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

An antidepressant containing a form of the drug ketamine has been added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), making it much cheaper for the estimated 30,000 Australians with treatment-resistant depression. This is when a patient has tried multiple forms of treatment for major depression – usually at least two antidepressant medications – without any improvement.

From May 1, a dose of Spravato (also known as esketamine hydrochloride) will cost $A31.60 and $7.70 for concession card holders.

However, unlike oral antidepressants, Spravato can’t be taken at home. Here’s how it works, and who it’s expected to help.

What is Spravato?

The chemical ketamine is used as an anaesthetic. In this formulation it combines both the right-handed (designated “R”) and left-handed (called “S”) forms of the molecule.

This means they are mirror images of each other, similar to how your left hand is a mirror image of your right hand. The left- and right-hand forms can have different effects in the body.

Spravato contains only the left-handed version, giving the drug its generic name esketamine.

Spravato works by increasing the levels of glutamate in the brain. Glutamate is a key chemical messenger molecule that excites brain nerve cells, lifting and improving mood. It also plays a role in learning and forming memories.

How is it taken?

Spravato cannot be taken at home.

A patient can self-administer, but it must be done at a registered treatment facility, such as a hospital, under the supervision of medical staff so they can look out for blood pressure changes and monitor potential side effects.

The drug is provided as a single-use nasal spray. This application means it’s absorbed directly through the nasal lining into the brain, so it starts to work within minutes.

Spravato must also be taken alongside an oral antidepressant. This will be a new one the patient hasn’t tried before. In clinical trials, it was usually an SNRI or SSRI medication.

When a patient first starts on Spravato, they are given the spray twice a week in the first month. It is then administered once a week for the second month, and then weekly or fortnightly after that.

Once there are signs the medicine is working, treatment is continued for at least six months.

How effective is it?

Spravato was approved for sale in Australia based on clinical trial data from more than 1,600 patients who were administered the drug for a period of four weeks. Each was given either Spravato, or a nasal placebo, and an oral antidepressant.

Patients were given a starting dose of either 28 or 56mg, which could be then increased up to 84mg by their doctor.

By the end of the four weeks, a greater percentage of patients who were given Spravato were found to have had a meaningful response to the treatment when compared with patients who received the placebo. Patients who were taking Spravato were also found to relapse at a lower rate. For those who did relapse, it took the Spravato patients longer to relapse when compared with patients who took the placebo.

It is expected Spravato will benefit a wide range of patients. The clinical trials demonstrated effectiveness for men and women, people aged 18 to 64, and those from a range of different ethnic backgrounds.

Read more:
Depression too often gets deemed ‘hard to treat’ when medication falls short

Potential side effects

As with any medicine, Spravato may cause side effects, some of which can be serious. The most common include:

• dissociation (feeling disconnected from yourself or what is around you)
• dizziness
• nausea and vomiting
• drowsiness
• headache
• change in taste
• vertigo.

Because Spravato can potentially increase blood pressure, medical staff will monitor a patient before and after it is administered.

Usually, blood pressure spikes around 40 minutes after taking the drug, so a reading is taken around this time. After taking Spravato, if their blood pressure has stayed low, or it’s dropping, the patient is given the all-clear to go home.

Due to the potential for this and other serious side effects, Spravato carries a black triangle warning. This means medical staff are encouraged to report any problem or side effect to the Therapeutic Goods Administration. A black triangle warning is generally used for new medicines or medicines that are being used in a new way.

Who will be eligible?

To be eligible for a prescription, a patient will need to have been diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. In practice, this means they will have unsuccessfully tried at least two other antidepressant drugs first.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration approved Spravato for use in Australia in 2021, meaning it was available but not subsidised. Since then, the sponsoring company, Janssen-Cilag (an Australian subsidiary of the multinational Johnson & Johnson), applied to have it added to the PBS four times.

In December 2024, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommended a PBS listing.

The new PBS listing, capping the price of a single treatment at $31.60, is a significant price drop. In 2023, single doses of branded Spravato were reported to cost anywhere between $500 and $900.

However, patients may still have to pay hundreds of dollars for appointments at private clinics where Spravato can be administered. Public places are available but limited.

Spravato may be suitable for you if you’ve tried different antidepressants without success. If it is suitable for you, then your doctor can discuss the next steps.

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

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

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

– ref. A ketamine nasal spray will be subsidised for treatment-resistant depression. Here’s what you need to know about Spravato – https://theconversation.com/a-ketamine-nasal-spray-will-be-subsidised-for-treatment-resistant-depression-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-spravato-255403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

In front of a crowd of party faithful last weekend, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton referred to the ABC, Guardian Australia and other news platforms as “hate media”. The language was extreme, the inference being these outlets were not simply doing their jobs, but attacking him and his side of politics because of ideological bias.

Speaking at a Liberal Party campaign rally in the Melbourne western suburb of Melton, Dutton said:

Forget about what you have been told by the ABC, The Guardian and the other hate media. Listen to what you hear [at] doors. Listen to what people say on the pre-polling. Know in your hearts that we are a better future for our country.

Melton is in the Labor-held seat of Hawke, which the Liberals believe they can win.

Dutton provided no evidence to support his accusation, for the good reason that there has been nothing in the ABC’s or Guardian Australia’s coverage of Dutton that could remotely justify it.

By a process of elimination, the “other hate media” to which he referred can only be The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, given the News Corporation mastheads have been unflagging in their support for him throughout the campaign.

What has been common to the campaign coverage by the ABC, Guardian Australia, The Age and the SMH has been close scrutiny of both sides and both leaders.

The three newspapers in particular have put renewed resources into independently fact-checking claims made by both Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and have caught out both men telling falsehoods.

The broadcast news media on the whole have played it straight, except of course for Sky News after dark, which has been as relentlessly pro-Coalition as their News Corp newspaper stablemates.

Beyond these professional mass media platforms, there have been clearly partisan social media influencers working on both sides, as well as a range of podcasters, but none of these has been guilty of hate speech towards Dutton or anyone else.

The inescapable conclusion is that Dutton equates scrutiny of him by journalists with hate speech.

This is where his attitude becomes dangerous to democracy. It comes straight from US President Donald Trump’s playbook, where the professional mass media are “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”.

It is designed to play not just on people’s longstanding distrust of the news media in general – though not of the ABC – but on some voters’ sense of grievance at the way governments have treated them.

This worked for Trump in the United States, but it became obvious early in the campaign that any association with Trumpism was a strong political negative in Australia, particularly in the atmosphere of alarm generated by his tariff war.

Dutton then took pains to distance himself from Trumpism, and at the Liberal launch in Western Australia his face was a picture of alarm when Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whom he had appointed to the Trumpian-sounding post of shadow minister for government efficiency, used the slogan “Make Australia Great Again”.

But it is typical of his incoherent campaign that at the start of the last week he should be echoing the Trumpian view of the media in such extreme terms, creating even more instability. In an ABC interview, his shadow minister for finance, Jane Hume, refused to support him, saying “that wouldn’t be a phrase I would use”.

It also raises legitimate questions about how Dutton would treat the media should he become prime minister. For example, if a media platform refused to obey his wishes, or provide him with coverage of which he approved, would its representatives be excluded from prime ministerial access?

Not long ago, such a proposition would have been inconceivable, but Trump banned the Associated Press (AP) from presidential access because it would not obey his instruction to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. A federal judge later found the ban violated the First Amendment, and ordered AP’s access to be restored.

It is very improbable Dutton would even try to impose his will on the commercial media in Australia, especially the newspapers.

In fact, Guardian Australia has turned his remark into a fundraising opportunity. It emailed subscribers with the subject line “A note from the ‘hate media’,” comparing Dutton’s language to that of Trump, and asking for financial support to keep holding figures like Dutton to account.

But his potential to punish the publicly funded ABC is another matter.

From statements he has made during the campaign, it seems certain the ABC would be in for more funding cuts and an investigation into its operations of the kind Trump has launched into America’s National Public Radio.

Read more:
What would – and should – happen to the ABC under the next federal government?

Coalition prime ministers going back to John Howard have had a hostile relationship with the ABC. Howard stacked the ABC board, and the panel that nominates its members, with ideological mates.

In the eight years from 2014 to 2022, under the Coalition governments of Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison, $526 million was cut from the ABC’s budget.

During that time, there was also a series of inquiries into the ABC, set up to satisfy politicians with a beef against the ABC, notably Pauline Hanson.

The day after Dutton’s “hate media” statement, the ABC’s 4 Corners program revealed he failed for two years to disclose he was the beneficiary of a family trust that operated lucrative childcare businesses when he was a cabinet minister.

This is unlikely to improve his view of the national broadcaster. He may even see it as more hate. In fact, it is just good journalism.

Denis Muller and Nicole Chvastek will discuss this further on their Truth, Lies and Media podcast on Wednesday April 30.

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

– ref. Peter Dutton calling the ABC and the Guardian ‘hate media’ rings alarm bells for democracy – https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-calling-the-abc-and-the-guardian-hate-media-rings-alarm-bells-for-democracy-255412

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication, Director of QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology

In the lead-up to the 2025 Australian federal election, political advertising is seemingly everywhere.

We’ve been mapping the often invisible world of digital political advertising across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

We’ve done this thanks to a panel of ordinary Australians who agreed to download an ad tracking app developed through the Australian Internet Observatory.

We’re also tracking larger trends in political ad spending, message type and tone, and reach via the PoliDashboard tool. This open source tool aggregates transparency data from Meta (including Facebook and Instagram) which we use to identify patterns and items of concern.

While the major parties are spending heavily and are highly visible in the feeds of our participants, it is the prevalence of third-party political advertising that is most striking. We’ve observed a notable trend: for every ad from a registered political party, there is roughly one ad from a third-party entity.

Astroturfing and the illusion of grassroots support

One of the most concerning trends we’re seeing is a rise in astroturfing. This refers to masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear as though it originates from ordinary citizens or grassroots organisations.

Astroturfing ads do often adhere to the formal disclosure requirements set out by the Australian Electoral Commission. However, these disclosures don’t meaningfully inform the public on who is behind these misleading ads.

Authorisation typically only includes the name and address of an intermediary. This may be a deliberately opaque shell entity set up just in time for an election.

A key example seen by participants in our study involves the pro-gas advocacy group Australians for Natural Gas.

It presents itself as a grassroots movement, but an ABC investigation revealed this group is working with Freshwater Strategy – the Coalition’s internal pollster. Emails obtained by the ABC show Freshwater Strategy is “helping orchestrate a campaign to boost public support for the gas industry ahead of the federal election”.

Other examples we’ve encountered in our monitoring include groups with benign-sounding names like Mums for Nuclear and Australians for Prosperity. These labels and the ads they are running suggest grassroots concern, but they obscure the deeper agendas behind them.

In the case of Australians for Prosperity, an ABC analysis revealed backing from wealthy donors, former conservative MPs and coal interests.

The battle over energy

Nowhere is this more evident than in messaging around energy policy, especially nuclear power and gas.

In recent months, both major parties and a swathe of third-party advertisers have run targeted online campaigns focused on the costs and benefits of different energy futures. These ads play to deeply felt concerns about cost of living, action on climate change, and national sovereignty.

Yet many of these messages, particularly those that promote gas and nuclear, come from organisations with opaque funding and undeclared political affiliations or connections. Voters may see a slick Facebook ad or a sponsored TikTok explainer without any idea who paid for it, or why.

And with no obligation to be truthful, much of this content may be deeply misleading. It muddies public understanding at a critical moment for climate action.

Truth not required

Truth in political advertising isn’t legally required in all of Australia. While businesses can’t mislead consumers under consumer law, political parties and third-party campaigners are exempt from those same standards.

This means misleading or outright false claims – about opponents, policies or the state of the economy – can be repeated and amplified without consequence, provided they’re framed as political opinion.

Despite calls for reform from politicians, experts and civil society groups, federal legislation continues to lag behind community expectations.

South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory do have truth in political advertising laws, but there is still no national standard.

In the digital advertising environment, where ads are fast, fleeting, and often tailored to individuals, the absence of such independent scrutiny allows misinformation to flourish unchecked.

Most people are seeing very little – or so it seems

Paradoxically, our data shows the majority of participants are seeing very few political ads. Of the total ads seen, less than 2% pertained to political topics or the election specifically.

This is partly a result of how the advertising products offered by platforms like Meta and TikTok allow ads to be targeted to specific demographics, locations or interests. This means even two people in the same household may have entirely different ad experiences.

But it’s also a reminder social media ads are just the tip of the iceberg. Much political persuasion online happens outside paid ad campaigns – via influencer content, YouTube recommendations, algorithmic amplification, mainstream media coverage and more.

Because platforms and publishers aren’t required to share this broader content with researchers or the public, we can’t easily track it – although we are trying.

We need meaningful observability

If democracy is to thrive in a digital age, we need to be able to independently observe online political communication, including advertising.

Existing measures like campaign finance disclosures and transparency tools provided by platforms will never be enough. They don’t include user experiences or track patterns across populations and over time. This inevitably means some advertising activity flies under the radar.

We lack robust tools to understand and analyse our current fragmented information landscape.

Where platforms don’t provide meaningful data access to researchers and the public, tools like the Ad Observatory and PoliDashboard offer valuable glimpses into a fragmented information landscape, while remaining incomplete.

However, tools on their own are not enough. We also need to be willing to call out and act when politicians mislead the public.

Acknowlegement: The Australian Ad Observatory is a team effort. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Jean Burgess, Nicholas Carah, Alfie Chadwick, Kyle Herbertson, Tina Kang, Khanh Luong, Abdul Karim Obeid, Lina Przhedetsky, and Dan Tran.

