Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Taylor, Adjunct academic, mycology, Flinders University

How long has it been since you last cleaned your bathroom? If it’s been longer than you planned, you might see a build up of scum, slime or mould around your taps, between the tiles and on the edges of the bath or shower floor.

But why is this sometimes pink or orange? And can this pink slime make us sick?

Sometimes it’s mould

In some instances, the pink slime may be a microfungi (also called a mould) named Rhodotorula.

Rhodotorula is a yeasty little fungus that makes sticky red stains appear on plastics and other wet items left in storage too long, including your toothbrush.

The first part of it’s name, “Rhodo”, refers to its red appearance in nature and comes from the Greek work for rose. It can be found pretty well everywhere, including on and in the wet bits of your skin, as it thrives in humid nooks and crannies.

Most microbes need large amounts of nitrogen to survive. But Rhodotorula is excellent at scavenging nitrogen from its environment. It can survive with a fraction of the typical amount of nitrogen in its cells compared with other microbes.

This nitrogen scavenging allows it to persist in hostile and nutrient-poor environments, such as between your tiles where other microbes would starve. It also means it can pack itself full of lipids and nutrients when times are good, like gloopy little protein pills to survive the lean times.

Rhodotorula doesn’t pose a big risk for healthy people, but it can cause infection for those with weakened immune systems, such as patients hospitalised with catheters.

More commonly, it’s bacteria

The second and more likely candidate for pink scum in your bathroom is a bacteria called Serratia marcescens, another microbe that prefers to multiply in the damp and humid conditions found in bathrooms and laundries.

It’s also a scavenger of nutrients but in this case it scavenges phosphorous, a key component of DNA.

We’ve tried to reduce the amount of phosphates in detergents and soaps as they degrade waterways, but Serratia is excellent at wringing what little remains out of soap scum, or just happily living directly in liquid soap itself, while turning everything pink in the process.

Serratia was once a laboratory research tool. Scientists would puff clouds of the bacteria into the air or splatter it around to predict how a more dangerous bacteria might disperse. Serratia’s scarlet colouring made it easy to spot in lab tests.

But since then, Serratia has been recognised as an emerging pathogen. This means it’s an infectious agent we’ve only recently realised can cause illness, or we’ve only just worked out is actually the cause of a disease.

Serratia now ranks in the top ten most common causes of becteremia: bacteria in the blood. This starts with an infection, leading to sepsis, hospitalisation and sometimes death.

Serratia infections can start in a range of different ways: as a pneumonia, in the urinary tract, or from cuts and wounds. It can cause fever, chills and fatigue, and can be tough to treat due to antibiotic resistance.

Most people exposed to Serratia either won’t get sick or will develop only a mild infection. This may look like a cut that takes a long time to heal, or a phleghmy cough that hangs around but eventually goes away.

The US Army conducted studies where soldiers were exposed to concentrated clouds containing millions of Serratia and after a mild fever and chills, all subjects had recovered after four days.

A study over ten years in Canberra estimated the incidence of Serratia infections as 1.03 per 100,000 people, with similar rates of about 0.9 per 100,000 in Canada. So, in a given year about one person per 100,000 will get an infection from Serratia, which is roughly 2,800 people per year in Australia.

Most serious infections from Serratia occur in hospitals among people at a higher risk of infection because they’re immunocompromised, elderly or have other health conditions.

In a particularly chilling illustration of this, there have been hundreds of case reports of babies contracting Serratia infections in hospitals. In a 2005 outbreak of 159 babies in Gaza, almost half died.

What can you do about pink slime in your bathroom?

Although it’s impossible to live in a sterile environment, there are some simple things you can do to reduce the presence of these microorganisms in your home.

Drying wet areas can go a long way to slowing these critters down, as bacteria and mould need moisture to grow well.

Cleaning with detergents or disinfectants is very effective and is most successful after first removing soil and other debris. Don’t just spray bleach onto the muck and hope for the best; you’re better to scrub, wipe and then disinfect.

Or better yet, clean every two to three weeks (depending on how many kids, pets and roommates you have) to stop gunk building up and to starve these microbes of food.

Wearing dish-washing or disposable gloves during cleaning is a good way to reduce exposure, followed by washing your hands thoroughly with soap and water, and drying them.

Michael Taylor consults for WSP in the area of Occupational Hygiene.

– ref. Why is the soap scum in my bathroom pink? Is it mould? And can it make me sick? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-soap-scum-in-my-bathroom-pink-is-it-mould-and-can-it-make-me-sick-258292

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Kingham, Professor of Human Geography, University of Canterbury

The government heralded its plan to move New Zealand’s entire vehicle fleet to road-user charges as a fairer method of funding road maintenance.

For owners of electric and diesel vehicles, this is nothing new. They already pay road-user charges based on the distance travelled.

But for petrol vehicles, it is a shift away from fuel excise duty, or petrol tax, which is currently about 77 cents per litre of fuel. As it is linked to the price of petrol, more fuel-efficient petrol vehicles pay relatively less than gas guzzlers for every kilometre travelled.

Much of the policy detail is yet to be worked out, but if all of the country’s vehicles paid road-user charges, this would provide opportunities to do more than raise revenue for road building and maintenance.

New Zealand would become the first country to charge all vehicles a distance-based fee and, used in creative ways, this could save money and deliver better societal outcomes, such as safer roads and lower pollution.

How fuel revenue is collected

Fuel excise duty is currently collected at source, when refined fuel either leaves the refinery or is imported. Some other costs are included, such as a fee for New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme, currently around 13 cents per litre. These are simple to collect, have low compliance costs and are essentially unavoidable.

Road-user charges are a distance-based payment. Licenses are pre-purchased in increments of 1,000 kilometres and various rates apply depending on vehicle weight and axle configuration. Heavier electric vehicles (more than 3.5 tonnes) are currently exempt until June 2027.

This system has higher compliance and administration costs than fuel excise duty. It also has a greater risk of evasion, because to some extent, it relies on vehicle owners’ honesty.

With all vehicles moving to road-user charges, everyone will pay for every kilometre they travel on the roads, with increased rates for heavier vehicles (currently anything above 3.5 tonnes). The plan is that this will be administered electronically through some device in or on the vehicle. This already happens with many freight vehicles.

In most freight vehicles, the technology includes GPS and allows freight companies to monitor the performance of their vehicles and drivers. But rolling out electronic road-user charges across the whole vehicle fleet creates interesting opportunities beyond just raising revenue.

Opportunities and challenges

The move to a distance-based scheme could discourage some people from selecting more fuel-efficient vehicles because a road-use system does not encourage that. This could lead to increased greenhouse gas and other emissions.

However, rather than using a uniform road-user charge based solely on vehicle weight and distance travelled, rates could vary based on a range of criteria, including emissions, and pay for other traffic-related costs to society and the environment.

For instance, around 300 people die each year in road crashes, and thousands more are injured. This costs NZ$9-10 billion annually. To help pay, New Zealand could collect higher road-user charge rates for vehicles more likely to cause crashes, based on safety ratings.

Traffic-related air pollution causes more than 2,000 deaths per year, costing New Zealand around $10 billion. Road-user charges could be used to pay for this by charging a higher rate for vehicles that emit more pollution.

The same could be done for noise pollution. And if the electronic road-user charge device is GPS-enabled, vehicles travelling near the most vulnerable citizens – such as near schools during pick-up and drop-off – could be charged more.

This may deter some people from dropping children off right outside the school gate, which in turn could have the added benefit of making walking and cycling feel safer due to less traffic, attracting more people to use active transport and helping create neighbourhood greenways.

But why stop there? New Zealand could use electronic road-user charges to encourage all sorts of other behaviours. For example, lower rates might encourage vehicles to use highways and main roads instead of cutting through quiet residential streets.

Road-user charges could be used to set a congestion price, manage on- and off-street parking and monitor speed limits without the need for any additional technology, saving on setting up separate congestion and parking pricing schemes and speed cameras.

Some will argue this is an invasion of privacy. But as Minister of Transport Chris Bishop indicated, the privacy commissioner will oversee it.

If New Zealand becomes the first country to charge all vehicles for the use of roads, this an opportunity to lead in innovation.

Simon Kingham received funding from MBIE for a study on shared transport.
Simon Kingham was seconded as Chief Science Advisor to the NZ Ministry of Transport from 2018 to 2024.

– ref. Road-user charges can pay for more than just road maintenance – NZ could lead the way – https://theconversation.com/road-user-charges-can-pay-for-more-than-just-road-maintenance-nz-could-lead-the-way-262946

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Howard Manns, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University

In Australia, we can often tell what state someone is from based on the words they use: whether they go to the beach in “togs”, “bathers” or “swimmers” or if they prefer to eat a “potato cake”, “potato scallop” or “potato fritter”.

But compared to places such as the United States and United Kingdom, it can be harder to hear regional accent differences.

The relative uniformity of the Australian accent can be traced to our early European history, our youth as a nation and the slow pace of language change.

But Australian regional accents are there if you listen closely enough – and they are getting stronger.

Birth of the ‘uniform’ Aussie accent

In the UK, George Bernard Shaw once wrote:

It’s impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making another Englishman hate or despise him.

Some 1500 years of history will do that.

In the US, “American English” dates to 16th/early 17th centuries, so settlement, history and depth of time have led to American regional variation.

For example, in the US South, a word like “time” might be said like “tom” or “tam”, a word like “bait” might sound like “bite” and a word like “sit” might be heard as “see it”.

In Australia, English only permanently arrived with the First Fleet in 1788, and observers began to comment on the uniformity of English from its early days. A visiting ship’s captain, James Dixon, wrote in 1822:

The children born in those colonies, now grown up, speak a better language, purer, more harmonious than is generally the case in most parts of England.

This didn’t mean Australian English was good. It just wasn’t “tainted” with regional accents.

The formation of new accents and languages often comes down to kids accommodating to one another (trying to sound like one another). But in the early days, these colonial kids had no Australian accent to accommodate to.

A linguistic melting pot

Early English-speaking Australians used a melting pot of features from London, Ireland, Scotland, the West Country and East Anglia (among other places).

We see this in Sydney court records such as this one, featuring an Irish woman, Margaret O’Brien:

On Monday night quoth, Mrs O’Brien, my blessed husband went to Saint Pathrick’ a’cos ‘tis a taytotaler he is […] I axked her in purlistest terms the raison of her wiolence… Hevings forgive you, Mary Han, for telling sich a whopper; yer an hinnercent girl Mary Han.

O’Brien uses some Irish features like “raison” for “reason” and “sich” for “such”. But she also uses “Cockney” features like “wiolence” for “violence” and “hinnercent” for “innocent”.

