. Only when the fangs were comfortably in place did the snakes shut their jaws and inject venom.
Some 84% of the vipers included in the study reached their prey in less than 90 milliseconds. This is faster than the average response time for a startled mammal – the preferred prey of many vipers in the wild.
On the other hand, elapid snakes, such as the Cape coral cobra (Aspidelaps lubricus), crept towards the fake prey before lunging and biting it repeatedly. Their jaw muscles would tense, releasing venom.
Colubrid snakes, such as the mangrove snake (Boiga dendrophila), which have fangs farther back in their mouths, lunged towards the prey from further away. With their jaws clamped over it, they’d make a sweeping motion from side to side. In doing so, they tore a gash in the gel to inject the maximum amount of venom.
Our previous research highlighted how the shape of snakes’ fangs is closely tied to prey preference. We can now show how they use these deadly weapons in the blink of an eye – and why they have been able to survive for so long on Earth.
Alistair Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University, and is an Honorary Research Affiliate with Museums Victoria.
The Queensland government celebrated the creation of new national parks this year, with Premier David Crisafulli saying it is time to “get serious” and be “ambitious” in protecting nature.
But this claim doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Despite decades of conservation promises, Queensland remains a globally significant hotspot for destroying forests and native vegetation.
Our new study finds Queensland has lost at least 21% of its original woody vegetation since European colonisation. One-fifth of that loss has happened since 2000, even as the area of land being protected in state or national parks more than doubled.
By 2018, nearly two-thirds of subregions (areas that have similar patterns of climate, geology, vegetation and wildlife) still had less than 10% of their woody vegetation protected. Half were considered at “high” or “very high” risk of further loss.
Despite the creation of new national parks in some areas, bulldozers have kept working across vast parts of the state. Threatened animals, plants and precious landscapes are hanging on by a thread.
Cleared native woodland in the Brigalow Belt, in central Queensland. Auscape/Getty
Parks in the wrong places
Our analysis compared the loss of forests with the growth of protected areas across all Queensland regions with significant woody vegetation cover, using government data from 2000 to 2018.
This conservation “balance sheet” approach shows not only where protection is growing, but whether it’s keeping pace with ongoing clearing.
We found a dangerous imbalance: for the 20% of vegetation cleared, only about 10% has been protected. And this mismatch was more stark when we looked at different parts of the state.
Most of Queensland’s newly protected areas were in subregions within areas such as Cape York (northernmost point of mainland Australia) and the wet tropics (northeast coast), which already had the highest protection and not under land clearing pressure.
Meanwhile, areas that have historically been heavily cleared kept losing vegetation at some of the fastest rates in the country, with very little new protection added.
These included the Brigalow Belt – a wide band of acacia-wooded grassland between the coast and the semi-arid interior – the New England tablelands in the south of the state, and parts of the Mulga Lands in the south-west.
Protected areas in Queensland. Supplied, CC BY Land clearing in Queensland. Supplied, CC BY
The illusion of progress
Governments often report the growth of protected areas as evidence of progress toward global targets, such as protecting 30% of land by 2030 under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
But focusing only on the creation of new parks paints a very misleading picture. If the bulldozing in Queensland continues at current rates, the net outcome for nature is negative, even when more parks are created.
We identified regions of Queensland that are ecological crisis zones and need targeted protection now.
The Brigalow Belt – home to species such as the northern hairy-nosed wombat, bridled nail-tail wallaby, golden-tailed gecko and Brigalow scaly-foot legless lizard – has lost almost half of its original woodland vegetation.
And areas across heavily-populated southeast Queensland continue to be cleared for grazing and infrastructure. These are the landscapes most in need of urgent intervention — not just remote places that look good on international scorecards.
The critically endangered bridled nail-tail wallaby is found in areas of Queensland that are being cleared for farming. Timbawden/flickr, CC BY
Tougher protection
Stricter limits or moratoriums on clearing in fragile environments could ensure their protection. This will only happen with tougher compliance.
And expanding protection to capture depleted environments, rather than just photogenic or politically-palatable ones, is another way both state and federal governments can act.
Our research also shows an urgent need for a bold restoration agenda. Many of Queensland’s ecosystems are in a perilous state. Incentives and funding are needed for both protecting and restoring habitats where losses are already severe.
From accounting to action
Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which include Australia, have agreed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss this decade. But as Queensland’s example shows, success depends not just on how much land is protected but on how effectively we prevent nature from being destroyed.
Queensland’s nature protection strategy must move beyond counting hectares of parks. Instead, it should focus on a four tier approach: stopping the destruction of native vegetation, restoring degraded land in areas that provide a biodiversity benefit, ensuring protection targets important areas for biodiversity, and an accounting system that is transparent and captures both losses and gains.
Otherwise, we can only expect more of the same: a small jump in the number of protected areas in politically palatable locations and far less protection for the animals and plants that looking down the barrel of extinction.
Michelle Ward has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program, Queensland’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation, Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society, and WWF Australia.
James Watson has received funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program, South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water, Queensland’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation as well as from Bush Heritage Australia, Queensland Conservation Council, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Birdlife Australia. He serves on the scientific committee of BirdLife Australia and has a long-term scientific relationship with Bush Heritage Australia and Wildlife Conservation Society. He serves on the Queensland government’s Land Restoration Fund’s Investment Panel as the Deputy Chair.
Ruben Venegas Li has received funding from South Australia’s Department of Environment and Water, Queensland’s Department of Environment, Science and Innovation as well as from Wildlife Conservation Society, Queensland Conservation Council, and The Wilderness Society.
