Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hilary Bowman-Smart, Research Fellow, Australian Centre for Precision Health, University of South Australia

Monash IVF CEO Michael Knaap has resigned after one of the company’s Melbourne clinics mistakenly transferred the wrong embryo to a patient. The patient wanted her partner’s embryo, but instead her own embryo was transferred.

It is the second time this year Monash IVF has made such an announcement. In April, the company revealed a clinic in Brisbane had mixed up two different couples’ embryos.

IVF is big business in Australia. When Monash IVF was listed on the stock exchange in 2014, it raised more than A$300 million, with financial analysts noting the potential for massive profits, as “people will pay almost anything to have a baby”.

Total annual revenue in Australia from the IVF industry is more than $800 million. But what does the booming IVF industry mean for patients?

Strong regulation is crucial

In Australia, regulation of the IVF industry largely happens at the state and territory level. This leads to variation, such as restrictions on single women accessing IVF in Western Australia, which other states do not have.

Victoria passed legislation in 2008, with a guiding principle to safeguard children born through assisted reproduction. However, until recently, Queensland largely relied on industry self-regulation.

The Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand, the peak body for reproductive medicine, has called for a national regulatory framework to address the current “patchwork” of legislation.

Commercialisation is not necessarily a bad thing for patients. It can lead to innovation that improves the chances of successfully having a baby.

However, clinicians, ethicists and patients have raised concerns about the effects of commercialisation on the quality and cost of service provision in IVF.

With the rapid growth of the sector and high-profile incidents such as those at Monash IVF, stronger and more comprehensive regulation at the national level can help ensure quality and safety for patients.

High costs can lead to inequities in access

Most IVF in Australia occurs in private practice, not the public system. While Medicare rebates are available, there is usually a significant out-of-pocket expense. This can range from a few hundred dollars to many thousands for each cycle. IVF can therefore be a big financial decision. Financial expense is one of the biggest barriers, which leads to inequities in access between those who can afford it and those who can’t.

The costs stack up even more if you want non-essential “add-ons”, such as pre-implantation genetic testing, acupuncture, or embryo time-lapse imaging. A study in 2021 found 82% of women using IVF in Australia had used an add-on during their IVF treatment.

Many IVF clinics offer these add-ons, which are promoted as improving patient experience, or the chance of a successful birth. Add-ons are offered as a point of difference on the market.

However, the evidence for these claims is often weak or non-existent. They also come with significant costs and can potentially take advantage of people’s hopes, if they are willing to pay “whatever it takes” to have a baby.

Read more:
IVF add-ons: why you should be cautious of these expensive procedures if you’re trying to conceive

Patients or customers?

Commercial providers in the IVF industry can help provide choice, particularly as it is difficult to get IVF in the public system.

However, when health care becomes a business, a risk is that the relationship between the patient and doctor can be affected: a patient seeking treatment becomes a “customer” buying a product.

The therapeutic relationship should be about enhancing patients’ health and wellbeing, relieving suffering, and promoting human flourishing.

When we talk about “choice” in medicine, we often think about ideas such as informed consent, autonomy and the best interests of the patient. However, if we think of patients as customers, “choice” may become more about being free to purchase what you want to.

The commercialisation of the sector can also increase the risk of over-servicing, where financial incentives may shape medical decision-making.

This doesn’t necessarily mean clinics are making deliberate decisions or misleading patients for financial benefit. However, it can mean doing more IVF cycles, even as success becomes increasingly unlikely.

We need to ensure doctors don’t feel pressure – directly or indirectly – to provide particular treatments just because a patient is willing to pay for it.

Medical professionals’ obligations

Doctors and other healthcare professionals have special responsibilities and moral obligations because of their role. They serve an essential human need in society because of their particular expertise in health and wellbeing. And they often have a monopoly on the essential services they offer.

Without patients’ trust that clinicians are being guided by medical reasons instead of financial ones, their special and privileged role to promote human flourishing can be undermined.

This special role is not necessarily incompatible with business. However, it is essential we allow doctors to maintain their focus on patient wellbeing. This is reflected in the doctors’ code of conduct, which notes their “duty to make the care of patients their first concern”.

What happens next?

Much public and media discourse has framed the embryo mix-up primarily as a reputational and financial risk to Monash IVF – but it is about patients. It’s not (just) an error of corporate governance, it’s about the special trust that we as a society place in medical practice.

IVF is expensive, and can be tough both emotionally and physically. One of the ways we can ensure trust in IVF services is by moving towards consistent and improved regulation at the national level. This might include more uniform standards and policies around who is eligible for IVF.

IVF industry regulation is on the agenda for the federal and state health ministers tomorrow. While there is still much to be done, a review of the regulation and processes in this sector could help prevent more embryo mix-ups from happening in the future.

Read more:
Why do women get ‘reassurance scans’ during pregnancy? And how can you spot a dodgy provider?

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. IVF is big business. But when patients become customers, what does this mean for their care? – https://theconversation.com/ivf-is-big-business-but-when-patients-become-customers-what-does-this-mean-for-their-care-258585

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robin Smit, Adjunct Professor of Transport, University of Technology Sydney

Emission control systems in modern cars have slashed air pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen oxides.

But these systems face two major challenges: carmakers cheating on pollution tests and owner tampering. Cheating means high-polluting cars can be sold when they shouldn’t be, while tampering can increase some pollutants up to 100 times.

In our new research review, we found the impacts of cheating and tampering on emissions of pollutants are substantial across the globe. For instance, researchers in Spain found almost half the diesel trucks had been tampered with, while the Volkswagen Dieselgate cheating scandal uncovered in 2015 led to an estimated A$60 billion in health costs in the European Union. In California, researchers found one in 12 trucks had a damaged or malfunctioning diesel particulate filter – and these high-emitting trucks contributed 70% of the entire fleet’s emissions of tiny particulate matter.

The solutions? Better detection of tampering, cheating and malfunctioning emission systems – and vigilance to get high polluting cars off the road.

How did we get here?

From the 1950s onwards, smog, air pollution and health issues from car exhausts led many regulators to require carmakers to reduce dangerous air pollutants.

These days, modern combustion-engine cars are complex computer-controlled systems optimised to balance engine performance, durability and emission control. When working properly, new vehicles can reduce air pollutant emissions by 90% or more. However, they can increase carbon dioxide emissions by using slightly more fuel.

But these pollutants can soar if emissions control systems malfunction – or suffer from intentional cheating or tampering.

Cheating and tampering are not new. Cheating was first reported in the 1970s and it’s still happening. Tampering, too, dates back to the 1970s.

Both issues worsen air quality. These excess air pollutants have substantial costs to human health, as they can trigger respiratory conditions and can cause disability and premature death.

While the numbers of electric vehicles are rising, they’re only about 5% of the global fleet – about 60 million compared to about 1.5 billion cars powered by petrol, diesel and gas.

Because cars have relatively long lifespans, many fossil-fuel powered cars will still be in use in 2050, now just 25 years away. Many will be exported from rich countries to developing economies. That means effective pollutant control still matters.

Cheating by manufacturers

It’s well established combustion engine cars produce substantially more emissions and pollutants during real-world driving than they do in regulatory tests.

There are many reasons for this, including natural wear and tear. But one big reason may be cheating.

Authorities in many nations rely on testing to see if a new model is emitting at rates low enough to meet emission standards.

Manufacturers can take advantage of the known quirks of official tests and intentionally alter how their vehicles operate during testing. To do this, they may install a “defeat device”, usually deep in the car’s engine or its computer code.

These devices shift the car to a special low-emissions mode if testing is detected. They’re typically easy for the automaker to install and difficult to detect.

Defeat devices are mainly found in diesel cars and trucks, since diesel emissions control systems are more complicated and expensive than petrol or LPG. Adding an emission control system to meet Euro 6 standards costs about $600 for a petrol car. For diesel, the cost can be three to five times higher.

In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California announced Volkswagen had been using a software-based defeat device to make its diesel cars appear substantially cleaner. The scandal drew worldwide attention and cost the company about $50 billion.

For those caught, large fines and mandatory recalls have followed. But this hasn’t been enough to stop the practice.

The way these tests are conducted usually has to be disclosed by law to ensure transparency and make results comparable and repeatable. Unfortunately, having detailed knowledge of the tests makes it easier to cheat.

Tampering by car owners

Tampering is largely done by owners of diesel cars and trucks. Owners can tamper with emission control systems to improve performance, rebel against laws they don’t agree with or avoid extra costs such as Adblue, a liquid needed to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions from diesel trucks.

Tampering is usually illegal. But that hasn’t stopped the production of aftermarket tampering devices, such as software which deactivates emission control systems. It’s not necessarily illegal to sell these devices, but it is illegal to install and use them.

In the road freight sector, the use of aftermarket tampering by vehicle owners also acts as an unfair economic advantage by undercutting responsible and law-abiding operators.

What should be done?

Combustion engine cars and trucks will be on the world’s roads for decades to come.

Ensuring they run as cleanly as possible over their lifetime will require independent and in-service emissions testing. Authorities will also need to focus on enforcement.

Creating an internationally agreed test protocol for the detection of defeat devices will also be necessary.

Combating tampering by owners as well as malfunctioning emissions systems will require better detection efforts, either through on-road emissions testing or during a car service.

One approach would be to add telemetry to the onboard diagnostics systems now common in modern cars. Telemetry radio transponders can report emissions problems to the owner and relevant authorities, who can then act.

Shifting to EVs offers the most robust and cost-effective way to combat fraud and cut exhaust pollutants and carbon emissions from road transport. But this will take decades. Authorities need to ensure diesel and petrol vehicles run as cleanly as possible until they can be retired.

Robin Smit is the founding Research Director at the Transport Energy/Emission Research (TER) consultancy.

Alberto Ayala 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. Cheating by car makers, tampering by owners: crucial car pollution control is being sabotaged – https://theconversation.com/cheating-by-car-makers-tampering-by-owners-crucial-car-pollution-control-is-being-sabotaged-255882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Ransley, Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

Laws just passed in Queensland give police unprecedented powers to scan people with a handheld wand and potentially search them in all public places, without needing a warrant or reasonable suspicion.

Earlier versions of “Jack’s Law” were copied in other jurisdictions, such as New South Wales, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Queensland’s expanded laws may flow on to them now, too.

However, while the newly expanded Jack’s Law may detect more weapons, there’s no evidence it reduces violent crime. It may, in fact, do more harm than good, while putting human rights at risk.

What is Jack’s Law?

Jack’s Law is named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley who was stabbed to death outside a convenience store in Surfers Paradise in 2019.

Passed in 2021, the law resulted in a time-limited trial allowing officers to “wand” people with metal detectors in some entertainment precincts.

Since then, the trial was expanded twice to include public transport, stations, shopping centres and licensed entertainment venues.

In a little more than two years, Queensland police conducted 116,287 scans and removed 1,126 weapons – a detection rate of about 0.9%.

The majority of charges that followed were for minor drug offences, or breaches of knife-carrying bans.

The trial was set to expire on October 30, 2026 after another mandatory review.

Instead, the law has now been made permanent with the scope extended again to allow wanding in all public places.

The changes also remove safeguards, such as the need for senior officer oversight, reporting requirements and a further review of the impact of wands on crime and on civil liberties.

Our research into Jack’s Law

Our review of the 12-month trial of Jack’s Law on the Gold Coast in 2021–22 is the only publicly available evidence about the impact of metal detector wanding on knife violence in Queensland.

We found there was no reduction in violence as a result of the use of the hand-held scanners.

There’s also potential for bias when officers using the wands are influenced by factors that aren’t related to evidence. This includes the unfair targeting of minorities. More people could also be caught up in the justice system for minor, non-violent breaches.

What’s needed to reduce knife violence are evidence-based programs addressing underlying causes such as mental health, poverty, child maltreatment and domestic and family violence.

Wanding has no impact on these underlying causes and diverts resources and police attention from where they’re really needed.

Does the law reduce knife crime?

While the intention behind Jack’s Law is to enhance public safety by deterring knife-related crimes, the evidence suggests this is unlikely to happen.

Our study found that although the use of metal-detecting wands can lead to increased detection of weapons, there is no evidence this in turn reduces violent crimes involving knives.

Confiscated knives are easily replaced and we found no evidence that scanning deterred people from carrying weapons.

This is consistent with research from the UK showing “stop and search” laws had no effect on violent crime, and Victorian research showing no effect of similar stop and search laws on violent crimes.

Concern over human rights

The expansion of police powers under Jack’s Law raises human rights concerns.

The ability to stop and search people without reasonable suspicion may lead to racial profiling and erode public trust in law enforcement.

A 2022 independent inquiry into the Queensland Police Service highlighted issues of systemic racism and sexism within the force, underscoring the potential risks of granting broader discretionary powers without adequate oversight.

Our review also found evidence of police wanding decisions being based on discriminatory stereotypes. This makes the removal of oversight and review mechanisms of particular concern.