Linguists describe this as a “feature pool”. Over time, some features rise to the top of the pool whereas others sink into obscurity.

The survivors became “Australian English”.

Survival in the tumultuous feature pool is often a mix of “majority rules” and “prestige”.

Cockneys were neither a majority nor prestigious in Australia, so it is little wonder pronunciations like “wiolence” and “hinnercent” faded away.

Australia had many Irish settlers but their English wasn’t prestigious either. That said, there is some evidence of Irish influence – as in the way some Aussies say words like “haitch” and “filum” (for “film”).

Majority didn’t always rule when it came to deciding which features survived.

Once formed, the Australian accent stayed uniform for longer than you might expect.

This is because early European Australia had a highly mobile population: they often stuck close to the coast and travelled from port to port. When they travelled inland, they often did it together and in mixed company.

Australian English also stayed uniform longer because more than a few Aussies continued to look to Britain for their accent cues – some until the 1980s.

Early differences in Australian English were largely associated with social groups or whether one favoured British-like pronunciations or Australian-like pronunciations.

Before regional variation can flourish, English speakers must settle into stable and self-confident use of the local variety. To these ends, Australians have finally arrived.

Australian regional accents

The seeds for regional variation in Australia were planted early on. Yet, as in any garden, it can take a while for them to bloom: a language needs time, patience and the right social conditions.

South Australia was settled later than other colonies and by free settlers, who used newer pronunciations from the British homeland.

South Australians are apt to pronounce words like “castle”, “dance” and “chance” with a longer “ah” sound (as most English speakers pronounce “palm”).

In contrast, in Tasmania, these words are more apt to be pronounced with a shorter, flatter “a” sound (as most English speakers pronounce “trap”) – the older pronunciation.

In other parts of Australia, it is more complicated.

People in Brisbane and Sydney tend to follow the Tasmanian pattern. In Melbourne, a majority seem to follow the shorter, flatter “trap” pronunciation. However, Melburnians may also use, or shift into the “palm” pronunciation in more formal situations.

Beyond these early seeds, Australians are starting to cultivate homegrown innovations. Linguists working with sophisticated technologies have started to note subtle regional differences.

For instance, you may notice Victorians have begun to say the words “salary” and “celery” the same way. This vowel “merger” means many an “Ali” has received a coffee cup with “Eli” written on it in “Malbourne”.

Regional accents start as a wispy whisper. Put your ear to the wind and you just may hear them. But for a regional accent to truly flourish, you need a firm national identity, regional rivalries and a heavy dollop of time.

Keep your ears peeled.

Felicity Cox receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

Howard Manns 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. Quiz: can you pick a Victorian from a Queenslander? How our accents change from state to state – https://theconversation.com/quiz-can-you-pick-a-victorian-from-a-queenslander-how-our-accents-change-from-state-to-state-250908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rhys Thomas White, Scientist in Genomics and Bioinformatics, New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science

After a routine C-section at an Auckland hospital, a mother developed severe pain and what seemed like postnatal fatigue. It turned out to be an infection with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a “superbug” spreading across New Zealand and beyond.

Her story isn’t unique. In Dunedin, another mother was diagnosed with MRSA and internal bleeding postpartum.

These are personal stories, but they are also early warning signals of a broader health security challenge.

Methicillin is an antibiotic from the penicillin family, and MRSA is resistant to it (and often to other types of antibiotics). This makes infections harder to treat.

Once considered mainly a hospital problem, methicillin-resistant infections are now common in the community.

An MRSA strain that emerged in New Zealand (named AK3) is now the dominant strain in our communities. The country’s antibiotic-dispensing habits may have helped it emerge and spread.

A New Zealand-born strain with global reach

AK3 was first detected in 2005. Today, it is the leading cause of MRSA infections in New Zealand and, as our new study shows, has also been detected in the South Pacific and Europe.

Using whole-genome sequencing, we traced the journey of AK3 from a drug-susceptible ancestor to a highly resistant clone. Along the way, AK3 acquired key resistance genes, including those conferring resistance to methicillin and fusidic acid, a topical antibiotic once prescribed at historically high rates in New Zealand.

Dispensing of topical fusidic acid has declined since 2016. But once resistance becomes common, it can be difficult to reduce or revert to a susceptible form. This is why it is so important to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics by using them carefully and only when needed (a practice known as antimicrobial stewardship), and to monitor resistance trends using genomic surveillance.

How a common prescription helped a superbug thrive

In New Zealand, fusidic acid was once widely prescribed in the community to treat skin infections, often without a confirmed diagnosis. This widespread use created ideal conditions for fusidic acid resistance to develop.

The emergence of AK3 demonstrates how antibiotics, when overused at a national scale, can drive the evolution of globally significant resistance. Our genomic study has improved our understanding of how AK3 evolved and became dominant in New Zealand.

Our analyses and public health data show that AK3 does not affect all groups equally. Compared with people of European ethnicity, Māori are three times more likely, and Pacific peoples nearly five times more likely, to suffer from skin infections caused by S. aureus.

Socio-economic factors amplify the risk: those in the most deprived areas are nearly four times more likely to be hospitalised with skin infections.

The burden of skin infections and overuse of fusidic acid created the conditions for AK3 to emerge, adapt and spread. For people with AK3 and other resistant superbugs, it is critical to preserve the effectiveness of antibiotics. Fusidic acid still has a role in treatment, but the goal is to strike the right balance between under- and over-prescribing.

Addressing this requires improved access to timely, appropriate care and treatment in the communities most affected. This is a reminder that even the most advanced technologies cannot, on their own, overcome structural barriers. If we are serious about the threat antimicrobial resistance poses, we must confront these inequities head-on.

What next?

Recently, we detected AK3 in a sample of raw milk collected directly from a cow with mastitis during veterinary testing – well before any processing, and not from milk intended for people to drink. Resistance genes can cross human, animal and environmental boundaries and this demands a “One Health” approach, integrating surveillance with coordinated policy and action across all domains.

Surveillance is the continuous and systematic collection of data to inform public health action, typically drawing from multiple sources, including laboratory results, epidemiological information and genomic analysis.

The rise of AK3 underscores the need for a proactive, integrated antimicrobial resistance strategy across science, policy, veterinary and public health. Genomics is a key strategic priority, supporting an evidence-based approach to current and emerging diseases.

The case of AK3 brings these priorities into sharp focus and shows why coordinated action is essential to stay ahead of emerging threats.

To protect New Zealand’s health security and economy, we must support appropriate antimicrobial use. The right antibiotic should be used at the right time and in the right dose, guided by local data on microbial resistance and supported by accessible diagnostics.

We must also expand antimicrobial resistance surveillance and strengthen monitoring across human, animal and environmental health, with genomic analysis as a core component so that threats can be detected and transmission disrupted earlier.

The stories of two mothers whose MRSA infections complicated childbirth are more than case studies. They are calls to action and AK3 is our test. It challenges us to move from reactive treatment to proactive prevention.

New Zealand has the tools, talent, technology and networks to lead in antimicrobial surveillance and response. But we must act decisively. Not just to contain AK3, but to prevent the next superbug from emerging.

Let’s treat antibiotics like the critical infrastructure they are, recognising that the pipeline for new antibiotics is very narrow. We must make sure antibiotics will still work when we need them most.

We acknowledge the contributions by Max Bloomfield and the teams at Awanui Labs, Emma Voss and team at Livestock Improvement Corporation and all collaborators, including from New Zealand’s diagnostic labs, Health New Zealand, Ministry of Health, Anexa Veterinary Services, University of Auckland, and University of Otago.

Rhys White received a travel bursary from Oxford Nanopore Technologies and a travel grant from the UK Microbiology Society. This study was supported by internal departmental funds at Awanui Laboratories Wellington, the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science (PHF Science), and Genomics Aotearoa.

Kristin Dyet receives funding from the New Zealand Public Health Agency.

Maria Hepi receives funding from Te Niwha Infectious Disease Platform

Nigel French receives funding from the NZ Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, the Health Research Council and Te Niwha.

Juliet Elvy and Sarah Bakker 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. Antibiotic use likely fuelled the rise of a ‘superbug’ in NZ – genomics offers a defence against the next threat – https://theconversation.com/antibiotic-use-likely-fuelled-the-rise-of-a-superbug-in-nz-genomics-offers-a-defence-against-the-next-threat-262316

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie M. Topp, Professor, Global Health and Development, James Cook University

Australia’s health workforce is under pressure. Wait times are growing. Burnout is rising. Yet the country is awash in policy – just not the kind that solves these problems at the root.

This can explain why you’re struggling to see a GP, can’t find a dentist, or struggling to coordinate care between a mental health professional and aged-care nurse.

These issues aren’t isolated problems. As we outline in research published in the Medical Journal of Australia, they reflect a deeper issue in how Australia plans and governs its health workforce.

Despite long-standing concern about shortages of health workers in both rural and urban areas, there’s no overarching national strategy for health workforce planning in Australia.

That’s the type of long-term strategy that helps a country make sure it has enough trained health workers in the right places to meet people’s health needs, now and in the future. Instead, there is fragmentation.

When we reviewed all 121 current federal health workforce policy documents, we found a patchwork of policies for specific professions (for example, doctors, nurses and midwives) that were often short term. These rely heavily on grants and programs rather than long-term strategies and operate in parallel rather than in concert.

They also don’t seem to pay attention to key professions – especially pharmacy, public health and emergency care.

So with more than 850,000 registered health professionals, there are still not enough to meet demand, particularly in regional and remote areas. This is also the case in sectors with rising demand, such as aged care, mental health and rehabilitation.

What should we do?

More than a decade of reports have recommended improvements to national health workforce governance or strategy. Our study shows why those recommendations still matter.

In 2025, the challenge isn’t just to add more staff – it is to coordinate the system and the policy better, and plan for a future where health care is sustainable, equitable, and fit for purpose.

Australia once had a national body to guide health workforce planning – Health Workforce Australia. It was established in 2009 but disbanded in 2014 (ironically) as part of a government efficiency drive.

Since then, the responsibility for workforce planning has been split across multiple government departments, statutory authorities, and state and territories.

For instance, five states have their own individual ten-year health workforce strategic plans.

Some professions have their own national strategies. There’s a national medical workforce strategy, a nurse practitioner workforce plan and a mental health workforce strategy. Others are still being developed, such as the allied health workforce strategy, which would cover health workers such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and podiatrists.

But there’s no effective mechanism to ensure these strategies work together coherently – or to ensure important professions or service areas aren’t left behind.

