Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Liu, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

New Zealand has been experiencing a striking rise in company failures, focusing attention on the role of directors when facing financial trouble.

Corporate insolvencies have now reached their highest levels in 15 years, with thousands of firms entering liquidation or other formal processes in 2025.

This surge has coincided with a new Law Commission review of directors’ duties – the first comprehensive assessment since the Companies Act was passed three decades ago.

The review, due to report in 2027, will examine the core duties imposed on directors, their liability for breaches and the wider set of laws that place personal obligations on them.

At a time when a concerningly large number of companies are collapsing, two key provisions in the act should take on particular significance to the review: sections 135 and 136.

Together, they set the rules for how directors must act when a company is nearing insolvency.

When protection becomes constraint

Insolvency basically means a business can’t pay debts when they’re due, or that total debt is more than the value of all its assets. When a company is close to this point, directors may be tempted to “gamble for resurrection”.

By that stage, shareholder equity is often exhausted, meaning further risk-taking is effectively funded by creditors’ money. It is here where the two provisions, known as the insolvent trading duties, are designed to tackle the same problem in different ways.

Section 135 of the Companies Act effectively blocks directors from allowing a company to trade in a way that creates a substantial risk of serious loss to creditors. Section 136 requires directors to ensure the company can meet new obligations when they fall due.

In effect, they both stop downside risk from being shifted onto suppliers, employees and Inland Revenue once insolvency looms.

But the law is not without flaws.

Section 135 has long been criticised for its vague, open-textured language. Expressions such as “substantial risk” and “serious loss”, for instance, offer little practical guidance to directors when making business decisions.

Unlike judges, directors must make decisions in real time, often under severe financial pressure, yet their actions are judged later in court.

In such strained circumstances, the section’s lack of clarity risks pushing directors toward overly cautious decisions – or deterring them from taking risks that could help the company recover.

Another concern is that the section may even discourage sensible risk-taking in some situations.

This issue was highlighted in the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision on the high-profile case of Debut Homes Ltd v Cooper. The court noted how directors could breach the section by continuing to trade, even where it was a sensible business decision and could improve returns for some creditors.

This makes the current rules difficult to justify. If liability depends mainly on the presence of risk rather than likely outcomes, directors may favour immediate liquidation over strategies that could improve returns for creditors.

In the long run, this could lead to viable firms being liquidated too early and economic value being lost.

How NZ’s laws differ

Other jurisdictions take a more flexible approach.

In Australia, the law focuses on directors incurring new debts while insolvent rather than prohibiting continued trading altogether.

A statutory “safe harbour” also protects directors who pursue a restructuring plan reasonably likely to produce a better outcome than immediate administration or liquidation, provided certain conditions are met.

In the United Kingdom, directors become liable only once they knew or ought to have known there was no reasonable prospect of avoiding insolvent liquidation. From that point, they must take every step to minimise losses to creditors.

The United States is more permissive still. There is no general statutory duty requiring directors to cease trading upon insolvency, and courts apply a strong business judgement rule that protects directors acting in good faith, on an informed basis and without conflicts of interest.

In New Zealand, the argument for reform is not about weakening creditor protection, but that the current law may discourage legitimate rescue attempts in borderline cases. Concerns about legal risk may also deter capable individuals from accepting board roles.

The Law Commission’s review of directors’ duties offers a timely opportunity to reconsider the balance the law strikes between creditor protection and sensible risk-taking.

New Zealand could consider repealing section 135 and relying on other provisions to address irresponsible conduct. It could also introduce a statutory safe harbour modelled on Australia’s approach.

Alternatively, it could make clear that liability should arise only where creditors as a whole are likely to be worse off than under immediate liquidation, based on the information reasonably available at the time.

Whatever the review finds, it is clear the current law deserves a closer look.

– ref. Insolvencies have spiked – would a law change let more businesses trade their way out of trouble? – https://theconversation.com/insolvencies-have-spiked-would-a-law-change-let-more-businesses-trade-their-way-out-of-trouble-275220

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Calabrese, Assistant Professor, School of Public Affairs and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute, American University

With the Iranian regime weakened by relentless American and Israeli missiles, Washington is eyeing a familiar U.S. ally in the Middle East to help push the Islamic Republic over the edge: the Kurds.