Additionally, searches for knives following wanding have led to a rise in minor drug charges. This funnels more young people into the criminal justice system, which increases their risk of re-offending and also places more pressure on an already overburdened criminal justice system.

While the expansion of Jack’s Law is a visible response to public concerns about knife crime, it is essential to recognise such measures are not a silver bullet.

Further erosion of the already tenuous trust in the police service among minority communities in Queensland, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, could lead to reduced public trust and have long-term negative impacts on public safety.

Why a holistic approach is needed

Addressing the root causes of knife violence requires a comprehensive approach that includes investment in support services and community programs.

We also need to recognise around 50% of serious violent crime occurs in the context of domestic and family violence, in private settings. Wanding does nothing to help those victims.

Understanding why people carry knives and implementing targeted prevention strategies are crucial steps toward creating a safer society.

While Jack’s Law serves as a symbolic gesture honouring the memory of Jack Beasley, its efficacy in reducing knife crime remains unlikely and will now not be reviewed.

Policymakers must balance the desire for immediate action with evidence-based strategies that address underlying factors contributing to violence.

Only through a holistic approach can we hope to achieve lasting change and truly honour the lives lost to such senseless acts.

Janet Ransley receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Paul Ramsay Foundation. The Queensland Police Service funded the research referred to in this article.

– ref. The Jack’s Law expansion is a symbolic step – it’s not a solution to knife crime – https://theconversation.com/the-jacks-law-expansion-is-a-symbolic-step-its-not-a-solution-to-knife-crime-258804

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jadey O’Regan, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

Brian Wilson, leader, songwriter and producer of the Beach Boys, has passed away at age 82.

He leaves behind a legacy of beautiful, joyous, bittersweet and enduring music, crafted over a career spanning six decades.

While this news isn’t unexpected – Wilson was diagnosed with dementia last year and entered a conservatorship after the loss of his wife, Melinda – his passing marks the end of a long and extraordinary chapter in musical history.

A life of music

Formed in the early 1960s in Hawthorne California, the Beach Boys were built on a foundation of family and community: brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and school friend Al Jardine.

Growing up, the Wilson household was a turbulent place; their father, Murry Wilson, was strict and at times violent. Music was the one way in which the family could connect.

During these early years Brian discovered the sounds that would shape his musical identity: Gershwin, doo wop groups, early rock and roll, and, a particular favourite, the vocal group the Four Freshmen, whose tight-harmony singing style Wilson studied meticulously.

It was an unexpected combination of influences for a pop band. Even from the Beach Boys’ earliest recordings – the surf, the cars, the girls – the stirrings of the complexity and musical adventurousness Wilson is known for is audible. Listen to the unexpected structure of The Lonely Sea (1962), the complex chords of The Warmth of the Sun (1963), or the subtle modulation in Don’t Worry Baby (1964).

These early innovations hinted at a growing creativity that would continue to evolve over the rest of the 1960s, and beyond.

A story of resilience

In later years, Brian Wilson often appeared publicly as a fragile figure. But what stands out most in his story is resilience.

His ability to produce such an expansive and diverse catalogue of work while navigating difficult family relationships, intense record label pressures, misdiagnosed and mistreated mental health conditions, addiction and much more, is extraordinary. Wilson not only survived, but continued to create music.

He eventually did something few Beach Boys’ fans would have imagined – he returned to the stage.

Wilson’s unexpected return to public performance during the Pet Sounds and SMiLE tours in the early 2000s began a revival interest in the Beach Boys, and a critical reconsideration of their musical legacy. This continues with a consistent release of books, documentaries, movies and podcasts about Wilson and the legacy of the Beach Boys’ music.

The focus of a thesis

I grew up near Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Their early songs about an endless summer had a particular resonance to my hometown, even if, like Brian Wilson, I only admired the beach from afar.

I chose to study the Beach Boys’ music for my PhD thesis and spent the next few years charting the course of their musical development from their early days in the garage to creating Pet Sounds just five years later.

I was fascinated by how a band could create such a groundbreaking volume of work and progress so quickly from the delightful, yet wobbly Surfin’ to the complex arrangements of God Only Knows.

To understand their music, I spent years listening to Beach Boys’ tracking sessions, take after take, to hear how their songs were so cleverly and delicately put together.

What struck me just as powerfully as the music itself was the sound of Brian Wilson’s voice in those recordings. Listening to Wilson leading hours of tracking sessions was to hear an artist at the top of their game – decisive, confident, funny, collaborative and deeply driven to make music that would express the magic he heard in his mind, and connect with an audience.

One of the more unexpected discoveries in my analysis of the Beach Boys’ music came from their lyrics. Using a word frequency tool to examine all 117 songs in my study, I found that the most common word was “now”.

In many cases, it appears in a conversational sense – “Well, she got her Daddy’s car, and she cruised through the hamburger stand now” – but on a broader level, it perfectly encapsulates what Brian Wilson’s music offered so many listeners.

He created an endless present: a world where the sun could always be shining, where you could feel young forever, and you could visit that world any time you needed to.

In 2010, I had the remarkable experience of meeting Brian Wilson in his dressing room before his performance at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney. He was funny and kind. He sat at a small keyboard, taught me a harmony and for a moment, we sang Love and Mercy together.

It was one of the most magical moments of my life. It is also one of Wilson’s most enduring sentiments: “love and mercy, that’s what we need tonight”.

Farewell and thank you, Brian. Surf’s up.

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

– ref. How visionary Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson changed music – and my life – https://theconversation.com/how-visionary-beach-boys-songwriter-brian-wilson-changed-music-and-my-life-258794

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth McLindon, Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

When it comes to domestic violence, cases involving catastrophic physical violence are the ones that most often make it into the media.

But our new research shows there are often signs of trouble long before such tragic outcomes – before couples move in together or get married.

We asked a large group of women about how domestic violence (also known as intimate partner violence) they’d experienced had started and escalated.

A general pattern emerged. First came psychological abuse, then physical abuse, then sexual abuse.

So if women, health workers and others can recognise the signs of psychological abuse early on, there’s a chance to intervene before abusive behaviour progresses.

How does this relate to coercive control?

The types of psychological abuse women told us about indicate they’d experienced coercive control.

Coercive control is defined as a pattern of restrictive, manipulative and dominating behaviours used to undermine a partner’s autonomy and freedom. While it can occur in any type of relationship, it is most commonly perpetrated by men against women partners and is underpinned by inequitable gender roles and misogynistic attitudes.

Another way of describing coercive control is a pattern of behaviours that aim to prevent a partner from being in charge of their life. For instance, this could mean controlling who a partner can see, what they can wear, or where they can go. Or it could mean questioning a partner’s sanity when they raise concerns about abusive behaviour.

There’s been growing awareness of the impact of coercive control and domestic violence more broadly on women’s health and wellbeing. There’s also growing awareness that coercive control can escalate to catastrophic abuse against women and children, including homicide.

So, Australian states and territories have scrambled to tackle the issue legally. Queensland recently joined New South Wales in making coercive control a standalone criminal offence.

What we did and what we found

We wanted to know more about the progression of domestic violence and if there were key stages to intervene to help prevent the worst harms.

So we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 815 Australian women who had experienced domestic violence in the past five years and asked them to create a timeline of their relationship.

Women started with the earliest warning signs that something was wrong and then added what happened around important life events, such as moving in together, having children, seeking help or leaving. Women could describe their experiences in their own words.

When we analysed all the timelines together, we created a summary of the general sequence of abuse over time.

First, there were attacks to a survivor’s mind, then her physical body, then her sexual self.

Psychological abuse an early sign

Psychological abuse was present in almost all relationships early in the timeline. It usually emerged before moving in together or getting married.

The earliest indicator of abuse was being isolated from others, as one woman said:

He stopped me from talking to male colleagues.

Controlling a woman’s day-to-day activities happened next. One survivor told us how her money and car were used against her:

He kept my belongings from me […] to prevent me from leaving.

Then, as one woman said, there was other emotional abuse:

If I said anything he didn’t like, a brick wall would be erected […] I wouldn’t be spoken to for two to three days.

Another said:

He called me crazy when he had done something wrong.

On average, women told us physically abusive behaviours first appeared after a major life commitment, such as marriage or moving in together.

In general, sexual abuse by a partner first emerged after the psychological and physical abuse started.

For survivors who had a child during the relationship and whose partner was sexually abusive, the worst of that sexual violence generally came sometime after giving birth.

For many survivors, a growing concern about the impact of abuse on their children occurred around the same time as leaving their relationship and trying to get help.

What next?

This research sets out clear opportunities for prevention and early intervention.

We need to train health professionals to look for signs and ask about psychological abuse when their patients are contemplating life transitions. This includes raising awareness and targeted resources for staff working in pregnancy care.

Future research should see if these patterns of abuse apply in different diverse groups of survivors.

We also need better community education, particularly for young women, about the features of psychological abuse that occur early in relationships, before physical and sexual abuse.

As one participant told us:

More domestic violence campaigns should focus on emotional abuse. We focus so much on the physical, but I can feel immediately when I am hit. It takes longer to feel gaslighting, manipulation and other emotionally heavy abuse. It lingers with you. It alters the way you think and traps you far worse than the physical does.

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

Elizabeth McLindon received funding from Oak Foundation for this research. She is affiliated with The Royal Women’s Hospital, Victoria, where she is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Family Violence Prevention.

Kelsey Hegarty receives funding from Oak Foundation, Medical Research Futures Fund, and National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. ‘He stopped me from talking to male colleagues’: new research shows how domestic violence so often starts with isolation and control – https://theconversation.com/he-stopped-me-from-talking-to-male-colleagues-new-research-shows-how-domestic-violence-so-often-starts-with-isolation-and-control-257457

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

The Pentagon has announced it will review the massive AUKUS agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia to ensure it’s aligned with US President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda.

The US undersecretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, is reportedly going to oversee the review.

The announcement has raised concern in Australia, but every government is entitled to review policies that their predecessors have made to consider whether or not there’s a particular purpose.

The UK has launched a parliamentary inquiry into AUKUS too, so it’s not actually unreasonable for the US to do the same.

There’s a degree of nervousness in Australia as to what the implications are because Australia understandably has the biggest stake in this.

But we need to consider what Colby has articulated in the past. In his book, The Strategy of Denial: American Defence in the Nature of Great Power Conflict, he made the case the US could “prepare to win a war with China it cannot afford to lose – in order to deter it from happening”.

So, with a deterrent mindset, he sees the need for the US to muscle up militarily.

He’s spoken about the alliance with Australia in very positive terms on a couple of occasions. And he has called himself an “AUKUS agnostic”, though he has expressed deep concern about the ability of the submarine industrial base in the US to manufacture the ships quickly enough.

And that leads to the fear the US Navy would not have enough submarines for itself if Washington is also sending them to Australia.

As part of the deal, Australia would eventually be able to contribute to accelerating the production line. That involves Australian companies contributing to the manufacture of certain widgets and components that are needed to build the subs.

Australia has already made a nearly A$800 million (US$500 million) down payment on expanding the US industrial capacity as part of the deal to ensure we get some subs in a reasonable time frame.

There’s also been significant legislative and industrial reforms in the US, Australia and UK to help facilitate Australian defence-related industries unplug the bottleneck of submarine production.

There’s no question there’s a need to speed up production. But we are already seeing significant signs of an uptick in the production rate, thanks in part to the Australian down payment. And it’s anticipated the rate will significantly increase in the next 12–18 months.

Even still, projects like this often slide in terms of timelines.

Why the US won’t spike the deal

I’m reasonably optimistic that, on balance, the Trump administration will come down on the side of proceeding with the deal.

There are a few key reasons for this:

1) We’re several years down the track already.

2) We have more than 100 Australian sailors already operating in the US system.

3) Industrially, we’re on the cusp of making a significant additional contribution to the US submarine production line.

And finally, most people don’t fully appreciate that the submarine base just outside Perth is an incredibly consequential piece of real estate for US security calculations.

Colby has made very clear the US needs to muscle up to push back and deter China’s potential aggression in the region. In that equation, submarines are crucial, as is a substantial submarine base in the Indian Ocean.

China is acutely mindful of what we call the “Malacca dilemma”. Overwhelmingly, China’s trade of goods and fossil fuels comes through the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia’s island of Sumatra. The Chinese know this supply line could be disrupted in a war. And the submarines operating out of Perth contribute to this fear.

This is a crucial deterrent effect the US and its allies have been seeking to maintain. And it has largely endured.

Given nobody can predict the future, we all want to prevent a war over Taiwan and we all want to maintain the status quo.

As such, the considered view has been that Australia will continue to support the US to bolster its deterrent effect to prevent such a scenario.

Could Trump be angling for a deal?

As part of the US review of the deal, we could see talk of a potential slowdown in the delivery rate of the submarines. The Trump administration could also put additional pressure on Australia to deliver more for the US.

