Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hussein Dia, Professor of Transport Technology and Sustainability, Swinburne University of Technology

Australia’s sluggish electric vehicle transition has begun to accelerate. In the first half of the year, more than 72,000 battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles were sold. That’s about 12% of all new cars, up almost a quarter over the same period in 2024.

Despite this momentum, progress is still too slow. EVs now dominate in countries such as Norway (98.3% of new cars), Nepal (76%) and China (51%). Australia is lagging.

If nothing is done, transport is projected to be Australia’s largest emissions source by 2030. Cutting emissions 62–70% by 2035 under the government’s new target will require rapidly shifting from combustion engine vehicles to EVs.

This week, the Electric Vehicle Council called for an end to the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 to speed up the shift. Setting a sunset date would align Australia with major trading partners.

Despite the risk of pushback, a phase-out deserves serious public debate. Letting the market decide is leading to a very slow transition. This policy leap could trigger the rapid shift we need.

Why is a phase-out needed?

At present, transport accounts for 22% of Australia’s total emissions. It’s also the fastest-growing source.

EVs will be essential in cutting these emissions. Australia has to reach an EV market share for new cars of at least 50% in the next decade to achieve its broader 2035 emissions target.

Without tougher measures and a firm phase-out, that looks unlikely. The task is sizeable. Despite growing momentum, EVs only make up about 2% of the 21.7 million cars on the road today.

Several countries have already committed to banning or phasing out new petrol, gas or diesel cars.

The United Kingdom has mandated 80% of new cars and 70% of vans be zero-emission by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

Europe’s experience shows safeguards are essential

The tussle over the European Union’s legislated ban is worth examining.

All cars and vans sold after 2035 in the EU are legally required to produce zero emissions – other than an exemption for vehicles running under strict conditions on synthetic e-fuels made from captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen.

It wasn’t easy to get these laws through. The bloc’s top carmaking nation, Germany, threatened to block the laws unless e-fuels were allowed. The EU was forced to negotiate a compromise opening a loophole for combustion engines to persist under the guise of “climate-neutral fuel”.

Even so, the EU’s hard-fought ban remains one of the world’s strongest measures to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles. Most major carmakers support the ban and automakers such as Volkswagen have already announced plans to end new petrol and diesel car sales well before 2035. Mercedes has been the most vocal in opposing the ban.

The mistake Brussels policymakers made was to move to ban fossil fuel cars without laying out clear transition pathways. When bans like this are proposed, powerful interests invested in the status quo will look for ways to weaken them.

Ensuring these phase-outs work depends on preventing backsliding through safeguards such as clear interim targets to track progress, flexible review mechanisms, protections against loopholes, and support for equity and infrastructure.

Politics and industry pressure will complicate Australia’s path

Any move to ban or restrict a product will meet resistance. When the federal government rolled out its New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, it met strong pushback – even though the standards have no binding sales targets or bans but rather set targets for exhaust emissions from new vehicles.

Federal minister Chris Bowen has repeatedly emphasised that the transition must rely on levers such as efficiency standards, incentives and infrastructure rather than bans.

Bowen has stated Australia “cannot just wish away fossil fuels” and dismissed earlier proposals to ban new combustion engine vehicles. His consistent opposition suggests he views bans as politically risky.

Any such ban would likely be seized on by the opposition and even government MPs in car-dependent regional and outer metropolitan areas.

Car dealers and industry lobby groups focused on legacy combustion engine cars are likely to oppose any legislation speeding up the shift to EVs. But EV makers and charging companies would hail the ban.

Rising EV sales show the community is increasingly supportive. But affordability, range of models and charger reliability remain concerns.

How to build a ban

Any such ban in Australia would have to be legislated or regulated, not aspirational. It would have to come with robust targets for EV uptake and infrastructure expansion offering certainty to manufacturers and markets.

It would have to be paired with steadily tightening fuel-efficiency standards and incentives, as well as fair road pricing and registration reforms to ensure equity.

The charging infrastructure rollout would have to be scaled up aggressively and with particular focus on filling in gaps in rural, regional and remote areas.

Any ban would have to be equitable. This would mean extra support for lower-income and rural households, pragmatic trade-in schemes, and measures to preserve used-vehicle markets so people who can’t yet afford new EVs still have access to affordable transport.

Importantly, the policy must guard against backsliding by limiting loopholes, undertaking regular reviews and building in transparency mechanisms.

The car industry will need transition support such as workforce reskilling and incentives for local manufacturing to support the EV industry.

Any ban should be part of a wider strategy focused on ending subsidies and incentives for fossil fuel vehicles and potentially creating a cost-neutral feebate scheme, where levies on buyers of new high-emissions vehicles are used to offer rebates for zero or low-emission vehicles to offset higher prices.

Examples include France’s Bonus Malus and New Zealand’s Clean Car Discount.

A question of resolve

Banning petrol cars by 2035 isn’t radical – it’s necessary. Voluntary transitions and market forces will be too slow.

Opponents will frame any ban as coercive and unfair. Europe’s experience suggests powerful interest groups will seek to delay or weaken any ban.

A phase-out date cannot be a slogan – it must give certainty and set the direction for the entire transport system.

For car-dependent Australia, a 2035 ban may sound like a tough ask. But without it, transport risks becoming an albatross around our necks. The question now is whether Australia has the discipline to match the ambition.

Hussein Dia receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the iMOVE Australia Cooperative Research Centre, Transport for New South Wales, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, and Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts.

– ref. Banning combustion engine cars by 2035 will be necessary to get Australia moving on electric vehicles – https://theconversation.com/banning-combustion-engine-cars-by-2035-will-be-necessary-to-get-australia-moving-on-electric-vehicles-267530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evangeline Gardiner, PhD Candidate in Public Health, The University of Queensland

“You look so great! Have you lost weight?”

“Wow, you’re looking so healthy now! Good for you.”

As fat people, we’ve heard comments like this for most of our lives. At the times when our bodies were smaller, these comments made us feel proud and accepted. We felt like we were finally “good enough”.

But when we regained the weight, as happens for most people, we felt like our bodies were no longer “good enough” and that these well-intentioned comments were in fact harmful.

Through our work as size- and weight-inclusive researchers, we’ve come to understand it wasn’t just us – the extent of harm from comments such as these is far-reaching.

Both positive and negative comments about weight can lead to negative outcomes. Whether they lose weight or not, larger-bodied people are judged and criticised.

Women’s weight in particular is policed and considered fair game for comment. Consider the commentary about the recent weight loss of celebrities such as Lizzo and Serena Williams.

The effects can be even worse for those with multiple marginalised identities across race or ethnicity, gender, class and ability.

It’s time we stop “complimenting” weight loss, even when well-intentioned. Here’s why – and what to do instead.

5 reasons why ‘complimenting’ weight loss can harm

1. It reinforces weight stigma

Complimenting weight loss sends the message that smaller bodies are better, and contributes to negative attitudes, beliefs and stereotypes about larger-bodied people.

This leads to unfair treatment of larger-bodied people in places such as school, work and social settings. For example, larger-bodied people, especially women, are often seen as less suitable for jobs.

These negative views can also be internalised, causing larger-bodied people to believe they are less deserving of respect or fair treatment because of their body size.

2. It links worth with appearance

Praising someone for losing weight reinforces the belief that the most important aspect of a person is the appearance of a smaller body, rather than valuing other qualities or achievements.

This also impacts children. Family-based weight stigma and parental comments about weight and dieting are associated with higher psychological distress in pre-adolescents and adolescents.

3. It overlooks natural diversity of body size

It holds onto the idea that there is only one “right” way for a body to look, and assumes everyone is aiming to be smaller, rather than recognising that bodies naturally come in all shapes and sizes.

4. It assumes intent

It ignores the fact that sometimes weight loss is unintentional and caused by health issues, stress, abuse, neglect or financial challenges. It’s better not to comment on someone’s body as you might inadvertently be praising illness or distress.

5. It can trigger disordered eating

It can send people who have struggled with their relationship with food back into ways of thinking that they may have worked hard to overcome. This can make old patterns of eating resurface or create new ones, particularly in adolescence, with the harm extending through to adulthood.

Read more:
How we think about ‘obesity’ and body weight is changing. Here’s why

What to do instead

We’re not suggesting you stop complimenting people all together, as it can be beneficial to both the people receiving and giving the compliments. As Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca once said, “Whenever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.”

But we need to ensure our compliments truly are kind and not inadvertently harmful.

Instead of complimenting others on weight loss, share compliments on more important attributes, such as “You have such an infectious laugh” or “I always feel happier after seeing you”. You could also compliment someone on an achievement, such as “I really admire the way you created such a fantastic event.”

Likewise, irrespective of any change in your body weight, focus your self-compliments on improvements in your wellbeing. You could tell yourself “I’m proud of myself for getting stronger” or “It feels great to be more flexible now I’m moving more.”

It’s OK not to respond when someone “compliments” you on weight loss, or even to choose not take on the labour of explaining why it’s harmful. On the days it feels challenging to speak up, be kind to yourself. Try saying something like, “Yeah, I’d rather not talk about my body” or “I promise my weight is the least interesting thing about me.”

If you’re tempted to comment on your own or other people’s weight, learn more about the harms of weight-related comments from larger-bodied people and those who have experienced weight stigma. Organisations such as Size Inclusive Health Australia, the Butterfly Foundation, the Embrace Collective and the National Eating Disorders Collaboration are also good sources of information.

Comments on weight loss stay with you. They can have long-term impacts on your self worth, health and wellbeing, as well as your relationships with your family members, friends and others. So let’s not send the message that a peron’s worth is measured in kilos.

Evangeline Gardiner is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, exploring weight-inclusive approaches to public health. Her PhD is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Scholarship (RTP). She is a member of Size Inclusive Health Australia (SIHA) and works at the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC). Evangeline identifies as a larger-bodied person, drawing on her lived and professional experience to advocate for a health system that supports the health and wellbeing of individuals of all sizes.

Lily O’Hara has received funding from Queensland Health. She is affiliated with Size Inclusive Health Australia. She identifies as a larger-bodied person and has been involved in research and practice in size-inclusive health promotion for decades. Lily was the host of the 11th Annual International Weight Stigma Conference in 2025.

– ref. 5 reasons we shouldn’t ‘compliment’ people who lose weight – https://theconversation.com/5-reasons-we-shouldnt-compliment-people-who-lose-weight-264696

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

A Victorian Resolve poll has Labor sliding back after a surge in August. Federal Labor had a 55–45 lead in Resolve and a 54–46 lead in Redbridge, with One Nation recording its highest vote in any poll since 1998.

A Victorian state Resolve poll for The Age, conducted with the federal September and October Resolve polls from a sample of over 1,000, gave the Coalition 33% of the primary vote (steady since August), Labor 30% (down two), the Greens 12% (steady), independents 10% (up one) and others 15% (up two).

Resolve doesn’t usually give a two-party estimate for its state polls, but The Poll Bludger estimated a “tight result”, with preference flows from the 25% who are voting for an independent or another party being crucial.

Liberal Brad Battin led Labor incumbent Jacinta Allan by 33–27 as preferred premier (32–25 in August). Allan’s net likeability was steady at -21, while Battin’s net likeability was +9.

The next Victorian state election will be held in November 2026. Labor had a massive surge in the August poll to retake the lead, and it has slipped back in this poll. The preferred premier measure usually favours incumbents more than voting intentions.

