Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Pinder, Associate Professor, Finance , The University of Melbourne

During yesterday’s senate inquiry into supermarket pricing, Greens senator Nick McKim threatened to hold outgoing Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci in contempt for refusing to directly answer questions about the company’s profitability.

McKim repeatedly asked Banducci for details about Woolworths’ return on equity, but the chief executive argued that another profitability metric – return on investment – was the better measure to focus on.

For Woolworths, the difference between these figures is significant. At the senate hearings, Banducci repeatedly said the company’s return on investment was about 10%. But analytics firm LSEG’s estimates put its return on equity at 26%.

So what’s the difference between these two measures? And in the highly charged setting of an inquiry into supermarket pricing, why might Woolworths prefer to focus on one over the other?

How do we judge profitability?

First, let’s consider what both measures are trying to capture – the company’s profitability.

Of course, we could dodge the “which ratio is better” issue altogether, by simply referring to the company’s actual reported profit last year. But this then raises another question. With a wide range to choose from, which profit figure should we look at? Before or after interest payments? Before or after tax?

As these answers change, the profitability of Woolworths varies significantly, ranging from about A$5.7 billion before interest and tax, to a more modest A$1.6 billion after interest and tax.

If we assume we’re interested in the company’s profitability after interest and tax, we still need to assess whether a profit of $1.6 billion is high, low or perfectly average for a firm like Woolworths.

Scaling and comparing profits

The way this is solved in markets, of course, is that profits are scaled. Scaling involves dividing a company’s profit by a measure that reflects the amount of investment required to generate it, enabling us to compare profitability among competing firms.

To do so, it is important to understand that firms raise capital – on which they earn a return – in two main ways: by raising equity (such as shares issued privately or on a stock exchange) and by taking on debt (funds borrowed from banks and other creditors).

Both return on equity and return on investment are scaled measures of profitability. But return on equity divides a company’s income by the total value of its equity, while return on investment divides it by the total value of all capital employed – both its equity and its debt.

As such, each measure gives a correct answer to a different question.

Return on investment is answering the question: what rate of return did your assets generate from each dollar of capital raised from both shareholders and debtholders?

Whereas return on equity answers: what rate of return did you generate for shareholders after accounting for the impact of your debt and taxes?

The income earned for shareholders by a firm holding debt is what’s left over after interest is paid on that debt. Provided the firm’s assets generate a higher rate of return than the interest rate paid on the firm’s debt, shareholder returns will be higher than if the company had not borrowed at all. This effect is significant for Woolworths shareholders, given the investment-grade rating it enjoys on its debt.

The disparity between return on investment and return on equity grows even larger as a company relies more heavily on borrowing – a practice long enjoyed by companies like Woolworths and Coles with such historically low risk.

Facing an increasingly hostile Senate Inquiry into his company’s profitability, it’s little surprise that Banducci pushed so enthusiastically for the adoption of his preferred measure.

Read more:
Supermarkets need to change the way they operate in Australia. But how do we get them to do this?

Sean Pinder 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. Woolworths chief Brad Banducci couldn’t give senators his company’s ‘return on equity’. What exactly is this figure, and what can it tell us about a company’s profit? – https://theconversation.com/woolworths-chief-brad-banducci-couldnt-give-senators-his-companys-return-on-equity-what-exactly-is-this-figure-and-what-can-it-tell-us-about-a-companys-profit-228021

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Bennett, Disability Program Director, Grattan Institute

Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a draft NDIS reform bill has been tabled. In this series, experts examine what new proposals could mean for people with disability.

One of the main proposals of the review of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is the mandatory registration of all service providers. It is also one of the most controversial. A taskforce investigating the idea, announced by NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, will report by the end of June.

At present, registration is voluntary, except for a few high-risk services such as those that use restrictive practices or provide specialist disability accommodation. About 16,000 providers are registered, but more than 150,000 are unregistered.

Many people in the disability community are distressed by the plan. They say it will reduce their ability to choose people they know and trust as their service providers if those providers remain unregistered.

Extending provider registration (including in shared accommodation) makes sense, but not in the way proposed.

The NDIS review wants to make people in the scheme safer, get them higher-quality services, and collect data to better track the market – including monitoring abusive providers and workers. But instead of lurching to mandatory registration for all, the government could take a more nuanced approach to balance safety with the “dignity of risk”.

The recommendations

The premise of registration reforms is that the riskier the service provided, the more stringent the registration process should be. The review calls this a “graduated risk-proportionate regulatory model”. For example, a local laundry service would need to “enrol” with the National Disability Insurance Agency (the NDIA, which administers the scheme). This would involve an online application, ABN, Digital ID, bank account and contact details. The online application would also enable NDIA payments.

Then there would be three tiers of registration: basic, general, and advanced. Basic registration would involve self-assessment and stated commitment to NDIS Practice Standards. General and advanced registration would involve an audit that providers arrange and pay for themselves. For many small businesses and contractors, this could prove onerous and expensive.

The review proposes using one dimension to determine risk: the kind of service being provided. But this does not give NDIS participants – the people receiving services – the ability to take on some of the risk of screening workers themselves if they so choose.

Read more:
Draft NDIS bill is the first step to reform – but some details have disability advocates worried

Some people with disability want more options, even if it involves risk

When the NDIS was designed more than a decade ago, it purposely enabled the use of unregistered providers by legislating different plan management options. This deliberate policy choice was to encourage competition and innovation.

Nearly a third of NDIS participants are self-managing. This means they manage their plan budget and can choose to screen their own workers and hire their own staff.

All providers, whether they register or not, have responsibilities to participants. All providers can have complaints raised against them through the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and are held to the NDIS Code of Conduct. And who is allowed to self-manage is already subject to a risk assessment undertaken by the NDIA.

Deciding who supports them matters to people with disability, especially when support workers are in their homes and helping them with the most personal of care, such as getting in and out of bed, dressing or showering.

Trusted networks of workers may have been built up over many years. Yet, by categorising this kind of care as “high risk”, the proposal for mandatory registration means directly hired staff could have to undergo and pay for an audit and do extra training. Such requirements could make many established support arrangements unviable.

Australia doesn’t have to go this way. In England, under a comparable scheme, more than 69,000 people with disability directly employ more than 130,000 “personal assistants”. Direct employers are encouraged to invest in training for their staff, but it is not mandated through formal registration.

Read more:
States agreed to share foundational support costs. So why the backlash against NDIS reforms now?

Thin markets

Some people in the NDIS use unregistered providers not by choice, but by necessity. In areas where there are very few providers, termed “thin markets”, working with unregistered providers can be the difference between getting a service and receiving no services at all.

Unregistered providers tend to provide more short-term or one-off services, meaning the costs of registration might outweigh the benefits for some providers. For example, some providers who mainly work with non-disabled clients might choose to stop providing NDIS services rather than register, which would be a problem in markets with few or one provider.

Read more:
Unregistered NDIS providers are in the firing line – but lots of participants have good reasons for using them

A new payment system will help

A lot of the data the government needs to track down and strike off dodgy providers or workers will come through the enrolment process into the scheme’s new payment system once established. This will record providers’ business name, ABN or Digital ID, bank account details, location and contact details.

This information means authorities stand a much better chance of tracking spending and taking enforcement action when needed. It should help the government keep participants safer while cracking down on fraud – without necessarily requiring mandatory provider registration.

Where to from here

We need to see less heat and more light around the purpose of regulatory reform.

The focus on mandatory registration comes at the expense of deeper thinking about the problems good regulatory design needs to solve, like the shocking abuse Lee-Anne Mackey suffered from carers in her group home.

People with disability deserve a more nuanced approach to regulating disability services – one that retains choice while enhancing regulatory and other protections in the settings where it is most needed.

Grattan Institute’s Disability Program has support from the Summer Foundation.

– ref. Choice and control: the NDIS was designed to give participants choice, but mandatory registration could threaten this – https://theconversation.com/choice-and-control-the-ndis-was-designed-to-give-participants-choice-but-mandatory-registration-could-threaten-this-224505

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexa Scarlata, Research Fellow, Media & Communications, RMIT University

Do you find yourself endlessly scrolling through streaming channels, wondering what to watch among the hundreds (or thousands) of options? Do you worry about spending more money on yet another subscription just to watch the latest show everyone is talking about? Do you miss the days when we had just five channels to choose from – and someone else was making the choices about what was playing? Do you ever just wish you could watch Home and Away, 24 hours a day, every day?

Well, there is a channel for that.

On “FAST TV” – or, free ad-supported streaming TV – in Australia you can watch a channel entirely dedicated to Home and Away, or another that plays Border Security non-stop. You can watch Mythbusters on a loop, or hours and hours of Baywatch.

You can watch channels curated by genre, like “Cooking & Culture” or “Property Dreams”, or by sporting code. Some channels recreate those you might remember from your Foxtel days, like MTV Reality and Nick Toons, or The Movie Hub and “Throwback TV”.

FAST channels (or “FASTs”) resemble traditional broadcast or cable channels. They run on a linear schedule, interspersed with blocks of ads. But they are entirely free and delivered over the internet – and our recent audit of the market found there are more than 640 available in Australia.

Read more:
The government has announced plans to regulate smart TV home screens: what the new rules mean for you

Where can I find them?

FASTs are offered on most smart TVs, as well as on some local broadcasters’ video-on-demand services.

They first became available in Australia in 2020 when Samsung launched Samsung TV Plus. LG Channels, TCL Channels and VIDAAtv (on Hisense TVs) have since entered the market.

If you have one of these smart TVs, you might have access to FAST channels. These are normally displayed in the app-launcher row on the smart TV home screen and in the electronic program guide.

7Plus and 10Play offer more than 50 FAST channels each, and 9Now and SBS On Demand recently each added a couple of FAST channels. Plex, a free media player and video app you can download onto your smart TV, offers more than 200 FAST channels.

So why do they exist?

For TV manufacturers like Samsung and LG, FASTs add value to a customer’s initial purchase and manufacturers make money from advertising and the data they collect from users.

For Australian television stations, FASTs help their streaming catalogues look bigger and allow them to use the content they’ve licensed in a different way.

Arguably, the audience for shows like Home and Away and Border Security are used to linear TV (and the advertising that comes along with it), and they might enjoy a lean-back experience where they can binge these shows.

FAST channels are being promoted to audiences as the solution to streaming frustrations such as subscription fatigue, choice paralysis and increasing costs. With these channels you don’t have to choose what to watch next; instead, you can sit in front of whatever is on. A study by Samsung found ads within FAST environments are perceived as shorter and less disruptive than broadcast TV. And, of course, FASTs are free.

FASTs also provide content audiences might not be able to find anywhere else. They exist across several key niches (in our research, we found channels for gaming, yoga, poker, wrestling, fashion, cooking, spirituality and finance) and serve particular diasporic communities in Australia. For example, LG Channels offers a suite of South Korean channels.

Some of the 1,500 FAST channels in the United States have started making exclusive new content, but at the moment the FAST channels in Australia only offer existing content.

Read more:
Netflix and other streaming giants pay to get branded buttons on your remote control. Local TV services can’t afford to keep up

There are issues to iron out

The FAST channels of Australian television stations offer recognisable, high-quality titles, mostly exclusive to one platform.

But we found that the FAST channels offered by smart TV manufacturers in Australia have a long way to go to catch up with the quality of those from the broadcasters.

Manufacturers have opted for quantity over quality. As a result, their FAST channels can be quite obscure and erratic. We observed poor video quality and channels that are slow to load, glitchy or prone to malfunction. Programming is regularly labelled incorrectly or confusingly in the electronic program guide.

We also found a surprisingly high proportion of empty ad slots, even on the more premium manufacturer FAST channels. This means that you might be left sitting through a repetitive holding screen during designated “ad” breaks.

FASTs are a great way for Australians to supplement paid subscriptions with a range of free channels. There will no doubt be more investment in this market in the years ahead.

But our research suggests, so far, FASTs have largely flown under the radar of Australian audiences and it remains to be seen whether they can provide a satisfying substitute to streaming in practice.

A 24-hour Home and Away channel might not be a threat to Netflix just yet – but a channel dedicated to a new and exclusive show? That might be a different story.

Alexa Scarlata has been working on a project funded by the Australian Research Council (FT190100144) and SBS.

Ashleigh Dharmawardhana 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. Is a 24-hour Home and Away channel the answer to subscription fatigue? – https://theconversation.com/is-a-24-hour-home-and-away-channel-the-answer-to-subscription-fatigue-226738

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathleen Laura Sterup, Postgraduate in Marine Biology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

In the early 20th century, canaries were used as early warning systems in coal mines to alert miners to rising levels of carbon monoxide.

A small unremarkable fish may fill a similar role in coastal ecosystems around Aotearoa New Zealand.

Triplefins, or kokopara, are common in a range of shallow coastal habitats across the country. They are a diverse group of fishes, with 26 endemic species living on our shores, and they make excellent “canaries” for the coastal marine environment, helping us to understand and possibly address pollution.

Research using triplefins has already shown increased consumption of microplastics by fish living closer to urban areas. Studies have also identified molecular responses to multiple chemical pollutants and described cognitive damage caused by loss of habitat complexity.

Noise pollution from small boats also has negative effects on coastal fish. And now, new research is investigating the surprising impact of light pollution on coastal ecosystems.

We are finding what is called “skyglow” affects triplefin growth patterns, with consequences for their ability to forage.

An underwater ‘canary’

Human activity around coastal waters is intense, about triple the rate of other areas, and it affects ecosystems such as beaches and wetlands.

Coastal urbanisation introduces a range of challenges for near-shore ecosystems, including pollutants, plastics, sound and light.

Light pollution is often recognised for the limitations it imposes on astronomers and stargazers, but a growing body of research has begun to document effects on the health of animals and ecosystems.

Scientists have found coastal fishes in tropical and temperate environments, including the common triplefin, reproduce and grow in a cyclical pattern which follows the monthly lunar cycle.

Patterns in nocturnal illumination (known as artificial light at night, or ALAN) of surface waters have a surprisingly large impact on these fish. The prevalence of light pollution from cities (in this case New Zealand’s capital Wellington) can potentially interfere with their breeding cycles.

Read more:
Night skies are getting 9.6% brighter every year as light pollution erases stars for everyone

Long-term trends in skyglow over the Wellington region have revealed elevated levels of nighttime illumination up to 60 kilometres from the city centre.

Analysis of triplefin samples from nearby waters has identified altered growth patterns, manifesting in different body shapes. The health consequences include decreased swimming and foraging ability and make life harder for fish developing in brighter waters.

Bright city lights

It may not seem that the effects of light on a tiny fish are a big deal, but triplefins are a clear indicator of what could be happening in other fish.

In marine ecosystems, small changes have a way of propagating further up the food chain. In the light pollution example, theory suggests small-scale, relatively short-term fluctuations in small prey species like the common triplefin are likely to appear later as long-term fluctuations in larger species at a greater spatial scale, with genuine implications for pelagic fisheries.

In an instance such as this, the triplefin is indeed acting as a canary for potential changes affecting the entire marine food web.

Read more:
Under the moonlight: a little light and shade helps larval fish to grow at night

We know what affects one fish species may not affect others. But equally, we can’t carry out experiments on every species. What the humble triplefin can tell us is that coastal ecosystems are in trouble, not just from water quality and pollution, but from the lights and sounds of our big cities.

Like the miners, we need to pay attention to the animals we use as indicators. The triplefins are asking us to embrace the dark and there are many ways in which our cities can do this.

Communities can choose LED lightbulbs and shaded fixtures for street lights, so they only point down. Sensible use of dimmers and timers will help turn off unnecessary lights. In fact, Aotearoa New Zealand hosts two of the world’s few dark sky reserves, in Aoraki-McKenzie and, more recently, in the Wairarapa, as well as two dark sky sanctuaries (Aotea/Great Barrier Island and Rakiura/Stewart Island).

New Zealand could be on track to become the second dark sky nation in the world (after Niue).

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. Light pollution affects coastal ecosystems too – this underwater ‘canary’ is warning of the impacts – https://theconversation.com/light-pollution-affects-coastal-ecosystems-too-this-underwater-canary-is-warning-of-the-impacts-226599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

So weighed down have Americans become by student debt, and so potent a political issue has it become in the US, that President Biden plans to waive interest or write off money owing by 30 million of them.

He is doing it bit by bit, in the face of resistance from the US Supreme Court. He has already axed or wound back 4.3 million debts, and on Friday cancelled 277,000 more.

The benefits, as he keeps telling anyone who will listen in the lead up to the November election, are likely to be increased consumer spending, better mental health and credit scores for borrowers, and increased home ownership.

In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is under pressure to do something – anything – for Australians under the same sort of pressure.

Every June, the amount owed jumps

Every June the amount that someone who has borrowed under the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) jumps. Because the jump is linked to inflation, and because inflation has been low for decades, in most Junes the jump has been small, until last June.

On June 1 2023, Australians who had made no payments over the previous year faced a jump of 7.1%. Someone who had owned $25,000, suddenly owed $26,770, and so on.

A quarter of a million Australians have signed a petition asking for change.

The good news is there’s likely to be some change, and we are likely to hear about it soon, in the lead-up to the May budget.

The bad news for borrowers is it won’t be debt relief of the kind Biden is offering.

It’s worse in the US

While in both Australia and the US it’s the government that lends to pay student fees rather than private lenders (who don’t like the risks) in the US the loans are really onerous, requiring fixed monthly repayments over a set period of time,
regardless of the borrower’s circumstances.

In Australia and the United Kingdom and New Zealand and some other countries that have copied Australia’s system, the loans are income contingent, meaning they only need to be repaid when the borrower’s income rises to a certain level.

At the moment Australia’s repayment threshold is A$51,550 per year, meaning anyone who earns less than that doesn’t need to repay a cent, perhaps forever if their income never climbs that high.

Where payments are required, they are taken out in the same way as income tax is, each fortnight for pay-as-you-earn employees.

Buried within Biden’s announcement is a decision to move towards an Australian-style plan he has called SAVE, which stands for Saving on a Valuable Education.

If it becomes law, single Americans won’t have to repay until they earn US$32,800. For an American supporting a family of four the threshold will be US$67,500. It will be an Australian-style system.

Easy wins for Albo

While Australia’s system is much better than the one in the US and has been copied around the world, it is far from perfect.

A simple change, identified by the report of the Australian Universities Accord delivered to Education Minister Jason Clare, in February is to increase the amount owing each year by either the rate of increase in prices or the rate of increase in wages, whichever is lower.

Usually, prices increase by less than wages, which is why the system was set up in 1988 to index amounts owed to prices.

But last year, unusually, prices increased faster than wages. In those years it would be simple to lift the amount owed only in line with wages, as the report recommends.

The amount owed needs to increase in line with something, because otherwise its value would shrink rapidly as prices rose. The government doesn’t charge interest (which would hurt) so instead it lifts the amount owed in line with prices to ensure that compared to other things it remains little changed.

Make repayments more like tax

Although we repay student loans through the income tax system, we don’t do it like income tax.

Here’s how it works for tax: on our first $18,200 of income we pay nothing, then we pay 19 cents in the dollar for each extra dollar we earn up to the next threshold, and so on. The key words here are “for each extra dollar”. We continue to pay nothing on the first $18,200 we earn.

Higher education loans work differently. For them, we repay nothing until we earn $51,550, and then at that point, even if we earn just one dollar more, we pay one per cent of all our annaul income, the entire $51,550 (which amounts to $515).

It’s a repayment cliff that sends us backwards. It means earning an extra dollar costs us more than $500 in that year. It can mean an effective marginal tax rate of 500%.

The cliff matters. Each year, there’s an impressive cluster of taxpayers who happen to be earning just under the threshold. More likely to be women than men, they might be deciding not to work in order to keep their incomes below the threshold.

Make it easier to get home loans

Britain and other nations that copied Australia’s system don’t impose large repayments in one hit, and the economist who designed Australia’s system now says that part of the system was “an error, a mistake”.