Daniel Angus receives funding from Australian Research Council through Linkage Project ‘Young Australians and the Promotion of Alcohol on Social Media’. He is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

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

Giselle Newton received funding from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education for the project ‘How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on Facebook’.

Mark Andrejevic receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society and through the Discovery Program.

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

– ref. What political ads are Australians seeing online? Astroturfing, fake grassroots groups, and outright falsehoods – https://theconversation.com/what-political-ads-are-australians-seeing-online-astroturfing-fake-grassroots-groups-and-outright-falsehoods-255225

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders University

As was widely predicted, the cost of living has dominated the federal election campaign. Soaring rents, grocery bills and energy prices have squeezed household budgets.

But these pressures aren’t new. In 2022, voter frustration over living costs helped Labor oust the Coalition.

With economic pressures persisting, will history repeat?

Analysis of cost-of-living trends and voting patterns in the last election reveals the voters most motivated by hip-pocket concerns: young women.

What was the situation in 2022?

In the 2022 Australian Election Study – a nationally representative post-election survey – about 23.3% of respondents (577 out of 2,478) identified cost of living as the most important issue shaping their vote.

Younger Australians were the most concerned about the issue. Among the age groups, 38.9% of those aged 18–30 prioritised it, compared with 30.4% aged 31–45, 28.5% aged 46–60, and just 15.4% among those aged 61–90.

The generational pattern was clear: the younger you were, the more likely you were to vote on cost-of-living concerns.

Gender also played a role. A slightly higher proportion of women (25.1%) than men (21.1%) rated cost of living as their top issue.

But the age-gender breakdown reveals more: among cost-of-living voters aged 18–45, women made up roughly 70%.

In contrast, men outnumbered women among older cost-of-living voters (aged 60 and over).

These trends suggest the cost of living is especially salient for younger women — a key electoral demographic to watch. Evidence shows this cohort is almost twice as likely as young men to be undecided voters.

If we look at housing, cost-of-living concerns were most prevalent among renters, with 38.5% of public housing tenants and 32.3% of private renters citing it as their top issue, compared to just 16.4% of those who own their home outright.

Those paying off a mortgage (27.3%) and people in alternative living arrangements such as boarding or living at home (35.6%) also reported elevated concern, highlighting the strong link between housing insecurity and financial stress.

Looking at household incomes, it’s no surprise low-income households were overrepresented among cost-of-living voters.

But concern wasn’t limited to them. Middle-income households, including many earning six-figure incomes, also featured prominently, reflecting how rising rents and mortgage repayments are squeezing even those once considered financially secure.

A generation defining crisis

Cost-of-living pressures are widespread, but financial vulnerability heightens the risk of poverty, which already affects more than three million Australians.

As shown above, young people and young families are at the deep end of the crisis.
For many, this is a generation-defining crisis, reshaping life expectations.

In 2017, 62.2% of Australians aged 18–24 saw home ownership as highly important. By 2024, that dropped to 49.5%. A similar decline occurred among 25–34-year-olds.

Read more:
Every generation thinks they had it the toughest, but for Gen Z, they’re probably right

Those in the poorest suburbs or the poorest household are the least likely to value home ownership. This is potentially a sign they feel permanently locked out, deepening inequality.

As renting becomes more common, and rent prices skyrocket, young people are increasingly struggling to secure affordable rent.

It’s no surprise Gen Z is more financially anxious than any other generation. The mental health toll of financial stress is stark, contributing to the high prevalence of mental health disorders among this age group.

With a sizeable youth electorate this time around, financially struggling young voters could be the power brokers of the election. So who might they vote for?

The politics of living costs

In the last election, 61.7% of voters concerned about the cost of living backed a left-of-centre party, while 38.3% voted for the right. Despite the Coalition’s historic advantage on economic issues, they faced an incumbent disadvantage among cost-of-living voters.

In an Election Monitoring Survey conducted in October 2024, only 23.7% of Australians were living comfortably on their present income, while 46.4% were coping, and 29.9% were struggling.

Those facing financial hardship were more dissatisfied with the country’s direction, less confident in the government, and more likely to dislike both major party leaders.

Unsurprisingly, October 2024 saw a decline in trust in the federal government, with 15.7% of Australians reporting no trust at all, up from 8.3% in May 2022. Those who did trust the government remained around 32%.

This shows cost-of-living voters – much like young and female voters – are likely to explore alternatives beyond the major parties, continuing the 2022 trend.

Both major parties have seen a steady decline in support over the past two decades, with less than 70% of the primary vote between them in 2022.

This time around, Labor can afford to lose only two seats before facing minority government. Peter Dutton, on the other hand, faces a tougher task, needing nearly 20 seats for a majority.

With increasing dislike for the major parties among financially struggling voters, there’s a real chance of a hung parliament, where neither party secures the 76 seats needed to govern outright, making negotiations with minor parties and independents crucial.

Policy battleground

The major parties know how important the rising cost of living is to voters. A slew of policies has already been announced, from cheaper doctors visits, to lower cost medicines and power bill rebates. On all these fronts, the Coalition has agreed to match Labor’s proposals, ensuring a tightly contested debate.

Notably, Labor’s proposal to top up stage three income tax cuts won’t kick in until mid-next year, but will cost the government $17 billion over four years.

Meanwhile, the Coalition’s pledge to halve the excise on fuel duty for a year, will cost $6 billion in lost tax revenue in a year.

But whether it will be enough to stop cost-of-living voters siding with a minor party or independent remains to be seen.

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.

– ref. Young women are among those who care most about the cost of living. It could be bad for the major parties – https://theconversation.com/young-women-are-among-those-who-care-most-about-the-cost-of-living-it-could-be-bad-for-the-major-parties-254988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James J Bell, Professor of Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The latest update on the state of New Zealand’s environment paints a concerning outlook for marine environments, especially amid the increasing push to use the marine estate for economic gain.

But many shallow coastal ecosystems remain largely unexplored. As our latest fieldwork shows, many of these areas are hotspots for protected species, but are largely unprotected from human impacts.

Ecosystems in the ‘middle’ light zone

Subtidal rocky reefs have been the focus of scientific research for centuries. During the past eight decades, with the advent of SCUBA diving, they have been studied even more intensively.

However, rocky reefs extend much deeper than most SCUBA divers can typically reach, into what is known as the mesophotic or “middle” light zone.

While seaweeds dominate in the well-lit shallow waters, there is limited light to sustain photosynthesis in the mesophotic zone below around 30 metres. The decline in seaweed creates more space for animals, which leads to the development of communities containing species not found in the shallows.

Because these ecosystems are no longer affected by surface wave action, they are often dominated by large, fragile three-dimensional species.

We still know very little about the ecology of the species that live in mesophotic ecosystems. Many are likely to be slow growing and long-lived, with some living for hundreds or possibly thousands of years.

Research is ongoing and empirical data still sparse, but observations show many fish are associated with these mesophotic communities. We eat some of them, or they are important within the ocean food web.

Diverse ecosystems and protected species

We shared some of the first high-resolution videos of New Zealand’s mesophotic ecosystems in 2022. Back then, we thought these deep-reef communities were dominated by sponges.

However, we have since deployed a Boxfish remotely operated vehicle more than 200 times around New Zealand and found sponges are not always the most dominant organism.

In fact, mesophotic ecosystems along New Zealand’s coast are very diverse, with regional variation in the types of communities.

Our team found sea squirts dominated communities off Rakiura Stewart Island, anemone stands in the Wellington region, red coral beds along the Fiordland coast and coral “reefs” in Northland.

Importantly, many of these reefs support species protected under the Wildlife Act.

During our most recent trip to Doubtless Bay in Northland, we explored more than 20 locations. At many sites we encountered protected coral species. The term coral is broadly defined in the Wildlife Act – it includes groups such as black corals (order Antipatharia), gorgonian corals (Gorgonacea), stony corals (Scleractinia) and hydrocorals (family Stylasteridae).

Under the Wildlife Act, it is illegal to deliberately collect or damage these species. If they are brought to the surface accidentally (in fishing gear or by anchors, for example), they must be returned to the sea immediately.

Many of these corals are typically considered deep-sea species, but they are commonly found in New Zealand’s mesophotic ecosystems. Northland’s mesophotic communities have examples from all these groups of corals, as well as other fragile ecosystems dominated by glass sponges.

While glass sponges are not protected, they are thought to be very slow growing, with some species living for thousands of years.

Current and future impacts

Many mesophotic organisms grow slowly and rely on food carried in the water. This makes them particularly sensitive to activities that disrupt the seafloor, such as fishing and anchoring, and to the effect of higher sediment loads.

Sediment can either smother or clog mesophotic organisms such as corals and sponges. Many of these species show some tolerance to sediment, but prolonged exposure or very high levels can kill them off.

Many of the mesophotic ecosystems we have explored show clear evidence of human impacts, including lost recreational fishing gear and anchor lines.

The government plans to maximise the economic potential of the marine estate and much of this development is focused on coastal areas. Any activities that generate coastal sediment plumes are of particular concern.

Seabed sand mining operations already occur at some sites around the coast of New Zealand. More have been proposed, potentially generating sediment plumes that could reach these mesophotic communities.

A fundamental step for effective management of biodiversity is to understand its distribution. Our work over the past five years has characterised a wide range of mesophotic ecosystems, but there are still large areas of the New Zealand coastline that have not been explored. They are likely to contain undescribed communities.

As many regional councils around New Zealand are working through revisions to coastal policy plans, these deeper rocky reefs need to be fully included to protect the species they support.

Professor James J Bell receives funding from the Department of Conservation, Environment Southland, the George Mason Charitable Trust, The Royal Society of New Zealand, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council.

– ref. Reefs in the ‘middle’ light zone along NZ’s coast are biodiversity hotspots – many are home to protected species – https://theconversation.com/reefs-in-the-middle-light-zone-along-nzs-coast-are-biodiversity-hotspots-many-are-home-to-protected-species-254597

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Asgary, Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies & Director, CIFAL York, York University, Canada

A car attack at a Filipino street festival in Vancouver just two days before Canada’s federal election has killed at least 11 people and injured many more.

The carnage along a street lined with food trucks took place shortly after one of the men vying to become Canada’s prime minister — New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh — attended the event. A shell-shocked Singh observed a moment of silence in Penticton, B.C., during another campaign stop the next day.

A 30-year-old Vancouver resident has been arrested, but the motivation behind the attack is unknown.

Vancouver police say the suspect has mental health issues and was known to police prior to the attack. Police also told a news conference there was no indication there was a need for extra policing at the festival, deeming it to have a “low threat level.”

What goes into making that calculation, and is a public event ever truly low-risk?

Difficulties of crowd management

The Vancouver SUV attack is now classified as a crowd-related or mass gathering type of disaster. There have been cases of public vehicle-ramming attacks in Canada in the past, in particular the 2018 Toronto van attack that left 10 people dead.

While it’s not yet known whether the Vancouver attack was targeted, there were clearly weaknesses in crowd management for such a large gathering. These types of attacks have been on the increase over the past decade and are now considered one of the prime threats to mass gatherings in public spaces and streets.

Unfortunately, many mass gathering events do not allocate either sufficient resources or time for crowd management procedures, particularly those related to risk and emergency management.

Organizing mass gathering events in public spaces should factor in different threats, including the potential for car ramming, and implement effective mitigation and preparedness measures.

‘Soft targets’

Many public spaces where these events take place are vulnerable to car attacks. Evidence shows that mass gatherings are soft targets, meaning they’re easily accessible to large numbers of people and have limited security, protective and warning measures in place. Extreme precautions are needed to protect the public from such attacks so that they don’t become mass casualty events.

Those in attendance should be aware that public spaces generally lack physical barriers, or the proper distribution of them, to resist car or vehicle attacks.

While public awareness programs exist for other hazards such as flooding, earthquakes and extreme weather events, it’s now clear that such awareness and education are needed for mass public gatherings too.

Police should be aware that relying on limited surveillance may not be sufficient to identify such threats at the scene. Vehicle access and traffic control should be in place throughout such events. Lack of warning systems to quickly inform the crowd about an ongoing attack further increases the impacts of vehicular attacks.

Much of the focus on these types of events has been on the motivations of the attackers. Since a considerable number of vehicle-ramming attacks have been attributed to terrorism, communities or events with the perception of lower terrorism threats may not pay close enough attention to this type of threat.

Read more:
Toronto’s most recent car attack was a targeted crime, not a mass attack

Impact on the election?

Canadians aren’t likely to get many more details about the Vancouver attack until after voting day on Monday. Could the tragedy have an impact on the outcome of the federal election?

Past and recent studies have drawn different conclusions about the impact of disasters on election results.

According to what’s known as retrospective voting theory, voters judge governments on how they manage disasters, particularly highly publicized, tragic events, when casting their ballots. Voters can evaluate governments based on their handling of the disaster and the amount of effort they have put into minimizing risk.

Some studies have found that local governments were rewarded after disaster events, including Calgary after the 2013 floods, several Italian municipal governments after earthquakes, local government officials in Brazil amid municipal drought declarations and civic elections in Japan after earthquakes, tsunamis and floods.

Read more:
Why Canada needs to dramatically update how it prepares for and manages emergencies

Voters can and do punish or reward governments and elected politicians based on the effects of recent disasters on them and governments’ responses to them.

But given how soon the Canadian election is being held after the disaster occurred — and the record number of voters who have already cast their ballots in advance polls — this tragedy isn’t likely to have a substantial impact.