Battin’s lead as preferred premier may mean that Labor’s vote has been boosted by the federal election result. When voters focus more on state issues in the lead-up to the election, Labor could drop back further.

By the next election, Labor will have governed Victoria for the last 12 years and 23 of the last 27 years. An “it’s time” factor should favour the Coalition.

Federal Resolve poll has large Labor lead

A national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted October 7–12 from a sample of 1,800, gave Labor a 55–45 lead by respondent preferences, unchanged since September.

Primary votes were 34% Labor (down one), 28% Coalition (up one), 12% One Nation (steady), 11% Greens (steady), 9% independents (steady) and 7% others (up one). By 2025 election preference flows, Labor would lead by above 55–45, a one-point gain for the Coalition.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped five points to -6, with 47% rating his performance bad and 41% good. Sussan Ley’s net approval slumped 14 points to -5, but it is still much higher than in the early October Newspoll (-20). Albanese extended his lead over Ley to 40–23 as preferred PM from 38–26 in September.

On the best way forward for the Coalition, 32% thought they should move towards the political centre ground, 25% to the conservative right and 11% thought they shouldn’t change. Among Coalition voters, this was 33% to centre, 32% to right and 12% no change.

Labor led the Liberals on economic management by 29–28 (a 29–29 tie in September). On keeping the cost of living low, Labor led by 28–24, reversing a 28–27 Liberal lead in September. In the September Resolve poll, cost of living was rated the most important issue by 40%, far ahead of any other issue.

Asked if they were likely to buy a new vehicle in the next year or two, 35% said they were considering buying a petrol or diesel vehicle, 21% a hybrid vehicle and just 11% a fully electric vehicle (EV), while 30% were unlikely to buy a new vehicle.

Almost half cited the high cost of EVs as a barrier, with 40% citing a lack of charging infrastructure. By 56–13, respondents supported a road user charge for EV drivers. By 52–15, they thought funds raised from a road user charge should be used to roll out EV charging infrastructure.

By 44–22, voters supported Australia’s continued commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, with Coalition voters favouring net zero by 38–31.

Redbridge poll

The Poll Bludger reported that a national Redbridge and Accent Research poll for The Financial Review, conducted September 25 to October 7 from a sample of 1,997, gave Labor a 54–46 lead by respondent preferences, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the September Redbridge poll.

Primary votes were 34% Labor (down one), 29% Coalition (down one), 14% One Nation (up three), 11% Greens (steady) and 12% for all Others (down one). By 2025 election preference flows, this poll would be about 54–46 to Labor, a one-point gain for the Coalition. It’s the closest by this measure of any poll since the election.

Analyst Kevin Bonham said the 14% for One Nation in this poll is their best in any reputable national poll since their first peak in 1998. Redbridge has been better for One Nation than other polls this term.

Respondents were tied 37–37 on whether the Coalition should drop its support for net zero. By 47–35, they did not think the Albanese Labor government had the right priorities. But by 55–16, they did not think Ley’s Coalition was ready for government.

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

– ref. Labor slides back in a Victorian Resolve poll; federal Labor still well on top – https://theconversation.com/labor-slides-back-in-a-victorian-resolve-poll-federal-labor-still-well-on-top-267287

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hunter Bennett, Lecturer in Exercise Science, University of South Australia

Many of us go to the gym to bulk up. But how does it actually work?

When you lift weights, it increases tension on the fibres in your muscles, and causes metabolic by-products (such as lactate and hydrogen) and inflammation to build up in the muscle tissue.

These signals tell your muscles to adapt and grow stronger.

But if your aim is to build muscle, lifting the same weight the same number of times every week won’t be enough; you need to continually increase the load or do more repetitions. This is known as “progressive overload”.

So, how do you know when to increase weight? And how much should you add? Let’s take a look.

Knowing how much you can increase

No matter how keen you are, the exact rate your muscles develop is mostly outside your control.

Your genetics likely play a role. Some people will simply adapt to lifting weights faster than others, meaning they can add weight more quickly.

However, lifestyle factors are also important.

Your body is more likely to be able to adapt when you get enough sleep, eat enough protein and keep life stress to a minimum. Otherwise, your progress is likely to be slower.

If you’re new to weight training, you will also likely improve faster than someone who has been training for years. This is sometimes known as “newbie gains” – especially noticeable in the first year of training.

But the more you train, the more your body adapts. Basically, the closer you are to your genetic “ceiling” – the natural limit to how much you can lift – the slower you will improve.

2 methods to increase weight

There are lots of ways you can increase weight in the gym. But we’ll focus on two good ones.

If you are a beginner, using the “linear progression” method is great. This means adding a small amount of weight (for example, 2.5kg) every week or two, while trying to keep your number of repetitions – or “reps” – the same.

For example, in week one, you might do five reps on the leg press at 50kg. Then in weeks two and three, you increase to five reps at 52.5kg, and by week four or five you’re doing five reps at 55 kg.

However, you’ll reach a point where you can’t just add the same amount of weight every couple of weeks. This is when you might try something like the “double progression” method.

Using this approach, you would pick a set and rep range, such as three sets of 8–12 reps. When you can finally do three sets of 12 reps, you increase the weight a little.

At the new higher weight, you might only be able to do eight reps in each set. So you work to slowly increase the number of reps, until you get back up to three sets of 12.

Then, repeat the process: add a little weight and start again at eight reps.

Read more:
Your body can be a portable gym: how to ditch membership fees and expensive equipment

How can I tell I’m ready to lift more?

If the weights are feeling too light, or you can easily manage all your prescribed sets and reps, then it could be time to increase.

But you can add weight even when it’s still feeling challenging.

Research shows most people overestimate how hard they are working in the gym, and underestimate how much weight they can lift or how many reps they can do.

So keeping a logbook to track your progress is a good idea. This allows you to look back and try to beat what you did last week – by either going slightly heavier or adding another rep or two to your set.

You won’t beat your logbook every week. But if increasing weight is your aim, it can help keep you on track and know what to aim for so you keep getting stronger.

When should I ease off?

Two signs might suggest you need to back off a little.

First, if the way you do the repetition is changing drastically as you add more weight, this might suggest you are simply making the movement easier, rather than getting stronger.

For example, if you add weight to your squat but start squatting shallower, this probably isn’t actually increasing the load on your muscles.

Second, if you’re feeling unusually fatigued or like you’re getting weaker every week, you might need to take it easy for a week to recover. This can be a sign of overtraining, which commonly happens when people don’t allow adequate rest between sessions.

Can you increase weight too quickly?

Weight training is incredibly safe – especially compared to other sports.

But it can sometimes still be a good idea to take it slow, especially when you’re new to weight training. You’ll find you can increase strength very quickly. But this is also when you’re learning how to perform movements correctly, and your body is adapting to the new stress.

So keeping your weight increases small (for example, just 2.5kg every couple of weeks) will give you a chance to refine your technique and build tolerance gradually. This may also help protect against injuries.

Finally, don’t stress if you are unable to increase weight for a few weeks (or even months).

If the training still feels hard, you can be pretty confident that it is helping you build muscle and get stronger.

Hunter Bennett 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. Should I increase weights at the gym? How often? And by how much? – https://theconversation.com/should-i-increase-weights-at-the-gym-how-often-and-by-how-much-263048

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Baker, Professor of Housing Research, University of Adelaide

Australia was once a nation where the great Australian dream was owning a home with ample space for a lawn and a garden. But by the 1990s, the dream had shifted, at least politically, with then prime minister Paul Keating famously saying there was “more to life than the quarter acre block”.

He suggested governments should plan for more diverse, denser and consolidated housing options. Our cities could be more efficient, allow people to be closer to the services they needed, and the smaller land requirements of higher density and high rise would provide people with more affordable housing options.

Over the past three decades, governments have promoted high rise in policy and through the planning systems. A state government plan to build high-rise apartments in suburban Melbourne is a recent example.

But despite decades of encouragement by governments and a growing climate imperative to make our cities compact and efficient, high rise living is relatively unusual in Australia. Only around 4% of Australians live in high rise apartments (four storeys or more).

Here’s why that might be, and what can be done about it.

Why build high rise?

The potential benefits of high rise for cities are widely stated, both by politicians and in the academic literature.

For residents, high rise can mean better proximity to important amenities such as schools, parks, or shops, and minimises work commute time and costs. It allows households to trade off dwelling size for more convenient central locations.

For governments, more people can to afford to live in desirable areas where the availability of land is often severely limited.

These developments are (usually) cheaper per dwelling to provide infrastructure such as water and sewerage.

Who lives in high rise housing?

Many of the characteristics of high rise dwellers probably won’t surprise you.

The Australian Housing Conditions dataset is derived from a series of large scale surveys that ask Australians about their current housing and future plans.

The forthcoming release includes useful insight into the perspectives of just over 20,000 households.

It shows people living in high rise are about twice as likely to be renters than homeowners. This trend is likely to continue, as Australia embraces large scale Build to Rent high rise development.

Australians in the 4% who have chosen high rise are younger than homeowners, less likely to have children and more likely to have been born overseas.

People living in high rise are also more mobile, moving almost twice as often as homeowners.

Importantly though, the reasons high rise dwellers give for wanting to move tell us a lot about their experience of living in apartment towers – and how we might make it more attractive to Australians in future.

What do Australians want?

The comparatively small size of high rise apartments (mostly one or two bedrooms, compared to three or four bedrooms in traditional separate houses) means more than 60% of high rise dwellers hoped to move to increase the size of their home.

This points to a need for diversity in the high rise stock. As recent media reporting points out, in many European countries, it’s common for families to raise children in high rise homes.

But the larger apartments required by families are rare in Australia, removing this option for many. Those larger apartments that do exist tend to be at aimed at the luxury market, making them unaffordable for families.

Building more family-sized, affordable apartments will also help alleviate concerns about Australian cities becoming places devoid of children.

You might think the closer proximity of neighbours in high rise buildings would result in more interactions and problems. Interestingly, the survey data show this is a relatively infrequently cited reason for wanting to move.

A recent Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute policy brief suggests that for households that want a more central location and don’t need the extra space, “apartment living can be attractive and more affordable”.

Even so, affordability is a surprisingly common concern for residents living in high rise housing. This is reinforced by a descriptive analysis of recent Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It suggests a slightly higher prevalence of affordability problems (paying more than 30% of household income for rent or mortgage) in high rise apartments, compared to separate dwellings.

Indeed, a sizeable proportion in our high rise sample expected to have to move to secure cheaper housing or avoid expected rent increases.

A high rise future?

Maybe the biggest barrier to the uptake of high rise is perceived build quality.

A few years ago, some high rise build quality failures were widely publicised. The cladding crisis, which has affected apartment buildings across the world, is still being addressed.

Defects in developments like Opal Tower and Mascot Towers initiated a series of government inquiries, reforms and eventually improvements to the National Construction Code.

Regardless of these improvements, it’s likely there’s some memory of these earlier problems, making Australians slightly more hesitant to choose high rise options.

Stories of poor practice among the strata firms that manage high rise blocks also act as disincentives.

So, we have a bit of work to do to sell high rise living to more than 4% of Australia’s population. The stock currently being built in Australian cities isn’t yet diverse enough to house people at all stages of the family lifecycle, and at all affordability levels.

It is a stock where renters (and investors) dominate, but one that is comparatively unappealing to prospective homeowners.