Making up between 8% to 17% of the country’s total population, Iran’s Kurdish minority has long been persecuted under the Islamic Republic.

And since the war in Iran began on Feb. 28, 2026, reports have circulated suggesting that the CIA is actively working to arm Kurdish opposition forces with the aim of encouraging a popular uprising inside Iran.

Trump administration officials have held discussions with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq and northwestern Iran, testing the possibility of using opposition forces to help topple whatever remains of the regime. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump personally called two of Iraqi Kurdistan’s top leaders – Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani – the day after the bombing campaign began.

All this comes amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been lobbying for a U.S.-Kurdish cooperation for months, and that Israel has long-established intelligence networks among Kurdish groups in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

The appeal of this approach, in this moment, is obvious: The Kurds have long-standing grievances against Iran’s clerical leaders, having suffered at their hands for 47 years. Many Kurds would welcome the Islamic Republic’s ouster. But as a close observer on Middle East dynamics, I believe that pursuing such an approach would be deeply reckless.

The logic and its appeal

The Kurds – roughly 30 million to 40 million people across Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran – are the world’s largest stateless ethnic group. Promised a state in the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, that prospect vanished with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. Although united by shared heritage and related languages, Kurdish communities have developed distinct political cultures and leaderships, making them less a single movement than a collection of related groups.

Iran’s Kurdish minority, concentrated in the northwest, has long been at the forefront of opposition to the Islamic Republic.

Since the republic’s founding in 1979, Iran’s Kurds have faced persistent repression. The regime swiftly crushed an early Kurdish autonomy movement, executing its leaders and attacking Kurdish towns. In the decades since, Kurdish parties have been banned, cultural expression restricted, and activists publicly executed.

Kurdish towns were among the most fervent sites of protests in 2022 following the death in custody of a Kurdish-Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini. PJAK — the Kurdistan Free Life Party ideologically affiliated with the Turkish-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — has conducted intermittent armed campaigns against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for two decades.

In the current conflict, the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s primary armed service, has already begun striking Kurdish positions, hitting them with dozens of drones. The strikes reflect Tehran’s long-standing posture: Any external pressure on the regime is treated as an opportunity for Kurdish groups to advance their own political aims, resulting in moves to neutralize that threat preemptively.

Several Kurdish groups have released public statements hinting at imminent action and urging Iranian military forces to defect.

All of which has seemingly convinced war strategists in Washington that from a purely tactical standpoint, the calculus is favorable: low American footprint and maximum disruption per dollar spent.

This is, of course, exactly the logic that drove the CIA’s support for the Mujahideen Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and the arming of Syrian rebel factions – both of which produced consequences their architects failed to foresee.

Weaponizing the Kurdish question

One of the fundamental considerations is the ethics of such a move. Using Kurdish political aspirations as a battering ram against Tehran – without any genuine commitment to Kurdish statehood or autonomy – would, in my opinion, constitute a betrayal.

And the Kurds have a long and painful history when it comes to betrayal. The United States abandoned the Iraqi Kurds after the 1975 Algiers Accord between the Shah of Iran and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with almost no warning. The accord ended Iranian support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels, whom the U.S. and Israel had been covertly backing to weaken Baghdad. When Tehran and Baghdad reached their deal, support was cut off overnight. Barzani’s movement collapsed within weeks, and Iraqi forces launched reprisals that displaced hundreds of thousands of Kurdish civilians.

Then-U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s famous remark – that “covert action should not be confused with missionary work” – captured Washington’s approach perfectly.

The Kurds remember this betrayal. One senior Kurdistan Regional Government official recently told CNN: “There is no doubt that the Kurdish people overwhelmingly oppose the regime of the Islamic Republic. Yet they also fear being abandoned once again.”

Pushback from allies?

The quandary that Washington faces is that any half-measures to support the Kurds would render the community in Iran vulnerable to renewed repression should the regime survive – as many observers expect. Yet stronger backing would likely face resistance from key U.S. allies in the region.

Serious arming of the Kurds in the region would inflame Turkey, in particular. Ankara considers the PKK and its affiliates — including PJAK — existential terrorist threats and has carried out repeated cross-border military operations in Iraq and Syria to suppress them. Arming PJAK would place Washington in the position of simultaneously asking Turkey, a NATO ally, to accept a strengthened PKK-linked movement on its southeastern flank.

