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

If the intelligence community had its Logies, ASIO chief Mike Burgess would be chasing gold this week.

The director-general of security, who is better known than some junior ministers, appeared beside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday as they revealed how ASIO identified Iran as behind at least two, and probably more, of the recent antisemitic attacks in Australia. It was spycraft at its best.

The times suit ASIO. Enjoying bipartisan respect, Burgess presides over an organisation that flourishes in an increasingly threat-filled environment.

The times suit Burgess personally, too. He has carved out the highest public profile in the job of any of the organisation’s heads. He is a relentless public promoter of ASIO’s role and successes, in what he paints as very alarming foreign and local security worlds.

Burgess, who came to Australia from the United Kingdom as a small child, has a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Adelaide. Before being appointed by the Morrison government in 2019 to lead ASIO, he was director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), an intelligence organisation that focuses on defensive and offensive cyber security.

ANU security expert John Blaxland, a co-author of the official history of ASIO, captures the multifaceted Burgess.

“He’s the kind of guy who in other circumstances would be a hoodie-wearing, basement-dwelling introverted geek. He’s a technocrat. He grew up with ones and zeros, then mastered the art of management and of communicating his vision in words.”

Blaxland says Burgess’ skills matched a changed environment, as spycraft became increasingly digital and security threats often operated through the devices in people’s pockets or on their desks.

Burgess took the previously deeply secret ASD out of the shadows. For example, in 2019, speaking to the Lowy Institute, he described how, working from Canberra at the height of the Islamic State (Daesh) threat, ASD cyber operators degraded the militant group’s communications, causing chaos.

His penchant for publicity is not to everyone’s taste. A former public servant, writing on the Pearls and Irritations website about Burgess’ recent Hawke Lecture, noted acerbically, “Those with a regard for their welfare would do well not to get between [Burgess] and a soapbox”.

Burgess (who makes strategic television appearances) in his 2023 threat assessment speech explained his approach. “At ASIO, public engagements like this one are driven by the triple T’s of Threat, Trust and Team. I want to improve awareness of threats, enhance trust through transparency, and build our team by recruiting the best and the brightest.”

He started in 2020 his annual threat-assessment lectures, which he delivers to an audience of media and Canberra notables, laying out the security picture and highlighting ASIO efforts.

In the 2024 assessment, he set political hares running when he canvassed how a “former Australian politician” had “sold out their country, party and former colleagues to advance the interests” of a foreign regime. The days that followed turned into a guessing game of names.

In these and other set piece appearances, Burgess mixes his dire warnings about the threats with true-life tales.

In his Hawke lecture, he had an intriguing story of horticultural “in-person espionage” during an overseas delegation’s tour of a “sensitive” facility.

“During an official tour of the site, a member of the delegation broke away, entered a restricted area and photographed a rare and valuable variety of fruit tree. An alert staff member discovered and deleted the images but it later emerged photos weren’t the only things taken that day – several of the tree’s branches were missing.

“The delegate had snapped them off and smuggled them out of Australia.

“Almost certainly, the stolen plant material allowed scientists in the other country to reverse engineer and replicate two decades of Australian research and development.”

This week Albanese and other ministers heaped praise on ASIO. It hasn’t always been the way with Labor.

In the 1950s, then-Labor leader HV (“Doc”) Evatt accused ASIO of conspiring with the Menzies government in the Petrov affair – using the defection of a Russian spy for political advantage against Labor. (ASIO’s official history rejects the “conspiring” claim, although the affair was very helpful for the government.)

When the Whitlam government arrived in office, Labor was deeply suspicious of ASIO. For decades, the communist threat had been ASIO’s preoccupation, and many prominent Labor figures were in its files.

Whitlam’s attorney-general, Lionel Murphy, led an infamous raid on ASIO’s then-Melbourne headquarters with Commonwealth police. The affair was damaging for the Labor government and for ASIO.

ASIO often was its own worst enemy, with the official history documenting many stuff-ups, occasionally hilarious, as well as more serious bad behaviour, over the years.

It was only by about the 1990s that ASIO – after it and the intelligence community more widely had been subjected to a string of reviews – had cleaned up its act.

The decline of communism and the rise of contemporary terrorist threats made for an easier relationship with Labor.

The 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, the Bali bombings and subsequent incidents led to ASIO’s powers and resources being greatly boosted. ASIO now has a staff of more than 2,000 (although it has taken to classifying the actual numbers).

Meanwhile, oversight and checks on the organisation became much stronger. It is subject to an inspector-general and its top officials appear before Senate estimates. There is also a parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which operates on a bipartisan basis.

When Burgess arrived at ASIO, it came within the Home Affairs empire. This saw two tough men in a common kennel. ASIO reports directly to the relevant minister, not through the departmental secretary. Then Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo was keen for better budgetary co-ordination; Burgess insisted he make the final call on ASIO’s proposed budget and documents be closely held.

After the 2022 change of government, ASIO went back to the Attorney-General’s empire, where it had been in earlier times.

Post this year’s election, it found itself back in the Home Affairs domain. But with Pezzullo gone, Burgess and current Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster are thought to have a smooth relationship.

One fascinating question in ASIO’s Iran operation is what help it might have had from Israel. Sky has reported it was assisted by a “tip-off from Israeli intelligence” (while emphasising the vast majority of the work was done by ASIO). Albanese has declined to be drawn, beyond saying, “the basis of the intelligence and the operation was ASIO here, and the work that they have done”.

Burgess has referred to liaising with “foreign partners.” We may have to wait for his next appearance at Senate estimates for any Israeli role, however minor, to be acknowledged. Or not. Over the years, Australia has had a strong, albeit sometimes contested, relationship with the Israeli intelligence establishment.

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. Grattan on Friday: Mike Burgess, the spycatcher who gives ASIO a very public face – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-mike-burgess-the-spycatcher-who-gives-asio-a-very-public-face-263913

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

A large-scale hunt is underway for Dezi Freeman, the so-called sovereign citizen who allegedly killed two Victorian Police officers while they were attempting to execute a search warrant.

Freeman fled into the bushland surrounding the Porepunkah property in Victoria’s high country and remains on the run.

Police have described him as an experienced bushman who’s more at home in the mountainous area than they are.

With snow-capped peaks, fog and winter rain hampering the search in the treacherous terrain, what tactics and technology do police have at their disposal?

Initial responses

In cases such as the Porepunkah killings, there are several distinct policing responses.

The first is primarily to prevent any further danger to the public and ensure officer safety.

After rendering assistance to the officers shot, police seek to contain and isolate the suspect. It was for this reason people from the local area were told to stay indoors and the local school was locked down.

Cordons are set up around the incident area to prevent the escape of Freeman and to stop members of the public entering the operational area.

Specialist police response

Responses to critical incidents such as this require specialist support.

Victoria Police has called in officers from the Special Operations Group (SOG) and Fugitive Squad in the hunt for Freeman.

The SOG is an elite squad that responds to armed offender and terrorism incidents and specialises in high-risk searches.

The Critical Incident Response Team is also involved in the hunt for Freeman.

This team provides support to officers at violent confrontations – they’ll likely act as negotiators when Freeman is located.

Read more:
Why are police a target for sovereign citizen violence?

The second arm of the police response is the homicide investigation into the deaths of the police officers.

For this, specialist units such as the homicide and armed crime squads have been deployed to investigate the lead-up and circumstances of the deaths, and gather all available evidence with a view to charging and prosecuting the suspect.

In addition to this, there will be an internal investigation of the police actions leading to the alleged shootings, to learn what lessons can be drawn from this event.

Other assets deployed for the search

A no-fly zone has been established around the area, and Mt Buffalo National Park has been closed to the public.

Police have helicopters and drones in the air, some with infrared imaging capacity.

A police helicopter’s infrared system works by detecting heat radiation emitted by objects. This allows police to see heat sources, such as people or vehicles, in the dark or through fog.

Specialist vehicles including armoured Bearcats are also now in the search area.

These vehicles are bullet-resistant, blast-resistant and used in dangerous and hostile situations.

Bearcats have enhanced off-road capability that will allow them to get into rugged areas.

An air ambulance has also been seen in the area.

The dense bushland around Mt Buffalo is full of caves, rocky outcrops and rugged four-wheel drive tracks, so local knowledge is crucial.

The specialist units will be coordinating closely with local police to mine that knowledge.

Ongoing investigations

As they hunt for Freeman, police will also be monitoring his digital footprint – in particular his phone – to try to triangulate his location.

Police will be trawling his social media and local contacts to see who can help with information about Freeman and his possible location.

The specialist units will be coordinating closely with local police to use their knowledge of the rugged bushland to assist in their hunt.

The chief commissioner of Victoria Police has stated all resources available have been put into the search for Freeman.

Given the terrain around the incident area, this will be no easy task.

Terry Goldsworthy 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. Treacherous terrain: the search for alleged police killer Dezi Freeman – https://theconversation.com/treacherous-terrain-the-search-for-alleged-police-killer-dezi-freeman-264034

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

Medicare, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are all key parts of Australians’ lives. But for the federal government, each of these areas – especially growing demand and rising costs – remains a challenge.

In a bid to costs, last week the Minister for Health, Ageing, Disability and the NDIS Mark Butler announced changes to how children with mild to moderate developmental delay or mild autism, currently eligible for the NDIS, will be treated.

But parents and advocates are concerned about children falling through the gaps, especially after the new Thriving Kids program is rolled out.

Butler joined us on the podcast to talk about health issues facing Australians from childhood to aged care, including how the government’s vaping ban is working.

On NDIS reform, Butler said he wanted to get the states moving on offering different support for children with mild to moderate developmental delay or autism.

This was a recommendation from the independent NDIS review that there should be a different system for children with mild to moderate needs. And that was a recommendation accepted by National Cabinet way back in 2023. So it’s not a new concept or a new direction. It’s just, really, I tried to give it shape in a bit of urgency last week. Because the number of young children with mild to moderate needs continues to grow on the scheme, and I just don’t think that’s the right fit. This was a scheme designed for permanent and significant disability.

So we have to work with states to design a system really located in mainstream, broad-based supports, because this is a mainstream, broad-based issue, that ensures that states do lifting where they have particular advantages and the Commonwealth [government] does lifting as well.

On Australia’s bulk billing rates, Butler said progress is being made towards the government’s goal of having 90% of GP visits bulk billed by 2030 – but it’s not as simple as it might seem.

We don’t operate a health system like the British do, for example, where there’s a very direct lever between the government and what happens in healthcare settings like general practices. These are all private businesses. We have to put in place a pricing, or a funding mechanism, that leads GPs themselves and practise owners to conclude that they’re better off, and certainly their patients are better off, if they move to bulk billing.

[…] We know that the funding we put on the table would mean that three quarters of practices are better off if they move to 100% bulk billing. The other quarter might not, but they’ll still be majority bulk billing, most of them will still bulk bill pensioners and kids and so on. That’s how we got to our 90% figure. But you’re right to say […] there’s not a single general practice market in the country. There’s a bunch of different markets that operate with very different dynamics.

[…] We are focusing on particular markets where there are a problem. Our first round of bulk billing investments in 2023 saw some of the best increases in bulk billing in some of those markets I was worried about. Tasmania, for example, saw the biggest increase in bulk-billing.

On the delay to aged care reforms, due to have started in July but pushed back to November 1, and the massive backlog of demand for home care packages, Butler said the extra time was needed.

The deferral of the act was really a product of feedback we got from aged care providers and consumers that, particularly because of the election taking place between the passage of the legislation and when it was due to start, there just wasn’t a long enough runway to get to what is a substantially new system.

[…] I recognise that there is a very steep increase in demand for aged care right now. The ageing of the baby boomer generation is really sort of hitting aged care, right now, the average age of taking up a home care package is generally the late 70s. And the average age of entry to residential care or nursing homes is 82 or 83.

Now, the oldest baby boomers are about in that age bracket now. That’s why that lost decade, where there was no aged care reform – up until we came to government – has been so critical. We had to concertina what should have been a rolling decade of reform into three years.

Asked about the government’s ban on the sale of vapes except through pharmacies, Butler said fewer kids are vaping now than when it “exploded” as a health problem during the COVID years.

The bans we’ve put in on vaping are working. You know, fewer kids are vaping. There’s no question about that […] We’ve got three waves of substantial research, two from the University of Sydney and one from the South Australian Medical Research Institute. Both of them show rates of vaping down among teenagers. And that really was our major focus.

[…] What we also know is some of the measures we’ve put in to reduce demand for vaping […] have been hugely successful. We’re now rolling out in every school a proven programme – published in the Lancet Medical Journal, a clinical trial, probably the preeminent medical journal in the world – that shows about a 65% reduction in willingness to vape among high school students who’ve done this programme […]

We’re in social media using influencers, advertising on TikTok, trying to get anti-vaping messages to kids who have until now been inundated with pro-vaping messages. I didn’t expect it to work overnight, but I’m really confident that we’ve seen the peak in vaping rates that were climbing at an alarming level year upon year.