This includes the amount Australia spends on defence, a subject of considerable debate in Canberra. Taking Australia’s overall interests into account, the Albanese government may well decide increasing defence spending is an appropriate thing to do.

There’s a delicate dance to be had here between the Trump administration, the Australian government, and in particular, their respective defence departments, about how to achieve the most effective outcome.

It’s highly likely whatever decision the US government makes will be portrayed as the Trump administration “doing a deal”. In the grand scheme of things, that’s not a bad thing. This is what countries do.

We talk a lot about the Trump administration’s transactional approach to international relations. But it’s actually not that different to previous US administrations with which Canberra has had to deal.

So I’m reasonably sanguine about the AUKUS review and any possible negotiations over it. I believe the Trump administration will come to the conclusion it does not want to spike the Australia relationship.

Australia has been on the US side since federation. Given this, the US government will likely make sure this deal goes ahead. The Trump administration may try to squeeze more concessions out of Australia as part of “the art of the deal”, but it won’t sink the pact.

However, many people will undoubtedly say this is the moment Australia should break with AUKUS. But then what? What would Australia do instead to ensure its security in this world of heightened great power competition in which Australia’s interests are increasingly challenged?

Walking away now would leave Australia more vulnerable than ever. I think that would be a great mistake.

From 2015 to 2017 John Blaxland received funding from the US Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative (subsequently disbanded by the Trump administration). This was used to write a book (with Greg Raymond) entitled “The US Thai Alliance and Asian International Relations” (Routledge, 2021). John currently is a fulltime employee of the ANU.

– ref. Trump may try to strike a deal with AUKUS review, but here’s why he won’t sink it – https://theconversation.com/trump-may-try-to-strike-a-deal-with-aukus-review-but-heres-why-he-wont-sink-it-258798

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chloe Wilkins, Associate Lecturer and PhD Candidate, Solar Physics, University of Newcastle

If you live in the southern hemisphere and have been stopped in your tracks by a recent sunset, you may have noticed they seem more vibrant lately. The colours are brighter and bolder, and they linger longer in the sky.

Why are sunsets “better” at some times of the year compared to others? We can use science to explain this.

There are many ingredients for a “good” sunset, but the main three are clear skies, low humidity, and the Sun sitting low in the sky.

From light to colour

To understand why we get such vibrant sunsets in the colder months of the year, we first need to know how colours appear in the sky.

All visible light is actually energy that travels in waves; the length of those waves determines the colour that our eyes see.

Although sunlight might look white to us, it’s actually a mix of different wavelengths of light that make up all the visible colours – from fiery reds and oranges (longer wavelengths) to deep blues and purples (shorter wavelengths).

These individual colours become visible when sunlight is “scattered”, which is precisely what happens when it passes through the invisible gas molecules in Earth’s atmosphere – mostly nitrogen and oxygen.

When sunlight hits these molecules, it’s absorbed and shot back out (scattered) in different directions. Blue and violet light is scattered more strongly than red and orange light – this is also why the sky looks blue during the day.

The path of the Sun

In the middle of the day when the Sun is high in the sky, sunlight travels a more direct path through the atmosphere.

But when the Sun is closer to the horizon, the path is less direct. This means that during sunrises and sunsets, sunlight travels through more of Earth’s atmosphere. And more atmosphere means more scattering.

In fact, during sunsets, the blue and violet light encounters so many oxygen and nitrogen molecules that it is completely scattered away. What we’re left with is the longer wavelengths of light – the reds and oranges. In other words, more atmosphere means more fiery sunsets.

But why are sunsets especially magnificent during winter? One reason is the Sun’s position in the sky during different times of the year.

Earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours, giving us day and night. But this axis isn’t perfectly “upright” relative to the Sun – it’s tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees. This tilt is why we have seasons. The southern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun around the start and end of the calendar year (southern summer), and away from the Sun around the middle of the year (southern winter).

Because of this tilt, the Sun sits lower in the sky during winter, which is why the days are shorter. And because the Sun sits lower, it spends more time near the horizon as it rises and sets. That’s why winter sunsets often seem to last longer.

The quality of the air

Humidity and air quality also play a big role when it comes to vibrant winter sunsets.

In winter, humidity is typically much lower than in the warmer summer months, meaning there’s less moisture in the air. Humid air often contains tiny water droplets, which can scatter incoming sunlight. This scattering is slightly different to how the oxygen and nitrogen molecules scatter light – here, even red and orange light can be affected.

When humidity is high, the extra scattering by these small water droplets can cause sunsets to appear softer or more washed out.

In drier winter air, with fewer of these water droplets in the way, sunlight can travel through the atmosphere with less interference. This means the colours can shine through more vividly, making for crisper and more vibrant sunsets.

If you’re looking to a catch a spectacular sunset, you’ll want to wait for a nice, clear winter’s evening. Cloud cover and air pollution can block the sunlight and mute the colours we see.

So the next time you find yourself wrapped up in a warm jumper at dusk, be sure to look up – there could be a spectacular light show playing out just above you.

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

– ref. Why are sunsets so pretty in winter? There’s a simple explanation – https://theconversation.com/why-are-sunsets-so-pretty-in-winter-theres-a-simple-explanation-258192

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Hortle, Deputy Director, Tasmanian Policy Exchange, University of Tasmania

The Tasmanian government has called a state election for July 19, the fourth in a little over seven years.

Following days of high drama, Governor Barbara Baker finally granted Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff’s election request, saying there was no other course of action to break the deadlock gripping Tasmanian politics:

I make this grant because I am satisfied there is no real possibility that an alternative government can be formed.

The ballot will be the second state election in just 16 months.

So how did we get here? And what happens next?

Dark political mofo

The Dark Mofo festival kicked off last week, bringing to Hobart its usual mix of weird, dark, and violent modern art. But in the halls of Tasmanian parliament, a similarly macabre and vicious spectacle was playing out.

I have written a more detailed analysis of events previously, but here’s the quick version.

On June 3, the Labor opposition moved a motion of no confidence in Rockliff. After two days of acrimonious parliamentary debate, the motion passed on the casting vote of the speaker.

An election looked inevitable because Rockliff refused to step aside and Opposition Leader Dean Winter ruled out doing a deal with the Greens to govern in minority.

Parliament returned briefly to pass emergency supply bills, which were needed after the no confidence motion derailed the recent state budget.

Shortly afterwards, Rockliff asked the governor to dissolve parliament and call an election. This request has now been granted after a few days of deliberation.

How did it come to this?

It’s been a rocky road for the Liberal government since the
last state election in March 2024. Holding only 14 of the House of Assembly’s 35 seats, it has governed in minority thanks to confidence and supply deals with five crossbenchers.

This tenuous arrangement was under constant pressure. Labor and the crossbench installed Michelle O’Byrne as speaker, and in the second half of 2024 passed three pieces of legislation against the government’s will.

In August 2024, the implosion of the Jacqui Lambie Network and the forced resignation of Michael Ferguson as deputy premier and treasurer added further complications.

Against this backdrop, the government has faced a rapidly
deteriorating fiscal situation. This is partly the legacy of the COVID pandemic, compounded by recent global uncertainty. However, as economist Saul Eslake notes, the roots of the problem can be found in the policy choices made by previous state Liberal governments.

Policy setbacks

Even considering the challenging context, the government has
done itself few favours. The ongoing project to replace the ageing Spirit of Tasmania ferries has been mired in cost blowouts and poor planning.

An abrupt about-face on nation-leading gambling reforms, tentative explorations of privatising state assets – since abandoned – and radical changes to the planning system also caused concern.

And of course, there is the saga over the highly contentious $945 million stadium to support a Tassie team in the AFL.

Most importantly, though, there has been little progress on the deep structural reforms needed to address the state’s poor health and education outcomes, housing crisis, cost-of-living challenges, and worsening budget situation.

On the positive side, the government points to achievements recruiting much-needed frontline healthcare workers, increasing the supply of social and affordable housing, and a historically low unemployment rate.

What happens now?

The campaign will be a political version of a classic children’s party game: pin the blame on the party.

Liberal and Labor will both claim the early election is the fault of the other, while the debate over the stadium will likely continue to distract from Tasmania’s other, far more important challenges.

The election result is hard to predict. In the past, Tasmanians
have punished minority governments at elections, and in the latest available polling, support for the Liberal Party was at a 16-year low of 29%.

But the circumstances of this election mean we can’t rely too much on previous trends. The drop in Liberal support is partly driven by northern Tasmanians’ dislike of the Hobart stadium. However, that won’t necessarily help Labor, because they also remain committed to the project.

Labor will be energised by the federal party’s recent victory. But the most recent polling shows the state branch is barely more popular than the Liberals. Winter lags Rockliff as preferred premier 44%-32%, with a high “never heard of” rating of 24%.

The Greens could benefit from being the only notable party opposed to the stadium, but will be fighting relentless Labor and Liberal warnings about the perils of forming another minority government.

None of this points to the July 19 election producing a stable majority government. In fact, there is a strong likelihood the Tasmanian electorate – grumpy about being forced to the polls in mid-winter – will punish both major parties.

This could result in an even larger and more diverse crossbench, requiring deft and collaborative negotiations to stitch together the numbers to form government.

While the theatre of the campaign plays out, the ambitious structural reforms that Tasmania desperately needs seem further away than ever.

The drama is worthy of Dark Mofo, but Tasmanians are already tired of the performance.

Robert Hortle 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. After weeks of confusion and chaos, Tasmania heads back to the polls on July 19 – https://theconversation.com/after-weeks-of-confusion-and-chaos-tasmania-heads-back-to-the-polls-on-july-19-258597

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Beeson, Adjunct professor, Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney

Even the most ardent supporters of the alliance with the United States – the notional foundation of Australian security for more than 70 years – must be having some misgivings about the second coming of Donald Trump.

If they’re not, they ought to read the two essays under review here. They offer a host of compelling reasons why a reassessment of the costs, benefits and possible future trajectory of the alliance is long overdue.

Review: After America: Australia and the new world order – Emma Shortis (Australia Institute Press), Hard New World: Our Post-American Future; Quarterly Essay 98 – Hugh White (Black Inc)

And yet, notwithstanding the cogency and timeliness of the critiques offered by Emma Shortis and Hugh White, it seems unlikely either of these will be read, much less acted upon, by those Shortis describes as the “mostly men in suits or uniforms, with no democratic accountability” who make security policy on our behalf.

White, emeritus professor of strategic studies at the ANU, was the principal author of Australia’s Defence White Paper in 2000. Despite having been a prominent member of the defence establishment, it is unlikely even his observations will prove any more palatable to its current incumbents.

Shortis, an historian and writer, is director of the Australia Institute’s International & Security Affairs Program. She is also a young woman, and while this shouldn’t matter, I suspect it does; at least to the “mostly men” who guard the nation from a host of improbable threats while ignoring what is arguably the most likely and important one: climate change.

The age of insecurity

To Shortis’s great credit, she begins her essay with a discussion of a “world on fire” in which the Trump administration is “locking in a bleaker future”.

This matters for both generational and geographical reasons. While we live in what is arguably the safest place on the planet, the country has the rare distinction of regularly experiencing once-in-100-year floods and droughts, sometimes simultaneously.

If that’s not a threat to security, especially of the young, it’s hard to know what is. It’s not one the current government or any other in this country has ever taken seriously enough.

White gives a rather perfunctory acknowledgement of this reality, reflecting an essentially traditional understanding of security – even if some of his conclusions will induce conniptions in Canberra.

While suggesting Trump is “the most prodigious liar in history”, White thinks he’s done Australia a favour by “puncturing the complacency” surrounding the alliance and our unwillingness to contemplate a world in which the US is not the reliable bedrock of security.

Shortis doubts the US ever was a trustworthy or reliable ally. This helps explain what she calls the “strategy of pre-emptive capitulation”, in which Australian policymakers fall over themselves to appear useful and supportive to their “great and powerful friend”. Former prime minister John Howard’s activation of the ANZUS alliance in the wake of September 11 and the disastrous decision to take part in the war in Iraq is perhaps the most egregious example of this unfortunate national proclivity.

White reminds us that all alliances are always transactional. Despite talk of a “history of mateship”, it’s vital to recognise if the great power doesn’t think something is in its “national interest”, it won’t be doing favours for allies. No matter how ingratiating and obliging they may be. While such observations may be unwelcome in Canberra, hopefully they won’t come as a revelation.

Although White is one of Australia’s most astute critics of the conventional wisdom, sceptics and aspiring peace-builders will find little to cheer in his analysis.

A good deal of his essay is taken up with the strategic situations in Europe and Asia. The discussion offers a penetrating, but rather despair-inducing insight into humanity’s collective predicament: only by credibly threatening our notional foes with nuclear Armageddon can we hope to keep the peace.