And these tensions come at a delicate moment. After decades of insurgency, Turkey and the PKK made significant moves toward a ceasefire in 2025. Ankara would see any U.S. support for PKK-linked groups as undermining those efforts. Washington faced a similar dilemma in Syria, arming the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) against Islamic State group fighters while reassuring Turkey it was temporary – a strategy that left lasting mistrust.

A repeat in Iran could push Turkey’s patience beyond its limits.

The Kurds are not the only ethnic minority preparing for confrontation. Militant groups represneting the ethnic minority Baluchs have formed their own coalition. While there is no indication of U.S. support, a Baluch insurgency would further strain Pakistan, which is already grappling with its own Baluch unrest, conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan and heightened tensions with India. U.S. policy also has regional repercussions in Iraq, where Iran has launched drone and missile strikes in mountainous areas of Iraqi Kurdistan – likely to preempt cross-border activity.

Escalation without off-ramps

Ethical and regional questions aside, there is some doubt over how successful a strategy of arming the Kurds would be.

U.S. intelligence assessments have consistently found that Iranian Kurdish groups do not currently have the influence or resources to sustain a successful uprising.

Kurdish opposition parties both in Iran and across the region are fractured, with differing ideologies and competing agendas. Although five Iranian Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan formed a coalition days before the conflict to challenge the clerical regime, it is unclear whether they will stay united or revert to narrower separatist aims.

Some Trump officials involved in the discussions have privately raised doubts about whether the groups’ motivations align with American objectives. As one administration official told CNN: “You have a group of people who are thinking about their own interests.”

The humanitarian calculus

A Kurdish insurgency, however well intentioned, would be fought predominantly in civilian terrain. Iran’s Kurdish provinces – Kermanshah, Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan – are home to millions of people who have already paid an enormous price for their proximity to conflict.

And the Iranian regime’s response to insurgent activity has historically been indiscriminate: collective punishment, executions, the shelling of border villages.

Arming Kurdish groups risks intensified repression against exactly the population whose democratic aspirations Washington claims to support.

The regime in Tehran is under the most severe strain it has ever faced, and that strain may yet produce transformation.

But transformation imposed at gunpoint, through a proxy force assembled in days without a clear political strategy and without a plan for the morning after, is not liberation.

Rather, it recalls the same catastrophic improvisation that critics say has defined U.S. intervention in the Middle East for half a century. And for Iran’s Kurds, it could represent a new cycle of betrayal.

– ref. Arming a Kurdish insurgency would be a risky endeavor – for both the US and Iran’s minority Kurds – https://theconversation.com/arming-a-kurdish-insurgency-would-be-a-risky-endeavor-for-both-the-us-and-irans-minority-kurds-277779

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Polina Zelmanova, PhD Candidate in Film and Television Studies, University of Warwick

Frankenstein’s female creature, also known as “the Bride”, was the first female monster to appear on screen, in the 1935 Frankenstein sequel: The Bride of Frankenstein. An unruly and rebellious figure, she has inspired dozens of adaptations since.

Most recently, the Bride, as a dramatic character, has been part of a series of creative reimaginings through an explicitly feminist lens. For instance, the dark coming of age comedy, Lisa Frankenstein (2024). It imagined the Bride (Kathryn Newton) in the role of the scientist, who accidentally brings to life a young Victorian man (Cole Sprouse).

Released just a year earlier, Poor Things (2023) brought an even more complex exploration of power, agency and consent, set in a retro-futuristic Victorian era. In it, the female creature Bella (Emma Stone) negotiates what it means to be both a scientific object and creator (being created out of the pregnant body of a woman and the brain of the mother’s unborn baby). Bella does not abide by the rules and conventions of polite society, using her body against the purpose of her creator and causing several mental breakdowns for the male characters in the process.

Now, a new movie directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Bride!, brings the character to life in moody 1930s Chicago. Jessie Buckley plays the female creature brought back from the dead to be Frankenstein’s mate. But she is not the sort of creature that is inclined to serve someone else’s purpose. When Frankenstein (now the monster, not the scientist, and played by Christian Bale) calls her “the Bride of Frankenstein”, she replies: “No, just the Bride.”

Although the film promises a “Bonnie and Clyde” story – two lovers and rebels on the run from the law – this Bride refuses to belong to any man. Instead, gun in hand, she demands to be seen and heard on her own terms.