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. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Health Minister Mark Butler on everything from Thriving Kids to aged care funding – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-health-minister-mark-butler-on-everything-from-thriving-kids-to-aged-care-funding-263436

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

Medicare, aged care and the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) are all key parts of Australians’ lives. But for the federal government, each of these areas – especially growing demand and rising costs – remains a challenge.

In a bid to costs, last week the Minister for Health, Ageing, Disability and the NDIS Mark Butler announced changes to how children with mild to moderate developmental delay or mild autism, currently eligible for the NDIS, will be treated.

But parents and advocates are concerned about children falling through the gaps, especially after the new Thriving Kids program is rolled out.

Butler joined us on the podcast to talk about health issues facing Australians from childhood to aged care, including how the government’s vaping ban is working.

On NDIS reform, Butler said he wanted to get the states moving on offering different support for children with mild to moderate developmental delay or autism.

This was a recommendation from the independent NDIS review that there should be a different system for children with mild to moderate needs. And that was a recommendation accepted by National Cabinet way back in 2023. So it’s not a new concept or a new direction. It’s just, really, I tried to give it shape in a bit of urgency last week. Because the number of young children with mild to moderate needs continues to grow on the scheme, and I just don’t think that’s the right fit. This was a scheme designed for permanent and significant disability.

So we have to work with states to design a system really located in mainstream, broad-based supports, because this is a mainstream, broad-based issue, that ensures that states do lifting where they have particular advantages and the Commonwealth [government] does lifting as well.

On Australia’s bulk billing rates, Butler said progress is being made towards the government’s goal of having 90% of GP visits bulk billed by 2030 – but it’s not as simple as it might seem.

We don’t operate a health system like the British do, for example, where there’s a very direct lever between the government and what happens in healthcare settings like general practices. These are all private businesses. We have to put in place a pricing, or a funding mechanism, that leads GPs themselves and practise owners to conclude that they’re better off, and certainly their patients are better off, if they move to bulk billing.

[…] We know that the funding we put on the table would mean that three quarters of practices are better off if they move to 100% bulk billing. The other quarter might not, but they’ll still be majority bulk billing, most of them will still bulk bill pensioners and kids and so on. That’s how we got to our 90% figure. But you’re right to say […] there’s not a single general practice market in the country. There’s a bunch of different markets that operate with very different dynamics.

[…] We are focusing on particular markets where there are a problem. Our first round of bulk billing investments in 2023 saw some of the best increases in bulk billing in some of those markets I was worried about. Tasmania, for example, saw the biggest increase in bulk-billing.

On the delay to aged care reforms, due to have started in July but pushed back to November 1, and the massive backlog of demand for home care packages, Butler said the extra time was needed.

The deferral of the act was really a product of feedback we got from aged care providers and consumers that, particularly because of the election taking place between the passage of the legislation and when it was due to start, there just wasn’t a long enough runway to get to what is a substantially new system.

[…] I recognise that there is a very steep increase in demand for aged care right now. The ageing of the baby boomer generation is really sort of hitting aged care, right now, the average age of taking up a home care package is generally the late 70s. And the average age of entry to residential care or nursing homes is 82 or 83.

Now, the oldest baby boomers are about in that age bracket now. That’s why that lost decade, where there was no aged care reform – up until we came to government – has been so critical. We had to concertina what should have been a rolling decade of reform into three years.

Asked about the government’s ban on the sale of vapes except through pharmacies, Butler said fewer kids are vaping now than when it “exploded” as a health problem during the COVID years.

The bans we’ve put in on vaping are working. You know, fewer kids are vaping. There’s no question about that […] We’ve got three waves of substantial research, two from the University of Sydney and one from the South Australian Medical Research Institute. Both of them show rates of vaping down among teenagers. And that really was our major focus.

[…] What we also know is some of the measures we’ve put in to reduce demand for vaping […] have been hugely successful. We’re now rolling out in every school a proven programme – published in the Lancet Medical Journal, a clinical trial, probably the preeminent medical journal in the world – that shows about a 65% reduction in willingness to vape among high school students who’ve done this programme […]

We’re in social media using influencers, advertising on TikTok, trying to get anti-vaping messages to kids who have until now been inundated with pro-vaping messages. I didn’t expect it to work overnight, but I’m really confident that we’ve seen the peak in vaping rates that were climbing at an alarming level year upon year.

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. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Health Minister Mark Butler on kids on the NDIS through to aged care funding – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-health-minister-mark-butler-on-kids-on-the-ndis-through-to-aged-care-funding-263436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ryan Storr, Research fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

It has been a challenging few weeks for both the AFL and LGBTQIA+ communities, with a sixth incident of homophobia in the men’s competition since the league’s crackdown on this damaging language.

Read more:
Australian sports media is compounding the AFL’s homophobia problem

But in more positive news, former West Coast player Mitch Brown has come out as bisexual in a groundbreaking interview.

This announcement is a landmark moment for gay and bisexual men in one of Australia largest and oldest sporting codes.

For too long, debates around inclusivity and homophobia in the men’s AFL competition have failed to hear the actual voices of gay and bisexual men.

That changes with Brown’s announcement.

Male athletes breaking new ground

In Australia, we are starting to see more men come out at the highest level of sport, including Josh Cavallo (Adelaide United, A-League) and Issac Humphries (Adelaide 36ers, National Basketball League).

Yet the AFL has been one of the last sporting communities for a men’s player to come out. Why?

On one hand, societal attitudes globally, and in Australia, show more support towards lesbian, gay and bisexual people. On the other, these attitudes are often not reflected in sporting organisations. Many lag behind society.

As the most recent incident of homophobia in the AFL (involving Adelaide’s Izak Rankine) highlighted, men’s sporting cultures are still problematic.

We only need to be reminded of Cavallo’s revelation that he received “multiple death threats” daily after he came out, adding:

In the world of football, being an openly gay player is a very toxic place […] coming out brings all this attention, it brings all this pressure, brings all this negativity.

It also reminds us that homophobia can impact heterosexual people, too.

For example, in sport, calling someone “gay” is often used as an insult, even if the person is straight. The point is to suggest being gay is something shameful.

So, homophobia creates a culture in which people are scared of being labelled, pressured to “prove” their masculinity or sexuality, and worried about how they are perceived.

Homophobia harms everybody.

For example, research I conducted in cricket found 75% of LGBTQIA+ people, and 50% of heterosexual people, had witnessed or experienced homophobia.

The research I led last year, titled Free to Exist, showed experiences of discrimination in sport for LGBTQIA+ young people (16–25) overall declined from 80% in 2015 to 53% in 2024.

However, among young gay men in sport specifically, there was no change, with 76% of young gay men witnessing homophobic language.

This sends a message they are not welcome and must hide their sexuality for fear of abuse.

We know this has long-term consequences for mental health and discourages them from playing team sports.

Much has been written about the lack of openly gay and bi men in AFL and men’s sport broadly. Brown’s coming-out interview highlights reasons for this.

The locker-room comments relayed in his interview, about another player not wanting to shower with a gay player, reinforce homophobic attitudes that are too common across sporting spaces.

Bisexual athletes have fought for visibility

Bisexual people make up the largest percentage of people in the LGBTQIA+ acronym, yet it is the group we hear about the least.

Bisexual sportspeople have also been overlooked in media discussions around LGBTQIA+ inclusion and exclusion in sport.

The bisexual women athletes I have interviewed in my research have described ongoing challenges related to their identities.

Those who have men as partners or husbands are often questioned and feel their previous relationships with women are disregarded or not seen as valid. Stereotypes and myths about bisexual people – such as the ideas that bisexuality is just a phase or simply due to confusion – also cause people to hide their sexuality.

Also, coming out or sharing your identity is not a one-off event for athletes who must also reveal their identity to teammates, coaches and volunteers, which Brown described in his interview.

We have seen the positive impacts inclusion can have in women’s sport, but it is now time for men’s teams and clubs to join the party.

For too long, they have tried to absolve themselves from the collective responsibility to ensure safe workplaces for LGBTQIA+ athletes.

Young people need role models

The Free to Exist report also revealed young LGBTQIA+ people feel overwhelmingly positive about public role models in sport.

They said it was refreshing to see various AFLW players, and soccer star Sam Kerr and her partner, for example, positively represented across media platforms and social media.

This normalises LGBTQIA+ identities and relationships.

However, there were very few discussions about male players, highlighting the lack of male gay and bisexual role models across sports, including in the AFL.

Having positive representation and visibility of gay and bisexual men affirms young people’s identities and makes them feel validated and seen.

Hopefully, this historic moment becomes an opportunity for the AFL and other sporting codes to reflect on their inclusivity of gay and bisexual men.

We can now move past media headlines about when a male player will come out in the AFL.

What a shame the sixth incident of homophobia in two years was the backdrop.

Brown’s courage will have far-reaching consequences for the game and for people coming to terms with their sexuality.

Ryan Storr consults to Proud2Play. He receives funding from VicHealth. He is affiliated with Proud2Play.

– ref. Mitch Brown’s bravery can change the score for LGBTIQA+ people – and the AFL’s fight against homophobia – https://theconversation.com/mitch-browns-bravery-can-change-the-score-for-lgbtiqa-people-and-the-afls-fight-against-homophobia-264033

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Charwat, Senior Lecturer, Business Law and Taxation and Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching, Monash Business School, Monash University

Until this week, thousands of Australian small businesses that exported to the United States relied on a simple system that had worked for decades.

Parcels worth less than US$800 (A$1225) could enter the US tax-free under the “de minimis” rule for low-value goods. But from August 29, that exemption will be suspended and all US-bound parcels from Australia will be subject to the 10% tariff the US now applies to Australian exports.

Ahead of that change, Australia Post suspended shipments to the US while it works out how to collect this tariff upfront on behalf of US Customs.

Many European countries, India, Japan and other nations have also suspended parcel shipments to the US.

Small businesses will be hit hard

The disruption will hit hardest for Australia’s small and medium-sized businesses, which make up 93% of the nation’s exporters, according to Austrade. From winemakers to sustainable clothing outfits, small businesses selling directly to US consumers will undoubtedly suffer.

Some Australian e-commerce retailers made the decision to halt sales to the US, while others are exploring more expensive private courier services.

Skincare business PuraU told the Australian Financial Review 15% to 20% of its sales went to the US and commercial shipping options could cost as much as the product itself.

Large companies have been hit, too. UGG Australia said it will have to absorb the higher shipping costs for US orders that have already been placed. About 90% of UGG’s international sales go to the US.

When postal services do resume, the 10% tariff will be passed onto US consumers, potentially pricing Australian goods out of the US market.

For American consumers, the changes mean reduced access to international products, higher shipping costs and likely significant delays for online orders.

US President Donald Trump claims the removal of the “de minimis” exception protects the US economy.

But it will make life harder for American shoppers who’ve grown used to affordable international goods delivered to their door – at a time when many households are grappling with elevated costs of living and the effects of inflation.

These are the real targets

Australian businesses are likely collateral damage in a bigger strategic battle. The real target here is China, and specifically e-commerce giants such as Temu and Shein that have filled Americans’ mailboxes with parcels.

The volume of low-value parcels handled by the United States Postal Service has skyrocketed between 2015 and 2024, from 134 million shipments a year to 1.36 billion. US Customs and Border Protection estimates about 67% of these are from China and Hong Kong.

The US removed China’s access to the “de minimis” exemption in May, and currently applies a tariff rate of 54% to all imports from China.

The US removal of the “de minimis” exemption worldwide is like using a sledgehammer where you need a scalpel – it’s hitting everyone, not just the intended targets. Australian small businesses shipping premium products are being treated the same as Chinese retailers shipping $5 items.

It’s a further example of Trump’s tariff diplomacy – the strategic use of tariffs to achieve foreign policy goals.

What’s really at issue is what the Trump administration, in its first term, came to see as unfair subsidies embedded in the international postal system that disadvantaged US businesses.

In the United Nations forum known as the Universal Postal Union (UPU), which coordinates international mail delivery, China pays lower contributions to cover the cost of international postage on account of its developing country status.

The US has previously threatened to withdraw from the international postal system, which would mean it would start to set its own charges for every country accepting US mail. These rates will be a hot topic at the upcoming international UPU congress in Dubai, where nations will negotiate the future of the international postal system.

For years, the US has complained about China’s developing country classification in international organisations. It has argued the world’s second-largest economy shouldn’t receive preferential treatment as a developing country.

The battle over parcel shipments is a microcosm of this larger strategic competition, where trade rules and policy are weaponised in a great power rivalry.

Nicola Charwat 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’s small business shipments are caught in the US-China trade war crossfire – https://theconversation.com/australias-small-business-shipments-are-caught-in-the-us-china-trade-war-crossfire-263943

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy HoYuan Chan, PhD Candidate, Sociology, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University

My travels with autism started long before my diagnosis at the age of three years and three months.

My family noticed autistic features from around 15 months of age. I never looked at people and did not respond when called. I lined up toys instead of playing with them. When I wanted something, I took people’s hand to get it for me. I had frequent meltdowns in busy environments or when routines changed unexpectedly, but I couldn’t let people know why I was upset.