The problem we now face, White argues, is the likes of Russia and China are beginning to doubt America’s part in the “balance of resolve”. During the Cold War both sides were confident about the other side’s ability and willingness to blow them to pieces.

Now mutual destruction is less assured. While some of us might think this was a cause for cautious celebration, White suggests it fatally undermines the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons.

Even before Trump reappeared, this was a source of angst and/or uncertainty for strategists around the world. The principle underpinning international order in a world in which nuclear weapons exist, according to White, is that

a nuclear power can be stopped, but only by an unambiguous demonstration of willingness to fight a nuclear war to stop it.

Trump represents a suitably existential threat to this cheery doctrine. Europeans have belatedly recognised the US is no longer reliable and they are responsible for their own security.

Likewise, an ageing Xi Jinping may want to assure his position in China’s pantheon of great leaders by forcibly returning Taiwan to the motherland. It would be an enormous gamble, of course, but given Trump’s admiration for Xi, and Trump’s apparent willingness to see the world carved up into 19th century-style spheres of influence, it can’t be ruled out.

Australia’s options

If there’s one thing both authors agree on it’s that the AUKUS nuclear submarine project, the notional centrepiece of Australia’s future security is vastly overrated. It’s either a “disaster” (Shortis) or “insignificant” (White).

Likewise, they agree the US is only going to help Australia if it’s judged to be in America’s interest to do so. Recognising quite what an ill-conceived, ludicrously expensive, uncertain project AUKUS is, and just how unreliable a partner the US has become under Trump, might be a useful step on the path to national strategic self-awareness.

Shortis thinks some members of the Trump administration appear to be “aligned with Russia”. Tying ourselves closer to the US, she writes, “does not make us safer”. A major rethink of, and debate about, Australia’s security policy is clearly necessary.

Policymakers also ought to take seriously White’s arguments about the need to reconfigure the armed forces to defend Australia independently in an increasingly uncertain international environment.

Perhaps the hardest idea for Australia’s unimaginative strategic elites to grasp is that, as White points out,

Asia’s future, and Australia’s, will not be decided in Washington. It will be decided in Asia.

Former prime minister Paul Keating’s famous remark “Australia needs to seek its security in Asia rather than from Asia” remains largely unheeded. Despite plausible suggestions about developing closer strategic ties with Indonesia and even cooperating with China to offer leadership on climate change, some ideas remain sacrosanct and alternatives remain literally inconceivable.

Even if we take a narrow view of the nature of security – one revolving around possible military threats to Australia – US Defence Secretary Pete Hesgeth’s demands for greater defence spending on our part confirm White’s point that,

it is classic Trump to expect more and more from allies while he offers them less and less. This is the dead end into which our “America First” defence policy has led us.

Quite so.

Australia’s strategic elites have locked us into the foreign and strategic policies of an increasingly polarised, authoritarian and unpredictable regime.

But as Shortis observes, we cannot be confident about our ability, or the world’s for that matter, to “just ride Trump out”, and hope everything will return to normal afterwards.

It is entirely possible the international situation may get worse – possibly much worse – with or without Trump in the White House.

The reality is American democracy may not survive another four years of Trump and the coterie of startlingly ill-qualified, inhumane, self-promoting chancers who make up much of his administration.

A much-needed national debate

Both authors think attempts to “smother” a serious national debate about defence policy in Australia (White), and the security establishment’s obsession with secrecy (Shortis), are the exact opposite of what this country needs at this historical juncture. They’re right.

Several senior members of Australia’s security community have assured me if I only knew what they did I’d feel very differently about our strategic circumstances.

Really? One thing I do know is that we’re spending far too much time – and money! – acting on what Shortis describes as a “shallow and ungenerous understanding of what ‘security’ really is”.

We really could stop the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza if Xi had a word with Putin and the US stopped supplying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the weapons and money to slaughter women and children. But climate change would still be coming to get us.

More importantly, global warming will get worse before it gets better, even in the unlikely event that the “international community” (whoever that may be) agrees on meaningful collective action tomorrow.

You may not agree with all of the ideas and suggestions contained in these essays, but in their different ways they are vital contributions to a much-needed national debate.

An informed and engaged public is a potential asset, not something to be frightened of, after all. Who knows, it may be possible to come up with some genuinely progressive, innovative ideas about what sort of domestic and international policies might be appropriate for an astonishingly fortunate country with no enemies.

Perhaps Australia could even offer an example of the sort of creative, independent middle power diplomacy a troubled world might appreciate and even emulate.

But given our political and strategic elites can’t free themselves from the past, it is difficult to see them dealing imaginatively with the threat of what Shortis calls the looming “environmental catastrophe”.

No wonder so many of the young despair and have little confidence in democracy’s ability to fix what ails us.

Mark Beeson 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. Goodbye to all that? Rethinking Australia’s alliance with Trump’s America – https://theconversation.com/goodbye-to-all-that-rethinking-australias-alliance-with-trumps-america-258066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic University

For two centuries, scholars have sparred over the roots of the Piasts, Poland’s first documented royal house, who reigned from the 10th to the 14th centuries.

Were they local Slavic nobles, Moravian exiles, or warriors from Scandinavia?

Since 2023, a series of genetic and environmental studies led by molecular biologist Marek Figlerowicz at the Poznań University of Technology has delivered a stream of direct evidence about these enigmatic rulers, bringing the debate onto firmer ground.

Digging up the dynasty

Field teams have now opened more than a dozen crypts from the Piast era. The largest single haul came from Płock Cathedral in what is now central Poland.

The exhumed bones were dated between 1100 and 1495, matching written records. Genetic analysis showed several individuals were close relatives.

“There is no doubt we are dealing with genuine Piasts,” Figlerowicz told a May 2025 conference.

The Poznań group isolated readable DNA from 33 individuals (30 men and three women) believed to span the dynasty’s full timeline.

Surprise on the Y chromosome

The male skeletons almost all carry a single, rare group of genetic variants on the Y chromosome (which is only carried and passed down by males). This group is today found mainly in Britain. The closest known match belongs to a Pict buried in eastern Scotland in the 5th or 6th century.

These results imply that the dynasty’s paternal line arrived from the vicinity of the North Atlantic, not nearby.

The date of that arrival is still open: the founding clan could have migrated centuries before the first known Piast, Mieszko I (who died in 992), or perhaps only a generation earlier through a dynastic marriage. Either way, the new data kill the notion of an unbroken local male lineage.

Yet genetics also shows deep local continuity in the wider population. A separate survey of Iron Age cemeteries across Poland, published in Scientific Reports, revealed that people living 2,000 years ago already shared the genetic makeup seen in early Piast subjects.

Another project that sequenced pre-Piast burials drew the same conclusion: local Poles were part of the broader continental gene pool stretching from Denmark to France.

In short, even if the Piasts were exotic rulers, they governed a long-established community.

A swamp tells its tale

While the DNA work progressed, another Poznań team dug into the history of the local environment via samples from the peaty floor of Lake Lednica near Poznań, the island-ringed stronghold often dubbed the cradle of the Piast realm.

Their study of buried pollen, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows an abrupt switch in the 9th century: oak and lime pollen plummet, while cereal and pasture indicators soar. Traces of charcoal and soot point to widespread fires.

The authors call the shift an “ecological revolution”, driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and the need to feed concentrated garrisons of soldiers guarding local trade routes carrying amber and slaves.

Modelling boom and bust

Using this environmental data, historians and complexity scientists constructed a feedback model of population, silver paid as tribute to rulers, and fort-building. As fields expanded, tributes rose; as tributes rose, chiefs could hire more labour to clear more forest and build forts.

The model reproduces the startling build-out of ramparts at Poznań, Giecz and Gniezno around 990. It also predicts collapse once the silver stopped flowing.

Pollen data indeed show the woodlands recovered to some extent after 1070, while archaeological surveys record abandoned hamlets and shrinking garrisons.

The early Piast state rode a resource boom as the Piasts controlled part of the amber and slave trade routes that linked the shores of the Baltic Sea to Rome.

The impact of Mieszko’s conversion to Christianity on that lucrative trade remains subject to scholarly debate.

Reconciling foreigners and locals

How do these strands fit together? Evidence of a Scottish man in the Piast paternal line does not necessarily imply a foreign conquest. Dynasties spread by marriages as well as by swords.

For example, Świętosława (the sister of the first Piast king, Bolesław the Brave), married the kings of both Denmark and Sweden, and her descendants ruled England for a time. The networks of Europe’s nobility were highly mobile.

Conversely, the stable genetic profile of ordinary folk suggests that, whoever sat on the ducal bench, most people remained where their grandparents had farmed.

The broader research engine

None of this work happens in isolation. Poland’s National Science Centre has bankrolled a 24-person team across archaeology, palaeoecology and bioinformatics since 2014, generating 16 peer-reviewed papers and a public database of ancient genomes.

Conferences at Lednica and Dziekanowice now bring historians and molecular biologists to the same table. The methodological pay-off is clear: Polish labs can now process their own ancient DNA rather than exporting it to Copenhagen or Leipzig.

What still puzzles researchers

Three questions remain. First, does that British-leaning male line really start with a Pict? The closest known match to the Piasts may change as new burials are sequenced.

Second, how many commoners carried the same genetic variant? Spot samples from Kowalewko and Brzeg hint that it was rare among locals, but the data set is small.

Third, why did the silver dry up so fast? Numismatists suspect a shift in Viking routes after 1000 AD, yet the matter is far from settled.

A balanced verdict

Taken together, the evidence paints a nuanced picture. The Piasts were probably not ethnic Slavs in the strict paternal sense, yet they ruled, and soon resembled, an overwhelmingly Slavic realm.

Their meteoric rise owed less to outsider brilliance than to the chance alignment of fertile soils, cheap labour, and an export boom in amber and captives.

As geneticists conduct more DNA sequencing of remains, such as those of princes in crypts at Kraków’s Wawel castle, and palaeoecologists push their lakebed pollen samples back to 7th century, we can expect further surprises.

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski receives funding from the National Science Centre, Poland as a partner investigator in the grant ‘The “Chronicle of the Poles” by Bishop Vincentius of Cracow also known as Kadłubek. First critical Latin-English Edition.’ (2022/47/B/HS3/00931).

– ref. Were the first kings of Poland actually from Scotland? New DNA evidence unsettles a nation’s founding myth – https://theconversation.com/were-the-first-kings-of-poland-actually-from-scotland-new-dna-evidence-unsettles-a-nations-founding-myth-258579

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Docking, Research Fellow, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

Timely access to high-quality medical imaging can be lifesaving and life-altering. Radiology can confirm a fractured bone, give us an early glimpse of our baby or detect cancer.

But behind the x-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI machines is a growing, highly profitable industry worth almost A$6 billion a year.

Corporate ownership dominates the sector. In our new study, we show how for-profit corporations own about three in every five private radiology clinics.

As radiology becomes an increasingly attractive target for investors, are we letting business interests reshape a key part of our health-care system?

30 million scans and counting

In 2023–24, two in five Australians had an x-ray, ultrasound, CT scan or MRI. That’s about 30.8 million scans in total (individuals may have two or more scans).

Medicare funds most of this imaging. In fact, imaging is now Medicare’s second-largest area of spending, behind only GP visits.

But a growing number of scans are not bulk billed and patients are out of pocket on average about $125 per scan. An estimated 274,000 Australians are delaying or forgoing scans each year because of the cost.

There have also been dramatic changes behind the scenes. Since the early 2000s, for-profit corporations have been buying small radiologist-owned clinics.

Today, 65% of private radiology practices are owned by publicly listed shareholders or private investors, including private equity firms. This marks a significant shift from clinician-led to investor-driven health care.

Why should we care?

Advocates of corporate ownership suggest this business-focused approach can make the system more efficient through economies of scale. They say this allows consolidation of administration tasks and a reduction in overheads.

Easy access to finance can help buy expensive imaging machines. It can also provide investment towards new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

Yet, there are three main reasons why corporate ownership of the radiology sector may be cause for concern.

1. It reduces competition

Large corporations buying up a bunch of smaller practices ultimately leads to less competition. In Tasmania, for example, 11 of the 17 private radiology clinics are owned by one company, significantly limiting patient choice.

We also found limited competition among radiology providers in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory.

When a single company dominates a local market, it creates the conditions for higher fees and reduced incentives to bulk bill. However, objective data on the impact of reduced competition on the affordability of scans is scarce.

2. It may lead to too many expensive scans

High-cost scans, such as MRIs and CTs, are lucrative. Medicare expenditure on MRI scans alone has doubled since 2012.

This may reflect improved access and a recommended shift towards more sensitive tests for some conditions. However, for-profit corporations now own about 76% of MRI machines in private clinics. These corporations may be financially incentivised to offer more costly imaging over equally effective, lower-cost options.

With profits tied to the number of scans, there’s growing unease financial motives may be influencing when and how often these scans are used.