Hopefully, however, it will have an influence on how organizers, police and other authorities manage public crowds and events at a time when vehicle-ramming attacks are becoming a recurrent threat. Those elected this election should prioritize efforts to ensure communities can have safer mass gathering events.

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

– ref. Vancouver SUV attack exposes crowd management falldowns and casts a pall on Canada’s election – https://theconversation.com/vancouver-suv-attack-exposes-crowd-management-falldowns-and-casts-a-pall-on-canadas-election-255395

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Hoyer, Senior Researcher, Historian and Complexity Scientist, University of Toronto

Canada is, by nearly any measure, a large, advanced, prosperous nation. A founding member of the G7, Canada is one of the world’s most “advanced economies,” ranking fourth in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Index, which measures things like national health outcomes, security, safety and life satisfaction.

However, all of this prosperity and ostensible stability can mask social tensions, which can simmer for years, even decades, before boiling over into widespread unrest, civil violence and even societal collapse.

Along with more than a dozen collaborators as part of the Seshat: Global History Databank project, I have spent over a decade studying the rise and fall of societies from around the globe and throughout history. This provides a unique insight to understand the challenges facing modern nations.

Our new organization, Societal Dynamics (SoDy), works to translate what we learn from observing historical patterns into lessons for today.

Even the most powerful empires can collapse

Devoting my time to studying historic crises has shown me just how fragile societies are. Even big, powerful, famous civilizations can succumb to crises.

For instance, colleagues recently published a study comparing three large, wealthy imperial powers of the past: the Roman, Han and Aztec Empires.

Historians consider these to be some of the most successful, wealthy, stable societies of the pre-modern world.

They lasted centuries, controlled vast stretches of territory, oversaw innovations in technology, politics and philosophy and produced some of the most famous works of art and architecture from history that we still talk about today — the incredible Roman Colosseum, the stunning jade carvings and other artwork of the Han period and the amazing Aztec pyramids and intricate artwork.

But not long after they reached their apex, all three of these mighty civilizations experienced devastating crises:

Rome was torn apart by civil warfare starting in the early third century CE. Ambitious military generals from the provinces marched on each other, looking to gain even more power. They were supported by legions of loyal soldiers dissatisfied with their lot in life.

Western Han imperial rule came to a crashing end in the 9 CE when a wealthy and prominent courtier named Wang Mang led a successful coup. As in Rome, Wang rallied military leaders and officials frustrated in their ambitions. He amassed a large following of commoners weary of impoverishment by decrying the luxurious excesses of the Han court.

Aztec authority was already weakened by civil strife by the time the invading Spanish armies arrived in 1519 CE. The Aztecs ultimately proved unable to withstand the vicious warfare and disease outbreaks that accompanied the Spanish arrival.

Hidden vulnerabilities

What happened to these once-mighty empires? The aforementioned study gives some answers. The authors explored the distribution of wealth and income in these empires, comparing it to the modern United States.

They found that each of these empires permitted fairly high disparities to accumulate.

In each case, the richest five per cent and one per cent of citizens controlled an outsized share of their society’s wealth. This leads to fairly high “gini index” values as well. The gini is a commonly used measure of inequality in nations — the higher the number up to one, the more inequitable a society is. For comparison, the current average gini among OECD countries is 0.32, notably lower than each of the four societies shown above.

The researchers suggest this high level of inequality contributed to the eventual collapse of these empires.

This is consistent with our own findings on the dynamics of crisis. Inequality tends to breed frustration as impoverishment spreads.

It creates conflict as the upper classes become bloated with too many wealthy and powerful families vying for control of the vast spoils that accumulate at the top. It also erodes society’s ability to respond to acute shocks like ecological disasters or economic downturns as the government loses capacity and authority.

If allowed to persist, it becomes more and more likely for the society to end in collapse.

How does Canada compare?

Canada today bears several similarities with these and other famous civilizations of the past — and that should make Canadians nervous.

Canada, like the Romans, Han, Aztecs and many other once great societies, has maintained a relatively peaceful and secure rule over a large territory for a time. It’s generated a great deal of wealth, has facilitated the exchange of technology, ideas and movement of people over vast distances and has produced amazing works of art. But Canada has also allowed inequality to grow and linger for generations.

My group has been exploring the historic patterns of wealth creation and distribution in different countries, including Canada. We focus on what’s known as the “Palma ratio,” generally considered a more reliable measure of inequality than the gini.

The measurement quantifies the ratio of wealth or income between the richest 10 per cent and the poorest 40 per cent of citizens. Higher numbers indicate that the richest are capturing the lion’s share of a country’s overall wealth.

Canada’s economy has been growing steadily as measured by GDP per capita — with a few notable exceptions — since the Second World War.

Initially, inequality held steady, but starting in about 1980, the Palma ratio jumps up sharply. This suggests the bulk of this growth was making its way into the hands of the wealthy. After a downturn in the late 2000s, inequality has begun to grow again in recent years.

By comparison, the U.S. has experienced similar trends, though without the momentary downturn in the 2000s. Note also that these two graphs show different levels — the Palma ratio in the U.S. in 2022 (the latest available data) is about 4.5, while it’s just over two in Canada.

Heading down a dangerous path

Most citizens living in the heyday of these once mighty empires probably thought that collapse was unfathomable, just as few living in the U.S. or Canada today feel that we’re headed that way.

But there have been familiar signs growing in the U.S. in recent years. Americans appear to be further ahead on the road to a potential collapse than Canadians are, but not by that much.

Canada is starting to exhibit many of these same indicators as well, including significant spikes in social unrest evident during the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasingly hostile rhetoric we have seen among Canadian politicians. Persistent, heightened material inequality stands out as core driver in all of these cases.

Read more:
The ‘freedom convoy’ protesters are a textbook case of ‘aggrieved entitlement’

Canada remains, in many ways, a stable, thriving, modern democratic-socialist country. But it’s on a dangerous path.

If Canada allows inequality continue to rise unchecked as it has over the last few generations, it risks ending up where Rome, Han, the Aztecs and hundreds of other societies have been before: widespread unrest, devastating violence and even complete societal collapse.

As Canadians head to the polls, the country is at another crossroads. Will it continue down this all-too-familiar path, or will it take the opportunity to forge a different route and avoid the fate of the fallen societies of the past?

Daniel Hoyer is director of SoDy and affiliated with ASRA Network, Complexity Science Hub, Vienna, and the SocialAI lab at the University of Toronto. He has received funding from: the Tricoastal Foundation; the Institute for Economics and Peace; and the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation.

– ref. Is Canada heading down a path that has caused the collapse of mighty civilizations in the past? – https://theconversation.com/is-canada-heading-down-a-path-that-has-caused-the-collapse-of-mighty-civilizations-in-the-past-254378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Lakin, Lecturer, Clark University

Memory and politics are inherently intertwined and can never be fully separated in post-atrocity and post-genocidal contexts. They are also dynamic and ever-changing. The interplay between memory and politics is, therefore, prone to manipulation, exaggeration or misuse by clever actors to meet a range of political ends.

This applies too to Rwanda’s commemoration period (Kwibuka). It runs from April to July each year, dedicated to remembering the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

I have been researching genocide memory in Rwanda for more than 12 years. My research focuses on memorialisation, meaning-making, and senses of justice rendered for individuals who lived through the genocide, documenting personal relationships with Kwibuka.

Remembrance poses a challenging paradox. Often, when new conflicts arise, memorialisation falls into two distinct and competing categories. There is politically motivated commemoration, where memory is used as cover to advance a political agenda. Then, there are memory practices that transcend politics. These two types of memory coexist at the same time and place.

Drawing from more than a decade of original research on genocide memory in Rwanda, I explore commemoration practices that transcend politics, and identify why Kwibuka is still needed and how individuals keep Kwibuka relevant in today’s challenging socio-political climate.

Three ways genocide remembrance transcends politics

Firstly, Kwibuka can be a freeing practice for survivors.

For many Rwandans, genocide remembrance practices like Kwibuka still hold meaning. According to interviews I held with several Rwandan genocide survivors based in the US and in Rwanda, the commemoration period can be surprisingly and unexpectedly freeing.

One Rwandan woman in her early 40s who survived rape and was forced into hiding during the genocide explains:

When survivors gather for Kwibuka, we feel like we are allowed to express our grief in ways that might seem bizarre to outsiders. As Rwandans, culturally we are expected to be strong and not overly emotional. Yet during Kwibuka, we cry, we tell stories, and we even laugh and tell jokes. During Kwibuka we are not judged for it. This is what it looks like for survivors to move forward.

Secondly, there is genocide memory as a responsibility.

Some survivors continue to engage in commemoration as an outward form of obligation to the victims lost during the genocide.

According to interviews with several early representatives of Ibuka, the main survivors’ organisation in Rwanda, established in 1995, right after the genocide, most survivors didn’t feel ready to put their own needs aside. They doubted that justice would ever be achieved. Yet, by and large, they did it anyway for the good of the collective, or out of respect for the leaders of the movement who were advocating for their rights.

The obligation to victims remains meaningful to genocide survivors today. When sharing her testimony at the UN commemoration on 7 April 2025, genocide survivor Germaine Tuyisenge Müller discussed her personal obligation to victims.

Many of us still have guilt. We do not know why we survived. We tell our stories out of responsibility.

She was only 9 years old during the genocide.

Out of 100 people I interviewed during my research from 2013 to 2020 in Rwanda, the majority feel it’s important to attend Kwibuka ceremonies. The main reason they give is to support their neighbours and their community.

This perspective represents a change that took place some time after 2014, the 20th Kwibuka, from negative incentives to attend (pressure, surveillance from the government and potential consequences), to Kwibuka being perceived as a positive collective good, with relatively little harm in attending ceremonies. As one Rwandan I interviewed in 2017 put it:

We go because it holds communal value, it’s better to go rather than cause a problem in the community, and it isn’t a hassle for me to go Kwibuka.

Thirdly, genocide remembrance provides agency.

Many Rwandan survivors view engaging in Kwibuka as a way to have agency in the present, contrary to the genocide period when they had no control over their fate. They exercise agency through commitments and actions that support victims who experience violence today.

The majority of interview respondents shared that they reflect on different things while attending commemorations, even when official stories told might not represent the diverse range of Rwandan experiences during the genocide. These include Rwandans from mixed marriages, or individuals falsely accused of committing acts of genocide in 1994.

Shaping commemoration

How can external actors and concerned citizens support efforts that shape commemoration that transcends politics?

While it may feel that there is not much “we” can do, as ordinary global citizens, we each play an important role in protecting and promoting truth in the wake of those who manipulate history to harm survivors and gain politically. But we must be discerning. When we learn, listen to and amplify survivor voices, we must focus on two main aspects. First, are people’s stories authentic? Second, are they dedicated to pursuing justice and peace, and not causing division and conflict?

Additionally, building peace is a long struggle. It cannot happen overnight, nor can we expect it to.

Genocide survivors from Rwanda teach us that it takes active dedication and ongoing, daily work from individuals and organisations to confront and challenge rising manipulation by those who seek to promote violence and conflict. Suffering in the world is increasing. Survivor stories and testimonies shared around the world during Kwibuka become even more important to inform analysis and prevention of modern-day crimes and human rights abuses.

By remembering and honouring the struggles and sacrifices made for the right to gather and remember, the international community and stakeholders dedicated to pursuing peace can learn from the forms of remembrance that transcend politics. This includes its critical role in protecting historical truth from manipulation, one of the most significant challenges faced today.

Samantha Lakin, PhD, is a specialist in comparative genocide and a Senior Fellow at The Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CPDD) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Please note: the author is writing in her personal capacity as a genocide scholar, and her views do not represent those of her current employer.

– ref. Rwanda’s genocide: why remembering needs to be free of politics – lessons from survivors – https://theconversation.com/rwandas-genocide-why-remembering-needs-to-be-free-of-politics-lessons-from-survivors-254745

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeffrey Fields, Professor of the Practice of International Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Negotiators from Iran and the United States are set to meet again in Oman on April 26, 2025, prompting hopes the two countries might be moving, albeit tentatively, toward a new nuclear accord.

The scheduled talks follow the two previous rounds of indirect negotiations that have taken place under the new Trump administration. Those discussions were deemed to have yielded enough progress to merit sending nuclear experts from both sides to begin outlining the specifics of a potential framework for a deal.

The development is particularly notable given that Trump, in 2018, unilaterally walked the U.S. away from a multilateral agreement with Iran. That deal, negotiated during the Obama presidency, put restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. Trump instead turned to a policy that involved tightening the financial screws on Iran through enhanced sanctions while issuing implicit military threats.

But that approach failed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

Now, rather than revive the maximum pressure policy of his first term, Trump – ever keen to be seen as a dealmaker – has given his team the green light for the renewed diplomacy and even reportedly rebuffed, for now, Israel’s desire to launch military strikes against Tehran.

Jaw-jaw over war-war

The turn to diplomacy returns Iran-US relations to where they began during the Obama administration, with attempts to encourage Iran to curb or eliminate its ability to enrich uranium.

Only this time, with the U.S. having left the previous deal in 2018, Iran has had seven years to improve on its enrichment capability and stockpile vastly more uranium than had been allowed under the abandoned accord.

As a long-time expert on U.S. foreign policy and nuclear nonproliferation, I believe Trump has a unique opportunity to not only reinstate a similar nuclear agreement to the one he rejected, but also forge a more encompassing deal – and foster better relations with the Islamic Republic in the process.

There are real signs that a potential deal could be in the offing, and it is certainly true that Trump likes the optics of dealmaking.