That economist, Bruce Chapman, has suggested a redesign that would require collections only on extra rather than total incomes, a proposal the report to the government endorses.

And there’s something else Albanese can do. Right now Australia’s banking regulator requires banks to count student loans as debt for the purpose of determining who can get a housing loan, knocking some former students out.

Chapman says it would make more sense to treat the compulsory payments as tax, which is how they function. All they do is reduce after-tax income, and for low earners, they don’t even do that. It’d get more people into housing.

Now it’s over to Albo.

Read more:
How do we protect students from ballooning HELP debts? A fixed maximum indexation rate would help

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation.

– ref. Biden is cancelling millions of student debts – here’s what to expect from Albanese – https://theconversation.com/biden-is-cancelling-millions-of-student-debts-heres-what-to-expect-from-albanese-227919

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

Two major critical minerals projects in Queensland and South Australia are to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in federal government loans as part of the Albanese government’s new Future Made in Australia policy.

New loans worth $400 million will go to the Australian company Alpha HPA to deliver Australia’s first high-purity alumina processing facility in the Queensland port city of Gladstone.

The project is expected to create about 490 jobs during construction and more than 200 when it is completed.

The company will use Australian-owned intellectual property and technologies to produce high purity alumina, which is a critical mineral used in LED lighting, semiconductors, lithium-ion batteries and other high- tech applications.

The loans will be provided by Export Finance Australia through the government’s $4 billion Critical Minerals Facility and Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

The government is also lending $185 million to Renascor Resources to fast track the first stage of its South Australian Siviour Graphite Project at Arno Bay on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsular.

An earlier loan for the project was approved in February 2022.

Stage One will deliver about 150 construction jobs and 125 ongoing jobs when the project is operational. Stage Two is expected to involve another 225 construction jobs and more than 120 jobs operational once operating in Bolivar near Port Adelaide.

Renascor Resources will deliver purified graphite for lithium-ion batteries needed for electric vehicles and renewable technologies.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the two projects would help bring “good and secure jobs in manufacturing, and clean, reliable energy”.

Resources Minister Madeleine King said Australia’s critical minerals and rare earths were “key to building renewable technologies such as solar panels, batteries and wind farms, as well as defence and medical technologies”.

Read more:
Anthony Albanese puts interventionist industry policy at the centre of his budget agenda

Queensland Premier Steven Miles – who faces an election this year – said the announcement by the Prime Minister showed “the confidence government and industry have in the great state of Queensland”.

Critical minerals are defined as metallic or non-metallic elements found in the earth that are both crucial for modern technologies or national security and face the risk of supply chain disruption.

Australia has identified 26 such minerals, and in Feburay added nickel to the list.

Albanese announced plans to introduce a Future Made in Australia Act last week, saying he wanted to “bring together in a comprehensive and co-ordinated way a whole package of new and existing initiatives to boost investment, create jobs and seize the opportunities of a future made in Australia”.

On Monday the government announced a Medical Science Co-investment Plan that identified priorities for government support including digital health, medical devices, innovative therapeutics and sustainability.

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

– ref. Critical minerals receive multi-million dollar support under Future Made in Australia policy – https://theconversation.com/critical-minerals-receive-multi-million-dollar-support-under-future-made-in-australia-policy-228015

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam James Loch, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide

Water is one of Australia’s most valuable commodities. Rights to take water from our nation’s largest river system, the Murray-Darling Basin, are worth almost A$100 billion. These rights can be bought and sold or leased, with trade exceeding A$2 billion a year. But water is also being stolen (no-one knows how much) and the thieves usually get away with it.

The federal Labor government came to power promising to crack down on water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin. The Productivity Commission has also expressed concerns about a lack of compliance and enforcement.

The Inspector General of Water Compliance, Troy Grant, has also described existing powers to deter theft as ineffective, and called for urgent action to address inconsistencies in the various state laws that penalise theft from the Murray-Darling Basin. That was almost a year ago.

In our new research, we identified the many relevant laws operating in the basin. We examined these laws and found maximum penalties range wildly. It is a dog’s breakfast. Surely we can do better.

How did we get into this mess?

The mishmash of water theft laws and penalties across the basin is unfortunate but not surprising.

Water in the Murray-Darling Basin is managed under a joint agreement between the federal government, the basin’s four states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia) and the Australian Capital Territory.

This agreement could be dissolved at any time, should any one state or territory decide to quit.

Murray-Darling Basin compliance is now managed by the Office of the Inspector General of Water Compliance, an independent group of public servants, typically former police officers.

As Inspector General, Grant has been given powers to reduce water theft, uphold compliance with Murray-Darling Basin rules, and restore confidence among those living and working in the basin.

But he was forced to drop 62 cases in February 2023 due to poor state legislative support, inconsistent approaches to water theft, and allowances for some irrigators to balance their accounts in arrears. Basically, Grant stated you had to be a moron to be caught.

Dropped cases lead to questions about water values, continued supply reliability, the extent of environmental harm, and the future security of water rights.

Read more:
The government’s Murray-Darling bill is a step forward, but still not enough

Drought heightens concern about theft

It’s almost 15 years since the most recent review of water theft legislation across state and federal boundaries, which highlighted clear inconsistencies in penalties and approaches to cases.

It’s also nearly ten years since the ABC Four Corners report into large-scale water theft, illustrating the dangers of environmental water harms and wanton disregard by some users for the rights of others.

In more recent droughts, such as the “Tinderbox Drought” of 2017–19, irrigators were more concerned about speculation and hoarding than theft.

But if the basin suffers another serious drought, as predicted by many researchers, it is likely theft will become a top concern for all involved, particularly regulators at state and federal levels.

What’s more, if predictions of climate impacts to water supply are right, available water will dramatically decline in the Murray-Darling Basin, possibly motivating more theft.

We tested this by combining rainfall and runoff data from the Bureau of Meteorology with climate projections from the CSIRO Climate Futures Model and the Garnaut Climate Change Review, to generate a model of future water flows into the southern Murray-Darling Basin up to 2100.

Our research shows we’re on track for a water runoff catastrophe by around 2060, and the eventual collapse of the river’s systems by around 2080. Less rain and higher evaporation rates means less water will runoff the land into streams, rivers and storages. Sobering stuff.

Read more:
Suicide rates increased after extreme drought in the Murray-Darling Basin – we have to do better as climate change intensifies

Finding common ground

Our research shows the Inspector General is right: a base comparison of the laws in each state show clear differences, along with the penalties that sit behind them. Calls for greater certainty and consistency are yet to resonate. The positive lessons to be drawn from successful processes are falling on deaf ears.

But we did find some consistent aspects worth noting, which could help us better understand and analyse the legal framework for penalising water theft in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is the “pyramid” approach to assessing cases and applying penalties, using a tiered framework of increasing severity that looks to be applied universally throughout the basin.

The pyramids are based on existing principles already in use for water management around the world.

Most Murray-Darling Basin states already follow this approach. Yet some states do it better than others.

Legal inconsistency also stems from some states being unwilling to “climb to the top” of the pyramid and initiate court proceedings against the most egregious offenders. This leads to lower penalties in most cases.

We also note New South Wales has adopted satellite technology to identify and track water theft. This is a good example for others to follow.

Towards consistent laws

Consistency in compliance and certainty across state jurisdictions will help restore confidence in the water market, and ultimately ensure the Murray-Darling’s water flows are protected from thieves.

We need certain and severe penalties for water theft across the Murray-Darling Basin and Australia as a whole. Such penalties may garner a wider appreciation of the value of the environment.

Addressing water theft issues consistently and with certainty offers opportunities for Australia to again lead the way in effective water governance and compliance reform globally.

But progress has been slow. This is deeply concerning, especially as water flows into the basin will dwindle as the climate changes.

Read more:
Consulting firms provided low-quality research on crucial water policies. It shows we have a deeper problem

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. Water theft laws and penalties in the Murray-Darling Basin are a dog’s breakfast. Here’s how we can fix them – https://theconversation.com/water-theft-laws-and-penalties-in-the-murray-darling-basin-are-a-dogs-breakfast-heres-how-we-can-fix-them-227862

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Westrupp, Associate Professor in Psychology, Deakin University

In the space of three days, there have been two devastating knife attacks in Sydney. Your child may have seen these on the news or social media. Or they might be hearing about it from friends or at school.

How can parents help children and teenagers process this news and ensure they feel safe in their community?

Follow your child’s lead

All children are different. Some are naturally more anxious or sensitive. Some will take a greater interest in the news. Rather than just thinking about your child’s age, you can be guided by your child’s level of interest and knowledge about recent events.

Kids are often better able to cope with hearing difficult or distressing news than we might give them credit for.

Talking about events helps children understand what happened and gives us a chance to reassure them. This doesn’t mean you need to go into a lot of detail. In fact, a calm, simple, factual answer is best.

If your young child has heard news about the Bondi Junction attack, you might say:

That man was unwell in his mind. He hurt other people but he was stopped by police. Most people struggling with feeling or thinking problems get help and never hurt anyone.

You don’t need to give vivid details or discuss anything beyond the question our child asked.

Read more:
Kids and ‘bad’ news: how can parents safely introduce their children to news and current affairs?

Support all emotions

If your child is upset or anxious about what has happened, it’s important to notice, listen to and acknowledge their emotions.

You can also empathise with your child – what has happened is awful and scary. Their response is perfectly natural.

Parents can sometimes think they should not give children’s fears or anxieties any space, in case they become worse. Dismissing them (“don’t think about it!”) seems like an easy way to make a problem go away. But emotions are tricky and the opposite is actually true.

When we allow emotions to be freely expressed, we help children understand the situation and to process and move through their emotions.

Talk about how rare these events are

It’s also important to introduce some facts into the conversation.

Even though we have had two events in quick succession, such attacks are extremely rare in Australia (in fact, that’s why they make the news in such a significant way).

You can also tell your child there are strict laws against people hurting other people, and there are lots of services to help. We see the police and hospitals responding and helping when bad things happen. We also see every day people in the community coming together to help and support one another.

Our own reaction matters

Parents are role models for their children. In times of stress, children look to parents to understand what’s happened, what the risk is and how they should respond.

If parents are really emotional and show they are upset, fearful, or anxious, it can be scary or unsettling for children, as it suggests the situation is out of control.

It helps if we read the news and process our own emotions away from young children.

With older children, it’s possible to discuss our shared feelings of grief, sadness and horror. But it’s still important for parents to be calm, so we demonstrate everything is okay.

Continue normal routines

Sticking to familiar daily routines helps us and our children feel safe. This is because it’s reassuring for children to see life continuing unchanged.

So it’s important to head back to the shops, or to places of worship, just as you normally would.

If your child expresses concerns, listen to them, empathise, reassure them what happened was extremely rare, and quietly continue on with daily life.

Other activities are also great for helping your child feel safe. This includes getting outside, getting active, and having fun time together, playing, being light-hearted and silly. All these things help our bodies relax.

Read more:
Sydneysiders witnessed horrific scenes on Saturday. How do you process and recover from such an event?

Elizabeth Westrupp receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council

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

– ref. After a second knife attack in Sydney, how can parents talk to their kids and help them feel safe? – https://theconversation.com/after-a-second-knife-attack-in-sydney-how-can-parents-talk-to-their-kids-and-help-them-feel-safe-228005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

Just days after the deadly Westfield Bondi attacks, a second knife attack in Sydney has generated widespread shock and grief. This time, a 16-year-old entered an Assyrian church and rushed forward to stab the popular bishop presiding over a service, together with a priest who rushed to his defence. The shocking events were captured on the church’s video stream, and the news quickly reached thousands of members of Sydney’s large Assyrian community.

While both priests were injured, thankfully the knife blows were not fatal. Parishioners immobilised the attacker, and police and paramedics swarmed the church. Police moved quickly to identify the assailant and analyse his apparent motivation before announcing they were treating the attack as a terrorist incident early this morning.

Public knife attacks are rare in Australia, and for Sydney to experience two in quick succession has rightfully alarmed many and, understandably, led to comparisons between the two. A lot of the discussion is around why the Bondi Junction shopping mall attack in which six were killed wasn’t considered terrorism, but this shocking, but non-lethal, attack was.

So what do we know about the church attack, and what important distinctions can be made between it and the awful events at Bondi?

Read more:
Over-emphasising some things, underplaying others: ASIO’s threat assessment is underpinned by confusing logic

What happened at the church?

Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel has developed a large following, not just in Australia but in the Assyrian diaspora around the world, with his live-streamed sermons. Shortly after seven o’clock on Monday night, the video feed of the Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Sydney’s outer west went dead, but not before it captured the shocking attack and parishioners rushing forward to help.

Almost immediately, crowds gathered outside the church. We don’t yet know the motivations of the people who turned up, but it can be assumed they were there because they either saw or heard of what had happened and rushed over out of concern.

Tragically, at some point the dynamics of the fast-swelling crowd took a dark turn. Instead of letting the large police and ambulance presence continue to handle the situation, some emotional onlookers turned on the authorities. Multiple police officers and paramedics were injured and vehicles were heavily damaged.

It’s likely the fact the attack was captured on video, and therefore able to be shared and watched over and over again, added to the combustibility of an already volatile situation. It would appear the attack was deliberately planned to provoke an angry response. But what exactly happened in the crowd is the subject of one police investigation.

Why is it considered a terrorist act?

The other investigation is an anti-terrorism one. This is because while the teenager acted alone, it’s very likely they had received encouragement and backing from others. The Unabomber is one of the very few documented cases of someone committing violence for ideological reasons truly in isolation.

This lone actor attack in Sydney is reminiscent of the 2015 murder of police accountant Curtis Cheng. He was shot dead by a 15-year-old who had been radicalised by supporters of Islamic State. It later came out in court the attack had been planned by three other people, who also supplied him with the gun.

Read more:
Why would Islamic State attack Russia and what does this mean for the terrorism threat globally?

Police were quick to pronounce the knife attack on Monday to be an act of terrorism. Having identified the attacker, they would have been studying his social connections and examining his digital footprint.

The police assessment would have also given attention to the particulars of the church targeted. Assyrians (people from northwest Iraq, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey) are almost exclusively Christian, belonging to one of the old churches in existence, living in precisely that part of the world in which the Islamic State established its brutal caliphate.

It’s telling that before the caliphate was established, Assyrians made up just 3% of the Iraqi population. But in the wake of Islamic State sweeping across northern Syria and Iraq, Assyrians soon made up 40% of Iraqi refugees. The trauma of those years is recent history, fresh in the minds of many.

The recent Islamic State claim of responsibility for the recent deadly attacks in Moscow, is a reminder the group remains a live and growing threat. For these reasons police will be looking for any evidence that Islamic State might have played a role in inspiring this attack.

Terrorism or not terrorism?

Events at the church have been under a bigger spotlight given the events of the days preceding it.

Despite early misinformation, police said that they believe the Bondi killer, Joel Cauchi, was not motivated by a larger political cause – that is, a terrorist motivation. Instead, they say he lashed out violently because of anger control issues related to mental ill-health.

But of the six people he killed, five were women. Women also make up the majority of those injured. The one man who lost his life, security guard Faraz Tahir, a Muslim refugee from Pakistan, was attacked because he bravely rushed towards danger in an attempt to try to stop Cauchi. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said Cauchi deliberately targeted women.

So if someone is targeting a specific group of people, isn’t that terrorism? Why does it matter if they were killing based on gender or religion? Is misogyny not terrorism?

Put simply, the defining characteristic of terrorism is perpetuating violence in the name of a higher, broader cause. Terrorists have a belief in a collective goal, and see themselves as being backed by people who share that belief. Misogyny can be an element of their motivation and justification of hatred, but it’s part of a larger political project.

Read more:
Terrorist content lurks all over the internet – regulating only 6 major platforms won’t be nearly enough

Basically, it boils down to whether these violent actors think they’re part of a political or religious movement that’s going to change the system, or whether they are simply angry men projecting loathing and driven by personal demons. The two, of course, are not mutually exclusive.

This is not to undermine the damage that angry men can, and do, inflict. Domestic violence is a bigger threat to Australians than terrorism. Calling something a terrorist act doesn’t make it more or less serious than anything else, rather the categorisation is to provide conceptual clarity for the sake of the ensuing investigation.

Events at Westfield Bondi Junction and the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church are both awful, but while they share some similarities, they are different sorts of crimes with different drivers and enablers. As police investigations continue, we’ll come to better understand the nature of both.

Greg Barton receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is engaged in a range of projects funded by the Australian government that aim to understand and counter violent extremism in Australia and in Southeast Asia and Africa.

– ref. Why is the Sydney church stabbing an act of terrorism, but the Bondi tragedy isn’t? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-sydney-church-stabbing-an-act-of-terrorism-but-the-bondi-tragedy-isnt-227997

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olaf Meynecke, Research Fellow in Marine Science and Manager Whales & Climate Program, Griffith University

For the second year in a row, over 100 hammerheads have gathered at one of Australia’s busiest beaches, Burleigh Beach in the Gold Coast.

Why aren’t we alarmed? Because these are small scalloped hammerheads, not the larger great hammerhead. Even this species is feared far more than it deserves. Plus, these scalloped hammerheads are juveniles between 40 cm and 1 metre.

Scalloped hammerheads prefer tropical and temperate oceans. But as the oceans heat up, they’re moving further south – just as we’re seeing in Western Australia, where these timid sharks are now gathering off Perth.

These remarkable sharks are one of the few social sharks, gathering in large numbers as juveniles and adults. But this behaviour makes them easy to catch and kill for their fins or meat. Their numbers have fallen by over 80% over the last five decades. It’s urgent we find ways to protect them wherever they school.

Why are they here?

Schooling behaviour is about safety in numbers. This behaviour – known in sharks as “shivering” – can also help them hunt prey. Sharks of similar age tend to migrate and form a shiver together.

For young sharks, the open ocean has many dangers with very few places to hide from larger sharks. Young scalloped hammerheads seek sheltered, warm waters with abundant small prey, where they can grow fast.

Last year, young scalloped hammerheads spent several weeks at the end of the summer at Burleigh Beach on the southern Gold Coast.

Why this location? This year’s gathering of even more sharks at the same location and time as last year coincides with warm water temperatures of 26°C. This, combined with the sheltered waters behind the sand bar and an abundance of small prey, means Burleigh might hit the sweet spot.

High rainfall in recent months has brought more nutrient-laden runoff into the ocean, boosting prey species such as small fish, squid and crustaceans.

Where the young sharks migrate after this is still being studied. But during the cooler months we do see young scalloped hammerheads skimming the sea surface further offshore. As adults, they can swim vast distances, reaching as far as Papua New Guinea or Pacific island nations.

We have seen a similar shiver of scalloped hammerheads in the Shoalwater Island Marine Park off the coast from Perth’s southernmost suburbs. Here, young hammerheads have gathered since 2011.

These sharks are bigger in size than those on the Gold Coast, though still considered immature. The Perth aggregation happens during summer and takes place a few hundred kilometres further south than the Gold Coast. In fact, it’s the most southerly known aggregation in Australia.

On the east coast of Australia, this species has been sighted as far south as Sydney with a remarkable sighting of about 15 sharks last year in January. We don’t yet know if they are reliably gathering here.

Read more:
Critically endangered scalloped hammerheads gather in seas off Perth. They need protection

Fear and wonder

We’re primed to associate the word “shark” with danger. But of the world’s 500 plus shark species, there are only a handful which pose any kind of threat.

Still, when sharks appear close to shore near popular beaches, safety concerns spike.

It’s important to stress that this gathering of young sharks poses no threat to people. In fact, it’s the opposite. Hundreds of people have swum out to see them where they gather, drawn by social media posts and news coverage. Unfortunately, sharks have been chased and are unable to keep swimming close together for their safety.