While radiology corporations are not the ones requesting scans, there is little incentive for them to address overuse of radiology services, an issue for high-income countries such as Australia.

Low-value imaging may also generate overdiagnosis (when something shows up on imaging but will never cause the patient any health issues, for example). It can lead to unnecessarily exposing patients to radiation and cause unwarranted patient (and doctor) anxiety. This can ultimately lead to more tests and unnecessary treatment.

3. Radiology clinics become an asset

Private equity firms view radiology clinics as a commodity to be bought, their value increased, then sold over a relatively short time frame (typically three to seven years).

These firms generate profit not from delivering care, but from boosting the clinic’s value and charging them annual “management fees”.

A prime example is unfolding. I-MED, Australia’s largest radiology provider, is considering listing the business on the Australian Stock Exchange after failing to sell at a reported $3 billion. Its UK private equity owner bought I-MED for about $1.26 billion in 2018. If sold, this would be the latest of multiple owners since delisting from the stock exchange in 2006.

If there are debts, health-care companies can collapse, as we’ve seen recently with hospital chain Healthscope, which is owned by a Canadian-based private equity firm.

Experience of private equity’s role in health care in the United States also offers a cautionary tale. Reductions in the quality of care, asset stripping and ultimately the closure and bankruptcy of vital health-care providers have prompted Congressional investigations. The state of Oregon is on the verge of blocking private equity firms from controlling health-care providers.

What next?

As radiology becomes an increasingly attractive target for investors, questions are mounting about whether this profit-driven model can coexist with the public’s need for affordable, accessible health care.

Medicare was designed to guarantee affordable access to quality health care for all Australians, not guarantee revenue for corporations.

While unwinding corporate participation in the radiology sector is near impossible, there is still time to implement safeguards that prevent wealthy investors from prioritising financial gain over Australians’ health and wellbeing.

Stronger oversight and greater transparency from these corporations are needed to ensure Medicare dollars deliver real value for patients and the public.

We would like to acknowledge Jenn Lacy-Nichols (University of Melbourne) and Martin Hensher (University of Tasmania) who co-authored the paper mentioned in this article.

Sean Docking is a member of UniSuper (Industry Super Holdings Pty Ltd) as part of his superannuation; Unisuper is an investor in PRP Diagnostic Imaging. He has no direct investments in any diagnostic imaging companies.

Rachelle Buchbinder has received grant funding from NHMRC, MRFF, Arthritis Australia and HCF Foundation. She receives royalties from UpToDate for writing and editing ‘Plantar fasciitis’. She also receives royalties for her book entitled ‘Hippocrasy: How doctors are betraying their oath’. She has not received funding from for-profit industry, including from radiology companies.

– ref. Medical scans are big business and investors are circling. Here are 3 reasons to be concerned – https://theconversation.com/medical-scans-are-big-business-and-investors-are-circling-here-are-3-reasons-to-be-concerned-257820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Leslie, Lecturer in Curriculum and Pedagogy with a focus on Educational Psychology, University of Southern Queensland

Bullying is sadly a common experience for Australian children and teenagers. It is estimated at least 25% experience bullying at some point in their schooling.

The impacts can be far-reaching and include depression and anxiety, poorer school performance, and poorer connection to school.

The federal government is currently doing a “rapid review” of how to better prevent bullying in schools. This do this, we need a clear understanding of the full spectrum of aggressive behaviours that occur in schools.

We already know bullying can be physical, verbal and social, and can occur in person and online. But there is less awareness among educators and policymakers of “microaggressions”. These can be more subtle but are nonetheless very damaging.

Read more:
With a government review underway, we have to ask why children bully other kids

What’s the difference between bullying and microaggressions?

Bullying is unwanted aggressive behaviour by a person or group against a targeted victim, with the intent to harm. The behaviour is repeated and there is a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim.

Microaggressions are a form of aggression that communicate a person is less valued because of a particular attribute – for example, their race, gender or disability.

Microaggressions are repeated, cumulative and reflect power imbalances between social groups. A key difference with traditional bullying is microaggressions are often unconscious on the part of the perpetrator – and can be perpetrated with no ill intent.

For example, traditional bullying could include a child always excluding another child from the group, always pushing them when they walk past them, or calling them a rude name.

Microaggressions could include:

• saying “you don’t look disabled” to a student with an invisible disability

• mispronouncing a student’s name with no attempt to correct the pronunciation

• saying to a student of colour, “wow, you’re so articulate”, implying surprise at their language skills

• minimising a student with disability’s experience by saying “it can’t be that difficult. Just try harder.”

We don’t have specific statistics on prevalence within Australia, although there is ample research to say those from minority groups frequently experience microaggressions.

For example, studies of young people in the United States found incidents of microaggressions, often focused on racism, homophobia, transphobia and fat stigma. Students who held more than one identity (for example, a minority race and sexual orientation), were more likely to be targets.

Microaggressions in schools

My 2025 research on microaggressions towards dyslexic students in Australia found both students and parents can be on the receiving end. Teachers, school support officers and other students could be perpetrators.

These interactions minimised the students’ experiences of dyslexia and made them feel like second class students compared to their peers.

Some of the children reported comments from peers such as “oh yeah, reading, writing is hard already” which minimised the difficulties caused by dyslexia. Another student recalled how a peer had corrected her spelling “by snatching my book and re-writing it”, assuming she couldn’t do it herself. One student was made to feel bad for using a laptop in class as “someone said it was cheating”.

The impact of microaggressions

Schools where microaggressions occur are not safe spaces for all students.

This can have serious implications for students’ school attendance, harm their mental health and ability to learn and socialise.

Research on US university students, showed students may also become hypervigilant waiting for future microaggressions to occur.

One Australian study found microaggressions can be so bad for some school students, they change schools in search of environments where staff and peers are more accepting.

How to address microaggressions

Research suggests addressing microaggressions can work as a prevention strategy to reduce other forms of bullying before it starts.

Studies also show teacher awareness of microaggressions is key to preventing and addressing incidents.

So a first step step is to make sure schools, teachers and students are aware of microagressions. Teachers should be educated about the relationship between microaggressions and bullying.

Schools need to create environments where microaggressions are understood, recognised and addressed. All students need to be taught how to respond appropriately as bystanders if they see microaggressions happening in the classroom, playground or online.

If a student feels that they or a friend has been made to feel less because of their identity, then they should be encouraged to seek help from an appropriate adult.

Schools also need proactive programs to foster inclusion in schools. Research shows school psychologists can help by delivering programs in mental health and social and emotional development.

Just as schools, teachers and school psychologists can be proactive in addressing microaggressions, so too can the federal government – by including microaggressions in its anti-bullying review.

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

Rachel Leslie is a committee member for the Australian Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools association.

– ref. ‘Microaggressions’ can fly under the radar in schools. Here’s how to spot them and respond – https://theconversation.com/microaggressions-can-fly-under-the-radar-in-schools-heres-how-to-spot-them-and-respond-258684

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

Malaria is one of the deadliest diseases spread by mosquitoes. Each year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide are infected and half a million people die from the disease.

While mainland Australia was declared malaria-free in 1981, from time to time travellers return to Australia with an infection.

Infections from local mosquitoes are incredibly rare. However, last week two cases of locally acquired malaria were reported in the Torres Strait.

So what does this mean for local communities? And is this a risk for mainland Australia?

What is malaria?

Unlike other mosquito-borne disease, malaria is caused by protozoan parasites, not viruses. These parasites belong to the Plasmodium genus. While five of these parasites are considered a human health concern, Plasmodium falciparum poses the most serious threat.

Symptoms can be mild and include fever, chills and headache. But sometimes people develop severe symptoms, such as fatigue, confusion, seizures and difficulty breathing.

Without appropriate medical care, the disease can be fatal. Those most at risk of life-threatening illness include infants, children under five years, pregnant women and patients with HIV and AIDS.

How does it spread?

Malaria parasites are spread by the bite of a mosquito carrying the malaria parasite.

Not all mosquitoes can carry the parasite. The group of mosquitoes responsible for most malaria transmission is called Anopheles. Aedes and Culex mosquitoes, which are typically associated with the spread of viruses, don’t transmit malaria to people.

While there are medications available to prevent malaria, and these are routinely recommended to travellers, this is not a sustainable approach for communities within regions at risk. The cost of medications, as well as the risk parasites may develop resistance to medications over time, are barriers for routine use in high risk countries.

Alternative strategies include using insecticide-treated bed nets and controlling mosquitoes by spraying insecticide on and around homes. Early diagnosis and treatment of those suspected to have an infection is also crucial.

‘Imported’ versus ‘locally acquired’ infections

There is an important distinction between “imported” and “locally acquired” cases of malaria.

“Imported” cases mean the person has been infected overseas and returned to Australia, where they’ve been diagnosed and treated. These cases appear in official statistics but are not the result of local mosquito bites.

“Locally acquired” cases are where a person is infected without any overseas travel. These cases often result from the parasites first introduced into Australia by infected travellers. The travellers are then bitten by local mosquitoes that go on to bite and spread the pathogens to people who haven’t travelled.

The last locally acquired malaria outbreak in mainland Australia occurred in 2002, when ten people were infected in Far North Queensland.

When this happens, it indicates local mosquitoes are carrying the malaria parasites and there is a significant risk further infections have occurred (but are not yet diagnosed) or may be diagnosed in the near future. Mosquito control or other initiatives are required to prevent larger outbreaks.

In the case of the Torres Strait, there is also the risk infected mosquitoes are transported, either by wind or boats, from Papua New Guinea.

So, what’s happening in the Torres Strait?

Queensland Health is currently investigating two recent cases of locally acquired malaria on Saibai Island.

But cases of locally acquired malaria aren’t unusual in the Torres Strait. They’re often suspected to be linked to movement of people into the islands from PNG, a country that reports more than a million suspected cases of malaria each year.

Previous locally acquired malaria cases in the Torres Strait were reported in 2023. Before that, a single case was reported in 2013 and eight cases in 2011.

The tropical climate of the Torres Strait and presence of Anopheles mosquitoes means conditions are right for local spread once the parasites are introduced, either through infected mosquitoes or people.

Read more:
Torres Strait Islanders face more than their fair share of health impacts from climate change

Could malaria spread to mainland Australia?

Since the 1980s, there have only been a small number of cases reported on mainland Australia. The majority are in travellers returning to Australia who were infected overseas.

Historically, malaria cases were reported in many parts of the country, especially in the 1940s, including suburbs around Sydney when soldiers infected overseas returned to Australia.

The mosquitoes capable of spreading the parasites then are still present today. While the most important malaria mosquito in Australia, Anopheles faurati, is limited to northern regions of coastal Australia, Anopheles annulipes is widespread across much of the country.

But just because the mosquitoes are there, it doesn’t mean there will be an outbreak of malaria.

The parasite needs to be introduced and it needs to be warm enough for it to complete its life cycle in local mosquitoes. The cooler it is, the less likely that is to happen, even if suitable mosquitoes are present.

The parasites also face additional challenges. Infected people need to be bitten by local Anopheles mosquitoes, not just any mosquitoes. And with modern health-care systems in Australia, untreated sick people are less likely to be exposed to mosquito bites.

Malaria is one of the mosquito-borne pathogens considered at risk of increasing as a result of climate change. But there are many other factors at play that will determine future outbreak risk in mainland Australia, especially outside the tropical north of the country, such as a changing climate and seasonal changes in numbers and types of mosquitoes.

How to stay safe

The most important way local communities and visitors to the Torres Strait can stay safe is to avoid mosquito bites.

Cover up when possible with long-sleeved shirts, long pants and covered shoes and apply an insect repellent.

Insect screens, whether on buildings or in the form of bed nets will also provide protection overnight.

Read more:
Mozzies biting? Here’s how to choose a repellent (and how to use it for the best protection)

Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology and University of Sydney, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on medically important arthropods, including mosquitoes. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into various aspects of mosquito and mosquito-borne disease management.

– ref. Malaria has returned to the Torres Strait. What does this mean for mainland Australia? – https://theconversation.com/malaria-has-returned-to-the-torres-strait-what-does-this-mean-for-mainland-australia-258289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Gurran, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney

The Albanese government has a new mantra to describe the housing crisis, which is showing no signs of abating: homes have simply become “too hard to build” in Australia.

The prime minister and senior ministers are taking aim at what they are calling a “thicket” of red tape and regulation, which is making it “uneconomic” to build affordable housing.

Undoubtedly, the great Australian dream is further out of reach, with average house prices now above A$1 million for the first time.

But will a war on excessive regulation be enough to address the affordability barriers keeping many people out of the market? Or does the answer lie in systemic change, including tax reform?

Abundant housing agenda

Assistant Minister for Productivity Andrew Leigh kick-started the assault on regulation when he recently took aim at local councils for holding back new housing developments:

Approvals drag on. Rules multiply. Outcomes are inconsistent. They don’t say ‘no’ outright. They just make ‘yes’ harder than it needs to be.