Clearly, governments have a lot of work ahead of them if Australia wants to get closer to delivering on its higher density living potential.

Emma Baker receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Health and medical Research Council (NHMRC), and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

Amy Clair receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

Chris Leishman receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Commonwealth Government, Queensland Government, South Australia Government, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Super Member Council of Australia. He is a non-executive director of Housing Choices Australia.

– ref. The government wants more of us living in high rises. Here’s why Australians don’t want to – https://theconversation.com/the-government-wants-more-of-us-living-in-high-rises-heres-why-australians-dont-want-to-265577

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gilles E. Gignac, Associate Professor of Psychology, The University of Western Australia

As your youth fades further into the past, you may start to fear growing older.

But research my colleague and I have recently published in the journal Intelligence shows there’s also very good reason to be excited: for many of us, overall psychological functioning actually peaks between ages 55 and 60.

And knowing this highlights why people in this age range may be at their best for complex problem-solving and leadership in the workforce.

Different types of peaks

There’s plenty of research showing humans reach their physical peak in their mid-twenties to early thirties.

A large body of research also shows that people’s raw intellectual abilities – that is, their capacity to reason, remember and process information quickly – typically starts to decline from the mid-twenties onwards.

This pattern is reflected in the real world. Athletes tend to reach their career peak before 30. Mathematicians often make their most significant contributions by their mid-thirties. Chess champions are rarely at the top of their game after 40.

Yet when we look beyond raw processing power, a different picture emerges.

From reasoning to emotional stability

In our study, we focused on well-established psychological traits beyond reasoning ability that can be measured accurately, represent enduring characteristics rather than temporary states, have well-documented age trajectories, and are known to predict real-world performance.

Our search identified 16 psychological dimensions that met these criteria.

These included core cognitive abilities such as reasoning, memory span, processing speed, knowledge and emotional intelligence. They also included the so-called “big five” personality traits – extraversion, emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness.

We compiled existing large-scale studies examining the 16 dimensions we identified. By standardising these studies to a common scale, we were able to make direct comparisons and map how each trait evolves across the lifespan.

Peaking later in life

Several of the traits we measured reach their peak much later in life. For example, conscientiousness peaked around age 65. Emotional stability peaked around age 75.

Less commonly discussed dimensions, such as moral reasoning, also appear to peak in older adulthood. And the capacity to resist cognitive biases – mental shortcuts that can lead us to make irrational or less accurate decisions – may continue improving well into the 70s and even 80s.

When we combined the age-related trajectories of all 16 dimensions into a theoretically and empirically informed weighted index, a striking pattern emerged.

Overall mental functioning peaked between ages 55 and 60, before beginning to decline from around 65. That decline became more pronounced after age 75, suggesting that later-life reductions in functioning can accelerate once they begin.

Getting rid of age-based assumptions

Our findings may help explain why many of the most demanding leadership roles in business, politics, and public life are often held by people in their fifties and early sixties. So while several abilities decline with age, they’re balanced by growth in other important traits. Combined, these strengths support better judgement and more measured decision-making – qualities that are crucial at the top.

Despite our findings, older workers face greater challenges re-entering the workforce after job losses. To some degree, structural factors may shape hiring decisions. For example, employers may see hiring someone in their mid-fifties as a short-term investment if retirement at 60 is likely.

In other cases, some roles have mandatory retirement ages. For example, International Civil Aviation Organisation sets a global retirement age of 65 for international airline pilots. Many countries also require air traffic controllers to retire between 56 and 60. Because these jobs demand high levels of memory and attention, such age limits are often considered justifiable.

However, people’s experiences vary.

Research has found that while some adults show declines in reasoning speed and memory, others also maintain these abilities well into later life.

Age alone, then, doesn’t determine overall cognitive functioning. So evaluations and assessments should focus on individuals’ actual abilities and traits rather than age-based assumptions.

A peak, not a countdown

Taken together, these findings highlight the need for more age-inclusive hiring and retention practices, recognising that many people bring valuable strengths to their work in midlife.

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species at 50. Ludwig van Beethoven, at 53 and profoundly deaf, premiered his Ninth Symphony. In more recent times, Lisa Su, now 55, led computer company Advanced Micro Devices through one of the most dramatic technical turnarounds in the industry.

History is full of people who reached their greatest breakthroughs well past what society often labels as “peak age”. Perhaps it’s time we stopped treating midlife as a countdown and started recognising it as a peak.

Gilles E. Gignac 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. Worried about turning 60? Science says that’s when many of us actually peak – https://theconversation.com/worried-about-turning-60-science-says-thats-when-many-of-us-actually-peak-267215

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Mudgway, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Canterbury

In her final speech as Wellington mayor, Tory Whanau spoke candidly about the relentless online abuse she faced during her term, much of it racist and sexist. None of it would have been reassuring for hopeful candidates waiting for the weekend’s results.

Whanau described how false sexual rumours and targeted harassment circulated on social media, and was then repeated by other councillors. The speech underscored the toll digital vitriol can take on those in political office.

Is this something newly elected local body politicians can expect, too? Likely so, and arguably it will be experienced differently depending on their ethnicity, sexuality and gender.

Across the country, women in local government have faced relentless harassment in recent years. It’s the kind of abuse that has been described as “technology-facilitated violence against women”, and which aims to humiliate, coerce or silence.

This takes many forms: gendered disinformation, where false or sexualised rumours are spread to discredit women; misogynistic slurs and threats, often invoking violence or sexual humiliation; and image-based sexual abuse, where women’s likenesses are manipulated into pornographic content or shared without consent.

This is not unique to New Zealand. International research shows consistent trends, with online abuse causing significant emotional and psychological harm. It can discourage women from running for office or participating in public events once elected. And it can make them abandon a political career altogether.

Targeted disinformation and harassment can also erode trust in women leaders and distort political debate. In extreme cases, online abuse escalates into offline threats or stalking.

Given the decreasing numbers putting themselves forward for local office, especially Māori and women candidates, the consequences for representative democracy may already be evident.

Big gaps in the law

Online violence toward politicians tends to spike after significant events such as public debates or other campaign activity, and when public figures speak on certain hot button topics such as racism, LGBTQIA+ rights or
climate change.

And with a general election next year, there is every indication this kind of behaviour will ramp up again. Unfortunately, the law addressing online abuse is fragmented and limited.

Current legislation, including the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, criminalises certain forms of online harassment, threats and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images.

But the law focuses primarily on individual acts, and does not fully capture the gendered and cumulative harm of abuse faced by women politicians. Defamation law can address false statements, but it is often costly and too slow to prevent the rapid spread of harmful content.

Proposed anti-stalking legislation aims to expand protection by criminalising repeated harassment, online or otherwise. The government has also introduced a security allowance for councillors to install monitored home security systems.

Significant gaps remain, however. Online, gender-based violence that combines sexualised rumours, slurs and coordinated smear campaigns often falls between existing offences. Women candidates often fall back on informal support networks rather than legal remedies.

Shifting the political culture

Tory Whanau called for change – but what kind of change would be meaningful and effective?

For the most part, online spaces are unregulated. Rather than being a utopia of free expression, in practice they can be as corrosive to democratic debate as censorship.

But this raises important questions about the limits of speech. Freedom of expression is vital for a healthy democracy, but it is not absolute. It can be limited when it threatens the rights of others.

This includes the right to non-discrimination, freedom from violence, the right to participate in public life, and the free expression of others. Without protections, these rights are at risk.

Legal reform will have to address the structural and cultural drivers of online gender-based violence by strengthening legal protections to

• capture coordinated, gendered attacks
• ensure social media platforms take rapid and effective action against harassment
• and implement codes of conduct for candidates and parties, prohibiting the spread of false or misleading information.

A well designed code of conduct would not restrict robust political debate. Rather, it would set clear expectations for honesty and respect, distinguishing legitimate criticism from targeted abuse and disinformation.

The British government is exploring such regulation in response to rising online abuse of politicians. Importantly, its approach is underpinned by statutory safety duties on social media platforms – obligations New Zealand currently lacks.

Without comparable measures here, the burden largely falls on individuals and councils to respond to abuse, rather than preventing it at its source.

But as well as balancing protection from harm and legitimate debate, it is vital to shift the political culture away from normalising or trivialising abuse.

Online safety training for political parties, councillors and staff, combined with robust public awareness campaigns, will help create an environment where women can participate fully without fear.

Cassandra Mudgway 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. Polls and trolls: is violent online abuse turning women off local politics? – https://theconversation.com/polls-and-trolls-is-violent-online-abuse-turning-women-off-local-politics-267225

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hastings Dunn, Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham

Following the Middle East summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire deal has been compared in the media to the Good Friday agreement which brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland and the Dayton accords which achieved a (so far) lasting peace in the Balkans. The fact is that Trump’s deal differs significantly from both.

It is largely imposed from the outside. It’s highly transactional in nature. And it lacks a clear blueprint as to what happens next.

But it’s worth noting that one of the defining things about the US president as a politician is the way that he will typically make an exaggerated claim about an achievement which then sets the framing for the rest of the world to react to. So he boasted of his ceasefire deal that it was “not only the end of war, this is the end of the age of terror and death”.

Others have run with the Good Friday agreement comparison. The Christian Science Monitor asserted on October 2, the day after the US president unveiled his 20-point plan: “Mr. Trump’s blueprint rests on the hope that what worked in Northern Ireland will work in Gaza, and on one assumption above all: that Israelis and Palestinians are ready to accept that continued violence won’t get either of them what they want.”

This, of course, is no small assumption, nor is there anything to suggest it has any foundation.

What has been agreed between Israel and Hamas is an end to the fighting and the release of prisoners and hostages. But serious obstacles remain. The disarmament of Hamas is by no means a done deal (in fact it looks less likely by the day).

Meanwhile the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza also looks to be a non-starter and the plan’s text remains very vague as to the extent the Israel Defense Forces will move out of Gaza, if at all. Questions of governance, the agreement of a process towards a Palestinian state and the cost of reconstruction have yet to be resolved.

But the most important hurdle in the way of this ceasefire deal holding firm is the profound lack of trust between the parties.

Set against these obstacles, the ceasefire and return of the hostages and release of Palestinian prisoners, momentous though these two things have been, represent the low-hanging fruit of any end to the conflict. They should be seen as the first steps on a difficult and uncertain diplomatic path that has been characterised by decades of setbacks and political failure.

By contrast the Dayton and Northern Ireland peace processes that led to those agreements were painstakingly negotiated between all the parties in advance through detailed diplomacy and resulted in complex power-sharing arrangements. They were guaranteed by intricate governing structures that addressed the long-standing sectarian divisions through detailed constitutional changes and new institutions.

Aspiration is not agreement

No such details are part of “The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity”. This, it turns out, is a 462-word document signed in Egypt by a hastily arranged group of international leaders that notably did not include representatives from Hamas or Israel.

It states: “We, the undersigned, welcome the truly historic commitment and implementation by all parties to the Trump Peace Agreement, ending more than two years of profound suffering and loss – opening a new chapter for the region defined by hope, security, and a shared vision for peace and prosperity.”

While laudable, aspiration is no substitute for detailed agreement and at this point Trump’s claims appear to be a case of premature congratulation.

Given how tentative the peace agreement is and the fact that October’s ceasefire looks remarkably similar to that which was agreed and then breached in January 2025, why is this being treated with such fanfare? Is it really, to quote Trump, “the historic dawn of a new Middle East”?