I was later diagnosed with autism. My family grieved to hear that I might never be able to lead an independent or full life.

But my mother wasted no time in organising supports. Soon, my days were filled with home-based intensive behavioural programs, speech therapy and other supports. But unfortunately, I never learned to speak.

But I learned to communicate another way

A turning point came when I was nine. I began learning how to communicate with a type of augmentative and alternative communication known as supported typing. I type on a machine with a keyboard, called a Lightwriter, which speaks what I type. Another person touches my shoulder as I type. This touch helps me be aware of my body, and helps me focus on communicating my message.

I used supported typing at school and now at university, where I am a PhD candidate. I’m researching neurodiversity in autistic people with minimal, unreliable, or no speech, or those with complex communication and high support needs.

With supported typing, I am able to live life more fully, to give a TEDx talk, one of the first by a nonspeaker, and to write my autobiography. I used supported typing to write this article.

How common is it for an autistic person to not speak?

Autism affects how people communicate, interact and perceive the world. Autistic people show differences in social communication as well as narrow interests, such as Lego or trains.

In 2022, there were 290,900 autistic Australians. About one-third are nonspeaking.

This nonspeaking autistic community is socially vulnerable and frequently experience nonacceptance and exclusion. As a member of this community, I am driven to bust some myths.

Myth 1: we don’t use language

Autistic nonspeakers cannot use speech to communicate. But many of us are verbal, that is, we understand and use language.

I am a visual thinker, and I sense my world in pictures and images. Initially, speech was just sounds without meaning. Around six years of age, I realised words were used to represent things and to communicate. By linking people’s speech to their behaviour, I began to understand the symbolic nature of language, which helped me communicate.

Because of sensory and movement differences, autistic people with complex communication needs require support to communicate, do routine activities and participate socially.

For instance, physical touch to our hand, arm or shoulder provides feedback on our position, balance and movement to help us point to pictures, spell or type. Support workers also help us focus and remain calm so we can communicate.

Myth 2: we don’t understand your mind

Autistic people, especially those with complex communication needs, need extra time to decode, make sense of, and abstract meaning from experiences.

But with effort and time, many autistic nonspeakers can empathise and understand other people’s minds.

This can involve using social stories to understand mental and emotional states. These teach us about social situations and how to participate. They can be used to describe what to expect ahead of time. They can give us time to rehearse and we can draw on them during the situation in real life.

For example, when meeting someone for the first time, we may feel overwhelmed. We use a social story to know what to expect, to sit at a comfortable distance to introduce ourselves, to ask and respond to questions. The story helps us process new information, and suggests how to tell people when we are overloaded and need space to chill.

Giving us the time, space and permission to process social situations helps us navigate social life.

Myth 3: we rock, hum and sometimes scream or run off for no reason

Autistic people, especially those with complex communication needs, can feel unsafe in busy environments. For example, bright lights or noises from people talking and moving around cause sensory overload and distress. This leads to increased stress levels and a reduced ability to respond appropriately.

Autistic nonspeakers may use various strategies to manage the overload and lessen this sensory distress. This may include lying down, staring at blinking lights or revolving objects, humming to block out overwhelming sensations, as well as rocking, spinning or weaving our bodies to restore a sense of balance. These behaviours allow us to self-regulate.

However, when these strategies are insufficient, autistic nonspeakers may behave in unconventional ways such as screaming, running off or having meltdowns.

Such behaviours do not arise because we don’t understand how to act appropriately. They occur when we feel highly unsafe and anxious in demanding situations.

When a quiet space is available, we will be able to chill and regain feelings of safety and control, without resorting to concerning behaviours.

The next time

So the next time you meet an autistic person who doesn’t speak, please meet us halfway. Give us the time and space to process and think about how to reply.

Timothy HoYuan Chan is affiliated with Reframing Autism, a not-for-profit autism advocacy organisation. He is also ambassador for the I Can Network, an autistic-led organisation in providing mentoring and activity programs for autistic people aged eight to 22.

– ref. I’m autistic and don’t speak. Here’s what I want you to know – https://theconversation.com/im-autistic-and-dont-speak-heres-what-i-want-you-to-know-262198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Nickl, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Culture, Literature and Translation, University of Sydney

Why do so many of the funniest things on social media make no sense at all?

How about Ashby’s stunt scenes for a back brace infomercial on a white swivel chair, overlaid with Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major – or her improvisations as The Lorax; a sequence of HOW I LOOK: #brainrot memes; or a congregation of cats lip-syncing the national anthem. These short, sharp jolts of what some may label “nonsense” dominate feeds worldwide.

This is absurdist humour.

It doesn’t build slowly like a sitcom, or unfurl as witty repartee in a novel. It doesn’t explain itself like a stand-up routine. Instead, it hits fast, surprises us, and vanishes.

Why absurd works so well on TikTok

Absurdism, as a formalised concept and distinct aesthetic, has its roots in the 20th century. It draws on ideas of people like French-Algerian writer Albert Camus and his philosophy of life’s absurdity, which plays on the clash between our search for meaning and the universe’s randomness.

Thriving on illogical situations and exaggerated contradictions, this philosophy of the absurd translates naturally to the chaotic, fast-paced world of social media apps like TikTok. Clips are short, often under a minute, and some users swipe through hundreds in a sitting.

A long joke risks losing attention in this space, whereas absurdism needs only a flash of the unexpected: a sudden twist, a visual quirk, an audio gag, or another odd mismatch … say, an impassioned 80s culture collage. That burst of surprise is key.

Psychologist Tania Luna calls surprise an “emotion intensifier” – a digital upper for brain stimuli. It can make any emotion, from laughter to fear, feel up to 400% stronger. A TikTok is funnier not just because it’s absurd, but because it’s unexpected.

In other words, receiving a gift on your birthday is nice; but getting one on a random Tuesday is something else.

The role of the algorithm

TikTok’s For You page is that random Tuesday. The algorithm pushes videos most likely to seed reactions. If you laugh and “heart”, or even multi-heart something, TikTok spreads it further.

This feedback loop amplifies content that delivers surprise. Absurdist humour, with its quick twists and odd turns, suits this system perfectly.

Meanwhile, TikTok makes remixing easier than ever. Users can take a video and layer lip-syncs, voice-overs, glitch edits or filters. A straight-faced cooking clip might morph into surreal comedy with only a few tweaks.

In this way, TikTok doesn’t just reward absurdism – it actively encourages it.

Absurdism across cultures

Absurd humour isn’t new.

German sketch TV popularised nonsense decades ago, with Hitler spoofs and Führer skits. Japanese television embraced the surreal with slapstick game shows, bashing participants across soundstages since the 1980s. In post-Soviet countries, absurdist doomer memes mix politics and everyday life into carnivals of strangeness, heightened since the war in Ukraine.

What TikTok does is make these styles visible across borders. What’s funny in one culture might seem baffling in another, but remixing lets jokes travel.

A teenager in Sydney might laugh at a Home and Away parody from Seoul, add their own spin, and send it back into circulation. Now AI-generated absurdism is spreading too, with bots locked in a race to out-absurd one another globally.

Digital jazz and online busking

None of this is entirely novel. Absurdist humour’s spread online resembles older art forms built on recycling content.

Think of jazz: improvisational musicians once twisted a theme differently every night. TikTok users do the same with sound clips, visual gags or dance moves – variations on a theme.

Street buskers play to passers-by, hoping to catch attention for a few moments, or millions if their recorded covers or rejigged songs go viral. TikTok comedians throw improvised clips into a digital crowd. If they land, people stop, watch, like and share.

The app is both stage and instrument, letting creators jam with unpredictable audiences in real time.

What absurdist humour says about us

So, what does all this nonsense mean?

One answer is that it reflects how technology shapes our fun. Phones track us, logging our behaviour, anticipating what we’ll like. Many users, especially Gen Z, respond by “playing the algorithm”, making chaotic, unpredictable content that resists neat categorisation.

Absurdist humour thrives in this environment: its randomness makes it harder to slot into patterns, while also boosting visibility. That’s why absurd memes are both entertainment and a playful tactic against the feed.

It also marks a shift in our entertainment needs. Most platforms of the 2010s aimed to capture attention; in the 2020s, they try to jolt it. Absurdist comedy doesn’t hold us long, but it’s sometimes a scroll stopper.

Navigating information overload takes a toll, so absurdist TikToks may be training us for a state of hyperavailability known to give us “online brain”. The sheer volume of these clips suggests coherence is optional, maybe obsolete, and surprise is the new aim.

Earlier artists of the absurd saw humour as cognitive aerobics. They wanted to keep minds stretchy, bendy and enthusiastically pliant while making sense of nonsense. Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein revelled in unruly form, inspired by early Disney animation. Salvador Dali melted clocks against standard time to push psycho-social agility.

To some, absurdist humour might make no sense. But to many today, it makes perfect sense.

Benjamin Nickl 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 TikTok is the perfect home for absurdist comedy – https://theconversation.com/why-tiktok-is-the-perfect-home-for-absurdist-comedy-263190

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Drew Terasaki Hart, Ecologist, CSIRO

The annual clock of the seasons – winter, spring, summer, autumn – is often taken as a given. But our new study in Nature, using a new approach for observing seasonal growth cycles from satellites, shows that this notion is far too simple.

We present an unprecedented and intimate portrait of the seasonal cycles of Earth’s land-based ecosystems. This reveals “hotspots” of seasonal asynchrony around the world – regions where the timing of seasonal cycles can be out of sync between nearby locations.

We then show these differences in timing can have surprising ecological, evolutionary, and even economic consequences.

Watching the seasons from space

The seasons set the rhythm of life. Living things, including humans, adjust the timing of their annual activities to exploit resources and conditions that fluctuate through the year.

The study of this timing, known as “phenology”, is an age-old form of human observation of nature. But today, we can also watch phenology from space.

With decades-long archives of satellite imagery, we can use computing to better understand seasonal cycles of plant growth. However, methods for doing this are often based on the assumption of simple seasonal cycles and distinct growing seasons.

This works well in much of Europe, North America and other high-latitude places with strong winters. However, this method can struggle in the tropics and in arid regions. Here, satellite-based estimates of plant growth can vary subtly throughout the year, without clear-cut growing seasons.

Surprising patterns

By applying a new analysis to 20 years of satellite imagery, we made a better map of the timing of plant growth cycles around the globe. Alongside expected patterns, such as delayed spring at higher latitudes and altitudes, we saw more surprising ones too.

One surprising pattern happens across Earth’s five Mediterranean climate regions, where winters are mild and wet and summers are hot and dry. These include California, Chile, South Africa, southern Australia, and the Mediterranean itself.

These regions all share a “double peak” seasonal pattern, previously documented in California, because forest growth cycles tend to peak roughly two months later than other ecosystems. They also show stark differences in the timing of plant growth from their neighbouring drylands, where summer precipitation is more common.

Spotting hotspots

This complex mix of seasonal activity patterns explains one major finding of our work: the Mediterranean climates and their neighbouring drylands are hotspots of out-of-sync seasonal activity. In other words, they are regions where the seasonal cycles of nearby places can have dramatically different timing.

Consider, for example, the marked difference between Phoenix, Arizona (which has similar amounts of winter and summer rainfall) and Tucson only 160 km away (where most rainfall comes from the summer monsoon).

Other global hotspots occur mostly in tropical mountains. The intricate patterns of out-of-sync seasons we observe there may relate to the complex ways in which mountains can influence airflow, dictating local patterns of seasonal rainfall and cloud. These phenomena are still poorly understood, but may be fundamental to the distribution of species in these regions of exceptional biodiversity.

Seasonality and biodiversity

Identifying global regions where seasonal patterns are out of sync was the original motivation for our work. And our finding that they overlap with many of Earth’s biodiversity hotspots – places with large numbers of plant and animal species – may not be a coincidence.

In these regions, because seasonal cycles of plant growth can be out of sync between nearby places, the seasonal availability of resources may be out of sync, too. This would affect the seasonal reproductive cycles of many species, and the ecological and evolutionary consequences could be profound.

One such consequence is that populations with out-of-sync reproductive cycles would be less likely to interbreed. As a result, these populations would be expected to diverge genetically, and perhaps eventually even split into different species.

If this happened to even a small percentage of species at any given time, then over the long haul these regions would produce large amounts of biodiversity.

Back down to Earth

We don’t yet know whether this has really been happening. But our work takes the first steps towards finding out.

We show that, for a wide range of plant and animal species, our satellite-based map predicts stark on-ground differences in the timing of plant flowering and in genetic relatedness between nearby populations.

Our map even predicts the complex geography of coffee harvests in Colombia. Here, coffee farms separated by a day’s drive over the mountains can have reproductive cycles as out of sync as if they were a hemisphere apart.

Understanding seasonal patterns in space and time isn’t just important for evolutionary biology. It is also fundamental to understanding the ecology of animal movement, the consequences of climate change for species and ecosystems, and even the geography of agriculture and other forms of human activity.

Want to know more? You can explore our results in more detail with this interactive online map, which we also include below.