By lamenting rigid planning processes, Leigh was channelling the zeitgeist. The minister was drawing on the book Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The book – a smash hit in political circles – calls on progressives to adopt “YIMBY” policies (Yes In My Backyard) and remove the barriers that slow project delivery.

Leigh was duly applauded by the housing industry, which promotes its own version of abundance as an “unabashed focus on supply-side housing policy mechanisms”.

More than supply

New housing construction is certainly critical, as reflected in the government promise to build 1.2 million homes over five years.

The target is already out of reach, with the regulatory burden being blamed for a forecast shortfall of 262,000 homes by mid 2029.

But by focusing on planning laws as the main barrier to new supply, Leigh risks diverting attention from the overarching systemic changes needed to improve access to affordable housing.

While an overhaul of red tape is important, it won’t be enough to address current supply barriers, including market conditions and industry constraints. Nor will unleashing construction be sufficient to make housing affordable for first home buyers or low income renters.

According to the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, other priority areas for the government should include social housing, protection for renters and tax reform.

Winding back tax breaks such as negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, would free up resources for public investment in social housing. Targeting financial incentives to new, and preferably affordable homes, would also boost supply.

Perhaps the size of Labor’s election victory and the calls for reform by a chorus of experts may convince the government to reconsider its refusal to curb these tax breaks.

Blaming local councils

Within a system-wide reform agenda, regulatory roadblocks to new land and housing supply should be assessed. But in doing so, accurate data and analysis is critical.

Leigh singles out North Sydney Council to illustrate his argument that over-regulation is holding back housing starts. He claims just 44 dwelling were approved between July 2024 and February 2025, well short of its state-imposed target of 787 homes:

This is not a small gap. It is structural failure, Even where planning targets exist, the systems to meet them often don’t.

But the figures Leigh cites isn’t for development approvals. Instead, they refer to construction certificates issued when a development is ready to commence. According to the NSW Planning Portal, the actual number of new dwellings approved in North Sydney was 446, which was particularly notable given the economic conditions.

Unfortunately, Leigh’s attack on local councils perpetuates many common misunderstandings about how planning systems operate in Australia. He seems to point the finger at local councils, when land use plans – zoning, height and density controls – are signed off by the states.

Leigh also recalls a time when housing completions were flowing much more freely in his home town of Canberra, implying the key difference is one of over regulation and not underlying economic circumstances.

The ACT is particularly prone to a slowdown in building approvals because of the shift from detached homes on greenfield sites towards medium density apartments. And there has been a near total retreat from public sector investment in new supply. For instance, in 1969-70, nearly a third of new homes in Canberra were delivered by the government. These days it’s just 5%.

Political will

The tired cliches about housing and zoning continue to circulate.

The need to relax zoning restrictions to ease house prices was the media’s main takeaway from the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook Report.

The 280-page document does mention “zoning” in the list of regulatory reforms Australian governments could undertake. But the OECD says the emphasis should be on public investment “to address the housing affordability crisis by boosting supply” especially in social housing.

As our research has previously demonstrated, calling for zoning and planning reform is a popular technique for seeming concerned about housing while avoiding the systemic change that would deliver additional supply.

Has housing really become too hard to build?

Or does the difficultly lie in finding the political will to take the real steps needed to make housing more accessible to generations of Australians who risk missing out?

Nicole Gurran receives funding from the Australian Housing & Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Peter Phibbs receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI)

– ref. Is regulation really to blame for the housing affordability crisis? – https://theconversation.com/is-regulation-really-to-blame-for-the-housing-affordability-crisis-258077

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Hoek, Professor in Public Health, University of Otago

Next week is “scrutiny week” in parliament – one of two weeks each year when opposition MPs can hold ministers accountable for their actions, or lack thereof.

For us, it’s a good time to take stock of whether New Zealand is on track to achieve its smokefree goal of reducing smoking prevalence to under 5% and as close to zero as possible, among all population groups, this year.

The latest New Zealand Health Survey shows that, for the first time in a decade, smoking rates have flatlined rather than fallen. Stark inequities persist, with daily smoking prevalence among Māori at 14.7% (compared to 6.1% among European New Zealanders).

To bring New Zealand’s overall smoking prevalence under 5% would require more than 80,000 people to quit this year. Achieving the goal equitably means more than 60,000 of those people would need to be Māori.

The government’s repeal of earlier measures predicted to bring rapid and equitable reductions in smoking prevalence means achieving the Smokefree 2025 goal for all population groups is now highly unlikely.

Ending the scourge of tobacco

Proposed by the Māori Affairs Select Committee and adopted by the then National-led government in 2011, the Smokefree 2025 goal has always had equity at its heart.

At that time, smoking prevalence among Māori was 37.7% and 14.7% among European New Zealanders. Reducing smoking rates to less than 5% for all population groups offered an opportunity to profoundly reduce health inequities burdening Māori.

Early discussions recognised the large inequities in smoking rates. Speaking about his role in the select committee inquiry, former National Party leader Simon Bridges stated:

The picture I had of smoking was quite wrong. Most of the time, smoking is not this idea of a free market with adults who freely consent to take up smoking […] but the more complex, difficult situation of children smoking as a result of parents and grandparents who smoked […]. That means that a more intense, stronger, more interventionist approach is called for.

The first Smokefree Action Plan, only introduced a decade later in late 2021, included more intense measures and established a Māori and Pacific oversight committee to ensure all actions taken promoted equity.

The action plan introduced three key initiatives: denicotinisation, a large reduction in outlets selling tobacco, and the smokefree generation strategy.

All were expected to have strong pro-equity outcomes. Modelling predicted denicotinisation would bring unprecedented reductions in smoking prevalence, eliminating the gaps between Māori and non-Māori. Reducing tobacco availability would end the widespread access to tobacco in lower-income communities.

The smokefree generation, a longer-term endgame strategy that would have meant anyone born after 2009 could no longer buy tobacco, was predicted to significantly reduce inequity, given the younger Māori (and Pacific) population structure.

Then Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall noted:

While smoking rates are heading in the right direction, we need to do more, faster, to reach our goal. If nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5%, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind.

Is equity still the goal?

The coalition government’s repeal of these measures in early 2024 left a void, but Associate Health Minister Casey Costello reaffirmed a commitment to the Smokefree 2025 goal. A January 2024 update to Cabinet stated:

The government remains committed to further reducing smoking rates and achieving the Smokefree 2025 goal of daily smoking prevalence of less than 5% for all population groups.

However, by late 2024 the narrative began changing. In November, Costello launched a new smokefree action plan in a final push to reach the headline 5% target. Her plan does not emphasise the structural changes (such as fewer outlets selling tobacco) called for by the Māori Affairs Select Committee.

Instead, it relies on health promotion programmes to reduce smoking uptake and on increasing attempts to quit by “reinvigorating” stop-smoking messages and improving referral rates to support.

We argue New Zealand will likely fall well short of its 2025 goal to bring smoking rates below 5% and reduce inequities, despite an ongoing commitment by Health New Zealand-Te Whatu Ora.

During scrutiny week, we hope Associate Health Minister Costello will be asked how she explains the discrepancy between her earlier commitment to achieving the Smokefree 2025 goal among all population groups and more recent comments which appear to roll back the equity goal.

More importantly, we hope questions will probe how she plans to reduce smoking prevalence among Māori to a third of its current level, and what evidence she has that the steps she proposes will work.

Janet Hoek receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the Marsden Fund, NZ Cancer Society and NZ Heart Foundation. She is a member of the Health Coalition Aotearoa’s smokefree expert advisory group and of the Ministry of Health’s smokefree advisory group, a member of the HRC’s Public Health Research Committee, and a Senior Editor at Tobacco Control (honorarium paid). She serves on several other government, NGO and community advisory groups.

Jude Ball receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the Marsden Fund, NZ Cancer Society, NIB Foundation, and the Health Promotion Agency. She is affiliated with the Public Health Association of New Zealand, a member of Health Coalition Aotearoa’s smokefree advisory group, and serves on other NGO and community advisory groups.

– ref. NZ’s goal is to get smoking rates under 5% for all population groups this year – here’s why that’s highly unlikely – https://theconversation.com/nzs-goal-is-to-get-smoking-rates-under-5-for-all-population-groups-this-year-heres-why-thats-highly-unlikely-258592

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

We now have the (almost!) final results from the 2025 federal election – with only Bradfield still to be completely resolved.

Labor won 94 of the 150 House of Representatives seats (up 17 from 77 of 151 in 2022), the Coalition 43 (down 15) and all Others 13 (down three). It also won 62.7% of seats, its highest seat share since 1943, when it won 49 of 75 seats (65.3% of seats).

Since the beginning of the two-party system in 1910, the 28.7% of seats for the Coalition is the lowest ever seat share for the Liberal and National parties combined, or their predecessors. The Coalition had won 23 of the 75 seats in 1943, its previous worst result (30.7% of seats).

The Poll Bludger said on Wednesday the Liberals could lodge a court challenge to their 26-vote loss in Bradfield to Teal Nicolette Boele within 40 days of the official declaration of the poll (return of the writs).

Owing to the possibility of a challenge in Bradfield, the Australian Electoral Commission does not want to disturb the ballot papers, which would be required for a Labor vs Liberal two-party count in Bradfield. A two-party count may not be completed until after the courts rule on any Liberal challenge.

This article has two-party votes and swings nationally, in metropolitan and non-metropolitan seats and in every state and territory. I will report the current AEC figures, but the Bradfield issue means they will overstate Labor slightly nationally, in metropolitan seats and in New South Wales.

Labor won the national two-party vote against the Coalition by 55.28–44.72, a 3.1% swing to Labor since the 2022 election. This is also Labor’s biggest two-party share since 1943, when they won by an estimated 58.2–41.8. Since the 2019 election, which the Coalition won by 51.5–48.5, Labor has had a swing to it of 6.8%.

The last time either major party won a higher seat share than Labor at this election was in 1996, when the Coalition won 94 of the 148 seats (63.5% of seats) on a national two-party vote of 53.6–46.4. The last time a major party exceeded Labor’s two-party share at this election was in 1975, when the Coalition won by 55.7–44.3.

Swing to Labor was bigger in cities

The AEC has breakdowns for metropolitan and non-metropolitan seats. Metropolitan seats include seats in the six state capitals, Canberra and Darwin. In these seats, Labor won the two-party vote by 60.7–39.3, a 4.1% swing to Labor. In non-metropolitan seats, the Coalition won the two-party by 52.3–47.7, a 1.8% swing to Labor.

In 2019, Labor won the two-party vote in metropolitan seats by 52.1–47.9, so the two-election swing to Labor in those seats was 8.6%. The Coalition won the two-party vote in non-metropolitan seats by 56.8–43.2, so the two-election swing to Labor was 4.5%.

In April 2022, I wrote that Labor could do better in future elections because Australia’s big cities have a large share of the overall population. At this election, voters in metropolitan seats made up 58.3% of all voters. The Coalition will need to do much better in the cities to win future elections.

In all the mainland states, the swing to Labor in the cities exceeded the swing in the regions. In global elections in the last ten years, support for left-wing parties has held up better in cities than elsewhere.

Tasmania was the big exception to this rule. In non-metropolitan Tasmanian seats, Labor won the two-party vote by 59.0–41.0, an 11.8% swing to Labor. In metropolitan seats, Labor won by 70.1–29.9, a 4.7% swing to Labor.

State and territory results

The table below shows the number of seats in a state or territory and nationally, the number won by Labor, the Labor percent of the seats, the number of Labor gains, the Labor two-party vote share, the two-party swing to Labor since 2022, the number of Other seats, the change in Other seats and the number of Coalition seats.

I have ignored redistributions, with Labor gains calculated as the number of seats Labor won in 2025 minus the number it won in 2022. Labor gained Aston at an April 2023 byelection, then held it at this election. As it was not won by Labor in 2022, it counts as a Labor gain.

In Queensland, Labor gained seven seats, five from the Liberal National Party (including Peter Dutton’s Dickson) and two from the Greens. But these gains came from a low base, as Labor won just five of 30 Queensland seats in 2022. Queensland remains the only state where the Coalition won the two-party vote (by 50.6–49.4) and won a majority of the seats.

In NSW, Teal independent-held North Sydney was abolished in the redistribution, but Teal Boele gained Bradfield from the Liberals, and the Nationals lost Calare to former Nationals MP turned independent Andrew Gee. Labor also gained two seats from the Liberals.

In Victoria, Labor-held Higgins was abolished, but Labor gained three seats from the Liberals and one from the Greens (Adam Bandt’s Melbourne). The Coalition gained its one seat when Liberal Tim Wilson narrowly defeated Teal Zoe Daniel in Goldstein.