Beyond the obvious fact that Trump loves the adulation that has come with this peace process, there are also other political calculations in play. For the US to be openly and obviously committed to the peace process makes it more difficult for the opposing parties to reopen hostilities without the risk of incurring US displeasure for ruining their achievement.

The more it is hyped as part of this theatre the more violators might reap the wrath of a president who felt his achievement and chances of a Nobel peace prize had been undermined.

What’s in it for other leaders?

The presence of so many world leaders at Trump’s peace summit requires a different explanation. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, UK prime minister, Keir Starmer and Canada’s Mark Carney might be forgiven for wondering why their presence was required as extras in this performative political theatre.

Behind their smiles and applause, they must have been acutely aware that such optics are damaging to the way they are viewed by their domestic public and press – and that their presence there will be criticised as evidence of supplication to Trump’s adulation. The presence in Sharm el Sheikh of Hungary’s Victor Orban added to the impression that Trump had gathered what he considers his fan club to Egypt.

But why they were willing to attend is equally revealing. As well as being seen to be supportive of the peace process and being keen to add to its momentum to raise the cost of its failure, Carney, Macron and Starmer are also playing a longer game. They perhaps hope to nudge Trump in the direction of further acts of international leadership.

Most notably, they are keen for Trump to embrace his self-identification as a “peacemaker” in order to pressure the Russian president Vladimir Putin to end his aggressive war against Ukraine.

Like most second-term US presidents Trump is concerned for his legacy. If flattering his ego into directing his energies towards this end achieves this goal, then their part in this iteration of the Trump Show should probably be judged by history as worthwhile.

David Hastings Dunn has previously received funding from the ESRC, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Open Democracy Foundation and has previously been both a NATO and a Fulbright Fellow.

– ref. Egypt peace summit showed that Donald Trump’s Gaza deal is more showbiz extravaganza than the ‘dawn of a new Middle East’ – https://theconversation.com/egypt-peace-summit-showed-that-donald-trumps-gaza-deal-is-more-showbiz-extravaganza-than-the-dawn-of-a-new-middle-east-267472

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Colleen Murrell, Chair of the Editorial Board, and Full Professor in Journalism, Dublin City University

The world’s media are currently busy recording the tales of released Israeli hostages, freed Palestinian prisoners and their families after a ceasefire came into effect for the war in Gaza. But they are doing so while still being held at a distance from the centre of the story.

Foreign journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war. And senior members of the international media are not optimistic that access to Gaza will change any time soon.

I asked Phil Chetwynd, global news director at Agence France-Presse (AFP), why he thought Israel was so insistent at keeping out external reporters. He told me:

Any situation where independent media are kept out or targeted gives rise to questions about the motivation. We are told it is because of our safety, but we have been covering wars non-stop for the past 100 years. We are ready to assume the risks. Given the extraordinary high death toll of journalists in Gaza, we have to presume it is a deliberate attempt to stop media revealing the full impact of the war and the Israeli military campaign.

Read more:
How Israel continues to censor journalists covering the war in Gaza

He reflected on how AFP would like to plan its coverage.

Our Palestinian journalists have done an amazing job, but all our Gaza staff journalists were evacuated over a year ago. They would like to return. The Palestinian freelancers who work for us have also done incredible work, but they are absolutely exhausted after two years of conflict. So we need journalists to be able to enter the Gaza Strip – I do not make a distinction between Palestinian and international.

He added:

I think it is important to have fresh eyes on the situation on the ground. I would also say it is sometimes easier for international journalists to report more freely on the activities of Hamas.

Reporting on Gaza

For the past two years, the only access Israel has provided for foreign media to enter Gaza has been under embedded conditions with the Israeli military. In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas attacks in 2023, a number of British reporters including from the BBC and Channel 4 News did avail of this restricted coverage. American correspondents and news agencies have also taken up offers.

But this access has been sporadic and has favoured Israeli journalists. In August 2025, an ABC Australia team managed to secure an “embed” trip to the Kerem Shalom aid site in southern Gaza after repeated requests were turned down.

In his report, ABC’s Matthew Doran pointed out that embeds are “highly choreographed and controlled”. However, Doran explained that he accepted the trip as “an opportunity to gain access to a site Israel is using to prosecute its case it is trying to feed the population of Gaza – an argument the humanitarian community, and world leaders, argue is full of holes”.

Doran noted that the small embed trip included an Israeli media outlet, an Israeli writer and “a handful of social media influencers”, all eager to post pro-Israeli sentiments. Israel has consistently accused the international media of succumbing to Hamas propaganda.

A number of initiatives have been tried over the past 24 months to enable external reporters access to Gaza. The Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Jerusalem has challenged the restrictions in Israel’s supreme court.

On September 11, the FPA noted that it had been a full year since it submitted its second petition to the court. But despite the urgency, it said “the court has repeatedly agreed to the [Israeli] government’s request for delays and postponed one hearing after another”.

Read more:
Gaza: high numbers of journalists are being killed but it’s hard to prove they’re being targeted

Petitions have also been sent to the Israeli authorities with the backing of international media organisations and groups such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Both of these have coupled their campaigns with calls for an immediate end to the killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza who have been the world’s only eyes on the conflict as witnessed by those under fire.

According to the CPJ’s Jodie Ginsberg, writing in the Guardian in August, more than 192 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. This number includes 26 journalists whom the CPJ believes have been targeted deliberately in “the deadliest conflict for journalists that we have ever documented”.

Israel has denied targeting journalists, except in cases where it has accused particular Palestinian journalists of being terrorists. The CPJ has argued in return that Israel should stop “its longstanding practice of labelling journalists as terrorists or engaging in militant activity, without providing sufficient and reliable evidence to support these claims”.

As recently as September, the BBC along with AFP, Associated Press and Reuters launched a film calling on the Israeli authorities to allow the international press access to Gaza. It noted the media’s part in informing the world about the D-Day landings, the Vietnam war, the Ethiopian famine, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Rwandan genocide, the Syrian refugee crisis and the current conflict in Ukraine.

David Dimbleby’s narration calls on Israel to allow international reporters in, “to share the burden with Palestinian reporters there so we can all bring the facts to the world”.

But looking at the current stalemate, a cynic might ponder if the the first open access to Gaza will be to the Washington press caravanserai that will surely be allowed in to document the rebuilding of Gaza into a Trump-envisioned riviera.

Colleen Murrell has received funding from Irish regulator Coimisiún na Meán (2021-4) for research for the annual Reuters Digital News Report Ireland.

– ref. Israel is still not allowing international media back into Gaza, despite the ceasefire – https://theconversation.com/israel-is-still-not-allowing-international-media-back-into-gaza-despite-the-ceasefire-267356

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Mellors, Research Associate in Management and Marketing, University of Westminster

If you ask an AI service like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to recommend a destination for your next summer holiday, it will happily provide you with a list of attractive destinations. But many of them will be very familiar.

Paris, Venice, Santorini and Barcelona are all likely to feature, because the AI algorithm is nudging you towards the same old places. The illusion of personalised advice is what makes people less likely to question it – and why AI risks intensifying overtourism.

And the use of AI for holiday inspiration is growing fast. A recent survey found it has doubled in the past year, with uptake strongest among younger travellers. Nearly one in five Britons aged 25–34 now turn to AI tools to plan their trips.

In my own research, I analysed ChatGPT’s travel recommendations and found that it gravitates towards the most visited destinations by default. Lesser-known or more sustainable locations only tend to appear when travellers explicitly ask for them.

This could easily exacerbate the overtourism which is already testing the limits of many residents in highly visited places. In Mallorca, locals are demanding limits on flights and holiday rentals, while Venice introduced a day-tripper fee in an attempt to manage visitor pressure.

AI will quickly add to that pressure if millions of holiday makers make plans using the same online filters and tips. These algorithms are trained on what’s most visible online – reviews, blogs and social media hashtags – so quickly focus on what’s already popular.

And if travellers simply accept the defaults, the result will be more of the same, and more strain on places already under pressure.

But consumers aren’t entirely powerless. With a bit more intent, AI research can yield different and fascinating destinations.

My research suggests that discerning travellers need to start by asking better and more searching questions. Generic prompts such as “the best beaches in Europe” or “beautiful city” lead straight to the same results.

Instead, try something like: “Which towns are reachable by train but overlooked in most guides?” Or maybe: “Where can I go in July that’s not a major tourist hotspot?”

Push the system, ask follow-up questions and scroll past the first few results. That’s where the surprises often lie.

You could also change your timings. AI tends to focus on peak season because that’s when the most online reviews are posted and the most travel content is published.

Asking about off-peak months is a simple way to beat this built-in bias, so perhaps specify the Italian lakes in October or the Greek islands in May.

Or ask AI to dig a little deeper for its source material. AI draws heavily on English-language content, which favours international hot spots, but is also capable of finding independent travel blogs or local tourism cooperatives.

Type in something like “Spanish-language blogs about Asturias” or “community-run agritourism in Slovenia” and you could unearth something rewarding and off the beaten track. This is the kind of thing that can really unearth the vast potential benefits of AI and its capabilities.

The road less travelled

It could also easily help you to compare the costs and timings of various travel options, and assess the carbon footprint of your journey. It just requires a little bit of digging to get past the surface layer.

After all, these systems are designed to serve up the most obvious and well-documented suggestions, not what’s diverse or sustainable. (Although the same technology could just as easily be coded slightly differently to show rail travel before air for example, or to prioritise locally run independent businesses.)

So while the convenience of AI is seductive, it can also be predictable. If your holiday plans could be copy-pasted from Instagram, any sense of adventure can easily get left behind.

Consider using AI as a starting point, not the final word. Guidebooks, local media and conversations with residents restore the unpredictability that makes travel memorable.

By asking sharper questions, shifting their timing, checking footprints and seeking local voices, travellers can use AI as a tool for discovery rather than congestion. Every prompt is a signal to the system about what matters.

The next time you ask ChatGPT where to go, make it work a bit harder. Test it, argue with it and use its extraordinary capabilities to find somewhere new – or settle for the same crowded itinerary as everyone else.

Joseph Mellors 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 to use AI to guide your holiday plans – by a tourism expert – https://theconversation.com/how-to-use-ai-to-guide-your-holiday-plans-by-a-tourism-expert-267277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kai Li Lim, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia and Research Fellow in E-Mobility, The University of Queensland

More public electric vehicle (EV) chargers will be built across Australia through a A$40 million funding boost, according to a recent government announcement. The new chargers will be a mix of fast chargers and kerbside chargers.

More chargers should mean more confidence for drivers to make the switch to EVs. But as researchers who study charging networks, we see a critical design flaw. The government is focusing on expanding the number of chargers. The problem is ensuring chargers actually do what they should: charge your car.

Most EV drivers charge at home. But when they use the public network, they need to know the charger is working. To track this, the government uses a metric called “uptime”, requiring chargers to be online 98% of the time. That sounds good. But it only measures whether a charger is connected to the network – not whether you can actually use it.

Fixing this gap will be essential to give motorists confidence in EV chargers – and speed up the slow shift to electric transport.

The uptime fallacy

Imagine you’re on a long road trip. You pull into a regional town, low on charge, and find the only fast charger is blocked by a petrol car. Or maybe the payment system is down. Or the cable has been vandalised. Or the charger simply refuses to “talk” to your car, failing the digital handshake needed to start a session.