While it’s encouraging to see so many people interested, it also points to the need to show our interest respectfully. We don’t want to exhaust or scare off these young sharks.

Hunted for flesh and fin

The world’s authority on threatened species lists the scalloped hammerhead as critically endangered. This means in the last 70 years, scalloped hammerhead numbers have fallen globally by at least 50% of its pre-1950 abundance globally. It’s sought for its high-value fins and meat.

Despite this, scalloped hammerheads can still be legally caught in Australia by both commercial and recreational fishers. They often also suffocate in shark nets such as those at Burleigh Beach.

Shark nets are at least partly responsible for the decline in scalloped hammerhead and other shark populations. Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia have maintained their shark nets despite the lack of evidence that they make swimmers safer.

There are signs of positive change. From January 1 this year, taking and possessing of any hammerhead sharks became illegal for commercial and recreational fishers in Queensland.

But Northern Territory fishing boats can take up to 50 tonnes of each hammerhead species every year, while Western Australia has no limits at all.

What’s next for the scalloped hammerhead?

In February, Australia’s threatened species committee advised environment minister Tanya Plibersek to leave the species’ conservation status as “conservation dependent” rather than “endangered”.

As a result, the species can still be fished without recovery plans in place.

This is disappointing, as the committee’s advice overlooks the lack of conservation management since the species was last assessed in 2018 and ignores the lack of evidence of any recovery.

The fact this shark is now appearing in more southern waters suggests a climate link as well. Other shark species have headed southward as the oceans heat up. Young scalloped hammerheads may well be doing the same.

Given their plight, we should look to safeguarding aggregation areas wherever possible.

Read more:
Marine species are being pushed towards the poles. From dugong to octopuses, here are 8 marine species you might spot in new places

Olaf Meynecke is affiliated with the citizen science organisation Humpbacks & Highrises and Manager of the Whales and Climate Program

Jessica Meeuwig and Naima Andrea López 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. Masses of scalloped hammerheads have returned to one of Australia’s busiest beaches. But we don’t need to panic – https://theconversation.com/masses-of-scalloped-hammerheads-have-returned-to-one-of-australias-busiest-beaches-but-we-dont-need-to-panic-227219

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

Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson’s victory in the defamation action brought against them by Bruce Lehrmann is the second big win inside a year for the Australian media using the defence of truth. However, it comes at a heavy cost to the reputations of the industry and the profession of journalism.

The evidence about the Seven Network’s efforts to get Lehrmann to give an exclusive interview for its Spotlight program, allegedly including the purchase of cocaine and prostitute services for him, cast a pall over the way commercial TV news programs operate.

These allegations were denied by Seven, but invoices and receipts said to support them were produced in court. Justice Michael Lee stated in his judgment that they were uncontradicted by any evidence in reply from Lehrmann.

By contrast with this unsavoury episode, only ten months ago, in June 2023, Australians saw journalism at the opposite end of the ethical spectrum when The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times proved the substantial truth of the imputation that Ben Roberts-Smith was a war criminal. It was a victory based on extraordinary feats of investigative journalism on a matter of grave public interest.

Read more:
A win for the press, a big loss for Ben Roberts-Smith: what does this judgment tell us about defamation law?

How Network Ten got it right … and wrong

Network Ten and Wilkinson also produced journalism dealing with a matter of grave public interest. They can claim credit for giving a voice to Brittany Higgins, now proved to be the victim of rape, by interviewing her on The Project, and in doing so standing up for the right of all women victims to be heard.

But the credit is tarnished by their actions first in disrupting Lehrmann’s criminal trial and second by serious journalistic weaknesses in the production of The Project interview itself.

The interview won Wilkinson a silver Logie, but her acceptance speech was considered by the ACT Supreme Court to be so prejudicial in favour of Higgins as to amount to trial by media.

The trial was postponed and ultimately collapsed because of juror misconduct, with no findings against Lehrmann.

Justice Lee acknowledged that Wilkinson had cleared her speech with Ten’s senior litigation counsel, Tasha Smithies, whose conduct in this matter he criticised, and was encouraged by the network to make the speech. In these respects, he said, Wilkinson had been badly let down by those she turned to for advice.

However, he went on to say she was an experienced journalist who might have realised the speech was fraught with danger if she had thought it through as a journalist rather than as a champion of Higgins.

This attachment to Higgins’ cause was a fundamental weakness that underlay the many substantive criticisms Justice Lee made of the journalistic motives and processes leading up to The Project interview.

From the outset, Wilkinson had said to Higgins’ boyfriend, David Sharaz, that she proposed to “hold Britt’s hand through all this”.

Justice Lee observed that while he was aware of the need to build rapport and deal sensitively with a person presenting as a victim of sexual assault, assessing the credibility of someone making claims of serious wrongdoing required a degree of detachment that was absent in the interactions between The Project team and Higgins.

The second weakness was that Wilkinson and the producer of the program, Angus Llewellyn, failed to keep an open mind. In Justice Lee’s words, all contemporaneous records suggested they never doubted the truth of Higgins’ account.

For them, he said, the most important part of the story was Higgins’ narrative in which others were putting up roadblocks to her quest for justice.

It was this cover-up or victimisation allegation that had generated so much notoriety and public interest, yet it had contained inconsistencies, falsities and imprecisions that the journalists had failed resolve.

Justice Lee also raised doubts about Higgins’ motive for doing the interview. Llewellyn had given evidence that he thought Higgins wanted to speak out about her experience to create change, to prevent it from happening to anyone else, and did not consider she had a vendetta.

While conceding there might have been some truth in this, Justice Lee said any suggestion Wilkinson or Llewellyn approached the story with disinterested professional scepticism was undermined by the way they were prepared to assist in the plans of Sharaz and Higgins to use the allegations for immediate political advantage.

He said Sharaz’s political motives were made plain by his expressed intention to liaise with an opposition frontbencher to deploy the allegations against the government during Question Time.

Yet Llewellyn had evidently considered this to be of no consequence, leading Justice Lee to say that any journalist who did not think Sharaz had a motivation to inflict immediate political damage would have to be “wilfully blind”.

Moreover, Llewellyn and Wilkinson had expressed a willingness to assist in the political use of the serious charges they were supposedly interrogating and assessing with independent minds.

So once more in this saga, journalists and the media were revealed as having become partisan political participants in the story.

Read more:
Judge finds Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins and dismisses Network 10 defamation case. How did it play out?

Journalist as participant

Previously we had seen The Australian newspaper and one of its columnists, Janet Albrechtsen, insert themselves into the inquiry established by the ACT government into the way the criminal case against Lehrmann had been handled.

According to a judicial review of that inquiry by the ACT Supreme Court, the chair of the inquiry, Walter Sofronoff, engaged in 273 interactions with Albrechtsen over the inquiry’s seven months. This included 51 phone calls, text messages, emails and a private lunch in Brisbane.

It was alleged during the judicial review that Albrechtsen was an “advocate” for Lehrmann, and the review found that Sofronoff’s extensive communications with her gave rise to an impression of bias in the findings he made against the former ACT director of public prosecutions, Shane Drumgold.

This phenomenon of journalist as participant undermines public trust in the credibility of the media.

In his recent book Collision of Power, Martin Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, takes a strong stand against this trend.

He argues that the more journalists are perceived as partisans, the less their reporting will be believed.

At a time of peril for democratic institutions, we need to be good stewards of our own, reinforcing standards rather than abandoning them.

The Project did right by Higgins and by helping to elevate the issue of violence against women. But this was achieved by journalistic attitudes and practices that did not stand up to scrutiny.

Justice Lee described the Lehrmann saga as “an omnishambles” that had inflicted widespread collateral damage. The media and journalism have not escaped.

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

– ref. How the Lehrmann v Channel 10 defamation case shone an unflattering light on commercial news gathering – https://theconversation.com/how-the-lehrmann-v-channel-10-defamation-case-shone-an-unflattering-light-on-commercial-news-gathering-227568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Coral Gartner, Director, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, The University of Queensland

The Australian government is currently considering a bill to implement the next stage of reforms to vaping regulation.

At present, vaping products that don’t contain nicotine can be sold in regular shops, such as convenience stores, like tobacco products are. To use vaping products that contain nicotine, people must have a prescription from a doctor or a nurse practitioner, and get the prescription filled at a pharmacy.

However, many retailers have sold nicotine-containing vapes illegally by pretending they don’t contain nicotine. Young people have found it easy to obtain them.

The current bill will address this issue by ending the sale of nicotine-free vaping products by general retail stores. But it’s not only teenagers who have accessed nicotine vaping products without a prescription. Most adults who vape, including those who use vaping products to quit smoking, don’t have a prescription either.

In a new paper, we argue allowing pharmacists to dispense nicotine vapes without a prescription would be a practical way to ensure people who are using them to quit smoking can access them, while reducing the chance they’ll fall into young hands.

Why are people vaping without a prescription?

Research shows vaping can help people quit smoking and may be more effective than other nicotine replacement therapies. For people who have not succeeded with other methods, using vapes to quit smoking may be a reasonable option. Although certainly not risk-free, the health risks of vaping are likely to be much lower than those of smoking because vapes emit far lower levels of harmful chemicals than cigarettes.

Some doctors will not prescribe vaping products because they are not approved medicines. Others lack knowledge about their use for smoking cessation or find the reporting requirements for prescribing them too onerous. Prescribers must notify the Therapeutic Goods Administration via an online form within 28 days of prescribing nicotine-containing vapes.

Online prescribing services have emerged, which may fill this void. However, there are concerns about the quality of care because some online prescribers do not speak directly to the patient.

With fewer GPs bulk billing, there are also substantial patient costs involved in seeking a prescription for nicotine vapes.

The current law risks criminalising people who vape nicotine without a prescription because possession without a prescription is illegal. The maximum penalties vary from a fine of A$45,000 in Western Australia to two years in jail in the Australian Capital Territory or the Northern Territory.

The ACT minister for population health, Emma Davidson, is reportedly working on a bill to remove the penalties for unauthorised personal possession of nicotine vapes in the ACT.

However, a simpler option would be to change the classification of nicotine vapes from prescription-only (schedule 4) to pharmacist-only (schedule 3). This would allow pharmacists to supply nicotine vapes without a prescription.

Read more:
It’s safest to avoid e-cigarettes altogether – unless vaping is helping you quit smoking

Additional requirements could be added, such as banning advertising of vapes, and standards for providing in-pharmacy smoking cessation counselling alongside vaping product supply.

As well as removing penalties for possession without a prescription, other possible benefits would include reduced costs and greater access for patients. This model also retains health practitioner oversight of vaping product supply.

What other options are being discussed?

Some lobbyists are promoting the idea all vaping products should be regulated like tobacco. This would allow vaping products, including those containing nicotine, to be sold by general retailers to people aged 18 and over with no health practitioner involvement.

While some political parties support this model, most Australian health and medical organisations do not. Regulating vapes like tobacco may seem like a reasonable option, but there are several factors to consider.

The widespread availability of tobacco makes quitting smoking difficult and encourages youth to experiment with smoking. Widespread retailing of vaping products is likely to have a similar effect for vaping.

We also know general retailers have sold vapes to children.

Are pharmacists up to the task?

Pharmacists are governed by professional standards and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Strong sanctions, including restrictions on practice, can occur for pharmacists who do not comply with professional standards and laws, such as illegal supply of medicines.

Pharmacists currently supply other pharmacist-only (schedule 3) medicines directly to the public. These include pseudoephedrine (cold and flu medicines), salbutamol (asthma puffers) and naloxone (for reversing an opioid overdose).

Some people may be concerned that without a prescription, certain customers may purchase nicotine vapes to supply to youth illegally. However, pharmacists have previously developed innovative ways to reduce diversion of medicines where this has become a problem.

For example, pseudoephedrine can be used to make methamphetamine. Real-time monitoring of sales of cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine has reduced the diversion of these medicines from pharmacies into methamphetamine production.

Further, after additional planned reforms are implemented this year, the types of vaping products that pharmacies can supply – only tobacco, mint or menthol flavoured vapes sold in plain pharmaceutical packaging – will be less attractive to youth.

Read more:
Want to quit vaping? There’s an app for that

Pharmacists already play an important role in supplying smoking cessation nicotine products and services. They offer advice and counselling about the full range of assistance and medications available for quitting smoking.

Therefore, pharmacist-only supply of nicotine vaping products without a prescription would utilise the skills, knowledge and accessibility of pharmacists to support people who wish to use nicotine vapes to quit smoking, while preventing inappropriate sales to youth.

Coral Gartner receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council. She is the current president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Oceania Chapter and is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia.

Kathryn Steadman receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.

Professor Nissen was a past president of the Queensland Branch of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, and a past national board member and vice-president. of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Professor Nissen was a past member of the Therapeutic Good Administration Advisory Committee on Chemicals Scheduling (ACCS).

– ref. Pharmacists should be able to dispense nicotine vapes without a prescription. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/pharmacists-should-be-able-to-dispense-nicotine-vapes-without-a-prescription-heres-why-227560

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keagan Brewer, Macquarie University Research Fellow, Macquarie University

The Voynich manuscript has long puzzled and fascinated historians and the public. This late-medieval document is covered in illustrations of stars and planets, plants, zodiac symbols, naked women, and blue and green fluids. But the text itself – thought to be the work of five different scribes – is enciphered and yet to be understood.

In an article published in Social History of Medicine, my coauthor Michelle L. Lewis and I propose that sex is one of the subjects detailed in the manuscript – and that the largest diagram represents both sex and conception.

Read more:
Seven metals, ringed with four magical inscriptions: what other secrets does the ‘Alchemical Hand Bell’ hold?

Late-medieval sexology and gynaecology

Research on the Voynich manuscript has revealed some clues about its origins.Carbon dating provides a 95% probability the skins used to make the manuscript come from animals that died between 1404 and 1438. However, its earliest securely known owner was an associate of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who lived from 1552 to 1612, which leaves more than a century of ownership missing.

Certain illustrations (the zodiac symbols, a crown design and a particular shape of castle wall called a swallowtail merlon) indicate the manuscript was made in the southern Germanic or northern Italian cultural areas.

One section contains illustrations of naked women holding objects adjacent to, or oriented towards, their genitalia. These wouldn’t belong in a solely herbal or astronomical manuscript. To make sense of these images, we investigated the culture of late-medieval gynaecology and sexology – which physicians at the time often referred to as “women’s secrets”.

First we looked at Bavarian physician Johannes Hartlieb (circa 1410–68), who lived around the time and place the Voynich manuscript was made.

Hartlieb wrote about plants, women, magic, astronomy and baths. He also recommended the use of “secret letters” (such as a cipher, secret alphabet, or similar) to obscure medical recipes and procedures that may result in contraception, abortion or sterility.

Although his secret alphabet hasn’t survived, analysing his work has helped us understand the attitudes that would have inspired the use of encipherment at the time. For instance, Hartlieb felt a strong apprehension about “women’s secrets” becoming widely known. He worried his writings could facilitate extramarital sex and that God would condemn him if this happened.

In his un-enciphered writings, he either refuses or hesitates to write about certain topics, such as post-partum vaginal ointments, women’s sexual pleasure, claims of women giving birth to animals, the “correct” coital positions for conception, libido-altering dietary advice, and information about poisonous, hallucinogenic, contraceptive or abortive plants.

Writing for male aristocrats in vernacular Bavarian (rather than academic Latin), Hartlieb says such knowledge should be restricted from sex workers, commoners, children, and in some cases from women themselves – who were becoming increasingly literate.

As a man who valued heterosexual marriage and women’s “modesty”, and who condemned lust, promiscuity and prostitution, he was perfectly conventional for his milieu.

Read more:
Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone: how we cracked a 400-year-old alchemical cipher

Censorship

If such attitudes were widespread back then, was the censorship of women’s secrets also widespread? The short answer is: yes.

During our research, we decoded a number of ciphers from this period (but none from the Voynich manuscript). The longest was a 21-line cipher from late-medieval northern Italy that obscured a recipe with gynaecological uses, including abortion.

We also found many examples of authors self-censoring, or of readers erasing or destroying information in gynaecological and/or sexological texts. Censors would often only obscure a few words, usually genital terms or plant names in recipes – but sometimes they would remove entire pages or chapters.

One Bavarian manuscript includes recipes for invisibility and magic spells for sexually coercing women, after which two pages have been removed. The censor writes this removal was done “not without reason”.

The Rosettes

By analysing the Voynich illustrations through this lens, we propose the Rosettes – the manuscript’s largest and most elaborate illustration – represents a late-medieval understanding of sex and conception.

Our proposal is in keeping with the patriarchal culture of the time and resolves many of the manuscript’s apparent contradictions. It also allows us to identify several of the illustration’s features.

In late-medieval times the uterus was believed to have seven chambers, and the vagina two openings (one external and one internal).

We believe the nine large circles of the Rosettes represents these, with the central circle representing the outer opening, and the top-left circle representing the inner opening. The eight outer circles have smooth edges since they represent internal anatomy, while the central circle has a shaped edge since it represents external anatomy.

Abu Bakr Al-Rāzī, a Persian physician who influenced late-medieval European medicine, wrote that five small veins exist in the vaginas of virgins. We see these running from the top-left circle towards the centre.

Physicians back then also believed a male and female component were necessary for conception, and both of these were called “sperm”. These are shown in yellow (male) and blue (female). Women were thought to receive pleasure from the motion of the two sperms in the uterus, which is depicted through the lines and patterns.

It was also thought the uterus had two horns or spikes, which we can see on the top-right and bottom-right circles.

The castles and town walls may represent wordplay on the German term schloss, which had meanings including “castle”, “lock”, “female genitalia” and “female pelvis”.

And the two suns in the far top-left and bottom-right likely reflect Aristotle’s belief that the Sun provides natural heat to the embryo during its early development.

While many features of the illustration are yet to be understood, our proposal is worth close scrutiny. We hope future research into the manuscript will approach it through a similar lens. Perhaps, with enough clues, we might find a way to finally decode this elusive text.

Keagan Brewer receives funding from a Macquarie University Research Fellowship.

– ref. For 600 years the Voynich manuscript has remained a mystery. Now we think it’s partly about sex – https://theconversation.com/for-600-years-the-voynich-manuscript-has-remained-a-mystery-now-we-think-its-partly-about-sex-227157

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Baron, Associate Professor, Philosophy of Science, The University of Melbourne

Earlier this year, Neuralink implanted a chip inside the brain of 29-year-old US man Noland Arbaugh, who is paralysed from the shoulders down. The chip has enabled Arbaugh to move a mouse pointer on a screen just by imagining it moving.

In May 2023, US researchers also announced a non-invasive way to “decode” the words someone is thinking from brain scans in combination with generative AI. A similar project sparked headlines about a “mind-reading AI hat”.

Can neural implants and generative AI really “read minds”? Is the day coming when computers can spit out accurate real-time transcripts of our thoughts for anyone to read?

Such technology might have some benefits – particularly for advertisers looking for new sources of customer targeting data – but it would demolish the last bastion of privacy: the seclusion of our own minds. Before we panic, though, we should stop to ask: is what neural implants and generative AI can do really “reading minds”?

The brain and the mind

As far as we know, conscious experience arises from the activity of the brain. This means any conscious mental state should have what philosophers and cognitive scientists call a “neural correlate”: a particular pattern of nerve cells (neurons) firing in the brain.

So, for each conscious mental state you can be in – whether it’s thinking about the Roman Empire, or imagining a cursor moving – there is some corresponding pattern of activity in your brain.

So, clearly, if a device can track our brain states, it should be able to simply read our minds. Right?

Well, for real-time AI-powered mind-reading to be possible, we need to be able to identify precise, one-to-one correspondences between particular conscious mental states and brain states. And this may not be possible.

Rough matches

To read a mind from brain activity, one must know precisely which brain states correspond to particular mental states. This means, for example, one needs to distinguish the brain states that correspond to seeing a red rose from the ones that correspond to smelling a red rose, or touching a red rose, or imagining a red rose, or thinking that red roses are your mother’s favourite.