Reanimating the Bride from novel to screen

Since her inception, the Bride’s struggle has been for autonomy. She first appeared in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818), named after an egomaniac scientist who creates a creature from cadavers. In the novel, Dr Frankenstein begrudgingly agrees to make his male creature a companion, but destroys her before she can live. He is afraid she might reproduce or become even more powerful than the male creature.

Her destruction is the most violent episode in the novel and makes apparent the anxiety that her unruly female body causes to the mad scientist. The erasure of Shelley’s original female creation set the scene for the way she continues to be written out of most adaptations of the novel. This includes, most recently, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025).

Read more: Guillermo de Toro’s Frankenstein: beguiling adaptation stays true to heart of Mary Shelley’s story

One hundred years on from Shelley’s novel, the Bride was finally brought to life in James Whales’ The Bride of Frankenstein and played by Elsa Lanchester. Although central to the film’s title, she appears only in the final five minutes. But that was more than enough time to establish her cinematic legacy.

She stands tall, dressed in a white gown, her dark, voluminous hair streaked with lightning. Scars and stitches run around her face. She is both alive and dead, a bride and child, beautiful and monstrous, futuristic and otherworldly. Her appearance defies categorisation, not quite the demure wife she is meant to be.

Even more memorable is the Bride’s defiant scream when she rejects the male creature and the role assigned to her by the film’s title and her creator. Feminist scholars have read this as an assertion of sexual autonomy and agency, a rejection of patriarchal control and a refusal of the role of wife and mother. She is a powerful symbol of defiance, and both costume and voice become tools for future Brides to say no to their fate. Lanchester’s Bride, however, is not able to invent alternative possibilities for herself and is ultimately destroyed by the male creature, punished for her rebellion.

The limitations of patriarchy are made even clearer in later adaptations in which Brides who choose to end their lives, such as Frankenstein Created Woman (1967). Her limited options also show the constraints of a narrative in which she is made a mere character in someone else’s story.

The creature Lily (Billie Piper) in the television series Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) is another Bride who attempts to make her own path. But the memories of her body’s previous life as a sex worker have shown her that the world is rotten to the core – her only solution is to destroy it. Lily chooses destruction over radical change, and while she rejects both Frankenstein and the male creature, the man she does willingly choose ultimately betrays her.

For some Brides, power comes from reclaiming the role of creator. This can be seen in Lisa Frankenstein and Poor Things, but also in an earlier adaptation – the exploitation comedy Frankenhooker (1990). The film ends with the Bride taking revenge on her creator by attaching his head to female body parts.

Poor Things is one of the only films where the Bride is not only invested in radical social change, but also escapes the expectations put onto her body as a scientific and sexual object. Bella actively subverts these expectations by repurposing her body as one of personal scientific enquiry. This extends to the way she uses sex. It puts her in a complicated position in relation to exploitation and empowerment, where she is simultaneously both and neither. Instead, her actions sit somewhere on the outside of our current perceptions of both.

As Jessie Buckley’s new Bride graces our screens, she promises to follow in the footsteps of her rebellious predecessors – and a long horror tradition.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

– ref. A brief cinematic history of Frankenstein’s Bride as a feminist icon – https://theconversation.com/a-brief-cinematic-history-of-frankensteins-bride-as-a-feminist-icon-277294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Whiteley, Professor, Department of Government, University of Essex

The American people are bitterly divided over the conflict in Iran. The US president, Donald Trump, won office in 2024 after campaigning on a message of “no new wars”. So the conflict that began with airstrikes conducted with the Israeli military in the early hours of February 28, and which has quickly spread into the rest of the region, has polarised opinion across the country.

An Economist/YouGov poll completed on March 2 provides early information about what Americans think of the war so far. The poll asked the following question: “Would you support or oppose the US using military force to overthrow the government of Iran?”

There is a great deal of confusion about what the objectives of the war are, since the messaging from Trump, and his senior officials, has veered from preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, to destroying the country’s ballistic missile capability, to regime change.

But, from the point of view of polling, this is as good a question as any for finding out what Americans think. Altogether 32% of them support the war and 45% oppose it.

A divided society

The responses to this question analysed by gender, race, age and education appear in the graph. Those who were uncertain are not included in the totals. The graph shows that large variations exist among the different groups in relation to their attitudes to the war.