For all these cases, the charger would still pass the uptime test. It’s online, communicating with its network. But it’s not actually able to do what drivers need it to do: charge the battery.

These issues are now common in Australia, especially the failed handshake problem where charging attempts fail right after they begin due to a communication problem between car and charger.

Australia has limited data on the prevalence of the problem. Our analysis of DC fast chargers funded by the Californian government shows the scale of the problem in a similar market. We found that while charger networks reported roughly 95–98% uptime, the chance of drivers successfully charging was substantially lower at 75–83%.

Public chargers aren’t just convenience – they’re essential

Around 80% of EV charging happens at home or at work in Australia.

But the public network is a lifeline for three crucial groups.

First, the millions of people who live in apartments (about 10% of the population as of 2021) or homes without off-street parking (about 25%). For them, public kerbside chargers aren’t a backup – they’re essential.

Second are the long-distance drivers who depend on highway fast chargers to travel between cities and towns. At present, our charger locations don’t always match up with where people actually want to drive and charge. This creates potential charging deserts. A single broken charger in one of these low-access areas can ruin a family holiday or a crucial work trip.

The third group is the growing number of freight and fleet operators shifting to electric vans and trucks. Charging reliability directly affects logistics schedules and business costs.

For all these users, charger reliability is especially important. Uptime won’t cut it.

Most popular EV charger apps rely on uptime as a way to show charger reliability, but some apps go beyond this to show more useful data, such as the last successful charge. Drivers can feel more secure choosing a charger proven to have recently delivered a successful charge.

Reliability beyond uptime

One solution is to shift away from a reliance on uptime and use a better metric.

In the United States, a large industry consortium recently hashed out what this might look like. Our research contributed to one of the outcomes: new customer-focused KPIs (key performance indicators) for chargers.

How do they work? Rather than relying on network data showing a charger is online, these KPIs draw in multiple sources of data, such as:

• using charger reviews to quickly spot repeat failures such as blocked charging, payment glitches and safety issues
• using vehicle and charger telemetry to pinpoint where and why charging sessions fail (while protecting privacy)
• regular on-site audits for damage, accessibility, lighting and the ease of locating the charger to catch issues missed by data
• verifying these data sources by comparing reported uptime with actual charging success rates.

Better still, by combining this data with maintenance logs and weather patterns, we can build predictive models to forecast when a charger is likely to fail and schedule proactive repairs.

This rigorous approach would give drivers far better confidence in public chargers.

Australia could easily adopt a similar approach, given the data, partners and capabilities already exist.

The first step would be a proof-of-concept to demonstrate how to fuse data from networks, vehicle telemetry and user check-ins and reviews with real world audits. Next would be publishing an open standard for charger KPIs and work with states and networks to roll it out nationally.

Boost security

A truly reliable network must also be secure. In the US, vandalism and copper theft have become real issues. One operator has installed GPS trackers in its charging cables. Thankfully, Australia hasn’t yet seen these issues at the same scale. But it would be naive to think our network is immune. As the charger network grows, so does its vulnerability.

The solutions are to invest in proactive measures such as good lighting, CCTV and tamper-proof designs, as seen across Norway and other leading EV nations.

If these problems escalate in Australia, it will be another source of charger anxiety, where drivers fear being left with a drained battery far from home. The end result will be that more drivers stick with petrol cars or choose plug-in hybrids.

Kai Li Lim currently receives funding from the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads and has previously received funding from sources including Energy Consumers Australia and the StB Capital Partners.

Tisura Gamage receives funding from the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST).

– ref. Blocked bays and failed handshakes: many public EV chargers are unusable – despite being ‘online’ – https://theconversation.com/blocked-bays-and-failed-handshakes-many-public-ev-chargers-are-unusable-despite-being-online-239402

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun, Assistant Professor, Universitas Indonesia – Associate, CILIS, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

Mass protests against the greed of politicians led to protests in late August across Indonesia, calling for major reforms to the political system and police force. Civil society groups played a key role in these events.

The protests were triggered by the plans of well-paid politicians in Indonesia’s House of Representatives to enormously increase their housing allowances. Their subsequent ridicule of public criticism only inflamed the situation.

When the protests resulted in casualties – in particular, the death of a motorcycle taxi driver run over by a police vehicle – the public anger grew, leading to riots. Public buildings, including police stations and regional legislatures, were set on fire, and the homes of some prominent politicians looted.

Police have since launched a huge crackdown involving systematic hunts for activists.

By late September, police had detained thousands of protesters and named 959 suspects (equivalent to being charged in the Australian system). They included 295 children, mostly high school students.

Among those who have been detained are young activists who played a significant role in organising and promoting the protests. These include:

• Delpedro Marhaen, head of the human rights organisation Lokataru Foundation
• Syahdan Husein, an activist associated with the student movement Gejayan Memanggil
• Muhammad Fakhrurrozi, an activist affiliated with the Social Movement Institute in Yogyakarta.

They have all been charged with incitement of violence under the Criminal Code and the vaguely worded Electronic Information and Transactions Law.

A TikToker, Figha Lesmana, also faces charges of incitement for posting an innocuous video calling on people to join the protests.

In addition, civil society organisations claim two people disappeared during a protest in Jakarta on August 29. Police say they are still trying to locate them.

Indonesia’s senior legal minister, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, has defended the police. He claims it would be impossible for police to arrest thousands of individuals without just cause.

However, civil society organisations say this is exactly what happened, citing the absence of a clear legal basis for many arrests, along with accusations of police misconduct. Legal aid activists say some activists were allegedly tortured to obtain forced confessions of involvement in the riots.

Rights groups also say police are seizing books they claim are subversive to use as evidence to support their arrests. These include works by Oscar Wilde and a respected Indonesian priest, Franz Magnis-Suseno.

These groups say the suspects have also been denied the right to choose their own lawyers, instead being forced to use those selected by the police.

Government responses

President Prabowo Subianto’s office has issued no statements on the arrests of civil society leaders. Prabowo is, however, appointing a commission to accelerate reform of the national police following public demands in the wake of the protests.

The national police chief has also established a new group tasked with reforming the force, comprised of more than 50 officers and advised by academics and NGO activists.

However, civil society groups have questioned the clarity and seriousness of these reform efforts, especially considering the vast majority of the members of the latter group are police themselves.

In addition, the police chief has recently issued a new regulation expanding the use of coercive measures, including firearms, in response to so-called “attacks” on the police.

Many fear this will be used to justify excessive use of force against future protestors.

What’s next?

It is unlikely the August protests will be the last. None of the underlying issues that triggered them – poor policy-making, growing poverty, the greed of politicians and police misconduct – have been resolved. The protesters’ demands, summarised in their manifesto, remain largely unaddressed.

In fact, the recent arrests suggest authorities expect more trouble. Although many of those arrested were subsequently released, their detentions still serve as an intimidating warning to civil society.

The authorities clearly believe the protest movement can expand its influence through social media. So their actions are, in fact, aimed at the broader public, particularly high school and university students, who might otherwise back future protests led by the activists.

Moreover, the arrests have kept civil society groups busy addressing the criminal charges faced by hundreds of detainees. This has diverted attention from the primary objectives of the broader protest movement.

The crackdown has major implications for Indonesia’s future. Civil society organisations are the engines for policy development in the country. They also play a vital role in monitoring government and holding it to account.

The democratic regression Indonesia has experienced over the last decade has undermined many of checks and balances that constrained earlier administrations. If civil society now becomes unable to act freely, there will be very little left to rein in the politicians whose misbehaviour sparked the riots in the first place.

Rafiqa Qurrata A’yun received funding from the Australia Awards Hadi Soesastro Prize.

Tim Lindsey receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Indonesian police arrested hundreds after August riots, sending a chill through civil society – https://theconversation.com/indonesian-police-arrested-hundreds-after-august-riots-sending-a-chill-through-civil-society-267100

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Pope, Associate Professor, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Macquarie University

After Christmas dinner in 2021, our family was glued to the television, watching the nail-biting launch of NASA’s US$10 billion (AU$15 billion) James Webb Space Telescope. There had not been such a leap forward in telescope technology since Hubble was launched in 1990.

En route to its deployment, Webb had to successfully navigate 344 potential points of failure. Thankfully, the launch went better than expected, and we could finally breathe again.

Six months later, Webb’s first images were revealed, of the most distant galaxies yet seen. However, for our team in Australia, the work was only beginning.

We would be using Webb’s highest-resolution mode, called the aperture masking interferometer or AMI for short. It’s a tiny piece of precisely machined metal that slots into one of the telescope’s cameras, enhancing its resolution.

Our results on painstakingly testing and enhancing AMI are now released on the open-access archive arXiv in a pair of papers. We can finally present its first successful observations of stars, planets, moons and even black hole jets.

Working with an instrument a million kilometres away

Hubble started its life seeing out of focus – its mirror had been ground precisely, but incorrectly. By looking at known stars and comparing the ideal and measured images (exactly like what optometrists do), it was possible to figure out a “prescription” for this optical error and design a lens to compensate.

The correction required seven astronauts to fly up on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1993 to install the new optics. Hubble orbits Earth just a few hundred kilometres above the surface, and can be reached by astronauts.

By contrast, Webb is roughly 1.5 million kilometres away – we can’t visit and service it, and need to be able to fix issues without changing any hardware.

This is where AMI comes in. This is the only Australian hardware on board, designed by astronomer Peter Tuthill.

It was put on Webb to diagnose and measure any blur in its images. Even nanometres of distortion in Webb’s 18 hexagonal primary mirrors and many internal surfaces will blur the images enough to hinder the study of planets or black holes, where sensitivity and resolution are key.

AMI filters the light with a carefully structured pattern of holes in a simple metal plate, to make it much easier to tell if there are any optical misalignments.

Hunting blurry pixels

We wanted to use this mode to observe the birth places of planets, as well as material being sucked into black holes. But before any of this, AMI showed Webb wasn’t working entirely as hoped.

At very fine resolution – at the level of individual pixels – all the images were slightly blurry due to an electronic effect: brighter pixels leaking into their darker neighbours.

This is not a mistake or flaw, but a fundamental feature of infrared cameras that turned out to be unexpectedly serious for Webb.

This was a dealbreaker for seeing distant planets many thousands of times fainter than their stars a few pixels away: my colleagues quickly showed that its limits were more than ten times worse than hoped.

So, we set out to correct it.

How we sharpened Webb’s vision

In a new paper led by University of Sydney PhD student Louis Desdoigts, we looked at stars with AMI to learn and correct the optical and electronic distortions simultaneously.

We built a computer model to simulate AMI’s optical physics, with flexibility about the shapes of the mirrors and apertures and about the colours of the stars.

We connected this to a machine learning model to represent the electronics with an “effective detector model” – where we only care about how well it can reproduce the data, not about why.

After training and validation on some test stars, this setup allowed us to calculate and undo the blur in other data, restoring AMI to full function. It doesn’t change what Webb does in space, but rather corrects the data during processing.

It worked beautifully – the star HD 206893 hosts a faint planet and the reddest-known brown dwarf (an object between a star and a planet). They were known but out of reach with Webb before applying this correction. Now, both little dots popped out clearly in our new maps of the system.

This correction has opened the door to using AMI to prospect for unknown planets at previously impossible resolutions and sensitivities.