One must also distinguish all of those brain states from the brain states that correspond to seeing, smelling, touching, imagining or thinking about some other thing, like a ripe lemon. And so on, for everything else you can perceive, imagine or have thoughts about.

To say this is difficult would be an understatement.

Take face perception as an example. The conscious perception of a face involves all sorts of neural activity.

Read more:
Nobody knows how consciousness works – but top researchers are fighting over which theories are really science

But a great deal of this activity seems to relate to processes that come before or after the conscious perception of the face – things like working memory, selective attention, self-monitoring, task planning and reporting.

Winnowing out those neural processes that are solely and specifically responsible for the conscious perception of a face is a herculean task, and one that current neuroscience is not close to solving.

Even if this task were accomplished, neuroscientists would still only have found the neural correlates of a certain type of conscious experience: namely, the general experience of a face. They wouldn’t thereby have found the neural correlates of the experiences of particular faces.

So, even if astonishing advances were to happen in neuroscience, the would-be mind-reader still wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell from a brain scan whether you are seeing Barack Obama, your mother, or a face you don’t recognise.

That wouldn’t be much to write home about, as far as mind-reading is concerned.

But what about AI?

But don’t recent headlines involving neural implants and AI show some mental states can be read, like imagining cursors move and engaging in inner speech?

Not necessarily. Take the neural implants first.

Neural implants are typically designed to help a patient perform a particular task: moving a cursor on a screen, for example. To do that, they don’t have to be able to identify exactly the neural processes that are correlated with the intention to move the cursor. They just need to get an approximate fix on the neural processes that tend to go along with those intentions, some of which might actually be underpinning other, related mental acts like task-planning, memory and so on.

Thus, although the success of neural implants is certainly impressive – and future implants are likely to collect more detailed information about brain activity – it doesn’t show that precise one-to-one mappings between particular mental states and particular brain states have been identified. And so, it doesn’t make genuine mind-reading any more likely.

Now take the “decoding” of inner speech by a system comprised of a non-invasive brain scan plus generative AI, as reported in this study. This system was designed to “decode” the contents of continuous narratives from brain scans, when participants were either listening to podcasts, reciting stories in their heads, or watching films. The system isn’t very accurate – but still, the fact it did better than random chance at predicting these mental contents is seriously impressive.

So, let’s imagine the system could predict continuous narratives from brain scans with total accuracy. Like the neural implant, the system would only be optimised for that task: it wouldn’t be effective at tracking any other mental activity.

Read more:
How close are we to reading minds? A new study decodes language and meaning from brain scans

How much mental activity could this system monitor? That depends: what proportion of our mental lives consists of imagining, perceiving or otherwise thinking about continuous, well-formed narratives that can be expressed in straightforward language?

Not much.

Our mental lives are flickering, lightning-fast, multiple-stream affairs, involving real-time percepts, memories, expectations and imaginings, all at once. It’s hard to see how a transcript produced by even the most fine-tuned brain scanner, coupled to the smartest AI, could capture all of that faithfully.

The future of mind reading

In the past few years, AI development has shown a tendency to vault over seemingly insurmountable hurdles. So it’s unwise to rule out the possibility of AI-powered mind-reading entirely.

But given the complexity of our mental lives, and how little we know about the brain – neuroscience is still in its infancy, after all – confident predictions about AI-powered mind-reading should be taken with a grain of salt.

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. Can AI read our minds? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be worried – https://theconversation.com/can-ai-read-our-minds-probably-not-but-that-doesnt-mean-we-shouldnt-be-worried-227057

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Stanley, Professor of Ecology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

Conservation “good news” stories – the release of native birds into new habitats, for example – are always welcome. They recognise the work of conservation staff and volunteers who do the hard slog of checking trap lines and removing weeds.

The reality is, however, that Aotearoa New Zealand’s environment is in deep trouble. Talk of a “crisis” can be unhelpful if it encourages a sense of hopelessness. But with the government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill approaching rapidly, now is arguably the time to use the word.

The bill encourages development, but gives government ministers the power to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for (as yet unnamed) infrastructure projects.

By emphasising short-term economic gain, it risks eroding the country’s already fragile natural capital and pushing biodiversity further into decline.

With public submissions on the bill closing at the end of this week, there are numerous reasons to call for caution and a pause. These can be divided into five broad categories.

1. Much has been lost already

Ecosystems cannot be restored. Once destroyed, they are gone forever. This is known in restoration ecology as the “Humpty Dumpty effect”. Here are just some of the facts:

• only 22% of Aotearoa’s original vegetation remains

• at least 79 species extinctions have been recorded

• remaining species currently threatened or at risk include 94% of reptiles, 90% of seabirds, 74% of land birds, 76% of freshwater fish and 46% of plants

• 90% of our wetlands have been lost, as well as 80% of our active sand dune ecosystems

• 63% of rare ecosystems are threatened

• 46% of lakes over one hectare are in poor or very poor ecological health.

The science of restoration ecology is relatively young. We can plant trees and shrubs, and reintroduce some animals previously present in a restoration area. But we do not currently have the knowledge to restore lichens, mosses, fungi and invertebrate communities.

These all play a major role in the functioning of ecosystems, including decomposition and nutrient cycling.

2. Habitats are fast disappearing

New Zealanders often imagine native vegetation is well protected and the wholesale land clearance practised by earlier generations has stopped.

But many terrestrial ecosystems are still being cleared today for development. Between 2012 and 2018, almost 13,000 hectares (the equivalent of 13,000 rugby fields) of native vegetation was lost due to development.

Read more:
The government wants to fast-track approvals of large infrastructure projects – that’s bad news for NZ’s biodiversity

We know at least 5,000 hectares of wetlands have been lost since 2001. Nearly 12,000 hectares of Canterbury’s river margins were lost to intensive farming between 1990 and 2012. Ecosystems that remain are degraded and river health is worsening.

The Department of Conservation is underfunded and has not been able to assess and reclassify more than 2.7 million hectares of stewardship land. Much of this contains rare ecosystems. But it has the lowest protection and may be a prime target for development under the proposed fast-track legislation.

3. Unique NZ has international obligations

Around 80% of most native species – 81% of insects, 100% of reptiles, frogs and bats, 84% of plants, 72% of birds, and 88% of freshwater fish – are found nowhere else in the world. New Zealand has been designated one of 25 global biodiversity “hot spots” for conservation priority.

However, more than 33% of New Zealand species are classified “data deficient”, meaning we don’t know enough to determine whether they are threatened with extinction.

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NZ’s government is relying on executive power to govern – that’s not how MMP was meant to work

We’re also discovering new species every day. Only an estimated 50% of insect species have been scientifically described, including just 30% of Hymenoptera (wasps, ants and bees – including pollinators and natural biocontrol agents).

Aotearoa New Zealand is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (signed in 1993) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (signed in 2022). By removing existing environmental protections, the Fast-Track Approvals Bill threatens to undermine these international obligations.

4. Environment underpins economy, health and culture

Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems provide critical services that prop up human populations. They regulate the climate, prevent erosion, cycle nutrients, filter air particles and water, and mitigate floods.

They also provide recreational opportunities, spiritual and cultural connections, and physical and mental health benefits for people.

Ecosystem processes, such as pollination and soil formation, underpin primary production and provide pest and disease resilience. They contributed an estimated NZ$57 billion (27% of the country’s GDP) to human welfare in 2012.

Failing to recognise the value of New Zealand’s natural capital – which has previously often been regarded as value-less economically – risks leaving future generations with even less to support their economy, health and wellbeing.

Read more:
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5. Pushing ecosystems to tipping points

Degraded ecosystems can reach a tipping point, when they collapse and stop functioning – for example, the “eutrophication” of freshwater systems, which become nutrient-rich and depleted of oxygen.

There is now extreme pressure on the biodiversity that supports healthy ecosystems. The economic loss from soil erosion alone (192 million tonnes lost annually) is estimated at NZ$250-$300 million each year. It takes a thousand years to generate three centimetres of topsoil – and it is running out rapidly.

Degraded ecosystems are less resilient to disturbance and are vulnerable to invasive species. Roads and tracks created during development can prevent the movement of native animals, while creating “highways” for weeds, pests and diseases.

These affect native ecosystems as well as farms and orchards, adding to the country’s already very high pest management bill.

Taken together, the potential long-term costs on ecosystems and the vital services they provide need to be carefully considered before the proposed legislation comes into force.

Margaret Stanley has received funding for technical advice from the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry for Environment, and for research from the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment’s National Science Challenges.

– ref. 5 reasons why the Fast-track Approvals Bill threatens NZ’s already fragile ecosystems – https://theconversation.com/5-reasons-why-the-fast-track-approvals-bill-threatens-nzs-already-fragile-ecosystems-227888

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

Can you remember a time when you felt stressed leading up to a big life event and then afterwards felt like a weight had been lifted? This process – the ramping up of the stress response and then feeling this settle back down – shows completion of the “stress cycle”.

Some stress in daily life is unavoidable. But remaining stressed is unhealthy. Chronic stress increases chronic health conditions, including heart disease and stroke and diabetes. It can also lead to burnout or depression.

Exercise, cognitive, creative, social and self-soothing activities help us process stress in healthier ways and complete the stress cycle.

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What does the stress cycle look like?

Scientists and researchers refer to the “stress response”, often with a focus on the fight-or-flight reactions. The phrase the “stress cycle” has been made popular by self-help experts but it does have a scientific basis.

The stress cycle is our body’s response to a stressful event, whether real or perceived, physical or psychological. It could be being chased by a vicious dog, an upcoming exam or a difficult conversation.

The stress cycle has three stages:

• stage 1 is perceiving the threat

• stage 2 is the fight-or-flight response, driven by our stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol

• stage 3 is relief, including physiological and psychological relief. This completes the stress cycle.

Different people will respond to stress differently based on their life experiences and genetics.

Unfortunately, many people experience multiple and ongoing stressors out of their control, including the cost-of-living crisis, extreme weather events and domestic violence.

Remaining in stage 2 (the flight-or-flight response), can lead to chronic stress. Chronic stress and high cortisol can increase inflammation, which damages our brain and other organs.

When you are stuck in chronic fight-or-flight mode, you don’t think clearly and are more easily distracted. Activities that provide temporary pleasure, such as eating junk food or drinking alcohol are unhelpful strategies that do not reduce the stress effects on our brain and body. Scrolling through social media is also not an effective way to complete the stress cycle. In fact, this is associated with an increased stress response.

Stress and the brain

In the brain, chronic high cortisol can shrink the hippocampus. This can impair a person’s memory and their capacity to think and concentrate.

Chronic high cortisol also reduces activity in the prefrontal cortex but increases activity in the amygdala.

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for higher-order control of our thoughts, behaviours and emotions, and is goal-directed and rational. The amygdala is involved in reflexive and emotional responses. Higher amygdala activity and lower prefrontal cortex activity explains why we are less rational and more emotional and reactive when we are stressed.

There are five types of activities that can help our brains complete the stress cycle?

Read more:
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1. Exercise – its own complete stress cycle

When we exercise we get a short-term spike in cortisol, followed by a healthy reduction in cortisol and adrenaline.

Exercise also increases endorphins and serotonin, which improve mood. Endorphins cause an elated feeling often called “runner’s high” and have anti-inflammatory effects.

When you exercise, there is more blood flow to the brain and higher activity in the prefrontal cortex. This is why you can often think more clearly after a walk or run. Exercise can be a helpful way to relieve feelings of stress.

Exercise can also increase the volume of the hippocampus. This is linked to better short-term and long-term memory processing, as well as reduced stress, depression and anxiety.

2. Cognitive activities – reduce negative thinking

Overly negative thinking can trigger or extend the stress response. In our 2019 research, we found the relationship between stress and cortisol was stronger in people with more negative thinking.

Higher amygdala activity and less rational thinking when you are stressed can lead to distorted thinking such as focusing on negatives and rigid “black-and-white” thinking.

Activities to reduce negative thinking and promote a more realistic view can reduce the stress response. In clinical settings this is usually called cognitive behaviour therapy.

At home, this could be journalling or writing down worries. This engages the logical and rational parts of our brain and helps us think more realistically. Finding evidence to challenge negative thoughts (“I’ve prepared well for the exam, so I can do my best”) can help to complete the stress cycle.

3. Getting creative – a pathway out of ‘flight or fight’

Creative activities can be art, craft, gardening, cooking or other activities such as doing a puzzle, juggling, music, theatre, dancing or simply being absorbed in enjoyable work.

Such pursuits increase prefrontal cortex activity and promote flow and focus.

Flow is a state of full engagement in an activity you enjoy. It lowers high-stress levels of noradrenaline, the brain’s adrenaline. When you are focussed like this, the brain only processes information relevant to the task and ignores non-relevant information, including stresses.

4. Getting social and releasing feel-good hormones

Talking with someone else, physical affection with a person or pet and laughing can all increase oxytocin. This is a chemical messenger in the brain that increases social bonding and makes us feel connected and safe.

Laughing is also a social activity that activates parts of the limbic system – the part of the brain involved in emotional and behavioural responses. This increases endorphins and serotonin and improves our mood.

5. Self-soothing

Breathing exercises and meditation stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system (which calms down our stress responses so we can “reset”) via the vagus nerves, and reduce cortisol.

A good cry can help too by releasing stress energy and increasing oxytocin and endorphins.

Emotional tears also remove cortisol and the hormone prolactin from the body. Our prior research showed cortisol and prolactin were associated with depression, anxiety and hostility.

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Action beats distraction

Whether it’s watching a funny or sad movie, exercising, journalling, gardening or doing a puzzle, there is science behind why you should complete the stress cycle.

Doing at least one positive activity every day can also reduce our baseline stress level and is beneficial for good mental health and wellbeing.

Importantly, chronic stress and burnout can also indicate the need for change, such as in our workplaces. However, not all stressful circumstances can be easily changed. Remember help is always available.

If you have concerns about your stress or health, please talk to a doctor.

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

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. Stuck in fight-or-flight mode? 5 ways to complete the ‘stress cycle’ and avoid burnout or depression – https://theconversation.com/stuck-in-fight-or-flight-mode-5-ways-to-complete-the-stress-cycle-and-avoid-burnout-or-depression-218599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Giles, Research Fellow, La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University

Former Spanish football federation chief Luis Rubiales may face significant consequences for his non-consensual kiss of Spanish soccer star Jenni Hermoso.

But this is not the norm for perpetrators of gender-based violence in sport. Our research – which reviewed 25 years of studies examining women’s experiences of gender-based violence in sport – found perpetrators are rarely held to account.

More commonly, they are free to continue abusing victims with impunity.

Even after millions of people watched Rubiales’ actions, it was obvious that Hermoso’s experience was minimised, that powerful organisations attempted to coerce her into stating it was consensual, and that it took the collective voices of women standing with Hermoso to fight back with a resounding “no”.

The shocking reality of gender-based violence in sport

Women’s sport is championed as a platform for empowerment and equality but previous studies have shown gender-based violence is highly prevalent, ranging from 26 to 75% across psychological, physical and sexual violence, depending on how the violence has been defined and measured.

There have been many historical and contemporary cases of abuse, bringing to light some of the concerns about how perpetrators were able to continue their abuse for so long.

Our research systematically gathered and analysed the collective voices of women who experienced gender-based violence in sport to understand their experiences better and to inform future prevention and response initiatives. Participants included current and former athletes, coaches, umpires and managers.

The research found women in sport experience multiple types of violence (sexual, physical, psychological, financial), often by more than one perpetrator. Coaches or other authority figures are the most common perpetrators, followed by male athletes or members of the public.

We found a “normalisation” of these violent behaviours in the sporting context; they were seen as expected and were routinely excused in order to get results.

Read more:
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Beware of ‘sporting family violence’

When women do speak up and complain, our research highlighted that organisational responses are impotent at best, actively malevolent and cruel at worst.

Complaints often go nowhere, codes of conduct may not exist, and there is a strong lack of confidentiality because “everyone knows everyone”.

In some cases, women were mocked and told they’d imagined the abuse, a deliberate strategy by the organisation to put “success” and “winning” before the safety of women.

Instead, women are left to do their own safety work by avoiding the perpetrator(s) or leaving the sport entirely.

Justice is sometimes only achieved when women act as a group to voice their experiences and confront abusers.

Importantly, our research found the unique context of sport as an extended or surrogate family created the conditions for “sporting family violence”.

Athletes spend significant time within the sporting family unit, creating close relationships with their coach, other authority figures and teammates.

The coach as a father figure

The coach as a father figure was a consistent theme across several studies, with some athletes stating the coach knew more about them than their parents.

If a coach was regarded as “the best”, often no one questioned him. This gave coaches enormous power, which they used to isolate women they abused from both the sport family and their actual family, exerting coercive control to maintain an environment of secrecy and dominance.

Finally, our research found women are still seen as inferior to men and treated as “other” in the sporting context. Consequently, there is a hostility to women, who are perceived as a threat to the hegemonic masculinity of sport.

This was a particularly strong theme in non-traditional female sports such as judo and boxing, and for women in management or official roles.

Power is a key factor running through all our findings, and while women may be able to exercise some power through collective resistance, power often remains with men and sports institutions that are complicit.

Initiatives to address gender-based violence in sport must recognise the many forms of violence women experience, and the different ways in which power and violence play out.

Read more:
Toxic sport cultures are damaging female athletes’ health, but we can do better

Some positive signs, but much more is needed

There are some positive signs of change. A recent report into the culture of abuse in swimming in Australia made several recommendations that are now being actioned.

And in the UK, laws that prohibit coaches from having relationships with players are being developed and acted upon.

Also, several collective survivor advocacy groups have been established, such as The Army of Survivors, Sport and Rights Alliance and Gymnasts for Change.

Of course, this still shows the extent of the collective voice needed to push for change.

While we applaud this and the reckoning of Rubiales’ actions, and cheer for the collective voice standing with women like Jenni Hermoso, it would be negligent to forget the many silenced women’s voices in sport who bear the brunt of violence within a space often considered their family.

Fiona Giles occasionally volunteers for the national and state Greens on election days.

Kirsty Forsdike receives funding from the Australian Sports Commission, the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage and the Department of Jobs, Precinct and Regions of the State Government of Victoria.

– ref. From forced kisses to power imbalances, violence against women in sport is endemic – https://theconversation.com/from-forced-kisses-to-power-imbalances-violence-against-women-in-sport-is-endemic-227446

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Morieson, Lecturer in Politics and Communication , RMIT University

When the people of Solomon Islands go to the polls on Wednesday, they will be voting for more than just a new prime minister. The election will also be a referendum on whether the country continues with incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s growing strategic alliance with China.

Sogavare has remained secretive about the details of the security pact his government recently signed with China and is deeply sensitive to critique, particularly from the Australian media. In 2022, for example, he threatened to ban ABC journalists investigating the country’s links with China.

The security pact is just one small part of China’s sprawling Belt and Road Initiative, which has resulted in an expansion of Chinese influence across the region. This includes a focus on media. China has funded the training of Pacific journalists and their travel to China, and provided local media with syndicated content and financial support for infrastructure and vehicles.

There are allegations this funding has come with strings attached. The ABC reported last year that Solomon Islands’ oldest newspaper had received money from China in exchange for favourable coverage. (The Solomon Star’s editor said the newspaper maintained its independence – and had tried for years to obtain funding from Australia.)

The influence of Beijing is now so significant, the longtime journalist and Pacific specialist Sue Ahearn has said China is winning the information war in the Pacific.

Yet, according to research conducted by the ABC last year, Pacific islanders still overwhelmingly rely on – and trust – Australian media more than any other country’s media. In fact, five of six islands polled said ABC was the most valued and preferred international broadcaster.