More programs, fewer solutions

Of the 121 federal policies we analysed, 81% were time-limited grants, programs or sub-programs. These types of policies are typically designed to respond quickly to a specific gap – such as with scholarships, rural relocation bonuses, or individual professional development. But they’re not necessarily designed to create sustained change.

We found 23 policies that could set longer-term direction. But it was not clear how these relate to each other. Few documents cross-referenced one another or reflected on the way solutions in one would impact on the solutions in another.

Most federal documents focus on workforce supply – such as training or recruitment. Fewer tackle the arguably harder, but equally important, issues.

These include how to improve workforce performance, such as by addressing skills mismatch or under-use (where individuals are not able to use their qualifications or skills as part of their job), or how to better distribute staff across regions.

So what needs to change?

In Australia, the federal government funds most of primary care, aged care and Indigenous health. But states and territories employ most health workers. So governance is decentralised.

Private providers, Primary Health Networks (federal government-funded organisations that support services to meet local health needs) and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled services (which provide primary health care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people) add further complexity to the health workforce landscape.

So without national coordination, workforce policy and planning risks being reactive, inconsistent, and susceptible to political cycles. This risks focusing on what’s most visible, and apparently urgent, rather than what’s systemic and enduring.

Here’s what needs to change:

• Australia needs to re-establish a national body for health workforce planning, similar to the former Health Workforce Australia. A recent independent review agrees the current meeting of health ministers is not an effective way to govern health workers. Without a national hub, the current patchwork approach will continue

• policymakers must shift from profession-specific and short-term responses to a system-wide approach. This means recognising how different parts of the health workforce interact as part of a broader labour market, and how policies for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals need to work together, especially in rural and remote care

• we need fewer ad hoc grants that turn over with each new federal government. Instead, we need greater emphasis on durable strategies and agreements that can guide action over time, while allowing states and territories to adapt them if needed. These should be backed by clear data, and be evaluated and accountable.

Stephanie M. Topp receives funding from the NHMRC via an Investigator Grant GNT23034261.

Lana Elliott and Thu Nguyen 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. Australia has 120 health workforce policies. But with no national plan, we’re missing the big picture – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-120-health-workforce-policies-but-with-no-national-plan-were-missing-the-big-picture-256874

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Spies-Butcher, Associate professor, Macquarie University

It’s the defining technology of an era. But just how artificial intelligence (AI) will end up shaping our future remains a controversial question.

For techno-optimists, who see the technology improving our lives, it heralds a future of material abundance.

That outcome is far from guaranteed. But even if AI’s technical promise is realised – and with it, once intractable problems are solved – how will that abundance be used?

We can already see this tension on a smaller scale in Australia’s food economy. According to the Australian government, we collectively waste around 7.6 million tonnes of food a year. That’s about 312 kilograms per person.

At the same time, as many as one in eight Australians are food-insecure, mostly because they do not have enough money to pay for the food they need.

What does that say about our ability to fairly distribute the promised abundance from the AI revolution?

AI could break our economic model

As economist Lionel Robbins articulated when he was establishing the foundations of modern market economics, economics is the study of a relationship between ends (what we want) and scarce means (what we have) which have alternative uses.

Markets are understood to work by rationing scarce resources towards endless wants. Scarcity affects prices – what people are willing to pay for goods and services. And the need to pay for life’s necessities requires (most of) us to work to earn money and produce more goods and services.

This article is part of The Conversation’s series on jobs in the age of AI. Leading experts examine what AI means for workers at different career stages, how AI is reshaping our economy – and what you can do to prepare.

The promise of AI bringing abundance and solving complex medical, engineering and social problems sits uncomfortably against this market logic.

It is also directly connected to concerns that technology will make millions of workers redundant. And without paid work, how do people earn money or markets function?

Meeting our wants and needs

It is not only technology, though, that causes unemployment. A relatively unique feature of market economies is their ability to produce mass want, through unemployment or low wages, amid apparent plenty.

As economist John Maynard Keynes revealed, recessions and depressions can be the result of the market system itself, leaving many in poverty even as raw materials, factories and workers lay idle.

In Australia, our most recent experience of economic downturn wasn’t caused by a market failure. It stemmed from the public health crisis of the pandemic. Yet it still revealed a potential solution to the economic challenge of technology-fuelled abundance.

Changes to government benefits – to increase payments, remove activity tests and ease means-testing – radically reduced poverty and food insecurity, even as the productive capacity of the economy declined.

Similar policies were enacted globally, with cash payments introduced in more than 200 countries. This experience of the pandemic reinforced growing calls to combine technological advances with a “universal basic income”.

This is a research focus of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a collaboration between Macquarie University, the University of Sydney and the Australian National University.

If everyone had a guaranteed income high enough to cover necessities, then market economies might be able to manage the transition, and the promises of technology might be broadly shared.

Welfare, or rightful share?

When we talk about universal basic income, we have to be clear about what we mean. Some versions of the idea would still leave huge wealth inequalities.

My Australian Basic Income Lab colleague, Elise Klein, along with Stanford Professor James Ferguson, have called instead for a universal basic income designed not as welfare, but as a “rightful share”.

They argue the wealth created through technological advances and social cooperation is the collective work of humanity and should be enjoyed equally by all, as a basic human right. Just as we think of a country’s natural resources as the collective property of its people.

These debates over universal basic income are much older than the current questions raised by AI. A similar upsurge of interest in the concept occurred in early 20th-century Britain, when industrialisation and automation boosted growth without abolishing poverty, instead threatening jobs.

Even earlier, Luddites sought to smash new machines used to drive down wages. Market competition might produce incentives to innovate, but it also spreads the risks and rewards of technological change very unevenly.

Universal basic services

Rather than resisting AI, another solution is to change the social and economic system that distributes its gains. UK author Aaron Bastani offers a radical vision of “fully automated luxury communism”.

He welcomes technological advances, believing this should allow more leisure alongside rising living standards. It is a radical version of the more modest ambitions outlined by the Labor government’s new favourite book – Abundance.

Bastani’s preferred solution is not a universal basic income. Rather, he favours universal basic services.

Instead of giving people money to buy what they need, why not provide necessities directly – as free health, care, transport, education, energy and so on?

Of course, this would mean changing how AI and other technologies are applied – effectively socialising their use to ensure they meet collective needs.

No guarantee of utopia

Proposals for universal basic income or services highlight that, even on optimistic readings, by itself AI is unlikely to bring about utopia.

Instead, as Peter Frase outlines, the combination of technological advance and ecological collapse can create very different futures, not only in how much we collectively can produce, but in how we politically determine who gets what and on what terms.

The enormous power of tech companies run by billionaires may suggest something closer to what former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis calls “technofeudalism”, where control of technology and online platforms replaces markets and democracy with a new authoritarianism.

Waiting for a technological “nirvana” misses the real possibilities of today. We already have enough food for everyone. We already know how to end poverty. We don’t need AI to tell us.

Ben Spies-Butcher is co-director of the Australian Basic Income Lab, a research collaboration between Macquarie University, University of Sydney and Australian National University.

– ref. If AI takes most of our jobs, money as we know it will be over. What then? – https://theconversation.com/if-ai-takes-most-of-our-jobs-money-as-we-know-it-will-be-over-what-then-262338

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Oscar, Senior Lecturer, Visual Communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

The power of the war photograph is that it won’t let you look away. And nowhere is this proving truer than in Gaza.

One recent example portrayed a skeletal boy, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq, held in his mother’s arms. Palestinian photographer Ahmed al-Arini captured the boy and his mother in the iconic pose of the Madonna and child.

Photographs coming out of Gaza since October 2023 have communicated the severity of the destruction: collapsed buildings, bodies in shrouds, dead and maimed children, and bombed-out hospitals and shelters. There have also been viral AI-generated images, such as All Eyes on Rafah.

But none of these galvanised the public as much as the photographic evidence of Israel’s systemic starvation of Gazans. These photos were ubiquitous among the tens of thousands who marched across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on August 3.

Between April and July, more than 20,000 people in Gaza were hospitalised for malnutrition, including 3,000 children in life-threatening condition.

The photo of Muhammad is a visual condensation of collective suffering that is impossible to ignore or deny. This is what makes it so powerful.

Drawing from religious imagery

War photography is often impactful because it communicates the brutalities of war with visual mastery.

Photographic elements such as composition, timing, tone, colour and light combine to create a visual story that is full of intent.

This is what American photographer and curator John Szarkowski called “the photographer’s eye”, and what French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson coined as “the decisive moment”. It is to know where to point the camera, when to release the shutter and how to select the “right” image to release into the world.

An iconic war photograph often reproduces a pose or gesture that is familiar to the popular imagination – particularly through iconic religious imagery. Think of the horrifying photos that came out of Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War, where one tortured prisoner was photographed in the pose of Christ on the cross.

This was equally true of the 1972 image of Phan Thi Kim Phúc, the naked girl fleeing napalm in Vietnam with her arms outstretched.

Such photographs can change the course of war. They often shape how wars are remembered, even when there is controversy around their truthfulness and authorship, as we have seen with the contested image of Kim Phúc.

Truthfulness and authorship

Historically, there have been many controversies over the staging of war photographs. Robert Capa’s Falling Soldier (Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936) is one of the most famous and yet disputed images in the history of war photography.

It purports to show a soldier shot dead mid-fall during the Spanish Civil War. But historians suggest the man might have been posing, not dying.

Whether it is real or staged remains unresolved. Still, it circulates as though it is true – reminding us that the myths of war are just as important as the facts when it comes to how war is remembered.

Photos are limited by their inability to convey sound, smell, or any broader context. A staged photo might, at times, be even more effective than an unstaged one in conveying the lived experience of a war – even if the ethics of the staging are dubious.

The weaponisation of war imagery

Photos and video from Gaza continue to circulate on social media, despite Israel barring foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

Israeli authorities have killed Palestinian journalists in record numbers. Yet this visual censorship has not stopped citizen journalists and organisations such as Activestills
from sharing the atrocities in Gaza.

In Gaza, control over imagery has become part of the conflict. Al Jazeera was banned from operating inside Israel. Social media platform Meta has been found silencing posts from Palestinian accounts, with graphic images increasingly being labelled with warnings such as “sensitive content”.

What does it mean to be advised to look away from something someone else is living?

Read more:
Social media platforms are complicit in censoring Palestinian voices

As we know from the second world war, images are powerful evidence. The photographs of starved concentration camp survivors during the Holocaust were used to prosecute Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials.

But the meaning of war photographs also depends on timing, context, who controls what is shown, and where the photos are distributed.

While these photos can communicate the horrors of a conflict, they are also entangled in acts of violence. In Abu Ghraib, American soldiers used photography to turn their war crimes into visual souvenirs. Similarly, Al Jazeera is collecting such “trophies” shared by Israeli soldiers as evidence of their war crimes.