It works not just on dots

In a companion paper by University of Sydney PhD student Max Charles, we applied this to looking not just at dots – even if these dots are planets – but forming complex images at the highest resolution made with Webb. We revisited well-studied targets that push the limits of the telescope, testing its performance.

With the new correction, we brought Jupiter’s moon Io into focus, clearly tracking its volcanoes as it rotates over an hour-long timelapse.

As seen by AMI, the jet launched from the black hole at the centre of the galaxy NGC 1068 closely matched images from much-larger telescopes.

Finally, AMI can sharply resolve a ribbon of dust around a pair of stars called WR 137, a faint cousin of the spectacular Apep system, lining up with theory.

The code built for AMI is a demo for much more complex cameras on Webb and its follow-up, Roman space telescope. These tools demand an optical calibration so fine, it’s just a fraction of a nanometre – beyond the capacity of any known materials.

Our work shows that if we can measure, control, and correct the materials we do have to work with, we can still hope to find Earth-like planets in the far reaches of our galaxy.

Benjamin Pope receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Big Questions Institute.

– ref. How we sharpened the James Webb telescope’s vision from a million kilometres away – https://theconversation.com/how-we-sharpened-the-james-webb-telescopes-vision-from-a-million-kilometres-away-262510

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Souliman, Lecturer, French and Francophone Studies, University of Sydney

When art historian Linda Nochlin famously asked “why have there been no great women artists?” in 1971, her point wasn’t that women lacked talent. It was that the art world had systematically excluded and erased them from history.

In the 50 years since, scholars and curators have worked to reclaim these forgotten women artists. But change has been slow.

The Guerrilla Girls’ activism in the 1980s, the Countess Report’s damning statistics on gender inequality in Australian galleries, and the National Gallery of Australia’s recent Know My Name initiative show the fight for recognition is ongoing.

Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 marks an exciting new chapter in this project. The new exhibition, from the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, makes a groundbreaking contribution to recovering the stories of overlooked women artists.

Read more:
Why weren’t there any great women artists? In gratitude to Linda Nochlin

The global stage

With 222 works from 34 collections, Dangerously Modern celebrates the boldness and resilience of the first wave of professional Australian women artists who left for Europe between the turn of the 20th century and the second world war.

They went seeking advanced artistic training and the chance to compete on the global stage. Their time abroad was transformative.

Intimate portraits and domestic interiors by Florence Fuller (1867–1946) and Bessie Davidson (1879–1965) capture moments of quiet reflection. These artists navigated unfamiliar cultures, engaged with cutting-edge artistic movements and built new creative networks.

They lived far from home and maintained connections across two continents – often celebrated in one and forgotten in the other.

The exhibition sheds light on these expatriate artists. They engaged in artistic communities from bustling cosmopolitan centres like Paris and London to regional France, England, Ireland and North Africa.

It reveals the variety of artistic styles in which they worked while weaving together five themes that explore human experience and artistic purpose.

Truly modern

Bold and vibrant paintings by artists like Iso Rae (1860–1940) show their engagement with modern artistic movements.

Through painting en plein air (outdoors) and post-impressionist techniques (using vivid colours and expressive brushstrokes), these women expressed their own experience of modern life. For some, this included portraying their female lovers.

Art can help heal personal trauma. Here, in particular, these women looked at the devastation of war.

The pairing of paintings by Hilda Rix Nicholas (1884–1961) is especially powerful: The Pink Scarf (1913) glows with light, texture and delicate beauty; These Gave the World Away (1917) depicts her husband’s lifeless body on the battlefield.

By retracing the achievements and journeys of 50 expatriate women artists, the exhibition presents works never seen before in Australia. From the celebrated New Zealand artist Edith Collier (1885–1964), Girl in the Sunshine (c.1915) is notable for its bold use of colour, flattened perspective and simplified forms.

It also features works that haven’t been seen in Australia for over a century. A winter morning on the coast of France (1888) by Eleanor Ritchie Harrison (1854–95) was recently rediscovered and donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The exhibition also reunites works by artist friends who painted side by side.

Women at the forefront

We are privy to moments of breakthrough in these artists’ creativity and careers.

The exhibition brings together landscapes Grace Crowley (1890–1979), Anne Dangar (1885–1951) and Dorrit Black (1891–1951) painted together in 1928 while studying under the French artist André Lhote (1885–1962) in the hilltop village of Mirmande in southeastern France.

These works, to which the artists applied cubist principles (breaking down forms into geometric shapes and showing multiple perspectives), testify to both artistic freedom and each woman’s individual vision and skill.

Though such works placed them at the forefront of French modern art movements, these artists were largely overlooked back in Australia.

Why? At the time, Australia’s conservative art establishment promoted a nationalist agenda. They favoured masculine depictions of labour and Australian landscapes painted by male artists working in Australia.

This elite group marginalised not only women artists but also expatriates who participated in international artistic developments. The resulting nationalist narrative long overlooked the themes this exhibition explores.

Nora Heysen (1911–2003), daughter of celebrated landscape painter Hans Heysen, exemplifies this dual marginalisation. Despite becoming the first woman and youngest artist to win the Archibald Prize in 1938, her self-portraits – which reveal her search for identity and assertion during her London years – remained hidden from public view until the 1990s.

When Thea Proctor (1879–1966) returned to Sydney from London in the 1920s, she wrote, as the catalogue quotes, “it seemed very funny to me to be regarded by some people here as dangerously modern”.

“Dangerously modern” perfectly captures the spirit of the exhibition. These expatriate women artists were seen as threats to tradition, gender roles and to the prevailing definition of what Australian art should be.

Beyond reclaiming the place of these women in the history of Australian art, the exhibition emphasises the importance of migration in shaping artistic identity.

By recognising works created abroad as integral to Australia’s artistic story, this exhibition transforms how we understand both Australian art and modernism as a global movement.

Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940 is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until February 15 2026.

Victoria Souliman 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. These Australian women modernist painters were overlooked, and forgotten. A century later, they are in the spotlight – https://theconversation.com/these-australian-women-modernist-painters-were-overlooked-and-forgotten-a-century-later-they-are-in-the-spotlight-266149

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Murray, Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

Australians are once again being warned to tighten their online security and be extra alert to scammers, after up to 5.7 million Qantas customers’ personal details – including phone numbers and birthdays – were leaked to the dark web on Sunday.

Cyber crime supergroup Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters accessed the data back in June by convincing a Manila-based call centre operator to give the hackers access to their Salesforce system.

On Monday, federal Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke said: “You can’t simply outsource to other companies and think suddenly you’ve got no obligations on cyber security… There are very serious penalties.”

But what are those potential penalties for Qantas? And why is a corporate watchdog warning about even more serious data theft risks when Australian finance companies outsource their work overseas?

What penalties could Qantas face?

Law firm Maurice Blackburn has lodged a complaint over the Qantas data breach with Australia’s independent privacy regulator – the Office of the Information Commissioner – alleging the airline breached privacy laws by failing to adequately protect customer information.

When asked by the ABC, the commissioner’s office wouldn’t comment on whether Qantas would be fined over this latest breach.

So how much is the maximum fine for breaches like this?

Under the Privacy Act, serious or repeated privacy breaches can now incur fines of up to A$50 million or 30% of a company’s adjusted turnover during the period of the breach – whichever is greater.

This Qantas data breach is less serious than those that hit Optus and Medibank in 2022. For instance, hackers shared Medibank customers’ highly sensitive medical history data, and stole valuable identity document data, including credit card, passport and driver’s licence details. That matter is still before the courts.

While the Qantas data was still sensitive – including customers’ dates of birth, phone numbers, addresses, emails and frequent flyer numbers – it presents less of a risk for individual customers.

Besides penalties under the Privacy Act, Qantas also faces a potential class action, which affected Qantas customers can join.

Another potential outcome for Qantas could be a court-ordered payment scheme, in which individuals affected by the breach may be eventually entitled to compensation from Qantas.

We saw a similar arrangement for Facebook users affected by the Cambridge Analytica data breach a decade ago.

What are the rules for companies sharing your data overseas?

The Australian Privacy Act has specific provisions covering how companies handle your data when they send it overseas.

Importantly, when an Australian company gives your data to an offshore entity, the Australian company remains accountable for ensuring your data is kept safe.

This is why it’s important for Australian companies to consider carefully the potential risks of sending Australians’ data overseas.

These risks should be front of mind for Qantas, which in 2024 suffered a much smaller data breach due to alleged misbehaviour of overseas contractors.

However, these risks extend well beyond flagship companies such as Qantas.

Warnings over even more sensitive data

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) regulates Australian markets and financial services companies. Only days ago, it warned of “governance gaps” when financial services companies outsource work overseas – and potentially put Australians’ sensitive data at risk.

This year, ASIC has taken separate court action against Fortnum Private Wealth and FIIG Securities, alleging they failed to manage cybersecurity risks affecting thousands of customers.

In FIIG’s case, ASIC alleges a hacker was able to steal sensitive data including passport, bank account and tax file numbers. Those court cases are yet to be heard.

The finance sector – including banks, financial advisors and superannuation funds – consistently reports the third highest number of data breaches, after the health sector and government.

What we all need to do next

As individuals, we have relatively little control over how Australian companies handle our data, let alone the overseas companies they work with. But we can all do more to make ourselves more secure.

Be on scam watch: given how many Australians were exposed in the Qantas breach, be on the lookout now for scammers.

History suggests scammers target data breach victims, or people who think they may have been impacted by a data breach. If you receive a message you suspect is a scam, don’t respond – report it to Scamwatch.

Practise good “cyber hygiene”: avoid using the same password on multiple websites. Instead, use a password manager that saves your passwords across your computer and mobile phone.

That way, if your data is breached at Company A, it has less chance of impacting your security with Company B.

Companies need to step up too: Australian company executives would do well to ensure their governance, risk and compliance practices are up to scratch, especially on how they manage third-party risks.

As consumers, we entrust our cyber security to all of the companies with whom we interact. Those companies, in turn, owe it to us to ensure the drive to maximise profits doesn’t come at the cost of leaving customers worse off.

Toby Murray receives funding from the Department of Defence and Google. He is Director of the Defence Science Institute, which receives funding from the Commonwealth and State governments.

– ref. Beyond Qantas’ data leak, Australian finance companies are also at risk of offshore hacks – https://theconversation.com/beyond-qantas-data-leak-australian-finance-companies-are-also-at-risk-of-offshore-hacks-267311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Fountaine, Associate Professor of Communication, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

There’s a telling moment in the documentary film Prime Minister when Jacinda Ardern reflects on her rapid rise from Labour leader to prime minister, saying she had “no time to redesign myself […] I could only be myself”.

This reference to her “true” self signals a commitment to political authenticity, a thread that runs through the award-winning documentary about Ardern’s remarkable time in office.

But in political communication, authenticity is seldom straightforward.
It is primarily understood as a “performance” of self, usually by politicians for voters, and filtered by news and social media.

Skilled politicians – on the right as much as the left – know this. And voters, too, can accept things as simultaneously “real” and manufactured.

By drawing from behind-the-scenes footage shot by Ardern’s partner and producer Clarke Gayford, and from recordings for the Political Diary Oral History Project, Prime Minister is a showcase for certain key strategies of “performed” authenticity.

This is not to say Ardern is “faking it” or that the documentary feels contrived. After all, the goal of the authentic politician is to minimise any differences between their public and private performances of self.