This work was completed under affiliations with the University of California (UC), Berkeley, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Drew Terasaki Hart received funding for this work from UC Berkeley, the UC Berkeley Center for Latin American Studies, the Organization for Tropical Studies, IdeaWild, and the Bezos Earth Fund (via The Nature Conservancy).

– ref. See Earth’s seasons in all their complexity in a new animated map – https://theconversation.com/see-earths-seasons-in-all-their-complexity-in-a-new-animated-map-262935

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqui Yoxall, Associate Professor & Chair of Discipline – Psychological and Social Health, Southern Cross University

Queensland woman Amanda Maree Power has recently been jailed after faking cancer and fraudulently raising about A$24,000 from friends, family and strangers over several years – including to pay for holidays and fake medical bills.

Among Power’s victims were those diagnosed with cancer and her former employer, Cancer Council Queensland.

Power is the latest person found to have faked an illness and to have benefited financially, and in other ways.

Perhaps the most notorious, Australian Belle Gibson, was not criminally charged. She was however found liable in 2017 for breaching various consumer laws and fined $410,000. She had built a wellness empire based on a lie – that nutrition and a healthy lifestyle had cured cancer she didn’t have.

Canada’s Ashley Kirilow and Maddison Russo from the United States have also been convicted of fraud for faking cancer.

But why would someone do this? We don’t know the full details of Power’s motivations. But generally speaking, there are a few reasons why people fake illness.

Is it a mental health condition?

Only the individual truly understands why they’re faking an illness. But there are some underlying explanations.

Let’s start with malingering, which is a behaviour, not a diagnosis. This is deliberate and specific lying about having an illness to obtain an external goal, such as getting money or avoiding responsibilities (such as working).

There are three main types:

• faking an illness you don’t have

• claiming you still have the illness when you have recovered

• exaggerating the extent of the symptoms of an illness you do have.

But in rare cases, some people who fake their illness aren’t doing it for money or to avoid an obligation. They do so to meet an internal psychological need, such as the need for care and attention from others, to reassure their self worth, or for acceptance and belonging. An additional consequence can be financial gain but that is not their goal.

These are the hallmarks of someone with factitious disorder, which used to be called Munchausen syndrome. When someone fakes someone else’s illness, usually a child’s, this is called Munchausen by proxy.

How common is this?

We don’t know exactly how common malingering and factitious disorder are because both are hard to detect. But we think both are rare. To confirm either requires clear evidence or a confession, and both are rarely available.

Mislabelling can lead to inappropriate treatment or consequences. For example, we don’t want to mistake factitious disorder for malingering and vice versa.

People with factitious disorder need treatment. Most would say people who malinger need to be held accountable.

Treating someone diagnosed with factitious disorder usually involves targeting the person’s unmet psychological needs and other factors, using structured psychotherapy and psychotropic medicine (ones that affect the mind, emotions and behaviour). But because it is so difficult to detect, there hasn’t been a significant increase in research on this in recent years.

Malingering and factitious disorder can also occur together, making the situation even more complicated to differentiate, diagnose and address.

In the criminal system, differentiation between the two is less relevant. Here, the fraud itself is the focus.

Why are scammers hard to spot?

We aren’t as good as we think at detecting when others are deceiving us.

There are nearly always inconsistencies in how a faker presents. However, mostly these aren’t enough to identify faking, and most people will dismiss small things that don’t add up.

This is because we tend to interpret and recall information in a way that confirms our existing beliefs – known as confirmation bias.

Most people want to believe their loved one. They believe in helping others. They don’t want to be the person to accuse someone of faking.

Does social media make it easier to fake?

In short, yes. To successfully fake an illness you need detailed knowledge of symptoms, rather than relying on oversimplified stereotypes. Successful faking also involves convincing acting, maintaining consistency in how you present, and then remembering and managing previous lies to weave a convincing narrative.

Announcing a serious illness such as cancer on social media usually results in immediate offers of sympathy, support and attention. Access to support groups, charities and associations inevitably provides more exposure to people with the genuine condition, assisting the person who is faking to better mimic the illness.

Crowdfunding platforms such as GoFundMe allow people to quickly and simply set up donation campaigns without requiring medical verification.

Social media also allows claims of illness, and news of fundraising, to spread far wider and faster than it would in real life.

The ripple effects of faking

The impact of someone faking an illness can be far reaching and devastating. People close to the person faking often feel shocked, betrayed and angry. Many will have provided financial, emotional and practical support, often sacrificing their own needs to help. They may not be so easily able to trust other people again.

People who actually have cancer or the illness the person is faking
are also deeply affected. Being seriously unwell creates a unique combination of fear and vulnerability. Learning someone is an imposter after thinking they were your ally in the battle against the same illness you have can cause significant psychological harm.

The lost of trust means there’s also the risk it can impact future support and donations to those with genuine need, including to charities.

While it may be little consolation to those affected, it’s important to remember such cases are rare. Most people requesting support during serious illness are sincere.

Jacqui Yoxall 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 scammers fake illness for cash, according to a psychologist – https://theconversation.com/why-scammers-fake-illness-for-cash-according-to-a-psychologist-263264

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Brueckner, Pro Vice Chancellor, Sustainability, Murdoch University

If miners, the media, policymakers and renewable energy companies are to be believed, Australia is in the midst of a green energy transition aimed at preventing the worst effects of climate change.

This appealing narrative suggests we are progressively reducing greenhouse emissions by replacing fossil fuels with clean alternatives such as wind and solar power, batteries and electric vehicles.

But there’s a real problem in accepting this idea without question. To date, the green energy transition has largely added more energy to the mix, rather than actually replacing fossil fuels. In other words, our decarbonisation is yet to begin in earnest.

For countries with a laser focus on economic growth such as Australia, this means shifting away from fossil fuels is particularly challenging. Growth and fossil fuel use have long been linked.

As one of the world’s top three liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporters, Australia exports much of the problem. Tackling climate change would mean picking a fight with powerful industries that have dominated Australia’s economy and politics for decades.

Confronting the true scale of the decarbonisation challenge is daunting. We need to challenge fossil fuel interests in politics and consider whether continual economic growth can ever be compatible with climate stability.

Is the transition a mirage?

For at least two decades in Australia, much effort has gone towards making the green energy transition a reality. Solar panels are now on a third of Australian houses, while wind farms and large-scale solar funnel ever more energy into power grids, reaching new heights of 43% in the main grid this year. Electric vehicles are becoming more common on Australian roads, and the production of green steel is nascent but promising.

Australia’s direct emissions are slowly beginning to fall, due mainly to changes in land uses and, more recently, to renewables replacing coal plants. The latest figures show a 1.4% drop over the past year. But if the emissions of Australian gas and coal burned overseas are considered, Australia’s emissions would still be rising.

Positive trends foster assumptions that less and less fossil fuels will need to be burned.

This, however, isn’t guaranteed. Energy historians have pointed out new forms of energy don’t necessarily replace the older ones. Instead, they are getting added to the mix.

The world economy now uses more wood, coal, oil and gas than ever before. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions are still rising as fossil fuels continue to be used alongside renewables.

Hungry for energy

Energy use, carbon dioxide emissions and economic growth have long gone hand in hand. While some richer countries are managing to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions, these countries often effectively export emissions to poorer nations. It’s proving far harder to make absolute emissions cuts while still growing the economy.

In economics, it’s long been believed that energy consumption is determined by how fast an economy is growing.

Energy economists have since learned the opposite may be true: that only when energy is available, economic growth follows. When new energy sources emerge, they will be used to build more, drive technological change and other economic activities.

While green growth advocates hope new technology will make it possible to keep expanding the economy at minimal environmental cost, these hopes are misplaced.

In theory, renewable energy resources are near-infinite. If the world ran on 100% renewables, continual economic growth might be possible. But adding renewable energy to the mix while we exploit all available carbon-based energy won’t be enough to stop climate change or save species from extinction.

The way we think about the economy has to change from a focus on infinite growth to a restorative approach.

Fossil fuels won’t go without a fight

China’s recent success in stabilising emissions through very rapid renewable energy deployment suggests low-carbon development is still possible. But even this historic effort may not be enough to make the rapid, deep emission cuts needed to stave off the worst of climate change. China’s decades-long focus on economic growth has come at huge cost to its environment more broadly.

China’s massive renewables expansion was possible only because its government has actively pursued decarbonisation as a national priority, alongside building clean energy industries.

It’s a different story in Australia. While the nation has taken up solar at world-beating speed, successive governments have also worked to rapidly expand the LNG industry and keep coal alive.

From the Howard era onward, fossil fuel lobbyists have fought against the adoption of strong emissions targets, downplayed the urgency of climate action, and worked to stop measures such as the short-lived carbon price.

It seems unthinkable for an Australian government to deny a fossil fuel producer anything. Federal approval for Woodside’s giant North West Shelf project to continue is only the latest example of a political system unable to make the changes necessary to meaningfully cut emissions.

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. Australia is rich in sun, wind, metals and critical minerals. Prominent figures from Rod Sims to Ross Garnaut to Alan Finkel have laid out how Australia could create large new green industries as the sun sets on fossil fuels. Big Australian companies say rapid emission cuts would spur huge new industries. But our attitude towards exploiting existing energy resources needs to change.

Grasping the true difficulty of keeping Australia’s fossil fuels safely in the ground is an essential first step before we can begin a more honest discussion about how to achieve a prosperous and safe future. Cutting emissions fast enough to avoid the very worst of climate change will require far greater ambition and far-reaching structural change to the economy.

Charles Roche is affiliated with Mineral Policy Institute and the Murdoch University/Mineral Policy Institute Collaboration.

Martin Brueckner and Tauel Harper 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. Getting rid of fossil fuels is really hard – and we’re not making much progress – https://theconversation.com/getting-rid-of-fossil-fuels-is-really-hard-and-were-not-making-much-progress-262525

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

Six years on from the Parliament House sexual assault allegations that spurred a public reckoning, the legal fallout continues. This time, a court has found former Western Australian Liberal Senator Linda Reynolds was defamed on social media by former staffer Brittany Higgins.

Pending any appeal, the judgement of Justice Paul Tottle in the WA Supreme Court puts an end to a bitter and lengthy saga of accusations and counter accusations between the two women.

Higgins has been ordered to pay a total of $315,000 in damages, plus interest, to Reynolds. As legal costs have not yet been awarded, this is the tip of the financial iceberg.

So what was up for debate in this latest chapter? Here’s how the case played out.

What was the case about?

After so many years of litigation, you’d be forgiven for forgetting how we got here. Let’s recap.

In 2023, Reynolds sued Higgins’ then-boyfriend (now husband) David Sharaz, and then later Higgins herself, over a series of social media posts the pair made in 2022 and 2023.

Sharaz did not contest the claims made against him, saying he couldn’t afford the legal fees.

Reynolds launched her legal action before the verdict was delivered in the separate case of Bruce Lehrmann suing Network 10 for defamation. In that case, Justice Michael Lee found Lehrmann was not defamed, although Lehrmann is appealing that finding.

The Reynolds versus Higgins case was heard over five weeks in August and September last year.

Much of the testimony came from Reynolds herself, who told the court the posts had damaged her reputation, led to her suffering ongoing health issues, and stymied her career.

What laws were at play?

Defamation laws in WA differ from most across the country.

In 2005, the state adopted the national approach at the time, but has since chosen not to adopt significant changes made by most other states in 2021.

These reforms included what’s called the “serious harm threshold”, which requires plaintiffs to prove their reputation was significantly damaged by the alleged defamatory statements.

By not adopting this change, WA maintains a lower bar for defamation claims. However, the 2021 changes also widened the possible defences, making it difficult to assess whether the former senator was in a better position to succeed under WA law.

What did the judge find?

The judge was required to rule on Reynolds’ four claims in defamation, one claim of conspiracy and one claim of breach of contract.

On the strength of the evidence before the court in this case, it was satisfied some social media posts were defamatory.

Justice Tottle said in his judgement that Higgins was “prone to […] speculating both on events and motives of others and presenting the resulting mix as fact”.

He also found she was prone to “exaggerate or embellish aspects of her account of events in a manner that was consistent with the themes she developed in her media interviews”.

Reynolds claimed a fourth social media post – a tweet from Higgins in July 2022 – was also defamatory.

The judge found that although Higgins’ statement in this fourth post was indeed defamatory, she was able to satisfy the defence of honestly held opinion, fair comment and qualified privilege.

So, in summary, all four claims were found to be defamatory, but one was legally defensible.

Justice Tottle thereafter dismissed the claim that Higgins, in concert with Sharaz, had engaged in a conspiracy designed to injure Reynolds.

But he declared that Higgins, in the 2023 Instagram post, had breached a contractual duty arising out of a deed of settlement between the two that she was not to make any adverse comments about the parties involved.

Justice Tottle ordered Higgins to pay damages of $135,000 to Reynolds for the tweets, plus $180,000 for the Instagram post, for a total of $315,000. There is a further order for the payment of $26,109 in interest to date.

The issue of costs, which are likely to be substantial, will be decided by the judge next month.