Australia can’t rest on its laurels. It needs to build on this trust.

Read more:
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ABC rebooting Pacific services

The concern about China’s influence on Pacific media comes as the international broadcasting section at the ABC is trying to reboot. This comes after it made redundancies and cuts to services as part of efficiencies forced on it by the former Coalition government. Although the ABC maintained some broadcasting to the Pacific under the Coalition government, its international division had become a shadow of its former self.

The Albanese government has refocused efforts on the Pacific more broadly, pledging A$2 billion in the last budget to boost Australia’s security efforts in the region. It also boosted funding to the ABC’s international division with a $32 million grant, and invested another $8.5 million through 2027–28 to increase the reach of the ABC and other Australian media content across the region.

The funding boost has sent the ABC into a local recruitment drive to hire broadcast staff, particularly those who come from the region. It is also commissioning more “bespoke” lifestyle and sport content for the region.

The ABC and the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding last month. It formalised their “commitment to collaboration and support, with an emphasis on content sharing and media development programs”.

However, this funding has not yet allowed the ABC to provide a basic, reliable news service specifically for the Pacific to complement local services.

Solomon Islands media challenges

However, news outlets in Solomon Islands and, indeed, the wider Pacific still face entrenched challenges.

Some of these challenges are due to the small population base in many countries, limited advertising revenue and marginal profits. Research from the University of the South Pacific has found the Pacific has among the highest journalist attrition rates in the world. News outlets are mostly staffed by young, inexperienced and underqualified journalists, who are tasked with reporting on extremely complex issues.

Read more:
China is playing the long game in the Pacific. Here’s why its efforts are beginning to pay off

As we report in a chapter for our book, Transnational Broadcasting in the Indo-Pacific: The Battle for Trusted News and Information, Solomon Islands media workers are particularly vulnerable to foreign influence due to their economic precarity, age and level of education.

Another challenge is the cultural system of wantok – broadly meaning “one talk” in the Pijin language of Solomon Islands, which means a network of kin and connection. Because of wantok, many stories remain untold due to conflicts of interest involving journalists writing critical stories on their own families.

However, that hasn’t stopped all fearless reporting. A year-long investigation involving Solomon Islands journalists working for an international organisation, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, reported last week that Sogavare has built at least eight new houses in and around the capital, Honiara, despite earning a modest salary. Sogavare did not respond to questions for the report, but has defended his land purchases in the past, saying he received loans from banks.

But this story, which is clearly of significance to voters heading to the polls, is not widely known and has mostly been distributed via Facebook on a volunteer-run news site, The Pacific Newsroom.

In such an environment, there is a clear need for a greater Australian media presence, not only to provide unbiased information to Solomon Islands voters and support the local media, but also to report on elections and other domestic issues for regional audiences.

This is why the ABC needs guaranteed funding for its international services – free from further government or managerial interference – to ensure this role in supporting Pacific media isn’t lost again.

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. As China’s influence on Pacific media intensifies, Australia can’t afford to lose the region’s trust – https://theconversation.com/as-chinas-influence-on-pacific-media-intensifies-australia-cant-afford-to-lose-the-regions-trust-227785

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Ward, Senior Lecturer in Music, School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast

What’s that sound you hear – a combination of down-tempo hip-hop, menacing bass, distorted drums and plucky synths? It’s phonk!

Still have no idea what we’re talking about? You’ve probably heard it if you’re on TikTok, awkwardly played over a Peaky Blinders or Jordan Peterson clip that has snuck into your algorithm.

TikTok user Shortbadger certainly cuts to the chase explaining the genre in one of their videos: “creators wanted people to not just hear their words, but feel their words”. Shortbadger also uses comedy to hint at phonk’s subversive (and sometimes troubling) nature.

Actually, Phonk has an altogether more interesting history. On the surface it seems to be another musical resurgence story driven by the social media economy – a bit like Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor or Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill, both of which re-entered the charts after years of relative obscurity.

But once you dig a little deeper, you’ll find government censorship, online rebellion and the disruption of American-dominated popular culture.

By smashing together components of hip-hop, EDM, metal and dubstep, phonk is placed as one of the most prominent new genres of music. And with it comes a subversion of popular music taste-making – and a whole lotta politics.

Read more:
Running Up That Hill: How Stranger Things and TikTok pushed Kate Bush’s 1985 pop classic back to the top of the charts

A brief early history

A quick check of online repositories tells us Phonk’s origins are in the Southern hip-hop of ’90s Memphis.

While you may not be directly familiar with the ’90s Memphis hip-hop scene, you will have felt its influence in popular music from recent decades. Known for its expert and nuanced use of the Roland 808 drum machine (particularly pitched kick-drums and snappy hi-hats), styles such as trap and other modern EDM and hip-hop movements owe a lot of their stylistic choices to this scene.

Artists such as DJ Screw, a hip-hop DJ originally from Texas, initially championed phonk by using this palette of sounds in their mixtapes – and helped popularise the style through the mid-’90s.

But it wasn’t until rapper and producer SpaceGhostPurrp started releasing his SUMMA PHONK mixtapes in the early 2010s that phonk really gained attention. He then worked as a producer for hip-hop stars ASAP Rocky and Wiz Khalifa, helping to cement the stylistic elements of phonk in the hip-hop zeitgeist.

The rise of phonk through racing culture

Fast-forward to early 2020: COVID is dominating the world news; lockdowns have led to an uptick in social media use; the post-truth era of Trumpism marches forward; and Spotify dominates music streaming through its self-serving, exploitative model of music commerce.

This was the perfect storm in which phonk could be repositioned as the soundtrack of the TikTok generation. By the last quarter of 2020, TikTok had amassed more than 700 million global users, overtaking Spotify to become the main outlet through which music promotion (and exploitation) could occur.

Much like the DIY expansion of dubstep that took place some ten years ago, young artists such as KORDHELL and $WERVE! brought millions of ears to their phonk music by attracting attention from talent scouts, including at Spotify.

Incidentally, 2020 was also the year Spotify launched in Russia as a new platform for the proliferation of Russian underground music. This scene had also started embracing the stylistic ethos of phonk from the US.

In fact, what you’re most likely to identify as phonk today is actually a sub-movement called “drift phonk”, championed by Russian producers in the early 2020s. The name comes from the marriage of the music with TikTok videos of drift car racing.

Drift phonk’s ominous rhythms and detuned (shifted from the original pitch) melodies are a perfect match for the adrenaline-fuelled culture of underground street racing. The relationship between phonk and racing videos helped spread the style across social media. It even extended to the Fast and Furious franchise, with the release of Drift Tape (Phonk Vol 1).

Much like hip-hop and punk before it, phonk’s use of distorted and aggressive sounds engages young audiences struggling with anxiety brought about by the state of the world. It’s a subversive soundtrack to a generation rallying against authority in a challenging geopolitical landscape.

Phonk’s future is assured

In early 2022, in the midst of its invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Kremlin clamped down on TikTok by banning all non-Russian content. A state-owned company even tried (and ultimately failed) to develop a rival video platform of its own.

Less than a month after the start of the invasion, the Russian government had legislation on “fake news” that made any anti-Russian military content illegal and punishable by imprisonment. Spotify pulled its availability in March 2022, citing the new law as its key reason.

Meanwhile, TikTok still remains available in Russia, but with significant content restrictions, so Russian makers of drift phonk may have had their market pathways severed.

Nonetheless, phonk lives on – ringing loudly in the ears of social media platforms. And while it’s often tied to critiques of our ever-shrinking attention span (given how widely it’s consumed through TikTok), it has undoubtedly become a part of our cultural zeitgeist.

From the meme-level phonk walk that is so 2023, to fresh 2024 Oscars content, creators are continuously finding new, inventive ways to use this music.

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. How a global crisis, drift racing and Memphis hip-hop gave us phonk – the music of the TikTok generation – https://theconversation.com/how-a-global-crisis-drift-racing-and-memphis-hip-hop-gave-us-phonk-the-music-of-the-tiktok-generation-224960

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Bressington, Professor in Mental Health, Charles Darwin University

In the wake of witnessing tragic events, many people turn to online communities such as Reddit to discuss and process their experiences. A common bit of advice users give each other is to play Tetris to help combat traumatic memories.

Where does this idea come from, and can this iconic computer game really help in the treatment of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder?

The answer is a partial “yes”, but with caveats. It depends on several factors, such as the specific symptoms, the timing of the event and also receiving other types of psychological treatment.

Firstly, what is Tetris?

A deceptively simple computer game, Tetris first appeared in 1985. Today, it remains one of the most popular games in history, available for free online and on numerous gaming platforms.

The puzzle game involves a simple visuospatial task (that is, relating visual information to physical space). A series of randomly generated block shapes float down from the top of the screen, and the player’s goal is to create “lines” with the shapes by rotating and moving them. A completed line is cleared from the screen, reducing a potential pile-up of shapes.

The longer you can keep going, the higher the score. The simplicity of this puzzle format is both mindful and engaging.

Read more:
From besting Tetris AI to epic speedruns – inside gaming’s most thrilling feats

What is PTSD?

While most people who witness a traumatic event won’t require treatment, the psychological harm of a powerfully distressing event can have lasting effects in some.

One of the most studied trauma conditions is post-traumatic stress disorder, commonly referred to as PTSD.

In PTSD, a single traumatic event or series of traumas create a collection of distressing symptoms. This can include reliving the event through nightmares and flashbacks, a sense of the world being a darker, more complicated place, as well as hypervigilance and fear. The brain is seemingly inoculated by the trauma and sensitised to anticipate further trauma.

How might playing Tetris help PTSD?

The human brain has limited capacity to process or recall memories of events. In 2009, researchers at the University of Oxford proposed that playing Tetris when the brain is trying to store visual memories would overload its capacity and “distract” the visual memory circuits.

Therefore, playing Tetris shortly after a distressing event could interrupt these processing centres within the brain. In turn, this would reduce the recurrence of unwanted visual memories – intrusions – associated with the trauma.

It has also been proposed Tetris may be helpful when reactivating memories of historical trauma during treatment with a psychologist.

Essentially, Tetris is thought to work as a “cognitive vaccine” for intrusive visual memories of trauma.

Read more:
‘Psychological debriefing’ right after an accident or trauma can do more harm than good – here’s why

So, does it work?

Research on the effects of Tetris on PTSD is still evolving.

The initial study in 2009 successfully resulted in three times fewer intrusions than the non-Tetris group. However, this work was conducted in laboratories by showing participants films of traumatic events, playing Tetris for ten minutes shortly after watching the videos, and measuring the number of intrusions experienced over the following week.

Although encouraging, this initial research was done in a highly controlled setting and may not apply in the real world.

However, several clinical studies have been conducted since 2017, and summarised in a recent literature review. These relatively small studies showed that playing Tetris reduced the number of intrusions in women experiencing birth trauma, people involved in vehicle accidents, war refugees and war veterans.

Although most studies involved participants playing Tetris for 10–40 minutes shortly after a traumatic event (between 30 minutes and 72 hours), recent research shows there may be benefits up to seven years after childbirth-related trauma – by reactivating the intrusive visual memory and playing Tetris for 20 minutes.

While these results are encouraging, we need more robust research with larger groups of participants to be more certain of the effects of Tetris, particularly in the real world.

All earlier studies involved playing the game with professional guidance, so we don’t know how it works without this support.

Would other visuospatial games be helpful?

Any game with a focus on visuospatial tasks may possibly help. Limited studies directly compare Tetris with other games. However, a study involving 54 volunteers compared the effects of playing Tetris versus word games versus no games.

Both the Tetris and the word gaming groups reported relatively fewer intrusive memories than the non-gaming group.

So, should I play Tetris if I experience a traumatic event?

The current evidence of Tetris’ efficacy is limited to studies where people were supported by professionals. This evidence indicates that:

• playing Tetris (or perhaps a similar game) for around 20 minutes in the hours after experiencing a traumatic event may help to reduce subsequent intrusive memories
• playing Tetris at the point of recalling a previous traumatic experience may also reduce intrusions and distress
• Tetris may be used as part of a treatment strategy by a healthcare professional.

Remember, Tetris is not a panacea for trauma. Intrusive memories are not completely eradicated by playing the game and PTSD includes several symptoms that won’t improve via gameplaying. If someone experiences PTSD-type symptoms, they likely need professional help.

Read more:
A TikTok ‘expert’ says you have post-traumatic stress disorder − but do you? A trauma psychiatrist explains what PTSD really is and how to seek help

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. Can playing Tetris help prevent PTSD if you’ve witnessed something traumatic? – https://theconversation.com/can-playing-tetris-help-prevent-ptsd-if-youve-witnessed-something-traumatic-226736

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priya Chacko, Associate Professor, International Politics, University of Adelaide

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is favoured to win reelection when India’s 970 million voters start heading to the polls on April 19 in the country’s massive, six-week general election.

Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, has benefited from a divided opposition, glowing mainstream media coverage and high economic growth rates.

However, recent polling indicates significant voter discontent over inflation and unemployment. While 44% of respondents want the Modi government to return to power, a sizeable 39% do not want his Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to be reelected.

Moreover, Modi’s election campaign has been tainted by several events in recent weeks:

• the arrest of a major opposition leader in what his party says was a “conspiracy” by Modi’s government

• the freezing of the accounts of the major opposition Congress party over a tax dispute

• revelations of heavily skewed political financing favouring Modi’s party.

These incidents have raised concerns about how free and fair India’s election will actually be.

India’s democratic decline

For much of its history as an independent state, India has been an electoral democracy, defying political sociologist Seymour Lipset’s theory that democratic institutions and cultures usually only thrive in affluent societies.

Barring a period of emergency rule in the 1970s when elections were suspended, India has met the threshold for free and fair elections throughout its history.

Voter turnout in elections has typically been high, at around 70%. A complex electoral structure has also been put in place to ensure electoral integrity, involving:

• phased voting over a number of weeks

• a model code of conduct governing how parties and candidates must behave in elections

• travelling electoral and security officials to oversee the voting process and reach all voters

• the implementation of an electronic voting system to prevent electoral fraud.

Since 2018, however, there has been a steep decline in the quality of India’s electoral democracy. The V-Dem Institute, which tracks democratic freedom around the globe, now considers India to be an electoral autocracy, which means it still holds regular elections but its government is increasingly autocratic.

V-Dem also says India does not have sufficient safeguards in place to ensure free and fair elections.

What makes elections free and fair?

To safeguard electoral integrity, governments must ensure the free participation of all parties and voters in elections and maintain an independent election commission. All candidates must have equal access to the media, which should act as a watchdog. Incumbents should not have a large financial advantage over opponents.

These norms of electoral integrity have been endorsed in numerous international and domestic codes of conduct, treaties and protocols around the world.

However, the world is experiencing a new wave of autocratisation, and electoral manipulation is on the rise.

Of particular concern is long-term electoral manipulation that results in the lack of a level playing field. This involves political financing that favours one party over others, the political persecution of opposition politicians and journalists, media dominance by incumbents and the erosion of independent electoral institutions.

Read more:
India elections: ‘Our rule of law is under attack from our own government, but the world does not see this’

An uneven political financing system

On February 15, an opaque system of political financing introduced under the Modi government in 2017 was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In this “electoral bonds” system, individuals and companies were permitted to make unlimited and anonymous donations to political parties through the purchase of bonds from the State Bank of India.

The Supreme Court ordered the release of the names of donors and recipients despite resistance from the bank.

These data revealed Modi’s BJP as the prime beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars of donations by corporations and individuals since 2019.

Thirty-three corporations donated electoral bonds worth more than their profits, raising questions about the true source of these funds. And three-quarters of these donations went to the BJP.

Thirty corporate donors were also found to have purchased electoral bonds after India’s Enforcement Directorate, which investigates economic crimes, and the Tax Department launched investigations against them for money laundering and tax violations.

In addition, Indian media reported that companies donating large amounts to the BJP were later awarded major government contracts.

Targeting the opposition

Opposition leaders allege the Modi government is also misusing state agencies to target them.

For instance, a media report revealed that 95% of investigations by the Enforcement Directorate since the BJP came into power in 2014 have focused on the opposition. There has also been a five-fold increase in the number of money laundering investigations by the body since 2014.

The Enforcement Directorate has been unable to prove most of these cases. In fact, it has a less than a 0.5% conviction rate dating back to 2005.

Read more:
Narendra Modi’s economy isn’t booming for India’s unemployed youth. So, why is his party favoured to win another election?

Modi has denied accusations he has used the body to target the opposition. However, Indian media have found corruption investigations involving 23 of 25 opposition politicians were shelved after they defected to the BJP.

In recent days, a popular opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, was also jailed on allegations he received kickbacks from the Delhi government’s attempt to privatise the liquor industry. The Enforcement Directorate has yet to provide evidence of his guilt.

Monitoring the election

Once considered a robustly independent institution, the Indian Election Commission’s reputation has been tarnished by questions about its impartiality.

It has failed to adequately address criticisms of its weakening of verification processes in the electronic voting system, as well as allegations of voter suppression of Muslims, Dalits and women.

Indian democracy is not, however, dying in darkness. While the Supreme Court’s independence has been questioned, its persistence in challenging the government on the issue of electoral bonds provides some reassurance that it has not yet become an “executive court”.

Despite being subjected to tax investigations, censorship and arrests, independent journalists and media organisations continue to hold the government to account. They have pooled their resources to investigate the electoral bonds scandal and provide critical election coverage in the recent Karnataka election, which the BJP lost.

The electoral bonds scandal also came to light thanks to the dogged efforts of “right to information” (RTI) activists in the face of efforts by the government to weaken the RTI Act.

And though YouTube has emerged as source of disinformation and hate speech, it has also been a venue for journalists and influencers to provide fact checking and critical commentary on the government. A video by a popular young influencer, Dhruv Rathee, accusing Modi of cultivating a dictatorship recently went viral with 25 million views.

Meanwhile, a new citizens’ initiative, the Independent Panel for Monitoring Elections is issuing weekly bulletins documenting violations of the Model Code of Conduct, media bias and voter exclusion.

If India is the “mother of democracy”, as Modi likes to claim, it is this unbowed civil society that will ensure its survival.

Priya Chacko receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. With democracy under threat in Narendra Modi’s India, how free and fair will this year’s election be? – https://theconversation.com/with-democracy-under-threat-in-narendra-modis-india-how-free-and-fair-will-this-years-election-be-226321

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natasha Yates, General Practitioner, PhD Candidate, Bond University

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are taking drugs like Ozempic to lose weight. But what do we actually know about them? This month, The Conversation’s experts explore their rise, impact and potential consequences.

Drugs like Ozempic are very effective at helping most people who take them lose weight. Semaglutide (sold as Wegovy and Ozempic) and tirzepatide (sold as Zepbound and Mounjaro) are the most well known in the class of drugs that mimic hormones to reduce feelings of hunger.

But does weight come back when you stop using it?

The short answer is yes. Stopping tirzepatide and semaglutide will result in weight regain in most people.

So are these medications simply another (expensive) form of yo-yo dieting? Let’s look at what the evidence shows so far.

Read more:
The rise of Ozempic: how surprise discoveries and lizard venom led to a new class of weight-loss drugs

It’s a long-term treatment, not a short course

If you have a bacterial infection, antibiotics will help your body fight off the germs causing your illness. You take the full course of medication, and the infection is gone.

For obesity, taking tirzepatide or semaglutide can help your body get rid of fat. However it doesn’t fix the reasons you gained weight in the first place because obesity is a chronic, complex condition. When you stop the medications, the weight returns.

Perhaps a more useful comparison is with high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Treatment for hypertension is lifelong. It’s the same with obesity. Medications work, but only while you are taking them. (Though obesity is more complicated than hypertension, as many different factors both cause and perpetuate it.)

Therefore, several concurrent approaches are needed; taking medication can be an important part of effective management but on its own, it’s often insufficient. And in an unwanted knock-on effect, stopping medication can undermine other strategies to lose weight, like eating less.