Consistency and ordinariness

In an increasingly mediated world, the desire for authenticity – what is perceived as honest and real – is a powerful social force. From early in her career, Ardern has understood this, presenting herself as relatable and likeable on her popular social media channels.

This consistency is commonly regarded as the central strategy of political authenticity. We see it in the film’s repeated use of footage that captures Ardern’s political values.

There’s her maiden speech to parliament about her passion for social justice, and official speeches and election rallies containing messages of kindness and compassion.

These are reinforced with childhood photos and a car trip down the street where she grew up, allowing Ardern to establish the stability of her inner self.

Conveying a sense of ordinariness is another way to build political authenticity. In Prime Minister, we see Ardern in her slippers and engaging in recognisably ordinary activities, usually involving daughter Neve: feeding, bedtime and kite flying.

The dated backdrop of the family’s private apartment at Government House adds to this impression of the commonplace. So does footage shot in their modest Auckland home, with all the usual mess of family life on display.

Motherhood is the most accessible source of ordinariness in a documentary about Ardern’s prime ministership. And it contrasts with the public events of her time in office – the Christchurch terror attack, Whakaari/White Island and the pandemic – that are so clearly extraordinary.

By regularly interspersing images of a seemingly normal home life with shots of official meetings and state dinners, Prime Minister helps defuse the tension between the ordinary and extraordinary that challenges many politicians in their quest to appear authentic.

Immediacy and intimacy

A perception of authenticity is also supported by an impression of immediacy in political communication – the creation of a shared sense of the “here and now”.

Prime Minister taps into a common cultural experience by including memorable television footage, such as the daily COVID updates. This is reinforced with scenes from Ardern’s current life in the United States, from where she responds to audio recordings made during her prime ministership.

Thanks to Gayford’s home recordings, we also hear about Ardern’s anxiety levels and sleeping problems. The visuals confirm she is tired. These recordings are not always flattering, which adds to their apparent authenticity.

The audience also gains a kind of political backstage pass, watching Ardern prepare to announce the first pandemic lockdown, distribute presents at a staff Christmas party, and attempt to work in her noisy office during the parliamentary protests.

Learning about Ardern’s pregnancy before she officially announces it, and later hearing her joke about wanting to hit opposition leader Simon Bridges after a parliamentary exchange about the Auckland lockdowns, contribute to the sense of intimate access promised by the documentary’s promotional material.

Authenticity to the left and right

All in all, Prime Minister is a compelling performance of political authenticity, complete with its own publicity machine.

But many politicians, from across the ideological spectrum, are working to convince voters of their authenticity in a time when that virtue is under attack from fake news, generative AI and disinformation.

Populist politicians who try to position themselves as “truth tellers” have a particular need to present as authentic. In fact, consistency as a tool of authenticity does not require the steadfastly “positive” attributes exhibited by Ardern in Prime Minister.

Politicians such as Auckland mayor Wayne Brown build authenticity by being consistently abrasive and outspoken.

US President Donald Trump is sometimes described as “consistently inconsistent”. But his rhetoric regularly makes use of the same recognisable words, phrases and inflections, providing regular fodder for comedians and impersonators.

How audiences respond to politicians’ performances of authenticity is ultimately influenced by their political attitudes and party identifications, as well as exposure to political information across different media.

And research shows people who regularly watch mainstream television news and view or follow political candidates’ social media accounts are primed to perceive politicians as more authentic.

But one of the paradoxes of performed authenticity is that audiences can simultaneously perceive communication as “real” while recognising it as a manipulation.

Perhaps authentic politicians are especially alert to this. If you watch Prime Minister, look out for scene where Ardern calls out Gayford for faking the housework.

Susan Fountaine 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. Savvy politicians know how to ‘perform’ authenticity – the Jacinda Ardern doco offers a masterclass – https://theconversation.com/savvy-politicians-know-how-to-perform-authenticity-the-jacinda-ardern-doco-offers-a-masterclass-267091

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marina Yue Zhang, Associate Professor, Technology and Innovation, University of Technology Sydney

The trade dispute between the United States and China has resumed. US President Donald Trump lashed out at the weekend at Beijing’s planned tightening of restrictions over crucial rare-earth minerals.

In response, Trump has threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese imports.

But with the higher tariff rate not due to start until November 1, and the Chinese controls on December 1, there is still time for negotiation.

This is no longer a trade dispute; it has escalated into a race for control over supply chains, and the rules that govern global trade.

For Australia, this provides an opening to build capacity at home in minerals refining and rare-earths processing. But we also need to keep access to our biggest market – China.

A long-running battle

Since 2018, the US has sought to choke off China’s access to semiconductors and chipmaking tools by restricting exports.

China last week tightened its export controls on rare earth minerals that are essential for the technology, automotive and defence industries. Foreign companies now need permission to export products that derive as little as 0.1% of their value from China-sourced rare earths.

Rare earths are essential to many modern technologies. They enable high-performance magnets for EVs and wind turbines, lasers in advanced weapons, and the polishing of semiconductor wafers. An F-35 fighter jet contains about 417 kilograms of rare earths.

By targeting inputs rather than finished goods, China extends its reach across production lines in any foreign factories that use Chinese rare earths in chips (including AI), automotive, defence and consumer electronics.

Who holds the upper hand: chips or rare earths?

The US plan is simple: control the key tools and software for making top-end semiconductor chips so China can’t move as fast on cutting-edge technology.

Under that pressure, China is filling the gaps. It’s far more self-sufficient in chips than ten years ago. It now makes more of its own tools and software, and produces “good-enough” chips for cars, factories and gadgets to withstand US sanctions.

Rare earths aren’t literally “rare”; their value lies in complex, costly and polluting separation and purification processes. China has cornered the industry, helped by industry policies and subsidies. China accounts for 60–70% of all mining and more than 90% of rare earths refining.

Its dominance reflects decades-long investment, scale and an early willingness to bear heavy environmental costs. Building a China-free supply chain will take years, even if Western countries can coordinate smoothly.

A window for Australia?

Australia is seen as a potential beneficiary. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to meet Trump on October 20 in Washington, many argue the rare-earths clash offers a diplomatic opening.

Trade Minister Don Farrell says Australia is a reliable supplier that can “provide alternatives to the rest of the world”. Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, has made the same case.

The logic seems compelling: leverage Australia’s mineral wealth for strategic gain with its closest security partner. But that narrative is simplistic. It risks drifting from industrial and economic reality.

The first hard truth is that Australia has the resources, but doesn’t control the market. It is a top-five producer of 14 minerals, including lithium, cobalt and rare earths, yet it doesn’t dominate any of them. Australia’s strength is in mining and extraction, rather than processing.

Here lies the strategic paradox: Australia ships the majority of its minerals to China for processing that turns ore into high-purity metals and chemicals. Building alternative, China-free supply chains to reduce US reliance on China would decouple Australia from its main customer for raw materials.

Demand from the defence sector is not enough. The US Department of Defense accounts for less than 5% of global demand for most critical minerals.

The real driver is the heavy demand from clean energy and advanced technology, including EVs, batteries and solar. China commands those markets, creating a closed-loop ecosystem that pulls in Australia’s materials and exports finished goods. Recreating that integrated system in five to ten years, after Beijing spent decades building it, is wishful thinking.

There will be no simple winner

The US restrictions on chips and the Chinese controls over rare earths are twin levers in the contest between two great powers. Each wants to lead in technology – and to set the rules over global supply chains.

We’ve entered a period where control of a few key inputs, tools and routes gives countries leverage. Each side is probing those “chokepoints” in the other’s supply chains for technology and materials – and using them as weapons. In the latest stand-off, Trump has floated export controls on Boeing parts to China. Chinese airlines are major Boeing customers, so any parts disruption would hit China’s aviation sector hard.

There will be no simple winner. Countries and firms are being pulled into two parallel systems: one centred on US chip expertise, the other on China’s materials power. This is not a clean break. It will be messier, costlier and less efficient, where political risk often outweighs commercial logic.

The question for Australia is not how fast it can build, but how well it balances security aims with market realities.

Marina Yue Zhang 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. ‘Extremely hostile’: Trump lashes China over trade controls but there may be a silver lining – https://theconversation.com/extremely-hostile-trump-lashes-china-over-trade-controls-but-there-may-be-a-silver-lining-267294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johanna Lim, Research Associate, Strategic Technologies, University of Sydney

The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates data centres will consume 6% of Australia’s grid-supplied electricity by 2030.

To put that in context, that’s more than the current share of Australia’s healthcare and social assistance industry.

This reflects the rapid growth of Australia’s data centre industry – the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI). This growth is, in part, being driven by multi-billion-dollar investments from major tech players including AWS, Microsoft, CDC and NextDC. Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar has even suggested Australia could become Southeast Asia’s data centre hub.

The federal government is also fertilising the data centre industry. In August, for example, Treasurer Jim Chalmers announced the development of “national interest principles on data centres” as an outcome of the economic reform roundtable.

The power-hungry nature of data centres, however, poses major problems for the current energy grid in Australia. But there are three steps Australia can take to help power these facilities reliably and sustainably.

Increased volatility, increased risks

Unlike households and most industries, data centres require constant power. This adds pressure to an energy grid designed for variable consumption.

As more people use AI for more complex tasks, the workloads on data centres will intensify. This leads to increased baseload demand. But it also leads to unpredictable spikes and drops in demand which the grid was not built to manage. This volatility creates real risks.

In 2024, 60 data centres in northern Virginia suddenly disconnected from the grid due to a tripped safety mechanism. This unleashed a massive surge of excess electricity – which, were it not for network operators implementing emergency countermeasures, would have caused a massive blackout.

This near-miss highlighted the fragility of the grid when faced with sudden, large-scale data centre disconnections.

Clean energy can’t do it alone

The limitations of Australia’s current energy mix are another source of volatility.

While renewable energy is central to the clean energy transition, it alone can’t meet baseload and peak demands from data centres. The problem is twofold. First, renewables are intermittent. Second, energy storage and backup options can only be scaled to a limited degree.

This means most data centres will continue to rely on coal or gas in some form.

Most data centre operators have committed to 100% renewable energy by 2030. But in practice, this often means purchasing annual renewable credits or power purchase agreements.

These mechanisms don’t guarantee clean energy during actual operations – they simply help offset annual consumption. Meeting real-time demand with clean energy is a far more complex challenge. It requires greater investment in renewables, storage and transmission infrastructure. It also requires better coordination between energy regulators, utility companies and data centre operators.

These challenges were reflected in Australia’s new climate target – a 62–70% cut below 2005 levels by 2035. This sits below the 65-75% range initially proposed by the Climate Change Authority last year. Why the reduction? Among the cited “transition risks” is the significant growth of data centres.

Becoming a global champion

Australia has an opportunity to develop policies that synchronise data centre expansion with more efficient energy and grid management.

First, Australia should promote computing methods at scale that reduce emissions but don’t compromise capabilities.

For example, smart scheduling software can automatically shift energy-intensive tasks, such as model training, to off-peak periods when renewable energy is most abundant. This wouldn’t affect more everyday, less energy-intensive tasks, such as using ChatGPT, that require immediate responses. Companies such as Google have already adopted this approach to reduce grid strain without impacting user experience.

Alongside this, data centres should be required to inform power companies in advance of large-scale AI training runs that can cause dramatic energy spikes. Companies such as Hitachi Energy have called on governments to implement such rules to support grid management, citing other energy-intensive industries, such as smelting, where prior warning is already a common practice.