Eliciting grief

American gender studies scholar Judith Butler argues Western media weaponise images to construct a hierarchy of grief that determines whose life is publicly mourned.

Publishing a war photograph is not just an act of documentation – it’s an act of interpretation. It shapes what others think is happening. In their book Picturing Atrocity (2012), Nancy Miller and colleagues ask us how we can witness suffering without turning it into spectacle.

The book raises important ethical questions. Who owns an image of someone suffering? What if the person photographed has died? What if the image perpetuates violence that hurts those closest to it?

A war photograph does not stop a missile. It does not feed a starving child. But it can interrupt denial and silence.

It can insist that something happened – and reinforce, as many of the placards on the Harbour Bridge said, “you cannot say you didn’t know”.

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

– ref. Images from Gaza have shocked the world – but the ‘spectacle of suffering’ is a double-edged sword – https://theconversation.com/images-from-gaza-have-shocked-the-world-but-the-spectacle-of-suffering-is-a-double-edged-sword-262693

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Smith, Senior Lecturer of Wellbeing Science, The University of Melbourne

One student was routinely punished for her “ADHD behaviours” at school, another was locked in a classroom, while another was sent home 85 times in a single year.

These are just some of the responses we had in a new survey of parents and caregivers about their disabled children’s experiences in Australian schools.

We also heard from students who described “being picked last for everything”, teasing and physical pushing as well as students and staff saying they were “faking” their disability.

In two reports released today for advocacy group, Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA), we reveal alarming rates of bullying and exclusion in Australian schools.

Tracking the lived experiences of students with disability

Since 2010, CYDA has done formal surveys of students with disability and their parents. National data on bullying is not comprehensively collected, making these results both rare and significant.

We conducted the two latest national reports on behalf of CYDA. This new round of surveys repeats the last survey done in 2022, so we can track trends.

The parent survey was conducted from December 2024 to February 2025, with 253 respondents, tracking issues such as bullying, inclusion, restrictive practices and complaints.

The student survey was collected in parallel, hearing directly from 118 primary and high school students with disability about safety, belonging, friendships, and participation in their time at school. Students attended a mix of mainstream, distance schools and special schools.

Both surveys combined quantitative data with free-text responses to show not just how many students are affected, but how deeply bullying and exclusion impact their lives.

A bullying crisis

The results from parents and caregivers paint a troubling picture: 60% reported their child had been bullied at school, representing a 10% increase from 2022.

Estimates of bullying in the general school population vary but are not as high as we found for students with disability. For example, according to federal governments estimates, one in four students say they have been bullied in person.

Bullying in our survey included verbal, physical, social and cyberbullying, with many reports of staff as perpetrators. Some students were “bullied to the point that [they] also now bully,” showing the cyclical harm caused by unaddressed victimisation.

One parent described how

several teachers were clearly antagonistic to my son and didn’t believe in ADHD […] Essentially gave the impression they thought we were just pandering to him and he was ‘playing’ us.

The accounts from young people are equally concerning. Of those surveyed, 39% said they do not feel welcome or included at school. Many described being singled out, left out of group activities, and targeted by peers with little or no intervention by staff.

As one young person told us:

Most of my peers they don’t have basic and correct knowledge about hidden disabilities. They see me as weird, so they refuse me to join for the group work.

Being excluded from camps, excursions and class

The bullying documented in these reports cannot be separated from broader patterns of exclusion, restrictive practices, and low expectations.

More than half (57%) of parents reported their child was excluded from school activities such as excursions or camps. As one child explained in the youth survey:

The school was too scared to let me go on a trip because they
did not believe that I was capable enough to participate, even with my own and doctor’s reassurances.

Almost 30% of parents reported the use of restrictive practices by staff, up from 25% in 2022. Restrictive practices use force to limit a student’s ability to move, such as strapping someone to a chair, holding someone down or locking someone’s wheelchair.

Meanwhile, 25% reported seclusion, such as being locked in a room on their own or put in offices on their own. This figure is up from 19% in 2022. Some students reported dedicated wellbeing and low sensory spaces were repurposed as spaces for such punishment.

This signals ongoing problems that were highlighted by the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability in 2023.

Respondents also linked bullying to students experiencing mental health crises, disengagement from learning and school refusal. The link between bullying and later mental health disorders is well established in research.

As one young person told us:

Some teachers would make me feel really stupid and I left as I
didn’t need an HSC [Year 12 certificate] for the career I’m pursuing.

How the bullying rapid review can help

Our findings come as the federal government conducts a rapid review into school bullying, making this research a crucial evidence base for reform.

The reports show how bullying of students with disability is not an isolated problem but is entrenched in a wider pattern of systemic discrimination.

This has several lessons for the rapid review:

• schools need targeted anti-bullying strategies that specifically include students with disability, not just generic approaches that may overlook their abilities and capabilities

• staff training must focus on recognising and responding to bullying of students with disability, including addressing situations where staff themselves are the perpetrators

• schools need to respect and value difference, rather than stigmatise it. This is fundamental to lasting change

• schools need accountability measures to ensure bullying complaints are addressed transparently and safely.

Every student should be able to learn

Beyond bullying, both reports show how for many students with disability, educational experiences are stagnant or worsening. High rates of exclusion, inadequate teacher training, and unsafe complaints processes point to a system in urgent need of reform.

Every student with disability deserves to be safe, welcome, and able to learn alongside their peers. The data is clear, the stories are heartbreaking, and the need for action has never been more urgent.

Catherine Smith has previously received research funding from Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA).

Helen Dickinson receives funding from Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Futures Fund and Australian governments.

– ref. ‘Several teachers didn’t believe in ADHD’: families speak about how students with disability are bullied and excluded – https://theconversation.com/several-teachers-didnt-believe-in-adhd-families-speak-about-how-students-with-disability-are-bullied-and-excluded-263052

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

The Liberals won 14 of the 35 lower house seats at the July 19 Tasmanian state election, Labor ten, the Greens five, independents five and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers one.

Liberal Jeremy Rockliff was the premier before this election, and he was reappointed on August 6 pending next Tuesday’s sitting of the Tasmanian parliament. Labor will move a vote of no-confidence when parliament sits. If this motion succeeds and a motion of confidence is then passed in Labor, Labor will govern Tasmania for the first time since 2014.

On Tuesday, Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said the Greens would not support Labor in the confidence vote “at this stage”, saying Labor leader Dean Winter had not shown any intention to compromise on issues the Greens said they’d fight for.

To get a majority, 18 votes are required. Analyst Kevin Bonham said the Greens have ruled out abstaining on the no-confidence motion. If Labor can’t win over the Greens, the Liberals will retain government as the 14 Liberals and five Greens add to 19 votes.

To win government, Labor will need support from the Greens and at least three of the six others. I wrote on August 4 that, with five of the six others being left-leaning, it was easier for Labor to form government than the Liberals.

None of the six others have firmly committed to backing either Labor or the Liberals in the no-confidence motion. After the election, the Liberals proposed phasing out greyhound racing. According to Bonham, this has not pleased the one Shooter, who says he won’t support the Liberals unless they reverse this policy.

Labor was last in power in Tasmania from 1998 to 2014, governing in majority from 1998 to 2010 and with the Greens from 2010 to 2014. The Liberals heavily defeated Labor at the 2014 election, and Labor has been reluctant to deal with the Greens since.

Labor probably hopes that the Greens are bluffing, and that they will reluctantly back Labor in the no-confidence motion rather than prop up the Liberals. At the 2025 federal election, nearly 90% of Tasmanian Greens’ preferences went to Labor over the Coalition. If the Tasmanian Liberals retained government on Greens votes, the Greens’ supporters may be angry.

Federally and in most mainland states, single-member systems are used for lower house elections and proportional systems for upper house elections (Queensland has no upper house), but Tasmania uses a proportional system for its lower house elections.

At this election, the Liberals defeated Labor by 40–26 on statewide vote shares. Although Labor can take power with support from the Greens and left-leaning independents, I believe Labor needs to negotiate more with them and possibly make deals to get a workable government that can last a significant portion of a four-year term.

NSW: MP resigns ahead of expulsion vote

Gareth Ward was the New South Wales state Liberal MP for Kiama from 2011 to 2019. At the 2023 state election, he retained Kiama as an independent despite allegations of sexual assault on two young men. Ward was convicted of these allegations by a jury in July and he resigned on August 8 ahead of an expulsion motion that was certain to succeed.

Read more:
Why Gareth Ward’s challenge to the power to expel him from the NSW parliament failed

Labor expects to contest the ensuing September 13 byelection in Kiama. ABC election analyst Antony Green said at the 2023 election, Ward defeated Labor by 50.8–49.2 from primary votes of 38.8% Ward, 34.4% Labor, 12.0% Liberals and 11.1% Greens. On upper house votes in that seat, Labor would have beaten the Liberals, so Labor is the favourite to win the byelection.

Labor won 45 of the 93 NSW lower house seats at the March 2023 election, two short of a majority. It was able to form a minority government. A win in Kiama would put Labor just one seat short of majority.

Federal polls

A national Wolf+Smith poll for The Financial Review, conducted July 18–30 from a sample of 5,000, gave Labor a 57–43 lead, from primary votes of 36% Labor and 30% Coalition with no other party’s primary vote given.

Albanese led Ley as preferred PM by 45–35. By 47–18, respondents opposed increasing the GST rate or broadening the GST base. On income tax cuts, 56% thought they should be paid for by higher company taxes.

A national DemosAU poll, conducted July 31 from a sample of 1,079, had 45% supporting Australia formally recognising a Palestinian state with 23% opposed (35–22 support in May 2024).

US gerrymandering

I wrote for The Poll Bludger last Saturday about attempts by Republicans to grab five extra United States federal House of Representatives seats by gerrymandering Texas, and about retaliatory attempts by Democrats to gerrymander California. I also covered Donald Trump’s US ratings and the July 20 Japanese upper house election.

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

– ref. Greens may be a problem for Labor in next week’s Tasmanian no-confidence vote – https://theconversation.com/greens-may-be-a-problem-for-labor-in-next-weeks-tasmanian-no-confidence-vote-262869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian A. Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

One of the world’s most dangerous water-borne microorganisms, commonly called a “brain-eating amoeba”, has recently been detected in two drinking water supplies in south-west Queensland.

Both affected towns are about 750 kilometres west of Brisbane: Augathella (population roughly 300) and Charleville (population 3,000).

During an analysis of water samples commissioned by Queensland Health, Naegleria fowleri was detected in the water systems of two health facilities, one in Charleville and one in Augathella, as well as in the incoming town water supply at both facilities.