Places for fair hearings

This case is the latest in a series of defamation cases that have involved politicians in recent years, either as the plaintiff, the defendant or both.

Most recently, a Victorian judge found then Liberal leader John Pesutto defamed MP Moira Deeming.

Before that, in New South Wales, MP Alex Greenwich won his defamation claim against Mark Latham.

Read more:
With more lawsuits potentially looming, should politicians be allowed to sue for defamation?

And in 2021, the trial judge ruled in favour of Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in her case against fellow senator David Leyonhjelm.

So while many observers may shake their heads at the millions of dollars spent in legal fees by the key players in this particular saga, we can be grateful we have legal institutions (for those who can afford the exercise) available to hear the claims of plaintiffs and decide on matters accordingly, free from political and personal bias.

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

– ref. A court has found Brittany Higgins defamed Linda Reynolds. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/a-court-has-found-brittany-higgins-defamed-linda-reynolds-heres-why-235967

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

With news Iran orchestrated two antisemitic attacks in Australia last year, the federal government has declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation’s Director-General Mike Burgess said the group, known as IRGC, “used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement” in the attacks on Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney and the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne.

The IRGC has a long history in the Middle East as an extremely powerful armed force, both militarily and politically.

Here’s where it came from, how it operates and what it means for Australia.

What is the IRGC and where did it come from?

The IRGC was created after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in which the Western-backed Shah of Iran was deposed by followers of Shia Islamic cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini – the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The organisation was originally created as a force to protect the revolution, both within Iran and internationally. It’s legislated in the Iranian constitution, which says:

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, organised in the early days of the triumph of the Revolution, is to be maintained so that it may continue in its role of guarding the Revolution and its achievements.

Iran has an army, which is bigger than the IRGC, and reports directly to ministers and government in the same way the Australian Defence Force does.

The IRGC, on the other hand, was created alongside the army but instead reports directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader and other high-level clerics. It proactively defends Iran’s interests, in what scholars call a forward-defence strategy.

Given it’s so closely connected to the most powerful people, the corps has a lot of political influence, even more than the army. The IRGC is occasionally at loggerheads with the clerical elite, which undermines the power it has to go up against the people it directly reports to.

The IRGC Aerospace force has control over much of Iran’s extensive ballistic and cruise missile arsenal, many of which were deployed against Israel earlier in the year.

It’s hard to know exactly how big the IRGC is, but the best estimates think it’s made up of about 150,000 personnel.

This force is broken into two main branches: the Basij and the Quds.

The Basij is a volunteer militia operating within Iran as a domestic policing force. It’s known for quashing dissent and protest against the government, sometimes violently.

The Quds force operates internationally, primarily in the Middle East. It typically funds, trains and arms other forces in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi Rebels in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza.

What else does it do?

To describe the corps as a militia would be to oversimplify its many roles in Iranian politics, crime, business and natural resource management.

The IRGC has long been involved in operating black markets, with some estimates saying up to a third of imported goods to Iran are delivered to underground economies and illegal jetties.

Such goods include tobacco, alcohol and narcotics, which the corps then distributes through black markets.

The organisation also engages in widespread bribery for business and government contracts and permits.

Agriculture also falls under the corps’ ever-expanding remit, as does restricting the supply of basic resources such as water.

In short, there are very few sectors in Iran the IRGC is not involved in, and even fewer it’s not actively controlling.

Does it usually engage in foreign interference?

Interfering in the affairs of other countries is so much of what the IRGC does that it could be considered its main calling card. This has been the case for decades.

Typically, this interference is in neighbouring countries in the Middle East by backing insurgent forces with which it is politically sympathetic.

The biggest example of this is in the growth of Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah. It grew from being a small insurgency in the 1980s to a massive paramilitary force through the financial and training backing of the IRGC.

By operating with proxies in this way, the corps – and by extension Iran – claim plausible deniability for many of the incidents they’re involved with. By maintaining an extra degree of separation, the group can take some of the diplomatic heat off the Iranian regime.

The actions in Australia demonstrate similar tactics, albeit on a lower scale.

Why target Australia?

Given the nature of such clandestine activities, it’s hard to know for sure why the IRGC is targeting Australia.

That said, we can look at the broader international context for some clues.

The first thing to point out is for groups like the IRGC, backing attacks in Australia is relatively low-risk. They don’t need to put their people in harm’s way, or even spend much money.

It’s likely the corps set up some social media accounts as part of its offensive “social enineering” cyber strategy in an attempt to radicalise people in Australia online. This is a large part of how it operates elsewhere.

Broadly speaking, authoritarian regimes like Iran are learning they benefit by sowing social discord overseas. If you can create uncertainty or fuel identity politics, it can be exploited.

If being antisemitic becomes more acceptable in Australia, it stands to benefit Iran through discrediting the Israeli government even further.

Basically, Iran may be trying to shape public discussion about the conflict in Gaza by creating opportunities for itself to appear as though it’s standing up for Palestinians.

For Australia to proceed directly to a full expulsion of Iranian diplomats (including the ambassador) suggests this is something intelligence officials have been concerned about for a long time.

And if it’s happening in Australia, it’s almost certainly happening in other countries, too.

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

– ref. What is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the IRGC? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-or-the-irgc-264015

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Coghlan, Associate Professor, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, University of New England

If you grew up in Australia any time between the 1960s and the late 1990s, chances are you knew a little man from the Moon with a pencil for a nose. His name was Mr Squiggle. Every week he would float down to Earth in his rocket to turn random scribbles into magical drawings.

Mr Squiggle was a ritual for Australian kids. He was a mix of creativity, patience and whimsy that made him one of television’s most unlikely treasures.

Now, more than six decades since his debut, Mr Squiggle is back in the spotlight.

The National Museum of Australia’s Mr Squiggle and Friends: The Creative World of Norman Hetherington is a heartwarming, family-friendly exhibition that pays tribute to one of Australia’s most beloved children’s television icons.

A collection for the National Museum

The 300 items on display are a nostalgic yet vibrant journey rooted in the museum’s 2024 acquisition of 800 items from Mr Squigggle’s creator, Norman Hetherington, donated by his daughter Rebecca.

Hetherington was born in New South Wales in 1921. After graduating high school, he entered art school. During the second world war, Hetherington worked with the Australian Army Entertainment Unit, creating puppets and sketches to entertain troops. This cemented his interest in puppetry as a way of combining humour, imagination and visual storytelling.

After the war, he performed puppet shows in Sydney and refined his craft, eventually blending it with his drawing ability.

Mr Squiggle evolved from short, improvised drawing sessions into a structured and ritualised children’s program, airing on the ABC from 1959.

In the early years, the focus was simply on transforming children’s squiggles into pictures. By the 1970s, supporting characters like Blackboard and Gus the Snail were introduced, giving the show recurring routines. The 1980s brought longer episodes, while the 1990s cemented the familiar sequence of rocket arrival, squiggle drawings, comic banter and return to the moon.

The newly acquired items at the museum include puppets, artworks, scripts, costumes, props, sets and audiovisual material.

A childhood companion

Mr Squiggle worked on a simple but enchanting premise: children mailed in their scribbles, and on air the puppet – controlled and voiced by Hetherington – used his pencil nose to transform them into recognisable drawings.

The exhibition taps directly into the nostalgia of Mr Squiggle. Curators have approached the collection with care, conserving and retouching items and using custom supports and lighting to preserve fragile puppets.

Visitors can view old episodes, try puppeteering and participate in a digital “squiggle” drawing activity that brings scribbles to life. These elements do more than entertain. They capture the ethos of the original program: creativity, play and transformation.

Many of the original sets, crafted from felt and cardboard, are on display along with a selection of the 10,000 squiggles that appeared on the show. The homemade, low-tech and imaginative puppets, sets and squiggles are a joyful reminder you don’t need big budgets or brash American styles to capture children’s imaginations.

A changing Australia

Mr Squiggle reflected Australia. In the 1960s, the country was changing rapidly – suburbs were growing, television was new, and Australians were beginning to have less sentimental attachment to Britain and shaping their own cultural identity.

Mr Squiggle fitted this moment perfectly. Here was a show which featured Australian accents, ideas and images.

Mr Squiggle celebrated imagination, patience and participation. Children weren’t passive viewers. By posting in their drawings, they became part of the show.

The show’s slow pace taught patience, its participatory format showed children their creativity was valued, and its absurd humour encouraged looking at the world from a different angle – sometimes literally upside down.

Seeing the world differently

More than 60 years since its debut, and over 25 years since the last episode aired in 1999, Mr Squiggle continues to encourage us to see the world differently.

For older Australians, he is a reminder of mid-afternoons in front of the television. The show’s afternoon broadcast was likely aimed at children returning from school. For younger ones who didn’t grow up with the show, this exhibition offers an introduction to a different kind of hero: not one who saves the world with superpowers, but one who teaches us to draw, imagine and delight in the ordinary.

Mr Squiggle and Friends: The Creative World of Norman Hetherington is a cultural celebration. It honours Hetherington’s artistry, reconnects Australians with a cherished childhood figure, and shows how a man from the Moon with a pencil nose became part of the nation’s cultural memory.

Mr Squiggle lives on because he occupies a special place in Australia’s cultural memory: a marker of creativity, community and childhood wonder. The National Museum’s exhibition is a celebration of how a lunar puppet with a pencil nose drew his way into Australia’s national story.

Mr Squiggle and Friends is at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, until October 13.

Jo Coghlan 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. Mr Squiggle entertained Australia’s children for 40 years. Now, he’s back in the spotlight – https://theconversation.com/mr-squiggle-entertained-australias-children-for-40-years-now-hes-back-in-the-spotlight-263813

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Troy Miller, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space, The University of Western Australia

Sometime in the 2040s, humans may well reach a new frontier – Mars. To get there, we’ll need sustainable sources of food, medicines and materials.

As researchers who work on engineering plants to produce such resources in space, we sometimes get asked: “why?”. With issues such as climate change, inequality, global pandemics and environmental degradation, shouldn’t we be focused on Earth, not Mars?

But science can do both. And space research has a long history of not only satisfying the human instinct of exploration, but delivering transformational new inventions as we make discoveries along the way.

Plants not just for space

When the results of scientific research flow into the real world in practical ways, this is known as “research translation”.

These translations are often unexpected and unpredictable. For example, NASA’s need for compact, lightweight imaging technology in space led to the invention of the compact camera sensors we now have in smartphones, webcams, medical devices and more.

That shiny, reflective material used to deflect heat from buildings, appliances or even your car windshield? It’s an insulation technology perfected by NASA to protect spacecraft and astronauts from temperature fluctuations in space.

Within the next decade, we could see “space plants” directly and indirectly improving life on Earth. So what might space-ready plants look like and how could they benefit those of us who never leave Earth?

Flavour and nutrition

Plants nourish us and support our mental wellbeing, but this alone won’t sustain long-term space travel.

The modern space food menu largely consists of processed, long-life foods shipped along for the ride or delivered as cargo to the International Space Station. Anything fresh needs to be produced on the spot and farming animals isn’t an option.

To create a balanced space diet without the need to take dietary supplements, researchers have been developing nutritionally complete plant-based foods that have large quantities of high-quality protein. These will be pick-and-eat plants that can be grown and processed in space, and will provide an optimal balance of essential amino acids. They also include non-essential amino acids normally found in animals, such as taurine and creatine.

Improving plants in this way could help reshape agriculture on Earth, as plant-based diets are more sustainable for a planet facing a climate crisis and reduce global nutrient inequity.

Scientists are also researching plant-based food flavours and textures to address the common complaint from astronauts about “menu fatigue”. For decades, astronauts have reported their sense of taste is dulled in space, making spicy foods a station favourite.

Environmental resistance

Space plants must also thrive in an unfamiliar environment. On Earth, plants rely on gravity to know which way to grow their roots and which way to grow their shoots. This is a process called gravitropism.

In space, gravitropism is confused, causing roots to grow in random directions because of the effects of microgravity on hormone signalling. Research efforts are ongoing to determine the effects of microgravity on plant growth.

For example, water is “sticky” – it clumps together because molecules in water are attracted to each other, rather than pulled downwards into a puddle. In the absence of gravity, this results in sticky blobs of water that cling to surfaces such as plant roots and don’t flow anywhere because they’re held together by surface tension.

Furthermore, a lack of gravity also disrupts convection – it prevents gases from naturally mixing in water. This would limit oxygen availability to the roots of plants and result in low oxygen, also known as hypoxia stress.

Plant hypoxia also happens due to flooding during high rainfall and soil waterlogging. Engineering plants to tolerate microgravity-induced hypoxia will generate data for improving flood resistance in crops on Earth, reducing agricultural losses.

More than food

On a Moon or Mars base, colonists wouldn’t be able to wait for months or years to resupply essential resources such as medicines or construction materials. So, space plants are being designed to provide more than just food.

Plants have been engineered to produce proteins that elicit immune responses and act as edible vaccines.

On Earth, many pharmaceuticals are produced and extracted from microbes. Plants can be engineered to produce medicinal compounds or building material precursors in similar ways, but these compounds are likely to negatively impact plant growth.