Why do people stop?

Research trials show anywhere from 6% to 13.5% of participants stop taking these drugs, primarily because of side effects.

But these studies don’t account for those forced to stop because of cost or widespread supply issues. We don’t know how many people have needed to stop this medication over the past few years for these reasons.

Understanding what stopping does to the body is therefore important.

So what happens when you stop?

When you stop using tirzepatide or semaglutide, it takes several days (or even a couple of weeks) to move out of your system. As it does, a number of things happen:

• you start feeling hungry again, because both your brain and your gut no longer have the medication working to make you feel full

• blood sugars increase, because the medication is no longer acting on the pancreas to help control this. If you have diabetes as well as obesity you may need to take other medications to keep these in an acceptable range. Whether you have diabetes or not, you may need to eat foods with a low glycemic index to stabilise your blood sugars

• over the longer term, most people experience a return to their previous blood pressure and cholesterol levels, as the weight comes back

• weight regain will mostly be in the form of fat, because it will be gained faster than skeletal muscle.

While you were on the medication, you will have lost proportionally less skeletal muscle than fat, muscle loss is inevitable when you lose weight, no matter whether you use medications or not. The problem is, when you stop the medication, your body preferentially puts on fat.

Read more:
Ozempic isn’t approved for weight loss in Australia. So how are people accessing it?

Is stopping and starting the medications a problem?

People whose weight fluctuates with tirzepatide or semaglutide may experience some of the downsides of yo-yo dieting.

When you keep going on and off diets, it’s like a rollercoaster ride for your body. Each time you regain weight, your body has to deal with spikes in blood pressure, heart rate, and how your body handles sugars and fats. This can stress your heart and overall cardiovascular system, as it has to respond to greater fluctuations than usual.

Interestingly, the risk to the body from weight fluctuations is greater for people who are not obese. This should be a caution to those who are not obese but still using tirzepatide or semaglutide to try to lose unwanted weight.

Read more:
No, taking drugs like Ozempic isn’t ‘cheating’ at weight loss or the ‘easy way out’

How can you avoid gaining weight when you stop?

Fear of regaining weight when stopping these medications is valid, and needs to be addressed directly. As obesity has many causes and perpetuating factors, many evidence-based approaches are needed to reduce weight regain. This might include:

• getting quality sleep

• exercising in a way that builds and maintains muscle. While on the medication, you will likely have lost muscle as well as fat, although this is not inevitable, especially if you exercise regularly while taking it

• addressing emotional and cultural aspects of life that contribute to over-eating and/or eating unhealthy foods, and how you view your body. Stigma and shame around body shape and size is not cured by taking this medication. Even if you have a healthy relationship with food, we live in a culture that is fat-phobic and discriminates against people in larger bodies

• eating in a healthy way, hopefully continuing with habits that were formed while on the medication. Eating meals that have high nutrition and fibre, for example, and lower overall portion sizes.

Many people will stop taking tirzepatide or semaglutide at some point, given it is expensive and in short supply. When you do, it is important to understand what will happen and what you can do to help avoid the consequences. Regular reviews with your GP are also important.

Read the other articles in The Conversation’s Ozempic series here.

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

– ref. What happens when I stop taking a drug like Ozempic or Mounjaro? – https://theconversation.com/what-happens-when-i-stop-taking-a-drug-like-ozempic-or-mounjaro-224972

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicolas Benjamin Lubitz, Researcher in marine ecology, James Cook University

The effects of ocean warming are profound and well-documented. But sometimes changes in the patterns of winds and ocean currents cause seawater to suddenly cool, instead.

Surface temperatures can plummet rapidly — by 10ºC or more over a day or two. When these conditions persist for several days or weeks, the area experiences a “coldwave”, which is the opposite of more familiar marine heatwaves.

When a “killer coldwave” manifested along South Africa’s southeast coast in March 2021, it killed hundreds of animals across at least 81 species. More worrying still was the fact these deaths included vulnerable manta rays and even specimens of notoriously robust migratory bull sharks. In southern Africa, bull sharks, whale sharks and manta rays have previously washed up dead following such sudden cold events, especially over the past 15 years.

As we report in Nature Climate Change, the conditions that can drive these killer coldwaves have grown increasingly common over the past four decades. Ironically, strengthening winds and currents as a result of climate change can also make these deadly localised coldwaves more likely in places such as the east coasts of South Africa and Australia, potentially putting even highly mobile species such as sharks in harm’s way.

What’s going on?

Certain wind and current conditions can cause the sea surface to cool, rather than warm. This happens when winds and currents force coastal waters to move offshore, which are then replaced from below by cold water from the deep ocean. This process is known as upwelling.

In some places, such as California on the US west coast, upwelling happens regularly along hundreds of kilometres of coastline. But localised upwelling can occur seasonally on a smaller scale, too, often at the edges of bays on the east coasts of continents due to interactions of wind, current and coastline.

Previous research had shown climate change induced changes in global wind and current patterns. So we investigated the potential consequences at particular locations, by analysing long-term wind and temperature data along the south-eastern coast of South Africa and the Australian east coast.

This revealed an increasing trend in the number of annual upwelling events over the past 40 years. We also found an increase in the intensity of such upwelling events and the extent to which temperatures dropped on the first day of each event – in other words, how severe and sudden these cold snaps were.

Read more:
The Southern Ocean upwelling is a mecca for whales and tuna that’s worth celebrating and protecting

Mass deaths warrant investigation

During the extreme upwelling event along the southeast coast of South Africa in March 2021, at least 260 animals from 81 species died. These included tropical fish, sharks and rays.

To investigate the ramifications for marine fauna, we took a closer look at bull sharks. We tagged sharks with tracking devices that also record depth and temperature.

Bull sharks are a highly migratory, tropical species that only tend to travel to upwelling regions during the warmer months. With the onset of winter, they migrate back to warm, tropical waters.

Being mobile, they should have been able to avoid the local, cold temperatures. So why were bull sharks among the dead in this extreme upwelling event?

When running and hiding isn’t enough

Bull sharks survive environmental conditions that would kill most other marine life. For example, they’re often found several hundred kilometres up rivers, where other marine life would not venture.

Our shark tracking data from both South Africa and Australia showed bull sharks actively avoid areas of upwelling during their seasonal migrations up and down the coast, even when upwelling isn’t too intense. Some sharks take shelter in warm, shallow bays until the water warms again. Others stick close to the surface where the water is warmest, and swim as fast as they can to get out of the upwelling.

But if marine coldwaves continue to become more sudden and intense, fleeing or hiding may no longer be enough even for these tough beasts. For example, in the event in South Africa that caused the death of manta rays and bull sharks water temperatures dropped from 21°C to 11.8°C in under 24 hours while the overall event lasted seven days.

This sudden, severe drop paired with the long duration made this event particularly deadly. If future events will continue to become more severe, mass deaths of marine life could become a more common sight – especially along the world’s mid-latitude east coasts.

Read more:
Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. History tells us this could trigger a mass extinction event

Still learning how climate change will play out

Overall, our oceans are warming. The ranges of tropical and subtropical species are extending towards the poles. But along some major current systems, sudden short-term cooling can make life difficult for these climate migrants, or even kill them. Especially if events like the one in South Africa become more common. Tropical migrants would increasingly be living on the edge of what they are comfortable with in these areas.

Our work emphasises that climate impacts can be unexpected or even counterintuitive. Even the most resilient life forms can be vulnerable to its effects. While we do see an overall warming, changes in weather and current patterns can cause extreme cold events as well.

This really shows the complexity of climate change, as tropical species would expand into higher-latitude areas as overall warming continues, which then places them at risk of exposure to sudden extreme cold events. In this way, species such as bull sharks and whale sharks may very well be running the gauntlet on their seasonal migrations.

The need to limit our impacts on the planet by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions has never been more urgent, nor has been the need for research into what our future might hold.

David Schoeman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Nicolas Benjamin Lubitz 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. Climate change is causing marine ‘coldwaves’ too, killing wildlife – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-causing-marine-coldwaves-too-killing-wildlife-227781

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew J. Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology, UNSW Sydney

Many parents know it is important for their teenagers to have breakfast before they go to school. Even though young people can be reluctant to eat it, breakfast provides the energy the brain and body need to function through the day.

In our new research we looked at what impact breakfast has on students’ motivation to learn and their academic achievement at school.

We also looked at whether it matters if they have a healthy breakfast, an unhealthy breakfast or no breakfast at all.

Why did we study breakfast?

As educational psychology researchers we look at ways to improve how students learn.

Unlike factors beyond a student’s control (such as teaching quality) or those that can take time to improve (such as study skills), eating breakfast is something students may have some immediate control over.

It is also something that could be quickly addressed by schools.

Read more:
How to get your kid to eat breakfast before school – and yes, it’s OK to have dinner leftovers or a sandwich

Our research

We wanted to know if eating breakfast affects students’ motivation and achievement. We also wanted to know if it mattered whether the breakfast was a healthy one.

So, as part of an Australian Research Council project, we studied 648 Australian high school students from five private schools in New South Wales. Two of these schools were single-sex boys’ schools, two were single-sex girls’ schools and one was co-educational.

Students were in Years 7 to 9, with an average age of 13–14 years.

We conducted our study during students’ science lessons. It was made up of three main components.

First, students completed an online survey of their breakfast habits. We asked if they had eaten breakfast that morning and what types of food they usually eat for breakfast.

Drawing on national dietary guidelines, we created a score for how often students consumed healthy foods for breakfast, such as fruit and vegetables, dairy and protein, wholegrains and cereals and water. We also asked how often they had an unhealthy breakfast, with items such as sugary soft drinks, processed meat, fast food, unhealthy bakery goods and unhealthy snacks. A higher score reflected typically eating a healthier breakfast.

Second, they rated their motivation in science lessons, including how confident they were in doing science schoolwork, how much they valued the subject and were focused on learning.

Third, students did a test based on content in the NSW science syllabus.

In this way, our study was a snapshot of one day in the life of students.

We also asked questions about their personal background, how well they usually perform in science, and also features of the classroom (including the time of the lesson in the day) so we could account for these in our findings.

Read more:
3 reasons your teenager might skip breakfast – don’t fuss but do encourage a healthy start

Our findings

We found students who ate a healthy breakfast on the morning of the study demonstrated higher levels of motivation and achievement.

This means, for example, they were more confident about and focused on their science lessons. And they scored higher results in the test of their science knowledge.

In comparison, students who ate no breakfast had lower levels of motivation and achievement.

This was not unexpected. But what did surprise us was students who had no breakfast had similarly low levels of motivation and achievement to those students who had an unhealthy breakfast.

This suggests eating an unhealthy breakfast could be as disruptive to motivation and achievement as not eating breakfast at all.

Because we also looked at students’ previous science results, the study showed that even if they had previously performed well in science, they could still score low in motivation and achievement if they had not had breakfast or had eaten an unhealthy one.

Although our study could not dig into specific reasons for this, it is likely because eating the wrong kinds of foods does not properly fuel the mind or body for what is needed to optimally “switch on” academically.

It is also important to note the students in our study were from private schools. Although we took a student’s family background into account, the socioeconomic aspect of eating breakfast requires further investigation. It could be that the benefits of a healthy breakfast are larger in a more diverse sample of students.

What does this mean?

Our findings emphasise the importance of students eating a healthy breakfast each and every morning.

Schools can help ensure this by

• offering a healthy breakfast to students

• offering a healthy morning snack

• teaching students about the importance of a healthy breakfast (for example, as part of health and wellbeing syllabus units)

• giving parents information about the importance of healthy breakfasts, meal ideas and strategies for giving this to their children.

Barriers to breakfast

But schools will need to be mindful of and address barriers to a healthy breakfast. For example, there will be situations where school-provided breakfasts and morning snacks will need to be free. In such cases, it is also possible some students may not want a free breakfast if there is a stigma attached to it (if it is seen as only being for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds).

It is also worth recognising some students may have body image concerns and not want to eat a snack or breakfast at school. In addition, cultural and dietary differences may mean some foods are not appropriate for some students.

If these barriers are effectively managed, our study shows a small and relatively achievable change in a student’s life – a healthy breakfast each day – can have a positive academic impact.

Andrew J. Martin has received funding from Australian Research Council in partnership with the Future Project at The King’s School, the International Boys’ Schools Coalition, and NSW Department of Education.

Emma Burns was employed as a postdoctoral researcher from funding by Australian Research Council in partnership with The Future Project at The King’s School

Joel Pearson receives funding from ARC & NHMRC, including from the ARC in partnership with the Future Project at The King’s School.

Keiko C.P. Bostwick was employed as a postdoctoral researcher from funding by Australian Research Council in partnership with The Future Project at The King’s School.

Roger Kennett received a doctoral scholarship from funding by Australian Research Council in partnership with The Future Project at The King’s School

– ref. Our research suggests eating an unhealthy breakfast could have a similar effect on your child’s school day as having nothing at all – https://theconversation.com/our-research-suggests-eating-an-unhealthy-breakfast-could-have-a-similar-effect-on-your-childs-school-day-as-having-nothing-at-all-227675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil G Sipe, Honorary Professor of Planning, The University of Queensland

Last week, Indian rideshare giant Ola announced that it would abruptly cease operations in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

A competitor to Uber, the company had been operating in Australia since 2018 and served most of our major cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Perth.

Ola versus Uber wasn’t exactly a David and Goliath story. In India, Ola dominates the rideshare market, with revenues three times greater than Uber’s. But its international takings have always been far more modest. Now, preparing to list on India’s stock exchanges, the company says its international withdrawal reflects a reassessment of priorities.

For Australia, there will now be less competition in an already concentrated market. Ola had been our third-largest rideshare provider after Uber and Didi.

But Uber remains in a league of its own, with annual revenue more than 45 times that of Didi. Is Australia’s rideshare market now destined to become a monopoly?

Under pressure at home

Some have argued that Ola’s business model has increasingly been under pressure in India, its largest and most important market.

Like many other ridesharing companies, the company took a big hit during the pandemic.

But it has also struggled to attract and retain drivers. Many Ola drivers in India can also work for hyperlocal delivery services such as Zomato, Swiggy and Dunzo, which can be done with a bike instead of a car. With similar earnings potential and lower operating costs, for many, running deliveries is a more attractive option than driving Ola.

A second issue has arisen from Ola’s inevitable price increases. To first establish itself in the market, the company had offered huge discounts to encourage ridership. When these discounts ceased, Ola became far less competitive, prompting some users to buy a car or use carpooling apps instead.

With rival Uber continuing to apply pressure on Ola’s market share in India, it makes sense the company would simplify operations and shift its focus home.

Impact on Australia

Ola’s departure represents further concentration in Australia’s rideshare market. Prior to it, seven ridesharing companies were operating here: Uber, Didi, Ola, Shebah, InDrive, Bolt and GoCatch. This was down from a peak of 11 firms operating in 2022.

Uber continues to dominate the Australian market, accounting for 80% of all rides in 2023.

Uber’s Australian rideshare revenue in 2023 – A$646 million – dwarfed that of its nearest rivals Didi (A$14.3 million) and Ola (A$7.1 million) combined.

Uber’s heavy venture capital backing – more than US$24 billion (A$37 billion) globally since its founding in 2010 – has helped it secure a strong footing. Ola, in comparison, has raised just over US$4 billion (A$6.2 billion).

Such strong venture capital backing has allowed Uber to survive despite earning no profits from its ridesharing operations until last year.

Uber looks increasingly unassailable

Because of Uber’s sheer size, and its recent move into profitability, it has the resources to innovate and further cement its hold on the Australian market.

Some of its recent initiatives include providing rides in hybrid or electric vehicles (Uber Green), working cooperatively with public transport operators, and venturing into the tour group business.

But Uber also has the resources to withstand class action lawsuits. One such lawsuit was filed in Victoria by 8,000 taxi and hire-car drivers impacted by Uber’s move into the Australian market.

Last month, just prior to the scheduled start of the trial, Uber agreed to a settlement of A$271.8 million, the fifth-largest class action settlement in Australian history.

Another lawsuit brought by the taxi-booking app GoCatch accuses Uber of trying to put GoCatch out of business by identifying and recruiting GoCatch’s drivers.

Read more:
Uber has settled a class action lawsuit for $270 million – what was it accused of?

Winner takes all

Despite these legal challenges, there is little doubt that Uber will continue to dominate the Australian ridesharing market. And that market will continue to expand. Projections suggest that ridesharing company revenues will grow by more than 2% annually over the next four years.

In the near future, we could well see the number of Australian rideshare operators continue to fall.

That doesn’t mean Australians will stop using ridesharing. But with less competition, the cost of doing so could rise.

Neil G Sipe has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Rideshare giant Ola has abruptly exited the Australian market. What does this mean for the future of ridesharing? – https://theconversation.com/rideshare-giant-ola-has-abruptly-exited-the-australian-market-what-does-this-mean-for-the-future-of-ridesharing-227452

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac A. R. Kerr, Research Assistant at Flinders University Palaeontology Laboratory, Flinders University

For millions of years, giant animals or megafauna roamed the lands that are now Australia and New Guinea. Many were like much larger versions of modern animals.

There was a four-metre goanna called Megalania (Varanus priscus), for example, which likely ambushed its prey. This beast disappeared by around 40,000 years ago along with almost all the other megafauna aside from remnants such as the red kangaroo and the saltwater crocodile.

Some of the now-vanished kangaroo species were quite massive. The short-faced kangaroo Procoptodon goliah grew as tall as three metres and may have weighed more than 250 kilograms.

There was another genus of extinct kangaroos, Protemnodon, which were more like the grey and red roos we know today, but little has been known about their lives. In a new study, my colleagues and I describe three new species of these vanished marsupials – and shed some light on where they lived and how they got around.

A 150-year puzzle

The first species of Protemnodon were described in 1874 by the British naturalist Richard Owen. As was standard at the time, Owen focused chiefly on fossil teeth. Seeing minor differences between teeth from different fragmentary specimens, he described six species of Protemnodon.

However, Owen’s species have not stood the test of time. Our study agrees with only one of his species — Protemnodon anak. The first specimen of P. anak to be described, called the holotype, still resides in the Natural History Museum in London.

Fossils of individual Protemnodon bones are not uncommon, but more complete skeletons are rare. This has hampered palaeontologists’ efforts to study the creatures.

The question of how many species there were, and how to tell them apart, has not been fully answered. This has made it hard to say how the species differed in their size, geographic range, movement and adaptations to their natural environments.

I set out to solve this problem in my PhD project. With fellow PhD student Jacob van Zoelen, I visited the collections of 14 museums in four countries to gather data.

We have now seen just about every piece of Protemnodon that exists above ground, photographing, scanning, measuring, comparing and describing more than 800 specimens collected from all over Australia and New Guinea.

Finding the key

Among all this study, the key to the Protemnodon problem turned out to be buried in the dry bed of Lake Callabonna in northeastern South Australia. Three expeditions to Lake Callabonna from 2013 to 2019 found a megafaunal boneyard: complete skeletons of giant kangaroos, giant wombats, and Genyornis newtoni, a 250kg flightless bird, were scattered among the remains of hundreds of Diprotodon optatum, a rhino-sized marsupial herbivore. This lake likely preserves animals that died while searching for water during prolonged drought.

I accompanied the 2018 trip, which returned with all manner of amazing articulated fossils. These fossils allowed me, then a PhD student in my first year, to begin the process of picking apart the identities of the kangaroos.

Read more:
Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars in ancient Australia

Two of Richard Owen’s species, Protemnodon brehus and Protemnodon roechus, were only known from their teeth, which were extremely similar. We unearthed and compared several kangaroos with teeth that could have belonged to either of Owen’s species, but the skeletons didn’t match.

By the international rules of species naming, this meant we had to describe two new species. These are Protemnodon viator from central Australia and Protemnodon mamkurra from southern Australia.