The Shire Council of Murweh, which takes in the two affected locations, issued a health notice for residents and visitors on August 7 warning of the detection of N. fowleri in the water supplies.

So what is this organism? And how significant is the risk likely to be in these Queensland towns, and elsewhere?

It’s rare – but nearly always fatal

The N. fowleri amoeba is a microscopic organism found around the world. It only lives in warm freshwater, generally between 25 and 40°C. This can include ponds, lakes, rivers, streams and hot springs.

If someone is infected with N. fowleri, it causes what’s called primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, a serious infection of the brain.

Symptoms include a sore throat, headache, hallucinations, confusion, vomiting, fever, neck stiffness, changes to taste and smell, and seizures.

The incubation period of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis – the time between infection and symptoms appearing – typically ranges from three to seven days.

Tragically, this illness is nearly always fatal, even if someone receives medical attention quickly. Death typically occurs about five days after symptoms begin.

Fortunately though, cases are very rare. In the United States, there were 167 reported cases of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis between 1962 and 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only four survived.

A global review of the disease up to 2018 reported that, of 381 known cases, Australia accounted for 22, the fifth highest number, after the US, Pakistan, Mexico and India. Some 92% of people died.

So how does someone get infected?

The route of infection is very unusual and quite specific. N. fowleri infects the brain through a person’s nose. The amoeba then passes through a protective membrane called the nasal epithelium.

This is an important physical barrier and allows the amoeba to travel to the brain through the olfactory nerve, which is responsible for our sense of smell. The infection then kills brain tissue and causes swelling of the brain, termed cerebral oedema.

Infections occur in people when infected water travels up their nose. Most cases involve children and young people who have swum in infected waters. The majority of cases occur in males, with an average age of 14.

Even water sports in affected waterways can be dangerous. A person is currently in intensive care in Missouri after it’s believed they became infected while water skiing.

Regarding the recent detection in Queensland water supply systems, the source of the infection has not been reported. It’s possible a fresh waterway, or groundwater, which feeds into the affected drinking water systems, was contaminated with N. fowleri, and the amoeba travelled from there. But this will likely be determined with further investigation.

How dangerous is N. fowleri in drinking water?

First, it’s important to note you can’t get primary amoebic meningoencephalitis from drinking contaminated water.

But any activity that allows infected water to enter a person’s nose is potentially dangerous. This can happen during a bath or a shower.

Some people flush their nasal passages to clear congestion related to allergies or a viral infection. This has been linked to infections with N. fowleri. If you’re going to flush your nasal passages, you should use a sterile saline solution.

Even young children playing with hoses, sprinklers or water activities could be at risk. A 16-month-old child was fatally infected following an incident involving a contaminated water “splash pad” in the US in 2023. Splash pads are water-based recreation activities, primarily for young children, that involve splashing or spraying water.

So what’s the risk in Queensland?

Regarding N. fowleri, Australian drinking water guidelines advise:

If the organism is detected, advice should be sought from the relevant health authority or drinking water regulator.

The guidelines also provide recommendations on how to disinfect water supplies and control N. fowleri, using chlorine and other chemical compounds.

All public town water supplies across Australia are regularly tested to ensure that water is safe to drink.

We don’t yet know the exact cause of the detection of the amoeba N. fowleri in these Queensland towns’ water supplies. But drinking or cooking with water contaminated with this amoeba will not cause an infection.

Any activity that allows potentially contaminated water to go up the nose should be navigated carefully for now in the affected areas.

Contamination of a town drinking water supply from this amoeba is very rare and is unlikely in other Australian town water supplies.

How about swimming?

To reduce your risk in potentially infected warm, fresh waters you should keep your head above water while swimming. And don’t jump or dive in. You can use a nose-clip if you want to swim with your head under water.

The amoeba cannot survive in salt water, so there’s no risk swimming in the ocean. Also, properly maintained swimming pools should be safe from the organism. New South Wales Health advises that the amoeba cannot survive in water that is clean, cool and adequately chlorinated.

Ian A. Wright receives research and consulting funding from industry, local and state government bodies.

– ref. A rare ‘brain-eating amoeba’ has been detected in Queensland water. Can I catch it by drinking tapwater? Or in the shower? – https://theconversation.com/a-rare-brain-eating-amoeba-has-been-detected-in-queensland-water-can-i-catch-it-by-drinking-tapwater-or-in-the-shower-263110

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and Clinical Academic Gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

When you order a coffee, do you ask for it to be “extra hot”?

Whether you enjoy tea, coffee or something else, hot drinks are a comforting and often highly personal ritual. The exact temperature to brew tea or serve coffee for the best flavour is hotly debated.

But there may be something else you’re not considering: your health.

Yes, hot drinks can be too hot – and are even linked to cancer. So, let’s take a look at the evidence.

What’s the link between hot drinks and cancer?

There is no evidence for a link between hot drinks and throat cancer and the evidence for a link between hot drinks and stomach cancer is unclear. But there is a link between hot drinks and cancers of the “food pipe” or oesophagus.

In 2016, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified drinking very hot beverages, meaning above 65°C, as “probably carcinogenic to humans” – this is the same risk category as emissions from indoor wood smoke or eating a lot of red meat.

The agency’s report found it was the temperature, not the drinks, that were responsible.

This is based mainly on evidence from South America, where studies found a link between drinking a lot of maté – a traditional herbal drink usually drunk at around 70°C – and a higher risk of oesophageal cancer.

Similar studies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia have also supported the link between drinking very hot beverages and developing oesophageal cancer.

However, until recently we didn’t have substantial research exploring this link in Europe and other Western populations.

This year, a large study of almost half a million adults in the United Kingdom confirmed drinking higher amounts of very hot drinks (tea and coffee) was associated with oesophageal cancer.

The study found that someone who drank eight or more cups a day of very hot tea or coffee was almost six times more likely to develop oesophageal cancer, compared to someone who didn’t drink hot drinks.

How do hot drinks cause cancer?

Drinking a lot of very hot drinks can damage cells in the oesophagus lining, and it’s believed over time this can lead to cancer developing. Researchers first proposed this link almost 90 years ago.

What we know about how hot drinks can damage the oesophagus mainly comes from animal studies.

Very hot water may accelerate cancer growth. One animal study from 2016 studied mice that were prone to developing cancer. Mice given very hot water (70°C) were more likely to develop precancerous growths in the oesophagus, and sooner, compared to mice given water at lower temperatures.

Another theory is that heat damage to the oesophagus lining weakens its normal barrier, increasing the risk of further damage from gastric acid reflux (from the stomach). Over time, this chronic damage can increase the chance of oesophageal cancer developing.

Does how much you drink matter?

The risk of cancer may depend on how much hot liquid you drink in one sitting and how quickly. It seems drinking a lot in one go is more likely to damage the oesophagus by causing a heat injury.

In one study, researchers measured the temperature inside the oesophagus of people drinking hot coffee at different temperatures.

They found the size of the sip the person took had more impact than how hot the drink was. A very big sip (20 millilitres) of 65°C coffee increased the temperature inside the oesophagus by up to 12°C. Over time, large sips can lead to sustained heat injury that can damage cells.

The occasional small sip of coffee at 65°C isn’t likely to result in any long-term problems. But over years, drinking large amounts of very hot drinks could very well increase the risk of oesophageal cancer.

So, what’s a safe temperature?

The brewing temperatures for drinks such as coffee are very high – often close to the boiling point of water.

For example, takeaway hot drinks may be sometimes be served at very high temperatures (around 90°C) to allow for cooling when people drink them later at the office or home.

One study from the United States calculated the ideal temperature for coffee, factoring in the risk of heat injury to the oesophagus while preserving flavour and taste. The researchers came up with an optimum temperature of 57.8°C.

Tips to consume hot drinks safely

Slow down, take your time and enjoy.

Allowing time for a very hot drink to cool is important and research has shown a hot drink’s temperature can drop by 10–15°C in five minutes.

Other things that may help cool a hot drink:

• stirring and blowing

• opening the lid on a takeaway drink. Coffee with the lid off can cool twice as fast as with the lid on

• mixing in some cool water or milk.

Finally, small sips are a good idea to test the temperature, given we know having a large amount has a significant impact on the temperature inside the oesophagus and potential damage to its lining.

Vincent Ho 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. Do hot drinks really give you cancer? A gut expert explains – https://theconversation.com/do-hot-drinks-really-give-you-cancer-a-gut-expert-explains-261256

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland

We are all familiar with cherubs – small, winged children that have a status in Western art history as angels.

But did you know this image you hold in your head of a cherub is completely unlike the cherubs of the biblical and medieval traditions?

Here’s what you should know about these mythical creatures.

Cherubs were originally fearsome

The Cherubs in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament were fearsome creatures.

Each had four faces – those of a human, a lion, an ox and an eagle – and four wings.

By the 4th century within Christianity, angels had become creatures with two wings, sufficient to enable them to travel from heaven, where they usually resided, to earth, generally to bring messages from God to us.

In the order of heavenly beings constructed by Pseudo-Dionysius in the late 5th century, Cherubs were second in importance to the Seraphs, followed by Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.

So, in the Dionysian order, Cherubs aren’t even angels, but are way above them, close to God. There, they supported the divine throne or the divine chariot by means of which God travelled around.

In a later tradition they, along with the archangel Gabriel, guarded the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Cherubs as we know them come from Putti

What we now call Cherubs in Christian art were originally depictions of Putti – chubby, male children – from Ancient Greece and Rome. We are most familiar with a Putto as Eros, Amor or Cupid, usually naked, winged and with arrows used to incite love.

Putti were re-introduced into the West by the Italian sculptor Donatello in 1429 in sculpture.

In his art, the Putti were spiritelli – what we would call “sprites” or “elves”. They were little creatures – playful, lively and mischievous – often associated with love.

Suddenly, the Putti were everywhere. They especially adorned churches, playing with their Putti friends in childish glee, singing and dancing to the music of the lute or mandolin, climbing on fountains, pouring water through a vase or through the mouth of a fish.

The wings of the Putti suggested angelic status to Christian artists. And so, within the history of Christian art, these Putti have been and are still called “Cherubs”. But we do not know how they came to be known by this name.

The Putti became child-angels

In the 15th century, when the classical Putti were introduced into Christian art, they were looked upon as child-angels rather than as Putti. That is, they were Christianised.

We find child-angels with haloes and multi-coloured wings surrounding Mary and Jesus in Bernardino Fungai’s The Virgin and Child with Cherubim, painted around the end of the 15th century.