The relationship between attitudes to the war and the social backgrounds of respondents

The largest differences are in relation to race. Some 37% of white respondents support the war and 44% oppose it. In contrast 7% of black people support it and 60% oppose. Hispanics were in between these two, but rather closer to whites than to blacks.

The was a large gender difference in the responses as well with 37% of men in support but only 26% of women. A marked age difference existed too with only 21% of 18-to-29 year olds supporting and 50% opposed. At the same time some 40% of those over the age of 65 supported the war with 49% opposed. Finally, 34% of those without a college degree were in support compared with 27% with a college degree. Overall, young black women with a college degree were most likely to oppose the war, whereas older white men without a college degree were most in support.

A question of politics

The social backgrounds and attitudes to the war of respondents are interesting, but they are overshadowed by the polarisation of opinion among supporters of the political parties and ideological factions. These appear in the second chart.

The relationship between attitudes to the war and the political affiliations of respondents

The striking feature of this chart is the difference between respondents who identify with the Democrats and those who identify with the Republicans. Only 8% of Democrats support the war compared with 64% of Republicans. The highest level of support comes from respondents who are Maga (Make American Great Again) supporters. No less that 75% of them support the war and only 10% oppose it.

There is similar polarisation among liberals, which refers to anyone on the left of the ideological spectrum in the US, and conservatives. Only 8% of liberals support the war compared with 66% of conservatives. Moderates are in between the two with 25% of them supporting and 50% opposing the war.

What it could mean for November’s mid-term elections

One theory of elections argues that individuals have a set of well-defined preferences over policies and so they support the party which is closest to them in relation to these policies. In this analysis, policy preferences are summarised by the left-right ideological dimension, or alternatively by the liberal-conservative dimension in politics.

In fact, it appears that in reality the reverse is true with voters choosing a party or leader and then changing their views to fit in with those of their newly adopted party. The 47th US president is an extreme case of this, because he constantly changes his mind. Before he was elected, he promised that the US would not get involved in any more wars in the middle east. It appears that most Republicans and nearly all the Maga supporters are quite willing to go along with the U-turn and agree with anything he does.

This is a big advantage for a president who is so polarising, since it means that he can rely on a body of loyal supporters even when they don’t know the latest policy changes. However, it is a weakness when it comes to elections because the Democrats and Independents together easily outnumber the Republicans and Maga supporters in the electorate.

The Cooperative Election Study, a large-scale survey conducted at the time of the presidential election in 2024 showed that 32% of respondents in their national survey identified with the Democrats, 27% with the Independents and 30% with the Republicans. In short, the Republicans are up against a coalition of Democrats and Independents who make up just under 60% of the voters. Add the factor that many Americans are outraged by the president’s behaviour and you have a winning coalition for the opposition in the mid-term elections.

Whatever happens in the war, Trump is unlikely to recover his popularity for the Republicans not to lose control of the House of Representatives – and possibly the Senate – in the mid-term elections in November.

– ref. What Americans think of the war in Iran – https://theconversation.com/what-americans-think-of-the-war-in-iran-277627

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University

Every pregnant woman wants to deliver a healthy baby. During labour and birth, women also want to feel listened to and respected, and to come out of the experience physically and emotionally well.

But around 28% of Australian women describe their most recent birth as traumatic.

Birth trauma can include fear for their life or their baby’s life, a loss of control, damage to the perineum or pelvic floor, disrespectful care, or mistreatment from health care providers.

Our new research paper examined birth outcomes and both physical and psychological experiences of women and babies who experienced five different types (or models) of care in Australia during the COVID pandemic.

We found that seeing the same midwife or team of midwives was associated with lower rates of intervention and birth trauma, compared with standard care.

And for some women, private obstetric care also led to lower rates of birth trauma than standard care in the public system. Let’s take a look.

Five main models of care

Most Australian women receive standard public care or GP shared care.

In standard public care, women see rotating hospital staff (midwives, obstetricians and at times, trainees) throughout pregnancy and often give birth with a midwife or doctor they’ve never met.

GP shared care is when there is an arrangement between a GP and hospital. Women see their GP most during pregnancy and hospital staff for some antenatal appointments. The GP doesn’t usually attend the birth, except in some rural, remote regions.