But an agreement is by no means certain. Any progress toward a deal will be challenged by a number of factors, not least internal divisions and opposition within the Trump administration and skepticism among some in the Islamic Republic, along with uncertainty over a succession plan for the aging Ayatollah Khamenei.

Conservative hawks are still abundant in both countries and could yet derail any easing of diplomatic tensions.

A checkered diplomatic past

There are also decades of mistrust to overcome.

It is an understatement to say that the U.S. and Iran have had a fraught relationship, such as it is, since the Iranian revolution of 1979 and takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran the same year.

Many Iranians would say relations have been strained since 1953, when the U.S. and the United Kingdom orchestrated the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected prime minister of Iran.

Washington and Tehran have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1979, and the two countries have been locked in a decadeslong battle for influence in the Middle East. Today, tensions remain high over Iranian support for a so-called axis of resistance against the West and in particular U.S. interests in the Middle East. That axis includes Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

For its part, Tehran has long bristled at American hegemony in the region, including its resolute support for Israel and its history of military action. In recent years that U.S. action has included the direct assaults on Iranian assets and personnel. In particular, Tehran is still angry about the 2020 assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Standing atop these various disputes, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have proved a constant source of contention for the United States and Israel, the latter being the only nuclear power in the region.

The prospect of warmer relations between the two sides first emerged during the Obama administration – though Iran sounded out the Bush administration in 2003 only to be rebuffed.

U.S. diplomats began making contact with Iranian counterparts in 2009 when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns met with an Iranian negotiator in Geneva. The so-called P5+1 began direct negotiations with Iran in 2013. This paved the way for the eventual Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in 2015. In that agreement – concluded by the U.S., Iran, China, Russia and a slew of European nations – Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program, including limits on the level to which it could enrich uranium, which was capped well short of what would be necessary for a nuclear weapon. In return, multilateral and bilateral U.S. sanctions would be removed.

Many observers saw it as a win-win, with the restraints on a burgeoning nuclear power coupled with hopes that greater economic engagement with the international community that might temper some of Iran’s more provocative foreign policy behavior.

Yet Israel and Saudi Arabia worried the deal did not entirely eliminate Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, and right-wing critics in the U.S. complained it did not address Iran’s ballistic missile programs or support for militant groups in the region.

When Trump first took office in 2016, he and his foreign policy team pledged to reverse Obama’s course and close the door on any diplomatic opening. Making good on his pledge, Trump unilaterally withdrew U.S. support for the JCPOA despite Iran’s continued compliance with the terms of the agreement and reinstated sanctions.

Donald the dealmaker?

So what has changed? Well, several things.

While Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA was welcomed by Republicans, it did nothing to stop Iran from enhancing its ability to enrich uranium.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, eager to transform its image and diversify economically, now supports a deal it opposed during the Obama administration.

In this second term, Trump’s anti-Iran impulses are still there. But despite his rhetoric of a military option should a deal not be struck, Trump has on numerous occasions stated his opposition to U.S. involvement in another war in the Middle East.

In addition, Iran has suffered a number of blows in recent years that has left it more isolated in the region. Iranian-aligned Hamas and Hezbollah have been seriously weakened as a result of military action by Israel. Meanwhile, strikes within Iran by Israel have shown the potential reach of Israeli missiles – and the apparent willingness of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to use them. Further, the removal of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria has deprived Iran of another regional ally.

Tehran is also contending with a more fragile domestic economy than it had during negotiations for JCPOA.

With Iran weakened regionally and Trump’s main global focus being China, a diplomatic avenue with Iran seems entirely in line with Trump’s view of himself as a dealmaker.

A deal is not a given

With two rounds of meetings completed and the move now to more technical aspects of a possible agreement negotiated by experts, there appears to be a credible window of opportunity for diplomacy.

This could mean a new agreement that retains the core aspects of the deal Trump previously abandoned. I’m not convinced a new deal will look any different from the previous in terms of the enrichment aspect.

There are still a number of potential roadblocks standing in the way of any potential deal, however.

As was the case with Trump’s meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his first term, the president seems to be less interested in details than spectacle. While it was quite amazing for an American leader to meet with his North Korean counterpart, ultimately, no policy meaningfully changed because of it.

On Iran and other issues, the president displays little patience for complicated policy details. Complicating matters is that the U.S. administration is riven by intense factionalism, with many Iran hawks who would be seemingly opposed to a deal – including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz. They could rub up against newly confirmed Undersecretary of Defense for policy Elbridge Colby and Vice President JD Vance, both of whom have in the past advocated for a more pro-diplomacy line on Iran.

As has become a common theme in Trump administration foreign policy – even with its own allies on issues like trade – it’s unclear what a Trump administration policy on Iran actually is, and whether a political commitment exists to carry through any ultimate deal.

Top Trump foreign policy negotiator Steve Witkoff, who has no national security experience, has exemplified this tension. Tasked with leading negotiations with Iran, Witkoff has already been forced to walk back his contention that the U.S. was only seeking to cap the level of uranium enrichment rather than eliminate the entirety of the program.

For its part, Iran has proved that it is serious about diplomacy, previously having accepted Barack Obama’s “extended hand.”

But Tehran is unlikely to capitulate on core interests or allow itself to be humiliated by the terms of any agreement.

Ultimately, the main question to watch is whether a deal with Iran is to be concluded by pragmatists – and then to what extent, narrow or expansive – or derailed by hawks within the administration.

Jeffrey Fields receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

– ref. In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran – could a new nuclear deal be next? – https://theconversation.com/in-talking-with-tehran-trump-is-reversing-course-on-iran-could-a-new-nuclear-deal-be-next-254770

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cora Fox, Associate Professor of English and Health Humanities, Arizona State University

What is “happiness” – and who gets to be happy?

Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has measured and compared data from 167 countries. The United States currently ranks 24th, between the U.K. and Belize – its lowest position since the report was first issued. But the 2025 edition – released on March 20, the United Nations’ annual “International Day of Happiness” – starts off not with numbers, but with Shakespeare.

“In this year’s issue, we focus on the impact of caring and sharing on people’s happiness,” the authors explain. “Like ‘mercy’ in Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant of Venice,’ caring is ‘twice-blessed’ – it blesses those who give and those who receive.”

Shakespeare’s plays offer many reflections on happiness itself. They are a record of how people in early modern England experienced and thought about joy and satisfaction, and they offer a complex look at just how happiness, like mercy, lives in relationships and the caring exchanges between people.

Contrary to how we might think about happiness in our everyday lives, it is more than the surge of positive feelings after a great meal, or a workout, or even a great date. The experience of emotions is grounded in both the body and the mind, influenced by human physiology and culture in ways that change depending on time and place. What makes a person happy, therefore, depends on who that person is, as well as where and when they belong – or don’t belong.

Happiness has a history. I study emotions and early modern literature, so I spend a lot of my time thinking about what Shakespeare has to say about what makes people happy, in his own time and in our own. And also, of course, what makes people unhappy.

From fortune to joy

“Happiness” derives from the Old Norse word “hap,” which meant “fortune” or “luck,” as historians Phil Withington and Darrin McMahon explain. This earlier sense is found throughout Shakespeare’s works. Today, it survives in the modern word “happenstance” and the expression that something is a “happy accident.”

But in modern English usage, “happy” as “fortunate” has been almost entirely replaced by a notion of happiness as “joy,” or the more long-term sense of life satisfaction called “well-being.” The term “well-being,” in fact, was introduced into English from the Italian “benessere” around the time of Shakespeare’s birth.

The word and the concept of happiness were transforming during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and his use of the word in his plays mingles both senses: “fortunate” and “joyful.” That transitional ambiguity emphasizes happiness’ origins in ideas about luck and fate, and it reminds readers and playgoers that happiness is a contingent, fragile thing – something not just individuals, but societies need to carefully cultivate and support.

For instance, early in “Othello,” the Venetian senator Brabantio describes his daughter Desdemona as “tender, fair, and happy / So opposite to marriage that she shunned / The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation.” Before she elopes with Othello she is “happy” in the sense of “fortunate,” due to her privileged position on the marriage market.

Later in the same play, though, Othello reunites with his new wife in Cyprus and describes his feelings of joy using this same term:

…If it were now to die,
‘Twere now to be most happy, for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.

Desdemona responds,

The heavens forbid
But that our loves and comforts should increase
Even as our days do grow!

They both understand “happy” to mean not just lucky, but “content” and “comfortable,” a more modern understanding. But they also recognize that their comforts depend on “the heavens,” and that happiness is enabled by being fortunate.

“Othello” is a tragedy, so in the end, the couple will not prove “happy” in either sense. The foreign general is tricked into believing his young wife has been unfaithful. He murders her, then takes his own life.

The seeds of jealousy are planted and expertly exploited by Othello’s subordinate, Iago, who catalyzes the racial prejudice and misogyny underlying Venetian values to enact his sinister and cruel revenge.

Happy insiders and outsiders

“Othello” sheds light on happiness’s history – but also on its politics.

While happiness is often upheld as a common good, it is also dependent on cultural forces that make it harder for some individuals to experience. Shared cultural fantasies about happiness tend to create what theorist Sara Ahmed calls “affect aliens”: individuals who, by nature of who they are and how they are treated, experience a disconnect between what their culture conditions them to think should make them happy and their disappointment or exclusion from those positive feelings. Othello, for example, rightly worries that he is somehow foreign to the domestic happiness Desdemona describes, excluded from the joy of Venetian marriage. It turns out he is right.

Because Othello is foreign and Black and Desdemona is Venetian and white, their marriage does not conform to their society’s expectations for happiness, and that makes them vulnerable to Iago’s deceit.

Similarly, “The Merchant of Venice” examines the potential for happiness to include or exclude, to build or break communities. Take the quote about mercy that opens the World Happiness Report.

The phrase appears in a famous courtroom scene, as Portia attempts to persuade a Jewish lender, Shylock, to take pity on Antonio, a Christian man who cannot pay his debts. In their contract, Shylock has stipulated that if Antonio defaults on the loan, the fee will be a “pound of flesh.”

“The quality of mercy is not strained,” Portia lectures him; it is “twice-blessed,” benefiting both giver and receiver.

It’s a powerful attempt to save Antonio’s life. But it is also hypocritical: Those cultural norms of caring and mercy seem to apply only to other Christians in the play, and not the Jewish people living alongside them in Venice. In that same scene, Shylock reminds his audience that Antonio and the other Venetians in the room have spit on him and called him a dog. He famously asks why Jewish Venetians are not treated as equal human beings: “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”

Shakespeare’s plays repeatedly make the point that the unjust distribution of rights and care among various social groups – Christians and Jews, men and women, citizens and foreigners – challenges the happy effects of benevolence.

Those social factors are sometimes overlooked in cultures like the U.S., where contemporary notions of happiness are marketed by wellness gurus, influencers and cosmetic companies. Shakespeare’s plays reveal both how happiness is built through communities of care and how it can be weaponized to destroy individuals and the fabric of the community.

There are obvious victims of prejudice and abuse in Shakespeare’s plays, but he does not just emphasize their individual tragedies. Instead, the plays record how certain values that promote inequality poison relationships that could otherwise support happy networks of family and friends.

Systems of support

Pretty much all objective research points to the fact that long-term happiness depends on community, connections and social support: having systems in place to weather what life throws at us.

And according to both the World Happiness Report and Shakespeare, contentment isn’t just about the actual support you receive but your expectations about people’s willingness to help you. Societies with high levels of trust, like Finland and the Netherlands, tend to be happier – and to have more evenly distributed levels of happiness in their populations.

Shakespeare’s plays offer blueprints for trust in happy communities. They also offer warnings about the costs of cultural fantasies about happiness that make it more possible for some, but not for all.

Cora Fox has received funding from an NEH grant for activities not directly related to this research.

– ref. ‘I were but little happy, if I could say how much’: Shakespeare’s insights on happiness have held up for more than 400 years – https://theconversation.com/i-were-but-little-happy-if-i-could-say-how-much-shakespeares-insights-on-happiness-have-held-up-for-more-than-400-years-198583

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Maine, Senior Lecturer in Law, City St George’s, University of London

The Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers will mean changes in how trans people in the UK access services and single-sex spaces.

In the highly anticipated judgment announced April 17, the court ruled that the definition of “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act refers to “biological sex”. It found that this does not include those who hold a gender recognition certificate (trans people who have had their chosen gender legally recognised). In simple terms, “women” does not include transgender women.

It is important to note that the court’s remit was focused on interpretation of existing laws, not creating policy. The court affirmed that trans people should not be discriminated against, nor did they intend to provide a definition of sex or gender outside of the application of the Equality Act.

The prime minister has said he welcomes the “real clarity” brought by the ruling. But while it may bring some legal clarity, questions remain about the practical implementation. The judgment also raises new questions about the operation of the Gender Recognition Act, and what it now means to hold a gender recognition certificate.

What was the court case?

The gender-critical feminist group For Women Scotland challenged the Scottish government’s guidance on the operation of the Equality Act in relation to a Scottish law that sets targets for increasing the proportion of women on public boards.

The definition of a “woman” for the purposes of that law included trans women who had undergone, or were proposing to undergo, gender reassignment.

The issue that the court had to address was whether a person with a full gender recognition certificate (GRC) which recognises that their gender is female, is a “woman” for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. The act gives protection to people who are at risk of unlawful discrimination.

The court’s decision was that the meaning of “sex” was biological and so references in the act to “women” and “men” did not, therefore, apply to trans women or trans men who hold GRCs.

What has changed with this ruling?