We know child-angels best of all as the two playful infantile figures of the Sistine Madonna (1514) with coloured wings, where Raphael has added them into the painting almost, it appears, just for the fun of it or as an afterthought.

Even Cherubs are not always Cherubs

Although we now might refer to all of these winged child-angels as Cherubs, the artists who painted them likely divided them into various celestial creatures, classified in some cases by the colour of the clothing they wore.

Cherubs often appear in blue clothing and with Mary, the mother of Jesus – their blue clothing perhaps reflecting her traditional blue clothes.

Child-angels dressed in blue are often paired with child-angels in red, the traditional colour of the Seraphs, those of a higher angelic order than the Cherubs.

In the French court painter Jean Fouquet’s Virgin and Child (1452), Mary the Queen of Heaven and Jesus are surrounded by naked red Seraphs and, behind them, naked blue Cherubs. So here we have the two highest orders of celestial creatures, surrounding Mary and Jesus.

On occasion, we find Seraphic infants only in attendance on Mary, now as winged heads, with no Cherubic children present at all.

Giovanni Bellini, in a 1485 painting known as Madonna of the Red Cherubim – but better titled “the Madonna of the red Seraphs” – has red winged, red-headed child-angels, their bodies in the clouds surrounding the head of Mary. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the name “Cherub” became common for all these baby angels.

But to call these child-angels all “Cherubs” is a misnomer, still perpetrated in Western art history.

Most artists just depicted child-angels or even infant-angels, with no connection to the biblical Cherub. That said, some, when dressed in blue, are probably intended as Cherubs; others, when dressed in red, are likely meant as Seraphs.

The history of the Western art of celestial creatures needs to be rewritten as a consequence.

Philip C. Almond 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. Not quite angels: why we should stop calling these small winged children ‘cherubs’ – https://theconversation.com/not-quite-angels-why-we-should-stop-calling-these-small-winged-children-cherubs-261163

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melanie MacGregor, ARC Future Fellow and Matthew Flinders Fellow in Chemistry, Flinders University

Progress towards a legally binding global treaty on plastics pollution stalled and went into reverse this week. The United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, ran overtime. It’s likely to conclude this evening, without agreement.

This is an incredibly disappointing result. As a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, I was hoping for action to genuinely curb plastic pollution. Our priorities included considering the whole life cycle rather than just disposal, setting targets to reduce plastic production, and regulating the use of harmful additives to reduce risks to human health.

Unfortunately, vested interests hijacked the negotiations. Countries with major petrochemical producers resisted caps on virgin plastic production. We’ve seen this before. Legitimate scientific concerns about harm have been downplayed by powerful interests time and time again — with tobacco, PFAS, asbestos, and climate change.

When it comes to plastics — especially the micro- and nanoplastics now invading our bodies — awareness and early action could make all the difference. But we can still take action into our own hands as consumers, to minimise exposure and reduce waste. It we act together, we can also send a powerful message to the plastics manufacturing industry.

Why do we need a plastics treaty?

An ambitious plastic treaty could have a positive, lasting impact on the environment and human health.

The Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting aerosols, is a great example of what can be achieved.

The original Kyoto Protocol for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, on the other hand, was not ambitious enough. It had fewer signatories and its effectiveness varied between countries. The plastics treaty is at a similar crossroads.

This treaty is a unique opportunity. It could ensure harmful additives are disclosed, new materials are proven safe before use, and upstream measures — such as reducing production and simplifying plastic chemistry — are prioritised.

Dissecting the changes

A promising draft treaty, circulated in December after two years of negotiations, was revised at the end of the first week of the summit, and then cut in half midway through the second week. All items of contention had been removed.

Words such as “target”, “chemicals”, “harmful” and “phase out” were absent. Article 19 — the one addressing human health — was deleted altogether. References to public awareness disappeared from the waste-management section.

Gone are plans to globally phase out specific products such as plastic bags and straws. So is the section on sustainable production and reduction targets. There is no mention of chemicals of concern, or transparency around additives. Even basic language about improving recycling rates, banning open burning and dumping, or encouraging behaviour change has been removed.

On a positive note, the revised draft still encourages innovation and research. But without safeguards, there’s a risk efforts will simply consist of finding loopholes to dodge penalties. We’ve seen this before too: replacing one banned chemical with another unregulated, equally harmful one.

What can we do as consumers?

In the absence of a strong treaty — at least for now — we shouldn’t underestimate the power and influence we have as consumers.

Industry does respond to public demand. Just look at what happened with plastic microbeads. These tiny pieces of plastic were once common in personal care products such as exfoliants, body scrubs and toothpastes. But when people started to reject products containing microbeads, recognising them as a source of microplastics, manufacturers took note.

Governments also stepped in. The Netherlands was the first country to ban them, soon followed by many others. Eventually, manufacturers phased plastic microbeads out of their product lines worldwide.

That shift was largely driven by popular pressure. It’s a small win, but a telling one — a reminder that our choices can make a difference.

Did you know some of the biggest sources of microplastics are synthetic textiles and tyres? Together they contribute more than 60% of primary microplastics. Microplastics are released not just when an item is discarded and decays in the oceans, but every time it’s worn or washed.

Seemingly small actions – such as buying fewer clothes, choosing natural fibres where possible, washing less often, and walking or cycling instead of driving – can make a difference if we all act collectively.

It’s also worth looking at other sources of microplastics in our surroundings, to limit exposure. Carpets are generally made of synthetic fibres that constantly shed microplastics. Exposure is significantly higher indoors, including inside cars – another reason to walk.

Don’t wait for a treaty

Australia is not a big producer of raw polymers from fossil fuels. That may be partly why our nation is part of the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution by 2040.

However, Australians consume more single-use plastic per capita than most other countries – more than 50 kilograms per person, per year.

We don’t need to wait for a treaty to start curbing plastic pollution in our own lives. If we get serious about changing our ways, manufacturers may be forced to take notice.

Melanie MacGregor receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. The global plastics treaty process has fallen flat. Here’s what went wrong, and how you can help – https://theconversation.com/the-global-plastics-treaty-process-has-fallen-flat-heres-what-went-wrong-and-how-you-can-help-263189

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Guzyal Hill, Research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Australian workers are secretly using generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) tools – without knowledge or approval from their boss, a new report shows.

The “Our Gen AI Transition: Implications for Work and Skills” report from the federal government’s Jobs and Skills Australia points to several studies, showing between 21% to 27% of workers (particularly in white collar industries) use AI behind their manager’s back.

Why do some people still hide it? The report says people commonly said they:

• “feel that using AI is cheating”
• have a “fear of being seen as lazy”
• and a “fear of being seen as less competent”.

What’s most striking is this rise in unapproved “shadow use” of AI is happening even as the federal treasurer and Productivity Commission urge Australians to make the most of AI.

The new report results highlight gaps in how we govern AI use at work, leaving workers and employers in the dark about the right thing to do.

As I’ve seen in my work – both as a legal researcher looking at AI governance and as a practising lawyer – there are some jobs where the rules for using AI at work change as soon as you cross a state border within Australia.

Risks and benefits of AI ‘shadow use’

The 124-page Jobs and Skills Australia report covers many issues, including early and uneven adoption of AI, how AI could help in future work and how it could affect job availability.

Among its most interesting findings concerned workers using AI in secret – which is not always a bad thing. The report found those using AI in the shadows are sometimes hidden leaders, “driving bottom-up innovation in some sectors”.

However, it also comes with serious risks.

Worker-led ‘shadow use’ is an important part of adoption to date. A significant portion of employees are using Gen AI tools independently, often without employer oversight, indicating grassroots enthusiasm but also raising governance and risk concerns.

The report recommends harnessing this early adoption and experimentation, but warns:

In the absence of clear governance, shadow use may proliferate. This informal experimentation, while a source of innovation, can also fragment practices that are hard to scale or integrate later. It also increases risks around data security, accountability and compliance, and inconsistent outcomes.

Real-world risks from AI failures

The report calls for national stewardship of Australia’s Gen AI transition through a coordinated national framework, centralised capability, and a whole-of-population boost in digital and AI skills.

This mirrors my own research, showing Australia’s AI legal framework has blind spots, and our systems of knowledge, from law to legal reporting, need a fundamental rethink.

Even in some professions where clearer rules have emerged, too often it’s come after serious failures.

In Victoria, a child protection worker entered sensitive details into ChatGPT about a court case concerning sexual offences against a young child. The Victorian information commissioner has banned the state’s child protection staff from using AI tools until November 2026.

Lawyers have also been found to misuse AI, from the United States and United Kingdom to Australia.

Yet another example – involving misleading information created by AI for a Melbourne murder case – was reported just yesterday.

But even for lawyers, the rules are patchy and differ from state to state. (The Federal Court is among those still developing its rules.)

For example, a lawyer in New South Wales is now clearly not allowed to use AI to generate the content of an affidavit, including “altering, embellishing, strengthening, diluting or rephrasing a deponent’s evidence”.

However, no other state or territory has adopted this position as clearly.

This article is part of The Conversation’s series on jobs in the age of AI. Leading experts examine what AI means for workers at different career stages, how AI is reshaping our economy – and what you can do to prepare.

Clearer rules at work and as a nation

Right now, using AI at work lies in a governance grey zone. Most organisations are running without clear policies, risk assessments or legal safeguards. Even if everyone’s doing it, the first one caught out will face the consequences.

In my view, national uniform legislation for AI would be preferable. After all, the AI technology we’re using is the same, whether you’re in New South Wales or the Northern Territory – and AI knows no physical borders. But that’s not looking likely yet.

If employers don’t want workers using AI in secret, what can they do? If there are obvious risks, start by giving workers clearer policies and training.

One example is what the legal profession is doing now (in some states) to give clear, written guidance. While it’s not perfect, it’s a step in the right direction.

But it’s still arguably not good enough, especially because the rules aren’t the same nationally.

We need more proactive national AI governance – with clearer policies, training, ethical guidelines, a risk-based approach and compliance monitoring – to clarify the position for both workers and employers.

Without a national AI governance policy, employers are being left to navigate a fragmented and inconsistent regulatory minefield, courting breaches at every turn.

Meanwhile, the very workers who could be at the forefront of our AI transformation may be driven to use AI in secret, fearing they will be judged as lazy cheats.

Guzyal Hill is a practising lawyer, but wrote this article in her role as a researcher working on AI governance and national uniform legislation.

– ref. Many Australians secretly use AI at work, a new report shows. Clearer rules could reduce ‘shadow AI’ – https://theconversation.com/many-australians-secretly-use-ai-at-work-a-new-report-shows-clearer-rules-could-reduce-shadow-ai-263043

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Ride share company Uber has faced legal challenges around the world over whether its drivers should be classified as employees or contractors. New Zealand is no exception, with the most recent case heard before the Supreme Court in July.