In continuity of care models, one or a small number of midwives and obstetricians deliver the majority of the care before, during and after birth. This includes continuity of:

• midwifery care in the public system
• private obstetric care
• private midwifery care.

When given a choice, women favour continuity of care models.

What our study found

Our study looked at the experiences of 3,682 Australian women who gave birth in 2020 and 2021.

Compared to women who had standard care, we found that those who had continuity of midwifery care (through the public system or a private midwife) were:

• less likely to be induced or have an oxytocin drip to speed up labour
• much more likely to have a vaginal birth
• more likely to have the midwife visit them at home after the birth
• less likely to have a caesarean section
• less likely to have their baby admitted to special or neonatal intensive care or receive formula in hospital when they had chosen to breastfeed
• half as likely to describe their birth as traumatic.

These differences were seen even after adjusting for differences in the groups that could affect outcomes, such as women’s age, medical risk, education, employment status, country of birth, income and mental health.

These findings line up with decades of evidence. A 2024 Cochrane review of 17 randomised controlled trials found midwifery continuity of care models reduce some birth interventions, including caesarean section, forceps and vacuum birth, and episiotomy (surgical cut to the perineum).

Our study also found that while women who had private obstetric care had higher rates of birth intervention, they had lower rates of birth trauma when compared to standard care. There was no difference in outcomes for the baby, such as admission to special care or neonatal intensive care.

This suggests when women’s choices align with their care provider’s philosophy, outcomes are better – even if intervention levels are higher. Some women seek, or are not concerned about, increased obstetric intervention. Continuity itself, regardless of who the lead health care professional is, reduces birth trauma.

What are the study’s limitations?

As with any study there are limitations. This study relied on women reporting their labour and birth outcomes, so there could be difficulties with recall that affected reporting of some health risks and other important information.

A high proportion of women responding (86%) were born in Australia and spoke English at home (92%) and only 2% were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, meaning the diversity of the Australian population is not represented.

We did not examine stillbirth or neonatal deaths as all the women responding to the survey had a live baby. So people still could have had those experiences but they weren’t captured in our data.

Why does continuity of care make a difference?

Continuity gives women a stable, familiar guide who knows their story, understands their concerns and advocates for them when the system is under strain.

It also allows for the kind of personalised care women consistently say they want and which midwives wish they could deliver more often.

Nearly half of all models of care (49%) have a midwife as the designated carer, with 16% having midwifery continuity of care throughout the maternity period.

However, midwifery continuity of care models are more common in urban centres and can be harder to access in rural and remote areas. Even in urban centres, not everyone who wants to access them can. The popularity of these programs means they fill up fast and many women miss out if they don’t book in when they are first pregnant.

Private obstetric and private midwifery models of care come with out of pocket costs and are not available everywhere. There are few private midwives and many struggle to get admitting rights into hospitals like doctors have.

The recent New South Wales Birth Trauma Inquiry recommended expanding continuity of care models to help reduce the high rates of birth trauma in Australia. Our study shows that this could make a significant difference.

– ref. Seeing the same midwife or doctor in pregnancy and labour reduces the risk of birth trauma – https://theconversation.com/seeing-the-same-midwife-or-doctor-in-pregnancy-and-labour-reduces-the-risk-of-birth-trauma-276182

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Purnell, Professor of Education, CQUniversity Australia

This year, students at The King’s School in Sydney are starting lessons later on Wednesdays. The start of the usual day has been pushed back from 8.50am to 9.40am. This is to allow students to do self-directed learning at home or school before formal lessons begin.

While the school hopes the move will build independence, later school times also better complement teenagers’ sleep patterns.

Research suggests typical school hours may be not be compatible with teenagers’ sleep needs. And this can harm their learning and wellbeing.

Why are school hours 9 ‘til 3?

The usual six-hour school day goes from about 9am to 3pm. Many public high schools and private schools also start earlier, at around 8.30am.

This convention dates back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Back then, school was timed to maximise daylight hours and fit in with factory shifts. Bus timetabling also played a role, as transport was shared between schools.

Since then, parents’ work hours and after-school activities have added constraints on top. While school hours now seem “normal,” they are not necessarily what’s best for students as they grow, or when their brains are most alert and ready to learn.

What do teenagers need?

Throughout life, the amount of sleep needed for normal functioning changes as we age. For example, babies need regular naps while older children only sleep at night.