Prior to the ruling, there were contested views as to whether trans people could access certain single-sex spaces – some of the most contentious being prisons, bathrooms and domestic abuse shelters.

The ruling does not require services to exclude trans people from all single-sex spaces. It does, however, clarify that if a service operates a single-sex space, for example a gym changing room, then exclusion is based on biological sex and not legal sex. Neither the court nor the government has said how “biological sex” would be defined or proven.

A service provider may operate a single-sex space on the basis of privacy or safety of users. To base this on biological sex must be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim – for example, the safety of women in a group for abuse survivors. This means that service providers may still operate trans-inclusive policies, but they may open themselves to legal challenge.

Read more:
What does the UK Supreme Court’s gender ruling mean for trans men?

What does this mean for the Gender Recognition Act?

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 introduced gender recognition certificates (GRCs), which certify that a person’s legal gender is different from their assigned gender at birth. A trans person can apply for a GRC in order to change their gender on their birth certificate. For legal purposes, they are then recognised as their acquired gender.

The ruling does not strike down or affect the operation of the Gender Recognition Act. But it does give the impression that the GRA – and holding a GRC – is now less effective.

The ruling clarifies that a trans woman who has a GRC and is recognised legally in her acquired gender can be excluded from single-sex spaces on the ground of biological sex, as would a trans woman without a GRC. Before the ruling, a trans person with a GRC would have been able to access many single-sex spaces and services that match the gender on their GRC.

In order to be granted a GRC, a person must show that they have lived in their acquired gender for at least two years and that they intend to live in that gender until death. Their application must be approved by two doctors, but – in what was a world-first at the time it was introduced – does not require any medical transition.

The Supreme Court states that trans people (with or without a GRC) will still be protected from discrimination. Sex and gender reassignment are both protected characteristics under the Equality Act. This means that trans people may still rely on the law to protect them from direct or indirect discrimination levelled at them on the basis of being trans, or because of their perceived sex.

The court uses the example that a trans woman applying for a job being denied that job on the basis of being trans would still be entitled to sue for discrimination.

How will single-sex services operate?

The key question now, both for service providers and trans people, is what spaces trans people will be able to use. It is not the Supreme Court’s job to issue guidance on this – and the judgment is notably silent on the practical implementation of the ruling.

Service providers may choose to offer unisex spaces, for example gender neutral bathrooms. British Transport Police have already confirmed that strip searches of those arrested on the network would be conducted based on biological sex, and other services will likely follow.

It is up to service providers, employers and healthcare providers to interpret the ruling and decide how to apply it. The government has said that further guidance will be issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But how the ruling is implemented in practice, and what it means for other laws like the Gender Recognition Act, will likely be debated for some time.

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

– ref. What will the UK Supreme Court gender ruling mean in practice? A legal expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-will-the-uk-supreme-court-gender-ruling-mean-in-practice-a-legal-expert-explains-255043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paulomi (Polly) Burey, Professor in Food Science, University of Southern Queensland

We’ve all been there – trying to peel a boiled egg, but mangling it beyond all recognition as the hard shell stubbornly sticks to the egg white. Worse, the egg ends up covered in chewy bits of adhesive membrane in the end.

The internet is littered with various “hacks” that claim to prevent this problem. But there are several reasons why eggs can be hard to peel. Luckily, that means there are also science-based strategies we can use to avoid the problem.

Egg ‘peelability’ factors

Eggs consist of a hard, porous shell, an inner and outer membrane, the egg white (albumen), and a membrane-encased yolk at the centre. There is also an air cell between the inner and outer membrane next to the shell.

A lot of research was done in the late 1960s and 1970s on factors that affect the peelability of eggs after they’ve been boiled.

One of these factors is the pH of the egg white. An early study from the 1960s indicated that the pH of the egg white needs to be in the range of 8.7–8.9, quite alkaline, in order for the egg to be easier to peel.

Storage temperature has a role to play, too. A study from 1963 showed that storing eggs at about 22 degrees Celsius (or 72 degrees Fahrenheit) gives a better peelability result than storage at lower temperatures of 13°C, or even fridge temperatures at 3–5°C.

Of course, there is a risk of spoilage if eggs are stored at higher ambient temperatures.

In the studies, an increase in storage time before boiling – using less fresh eggs – also increased the ease of peelability.

Step one: avoid fresh eggs

The fact that fresh eggs are harder to peel is relatively well known. Based on the factors above, there are a couple of reasons for this.

For one, in a fresh egg the air cell is still quite small. As the egg ages, it (very) slowly loses moisture through the porous shell, increasing the size of the air cell while the rest of the egg contents shrink. A bigger air cell makes it easier to start the peeling action.

Additionally, egg whites, although they already start out relatively alkaline, increase in pH as the eggs age, also making them easier to peel.

Step two: water temperature

Some keen egg boiling pundits believe that starting off with boiling water and lowering it to a simmer before gently placing the eggs into it provides a better result. However, you want to do this with room temperature eggs to avoid them cracking due to a sudden temperature change.

The reasoning behind this approach is that exposure to higher temperatures from the start of cooking also makes it easier for the membrane to come away from the shell and egg white.

Furthermore, the quick hot start makes it easier for the egg white proteins to denature (change structure as they cook) and bond to each other, rather than to the membrane.

After boiling eggs for the desired amount of time (typically 3–5 minutes for runny yolks, 6–7 minutes for jammy yolks, and 12–15 minutes for hard boiled), you can quench them in ice water. This should help the egg white to slightly shrink away from the shell, improving peelability.

Step three (optional): adding things to the water

Some other suggestions to improve peelability include adding salt to the boiling water, but this has mixed results. In one study, this approach did actually improve peelability, but this effect was lost after eggs had been stored for longer periods.

Acids and alkali have also been shown to aid eggshell peelability or removal. The patent that describes this used rather harsh substances with the goal to dissolve away the shell.

But based on this idea, you could try adding baking soda or vinegar to the water. With vinegar, the theory is that it attacks the calcium carbonate in the eggshell to then aid its removal. As for baking soda, because it’s alkaline, it could help detach the membrane from the shell.

Bonus: alternative cooking methods

There are other methods for hard-cooking eggs, such as pressure steaming, air-frying and even microwaving.

In steaming eggs, some proponents theorise that water vapour permeates the eggshell, loosening the membrane from the egg white, and thereby making the egg much easier to peel.

While studies have recently been done on the air-frying of other foods, there is still scope to further understand how this style of cooking might affect eggshells and peelability.

Lastly, once you have successfully separated the eggshells, don’t just throw them in the bin. There are lots of different uses for them, including compost, slug and snail deterrent in your garden, using them as little biodegradable pots for seedlings, or even something as advanced as scaffolds for cancer research.

Paulomi (Polly) Burey receives funding from the Australian Government Department of Education which has funded the eggshell research mentioned at the end of this article.

– ref. Is there a best way to peel a boiled egg? A food scientist explains – https://theconversation.com/is-there-a-best-way-to-peel-a-boiled-egg-a-food-scientist-explains-235895

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Dehm, Senior Lecturer, International Migration and Refugee Law, University of Technology Sydney

The year is 1972. The Whitlam Labor government has just been swept into power and major changes to Australia’s immigration system are underway. Many people remember this time for the formal end of the racist White Australia Policy.

A lesser-known legacy of this period was the introduction of Australia’s first immigration amnesty. This amnesty, implemented later in 1974 with bilateral support, provided humane pathways to permanency or citizenship for undocumented people in Australia.

In other words, people living without lawful immigration status could “legalise” their status without risk of punishment or deportation.

More immigration amnesties were promised during later election campaigns and then implemented in 1976 and 1980.

These amnesties occurred under successive Labor and Liberal federal governments, and each enjoyed enthusiastic bipartisan support.

So, how did these amnesties work – and could they happen again?

Started by Whitlam

Australia’s first amnesty was announced in January 1974, as part of the Whitlam government’s official policy of multiculturalism.

Its purpose was to grant permanency to people who had been living in Australia “illegally” and at risk of labour exploitation.

The amnesty was open for five months, from late January until the end of June 1974.

The main eligibility criteria was that the person:

• had to have been living in Australia for three years or more and
• be of “good character”.

This program had only a modest uptake. However, it set the path for more successful initiatives in the future.

Continued by Fraser

During the 1975 election campaign, then caretaker Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser promised another amnesty if his government won the election.

He committed to “do everything we can” to allow undocumented people

to stay here and make Australia their permanent home.

After the election, Fraser’s Liberal government implemented a broad amnesty for “overstayed visitors” in January 1976.

Departmental figures show 8,614 people sought legal status in the amnesty period.

The vast majority (63%) lived in New South Wales. The main nationalities of these applicants were:

• Greek (1,283 applicants)
• UK (911 applicants)
• Indonesian (748 applicants)
• Chinese (643 applicants).

Australia’s third broad immigration amnesty came in 1980, again as a result of a bipartisan election promise.

Immigration Minister Ian Macphee announced a six-month Regularisation of Status Program. It aimed, he said, to deal “humanely with the problem of illegal immigration” while also seeking to curb such unauthorised migration in the future.

Not a trick

Many migrants worried these amnesties were a government “trick” to facilitate deportations.

In an attempt to reassure the public, Prime Minister Fraser insisted in 1980 that the program was

not a trap to lure people into the open so that they can be seized, jailed and deported.

By the end of the amnesty period in December 1980, it was reported that more than 11,000 applications had been received. This covered more than 14,000 people.

What made the past amnesties successful?

Our research looked at what motivated the amnesties and how they worked.

We found several key factors that drove success, including the need for:

• simple and inclusive criteria for eligibility
• a clear application process
• a careful campaign for promotion, to build trust with migrant communities, and
• durable outcomes that offer of clear pathways to citizenship.

The 1980 amnesty program involved an effective campaign to publicise successful cases.

A 21-year-old Greek waitress working in her aunt’s Goulburn restaurant was widely publicised as the first person to be granted immigration amnesty status in July 1980. A Uruguayan refugee was profiled as the 1,000th.

The Department of Immigration also translated amnesty information into 48 languages, publicised in non-English language press and radio.

Of the three amnesties, the 1974 one was the least successful, due to:

• stringent eligibility criteria
• limited media publicity, and
• no official outreach strategy to build trust with migrant communities.

Precarious lives

Recent calls for an immigration amnesty has focused on two groups in Australia:

• undocumented people, including migrant workers and international students, and
• refugee applicants whose status has lapsed, or who cannot access permanent residency.

The Department of Home Affairs estimates more than 70,000 people live in Australia today without immigration status.

Undocumented workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation and deportation.

Yet, these workers often fulfil crucial labour market shortages. Many have been living in Australia for years or even decades.

Asylum seekers and refugees on temporary or no visas cannot return “home” for fear of persecution. They risk lapsing into irregular status with no rights or entitlements.

Lessons from past amnesties

Amnesties are a humane and cost-effective response to unauthorised migration.

Australia currently spends millions, if not billions of dollars, on the detention and deportation of people without visas.

In the lead up to both the 1976 and 1980 amnesties, successive governments acknowledged such a “detection and deportation” approach would be unnecessarily costly. It would require “increased resources in manpower”.

An amnesty, instead, was in the words of then Immigration Minister Macphee a chance to:

clean the slate, to acknowledge that no matter how people got here they are part of the community.

These historical precedents show Australia’s migration system and politicians could, if they wanted, accommodate initiatives and reforms that fundamentally value migrants and prioritise migrant access to permanency.

Our research also shows Australian election campaigns can be opportunities for advancing policies that embrace the reality of immigration and offer hope, not fear.

Sara Dehm receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

Anthea Vogl receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Departure of Health and Aged Care. She is a Board Member of the Forcibly Displaced People Network and co-convenor of the interdisciplinary academic network, Academics for Refugees.

– ref. Australia once had ‘immigration amnesties’ to grant legal status to undocumented people. Could we again? – https://theconversation.com/australia-once-had-immigration-amnesties-to-grant-legal-status-to-undocumented-people-could-we-again-252294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Visitor, School of History, Australian National University

Major parties used to easily dismiss the rare politician who stood alone in parliament. These MPs could be written off as isolated idealists, and the press could condescend to them as noble, naïve and unlikely to succeed.

In November 1930, when independent country MP Harold Glowrey chose to sit on the crossbench of the Victorian parliament while his few peers joined the new United Country Party, the local newspapers emphasised that he could not “become a cabinet minister” or “have a say” in making policy from the sidelines. (As if he wasn’t aware.) Australia was a place where, according to the scribes at The Ouyen Mail, “very few constituencies were prepared to elect independent men”.

Things are rather different now. Lifelong loyalty to a single party has become a rarer thing among voters, with the Australian Election Study showing fewer than four in ten voters give their first preference vote to the same party at each election. It was more than seven in ten back in 1967.

Voters have gravitated towards alternatives to the two major parties. A new interactive data tool from the ABC shows just how much more competitive federal elections have become. Australians are now world leaders in sending independents to represent them in state and federal parliaments.

And who could call the independents of the recent past naïve? Independent MPs held the balance of power in New South Wales in the early 1990s, and in Victoria later that decade. Both parliaments saw substantive reforms and improved parliamentary processes.

A strong track record

At the federal level, a lineage of independents such as Ted Mack, Peter Andren, Zali Steggall, Cathy McGowan and her successor in Indi Helen Haines have all found new ways to give voice to their community in parliament. Voters, especially in rural electorates and formerly “safe” seats, have been attracted to candidates who promise to “do politics differently”, as McGowan so often puts it.