Second, Australia needs to accelerate advanced energy storage innovations, including batteries, pumped hydro and thermal energy storage. Research in many of these technologies is already underway, backed by government initiatives and private investments.

Data centre company AirTrunk, for example, is exploring different ways of implementing battery energy storage systems in its new data centres. However, more targeted financial incentives and support – such as through the Future Made in Australia and the National Reconstruction Fund – can help to bridge the gap between research and commercial scalability.

Third, Australia can require data centres to set what are known as “power usage effectiveness” – or PUE – targets to drive energy efficiency.

PUE targets are calculated by dividing the data centre’s total energy use by its IT equipment energy use. A PUE closer to 1.0 indicates greater energy efficiency.

PUE limits in China helped reduce its average PUE from 1.54 to 1.48 in just one year. Similarly, voluntary initiatives such as the European Union’s code of conduct for data centre energy efficiency, have consistently lowered the average PUE among participating facilities.

There is no shying away from the reality that data centres are energy-hungry behemoths. However, with the right planning and policies, Australia could be a global champion for data centre growth that supports, not derails, the clean energy transition.

Johanna Lim previously worked as an analyst at Mandala Partners, an economics, strategy and policy consulting firm.

– ref. Power-hungry data centres threaten Australia’s energy grid. Here are 3 steps to make them more efficient – https://theconversation.com/power-hungry-data-centres-threaten-australias-energy-grid-here-are-3-steps-to-make-them-more-efficient-266992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Sturgiss, Professor of Community Medicine and Clinical Education, Bond University

Around one in three Australian adults (32%) has a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. A further 34% has a BMI of 25 or above.

Australia’s regulator has approved Wegovy, the weight-loss version of Ozempic (semaglutide) and Mounjaro (tirzepatide) for weight management, alongside a reduced-calorie diet and exercise.

To access these medications, adults must have a BMI of 30 or above or a BMI of 27 and a weight-related condition such as high blood pressure or sleep apnoea. The drugs aren’t subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for weight loss, so users face still high out-of-pocket costs.

These drugs work by activating the GLP-1 receptor, which increases insulin secretion and improves the liver’s use of glucose. This decreases the user’s appetite, leaving them feeling fuller after eating less. In trials, these medications reduced participants’ body weight by up to 20% and improved their health outcomes and quality of life.

But while doctors and allied health providers are reducing their reliance on BMI to guide treatment decisions, eligibility for Wegovy and Mounjaro rely on it. This needs to change.

Your BMI alone doesn’t reflect your health status

A Belgian mathematician first invented BMI in the 1830s to try and quantify the “average man”.

An American physiologist and dietitian then adopted BMI in the 1970s to screen for obesity. It has since been used a tool to screen large populations for obesity.

BMI was never meant as the sole measure for a person’s health. When we use BMI with an individual patient, it can often overestimate the risk of their weight on their health. People have a lot of muscle mass, for example, may have a high BMI but low health risks.

BMI can also underestimate a peron’s weight-related health impacts, such as the risks for elderly people with low muscle mass.

Weight doesn’t tell us the whole story about a person’s risk for poor health. But because it’s easy to see a person’s physical shape, it’s often incorrectly used as a marker of healthiness.

It’s possible to improve your health by eating a more nutritious diet and getting more active, even if your weight doesn’t change.

For people who don’t move much during the day, increasing physical activity can boost your heart, lung and mental health.

The definition of obesity might also change

Obesity is most commonly diagnosed when a peson’s BMI is 30 or above.

But earlier this year, an international committee recommended changing how obesity is diagnosed. In its view, a person with a high amount of body fat that is having an impact on their health should be diagnosed as having obesity. So should those with a BMI over 40.

However, according to its recommendations, to diagnose obesity at lower BMIs, a health practitioner should assess the person’s waist circumference or directly measure their body fat, through a special set of scales that directly measures percentage body fat.

These measurements would be assessed according to different cut-offs for obesity based on age, gender and ethnicity.

On top of these body measurements, it also proposes a new diagnosis of “clinical obesity”. This would be given when there is evidence of organ dysfunction or obesity impacting every day function. This way of diagnosing obesity looks at overall health, and not just BMI.

The committee recommended weight-loss treatments, including medications, should be individualised and evidence-based.

What other indicators could clinicians use?

Obesity is complex, with each person experiencing it differently. So rather than basing weight-loss medication eligibility on BMI, clinicians should be able to consider the potential benefits (and risks) for an individual.

The Edmonton Obesity Staging System is a good example of a measure that uses BMI plus any other health conditions the person has, how the person moves and functions day to day, and psychological symptoms such as depression or low mood.

A higher stage is associated with poorer health outcomes, such as having organ damage, being unable to work, or having major depression. A moderate stage might include having high blood pressure, having some limitations on your daily activity and subsequent impacts on quality of life. This staging could help determine who would get the most benefit from weight-loss medicines.

A more comprehensive assessment of health using the Edmonton Obesity Staging System could help patients and their doctors have an informed discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of weight-management medications. For example, the medications could be targeted to people with higher stages rather than just relying on BMI.

This could mean people with lower BMIs, but more health conditions or difficulty with physical function, could decide to use medications, as they would be more likely to have health benefits.

Don’t overlook nutrition and exercise

While medications can help many users improve their health, they won’t be suitable or work for everyone. And not everyone will sustain the same level of weight loss, especially if they’re not supported with dietary changes and exercise.

Research trials of these medications have included the best nutrition, physical activity and psychological support for patients undergoing treatment. Weight-loss drugs should always be used in conjunction with these other supports to get the best health outcomes.

Whether you use weight-loss drugs or not, if you have weight-related health issues, you’re more likely to improve your physical function, your other health conditions and quality of life if you have support from a team of health professionals. This might include a dietitian, exercise physiologist, psychologist and care from a trusted GP.

Liz Sturgiss receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council, The The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) Foundation, Diabetes Australia, Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. She is affiliated with the North American Primary Care Research Group, Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care, and was an appointed member of the Guidelines Development Committee for the review and update of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, Adolescents and Children in Australia. She is a member of the Australian Prescriber Editorial Advisory Committee and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Australian Journal of Primary Health.

Kimberley Norman conducts research as part of her role as Research Fellow with Monash University. She is affiliated with the not-for-profit group The Obesity Collective, Australia’s peak body for improving obesity health related outcomes, and Weight Issues Network, an obesity consumer group in Australia. She is affiliated with the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) and was appointed the Vice-chair (and incoming Chair 2025) of the Trainee Committee for NAPCRG.

– ref. BMI shouldn’t be the only way to assess who can access weight-loss drugs – https://theconversation.com/bmi-shouldnt-be-the-only-way-to-assess-who-can-access-weight-loss-drugs-263634

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Valentina Dinica, Associate Professor in Sustainability and Public Policy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The government’s proposed reforms of the rules governing public conservation land aim to dismantle any potential obstacle to “unleashing economic growth” in protected areas.

Currently, about a third of New Zealand’s land is under protection. This ranges from national parks (11.6%) to stewardship areas (9.4%) and conservation parks (5.7%). Twelve other designations make up the rest.

Some commercial activities are permitted – including guided walks, aircraft-based sightseeing, ski fields and animal grazing – and approved by the Department of Conservation as “concessions”.

The proposed changes to the Conservation Act include a review of land designation. The government could delist or swap up to 60% of the current area under protection.

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka said he can’t indicate which designations or locations would be delisted. Nor can he say what percentage of conservation lands would be affected – and where – because changes will be driven by demand for land.

The minister only committed to leaving untouched the designations that are difficult to change: national parks, wilderness areas, reserves and world heritage sites.

The question of whether more economic benefits can be obtained from protected areas is legitimate. New Zealand does need a radical reform of its conservation areas and legislation. There is potential for better social and economic outcomes.

But the proposal consolidates ministerial discretion to unprecedented levels and the government follows a misguided fast-track approach to permitting economic activities such as mining. This could take native biodiversity into dangerous territory.

Outdated conservation laws

New Zealand holds tight to an outdated approach known as “fortress conservation”. This limits commercial opportunities to specific areas, mostly concentrated around established facilities (roads, hotels) and the edges of designated lands. Even when regulating other activities such as energy generation or agriculture, the idea has been to “sacrifice” some spaces and keep as much land as possible “locked up”.

A key reason was that people didn’t know enough about the ecological values of the land. As a proxy, lawmakers relied on the subjective concepts of wilderness values and intrinsic values to justify strict protections over most lands.

Insufficient scientific input meant authorities have relied on “ecologically blind” zoning frameworks, such as a planning tool known as the recreation opportunity spectrum. This divides lands according to recreational opportunities and visitor needs.

But there is a better path forward – one that allows public decision making and honours international commitments, while achieving better ecological and economic benefits.

Towards regulations informed by science

This alternative approach is grounded in three key principles.

First, it uses gap analysis to identify which ecosystems and species are underprotected.

Second, it relies on regulations shaped by ecological knowledge and conservation priorities.

Third, it applies the principles of proportionality and precaution, meaning that regulatory responses should match the severity, reversibility and likelihood of environmental harm. Currently, New Zealand’s regulatory framework does not reflect this.

New Zealand has signed the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. This means at least 30% of conservation lands must be representative of most, if not all, native ecosystems by 2030.

At present, coastal, lowland and dryland ecosystems are under-represented. In contrast, alpine and montane environments, are represented way above the recommended threshold (20% of the remaining cover for that ecosystem).

If up to 60% of conservation lands were to be swapped or delisted without prioritising representativeness, vulnerability and rarity, the ecological losses may be immense and irreversible.

Rethinking protection categories

My research develops a broader reform approach. It also reflects growing international consensus on the need for science-informed conservation planning.

I argue New Zealand should set up region-specific and nationwide fora, such as citizen assemblies or consensus conferences. Conversations should focus on specific topics, informed by scientists and iwi.

Vulnerable or under-represented ecosystems currently require stronger protection. Deliberations should indicate which activities should be limited or excluded to better protect such areas.

We must also consider vulnerability to climate change. Scientists expect that ecosystems may migrate outside protected areas.

Consensus should be built around what qualifies as a “significantly over-represented” native ecosystem. Where ecosystems are already well protected and resilient, the public should discuss whether re-designation, land exchanges or even disposals may be appropriate.

If lands are retained, consensus should be sought on the economic uses that can maintain ecological health. If the public doesn’t support land delisting or swaps, alternative strategies must be developed to improve ecological representativeness. Sustainable funding mechanisms should also be identified to support these efforts.

The Department of Conservation should work with independent scientists and iwi to develop a new zoning framework to guide commercial concessions and recreational access. This framework should capture the principles highlighted above.

When applied to each area, it should also enable the mapping of the ecological values feasible to protect. This would help select bespoke regulatory options. In turn, it would balance biodiversity and economic outcomes for each context.

Guidance for these steps should be incorporated in a new national strategy, aligned with domestic goals such as the biodiversity strategy and international commitments.

New Zealand has the expertise for smart reforms. New Zealanders have the passion for nature and patience required to engage in deliberations. But will politicians have the wisdom to avoid a totally unnecessary mutilation of conservation lands, for undefined biodiversity gains?

Valentina Dinica 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. Reform of NZ’s protected lands is overdue – but the public should decide about economic activities – https://theconversation.com/reform-of-nzs-protected-lands-is-overdue-but-the-public-should-decide-about-economic-activities-267105