While the outcome of that case is not yet known, Uber stands to benefit from amendments to New Zealand’s employment law, currently under select committee review. As it has elsewhere, Uber actively lobbied the government for changes to the law, and one of the proposed amendments was suggested by the company itself.

If enacted, the suite of amendments would clarify the distinction between employment and contracting arrangements, alter how personal grievance remedies are assessed, introduce a high-income threshold for unjustified dismissal claims, and abolish the “30-day rule” for workplaces with collective agreements.

Under the proposed law, whether a worker is a contractor would depend on a “gateway test”. This covers whether the contract describes the person as a contractor, whether they can work for other companies, whether they are required to work specific shifts, and whether their contract can be terminated for declining extra work.

Presented as a way of clarifying the legal status of platform-based workers such as Uber or DoorDash drivers, the changes may end up making it easier for employers to misclassify employees – and is out of step with other countries.

The amendments also don’t address the range of problems associated with platform work, including fluctuating pay and arbitrary deactivation.

The changing nature of work

Under current New Zealand law, employees – those who work under the direction of an employer – are entitled to protections such as the minimum wage, paid sick leave and safeguards against unfair dismissal.

Contractors, by contrast, are considered to be in business on their own account and do not receive such protections. This creates an incentive for some employers to misclassify workers.

This is important, given the new forms of work that have emerged in the past decade. Platform workers on services such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash don’t fit neatly into existing categories of employee or contractor.

For example, Uber has argued it’s not a transport provider and that it does not employ drivers per se, but merely connects them with passengers. It also claims drivers enjoy more freedom than traditional employees, as they are not required to log on to the app.

Drivers, however, argue they are in fact working for Uber’s business, not their own. They point to the company’s pricing controls and other restrictions as evidence that they are, in practice, employees.

The proposed law would resolve this dispute in favour of platform owners. It would allow companies to draft contracts that define workers as contractors on a “take it or leave it” basis – terms that may be difficult, if not impossible, to challenge.

Vulnerable contractors

It has long been acknowledged that some contractors are vulnerable. They may be economically dependent on a single client, or technically able to take other work but practically constrained from doing so.

These workers need more support and protection than the current law offers. Recognising this, other countries, including the European Union, have taken a different approach.

Australia, for example, has created a new category of “employee-like” workers. These are not employees, but are still entitled to protections such as the right not to be unfairly disconnected from a platform and the right to challenge unfair contract terms.

The new law would also affect more than just Uber drivers and other platform workers. It would impose regulatory costs on businesses, which would need to seek legal advice and review their contracting arrangements.

There is also a risk that some employers will rewrite contracts to avoid extending rights to casual workers who should be defined as employees.

Rather than preventing the misclassification of workers, the law changes may make it easier. They do little to address the challenges vulnerable contractors face, fail to tackle the structural problems of platform work, and disregard how other countries are modernising their laws.

Lynne Coker, Senior Lecturer at the Ara Institute of Canterbury, contributed to this article which is based on a forthcoming analysis in the New Zealand Journal of Employment Relations.

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

– ref. Contractor or employee? How a proposed law change will favour Uber over its drivers – https://theconversation.com/contractor-or-employee-how-a-proposed-law-change-will-favour-uber-over-its-drivers-262118

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yanan Hu, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Health Services Management, University of Technology Sydney

Have you received multiple, unexpected bills during your pregnancy, sometimes by text message just hours before a procedure? You’re not alone.

Each year, about 70,000 Australian women give birth in the private system. Many are hit with surprise costs, often with no clear explanation or upfront discussion. Some women may be afraid to question unexpected charges, fearing it could delay care and put their own or their baby’s health at risk.

There has to be a better way.

Now private health insurers have a plan to provide pregnant women with more certainty about the out-of-pocket costs for scans, blood tests and the like. The idea is to provide a “bundle” of maternity care that you pay for up front as a fixed cost.

In a submission to the Productivity Commission, Private Healthcare Australia, which represents most funds, outlines how this would work. But the commission’s interim report into delivering quality care more efficiently, which was out earlier this week, does not mention bundled payments for private maternity care.

We’re two health economists with a special interest in women’s health. Here’s why we believe bundled maternity care could help take the stress and financial guesswork out of having a baby.

The high cost of pregnancy

Our research shows that, on average, women had 11 outpatient visits and accessed 39 out-of-hospital services throughout pregnancy. These include GP and specialist consultations, scans, therapies and tests. Each of these services may incur out-of-pocket costs, and none is allowed to be covered by private health insurance.

These add to average out-of-pocket costs of A$4,285 for women giving birth in the private system.

Private maternity care can deliver outstanding outcomes. Yet the rising and unpredictable out-of-pocket costs may be a key factor to the decline in the proportion of women choosing to give birth in the private system. That not only affects those women. Moving away from private maternity care also adds pressure to our already stretched public health system.

Here’s an example of the types of costs we’re talking about. The image below shows an actual fee schedule that women received at their first private obstetric appointment.

This gives women a clear estimate of fees charged by the specialist obstetrician. Additional services, such as scans, blood or urine tests, anaesthesia, or care for the newborn may incur further costs. But the fee schedule provides no details of how much these might be.

What do private health insurers propose?

Private Healthcare Australia is calling for major reform in how maternity care is funded in the private system, called “a bundled payment”.

Think of it like a travel package, but for your entire pregnancy. Instead of receiving separate bills from multiple health-care providers, you would pay one fixed price that covers all your pregnancy and birth-related care. No surprise bills. No confusion. Just one agreed cost, up front.

Women would choose a lead practitioner, such as an obstetrician, midwife, or GP, who coordinates all necessary services and handles payments to other providers. In return, women receive a single invoice covering everything from initial consultation to postnatal care.

In cases where births are complex and require additional services beyond the standard package, lead practitioners could charge more, but only under strict conditions, and with full disclosure. This helps maintain flexibility while still setting clear expectations up front.

What else can we expect?

Clinicians, including obstetricians, midwives, and GPs would be able to join the bundled care scheme by offering full-service packages to women. They’d collaborate with other health-care providers to deliver care and share funding.

This could spark healthy competition, where providers offer packages with clear pricing and service options. The aim would be to offer women more choice, better value, and improved care coordination.

Bundled care could be a win for the public health system too.

To support the reform, Private Healthcare Australia is proposing both private insurers and the Australian government contribute a minimum of $3,000 each to the lead clinician, covering coordination tasks and helping reduce out-of-pocket costs for families.

Rolling out this funding model would cost the government $246 million over four years. This is far less than the roughly $1,851 million it may otherwise face over the same period if these women shift from private to public maternity care.

Not everyone agrees this would work

However, not all health-care providers are on board. Earlier this year, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists questioned whether bundled maternity payments would really save women money. It said the lead provider of maternity care would bear the burden of indemnity responsibility for all services within the bundle, making the service prohibitively expensive to provide and so unlikely to be financially viable.

However, we’d argue that the payment to the lead provider should be set in consultation with health-care providers to ensure it adequately covers any additional legal liability and coordination burden.

The out-of-pocket costs may still be significant under this funding model. But it would give families greater certainty about fees and more confidence in planning for a baby.

If clinicians’ concerns about legal liability and other practical issues can be managed, this type of reform could make private maternity care a more realistic option for more families.

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

– ref. Does your maternity cover leave you with surprise bills? Here’s one plan to fix it – https://theconversation.com/does-your-maternity-cover-leave-you-with-surprise-bills-heres-one-plan-to-fix-it-262714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anoma Darshani Pieris, Professor of Architecture, The University of Melbourne

After the Great War, Australians made pilgrimages to distant battlefields of Gallipoli and northern France. They paid their respects to the fallen soldiers who shaped our national identity.

After the second world war, new places emerged such as the Kokoda Track, Papua New Guinea; Changi, Singapore; and the Thai-Burma railway. They became synonymous with Australia’s wartime sacrifices in Asia and the Pacific.

However, few know about Yokohama War Cemetery – the only Commonwealth war cemetery in mainland Japan. This unique site was collaboratively designed and built by Australian and Japanese architects, horticulturists and contractors in the years following the war.

It marks one of the first acts of reconciliation between the two nations after hostilities ceased.

Reimagining the cemetery

Yokohama War Cemetery was established as the final resting place for more than 1,500 Allied servicemen and women. Most had died as prisoners of war in Japan and China, including 280 Australians.

About six kilometres west of Yokohama’s historic port, the cemetery sits within a thick pine and cherry tree landscape. After the war ended, Australian and American war graves teams scoured Japan to locate and identify the remains of the fallen. They were often found in the care of local temples near prisoner-of-war camps.

Between 1946 and 1951, a small team of Australian architects and horticulturists designed and constructed the cemetery. They were from the Melbourne-based Anzac Agency of the Imperial War Graves Commission (now known as the Office of Australian War Graves).

Many of these designers were recently returned servicemen.

They include young architects Peter Spier, Robert Coxhead, Brett Finney and Clayton Vize. All trained at the University of Melbourne’s Architectural Atelier, their fledgling careers interrupted by years of war service and at the agency. Others, such as Alan Robertson, endured years as a prisoner of war in Singapore then Japan.

These architects reimagined the flat expanse of the traditional British war cemetery. They arranged a 27-acre former children’s amusement park into five national burial grounds: for the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand–Canada, pre-Partition India, and a post-war section.

Eucalyptus trees towering above the mature foliage clearly identify the cemetery as an Australian endeavour.

Another important contributor was Alec Maisey, a former merchant seaman and New Guinea veteran. Maisey took on the horticultural duties for the Anzac Agency’s numerous war cemeteries. In New Guinea, Borneo, Indonesia, New Caledonia, the South Pacific and across mainland Australia, he left behind a lasting landscape legacy for the thousands of visitors.

An international collaboration

Australian designers collaborated with their Japanese counterparts to create a memorial landscape. They embedded the commission’s established lawn cemetery template into a Japanese style “hide and reveal” garden that conceals and reveals the view as you walk through it.

Impressed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s use of native Oya stone at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, modernist architect Yoji Kasajima introduced it at the cemetery.

Japanese-American Michael Iwanaga was the principal local architect for the cemetery and introduced the Australians to the social and cultural norms of Japanese funerary architecture.

The main contractor on the project, Yabashi Marble, was associated with Japan’s modernist architecture renaissance. They installed the interior stone for Japan’s parliament building.

Tokio Nursery was initially an importer and exporter of seeds, bulbs and plants. They turned to landscaping after the war, becoming the cemetery’s principal gardening and maintenance contractor.