There are dozens of candidates making that promise at this election. At least 129 candidates are listed on House of Representatives ballot papers as independent or unaffiliated candidates in 88 seats. That’s almost twice as many independent candidates than in the 2013 election for the lower house. Around 35 of these are community independent candidates. A further 28 people are running as independents or ungrouped candidates in Senate races.

So who are the independent candidates, and what role might they play after May 3?

Who are the independent candidates?

For a start, around a third of all independent candidates for House of Representatives seats are women. Among the “community independent” candidates (commonly referred to as “teals”), it’s closer to four out of five.

This is entirely in keeping with the role daring women have played as the strongest custodians of non-party politics in Australia over the past 120-odd years.

Most of the women on ballot papers this year are professionals and public figures. Nicolette Boele, candidate for Bradfield, NSW, is a former consultant and clean energy financier who came close to unseating cabinet minister Paul Fletcher in 2022. In the seat of Calare, also in NSW, candidate Kate Hook describes herself as “a professional working mum” and “small farmer” with an interest in regional development and renewable energy. Caz Heise, candidate for Cowper (NSW) is a healthcare expert who carved a sizeable chunk out of the National Party vote in 2022. Independent candidate for Groom (Queensland) Suzie Holt is a social worker by training who finished second at the last election. Berowra’s Tina Brown is a local magazine publisher with deep roots in Sydney’s Hills District.

Who are the dozens on men putting themselves forward? Many are former mayors and councillors running for parliament while the opportunity presents itself. There are a small but noteworthy coterie of men running on a specifically Muslim platform, some of whom are running with the support of the Muslim Votes Matter organisation.

Of the few “teal” men, the most competitive by far is Alex Dyson, a third-time candidate in the western Victorian seat of Wannon, currently held by Dan Tehan, shadow minister for immigration and citizenship.

A former Triple-J presenter and comedian with a “side-hustle” as an Uber driver, Dyson will hope to benefit from his positioning at the top of the ballot paper for Wannon.

Crossbench contenders

Most of the women who swept into parliament in 2022 are campaigning to retain their seats. Dai Le in Fowler, Sophie Scamps in Mackellar, Allegra Spender in Wentworth, Zoe Daniel in Goldstein, Monique Ryan in Kooyong and Kate Chaney in Curtin all fit that category. Kylea Tink, who won the division of North Sydney in 2022, was inadvertently knocked out of the race by the Australian Electoral Commission, which abolished her seat last year.

Andrew Gee, Russell Broadbent and Ian Goodenough are all incumbent MPs running as independents in seats where they were previously elected as Coalition candidates. Tasmania’s Andrew Wilkie, a long-serving independent with first-hand experience of a federal hung parliament, is seeking his sixth successive victory.

Bob Katter and the Centre Alliance’s Rebekah Sharkie also seeking re-election to the lower house, while in the Senate, crossbenchers such as David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie are all looking to retain their places. So is Coalition defector Gerard Rennick, who quit the Liberal National Party in Queensland over a preselection loss.

Rennick’s is perhaps the tallest order of that bunch, but none of them can take anything for granted. Even Katter, with his half-century of parliamentary experience and huge local popularity, is almost 80 and is facing a large field of younger challengers, all of whom will appear above him on the ballot paper.

Campaign blues?

Plenty of people have been watching national opinion polls during this campaign. But the polls are not terribly insightful for seat-by-seat contests involving large numbers of independent contenders. Even experienced pollsters are saying it has “never been harder to get pre-election polling right”.

Months out from the election, polls conducted on behalf of Climate 200 were showing possible wins for Heise in Cowper and Boele in Bradfield. Both could win. Heise has reportedly amassed a formidable team of 3,500 volunteers in support of her grassroots campaign.

But the pressure and scrutiny of an election campaign can quickly put frontrunners under pressure. This is certainly true of Boele, whose campaign momentum stalled with a surprising scandal involving an inappropriate comment in a hair salon, as well as distancing herself from allegedly antisemitic posts on her social media posts in 2022, saying a former volunteer was responsible for them.

Multi-cornered contests between defector MPs, the major parties and community independents will also make for interesting viewing on election night. Broadbent and Goodenough both seemed quietly confident about their prospects when asked by the Australian Financial Review last week. The same cannot be said for Calare’s Andrew Gee, who began the election with a “Facebook fail” and has since endured a stressful few weeks of bitter campaigning.

When it comes to winning back the seats that independents won last time, Liberal feelings range from bullishness to bluster. Daniel faces a well-resourced campaign from her predecessor Tim Wilson in Goldstein and nothing is being spared in the contest against Chaney in Curtin.

In Kooyong, Ryan’s campaign has been hampered by the occasional error, such as her husband’s removal of an opponent’s corflutes and an awkward exchange with Sky News reporter Laura Jayes. In an election dominated by the housing affordability crisis, voters are less likely to remember these moments than the revelations that Ryan’s Liberal opponent, Amelia Hamer, a self-identified renter, happens to own two investment properties.

The biggest drama has been in the affluent Sydney seat of Wentworth, where Spender has weathered attacks about her political donations disclosures and approach to tackling antisemitism.

An anonymous person circulated 47,000 leaflets through the electorate criticising Spender’s “weakness” on antisemitism, flagrantly breaching electoral laws that require campaign material to be authorised. The Australian Electoral Commission has identified the culprit (said to have “acted alone”), but has been less forthcoming about whether it intends to litigate the issue after the election.

Making minority work

It seems premature to start talking, as some pollsters have, about a Labor majority after May 3. It remains entirely possible crossbenchers may hold the balance of power, and in doing so, exert significant influence on the next government.

In the third leaders’ debate, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, normally pragmatic, refused to countenance sharing power with other parties or MPs. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton made the surprising admission he would willingly make agreements with independent MPs in order to win.

He certainly wasn’t thinking of the “teals”, whom he so often berates as “Greens in disguise”. But there are others with whom he could easily work. Katter, Spender and Le are among Dutton’s preferred negotiating partners. Sharkie has already declared that in a hung parliament scenario, she would call Dutton first.

There is no rulebook for making a hung parliament work. In the past, new political configurations and coalitions have been born from hung parliaments, including the forerunners of the Liberal-National coalition.

Agreements can be limited to assurances of support on budget bills and confidence motions, or more expansive undertakings including policy commitments and institutional reform. In the event of a parliamentary impasse, crossbenchers can withdraw their support and allow a new minority government to be formed. The Australia Institute’s Frank Yuan recently pointed out seven changes of government have been triggered by the withdrawal of crossbench support. Indeed, during the second world war, two independent MPs effectively changed the government mid-term.

Much depends on the relationships forged at the start of a hung parliament. In his memoir, former New England MP Tony Windsor recounts the seventeen days of negotiations that followed the 2010 election. One of the factors that led him, along with follow independent Rob Oakeshott, to support the Labor Party was the “professionalism” and “respect” its leaders showed them. Former Coalition leader Tony Abbott, by way of contrast, gave Windsor the impression he was unlikely to endure minority government long enough to honour any of his commitments.

An especially aspirational crossbencher may even take on the role of Speaker. Wilkie and Sharkie have been recently touted as contenders for the role in a hung parliament scenario.

Reform hangs in the balance

Independents MPs would be likely to bring particular policy priorities to any minority government negotiation. Given the heated contests in independent electorates, truth in political advertising laws would probably be high on the agenda. Steggall has previously promoted reforms to Stop the Lies, but when the Albanese government chose not to progress its own version of this reform, independents signalled it would be high on their priority list in a hung parliament.

Crossbenchers – in both houses – might also treat recent changes to Australia’s electoral laws as a bargaining chip. Those changes, agreed between Labor and the Coalition in secret, promised to get big money out of politics by imposing donation and spending caps on everyone but with special caveats for major parties. Haines has declared these are “in her sights” if a hung parliament arises.

The menu of reform options gets wider from there. Spender has called for labour market and tax reforms that may not be palatable to all of her peers.

In the Senate (where “every day is minority government”), Pocock has outlined his firm demands for greater royalties from resources rents and reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. Energy and climate policy, as well as support for rural Australia, would likely figure in a larger negotiation.

The crossbenchers would be hard-pressed to agree on everything, but there is strength and wisdom in numbers. Albanese and Dutton are both very experienced parliamentarians. Crossbenchers would likely need to put their heads together to exert maximum leverage.

If there is a hung parliament after May 3, history shows us it can be put to good use. The 43rd parliament, in which the Gillard government was in minority, was one of the most productive in recent history. It passed 561 bills including landmark measures such as the Clean Energy Future package and its centrepiece, a carbon price. It also passed needs-based funding for Australian schools, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and plenty more.

That seems a decent enough model for the next parliament to emulate. After all, as Harold Glowrey seemed to appreciate nearly a century ago, not everyone needs to be a cabinet minister to play their part in shaping the future.

Joshua Black is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Australia Institute.

– ref. Independents may build on Australia’s history of hung parliaments, if they can survive the campaign blues – https://theconversation.com/independents-may-build-on-australias-history-of-hung-parliaments-if-they-can-survive-the-campaign-blues-255313

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

In searching for the “real” Peter Dutton, it is possible to end up frustrated because you have looked too hard.

Politically, Dutton is not complicated. There is a consistent line in his beliefs through his career. Perhaps the shortest cut to understanding the Liberal leader is to go back to his maiden speech, delivered in February 2002.

The former Queensland policeman canvassed “unacceptable crime rates”, the “silent majority”, the “aspirational voters”, how the “politically correct” had a “disproportionate say in political debate”, the “grossly inadequate sentences” dispensed by the courts, and the centrality of national security. The way the last was handled was “perhaps the most significant challenge our society faces today,” the novice MP told the House of Representatives.

“National security” would be a foundational pillar of Dutton’s career, as well as his political security blanket.

Dutton had been a member of the Liberal Party since about age 18 and hoped “to use my experience both in small business and in law enforcement to provide perhaps a more practical view on some of the issues and problems” of the day.

The 32-year-old Dutton, who’d recently been in the building business with his father, following his nine years in the police force, arrived in parliament on a high, as something of a dragon-slayer in his Brisbane seat of Dickson. He had defeated Labor’s Cheryl Kernot, former leader of the Australian Democrats who had jumped ship in a spectacular defection in October 1997.

Dutton came from Brisbane’s outer suburbia, just as the Liberals were reorienting their focus towards this constituency, the so-called “Howard battlers”.

The eager newcomer was soon noted by the prime minister who, after the 2004 election, appointed him to the junior ministry. One Liberal insider from the time says that when campaigning in Dickson, John Howard saw Dutton “was very good at establishing himself in a marginal seat”. (Years later, when a redistribution turned Dickson into a notional Labor seat for the 2010 election, Dutton tried to do a runner to the safe seat of McPherson. But he failed to win preselection; in the event he held Dickson with a hefty swing. This election Dickson is on 1.7%.)

Dutton brought to his first ministry, workforce participation, the view he had expressed in his maiden speech: “We are seeing an alarming number of households where up to three generations – in many cases by choice – have never worked in their lives, and a society where in many cases rights are demanded but no responsibility is taken.”

By 2006 he had been promoted by Howard to assistant treasurer, a job that gave the ambitious Dutton a chance to work closely with Treasurer Peter Costello. Nick Minchin was finance minister then. He paints a picture of Dutton as a sort of guard dog protecting the revenue. In the cabinet expenditure review committee, “Peter was particularly helpful and supportive of Costello and my fending off the demands of spending ministers”.

The one-time police officer was “strong and resolute in questioning ministers”. Minchin was impressed; the junior minister was “obviously going places”.

From defensive to offensive

After the Liberals went into opposition, Dutton “shadowed” health, becoming health minister in Tony Abbott’s government after the 2013 election.

His legacy from the health portfolio dogs him in this campaign. He presided over the government’s failed attempt in the 2014 budget to put a co-payment on bulk-billed services. A poll conducted by Australian Doctor magazine voted him the worst health minister in memory.

A former senior public servant who observed him at the time presents a more positive picture, saying it was a very difficult time and Dutton was well across the complexity of the portfolio. On the notorious co-payment, Abbott says it was not Dutton’s idea: “It was absolutely 150% my idea”.

When in December 2014 Abbott moved him to immigration and border protection, Dutton was both in his comfort zone and on the escalator. Looking back, Abbott says Dutton was “a better match” for that portfolio. “In health the Coalition tends to play a defensive game. In border protection it plays an offensive game.”

Partnered by empire-building bureaucrat Mike Pezzullo, Dutton agitated for the creation of a mega security department (a push that earlier originated with Scott Morrison when he was in immigration). Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull felt the need to accommodate Dutton – then one of his conservative backers – with the creation of the home affairs super department, which was controversial and divided ministers. Someone who observed him closely in that portfolio says Dutton was always clear what he wanted, but didn’t get too deeply involved in the processes of policy.

Dutton, however, had another goal, and the turmoil surrounding Turnbull’s leadership seemed to offer the opportunity to shoot for the top. It was a false hope. Tactically outsmarted by Turnbull, Dutton lost the first face-off between the two in August 2018. The second bout, later the same week, provided not victory but a pathway to the prime ministership for Scott Morrison.

It wasn’t all downside for Dutton: during the Morrison government he became defence minister. The post suited a China hawk when the bilateral relationship was in a deep trough.

Early on, he met with one-time Labor defence minister (and later Labor leader) Kim Beazley. Beazley recalls: “He wanted to talk to me about what being defence minister was like”. They spoke about submarines: Beazley suggested Australia should cancel its then-existing contract for French conventional submarines and get a new contract for their nuclear subs (this was before AUKUS).