In Western Australia, Bullwinkel was created as a notional Labor seat, and Labor held it. Labor also gained Moore from the Liberals. In South Australia and Tasmania, Labor gained three seats from the Liberals. Tasmania’s 9.0% swing to Labor was the biggest of any state or territory.

Before the election, it was expected Victoria would be a drag on Labor owing to the unpopularity of the state Labor government. Labor took 71% of Victoria’s seats and had a 1.5% two-party swing to it.

However, relative to the national swing, Victoria was poor for Labor, and it was only ahead of WA and the Northern Territory in swing terms at this election. In 2022, there was a huge 10.6% swing to Labor in WA, so Victoria’s two-election swing to Labor was much lower than anywhere else except the NT.

The ACT’s two-party swing of 5.5% to Labor followed a 5.3% swing in 2022. With two senators, a quota for election is one-third or 33.3%. If the ACT’s two senators keep going to the left, it will be difficult for the Coalition to avoid a hostile Senate even if they win elections for the House.

Other election results and a Morgan poll

In the previous parliament, the 16 Others included four Greens, but the 13 Others at this election include only one Green. This will make the Others more right-wing than in the last parliament.

Turnout at this election was 90.7% of enrolled voters, up 0.9% since 2022. But the informal rate rose 0.4% to 5.6%. The informal rate was 13% or higher in five western Sydney seats.

A large share of non-English speakers, confusion with NSW’s optional preferential voting system at state elections and long candidate lists all contributed to the high informal vote rate at this election.

A national Morgan poll, conducted May 5 to June 1 from a sample of 5,128, gave Labor a 58.5–41.5 lead, from primary votes of 37% Labor, 31% Coalition, 11.5% Greens, 6% One Nation and 14.5% for all Others. Labor led in all states including Queensland, the only state the Coalition won at the election.

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. Labor’s win at the 2025 federal election was the biggest since 1943, with its largest swings in the cities – https://theconversation.com/labors-win-at-the-2025-federal-election-was-the-biggest-since-1943-with-its-largest-swings-in-the-cities-258402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samara McPhedran, Principal Research Fellow, Griffith University

After United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested multiple people on alleged immigration violations, protests broke out in Los Angeles.

In response, police and military personnel have been deployed around the greater LA area.

Authorities have been using “less lethal” weapons against crowds of civilians, but these weapons can still cause serious harm.

Footage of an Australian news reporter being shot by a rubber bullet fired by police – who appeared to deliberately target her – has been beamed around the world. And headlines this morning told of an ABC camera operator hit in the chest with a “less lethal” round.

This has provoked debate about police and military use of force.

Read more:
In Trump’s America, the shooting of a journalist is not a one-off. Press freedom itself is under attack

What are ‘less lethal’ weapons?

As the term suggests, less lethal (also called non lethal or less-than-lethal) weapons are items that are less likely to result in death when compared with alternatives such as firearms.

Less lethal weapons include weapons such as:

• pepper spray
• tear gas
• tasers
• batons
• water cannons
• acoustic weapons
• bean-bag rounds
• rubber bullets.

They are designed and used to incapacitate people and disperse or control crowds.

They are meant to have temporary and reversible effects that minimise the likelihood of fatalities or permanent injury as well as undesired damage to property, facilities, material and the environment.

Fatalities can still occur but this does not necessarily mean the weapon itself caused those.

In Australia in 2023, for example, 95-year-old aged care resident Clare Nowland was tasered, fell backwards, hit her head and died from her head injury.

In 2012, responding to a mistaken report about an armed robbery, police physically restrained, tasered and pepper sprayed 21-year-old Roberto Curti multiple times. He died but his exact cause of death (and whether the use of less lethal weapons played a causal role) was not clear.

Do these weapons work to quell unrest?

The impetus for police and military use of less lethal force came about, in part, from backlash following the use of lethal force in situations where it was seen as a gross overreaction.

One example was the 1960 Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, when police officers in a black township opened fire on an anti-apartheid protest, killing 69 civilians.

In theory, less lethal force is meant to provide a graduated level of response to events such as riots or protests, where the use of lethal force would be disproportionate and counter-productive.

It is sometimes described as the “next step” to use after de-escalation techniques (like negotiation or verbal commands) have failed.

Less lethal weapons can be used when some degree of force is considered necessary to restore order, neutralise a threat, or avoid full-blown conflict.

How well this works in practice is a different story.

There can be unintended consequences and use of less lethal force can be seen as an act of aggression by a government against its people, heightening existing tensions.

The availability of less lethal weapons may also change perceptions of risk and encourage the use of force in situations where it would otherwise be avoided. This in turn can provoke further escalation, conflict and distrust of authorities.

Samara McPhedran 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 are the ‘less lethal’ weapons being used in Los Angeles? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-less-lethal-weapons-being-used-in-los-angeles-258687

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

Australia, together with the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Norway, has imposed sanctions on two ministers in the Israeli government for “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”.

Australia and the other countries were immediately condemned by the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called for them to be lifted.

The move comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to leave on Friday for the G7 in Canada, where he is expected to meet UN President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the conference.

Australia’s signing up for the sanctions is just another complication for the anticipated meeting. The Australian government is under pressure from the US administration to significantly boost its defence spending. Meanwhile, Australia is seeking a deal to get some exemption from the Trump tariffs.

The sanctions are on National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

They include bans on travel to Australia, a freeze on any assets they might have here, and a prohibition on anyone in Australia directly or indirectly making assets available to them.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the two ministers “have been the most extremist and hard line of an extremist settler enterprise which is both unlawful and violent”.

The Israeli ministers are accused of major violations of human rights, including escalating physical violence and abuse by Israeli settlers. A few days ago they marched through Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter with a group that chanted “death to Arabs”.

In a social media post, Rubio said the sanctions “do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war”.

“We reject any notion of equivalence: Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed unspeakable atrocities, continues to hold innocent civilians hostage, and prevents the people of Gaza from living in peace. We remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.”

Urging the reversal of the sanctions, Rubio said the US “stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel”.

Asked whether he was concerned the sanctions would damage Australia’s relations with the US, Albanese told reporters he was not: “Australia makes its own decisions based upon the assessments that we make”. He pointed out the action was in concert with the Five Eyes countries of Canada, the UK and new Zealand.

Shadow Foreign Minister Michaelia Cash  said sanctioning  democratically elected officials of a key ally was “very serious”.

“Labor should be clear who initiated this process, on what basis they have done so and who made the decision”, Cash said. The government should also say what, if any, engagement it had had with the US on the matter, she said.

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. Australia-US rift over sanctions on Israeli ministers further complicates Albanese-Trump expected talks – https://theconversation.com/australia-us-rift-over-sanctions-on-israeli-ministers-further-complicates-albanese-trump-expected-talks-258691

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gediminas Lipnickas, Lecturer in Marketing, University of South Australia

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken centre stage across various industries. From AI-generated art to chatbots in customer service, every sector is seemingly poised for disruption.

It’s not just in your news feed every day – venture capital is pouring in, while CEOs are eager to declare their companies “AI-first”. But for those who remember the lofty promises of other technologies that have since faded from memory, there’s an uncanny sense of déjà vu.

In 2017, it was blockchain that promised to transform every industry. Companies added “blockchain” to their name and watched stock prices skyrocket, regardless of whether the technology was actually used, or how.

Now, a similar trend is emerging with AI. What’s unfolding is not just a wave of innovation, but a textbook example of a tech hype cycle. We’ve been here many times before.

Understanding the hype cycle

The tech hype cycle, first defined by the research firm Gartner, describes how emerging technologies rise on a wave of inflated promises and expectations, crash into disillusionment and, eventually, find a more realistic and useful application.

Recognising the signs of this cycle is crucial. It helps in distinguishing between genuine technological shifts and passing fads driven by speculative investment and good marketing.

It can also mean the difference between making a good business decision and a very costly mistake. Meta, for example, invested more than US$40 billion into the metaverse idea while seemingly chasing their own manufactured tech hype, only to abandon it later.

Read more:
Why the metaverse isn’t ready to be the future of work just yet

When buzz outpaces reality

In 2017, blockchain was everyone’s focus. Presented as a revolutionary technology, blockchain offered a decentralised way to record and verify transactions, unlike traditional systems that rely on central authorities or databases.

US soft drinks company Long Island Iced Tea Corporation became Long Blockchain Corporation and saw its stock rise 400% overnight, despite having no blockchain product. Kodak launched a vague cryptocurrency called KodakCoin, sending its stock price soaring.

These developments were less about innovation and more about speculation, chasing short-term gains driven by hype. Most blockchain projects never delivered real value. Companies rushed in, driven by fear of missing out and the promise of technological transformation.

But the tech wasn’t ready, and the solutions it supposedly offered were often misaligned with real industry problems. Companies tried everything, from tracking pet food ingredients on blockchain, to launching loyalty programs with crypto tokens, often without clear benefits or better alternatives.

In the end, about 90% of enterprise blockchain solutions failed by mid-2019.

The generative AI déjà vu

Fast-forward to 2023, and the same pattern started playing out with AI. Digital media company BuzzFeed saw its stock jump more than 100% after announcing it would use AI to generate quizzes and content. Financial services company Klarna replaced 700 workers with an AI chatbot, claiming it could handle millions of customer queries.

The results were mostly negative. Klarna soon saw a decline in customer satisfaction and had to walk back its strategy, rehiring humans for customer support this year. BuzzFeed’s AI content push failed to save its struggling business, and its news division later shut down. Tech media company CNET published AI-generated articles riddled with errors, damaging its credibility.

These are not isolated incidents. They’re signals that AI, like blockchain, was being over hyped.

Why do companies chase tech hype?

There are three main forces at play: inflated expectations, short-term view and flawed implementation. Tech companies, under pressure from investors and media narratives, overpromise what AI can do.

Leaders pitch vague and utopian concepts of “transformation” without the infrastructure or planning to back them up. And many rush to implement, riding the hype wave.

They are often hindered by a short-term view of what alignment with the new tech hype can do for their company, ignoring the potential downsides. They roll out untested systems, underestimate complexity or even the necessity, and hope that novelty alone will drive the return on investment.

The result is often disappointment – not because the technology lacks potential, but because it’s applied too broadly, too soon, and with too little planning and oversight.

Where to from here?

Like blockchain, AI is a legitimate technological innovation with real, transformative potential.

Often, these technologies simply need time to find the right application. While the initial blockchain hype has faded, the technology has found a practical niche in areas like “asset tokenization” within financial markets. This allows assets like real estate or company shares to be represented by digital tokens on the blockchain, enabling easier, faster and cheaper trading.

The same pattern can be expected with generative AI. The current AI hype cycle appears to be tapering off, and the consequences of rushed or poorly thought-out implementations will likely become more visible in the coming years.

However, this decline in hype doesn’t signal the end of generative AI’s relevance. Rather, it marks the beginning of a more grounded phase where the technology can find the most suitable applications.

One of the clearest takeaways so far is that AI should be used to enhance human productivity, not replace it. From people pushing back against the use of AI to replace them, to AI making frequent and costly mistakes, human oversight paired with AI-enhanced productivity is increasingly seen as the most likely path forward.

Recognising the patterns of tech hype is essential for making smarter decisions. Instead of rushing to adopt every new innovation based on inflated promises, a measured, problem-driven approach leads to more meaningful outcomes.

Long-term success comes from thoughtful experimentation, implementation, and clear purpose, not from chasing trends or short-term gains. Hype should never dictate strategy; real value lies in solving real problems.

Gediminas Lipnickas 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. The AI hype is just like the blockchain frenzy – here’s what happens when the hype dies – https://theconversation.com/the-ai-hype-is-just-like-the-blockchain-frenzy-heres-what-happens-when-the-hype-dies-258071

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate in Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

No travel can be considered completely safe. There are inherent risks from transportation, criminal activity, communicable diseases, injury and natural disasters.

Still, global travel is booming — for those who can afford it.

To reduce the chances of things going wrong, governments issue official travel advisories: public warnings meant to help people make informed travel decisions.

Sometimes these advisories seem puzzling – why, for example, does the US still have the “safest” rating despite the ongoing volatility in Los Angeles?

How do governments assess where is safe for Australians to travel?

A brief history of travel advisories

The United States pioneered travel advisories in 1978, with other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland following.

Australia started providing travel advisories in 1996 and now runs its system under the Smart Traveller platform.

To determine the risk level, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) draws on diplomatic reporting, assessments from Australian missions overseas about local security conditions, threat assessments from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) and advice from Five Eyes intelligence sharing partners (Australia, the US, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada).

The goal is to create “smart, responsible informed travellers”, not to restrict tourism or damage foreign relationships.

DFAT has stressed its system is not influenced by “commercial or political considerations”.

Soft power and safety

In theory, these advisories are meant to inform travellers, keep them safe and reduce the burden on consular services.

However, they can also subtly reflect politics and alliances.