The ability to engineer plants to produce different chemicals in response to environmental cues would allow astronauts to switch plants from making food to making medicine – perhaps with the literal flick of a switch.

Genetic “circuits” responding to light and chemical signals are being developed, too. These have the potential to make crops more readily able to adapt to the stresses of a changing climate.

When innovations need to overcome extreme limitations – such as the environment of space – they can speed up and lead to solutions we wouldn’t otherwise come up with.

The race to land on the Moon led to the development of many everyday items. Now, we’re on the verge of a new biotechnological revolution, getting ready to boldly grow where no plant has grown before.

Troy Miller receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Farley Kwok van der Giezen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Ryan Coates receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why grow plants in space? They can improve how we produce food and medicine on Earth – https://theconversation.com/why-grow-plants-in-space-they-can-improve-how-we-produce-food-and-medicine-on-earth-263539

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Shakespeare, PhD Candidate, Griffith University

As the tragic events evolve in Porepunkah, northeast Victoria, media outlets have reported the alleged shooter, Dezi Freeman, is known to be a “sovereign citizen”.

Sovereign citizens believe they are not subject to the law. This view stems from deeply held anti-government beliefs combined with conspiracy thinking that the government was replaced with a corporation that controls us through our birth certificates, licences, and other identification documents. We are only subject to the laws of this corporation, the theory goes, if we choose to enter into a contract with it.

This fundamental rejection of government authority means sovereign citizens refuse to comply with routine processes such as paying taxes and completing random breath tests. They use pseudo-law – legal-sounding but ultimately false arguments – to disobey police and disrupt the court system.

Videos of sovereign citizens refusing to comply with police orders have gone viral, and can be viewed as novelty or entertainment. However, the killing of two police officers in Porepunkah and a previous ambush of police in Wieambilla, Queensland, show that some sovereign citizens can become radicalised and highly dangerous.

So what makes police a possible target for sovereign citizen violence? And why do some sovereign citizens radicalise?

Why do sovereign citizens target police?

Police officers are the frontline representatives of government authority. They enforce the law in our communities, which means they come into frequent contact with sovereign citizens who reject their authority and defy their orders.

This means police bear the brunt of sovereign citizen resistance. But other sources of authority — including judges, court clerks, tax officers and public servants — also face it.

Many encounters arise during routine policing duties. Traffic stops or roadside breath tests can escalate quickly when sovereign citizens refuse to comply with police directions. As many of the videos on social media show, these incidents might amount to a heated argument or scuffle over an arrest, but not a serious attack. Nonetheless, there is an underlying risk of harm.

We are examining police body-worn camera footage to map how these interactions progress and how they can best be de-escalated to avoid harm.

At the start of an interaction, there are typically warning signs that police are dealing with a sovereign citizen. Sovereign citizens often use “private” number plates, have symbols or writing on their vehicles, and hand over large files of pseudo-law documents. There might also be a warrant out for their arrest.

As the tragic events in Porepunkah and Wieambilla show, police attending a property to carry out an arrest warrant of a sovereign citizen can be a highly volatile situation. In Wieambilla, the attackers were driven primarily by extreme religious beliefs, but they had engaged with various anti-government conspiracy theories online and were heavily influenced by a sovereign citizen in the United States.

Research on sovereign citizen violence against police in the US describes two types of ambush: entrapment (planned) and spontaneous (unplanned). Most fatal ambushes involved entrapment. That study mapped 75 acts of sovereign citizen violence against law enforcement between 1983 and 2020, in which 27 officers were killed.

At this stage, we don’t know whether the Porepunkah shooting was a planned ambush or a spontaneous response to police arriving on the property. We do know the suspect was known to police from many prior interactions.

In all these encounters – from less to more serious, planned or unplanned – sovereign citizens view police as agents of an illegitimate, unlawful government.

When they resist police orders, sovereign citizens believe they are legitimately resisting the tyranny of state control, and defending their inherent rights and freedoms as a “living being”.

In Wieambilla, the attackers even viewed police as “demons and devils” in the second coming of Christ.

Why do some sovereign citizens radicalise to violence?

Radicalisation is a social-psychological process in which someone adopts and internalises extreme beliefs and progresses towards acts of violence.

Earlier radicalisation models focused on ideology as the most important factor and described “pathways”, “conveyor belts” and “staircases” to terrorism. Now, radicalisation is understood to involve diverse processes resulting from many different risk factors interacting.

Risk factors for radicalisation include social isolation, the lack of a clear sense of identity and purpose, strongly held grievances, negative childhood experiences (such as abuse or bullying), and trigger events (such as divorce or job loss).

Many of these are innocuous by themselves, and something most people experience at some time in their lives. However, if enough risk factors combine with extreme belief systems, this can lead to criminal acts, violence and terrorism.

There are not many studies on the radicalisation of sovereign citizens specifically, and much of what we know about radicalisation comes from studies of Islamist and far-right terrorists. Still, there is likely overlap between sovereign citizen and far-right radicalisation, given both can be driven by extreme anti-government views.

A recent review of international evidence suggests sovereign citizens are more likely to be male, older, experiencing financial difficulties and relationship troubles, and have previous negative experiences with authority.

We recently fielded a national Australian survey which confirms these findings. The average person agreeing with sovereign citizen beliefs in our sample was 52-years-old and experiencing financial troubles. They were more likely to have a criminal record and hold deep distrust towards government. They were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, were highly cynical of the law, and showed high levels of trait reactance (in short, they don’t like being told what to do).

People with high trait reactance are more likely to resist directions they view as restricting their freedom or autonomy.

We also found people agreeing with sovereign citizen beliefs were more likely to support violence and have engaged in violence in the past.

This helps explain who is more likely to become a sovereign citizen, and it points to some links between sovereign citizen ideology and violence. But it doesn’t tell us why some sovereign citizens are more likely to be violent than others.

That question is likely to be answered in individual cases by the interplay of various risk factors for radicalisation. It is a question that researchers, police and intelligence agencies will continue to grapple with as sovereign citizen ideas pose ongoing threats to the community.

Keiran Hardy receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project on conspiracy-fuelled extremism.

Kristina Murphy receives funding from The Australian Research Council to study conspiracy-fuelled extremism.

Emma Shakespeare 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 police a target for sovereign citizen violence? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-police-a-target-for-sovereign-citizen-violence-264016

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Scales, PhD Candidate, School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education, Swinburne University of Technology

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have announced their engagement, posting on Instagram images of the proposal with the caption “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married”.

“America’s sweethearts”, the pair have been dating for two years. Now fans are saying this will be America’s version of the royal wedding.

Swift and Kelce’s post has already received over 24 million likes from the pair’s fans.

Swift’s love life has long been in the spotlight – both in her songs and in the news. So fans were perfectly primed for their outpouring of support and love.

But what is it about Swift – and her fans – that encourages such emotional reactions?

Understanding parasocial relationships

To understand the deep affection Swift’s fans have for her, it’s important to understand parasocial relationships.

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship we develop with someone, typically a media figure, where there is no reciprocity. Through the media and artistic output, we develop knowledge and feelings, and begin to encounter the relationship the same way as we would a “real world” or interpersonal relationship – but there is no mutual development.

Every time we see them in the news or on social media, or listen to their songs, that’s a parasocial interaction we have with them. Then those interactions build until we feel as though we know them like a friend, or perhaps they fill a role as a mentor, or a crush.

Parasocial relationships mimic our real world relationships.

Swift’s fans are very passionate and she expertly harnesses this fanbase.

Swift builds on these relationships

Swift’s first album was released in 2006, and over the ensuing 20 years, she has had many iterations, or eras. This has given fans many entry points into her life, and the opportunity to grow up with her and experience their different life stages with her and her music.

Many other musicians may have long periods of stepping away from the spotlight between albums, so their fans aren’t receiving necessary parasocial interactions to maintain their relationship and closeness.

But Swift has released 11 studio albums and four re-rerecorded albums since 2006, with her 12th to be released this October. She is also a common figure in the news because of her high-status relationships and friendships. This has allowed fans to constantly build and flourish their relationship and closeness with her.

Her marketing savvy, the easter eggs she drops leaving fans always speculating, and the interest and buzz she generates, creates a sense of community and belonging among fans which is global, universal and easily accessible online.

She has a strong perceived authenticity, where fans feel as though they truly know her, and they feel as though she cares about them individually. For non-fans, this may not make sense: she is an untouchable billionaire who has broken records for her crowd sizes. But this is one of the ways parasociality works: you feel as though the celebrity is your close friend and that they care for you.

Swift generates and feeds into these emotions. In hosting listening parties at her house or picking fans from the crowd to join her onstage, she creates the sense she is a genuine person – and keeps the illusion that, maybe one day, that could be you.

Crafting the celebrity image

Swift’s romantic relationships and close personal friendships are a key part of her celebrity image. Throughout her whole career these relationships have been reported on, drawing attention and interest.

Her fans see her relationships playing out in the news through various paparazzi images and articles. Then they hear about these relationships in her songs, as a major theme of her music is love and heartbreak. Because her music is so centred around love and heartbreak, it makes sense love has become a core part of her celebrity image.

Her relationship with Kelce is probably one of the most reported-on relationships she has had. She was with the actor Joe Alwyn for six years, but that was a much more private relationship.

For the past two years, Swift and Kelce have been in the limelight, and fans have felt a joy in seeing her in this relationship and getting to witness it.

Your English teacher is getting married

Swift clearly has an understanding of her fans and their parasocial relationships with her.

Fans have long called Swift their “English teacher” because her songwriting is so revered. Her fans see a lot of poetry in her music, and feel they have learnt a lot through this poetry.

In calling themselves “your English teacher and your gym teacher”, Swift and Kelce are placing themselves in the roles their fans have cast them as.

The pair know their fans have a closeness with the couple – and even though that isn’t reciprocated by Swift and Kelce, the pair are placing themselves in the position of role models.

Language like this closes the gap between celebrities and ordinary people. If you imagine your teachers getting married – someone you saw every day and you personally knew – that would be exciting. To word it in that way brings them down to a more personable level, drawing them, once again, closer to their fans.

Sarah Scales 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. Taylor Swift is engaged. She’s been getting her fans ready for this moment for 20 years – https://theconversation.com/taylor-swift-is-engaged-shes-been-getting-her-fans-ready-for-this-moment-for-20-years-264027

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

Australians have been shocked by the news two police officers were killed in rural Victoria when a 56-year-old man allegedly shot them before fleeing into the bush.

Another police officer was injured during the incident, which sparked fresh debate about Australia’s gun laws and who owns firearms.

It may come as a shock to learn there are more guns in Australia now than there were before the Port Arthur massacre in 1996.

That event led to sweeping changes to gun laws and significant restrictions on gun ownership.

It seems counter-intuitive that – against a background of measures that were meant to curb gun ownership and a landscape in which legislation has become consistently tighter – we now have more guns.

What do the stats say?

Although reliable pre-1996 statistics are not available, piecemeal data from that time suggests there were roughly three million firearms owned before the Port Arthur massacre.

That number now exceeds four million, according to estimates based on state and territory information.

And it is not just gun numbers on the rise but the number of people who are licensed to own them.

Again, pre-1996 figures are not available and not all states release historic or current information.

However, in New South Wales for instance, there were 180,663 licences in 2001, rising to just fewer than 260,000 in 2025.

In Queensland, there were around 150,000 licences in 2010, rising to more than 200,000 today.

Although gun ownership is more common in rural parts of the country, available statistics (patchy though they are) show most gun owners live in urban areas.

This mirrors the distribution of the Australian population in general: in other words, where there are more people, there are more guns.

Does this mean we are awash with firearm crime?

No. Although the number of gun licences and legally owned guns have been going up for decades, firearm misuse has been declining for even longer.

Firearm homicides, for example, started falling in the early 1980s, continued falling at the same rate after 1996, and remain stable and low.

Firearm suicides have followed a similar general pattern. Armed robbery with a firearm started falling in the early 1990s.

This suggests there is little relationship between levels of legal gun ownership in Australia and levels of firearm violence and misuse.

Who owns guns and why?

Legally, people can own firearms in Australia for “genuine reasons” including primary production, target shooting, hunting and collecting.

Some gun clubs, and a small amount of research, suggests women and youth are growing demographics in what is traditionally a white, older, male-dominated activity.

However, this is another area where reliable information is scarce.

The increase in guns and gun licenses in Australia is, in part, an unsurprising outcome of our growing population. Our 1996 population was around 18 million. Today it exceeds 27 million (a growth that exceeds the increase in the number of guns owned).

Again, though, statistics tell only part of the story. There are many unexplored nuances. For instance, anecdotal evidence – which is sometimes all we have to work with – suggests multiculturalism has played a role.

Some gun owners report they own guns because they were not permitted to do so in the authoritarian regime they migrated from. Others, although Australian born, say they come from culturally diverse backgrounds where hunting is a tradition that they take up to keep the practice alive for their children.

These stories hint that Australian gun ownership is being driven by a wide range of different influences – many of which remain largely invisible.