Traditional school hours suit younger children, as they tend to fall asleep and wake up earlier than adolescents.

But around puberty, things change. Teenagers experience what sleep scientists call a “circadian phase delay”, when the body’s internal clock shifts later. This is because melatonin, the sleep hormone, is released about two hours later than in childhood.

So, many adolescents cannot fall asleep much before 11pm and can still be in biological “night” if they are forced to get up at 6am or 7am to get ready for school.

Major medical bodies recommend eight to ten hours of sleep a night for teenagers. But early-morning school starts can make this hard to manage.

Studies of school systems with early starts, shows many teenagers only get six to seven hours of sleep on a school night.

This adds up. Chronic sleep deprivation in adolescents has been linked to poorer attention and memory, greater irritability, more behaviour problems and higher rates of anxiety and depression.

Obviously, none of this is conducive to learning or healthy development.

What is more brain-friendly?

To address this, more high schools could start later.

Schools could introduce an “arrival window” rather than a hard start time. The arrival window could allow for quiet study, wellbeing check-ins, or breakfast clubs. This could let students who need it get more sleep.

Then, once school officially starts, the most demanding subjects, which require sustained focus, would be held from mid-morning.

Schools could also consider more flexible learning models. Some schools already use partial learning from home, which can help in a limited way.

For older students, the first part of the day could be online and mostly at their own pace for low-stakes tasks such as reading, short quizzes, drafting and revision. In-person teaching could start later.

Learning from home depends on reliable internet, a quiet space and adult support, which are not evenly available to all students. So schools would need to make sure space and supervision were also available at school.

What stands in the way?

Starting later also means finishing later. This would require having enough staff across flexible hours. This may be a challenge for some schools, given teacher shortages around the country.

To address this, schools could use staggered staffing and community partnerships to cover early and late blocks. For example, this could involve youth services, cultural institutions and work-based placements for students doing teaching degrees.

There may also be fears about disrupting established routines and transport timetables. Yet practical experience and modelling work in the United States shows later high school start times are feasible when systems adjust bus routes. This requires coordinated work across education and transport sectors.

In Australia, school start and finish times are typically set locally at the school level. In many states, principals generally have discretion to determine (or adjust) start times, usually through consultation with the school community.

The real question is whether we are prepared to redesign school around teenagers’ brains, rather than expecting their brains to fit a timetable built for a different century.

– ref. School hours have barely changed since the 1800s. This doesn’t suit teenagers’ sleep – https://theconversation.com/school-hours-have-barely-changed-since-the-1800s-this-doesnt-suit-teenagers-sleep-275444

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martie-Louise Verreynne, Professor in Innovation and Associate Dean (Research), The University of Queensland

Innovation is one of the most celebrated yet misunderstood ideas of our time. It is invoked in policy speeches, corporate strategy decks and university mission statements. But strip away the buzzword and what remains?

In The Shortest History of Innovation, economist and federal MP Andrew Leigh offers an accessible, wide-ranging answer. Sweeping across millennia, from the wheel to artificial intelligence, Leigh argues three forces underpin most innovation: tinkering, teamwork and trade.

Review: The Shortest History of Innovation – Andrew Leigh (Black Inc.)

The alliteration is elegant. More importantly, however, it captures much of what innovation scholars have long observed: ideas become valuable not through inspiration alone, but through experimentation, collaboration and exchange.

Leigh’s definition aligns broadly with the OECD’s Oslo Manual, the global standard for measuring innovation. Innovation is not invention per se, but the introduction of new products, processes or organisational methods that create value.

The three ‘T’s

Leigh rightly pushes back against the myth of the lone genius. Breakthrough ideas are only the beginning. It is the grind of refinement, tinkering at the “adjacent possible”, that turns creative sparks into useful technologies.

The emphasis on teamwork is particularly welcome. Innovation requires different disciplines to work together, different organisations to partner with each other and engage with stakeholders across supply chains. That includes their customers.

The Human Genome Project, large scale research centres, and modern examples of business, government and society working together to change things all demonstrate that innovation is inherently social.

As part of an ecosystem to foster innovation, this triad works. But it is incomplete without a fourth, sometimes forgotten force: infrastructure.

Throughout the book, Leigh offers compelling illustrations of enabling conditions. The wheel did not transform transport until roads were built. The light bulb required electrification networks. Coal powered the Industrial Revolution.