Big kangaroos with big differences

Our study reviews all species of Protemnodon, finding surprising differences. We concluded that there are seven species in the genus, adapted to live in very different environments and even hopping in different ways. This level of variation is unusual within a single genus of kangaroo.

Protemnodon viator was a large, long-limbed kangaroo that could hop fairly quickly and efficiently. Its name, viator, is Latin for “traveller” or “wayfarer”. Its elongated hind limbs were muscular and narrow, perfect for supporting the kangaroo as it hopped long distances.

Protemnodon viator was well-adapted to its arid central Australian habitat, living in similar areas to the red kangaroos of today. Protemnodon viator was much bigger, however, weighing up to 170 kg, about twice as much as the largest male red kangaroos.

Our study suggests two or three species of Protemnodon may have been mostly quadrupedal, moving something like a quokka or potoroo – bounding on four legs at times, and hopping on two legs at others.

Read more:
Did people or climate kill off the megafauna? Actually, it was both

The newly described Protemnodon mamkurra is likely one of these. A large but thick-boned and robust kangaroo, it was probably fairly slow-moving and inefficient. It may have hopped only rarely, perhaps just when startled.

The best fossils of this species come from southeastern South Australia, on the land of the Boandik people. The species name, mamkurra, was chosen by Boandik elders and language experts in the Burrandies Corporation. It means “great kangaroo” in Bunganditj language.

The third of our newly described species is Protemnodon dawsonae, a woodland-dwelling kangaroo from eastern Australia and the probable ancestor of P. viator and P. mamkurra. It is named for kangaroo palaeontologist Lyndall Dawson.

By about 40,000 years ago, despite their many differences, all Protemnodon were extinct on mainland Australia. We don’t yet know why they died out when similar animals such as wallaroos and grey kangaroos survived – but our study may open the door for further Protemnodon research that will find out more about how they lived and why they died.

Isaac A. R. Kerr receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Flinders University, the Australia & Pacific Science Foundation, and the Royal Society of South Australia.

– ref. We found three new species of extinct giant kangaroo – and we don’t know why they died out when their cousins survived – https://theconversation.com/we-found-three-new-species-of-extinct-giant-kangaroo-and-we-dont-know-why-they-died-out-when-their-cousins-survived-227857

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Lecturer of law, The University of Melbourne

Bruce Lehrmann has lost his defamation suit against Channel Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson after the media defendants proved, on the balance of probabilities, that Lehrmann raped his colleague Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in 2019.

After a trial lasting around a month, Federal Court Justice Michael Lee – an experienced defamation judge – concluded that both Lehrmann and Higgins had credibility issues, but ultimately he was persuaded that Lehrmann raped Higgins, as she’d alleged and he’d denied.

Read more:
Why was Bruce Lehrmann given the all-clear to sue media for defamation? A media law expert explains

Criminal trials by proxy

Ordinarily, charges like rape would be resolved through the criminal courts, but Lehrmann’s criminal trial was aborted in October 2022 after juror misconduct. The charges against him were soon dropped, nominally over concerns for Higgins’ mental health.

Higgins, however, foresaw civil proceedings and offered to testify should they arise. That they did, as Lehrmann, free from the burden of any proven crime, sued several media outlets for defamation over their reporting into the allegations (the ABC and News Corp both settled out of court).

Like Ben Roberts-Smith’s recent defamation suit against the former Fairfax papers, this became another case of civil proceedings testing grave allegations in the absence of a criminal law outcome.

The form of proceedings made for some key differences with the aborted criminal trial. In criminal cases, prosecutors are ethically bound to act with moderation in pursuing a conviction, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, while defendants have the right to silence. By contrast, this trial featured detailed accounts from both sides as each sought to convince, in essence, that their contentions were likely to be correct.

Also like the Roberts-Smith case, live streaming of the trial generated very high levels of public engagement. Today’s stream reached audiences of more than 45,000 people. It gave us the chance to assess who and what we believe, and to scrutinise the parties’ claims and the media’s reporting. The Federal Court doesn’t have juries, but we, the public, acted as a de facto panel of peers.

Read more:
Why defamation suits in Australia are so ubiquitous — and difficult to defend for media organisations

We saw accusations and denials, revealing cross-examination of the protagonists, witness testimony from colleagues, CCTV footage from nightclubs to Parliament House complete with lip-reading, expert testimony on alcohol consumption and consent, and lawyers constructing timelines which supported or poked holes in competing versions of events.

The complexity of high-stakes legal proceedings was on display, with Justice Lee issuing many interim decisions on questions of procedure and evidence. Whenever transparency was at stake, it won.

The preference for full disclosure led to the case being re-opened at the eleventh hour to call former Channel 7 producer Taylor Auerbach as a witness, providing a denouement that the judge called “sordid”, but which had little relevance to the final result.

An argument over the truth

Lehrmann had the burden of proving that the defendants published matter harmful to his reputation. That matter was Wilkinson’s interview with Higgins on Channel Ten’s The Project in which the allegations were made.

A statement is only defamatory if it’s untrue, but in Australian law, the publisher bears the burden of proving truth, should they opt for that defence. And more serious allegations usually require more compelling proof, as the law views them as inherently more unlikely.

This can be onerous for a defamation defendant, but it also involves risk for the plaintiff, should the defendant embark on an odyssey of truth-telling yet more damaging to the plaintiff’s image. That happened to Ben Roberts-Smith and it happened to Lehrmann here.

On the other hand, if the media hasn’t done their homework, as in Heston Russell’s case against the ABC (also presided over by Justice Lee), the complainant can be vindicated.

This case was a manifestation of Lehrmann’s professed desire to “light some fires”. Few players in this extended saga have emerged without scars, and here he burned his own fingers, badly.

As Justice Lee put it, Lehrmann, “having escaped the lion’s den [of criminal prosecution], made the mistake of coming back to get his hat”.

How was the case decided?

Lehrmann denied having sex with Higgins, whereas Higgins alleged there had been non-consensual sex. The defamatory nature of the publication centred on the claim of rape, so that was what the media defendants sought to prove.

This left open the curious possibility that consensual sex might have taken place: if so, Lehrmann would have brought his case on a false premise (there had been no sex), but the media would have failed to defend it (by not proving a lack of consent), resulting in a Lehrmann win.

That awkward scenario did not arise. The court found sex did in fact take place, Higgins in her heavily-inebriated and barely-conscious state did not give consent, and Lehrmann was so intent on his gratification that he ignored the requirement of consent.

Justice Lee found Lehrmann to be a persistent, self-interested liar, whereas Higgin’s credibility issues were of lesser degree, some symptomatic of a person piecing together a part-remembered trauma. The judge drew strongly on the evidence of certain neutral parties who could testify to incidents or words spoken in close proximity to the events.

Defamation laws favour the aggrieved

Australian defamation law has historically favoured plaintiffs and, despite recent rebalancing attempts, it remains a favoured legal weapon for those with the resources to use it.

This includes our political class, who sue their critics for defamation with unhealthy frequency for a democracy. In the United States, public figures don’t have it so easy: to win they must prove their critics were lying.

Read more:
A win for the press, a big loss for Ben Roberts-Smith: what does this judgment tell us about defamation law?

In Australia, the media sometimes succeeds in proving truth, but contesting defamation proceedings comes at great financial cost and takes an emotional toll on the journalists involved.

Nor can a true claim always be proven to a court’s satisfaction, given the rules of evidence and the fact that sources may be reluctant to testify or protected by a reporter’s guarantee of confidentiality.

But this case demonstrates that publishers with an appetite for the legal fight can come out on top.

Brendan Clift 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. Judge finds Bruce Lehrmann raped Brittany Higgins and dismisses Network 10 defamation case. How did it play out? – https://theconversation.com/judge-finds-bruce-lehrmann-raped-brittany-higgins-and-dismisses-network-10-defamation-case-how-did-it-play-out-225891

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Ogloff, University Distinguished Professor of Forensic Behavioural Science & Dean, School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology

The man who killed six people and injured countless others at a Bondi shopping centre on Saturday, 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, reportedly had “mental health issues”, police explained soon after the tragic event, while ruling out terrorism.

Cauchi had reportedly been diagnosed with a mental illness at age 17 years and had received treatment in the public and private sector. But Queensland Police said Cauchi’s mental health had declined in recent years.

No matter the circumstances, such acts of violence must be condemned. If mental health issues contribute to such acts, they need to be understood and prevented.

Read more:
As Australia reels from the Bondi attack, such mass murder incidents remain rare

However it’s important to note the vast majority of people with mental illness do not pose a risk of violence to others.

Tragically, there is still an unacceptable level of stigma and misunderstanding of mental illness, including the mistaken belief that people with mental illness are violent. People may draw conclusions from cases such as the Bondi attack, where people with histories of mental illness engage in violence.

So is there a link between mental illness and violent crime? Here’s what the evidence says.

For most people with mental illness, there’s no increase in violence

Research from Australia and overseas shows a small percentage of people with serious forms of mental illness may be at increased risk for violence.

Our research in Victoria, for example, shows 10% of people with schizophrenia (a serious form of mental illness where the person can be so unwell as to be out of touch with reality) have perpetrated a violent crime. This compares with about 2.4% of the general population. So, while the people who have schizophrenia were more likely to have a violent offence, the vast majority of them did not.

The findings are mixed regarding a direct relationship between more common mental illnesses, such as anxiety and depression, and violence.

Although the reasons that anyone – including people with psychiatric illnesses – offends vary, we identify three categories of people with mental illness who engage in violence.

1. Irrational thinking and beliefs

The first is the very small group of people with a serious mental illness, typically schizophrenia, who act violently as a direct result of symptoms of mental illness.

For these people, their illnesses leads to irrational thinking and beliefs that can increase the likelihood of them behaving violently. A person may develop delusional beliefs that they are being targeted or that their lives are in danger if they do not act violently against perceived enemies.

For these people, if they did not have the particular symptoms of mental illness, they would not offend.

People in this category may be found not guilty by reason of mental impairment. They are then typically held in secure hospitals or prisons where they are treated and eventually released, when they are no longer found to be a risk to others.

2. Overlap with social factors

The second category is much larger, and more varied. For this group, people do not offend because of their mental illnesses, per se, but due to the related individual and social issues that may accompany mental illness.

People with some forms of mental illness may be more likely to engage in substance misuse, for example, which may, in turn, contribute to offending.

Many of the negative social factors associated with serious forms of mental illness overlap with the negative social factors that increase the probability of being violent.

People with serious forms of mental illness who have backgrounds characterised by social and family disruption and disadvantage together with abuse, behavioural disturbances, substance use and educational failure and disengagement are significantly more likely to offend than people with mental illnesses who do not have such disturbances in their backgrounds.

Of course, most people with a psychotic illness do not come from such disadvantaged backgrounds.

Research and clinical experience also show factors related to offending within this group are similar to those who do not have mental illness. In addition to substance abuse, this can include violent attitudes, exposure to trauma and violence, association with people who are antisocial, and poor family and professional support.

3. Mental illness isn’t related

The final group of people with mental illness who offend do so irrespective of their mental illness. People in this group are typically characterised by early onset antisocial and illegal behaviour.

They differ from other offenders with mental illness by having a pervasive and stable pattern of offending regardless of their mental state. This behaviour almost always precedes the onset of mental illness.

While people with a psychopathic or antisocial personality disorder will be included in this group, not all of the people in the group will have such a personality disorder.

Mental health care can reduce the chance of violence

It’s not the mental illness per se that causes people to be violent. Rather, it’s symptoms of the illnesses and related factors.

There is good evidence therefore that providing psychiatric and psychological care can help manage symptoms of mental illness and reduce the likelihood of violence.

It’s also important to address the broader factors that are related to offending and violence among people who are mentally ill.

Unfortunately, partly as a result of the pressures on mental health services, staff have few resources to help address the array of factors that can lead to one behaving violently. Continued investment and education is required to boost the services and address the factors that lead to violence among people with mental illness.

While we have made some progress in the recognition that mental illness affects a large percentage of the population, individual acts of violence committed by someone with mental illness must not lead us to jump to conclusions that all people with mental illness are violent.

Read more:
Sydneysiders witnessed horrific scenes on Saturday. How do you process and recover from such an event?

James Ogloff receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council for his research. He is a Strategic Advisor to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare) in Victoria.

– ref. Sydney attacker had ‘mental health issues’ but most people with mental illness aren’t violent – https://theconversation.com/sydney-attacker-had-mental-health-issues-but-most-people-with-mental-illness-arent-violent-227868

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

For those who have followed the tortuous path of Australian climate policy over recent decades, a recent report by the Australian Energy Market Commission of a “shadow price” of A$70 a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent elicits some painful memories.

The announcement is a reminder of what we lost in 2013 when the Abbott government scrapped the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, better known as the “carbon tax” or the “carbon price”. It was the first time globally a carbon price had ever been introduced and subsequently removed.

In 2024, the shadow carbon price described by the commission is not a cost to be paid by carbon emitters. It’s an estimate of the cost to the world of each tonne of carbon emissions. The $70/tonne figure will be included when calculating the benefits and costs of rule changes.

Read more:
A carbon tax can have economic, not just environmental benefits for Australia

Poisoned politics

In 2013, it wasn’t the first time Tony Abbott had defeated an attempt to introduce a carbon price. In 2009, after many months of negotiation, then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull agreed on an emissions trading scheme.

Abbott rejected the idea and challenged Turnbull for the leadership, ultimately prevailing by a single vote. Although his public position was equivocal at the time, Abbott has since emerged as a fully fledged denier of climate science. Last year, he became a director of the anti-science Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Rudd persisted with emissions trading as agreed with Turnbull and refused to consider any changes proposed by the Greens, who ultimately voted against it. This episode has poisoned relations between the two left-of-centre parties ever since.

The scheme was deferred indefinitely, and Rudd was replaced by Julia Gillard shortly afterwards.

Gillard also sought to abandon the emissions trading scheme, but was forced to change tack after the 2010 election produced a minority government dependent on Greens support.

Read more:
Australia will have a carbon price for industry – and it may infuse greater climate action across the economy

The result was the carbon pollution reduction scheme. This was an emissions trading scheme, but because it began operating with a fixed price of $23 a tonne, it was functionally equivalent to a carbon tax.

Gillard had ruled out such a tax before the election, and lost a great deal of credibility when she admitted the scheme was, in effect, a tax. This contributed to Labor’s defeat in 2013.

Despite its difficult birth, the carbon price worked effectively in the two years it was operating.

Emissions fell by about 2%, with no perceptible effect on the economy as a whole. Nevertheless, Tony Abbott described the tax as a “wrecking ball” through the economy. He scrapped it soon after winning power.

After the repeal, Australia ended up with a series of ad hoc policy responses, most notably the Abbott government’s safeguard mechanism. Introduced as a form of “direct action”, the safeguard mechanism remains at the centre of climate policy to this day. Labor has moved to strengthen it, not abandon it.

It’s now clear if either the emissions trading or the carbon pricing scheme had been maintained, Australia would be better placed.

Researchers recently found the “continuation of the carbon tax could have enabled a smoother energy transition”.

Europe launched its own emissions trading scheme in 2005 and has persisted despite initial difficulties (at one point the carbon price fell close to zero). The results are clear – across the 31 countries and regions involved, coal’s share of electricity generation has fallen sharply. Last year, just 12% of electricity in these nations came from coal, with further declines on the way.

What’s the point of a shadow price?

Following Labor’s defeat in the 2019 election, neither major party has been willing to look at imposing a price on carbon emissions.

It’s against this backdrop that Australia’s energy market commission has announced its future decisions will use a shadow price on carbon, set initially at $70/tonne.

That’s significantly higher, in real terms, than the $26 price on carbon set in 2012. Moreover, the price is set to increase to $420/tonne by 2050, when the aim is to achieve net zero emissions.

That sounds promising but, for most of us, the announcement will raise more questions than answers.

First, what is the Australian Energy Market Commission? It’s part of the confusing alphabet soup of agencies involved in overseeing our energy supply.

The commission has the job of setting the rules under which markets operate, including national electricity, gas and retail rules, and provides market development advice to governments.

These rules cover everything from the approval of proposals for new transmission lines to the installation of smart meters for customers.

Second, what is a shadow price?

A shadow price is not a cost to be paid by emitters, as was the case with the carbon price. Rather, it’s an estimate of how much each tonne of CO₂ equivalent costs the world as a whole.

Will it have any effect in the real world? Yes. It means this cost will be included when the commission calculates the benefits and costs of rule changes.

Consider a change to transmission network rules to make it easier for new wind and solar projects to connect to the grid while reducing demand for coal-fired electricity.

In the absence of a shadow price, the costs of the rule change might be assessed as exceeding the benefits. With a shadow price, a benefit beginning at $70 per tonne would be added to account for reduced emissions from the change. If this adjustment was large enough, the rule change would be assessed as beneficial and would go ahead.

None of this would be necessary if we had an economy-wide carbon price.

But rigid opposition from the Coalition and the political caution (some might say cowardice) of Labor mean we won’t see a real price on carbon any time soon.

In the meantime, at least our market rules will take proper account of the damage done by the millions of tonnes of emissions vented into atmosphere for free.

Read more:
The world’s carbon price is a fraction of what we need – because only a fifth of global emissions are priced

John Quiggin was a Member of the Climate Change Authority, responsible for policy advice on the CPRS and its successors from 2012 to 2017

– ref. Australia now has a $70 ‘shadow price’ on carbon emissions. Here’s why we won’t see a real price any time soon – https://theconversation.com/australia-now-has-a-70-shadow-price-on-carbon-emissions-heres-why-we-wont-see-a-real-price-any-time-soon-227891

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ariella Meltzer, Research Fellow in Social Impact, UNSW Sydney

In a pandemic, bushfire or flood, people need high quality safety and crisis information. Getting emergency messages quickly can help people know how to prepare, what rules to follow, where dangers are, where to gather safely and when help is on the way.

This life-saving potential exists for everyone – including people with disability, who may be particularly affected by climate change. So it is important that crisis information is accessible and its meaning is clear for everyone.

Yet, the disability royal commission and advocates say people with disability have not been provided with enough thorough, timely and up to date, accessible information during recent crises.

For example, the government’s accessible information about the early dangers of COVID was not made available at the same time as the standard information and didn’t include enough different types of accessible information.

With climate change making extreme weather events more common and more intense, we asked 17 accessible information provider organisations what could improve accessible crisis communication for people with disability.

What is accessible information?

Accessible information can come in a range of types, including Auslan, captions, Easy Read and Easy English (which both use pictures as well as simpler language) and braille.

Beyond specific formats, information is accessible when it is:

• made for a specific audience

• matched to their technical requirements

• co-designed with and user tested by people with disability

• easy to locate and distribute to people who need it

• to the point and practical

• up to date, accurate and verified

• delivered with a “human touch”.

Who makes accessible information?

There is a small group of provider organisations who make accessible information. Some are specialist accessibility businesses and others are disability advocacy organisations. They usually work from project to project to develop individual accessible products with payment from commissioning bodies, such as government, councils, community organisations and private businesses.

This is important work, yet the piecemeal nature of it means it is hard to build and expand information accessibility businesses between projects. It is also hard to ensure there is accessible information to cover everything people with disability need to know, let alone keep it updated and make sure it is produced under best-practice conditions.

These challenges are even more serious in a crisis. If accessible crisis information is not accurate, complete, up to date and high quality, there can be life and death consequences for people with disability in a bushfire, flood or pandemic.

For example, they may not know if it is controlled backburning or an uncontrolled fire approaching their property or about pandemic safety rules.

Four ways to improve accessible crisis information

Accessible information provider organisations told us four things that could help:

1. A direct source of information

Keeping up with constantly changing details in a crisis is difficult for accessible information provider organisations. Having a direct source (such as a government or emergency services contact) of correct information to “translate” into accessible formats would help.