These tentative first steps towards reconciliation between Australia and Japan were made through design.

The result was a war cemetery unique to Asia, combining Asian and Western funereal features and aesthetics in its design.

Through these encounters, the Australian designers’ gained a deeper understanding of Japan’s materials, flora and landscape. Working closely with Japanese architects, nurseries and contractors, their approach to and perception of their profession and Japan was transformed.

Among many cemeteries they designed throughout Asia, Yokohama was the place they often returned to and drew inspiration from in their personal lives.

Enduring reminders

War does not end with a victory or a battle. Some of the most difficult tasks are carried out by the seemingly obscure units of the Australian army. The Australian war graves services, undertook the recovery of the war dead, providing for their dignified burial in designated cemeteries.

Many of these spaces were designed and created during the last stages of the conflict.

War cemeteries are often activated only during commemorative anniversaries. Yet, they persist in serving as enduring reminders of the futility of war and the scale of a nation’s sacrifice. They trigger intergenerational memories for Australians.

For many Asians, however, these sites often represent an unwelcome age of imperial conflicts in which their service and sacrifice was often overlooked.

Yokohama War Cemetery stands as a testament to the collaborative efforts of Australian and Japanese designers in the aftermath of the second world war. It offers a unique perspective on the journey towards reconciliation and the power of design to bridge cultural divides.

The exhibition Eucalypts of Hodogaya is at the Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne, until August 2026.

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

– ref. Cherry blossoms and eucalypts: this Japanese war cemetery remembers fallen Australians – https://theconversation.com/cherry-blossoms-and-eucalypts-this-japanese-war-cemetery-remembers-fallen-australians-262344

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jan Lanicek, Associate Professor in Modern European History and Jewish History, UNSW Sydney

Everyone knows her photo. For some it shows the cheeky smile of a young girl, “Miss Quack Quack”. For others, the image represents an enigmatic veil of mystery, similar to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Millions have read her diary, watched various renditions in theatres and on the screen, or visited exhibitions devoted to her story. Thousands queue in front of the house in Amsterdam, where she spent 760 days in the secret annex, hiding from the Gestapo and their Dutch collaborators.

People quote the most famous sentence from her diary, immortalised in the Hollywood film, saying that “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart”.

The sentence was written in July 1944 by 15-year-old Jewish girl Anne Frank, three weeks before the capture of her family by the Nazis. It represents the innocence, perhaps naivety of an adolescent, who after the war became one of the most iconic symbols of the Nazi Holocaust.

The quote carries a universal message that good will eventually prevail. This has turned Anne’s legacy into an easily adoptable trope, serving activists and political agendas. But who, actually, was Anne Frank? And how did she differ from the “Anne Franks” that have emerged since the end of the war?

The Many Lives of Anne Frank – Ruth Franklin (Yale University Press)

Acclaimed author Ruth Franklin explores these probing questions in her newest book. She is to be commended for her sensitive treatment of a difficult subject and an attempt to get as close as possible to Anne’s personality and nature.

Franklin follows two paths. First, she reconstructs Anne’s life based on the diary and recollections of people who knew her. In the second part, she reveals the afterlife of the diary and “Anne Frank”, in different contexts and on different platforms.

She concludes that the “Anne” most people know, or imagine, differs quite significantly from the girl who lived in the secret annex and penned the diary.

The story

Annelies Marie Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt am Main to an affluent assimilated German-Jewish family. After the rise of Hitler and the introduction of the first racial laws, her parents Otto and Edith decided to take Anne and her older sister Margot to the Netherlands. They continued to live in Amsterdam despite the growing threat, even after the German invasion in 1940. Attempts to emigrate to the United States failed.

The mounting persecution kept restricting their lives. In early 1942, the Nazis began to plan deportations of the Jews to the east. In July, when Margot received a call to the transport to occupied Poland, the family decided to go into hiding.

They spent over two years in the secret annex, eventually accepting four more fugitives: the van Pels family, including their teenage son Peter, and dentist Fritz Pfeffer. They were supported by a group of people, including, most famously, Miep and Jan Gies.

The group, experiencing the constant tensions of living in the claustrophobic space, ran out of luck in early August 1944. They were betrayed, and the Nazis sent them to the transit camp of Westerbork, from where they continued on the very last train to Auschwitz. After a month, Margot and Anne were separated from their mother and sent to Bergen-Belsen in central Germany.

Their physical and mental state soon deteriorated. A survivor of Belsen later remembered the “two thin, shaven-headed figures” who “looked like freezing little birds”.

Shortly before the end of the war, typhus erupted in the overcrowded camp and Anne and Margot became its victims. Otto, liberated from Auschwitz, was the only survivor from the eight who hid in the secret annex.

The diary

Anne got the red-checkered diary on her 13th birthday, shortly before moving to the secret annex. She wrote only occasionally, but soon the diary turned into her constant companion. It was a place where she could express her feelings.

Written in the form of letters to an imaginary friend Kitty (identified by Franklin as a character in Cissy van Marxveldt’s popular books for children), the diary offers a vivid reconstruction of life in hiding, describing in detail the daily routine. It also allowed Anne to vent frustration from constant conflicts with her mother, Mrs. van Pels and Pfeffer.

Another prominent feature, dominating later representations, was her evolving relationship with Peter, which eventually turned romantic.

In March 1944, Anne heard a radio broadcast by the exiled Dutch education minister Gerrit Bolkestein, who asked listeners to keep documentary evidence about their life under the Nazis. Anne began to rewrite her diary, now with the intention of making it public. Franklin suggests that this turned the book into a memoir in the form of diary entries.

Anne had not finished when the raid stopped her efforts. Not all parts of the diary survived. At least one of the original volumes, covering over a year, is missing; it does, however, exist in the version Anne wrote after March 1944.

Several versions

Otto returned to Amsterdam in June 1945. After they received a confirmation that Anne did not survive, Miep Gies handed over Anne’s papers, which she had found in the annex. Otto decided to publish the diary but, in what Franklin calls “the most confusing and contested” aspect of Anne’s story, “betrayed” her legacy.

Otto combined both versions of the diary. He returned to the manuscript sections that Anne removed, including details of her romance with Peter. He softened the criticism of Anne’s mother and of Mr. and Mrs. van Pels.

Franklin believes Otto did so out of respect for victims. The last surviving pages from Anne’s diary, offering critical comments about her parents’ marriage, were made public only after Otto’s death decades later.

It took almost 40 years before a critical edition, comparing all the versions of the diary, was published by Dutch researchers. This necessarily raises the question of how far the Anne Frank people know from Otto’s version is different from Anne who lived in hiding and perished in Belsen.

Afterlife and projection

Despite initial scepticism, the diary immediately became a hit, especially in the United States. Soon there were efforts to turn it into a theatre play and film. Otto agreed, because he needed money to preserve the house with the annex.

The Broadway play premiered in 1955 and the Hollywood feature film in 1959. In the following decades, Anne’s story inspired scores of authors, but also activists who referred to the public icon in support of their agenda.

The immense publicity did not come without controversies. It has led, according to Franklin, to Anne becoming “whoever and whatever we need her to be”. Such efforts keep surfacing. Franklin is right to criticise those who deliberately aim to provoke, for example, by using Anne’s image in anti-Zionist campaigns.

The original theatre and film representations, according to some, intentionally universalised Anne’s story, suppressing her Jewish identity. This, according to Franklin, made the story more palatable to the American audience and reflected the American Jewish ideal at that time of full assimilation into American society.

Yet although Anne’s diary can speak to a multitude of audiences, it is a deeply Jewish story. Anne’s relation with her Jewish identity and Zionism was ambiguous, though she was aware of her background and wrote that they “will always remain Jews”. Margot, her sister, wanted to go to Mandatory Palestine as a maternity nurse; Otto in his later life was supportive of the Zionist project.

Another affair, more recently, focused on the parts of the diary where Anne expressed her desire to touch her female friend’s breast and kiss her. She also wrote about her attraction to female nudity in art.

There were accusations that Otto censored these parts of the diary, in an effort to deny the coming out of his daughter. This is unfair criticism. As Franklin shows, Otto included the entries, slightly modified, in the first US edition, even though Anne had removed them from the rewritten version of her diary.

Ironically, conservative circles in the United States have called for a ban of a graphic novel based on the book, calling it “Anne Frank pornography”. Franklin cautions us against such projections and reading too much into these comments. We simply don’t know enough about Anne and about how her sexuality would develop. In the diary, she repeatedly expressed attraction to several boys, including Peter van Pels.

The raid

These efforts only show how the popularised image of Anne keeps attracting attention. We still want to know more about her and solve all mysteries. In 2022, a Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan, in cooperation with a former FBI special agent, published a book that claimed to solve the mystery of Anne’s betrayal.

Until today, the culprit has not been identified. According to Sullivan, the Annex eight were betrayed by a member of the Dutch Jewish Council. This compulsory community body has often been accused of collaboration.

The publication triggered a quick response from Dutch Holocaust historians who, in a long rebuttal, rejected Sullivan’s claim, calling it a baseless fabrication. Dutch and German publishers withdrew the book.

Who was the real Anne Frank?

The question ultimately remains unresolved.

Is it the girl who penned the first version of her diary to cope with the persecution and isolation in the annex? Is it the young woman, author of the second version, who matured too quickly because of a lack of contact with her peers? Is it the Anne that Otto, grieving after the loss of his whole family, reconstructed from the pages saved by Miep Gies?

Or is she one of the versions of her story produced at Broadway, Hollywood, by countless writers, and now even political activists?

We all suffer from cognitive dissonance. The only photos we have of Anne are those of a young girl from the time before the family went into hiding. But the Anne who wrote the diary was older, almost womanlike, physically and mentally. Miep Gies recalled that “she had arrived a girl, but she would leave a woman”.

Reading the diary, even though we know the end, we hope she will survive. We don’t want to know what happened after their capture. We don’t want to see her bald and emaciated in Auschwitz or Belsen.

At the same time, we know the story will end there. Franklin bitterly remarks that “readers already perceive Anne as if she were a figure in a book rather than a real person. To just about everyone, her life is of secondary importance to what we make of it.”

Perhaps we should just conclude, together with Franklin that Anne was a talented girl and “an accomplished and sophisticated writer – a deliberate, literary witness to Nazi persecution”. She had many virtues and vices.

She can inspire us, we need to learn about her, but we should respect her. We should not project onto her our current agenda, concerns or political views. We should “restore her as a human being”, and that’s exactly what Franklin does.

Jan Lanicek receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is co-president of the Australian Association for Jewish Studies.

– ref. Friday essay: who was Anne Frank? – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-who-was-anne-frank-261748