“He knew a fair bit,” Beazley says. “So he was looking to think a way through the huge problems we confronted.” Dutton was “aware we were slipping into an era of constant danger. He had all the attitude you would want of a contemporary defence minister” (although, Beazley adds, the Morrison government had “a propensity for unfunded defence annoucements”).

Leadership and control

By the time the Liberals went into opposition, Dutton was the only leadership candidate standing. His long-term rival Josh Frydenberg had lost his seat – a bonus for Dutton, who hasn’t had to look over his shoulder in the past three years, but a big loss for a party deprived of choice. The Liberals’ moderate wing had been decimated with the rise of the “teals”.

Many immediately declared Dutton unelectable, a view that would soften over time, then return again, to an extent, close to the election.

As opposition leader, Dutton’s laser-like focus was on keeping the party together, avoiding the backbiting and schisms that often follow a serious loss. Colleagues found him approachable and willing to listen. A backbencher says: “He was always very respectful of people in the party room. He will make himself available if people want to talk.”

Yet how much was he willing to hear? The same backbencher says, “I don’t think there was a lot of consultation in the development of policy – it was a bit of a black box. The emphasis has been on unity and discipline.”

Russell Broadbent, a moderate Liberal who defected to the crossbench in 2023 when he lost preselection for his seat of Monash (which he is recontesting an an independent) says, “I’ve never had a cup of tea or a meal with [Dutton]. I wasn’t in his group – I was on the wrong side of the party somewhere.” He says their only conversation was when Dutton told him his preselection was under threat. Broadbent said he knew his opponents had the numbers: Dutton asked whether he’d go to the crossbench. “I said, ‘probably’”.

Anthony Albanese gave his opponent a big political break, when the Voice, opposed by the Coalition, crashed spectacularly in October 2023. The prime minister had invested heavily in a doomed and faulty campaign that misread the mood of Australians, just when many people were being dragged down by the cost of living.

It took Albanese well over a year to recover his stride. Indeed, he did not do so fully until early 2025, when a pre-campaign burst of announcements put the government in a strong position. Dutton’s miscalculation was to believe that when he had Albanese down, his opponent would be out for the count.

Dutton gambled by holding back key policies until the campaign and making the opposition a relatively small target. The big exception was the nuclear pitch, released fairly early and driven in part by the need to keep the Nationals, a number of whom were restive about the Coalition commitment to the 2050 net zero emissions target, in the tent. Saturday’s result will be the ultimate test of the “hold back” tactic.

As the election neared, there was increasing criticism in Coalition ranks of the handling of the campaign, which has been shambolic at times. One example was the delay in producing modelling for a signature policy – the proposal for a gas reservation scheme. That pales beside the fiasco of the (aborted) plan to force Canberra public servants back into the office.

The bold defence policy, to take spending to 3% of GDP within a decade, was not only released after pre-polling had started, but came without detail.

On strategy and tactics, Dutton is controlling, wanting to keep things tight, in his own hands or those of a small group. Perhaps it is the policeman’s mindset. Certainly it has worked to the disadvantage of his campaign, which has appeared under-cooked on large and small things. Among the latter, Dutton’s office insisted on doing his transcripts, rather than having them done by the campaign HQ. Predictably, they were overwhelmed and the transcripts ran late.

Dutton seemed to be working on the assumption he was in a similar situation to Abbott in 2013, when Labor was gone for all money. But this election people needed to be convinced the alternative was robust and, late in the day, many swinging voters remained sceptical about that. Dutton is a strong negative campaigner, who hasn’t put much work into strengthening his weaker skill set to be a “positive” voice as well.

Going into the campaign’s final days, Labor held the edge in the polls. But the Liberals maintained that in key marginals, the story was rather different.

There is a degree of mismatch between the private Dutton and the public figure. Often those who meet or know him remark that one-to-one or in small groups he is personable. Yet his public demeanour is frequently awkward and somewhat aloof. This leaves him open to caricature, and raises the question of why he has been so unsuccessful in projecting more of his private self into his public image.

The latest Newspoll, published Sunday night, had Dutton’s approval rating at minus 24, compared to Anthony Albanese’s minus 9. A just-released Morgan poll on trust in leaders found Dutton had the highest net distrust score (when people were asked in an open-ended question to nominate whom they trusted and distrusted). It’s a long-term thing: he was third in the 2022 list.

The gender problem that dogs the Liberals

One of Dutton’s problems has been the women’s vote. The Poll Bludger’s William Bowe says looking at the polls, “Dutton wasn’t doing too badly [with women] in the first half of the term, but a gap opened up in 2024 and substantially widened in 2025”. Sunday’s Newspoll found 66% of female voters had “little or no confidence” the Coalition was ready to govern, compared to 58% of male voters.

Retiring Liberal senator Linda Reynolds, who preceded Dutton in the defence portfolio, has worked on gender issues in the Liberal Party for 15 years. She believes this is “a party problem, not specifically a Peter Dutton problem”. She says the Liberals’ failure to embrace and deal with gender issues “leaves the leader of the day vulnerable”.

Kos Samaras, from Redbrige political consultancy, agrees. “It’s a brand issue, rather than him personally. He’s just the leader of [the brand].” Scott Morrison made the brand problem a lot worse. “It’s gone back to a normal [Liberal] problem, be it still bad.”

There are differences between constituencies, but there is a “very significant problem with professional women”, Samaras says, which highlights the Liberals’ challenge with the “teal” seats.
Dutton is classic right-wing on law and order, defence policy, nationalism, anti-wokeness, and much more. But he can be pragmatic when the politics demands.

He was personally opposed to marriage equality, but was behind the postal survey that enabled the Turnbull government to achieve it, so removing the issue from the agenda. And the China hawk has recently softened his line on that country, in part to facilitate a pitch for the votes of Chinese-Australians, alienated by the Morrison government.

In this campaign, Dutton has been painted by his opponents as “Trump-lite”. Confronted with this in the third leaders’ debate, he was unable to provide an answer. Initially expecting the election of Trump would be potentially helpful for the opposition, he failed to appreciate the dangers for him, which only increased as the new president became more arbitrary and unpredictable.

The opposition leader’s anti-public service attitude might be a milder version of Trump’s stand but it is also a Queenslander’s view of Canberra, as well as typical of what the Liberals roll out before elections. But his appointment of Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as shadow minister for government efficiency was blatantly and foolishly Trumpian.

Dutton is not nimble or nuanced. He is also prone to going off half-cocked, which can lead to missteps (as when he wrongly said the Indonesian president had announced a Russian request to base planes in Papua). Earlier examples are easy to find. In his autobiography A Bigger Picture, Turnbull wrote of him that he would do interviews with right-wing shock jock in which he would “echo their extreme views […] He always apologised for going too far, and I generally gave him the benefit of the doubt”.

Dutton talks little about Liberal Party history, or political philosophy. Is he ideological? Abbott says he is ideological in the way Howard was. “He has strong instincts, he has convictions but they are more instinctual than ideological.”

Dutton at every opportunity points to Howard as his lodestar. Howard also came from a small business family, didn’t have much time for the public service, and had the quality of political doggedness. Regardless of some similarities, however, it is a very long stretch to see Dutton walking in Howard’s shoes.

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

– ref. Peter Dutton: a Liberal leader seeking to surf on the wave of outer suburbia – https://theconversation.com/peter-dutton-a-liberal-leader-seeking-to-surf-on-the-wave-of-outer-suburbia-254590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Monash University

Barring a rogue result, this Saturday Anthony Albanese will achieve what no major party leader has done since John Howard’s prime-ministerial era – win consecutive elections. Admittedly, in those two decades he is only the second of the six prime ministers (the other is Scott Morrison), who has been permitted by his party to contest successive elections. The other four – Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull – were cut off at the knees by their colleagues before having the chance to seek re-election.

For a prime minister who has spent much of the past three years derided as a plodder, uninspiring and weak, this is no small feat. If longevity in office is the principal measure of the success of prime ministers, then Albanese will soon have claim to be the best of the post-Howard group. Before election day, he will leapfrog Turnbull’s tenure and if, as the polls suggest, he is returned to government on May 3, he will shortly thereafter exceed Gillard’s incumbency with a whole three years ahead to build on his reign.

Of course, duration of office is not the only benchmark of prime-ministerial achievement – more important is how power is exercised, the legacy that is left behind. Arguably, the productive Gillard still outranks Albanese in this respect, highlighted by her government’s establishment of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. This is widely regarded as the most transformative social reform since the advent of universal health care. On the other hand, if he is granted a second term by voters, Albanese will be in a position to build on his policy edifice and produce his own signature reform, something he still lacks.

A leader for the times?

When sitting down to write this essay about Albanese, I looked back at two of the questions I raised about him shortly before and after his May 2022 election. The first was whether he was capable of switching “to a more dynamic galvanising mode of leadership or will the circumspection that has defined him in opposition shackle him in government?”

The second question was whether voters would stick by the dogged and gentler type of leadership Albanese promised. Or if, in an environment of pent-up dissatisfaction with the order of things, they would lose patience with him and instead hanker for a “strong” leader: one who conquered and divided, and offered black and white solutions to the complex challenges of the early 21st century.

As recently as early March, the answer to both of these questions seemed a definite no. For some 18 months, the opinion polls had signalled the electorate was profoundly underwhelmed by Albanese and his Labor government.

Despite a busy legislative program, the incremental methods of his prime ministership had proved incompatible with the public’s disenchantment with business-as-usual practices. Precious little Labor had done had registered with voters.

By way of contrast, the Liberal opposition leader, Peter Dutton, gave the impression of being in tune with the disgruntled milieu. Not that the public had warmed to him: a common focus group reaction was he was “nasty”.

Yet Dutton had the hallmarks of a quintessential “strong” leader. He was a political hard man, a trader in fear and division. He projected decisiveness. Where Albanese was prone to looking wishy-washy, Dutton was a man to get things done.

As Niccolò Machiavelli recognised in his notorious, and mostly misunderstood, treatise on statecraft, The Prince, the fate of political leaders is significantly determined by “fortuna”. These are the forces largely beyond a prince’s control.

Fortuna has undoubtedly intervened in Albanese’s favour over the past couple of months. This began with Cyclone Alfred giving him a steal on Dutton. Manning the deck during the cyclone’s painstakingly slow landfall on the east coast of the Australia, Albanese had the advantage of a prime ministerial bearing. His government’s response to Alfred also enabled him to exercise two of his emotional calling cards: empathy and compassion.

Additionally, the cyclone was a timely demonstration of the increased frequency of extreme weather events in a climate change affected environment. This is a phenomenon the prime minister could credibly speak to. Whereas the opposition leader, at the head of a Coalition in which climate change denialism still runs deep, has dissembled about a connection by protesting he is not a scientist.

Alfred also compelled the delay of the election to a time more propitious for Labor. The April campaign has been heavily shadowed by the spectre of US President Donald Trump’s wilful and reckless disturbance of geopolitics and the international economy. Unquestionably, Albanese would have been better placed to capitalise on Washington’s caprice and the undiscriminating damage it is visiting on purported allies like Australia had his government opted for a less orthodox America-dependent defence and security posture.

Yet Trump’s second presidency is principally a liability for Dutton. This is not because he is a Trump ventriloquist. Dutton’s right-wing populist stance on issues such as immigration and climate change and his hostility to identity politics are indigenous to Australia rather than imported from America. He is exploiting themes unleashed in the Liberal Party by Howard, which have been rendered more aggressive by Howard’s successors, first Abbott and now Dutton.

My hunch has always been the opposition leader was misreading the national psyche. Australians are more optimistic, forward-looking and generous-hearted than he was banking on. They are less scared and less paranoid. Women and young voters especially loomed as a formidable barrier to his prime-ministerial ambitions. But the parallels between his locally originated brand of reactionary populism and Trumpism are sufficient to have made his tilt for power still more difficult.

Bloodless, perhaps, but methodical and scandal-free

Albanese’s political renaissance since March, however, is not solely a product of happenstance. Nor is it only due to Dutton’s unravelling: his quest for office has also been damaged by the Coalition’s flimsy policy development and his stumbles on the hustings.

The opinion polls currently indicate Labor’s primary and two-party preferred votes are hovering around the same level as at the 2022 election. If this translates into Saturday’s result, it would represent the first time a novice government has not shed support in modern Australian political history on its initial return to the polls. Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Howard and so on all went backwards.

It is true Albanese is starting from a low base because of his slender victory in 2022. Still, should Labor hold its ground, this will surely owe something to an acceptance by the electorate, even if grudging, that Albanese deserves a second term. In other words, this could not merely be considered a victory by default, but also a degree of positive endorsement of his prime ministership.

On the cusp of his 2013 election win, Abbott pledged a return to “grown-up” government. After three years of destructive leadership conflict between Rudd and Gillard, he assured voters the “adults” would be back in charge. Over the course of the next nine years of Coalition rule, Abbott’s promise went woefully unfulfilled. It was a period blighted by further leadership civil war and policy indolence. By way of contrast, Albanese’s government has been united, orderly, industrious and scandal-free.

With the exceptions of the Gillard and Turnbull administrations, the other post-Howard governments have been notable for departing from conventional cabinet practices, an unhealthy level of leadership centralisation, a domineering Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and a tendency to run roughshod over the bureaucracy. The evidence from Albanese’s first term is he has learned from, and chiefly avoided, these follies.

An admirer of the governance practices of Hawke and Howard, the latter whom he closely observed over the despatch box between 1996 and 2007, Albanese does not “sweat the small stuff”. He avoids micromanaging his government, as Rudd was notoriously guilty of.