There is little Australian research into what motivates gun ownership.

Research from the United States, with its very different approach to firearms, may not apply here (for example, owning guns for self protection is explicitly prohibited in Australia but common in the US).

However, work from New Zealand indicates there are many reasons why people own guns, including learning or mastering new skills, participating in conservation activities, making social connections, historical interest and enjoyment of competitive sport.

Read more:
Weapons and violence: how does Australia stack up against other similar countries?

Social and economic circumstances are likely to influence gun ownership.

For example, the sight of empty supermarket shelves during COVID and the realisation we cannot always rely on supply chains for fresh meat seems to have prompted an increase in hunting.

In a disrupted and uncertain world, where cost of living is a concern for so many, it is unsurprising that various forms of self-sufficiency – whether that is bread making, growing vegetables, fishing or hunting – are attracting interest.

The law of unintended consequences?

Alongside all these plausible explanations for rising gun ownership, there remains one thing that is not said: the approach Australia has long taken to “de-normalising” firearm ownership, is itself likely to have fuelled the rise in guns.

As any parent will know, the more you tell someone that they should not do or have something, the more enticing that thing becomes and the more determined they are to do or have it.

After 1996, then-Prime Minister John Howard stated he hated guns and did not think people should have them.

Ironically, it may well be Howard’s hardline stance, and its continuing influence, that has sparked decades of growth in Australian gun ownership.

Samara McPhedran has received funding from various Australian and international government grant programs, including the Australian Research Council and Criminology Research Council, for a number of projects relating to violence. She has been appointed to various advisory panels and committees, including as a member of the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Panel on Weapons. She does not receive any financial remuneration or other reward for these activities. She has previously volunteered with women’s advocacy and victims of crime support groups. She is also the Executive Director (Analysis, Policy and Strategy) of the Violence Prevention Institute Australia. She is not a member of any gun club or shooting organisation. She is not a member of any political party. The views expressed are those of the author alone.

– ref. What’s behind the rise in gun ownership in Australia? – https://theconversation.com/whats-behind-the-rise-in-gun-ownership-in-australia-263810

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

The Queensland government will this week table legislation creating Australia’s first public child sex offender register.

The Queensland legislation, to be known as Daniel’s Law, was named in honour of Sunshine Coast teenager Daniel Morcombe, who was abducted and murdered by a sex offender more than two decades ago.

But will this new legislation actually work to make children (and the public) safer? Will it act as a deterrent for those contemplating offending or re-offending?

How will the Queensland laws work?

First, let’s look at the Queensland proposal.

Queenslanders will be able to access a searchable database where images and details (names and ages) of offenders who have failed to comply with their reporting obligations (and whose whereabouts are unknown) will be available.

The government assures Queenslanders that safeguards will be put in place to prevent the misuse of information, including protections against vigilantism.

It’s understandable there might be public pressure to establish such a public database. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse highlighted the tragic impact child sexual assault has on victims. Governments should be seeking to pursue policies that best prevent sex offending and curtail repeat offending.

Versions of this approach exist in other jurisdictions. There’s a Community Protection Disclosure Scheme in Western Australia, where parents and guardians can make limited enquiries through the police. But there is no public database.

And all states and territories have non-public registries where convicted sex offenders are monitored by law enforcement agencies.

What does the research tell us?

There’s a lot of evidence about the effectiveness of registration and notification schemes from reviews conducted over the last 15 years, especially in the United States.

This evidence shows all forms of registries are highly unlikely to fulfil the outcomes sought by Daniel’s Law. Here are five reasons why.

Reason 1: lack of deterrence

There is clear evidence the introduction of a registration scheme makes no difference to rates of sexual offending.

Research conducted in the US shows most sex offences are committed by those who have not previously been convicted of a sex offence.

And when perpetrators are caught, research studies consistently report the likelihood of reoffending is very low.

The Sex Offenders Registration scheme operated by Victoria Police (which isn’t public) was reviewed in 2011 by the Victorian Law Reform Commission. The commissioners offered the following on the subject of deterrence:

the Sex Offenders Registration Act is based on the assumption that sex offenders are less likely to re-offend if they are required to comply with reporting obligations under a registration scheme. However, the existing limited research data is equivocal as to whether registration is an effective means of reducing re-offending.

Seven years later, researchers at the Australian Institute of Criminology came to a similar conclusion. They reported that while public sex offender registries may have a small general deterrent effect on first-time offenders, they do not reduce re-offending.

Reason 2: false assumptions

Most sex offenders are known to their victims before the offence. Typically they are family members or acquaintances.

That being the case, registration logically adds little to the ability of society to identify who is a risk to the general community.

And because registration laws are then based on these false assumptions regarding offenders and offences, police attention could be wrongly diverted away from likely perpetrators, and towards those less likely to pose a danger.

Reason 3: abandoning rehabilitation

Any registration and notification scheme, especially targeting juvenile offenders, can have a negative impact on the ability of people to turn their lives around and become productive members of society.

Perpetrators are unlikely to ever fit back into public life if they have been the targets of harassment, victimisation, exclusion and eviction.

These counterproductive exercises in shaming specific people can extend to their family members as well.

In this way, a cornerstone of sentencing – the one that focuses on redemption – will be largely abandoned.

Reason 4: unintended consequences

It’s possible those not intended for such a register, such as young people caught sexting, will be drawn into the registration web once convicted.

Spare a thought, too, for people with very common names, where the chance of mistaken identity is heightened.

Finally, the potential for vigilantism should not go unnoticed.

The Queensland government has identified this risk, proposing lengthy jail terms for people who misuse information from the registry.

But vigilantes are not known for checking on the accuracy of their information before deploying their highly questionable and usually illegal tactics.

Reason 5: wrongheaded resourcing

Finally, any law that implements ineffective solutions to serious problems distracts policymakers from searching for more effective ways to reduce victimisation.

A public sex offender registration and notification strategy requires substantial resources. Every dollar spent on an ineffective registration scheme is a dollar that cannot be spent on the intensive supervision of those who are most likely to offend or to re-offend.

Where to from here?

If this legislation passes, police must retain a discretionary power to decide which individuals are placed on the registry.

For example, people who are particularly compliant, cooperative with counsellors and considered to have a low risk of re-offending should be exempt.

So should those whose names will allow innocent family members to be easily identified. Indeed, that could apply to the majority of offenders.

All things considered, while sexual offending is a matter of significant community concern, and governments must do all in their power to lessen its incidence and impact, this policy is unlikely to be effective.

In this case, it appears political pragmatism has prevailed over evidence-based policy imperatives.

Rick Sarre 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. Queensland is creating a public child sex offender register. Will it keep people safer? – https://theconversation.com/queensland-is-creating-a-public-child-sex-offender-register-will-it-keep-people-safer-263807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marta Khomyn, Lecturer, Finance and Data Analytics, University of Adelaide

We may already live in the post-truth world, but are we about to enter the era of post-truth statistics?

Each month, the US employment report is one of the most closely watched releases on the health of the world’s largest economy. Financial markets can move sharply depending on the strength of the numbers.

This month, the jobs report was weak. Hours later, US President Donald Trump called the numbers “phony” and fired the head of the agency, Erika McEntarfer.

It was an unprecedented attack on the government’s impartial statistics body, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is the agency responsible for tracking jobs, wages and inflation – key numbers that tell us how the economy is really doing.

Trump followed that up this week with a further attack on the nation’s economic institutions. He claimed in a social post he had fired one of the governors of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve. The governor, Lisa Cook, said he had no authority to do so.

With Donald Trump’s war on numbers and long-standing institutions, can we even trust US economic data anymore?

Some players in financial markets are already looking at alternative sources of data to get a real-time read on the health of the economy – such as satellite images of the shadows cast by oil tankers.

Chipping away at independence

On the surface, replacing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) with a Trump loyalist might not sound like a big deal. But a BLS commissioner cannot single-handedly falsify the data. The agency is large, full of professional staff, and its data is processed through established systems and checks.

However, the issue goes far beyond firing one official. The Trump administration has taken a series of steps that chip away at the quality and independence of America’s economic data.

After firing McEntarfer, Trump then appointed a loyalist who floated the idea of not releasing the jobs data at all.

The employment report is one of the most closely watched indicators of the US economy, showing how many jobs are being created or lost each month. Without it, millions of Americans would lose a vital tool for understanding whether the economy is growing, slowing, or heading into trouble.

Data is disappearing – literally

Hundreds of US datasets and more than 8,000 government webpages have vanished because the staff maintaining them were fired. These datasets, which taxpayers funded and researchers rely on, are now endangered. In fact, academics have launched the Data Rescue Project to preserve and share this data publicly when the government stops doing so.

Critical economic statistics agencies — the Bureau of Labor Statistics is just one of several — have cut staff. This shrinkage makes their data less precise, because fewer staff means fewer surveys, slower updates, and more reliance on estimates.

But here’s the irony: now the administration is attacking and even firing officials on the grounds that the data is unreliable, when that unreliability is the direct result of their own budget cuts. It’s a political catch-22: gut the agency, then blame it for the very decline in quality that underfunding caused.

The Fed relies on this report to set interest rates

Data is a public good, which means many benefit from it, yet data users are often unable or unwilling to pay for it. This is why data on labour market, inflation or economic growth (gross domestic product) is collected and published by the government, and paid for with taxpayers’ money.

Good quality data enables good policy decisions. For example, the BLS jobs report and inflation numbers are studied carefully by the Federal Reserve to set US interest rates.

The consumer price index (CPI) – a widely watched inflation index – is a benchmark for the US central bank’s mandate to keep inflation at its 2% target. So the quality of the CPI sets the floor for the quality of interest rate decisions.

Financial markets, too, watch government data closely. Both US stock and bond markets, worth trillions of dollars, move sharply on jobs and inflation releases.

Some traders are sourcing their own data

Sophisticated institutional traders such as hedge funds have long profited from having access to higher-quality data.

For example, some hedge funds use satellite images of Walmart parking lots to count the number of cars, which helps predict quarterly sales. This allows them to make money from the insights before Walmart’s sales data becomes public.

Can these alternative data sources also help assess the strength of parts of the economy? A recent academic paper investigates whether private satellite data can be a substitute for official data.

Focusing on two specific measures – US crude oil price, and Chinese manufacturing – the paper finds satellite data is so commonly used by traders that markets no longer react to government data releases, such as weekly surveys of crude oil inventories.

However, there are two caveats. First, not every type of macroeconomic data underpins trillion dollar markets like crude oil, making it profitable for traders to analyse the geometry of shadows cast by floating roofs of oil tankers, estimating quantities of oil stored in these tanks.

Second, this data is only available to a few deep-pocketed investors prepared to pay for it. For most market participants, purchasing satellite-imagery data from companies like Privateer or RS Metrics is prohibitively expensive. This creates inequities in data access and undermines market fairness.

The technological advancements in AI and commercialisation of space make satellite data ubiquitous. But this data is still years away from replacing hand-collected inflation numbers or labour market surveys, which generate public statistics for everyone, not just for those who are prepared to pay.

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

– ref. In a post-truth world, what happens if we can’t trust US economic data any more? – https://theconversation.com/in-a-post-truth-world-what-happens-if-we-cant-trust-us-economic-data-any-more-263338

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Trembath, Head of Autism Research and Senior Principal Research Fellow, The Kids Research Institute Australia

Autistic children with mild to moderate developmental delay will no longer be eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) from mid-2027.

Instead, they will be directed to a new support system called Thriving Kids. This is yet to be fully designed, but it’s intended to prioritise children receiving support through mainstream community-based services.

Understandably, some parents and professionals are concerned, and many are asking whether the new program can match the support currently provided through the NDIS.

While time will reveal the impact of the policy, the more urgent task now is to define and deliver what best practice looks like for autistic children.

Read more:
‘Thriving Kids’ could help secure the future of the NDIS. But what will the program mean for children and families?

Start with terminology

With the announcement came some confusion about autism and developmental delay.

Disability and NDIS Minister Mark Butler referred to children with “mild to moderate autism” which is not actually a diagnosis, or a way we talk about autism in contemporary practice.

A clearer way would have been to refer to children with developmental delay as the target group for Thriving Kids, noting it will include many, but not all, autistic children.

The wording is important because, from a clinical perspective, autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that influences the way a person understands and interacts with other people and the world around them. Children don’t “grow out of autism”, but needs can fluctuate over time.

Developmental delay is a term used when a child is behind their peers in one or more aspects of development, such as motor skills, communication, or cognition.

Many autistic children have a developmental delay, but not all.

A three-year-old autistic child may have a mild developmental delay in motor skills that impacts their ability to climb at the playground. A five-year-old autistic child may have a moderate delay in language, which impacts their ability to understand and follow instructions in the classroom. But another autistic child may be at, or above, the age expected level for their developmental milestones.

Around 25% of autistic children have profound disability, meaning they require 24/7 supervision and support to be safe.

By seeing autism and developmental delay as separate, but related, we are better able to understand and meet the different needs of children “across the spectrum”.