2. Subject matter experts

Accessible information provider organisations are experts on style and accessibility – not crises. There needs to be support from subject matter experts (such as doctors or emergency service personnel) to check accuracy.

3. Not waiting for a crisis

Making high quality, accessible information takes time, money and skilled staff. Ensuring the required workplace, professional learning and human resources conditions are in place is a long term task. Sufficient resourcing for accessible information provider organisations is important from way before a crisis.

4. Upskilling agencies

Not all accessible crisis information can be made by provider organisations. Sometimes crisis information – like evacuation orders or information about approaching fire – needs to be available immediately. Emergency services need more thorough baseline accessibility skills to make this information themselves.

New rules and resources could help

Clearer and more comprehensive national legislation requiring the production of accessible information would give people with disability the information they need to stay safe in times of crisis. Such laws should clearly outline all situations in which accessible information must be provided (including crises), formats to be considered and the standard necessary.

There are different options for how to make this legislation. In its final report, the disability royal commission said information accessibility should be covered in a new Disability Rights Act. Our report shows information accessibility requirements should also be clearly and consistently included in the governing legislation of sectors like emergency response and health.

Accessible information provider organisations should also have reliable, ongoing funding (not only project to project payments), with capacity for expansion during weather emergencies and public health disasters. This would ensure the workforce and systems are in place to expand workflow quickly when needed and get messages out rapidly to people with disability.

And everyone – from media organisations to designers, businesses and service providers – needs to get on board. The more people who prioritise accessible information, the safer people with disability can be in a crisis.

Dr Ariella Meltzer is a Board member of an organisation who makes accessible information. She received funding for this research from the UNSW Disability Innovation Institute, as well as grants from other parties for projects unrelated to this research.

She would like to acknowledge her co-authors on the report on which this article is based – Emma Barnes and Ayah Wehbe. She would also like to thank the organisations who have supported this research – partner organisation IDEAS Disability Information and funder UNSW Disability Innovation Institute, as well as the UNSW Centre for Social Impact.

– ref. Crisis communication saves lives – but people with disability often aren’t given the message – https://theconversation.com/crisis-communication-saves-lives-but-people-with-disability-often-arent-given-the-message-224968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney

There is nothing like a wedding episode. Bluey’s first 28-minute special, The Sign, was the ultimate wedding television.

Full of family, and family-friendly, the wedding between Bluey’s godmother Frisky and uncle Radley was the sticky cake that held longer-than-average toddler attention spans and drew in broad audiences around and beyond Australia.

As Bluey creator Joe Brumm explained:

If you think of Bluey as a sitcom, they all have a wedding episode, so I fancied a crack. The idea lodged in my head and the story grew from there.

Bluey’s huge international success is due its creators’ ambition to make more than just a kids’ show. By drawing on tropes of other television shows like wedding episodes, as well as developed character arcs and references to pop culture, it has become some of the best Australian storytelling of all time, of any genre.

This process of creating “easter eggs” – hidden references for the audience to look for – is a tactic a variety of television makers now use to reward audiences of all ages.

The Sign rewarded longtime viewers of Bluey. Aunty Brandy had been wanting a baby, and now seems to finally be pregnant. Nana and Grandpa Bob are doing a flossing dance they learned in series one. Bingo’s “big girl bark” has finally developed, and baby Socks is now able to talk. Instead of Nutbush City Limits or other standard wedding music, we had “dance mode” and everyone’s favourite fictional cartoon-within-a-cartoon theme song (and earworm), Catsquad.

The wedding march also built to include a guitar solo a little reminiscent of 80s Oz Rock – a nod to Angry Anderson’s Suddenly for Scott and Charlene, perhaps?

Read more:
The subtle sophistication of Bluey’s soundtrack helped propel it to stardom

Why do we love a TV wedding?

Scott and Charlene walking down the aisle in Neighbours marked a generation of weddings for some of us. Kath Day and Cal Knight’s Pumpkin-style coach in Kath and Kim was the pinnacle for others. Both were huge ratings winners locally and internationally.

Audiences love TV weddings because they are spectacular. Amid the “flow” of broadcasting, wedding episodes draw us in by design. In the age of streaming, wedding episodes still have the potential to be appointment television.

From Joanie and Chachi in Happy Days to The Doctor and River Song in Doctor Who to David and Patrick in Schitt’s Creek, the appeal is the coming together of the couple – but also an excuse to draw together different groups around them.

Weddings can create big “television moments”, sometimes even overshadowing the couple at the centre. The multi-award winning second series of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag built its entire storyline (and excuse for new character of Andrew Scott’s “hot priest”) on the upcoming wedding of her father and godmother. Building to a “love is awful” speech by the priest, it was a plot device to underpin an ultimately doomed relationship.

Even when the characters aren’t entirely fictional, a “wedding episode” is almost always successful.

Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer broke broadcast records with their 1981 wedding. Even though the wedding itself only lasted 15 years, the 40th anniversary of the broadcast was marked with a “wedding of the century” documentary.

Reality, documentary and other forms of semi- or non-scripted television also use weddings to gain audiences: Married at First Sight is now in its 11th season in Australia.

Bluey’s wedding episode drew on events that many screen weddings deal with: a dramatic fight between the bride and groom; a sweet reunion; charming if not slightly sozzled family members and kids stealing the show with impossible cuteness. The supersized episode also provided some other big plot twists (was it a “sign” that the show might end for a while?), and promises of new beginnings.

An archive of weddings

The National Film and Sound Archive’s Australian Screen collection includes a huge range of wedding related pieces – both real and fictional.

Real weddings are captured in the 1914 silent clip “society wedding” of an unknown but clearly very upper-class couple and their family, clips from a 1950s Greek wedding reception in Canberra, and the 1973 ABC documentary series Chequerboard episode called It’s A Big Day In Any Girl’s Life.

The archive includes clips of beloved
fictional weddings such as Muriel’s Wedding, and explorations of the value of marriage like in Brides of Christ.

Other worthy examples not yet in the archive are 2019’s Top End Wedding and Neighbours’ first same sex wedding for David and Aaron in 2018, officiated by Jemima Davies-Smythe (played by Magda Szubanski).

Surely The Sign is destined to join these forebears as part of the history of Australian screen weddings. As my children and I watched Bluey, we talked about my wedding to their dad and the weddings of family and friends. We talked about what makes a great story and having to wait to see an episode of television – something they are really not used to anymore.

During the episode we had a good laugh, we had a little cry, and a big dance – just like weddings “for real life”, as Bluey would say.

Read more:
A bumper Bluey episode is about to hit screens. 5 ways to get the most out of watching the show with your kids

Liz Giuffre 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. Something borrowed, something Bluey: why we love a TV wedding – https://theconversation.com/something-borrowed-something-bluey-why-we-love-a-tv-wedding-227682

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alysson Watson, Associate lecturer in journalism, University of Newcastle

The family of Ash Good, one of the Bondi stabbing victims and the mother of the nine-month-baby who was also stabbed, issued a plea overnight for media to stop reproducing photos of Ash, her partner and their baby without consent.

Good, 38, was an osteopath who liked to exercise, post photographs of her young family and share thoughts on new motherhood: the endless nights and blurry days, the joy, the anxiety, the “indescribable love”.

Journalists discovered this from “mining” her (and her friends’ and family’s) social media accounts.

As well as Good’s family, federal politician Allegra Spender, whose electorate of Wentworth covers Westfield Bondi Junction, posted on social media a plea for “the media and everyone” to respect the wishes of those affected by the “tragedy at Bondi Junction”.

She wrote: “I have been contacted by Ash’s family. They have asked the media not to publish personal images from social media. I ask the media and everyone to respect their wishes.”

But will the victims’ privacy be respected? My research indicates that is unlikely.

Read more:
Sydneysiders witnessed horrific scenes on Saturday. How do you process and recover from such an event?

What can, and can’t, journalists do?

The practice of journalists taking photos from social media, both with and without consent, is now commonplace, and is sanctioned in Australia by law and by professional codes, with some caveats.

Journalists are exempted from the Privacy Act “in the course of journalism”, and while advice from professional bodies such as the Australian Press Council and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is to tread with caution when reproducing images from social media, they do permit publication “in the public interest”. So do the guidelines of media companies, including the ABC.

The ethical code that binds member journalists in Australia, the MEAA Code of Ethics, also advises journalists to respect privacy and grief. It gives them the right not to intrude, but tempers this advice with a “guidance clause” about their capacity to override standards if publication is in the public interest.

The “public interest” is a nebulous concept that increasingly extends to “what the public is interested in”.

The modern-day ‘death knock’

As citizens and news consumers, we want information about everyone who is impacted, and it is the job of news reporters to feed the hungry beast that is digital news. How can they resist the intensely personal content that is shared on “public” social media accounts which gives such a human face to tragedy? Is it reasonable to expect them to?

These are questions I am exploring though my PhD research into the practice journalists informally (and perhaps unpalatably) call the “death knock”.

On hearing of a newsworthy death (or crime or major incident), journalists will do whatever they can to get information about the people impacted – the perpetrators, victims, and witnesses.

The job of gathering news is to find the most credible sources, and, in addition to expert voices (such as police, ambulance, health authorities and politicians), those who know something about the event or the people impacted.

Should journalists ask for permission?

Increasingly, in the digital age, newsgathering starts (and sometimes ends) with journalists mining social media.

Journalists use social media as a tool to find people they want to interview, but also as a source of information, images and tributes.

If people’s accounts are set to “public”, there is nothing to stop journalists using the photos and comments they find there in their stories.

Some journalists will pause and ask for permission, but not all will, and most do not feel compelled to.

However, my research indicates that journalists, by and large, are not thoughtless when it comes to what some view as stealing images from social media. They face enormous pressure to do so, from colleagues, editors and competitors.

Many argue that if images are in the public domain, they are fair game. And if everyone else is doing it, why wouldn’t they? They may ask themselves “how can I tell my boss I’m not going to do it when our competitors have already done it? If I pause to ask for permission, will I be scooped? What if I don’t hear back? What if permission is refused?”

In the UK, where protections from media harassment are arguably stronger, people impacted by tragedy are advised to check their social media privacy settings or delete material altogether.

This though assumes users are social media-literate, but journalists are “very adept at finding ways around privacy settings, and won’t hesitate to do so in pursuit of a story or photo”.

Read more:
As Australia reels from the Bondi attack, such mass murder incidents remain rare

A better path forward?

Reporting on tragedy is routine work for many journalists, but it can take its toll, sometimes in the form of moral injury, when they feel compelled to break their own moral code.

My research indicates journalists want better preparation, guidance, and support from their employers in reporting tragedy, and they want to be listened to about the impacts of this work on them.

However, in the realm of the “digital death knock” – the use of social media to report on tragedy – some argue that an ethical approach alone cannot stem what some believe is egregious behaviour, and that legislative (citizen privacy protections) and normative (stronger advice from professional bodies) approaches may be needed to protect journalists from themselves – and better protect people who fall victim to tragedy.

Alysson Watson 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. Digital ‘death knocks’: is it fair game for journalists to mine social media profiles of victims and their families? – https://theconversation.com/digital-death-knocks-is-it-fair-game-for-journalists-to-mine-social-media-profiles-of-victims-and-their-families-227784

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dougal Sutherland, Clinical Psychologist, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

There has been a rise in the number of people diagnosed with “neurodivergence” in adulthood over the past decade. This trend has been noted both internationally and in New Zealand. But exact rates of diagnoses in this country are difficult to quantify.

As many as 8% of adults globally could have some form of neurodivergence.

Neurodivergence is an umbrella term that typically includes autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and specific learning disorders (SLD) – sometimes referred to as dyslexia.

The rise in these diagnoses when people are already in the workforce presents a challenge for employers. Business owners can be left wondering how they can support neurodivergent employees without causing issues for the wider business.

‘Childhood’ diagnoses now part of adulthood

Historically, diagnoses were predominantly made in children , with the view that people “grew out” of them as they developed into adults

But research over the past decade indicates the majority of people with these conditions continue to experience symptoms throughout their adult life, albeit in different ways to childhood.

Understanding neurodivergence is underpinned by the view that ASD, ADHD, and SLD reflect differences in how a person’s brain is “wired” rather than being an underlying “disorder”.

Read more:
What are ‘masking’ and ‘camouflaging’ in the context of autism and ADHD?

This changing view appears to have increased awareness of neurodivergence. It has also reduced the stigma associated with it, leading more people to seek support as adults.

A limited understanding of gender differences in the way neurodivergence is expressed, as well as limited access to psychological and psychiatric assessments in the public sector, have likely contributed to significant numbers of people missing out on childhood diagnoses. Many are now seeking assistance in adulthood.

Neurodivergence in the workplace

This rising tide of adults seeking to better understand their differences – and potentially seek treatment – has presented challenges for businesses and employers.

But employers need not fear hiring those who are neurodivergent. Viewing neurodivergence as a difference rather than a disability contributes to an inclusive workplace where people’s strengths are recognised and celebrated.

Some people with ADHD, for example, work very effectively in a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines and rapidly changing content, such as journalism. People with ASD often have very specialised areas of interest that, if matched to the right work environment, can lead them to be experts in their fields.

Read more:
ADHD in adults: what it’s like living with the condition – and why many still struggle to get diagnosed

But it would be naive to say neurodivergence doesn’t bring with it some challenges for individuals and their workplaces. A person with ADHD may appear quite disorganised to others (and to themselves), and at times “put their foot in their mouth” through impulsively saying something they haven’t fully thought through.

Those with ASD often report challenges in navigating social relationships at work, or may have particular sensory sensitivities (finding the general hubbub of open-plan offices anxiety-provoking, for example). They may struggle to process large amounts of written or verbal information, resulting in confusion and anxiety.

Businesses need awareness

Businesses and organisations looking to support neurodivergence in the workplace should initially focus on increasing awareness and understanding among leaders and managers.

Managers need to work with individual staff who have self-identified as neurodivergent to understand and implement what is needed to support them.

There may be some very practical steps that can be taken, such as having designated low-stimulus areas, providing noise-cancelling headphones, or understanding how best to communicate clearly and simply with an individual. Some staff may wish to take up psychological support via their workplace to help them develop skills in areas they find difficult.

Technically, neurodivergence is likely to fall under the Employment Relations Act, which prohibits businesses from discriminating against people with these conditions. Indeed, the legislation requires an employer to make reasonable allowances in the workplace.

Read more:
Ritalin at 75: what does the future hold?

Perhaps the worst thing an employer can do is overlook neurodivergence as being present in the workplace. Ignorance, whether wilful or not, will lead to inaction.

That said, it would also be a mistake for an employer to unilaterally refer a staff member for an assessment of suspected neurodivergence. To suggest someone is neurodivergent and requires a psychological assessment may lead to personal distress and potentially breach employment law.

Employers should also be aware of the lengthy and complicated pathway to an adult diagnosis, due to factors such as lack of clear adult diagnostic criteria and shortage of trained clinicians. Employers can support staff in this process by allowing flexibility in work hours to attend specialist appointments, or even funding access to assessments in the private sector.

The rise of awareness about neurodivergence mirrors the rise in awareness of mental health conditions in the workplace generally.

Although this increased visibility can be confusing for some staff and organisations, recognition and understanding of neurodivergence can only be good for businesses in the long term.

Helping people operate to their full potential by understanding their strengths and challenges will ultimately lead to thriving and productive workplaces.

Dougal Sutherland is a Teaching Fellow at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria Univeristy of Wellington. He is also CEO of Umbrella Wellbeing

– ref. More adults are being diagnosed as neurodivergent. Here’s how employers can help in the workplace – https://theconversation.com/more-adults-are-being-diagnosed-as-neurodivergent-heres-how-employers-can-help-in-the-workplace-225882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alessandro Toffoli, Professor in Ocean Engineering, The University of Melbourne

We used three-dimensional imaging of ocean waves to capture freakish seas that produce a notorious phenomenon known as rogue waves. Our results are now published in Physical Review Letters*.

Rogue waves are giant colossi of the sea – twice as high as neighbouring waves – that appear seemingly out of nowhere. Stories of unimaginable mountains of water as tall as ten-storey buildings have populated maritime folklore and literature for centuries.

Recent technology has allowed scientists to spot rogue waves out at sea, making legend become reality. The first and most famous measurement was of the Draupner wave, a 25.6-metre monster recorded in the North Sea on January 1 1995.

Despite observations, we still don’t know how often rogue waves occur, or if we can predict them. A record of a rogue wave doesn’t include specific features that distinguish the sea around it, so we can’t make comparisons or predict the conditions needed.

Our team set sail on the South African icebreaker S.A. Agulhas-II to chase rogue waves across the Southern Ocean, where mighty winds shape Earth’s fiercest waves.

Read more:
The South African ship that found Antarctica’s Endurance wreck is vital for climate science

What creates rogue waves?

In the random environment of ocean waves, several mechanisms give rise to rogue ones. One primary source involves the overlap of multiple waves at the same location and time. This results in concentrated energy, leading to tall waves.

Under consistent ocean conditions, rogue waves generated this way may occur once every two days at a set location. But the ocean is dynamic, so conditions are rarely consistent for long – making it less likely for rogue waves to occur. The overlap of waves may be minimal or non-existent even during prolonged and intense storms.

Numerical and laboratory studies suggest strong winds also contribute to the development of rogue waves, because they push harder on some already tall wave forms. But wind has seldom been considered in rogue wave analysis.

Wind prompts ocean waves to grow progressively higher, longer and faster. During this stage, waves are “young” and hungry for wind input. When waves go faster than wind, they stop being accelerated by it and reach a “mature” stage of full development.

Through this process, the wind creates a chaotic situation where waves of different dimensions and directions coexist.

Our recent observations show that unique sea conditions with rogue waves can arise during the “young” stage – when waves are particularly responsive to the wind. This suggests wind parameters could be the missing link. However, there’s even more to consider.

Powerful waves amplify each other

Ocean waves are one of the most powerful natural forces on Earth and could become even more powerful in the future due to climate change. If the wave field possesses an extreme amount of energy – when waves are steep and most of them have a similar amplitude, length and direction – another mechanism can trigger the formation of rogue waves.

This mechanism involves an exchange of energy between waves that produces a “self-amplification”, where one wave grows disproportionately at the expense of its neighbours. Theoretically, studies show this could increase the likelihood of rogue waves ten-fold.

While self-amplification manifests as whitecaps – frothy, aerated crests of choppy waves – until now there has been no evidence it can make rogue waves more likely in the ocean.

Recent experiments suggest wind can make extreme events like rogue waves more common. But this aspect has not been thoroughly explored.

What did we find in the Southern Ocean?

We used a new three-dimensional imaging method for scanning the ocean surface throughout the expedition. It mimics human vision: closely located sensors record sequences of simultaneous images. Computer algorithms then match pairs of them to reconstruct the three-dimensional depths – the wavy surface.

As our ship passed through several storms, the sensors captured data during various phases of wave growth – from the early stages of young waves fuelled by the wind, to mature waves that aren’t influenced by it.

Our results show young waves display signs of self-amplification and an increased likelihood of rogue waves. We recorded waves twice as high as their neighbours once every six hours.

This mirrors what lab models have reported: sea conditions theoretically more prone to self-amplification would produce more rogue waves.

In contrast, mature seas don’t show an increased probability of rogue waves. We detected none under those conditions.

Our findings challenge previous thinking: that self-amplification doesn’t change the likelihood of rogue waves in the ocean. We have also shown that when developing tools for predicting rogue waves, we need to take wind into thorough consideration. After all, it’s a natural feature of the open sea.

Alessandro Toffoli receives funding from the Australia Research Council.

– ref. Rogue waves in the ocean are much more common than anyone suspected, says new study – https://theconversation.com/rogue-waves-in-the-ocean-are-much-more-common-than-anyone-suspected-says-new-study-225352