While travel advisories are presented as neutral, fact-based risk assessments, they may not always be free from political bias.

Research shows governments sometimes soften their warnings for countries they are close with and overstate risks in others.

A detailed analysis of US State Department travel warnings from 2009 to 2016 found only a weak correlation between the number of American deaths in a country and the warnings issued.

In some cases, destinations with no record of US fatalities received frequent warnings, while places with high death tolls had none.

In early 2024, Australia issued a string of warnings about rising safety concerns in the US and extremely strict entry conditions even with an appropriate visa.

Yet, the US kept its Level 1 rating – “exercise normal safety precautions” – the same advice given for places such as Japan or Denmark.

Meanwhile, Australia’s warning for France was Level 2 — “exercise a high degree of caution” — due to the potential threat of terrorism.

Experts have also criticised Australia’s travel warnings for being harsher toward developing countries.

The UK, a country with lower crime rates than the US, also sits at Level 2 — putting it in the same risk level as Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua and South Africa.

Read more:
In Trump’s America, the shooting of a journalist is not a one-off. Press freedom itself is under attack

Inconsistencies and grey areas

The problem is, the advisory levels themselves are vague: a Level 2 warning can apply to countries with very different risk profiles.

It’s used for places dealing with terrorism threats like France, or vastly different law and respect for human rights such as Saudi Arabia, or countries recovering from political unrest such as Sri Lanka.

Until early June 2025, Sweden was also rated Level 2 due to localised gang violence, despite relatively low risks for tourists. Its rating has since been revised down to Level 1.

Travel advisories often apply a blanket rating to an entire country, even when risks vary widely within its borders.

For instance, Australia’s Level 1 rating for the US doesn’t distinguish between different regional threats.

In June 2025, 15 people were injured in Boulder, Colorado after a man attacked a peaceful protest with Molotov cocktails.

Earlier in 2025, a major measles outbreak in West Texas resulted in more than 700 cases reported in a single county.

Despite this, Australia continues to classify the entire country as a low-risk destination.

This can make it harder for travellers to make informed, location-specific decisions.

Recent travel trends

Recent data indicate a significant downturn in international travel to the US: in March 2025, overseas visits to the US fell by 11.6% compared to the previous year, with notable declines from Germany (28%), Spain (25%) and the UK (18%).

Australian visitors to the US decreased by 7.8% compared to the same month in 2024, marking the steepest monthly drop since the COVID pandemic.

This trend suggests travellers are reassessing risk on their own even when official advisories don’t reflect those concerns.

The US case shows how politics can affect travel warnings: the country regularly experiences mass casualty incidents, violent protests and recently has been detaining and deporting people from many countries at the border including Australians, Germans and French nationals.

Yet it remains at Level 1.

What’s really going on has more to do with political alliances than safety: increasing the US travel risk level could create diplomatic friction.

What travellers can do now

If you’re a solo female traveller, identify as LGBTQIA+, are an academic, come from a visible minority or have spoken out online against the country you’re visiting, your experience might be very different from what the advice suggests.

So, here are some tips to stay safe while travelling:

• Check multiple sources: don’t rely solely on travel advisories – compare travel advice from other countries

• Get on-the-ground updates: check local news for coverage of events. If possible, talk to people who’ve recently visited for their experiences

• For broader safety trends, tools like the Global Peace Index offer data on crime, political stability and healthcare quality. If you’re concerned about how locals or police treat certain groups, consult Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or country-specific reports from Freedom House

• Consider identity-specific resources: there are travel guides and safety indexes for LGBTQIA+ travellers like Equaldex, women travellers (Solo Female Travelers Network) and others. These may highlight risks general advisories miss.

Travel advisories often reflect whom your country trusts, not where you’re actually safe. If you’re relying on them, make sure you understand what they leave out.

Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program
Scholarship.

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

– ref. Why does the US still have a Level 1 travel advisory warning despite the chaos? – https://theconversation.com/why-does-the-us-still-have-a-level-1-travel-advisory-warning-despite-the-chaos-258182

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Houlihan, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast

You may have come across those “what I eat in a day” videos on social media, where people – usually conventionally attractive influencers wearing activewear – list everything they consumed that day.

They might seem like harmless fun but in fact they can reinforce dangerous ideas about food, weight and body image.

I’ve worked with people with eating disorders who watch these videos and have seen first hand how harmful this content can be.

Here’s what the research says and what you need to know.

Videos that promote ‘health’ can be unhealthy

“What I eat in a day” videos have been popular for over a decade, with views reaching in the billions.

They target both men and women and many claim to promote health and nutrition. Yet videos such as these can do more harm than good.

Very few of these creators have formal qualifications in health or nutrition, increasing the potential for misinformation.

They often depict low calorie diets, exclude entire food groups or promote “clean eating” (a problematic idea at best).

Some even encourage dangerous behaviours such as skipping meals, eating very little or using laxatives to purge food.

They can also send harmful messages about body image. Many such videos use beauty filters to create images promoting unrealistic body ideals.

These videos often feature shots of how the person looks from the front, the side, in the gym, and in tight, form-fitting clothes. There may even be some “before and after” weight loss pics, sending the harmful message this should be everyone’s goal.

The subtext is clear: “eat what I eat in a day and you can look like me”.

But that’s not just a dangerous idea – it’s a totally false and erroneous one.

Knowing what a certain person “eats in a day” doesn’t mean you’ll look like them if you follow their lead.

In fact, a 24-hour rundown of one person’s food intake doesn’t even provide accurate information about that person’s nutritional health – let alone yours.

You are not them

Like our health, our nutritional needs are unique to us and can vary day to day.

What constitutes a “healthy” choice for one person might be totally different for another depending on things such as:

• genetics
• environment
• age
• what we enjoy eating
• how much energy we use and
• our medical history.

Links between health and diet are best examined over time, not in a single day.

Basing our food intake on a brief snapshot of what someone else eats is unlikely to lead to better health. It might leave you worse off overall.

5 ways these videos can affect mental health

What we watch online can affect our mood, behaviour and body image.

Alarm bells should ring if you frequently see these videos and notice you’re doing or experiencing these five things:

1. disordered eating. Eating less than your body needs, skipping meals, cutting out entire food groups, binge eating and purging are all signs of disordered eating that can lead to serious mental health problems such as eating disorders

2. low mood. Watching videos promoting low-calorie diets can worsen our mood; you might find yourself feeling deflated after comparing yourself to others (or rather, to the version of themselves they promote online)

3. poor body image. Research shows watching “what I eat in a day” videos can leave people feeling worse about their bodies and appreciating them less

4. obsessive thinking and anxiety. Obsessing over the “perfect” diet can increase anxiety about food and eating. Diets that encourage a very detailed approach to nutrition – including breaking meals down into components such as carbohydrates and proteins or weighing food – can further fuel obsessive thoughts

5. narrow life focus. Having your social media feed filled with these types of videos can create an overemphasis on the importance of food, eating and body image on your self-worth. This ultimately affects your health and wellbeing.

OK, so what can I do?

If you’re encountering “what I eat in a day” videos often and find they’re affecting your mood, eating behaviour or sense of self-worth you can try to:

• understand that these videos are not tailored to your individual health or nutritional needs and that many contain harmful messaging
• avoid engaging with videos that promote disordered eating, idealised beauty standards or that make you feel bad after you watch them
• unfollow accounts that regularly post such videos, or tap “not interested” on the TikTok video to stop the algorithm showing you more of them
• balance your social media feed with content focused on other areas of life besides food and eating (such as art, design, animals, books, sports or travel). Fill your feed with interests that improve your personal sense of wellbeing
• consider taking regular breaks from social media and seeing if you feel better overall.

If you do want to view posts about food, seek out creators attempting to buck these negative trends by focusing more on fun and taste.

And if you’re experiencing low mood, disordered eating or body image issues, seek help from your local GP. They can connect you with practitioners who provide evidence-based therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

If you have a history of an eating disorder or suspect you may have one, you can contact the Butterfly Foundation’s national helpline on 1800 334 673 (or via their online chat).

Ultimately, “what I eat in a day” videos aren’t really helpful. They contain very little useful information to guide your health or nutritional goals.

If you are considering making changes to your diet, it’s important to consult a qualified professional, such as an accredited practising dietitian, who can learn about your situation and monitor any risks.

Catherine Houlihan consults with an eating disorders service owned and operated by the Butterfly Foundation.

– ref. Those ‘what I eat in a day’ TikTok videos aren’t helpful. They might even be harmful – https://theconversation.com/those-what-i-eat-in-a-day-tiktok-videos-arent-helpful-they-might-even-be-harmful-257127

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Humphery-Jenner, Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW Sydney

Whenever a high-profile company lists on the Australian stock market it attracts much excitement. Employees and founders enjoy some financial gains and investors get a chance to invest in a potentially exciting stock.

For these reasons, fast-food chain Guzman Y Gomez was one of the biggest financial events of 2024. It undertook an initial public offering which meant for the first time, its
shares were available to the public and started being traded on the stock exchange.

However, such public offerings have become rare with many companies remaining private instead of listing on the market.

Indeed, the number of businesses in Australia listed on the stock exchange is declining. This has been described as the worst public offering drought “since the global financial crisis”.

The number of initial public offerings since 2000

In response, on Monday, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announced measures to encourage more listings by streamlining the initial public offering process.

How do companies list on the stock exchange?

Firms undertake an initial public offering by filing documents with ASIC. These includes a “prospectus”, which details the information investors might need to evaluate whether to buy shares.

ASIC reviews the documentation and then decides if changes are necessary or whether to let the business list.

Typically, this requires the business to use an investment bank to manage the process and a law firm to prepare the documentation. The business will also engage an underwriter to evaluate the offering and ensure it raises enough capital. All these services cost money.

When they are trading, the business must comply with additional regulations imposed by ASIC and the Australian Securities Exchange. These include meeting corporate governance, continuous disclosure and other operating requirements.

Why should a business lists its shares?

There are many potential gains for a business and the public to list on the stock exchange.

Companies can encourage employees by paying them with shares in the business. This gives workers buy-in to the company they help to build. This is much easier when it is listed because employees can identify the value of that incentive and sell shares when they choose.

Being listed can also help raise capital. Having shares listed helps the business raise money to expand. In a direct sense, initial public offerings do this by enabling the firm to sell shares directly to the public rather than being restricted to the subset of investors who can invest in unlisted stocks.

In an indirect sense, being publicly listed forces businesses to comply with even more stringent disclosure rules. This can give lenders and investors more confidence in the firm.

Further, because the shares are now readily traded in the market, they can now be more easily used to acquire, or merge with, another company.

What does ASIC intend to do?

The commission believes one of the biggest barriers to listing on the market is the initial documentation and administrative requirements. They believe if they can slash red tape there will be more listings.

The goal is to help them get their documents in order from the beginning, to reduce the potential number of changes that may be needed. ASIC believes it will make the process cheaper and quicker, and enable firms to better time the initial public offerings for periods of strong demand.

The fast track process would only be open to businesses with a market capitalisation of at least A$100 million and firms that had no ASX escrow requirement.

An escrow is a financial and legal agreement designed to protect buyers and sellers in a transaction. An independent third party holds payment for a fee, until everyone fulfils their transaction responsibilities.

What else could ASIC do?

ASIC’s plan to reduce red tape will help but there are other barriers to businesses listing on the sharemarket. These include:

• share structures and control: founders are often psychologically invested in their companies and prefer to retain control over the business they built after listing.

This is part of the reason “dual-class” share structures exist in the United States. These give some shareholders supernormal voting rights, enabling them to retain control. Singapore and Hong Kong also offer dual class structures.

Australia doesn’t have a dual-class system, but enabling such structures could make the market more attractive

• disclosure and expense: the initial public offering process is expensive. ASIC’s plan does partly address this, but only for larger businesses, which ironically have greater financial resources to pay the service providers.

• governance requirements: the ASX imposes corporate governance requirements on businesses that publicly list on the market. These requirements take a one-size-fits-all to factors such as who should be on the board of directors. These requirements appear to cost extra with an unclear financial gain. And the ASX’s rules appear not to be evidence-backed.

• escrows: ASIC’s fast track process is only available if the firm does not have to satisfy an escrow requirement. An escrow requirement typically applies when an early investor, or a founder, is involved. This is to stop such people from opportunistically selling shares at an inflated process, which then nosedives. It is not clear why ASIC excluded such businesses from fast track review. Smaller companies are some of the most likely to be subject to escrow. So they are the most likely to benefit from reducing the cost-barriers to listing.

ASIC has tried to reduce red tape for larger businesses, but the changes don’t go far enough and more work is necessary to address the underlying factors that cause firms to stay private for longer.

Mark Humphery-Jenner 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. The ASX is shrinking – a plan to get more companies to float does not go far enough – https://theconversation.com/the-asx-is-shrinking-a-plan-to-get-more-companies-to-float-does-not-go-far-enough-258557