So what does best practice look like for autistic children with mild to moderate developmental delay?

Best practice for autistic children

Australia’s national guideline sets out recommendations for supporting the learning, participation and wellbeing of autistic children and their families.

The guideline puts forward a principles-based approach that places children and families at the centre, and includes recommendations for goal-setting, selecting and delivering supports, monitoring outcomes and safeguarding.

The goals for supporting autistic children are no different from those for all children. They need love, opportunities to learn through everyday activities, and strong connections with family, culture and community.

The difference comes when children are struggling, and the question shifts to what additional supports will help. Keeping this broader understanding front of mind makes every other decision about extra support clearer and more consistent.

A stepped care approach

The guideline states support should be personalised for each child and family. There is no blanket approach to supporting autistic children that will be equally beneficial for each child and family.

At a system level, it means a stepped-care model of support in which the right type of support is delivered at the right time and in the right amount to match the child’s age, developmental level, strengths, needs and family circumstances. This is best practice internationally and something we should strive for.

Let’s say a parent takes their child to a routine visit with a maternal child health nurse or GP, and there are signs of developmental delay. Perhaps the child is behind in terms of motor skills and communication.

In a stepped-care model, the nurse or doctor can listen, ask questions, and understand any concerns the parents may have. If some additional support is needed, the “next step” depends on exactly what was learned.

For one parent, the “next step” might be some information and strategies to encourage their child’s development, for another it might be connection to a community playgroup, and for another a referral for some further assessment.

If difficulties emerge in childcare or school settings, the most effective approach is usually to strengthen the capability of educators to include and support children.

There may also be scope for targeted specialist input, such as speech pathology, physiotherapy, or psychology, when needed.

Read more:
What is psychosocial therapy? And why is the government thinking about adding it to Medicare for kids?

The point is that the “steps” match the needs, and will be different for each child and family.

As professionals, we can support parents to make decisions by encouraging them to ask: “is this the best next step for my child and family?” This approach helps prevent the over-servicing that can happen when families are directed straight to the highest level of support.

What should happen next?

The new Thriving Kids program represents a genuine opportunity to transform how Australia supports children with mild to moderate developmental delays, including many autistic children.

Done well, it could become the stepped-care model of support that families desperately need. Get it wrong, and it becomes another well-intentioned policy that fails the children it’s meant to help.

Stepped-care models require deliberate design, sustained investment and careful attention to implementation details.

The key to getting this right lies in genuine co-design with the people who matter most: children and families themselves. They understand what works and what doesn’t, and where the gaps are.

David Trembath is employed by The Kids Research Institute Australia, which holds the copyright for the Inklings Program, which may be relevant to the Thriving Kids support system discussed in this article. At The Kids Research Institute Australia, David is Head of Autism Research and Senior Principal Research Fellow within CliniKids, which provides clinical services and training in the community. Some families accessing the services pay for these through NDIS plans. David holds an adjunct title with Griffith University and is a member of the Autism Awareness Australia Scientific Advisory Committee. David’s employment and research is supported by grants which currently include the Stan Perrron Charitable Foundation, Channel 7 Telethon Trust, the Medical Research Future Fund, Liberator Australia (in development), and Autism CRC. David’s research is focused on improving services and supports for children with autism and developmental delay, including the development of services and supports that may be relevant to development and roll out of the Thriving Kids program discussed in this article.

Andrew Whitehouse is employed by the The Kids Research Institute Australia, which holds the copyright for the Inklings Program, which may be relevant to the Thriving Kids support system discussed in this article. At The Kids Research Institute Australia, Andrew is the Director of CliniKids, which provides clinical services and training in the community. Some families accessing the services pay for these through NDIS plans. Andrew receives funding from NHMRC, Angela Wright Bennett Foundation, Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, and the Channel 7 Telethon Trust. Andrew is a member of the Boards of Autism Autism Australia, The National School Resourcing Board, and Ocean Heroes.

Kandice Varcin is employed by The Kids Research Institute Australia, which holds the copyright for the Inklings Program, which may be relevant to the Thriving Kids support system discussed in this article. At The Kids Research Institute Australia, Kandice is a Senior Research Fellow with CliniKids, which provides clinical services and training in the community. Some families accessing the services pay for these through NDIS plans. Kandice also holds an adjunct title at Griffith University. Kandice is a member of the Autism Awareness Australia Scientific Advisory Committee. Kandice’s employment and research is supported by grants which currently include the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation, Channel 7 Telethon Trust, The Minderoo Foundation and The Ian Potter Foundation. Kandice’s research is focused on improving services and supports for children in early childhood, including the development of services and supports – such as the Inklings program – that may be relevant to the development and roll out of the Thriving Kids program discussed in this article.

– ref. What’s the best way to support autistic kids with mild to moderate delay? – https://theconversation.com/whats-the-best-way-to-support-autistic-kids-with-mild-to-moderate-delay-263622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Fanslow, Professor in Violence Prevention and Mental Health Promotion, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

More than 60% of women in New Zealand have experienced some form of interpersonal violence – an alarming statistic with serious implications for public health.

Interpersonal violence broadly refers to violence between people and includes family or partner violence and community violence (violence among individuals who are not related by family ties but who may know each other).

Our new research finds women who have experienced such violence or abuse are 1.6 times more likely to be hospitalised with cancer. They were nearly three times as likely to be hospitalised for respiratory diseases.

Drawing on a population-based survey of 3,000 men and women, we asked participants about their experiences of various forms of violence, both from partners and non-partners (such as parents, acquaintances or strangers).

Among the 62% of women who reported experiencing some form of violence, 21% said they had faced childhood sexual abuse, 9.2% reported sexual violence by non-partners, and 21% had experienced multiple forms of intimate partner violence, including psychological and economic abuse.

Of the men surveyed, 68.4% reported some experience of interpersonal violence, with the majority (43%) involving physical violence by non-partners – mainly other men.

We then analysed 31 years of hospitalisation data from New Zealand’s National Minimum Dataset. This enabled us to compare the volume and type of hospital admissions for individuals who had reported different forms of violence with those who had not.

Our research not only paints a stark picture of the prevalence of interpersonal violence in New Zealand, but also reveals its clear links to poor health outcomes and added strain on the health system.

Higher rates of hospitalisation

Women who reported experiences of violence were more likely to have been admitted to hospital for multiple health issues.

Between 1988 and 2019, women who had experienced interpersonal violence were almost twice as likely to be hospitalised for pregnancy complications. They were also 1.6 times more likely to be hospitalised for digestive disorders, and 1.5 times more likely to be admitted for injuries – not necessarily as a direct result of violence.

Men who reported experiencing violence were 1.9 times more likely to be hospitalised for injuries. Those who had experienced childhood sexual trauma (7.5% of male participants) were seven times more likely to be hospitalised for nervous system disorders, compared with men who had not experienced such abuse.

While our research establishes strong correlations between interpersonal violence and adverse health outcomes, other researchers have explored why this link exists.

Some point to the effects of “toxic stress”. This is a condition triggered by repeated exposure to fear in situations where fight or flight are not viable options. This stress elevates levels of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, both of which can have damaging effects on physical health.

Victims of violence may also attempt to self-medicate through smoking, alcohol or disordered eating. These coping strategies offer temporary relief but carry long-term health risks. Stress-related mental health conditions, such as depression, can suppress the immune system, further increasing vulnerability to illness.

In our health system, behaviours such as smoking or alcohol use are often seen as the root causes of illness, and they certainly play a role. But our research suggests that understanding the trauma behind those behaviours is essential to improving outcomes.

Treating violence as a health issue

One major barrier to addressing interpersonal violence is that it is often framed as a social issue. This can make it difficult for policymakers to prioritise funding in a health system already under strain.

Yet our findings show clearly that interpersonal violence is also a health issue with measurable consequences and costs.

Medical and health education tends to treat violence and trauma as peripheral concerns, with training often added after the fact. There is a pressing need for better understanding among healthcare professionals of the prevalence of trauma and its effects on the body.

Specialist family and sexual violence services must also be adequately funded so that doctors and other health care providers have appropriate referral pathways. And national leadership is needed to affirm that this issue matters.

In a country grappling with the cost of health care, recognising and addressing the trauma behind illness is vital. Supporting healthy relationships and investing in violence prevention will not only keep people safer and healthier – but will ultimately save money.

Janet Fanslow has authored the Ministry of Health Family Violence Assessment and Intervention Guideline for Child Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence, and the Ministry of Health Intervention Guideline for Elder Abuse and Neglect. The research described in this article was funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

– ref. Interpersonal violence in NZ is a public health crisis, not just a social one – new research – https://theconversation.com/interpersonal-violence-in-nz-is-a-public-health-crisis-not-just-a-social-one-new-research-263902

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Thorp, Professor of Finance, University of Sydney

While discussion was focused on the federal government’s economic reform roundtable last week, a significant change that will mainly affect age pensioners flew under the radar.

For the first time in five years, the government will adjust the rates it assumes pensioners earn from their savings and investments, which for many will mean a change their social security payments.

The rates have been fixed since May 2020, when they were reduced in line with the record low interest rates set during the COVID pandemic.

Although official interest rates were increased 13 times since 2022 – which lifted the interest rates that pensioners could actually achieve on term deposits as high as 4% or 5% – pensioners were assumed or “deemed” to be only earning 0.25% interest on savings below a threshold (currently $64,200 for single pensioners), or 2.25% interest above that threshold.

For the government, the one-size-fits-all “deeming rates” simplify the way it calculates pensions and other income support payments. The rates also simplify reporting for pensioners who do not need to declare the actual income earned on their investments.

So, what’s changing?

Low deeming rates were worth $1.8 billion

Since 2020, the widening gap between the actual income many pensioners earn on their savings and the income the government assumed them to have earned is estimated to have been worth A$1.8 billion to social security recipients.

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said maintaining the gap at “artificially low” levels had shielded people on income support from high inflation during the post-COVID recovery.

The increases means the gap will narrow, raising deemed incomes, reducing some pensioners’ payments, and likewise reducing government spending on social security.

From September 20, a deeming rate of 0.75% will apply to financial assets under $64,200 for singles and $106,200 for couples. That’s up from 0.25% currently.

Assets over this amount will be deemed at a rate of 2.75%. That’s up from 2.25% currently.

Support is targeted

Australia targets income support to needier households so that payments are designed to fall as household incomes and wealth (assets) rise.

Targeting is done through “means tests”. There are two types of means tests: income tests and assets tests. The government uses deeming rates to calculate the assumed income that pensioners earn, which affects income tests.

Some pensioners, including age pensioners, hold large pots of savings as bank accounts, term deposits, retirement income products and investment funds. These savings earn interest, make capital gains (for example, as share prices rise), and pay dividends. In other words, they earn income.

How will the change work in practice?

What difference will this make to age pension payments, for example?

Around 64% of Australians over age 64 – around 4.5 million people – receive an age pension. Of those, around 25% are impacted by the income test that the deeming rates factor into.

Right now, a single, home-owning age pensioner can earn up to $218 of income each fortnight and still be eligible to receive the full pension ($1,149 including supplements).

At the current low deeming rates, this mean the pensioner can have around $285,000 of savings and investments (not including the family home) on the full pension.

If the pensioner’s savings and investments rise by $10,000, deemed income also rises and their fortnightly pension goes down by almost $5. (The assets means test starts to apply above $321,500.)

From September 20, both the income limits and deeming rules are changing.

The savings and investments that a single pensioner can hold and still get the full pension under the income means test will be lower, because the rules will treat them as earning more income.

In addition, the reductions in the pension as financial assets rise will be a bit larger. For every $10,000 in savings and investments above $210,000, the pension will be lowered by $7, since those extra savings will be deemed to earn more than under the pre-announcement rules.

To put the pension reductions into perspective, we can compare the deemed rates of interest with interest that people could actually have earned on their savings since mid-2022. The graph shows the difference between actual and deemed rates on regular bank accounts.

It’s also worth noting that many pensioners hold their financial assets in account-based pension products that earn higher rates of return than term deposits, and are tax-free to retirees over 60. Some of these superannuation retirement products have earned rates over 8% per year over the past 10 years.

The social services minister said adjustments to deeming rates are needed to ensure that the social security system is “grounded in fairness”.

From now on, the deeming rates will be set by the Australian Government Actuary – an independent advisor to the federal government – although the government retains the right to adjust deeming rates in “exceptional circumstances”.

Susan Thorp receives and has received research funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the TIAA Institute (USA), IFM, and from UniSuper and Cbus Superannuation funds via ARC Linkage Grants. She is a member of the ARC College of Experts, the Steering Committee of the Mercer CFA Global Pensions Index, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) Consultative Committee, the UniSuper Consultative Committee, the Board of New College (UNSW) and the Research Committee of Super Consumers Australia. She periodically receives payment for presentations to financial services firms including banks and superannuation funds.

– ref. A key measure used to calculate age pension payments is changing. How will this affect your benefits? – https://theconversation.com/a-key-measure-used-to-calculate-age-pension-payments-is-changing-how-will-this-affect-your-benefits-263542