Computer chips designed for video game graphics became the ones that power artificial intelligence. Universities, introduced in medieval Europe, became long-term institutional platforms for knowledge creation.

These are not footnotes to innovation; they are preconditions. Innovation flourishes when these examples of physical, intellectual and institutional infrastructure stabilise expectations and lower the cost of coordinating.

Britain’s 18th-century parliamentary system, an abundance of artisans, and access to coal created a fertile institutional environment.

Leigh frequently gestures to these enablers. But they are a central part of any innovation ecosystem. Innovation is rarely the outcome of individual brilliance alone. It emerges as a property of dense, well-connected and supported systems that allow ideas to be tested, scaled and diffused.

Leigh argues that across history, place matters – and this matches contemporary evidence. Living near centres of learning, industrial clusters, or technology hubs increases exposure to ideas and collaborators.

Acceleration and recombination

One of the most compelling threads in the book is the idea of “recombination” – innovations build on prior innovations. Mathematics developed in Persia later enabled European scientific advances. Precision machine tools in the 19th century unlocked new industries. As enabling technologies accumulate, the pace of innovation accelerates.

This virtuous spiral means that the more ideas in circulation, the greater the opportunities for recombination. This resonates strongly with contemporary innovation theory: we are increasingly remixing rather than inventing from scratch. Digital platforms, open data and interdisciplinary research intensify this dynamic.

‘Creative destruction’

But acceleration is not neutral. It amplifies both benefits and risks.

Leigh acknowledges innovation is disruptive, echoing economist Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction”. He notes new technologies often displace old industries. Netflix destroyed video stores – and then came for Hollywood.

Process innovation, from Frederick Taylor’s re-engineering of work to Toyota’s continuous improvement systems, reshaped labour itself.

Innovation’s dark shadow

Innovation improves humanity’s capacity for progress and harm. These darker sides are present in the book, but not laboured. Gunpowder and the Haber process fuelled war. Coal warms the planet. The atomic bomb altered geopolitics. Marie Curie died from radiation exposure. Patents have both protected and restricted life-saving technologies.

From an ecosystem perspective, these tensions matter. Innovation is not inherently good. Incentives, governance and ethical guardrails shape it. The question is not whether societies innovate, but how they channel innovation.

The book’s overall tone, however, is optimistic. Innovation has extended life expectancy, improved nutrition, advanced medicine and raised living standards. It is credited with driving between one-third and two-thirds of global economic growth.

Government, openness and the public good

Given Leigh’s background as a sitting member of parliament, the role of government features prominently. Wartime research, public institutions and state-led programs are presented as catalytic forces. Public dollars, he argues, are best spent creating environments that encourage experimentation.

This is largely persuasive. Public investment has historically underwritten foundational technologies. Yet there is a delicate balance between public leadership and market dynamism.

Innovation ecosystems thrive not merely because governments fund them, but because institutions align: education systems, research organisations, firms, financiers and regulatory frameworks.

The book also highlights the importance of open innovation. Some inventors, such as Marie Curie and Tim Berners-Lee, chose not to patent their discoveries. Left in the public domain, ideas can spread faster and further. Yet organisations must also recoup investments.

This tension between openness and appropriation remains one of the central policy challenges of our time.

Serendipity, diversity and inequality

Leigh repeatedly returns to luck and serendipity. Leonardo da Vinci’s trajectory depended on patronage, timing and freedom to experiment. Post-it notes and friction matches emerged from unexpected discoveries.

He also acknowledges that history has not been kind to diversity. Innovation has disproportionately reflected the opportunities available to wealthy men, with notable but limited exceptions among women pioneers and bottom-of-the-pyramid innovators.

A seismic shift?

The final chapters touch on artificial intelligence. Yet one might ask whether AI is treated as simply another innovation in a long line, or as a structural transformation reshaping every domain of human endeavour.

If the accumulation of enabling technologies accelerates innovation, AI may represent not just a new tool but a meta-technology that alters the innovation process itself.

That question lingers.

– ref. Andrew Leigh maps the drivers of history’s big breakthroughs — and why they still matter – https://theconversation.com/andrew-leigh-maps-the-drivers-of-historys-big-breakthroughs-and-why-they-still-matter-277222