Detractors attribute this to a dearth of policy curiosity and a want of drive. But, whatever its explanation, the effect has been to give a competent ministerial team, many of them battle-scarred veterans of the tumultuous Rudd-Gillard years, leeway in their portfolios rather than choking their autonomy. The prime minister reaches down only when things “go awry” and, in those circumstances, he intervenes “forcefully” to “assume control”.

His PMO, headed since 2022 by Tim Gartrell, has been largely stable and has resisted the excessive command and control methods of many of its predecessors. After a decade of cutbacks under the Coalition and the degrading of its policy function through widespread outsourcing to giant consulting firms, the public service has been replenished and its policy input encouraged and respected.

Albanese has maintained a tight group of ministerial confidants around him, including the talented economics portfolio duo of Jim Chalmers and Katy Gallagher, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Mark Butler, Penny Wong and Tony Burke.

The continuity in membership of this “kitchen cabinet” suggests a prime minister gifted in collaboration and relationship management.

The downside to the ‘lone wolf’

The story is not all blue skies. As originally identified by the political correspondent, Katharine Murphy, now a media director in Albanese’s office, his early life as the only child of a single mother and invalid pensioner planted in him a powerful streak of self-sufficiency. This “lone wolf” element can see him lapse into relying too much and too stubbornly on his own judgement.

After a lifetime in the game, he is convinced he possesses uncommon political instincts. Yet his radar is sometimes astray. Examples include little things such as attending the wedding of shock jock Kyle Sandilands, as well as bigger miscalculations, such as purchasing an expensive beachfront property during a housing affordability crisis.

Few, if any, prime ministers avoid the urge for captain’s calls. Indeed, on occasions, going out on a solitary limb is essential for leaders. But Albanese has left ministers high and dry with some of his unilateral interventions, including blindsiding and humiliating environment minister and one-time leadership rival, Tanya Plibersek, by vetoing legislation to establish a national environment protection authority.

Albanese routinely cites a laundry list of achievements from the past three years. Against a backdrop of significant international turbulence, Labor’s handling of the economy has been mostly deft: inflation has been reduced, employment has grown, interest rates are finally on a downward trajectory and real wages have increased.

Analysis indicates it is households from low socioeconomic areas that have benefited most from the government’s tax and welfare changes. In short, redistributive action we expect from a Labor government.

The government has thrown its weight behind pay increases for poorly renumerated and predominantly female workforces in aged care and childcare. Childcare support has been extended and cheaper medicines delivered.

Labor has also introduced free TAFE and trimmed the debts of university students. In addition, the government has presided over amendments to industrial relations laws to improve protections for vulnerable workers in the gig economy.

Notwithstanding criticisms of its approval of new fossil fuel projects, Labor has pursued a concerted strategy to curb carbon emissions, encouraging a major increase in renewable energy supply and implementing complementary measures such as the vehicle efficiency standards scheme.

On the other hand, there have been glaring gaps in the Albanese government’s record. These include:

• the stalling on banning gambling advertising, despite this being widely desired by the Australian public

• the failure to lift many of the most disadvantaged members of the community out of poverty through a meaningful increase in JobSeeker and related income support payments, despite this being repeatedly recommended by the Labor appointed Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee

• the inadequate due diligence applied to the Morrison government’s AUKUS agreement, an oversight all the more imprudent given the inconstancy of Trump’s America

• the doleful silence on the Uluru Statement of the Heart agenda since the defeat of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum. This leaves Albanese at risk of joining several of his predecessors, including Malcolm Fraser and Hawke, who later identified the lack of progress on First Nations affairs as the greatest regret of their prime ministerships.

The government’s reputation for stolidity has been exacerbated by Albanese’s deficiencies. In retrospect, he booby-trapped his own prime-ministership by crouching too low at the 2022 election. The Australian people wanted desperately to be rid of Morrison, affording Labor scope for a more expansive manifesto. The absence of audacity in the party’s program undoubtedly contributed to the public’s tepid embrace of the incoming government. Labor’s primary vote was at a century low.

In turn, because Albanese was intent on not exceeding his narrow mandate, he was hamstrung in office. He had to be needled by colleagues to finally walk away at the beginning of 2024 from the campaign promise not to amend Morrison’s stage three tax cuts despite their regressive nature – a change of stance the public welcomed.

His pedestrian communication skills, while congruent with his everyman persona, have had a dulling effect on his government. As Gillard did to her cost, he seems to operate on the premise his government will be known by its deeds rather than words or gestures of emotional freight. He is devoid of memorable or moving phrasing. Where Keating had the Redfern address, Rudd the Stolen Generation apology and Gillard, after repetitive provocation, the misogyny speech, it is hard to imagine Albanese delivering anything commensurately stirring or enduring.

The lament that governments lack an overarching narrative is commonplace in contemporary politics. But Albanese has showed little proclivity for weaving a compelling tale for his government, to joining the dots between its actions, or projecting what lies ahead on the horizon.

In that absence, each measure has been at risk of disappearing into the ether through the warp-speed media cycle. And he has been conspicuously tongue-tied on interpreting Australia’s national identity, a theme fruitfully mined by his most accomplished predecessors. At a moment when the distinctiveness of Australia’s democracy has come into sharp relief, this is a missed opportunity.

Some Labor insiders are confident that, in a second term, Albanese will pursue a more adventurous program. Change to an outmoded tax regime, which is particularly fuelling generational inequality, is widely considered the holy grail of reform.

One reason why the centre is holding better in Australia relative to other comparable democracies can be traced back to the modernising reforms executed in the final decades of the 20th century by the governments of Hawke and Keating, and the early Howard government. Crucially, under the former intrepid Labor duo, major social stabilisers were also introduced, such as Medicare and compulsory superannuation.

Though not without their own destabilising effects, these policy innovations helped insulate Australia from the deadly combination of drastic austerity, severe erosion of living standards and gross inequalities experienced in a number of other countries. These are the conditions on which aggressive right-wing populism has dined. The rub is, however, that the reforms of late last century are running out of puff, and patching the policy edifice built in those years is also exhausting its utility. We are on borrowed time.

If he is returned to the prime ministership on Saturday, there is an imperative for Albanese to spread his wings, to go beyond doggedly nudging the country along. Yet the danger is he will interpret election success as proof of his self-narrative that he has always been underestimated. As confirmation of his rare power of political intuition. As evidence he need not deviate from his first term formula of what he characterises as “considered, measured government”.

Albanese is a well-intentioned prime minister of evidently decent values. An individual of good character at the helm of nations matters, as anyone who studies leadership comes to recognise. What we can confidently say of him is that as prime minister, he has fulfilled the injunction of the Greek physician and philosopher, Hippocrates: “first, do no harm”.

In an era in which the potential of mad and bad rulers to wreak havoc is painfully on display, doing no harm is actually quite a mighty thing. To have a prime minister, who believes, as Albanese said during one of the campaign leader debates, that “kindness isn’t weakness” is, indeed, comforting as we witness shrivel-hearted strong men menance the globe.

Albanese has been a proficient as well as a lucky general. But we are right to yearn for more. A second term will test whether he can make the transition from a solid to a weather-making prime minister. We will also discover, should that step be beyond him, if he has the self-knowledge and grace of spirit, to pass the office on.

In the past, Paul Strangio received funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. Albanese has been a ‘proficient and lucky general’. But if he wins a second term, we are right to demand more – https://theconversation.com/albanese-has-been-a-proficient-and-lucky-general-but-if-he-wins-a-second-term-we-are-right-to-demand-more-235197

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

While last week’s Morgan and YouGov polls had Labor continuing its surge, Newspoll is steady for the fourth successive week at 52–48 to Labor. A Redbridge poll of the marginal seats was again very strong for Labor, while YouGov and KJC seat polls were respectively good and bad for Labor.

A national Newspoll, conducted April 21–24 from a sample of 1,254, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, unchanged from the April 14–17 Newspoll.

Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 34% Labor (steady), 11% Greens (down one), 8% One Nation (up one) and 12% for all Others (steady). The drop for the Greens and gain for One Nation mean this poll was probably better for the Coalition before rounding than the previous Newspoll.

Here is the graph of Labor’s two-party preferred vote in national polls. The fieldwork midpoint date of Newspoll was April 23, three days ahead of the next most recent poll (YouGov). Perhaps Labor has peaked too early.

Analyst Peter Brent wrote for Inside Story that he thought Anthony Albanese performed poorly in the April 22 debate with Peter Dutton. This may explain some shift to the Coalition. But with just five full days left until the May 3 election and early voting in progress, Labor remains the heavy favourite to win.

Albanese’s net approval was steady at -9, while Dutton’s net approval was down two points to -24, a new record low. Albanese led Dutton by 51–35 as better PM (52–36 previously). Here is the graph of Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll, with the plus signs marking data points and a smoothed line fitted.

In this poll, 48% thought it was time to give someone else a go (down five since February), while 39% (up five) thought the government deserved to be re-elected. Meanwhile, 62% (up seven) said the Dutton-led Coalition was not ready to govern.

Labor retains 54.5–45.5 lead in Redbridge marginal seats poll

A poll of 20 marginal seats by Redbridge and Accent Research for the News Corp tabloids was conducted April 15–22 from a sample of 1,000. It gave Labor a 54.5–45.5 lead, unchanged since the April 9–15 marginal seats poll. Primary votes were 35% Labor (steady), 34% Coalition (steady), 14% Greens (up one) and 17% for all Others (down one).

The overall 2022 vote in these 20 seats was 51–49 to Labor, so this poll implies a 3.5-point swing to Labor from the 2022 election. If applied to the national 2022 result of 52.1–47.9 to Labor, Labor would lead by about 55.5–44.5. Since the first wave of this marginal seats tracker in early February, Labor has gained 6.5 points. If this poll is accurate, Labor is likely to win a thumping majority.

Over the five waves of this marginal seats tracker, the Liberals have gone from +1 net favourable to -8, while Labor has moved from -9 to -3. Albanese has gone from -16 to -4 (up one since last week), while Dutton has gone from -11 to -20 (up two since last week).

By 22–14, voters preferred Labor’s housing policy to the Coalition’s, with 38% for neither and 12% for both the same.

YouGov and KJC seat polls

The Canberra Times had YouGov polls of ten regional seats, conducted April 17–24 from an overall sample of 3,000 (so 300 per seat). The primary votes suggest the Coalition would lose the Tasmanian seat of Braddon to Labor, and the NSW and Victorian seats of Calare and Wannon to independents, leaving them with only Dutton’s Dickson out of the ten surveyed.

Labor would be likely to hold all its regional seats, although in the NSW seat of Hunter One Nation would be their final opponent instead of the Coalition. Seat polls are unreliable.

The Poll Bludger reported Saturday that KJC Research had taken seat polls on April 24 from a sample of 600 per seat for an industry group. These polls went against the trend, with the Liberals ahead of Labor by 49–45 including undecided in the Western Australian Labor-held seat of Tangney and 46–41 in the Queensland Labor-held seat of Blair.

In the New South Wales Labor-held seat of Richmond, the Greens led Labor by 39–34. In the NSW Labor-hels seat of Hunter, Labor led the Liberals by 45–41.

Gap narrows, but Liberals still likely to win majority at Canadian election

The Canadian election is on Monday, with the large majority of polls closing at 11:30am AEST Tuesday. The CBC Poll Tracker has the centre-left governing Liberals leading the Conservatives by 42.5–38.7 in national vote share and by 189–125 in seat point estimates (172 needed for a majority). I covered Canada and other upcoming and past international elections for The Poll Bludger on Saturday.

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.

– ref. Newspoll shows Labor’s lead steady at 52–48 – https://theconversation.com/newspoll-shows-labors-lead-steady-at-52-48-255381

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch another push on health on Sunday, announcing a re-elected Labor government would set up a free around-the-clock 1800MEDICARE advice line and afterhours GP telehealth service.

The service would be launched from January 1 and cost A$204.5 million over the forward estimates.

Albanese will tell a Sydney rally that people would be able to call at any time to get advice from a nurse. If the problem couldn’t wait for their regular GP, they would be connected to a free GP telehealth consultation.

“Life isn’t 9 to 5. Neither is health care,” Albanese will say in his speech, an extract of which was released ahead of delivery.

People with a sick child late at night or an unwell elderly parent would know there was trained expert advice at the end of the phone.

“This will take pressure off people – and off public hospitals.

“And in conjunction with our plan to open 50 more Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, it will ensure that free urgent care is within a 20 minute drive away for four out of every five Australians and just a phone call away for every Australian.”

The present telehealth service is patchy depending on which part of Australia people live and doesn’t provide a weekend GP service.

With a number of Victorian seats in strong contention, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has a rally in Melbourne on Sunday. Federal Labor’s vote in Victoria has been volatile, first collapsing under the unpopularity of the state Allan government but recently reviving.

Read more:
50 new urgent care clinics are on the cards. But are the existing ones working? Here’s what we know so far

Several men land in northern Australia

A small group of men from a boat that arrived illegally in remote northern Australia has been apprehended by Border Force. The men were first discovered by a commercial helicopter pilot.

They had written “SOS” in the sand and put up a flag. It is not known where they came from, or their circumstances.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said in a statement on Saturday, “We do not confirm , or comment on, operational matters.

“There has never been a successful people smuggling venture under our government, and that remains true.

“When someone arrives without visa they are detained and then deported.”

In 2022 the Liberals tried to exploit a boat interception on election day, by publicising it and sending text messages to voters.

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

– ref. Election Diary: Albanese promises around-the-clock health line, with leaders to hold rallies – https://theconversation.com/election-diary-albanese-promises-around-the-clock-health-line-with-leaders-to-hold-rallies-254991