Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cheng Cheng, Senior Research Officer, School of Engineering, Australian National University

Solar and wind now provide 99% of new generating capacity in Australia. Renewables supply more than 40% of power to the main grid.

Australia will need six times as much solar and wind to reach net zero through the electrification of everything.

This means building new transmission corridors, as existing lines were built to connect cities with coal power stations. But the best solar and wind resources lie in different places.

Many new solar and wind projects are already struggling to secure access to the grid. Australia’s grid operator has laid out a plan to build 10,000 kilometres of new transmission lines. But these new projects are proving difficult to build amid cost blowouts and protests. Some communities are pushing back against new powerlines, despite landowner compensation of up to A$200,000 per km.

If new transmission lines are needed and building them is hard, it makes sense to prioritise. In our recent research, we answer two important questions: which new corridors unlock the most new wind and solar? And could high-voltage direct current lines bring far-flung northern renewable resources to southern population centres?

Optimising new transmission corridors?

Most of Australia’s transmission lines are high-voltage alternating current (HVAC). These work well to move power across distances of less than 1,000km, but lose too much power over longer distances (around 7% per 1,000km).

Then there’s high-voltage direct current (HVDC), which moves large amounts of power with much lower losses over distances up to 3,000km or underwater. It’s less common in Australia. The main existing HVDC line is Basslink, an undersea cable between Victoria and Tasmania.

Both types of transmission could have a role in Australia’s future grid.

High-voltage alternating current

To compare hundreds of possible new HVAC lines, we used three metrics:

1. New solar and wind potential unlocked per dollar of new transmission cost
2. Newly unlocked solar and wind complement each other to reduce the need for energy storage
3. Avoiding towns, cities, native forests and national parks.

High-voltage direct current

To assess direct current, we modelled which corridors would unlock most resources at least cost and supply power when most needed for both Australia’s main grid, the National Electricity Market, and Western Australia’s largest grid, the South-West Interconnected System.

Our model took solar, wind, storage and interconnector capacities into account with a goal of reducing the average cost of electricity across the system, while including distance-related costs and losses for each possible corridor.

HVAC corridors: cutting costs, not forests

We found 147 possible high-scoring HVAC corridors connecting to major cities or existing interconnectors and tapping areas with good renewable potential.

Where are the best options? As our interactive map shows, South Australia and Western Australia have standout options to link great renewable resources across cleared land to cities. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland also have good options.

In Queensland, plans to build windfarms on wooded ridges north of Brisbane have run into controversy. The best transmission line options avoid this issue by running west into inland Queensland.

HVDC: northern solar and wind – delivered in winter?

To date, no long-distance (longer than 800km) high-voltage direct current lines have been built in Australia. Overseas, they are proving transformative. China’s extremely rapid shift to electrification relies on thousands of kilometres of these lines.

Every winter, wind speeds tend to drop in Australia’s population centres in the southeast while solar output is low. But inland northern regions are usually sunny and windy at this time. A long-distance HVDC line could unlock these resources by connecting renewables near Perth or Darwin to Melbourne or Sydney.

After modelling 98 routes, we shortlisted 20 possibilities. Each of these would have a significant effect on power prices, reducing wholesale electricity costs between 8% and 18%.

The strongest performers would connect renewable resources around Mount Isa in Queensland or the Northern Territory’s Alice Springs or Victoria Daly regions to the main grid at Brisbane or the key Melbourne-Sydney interconnector near Wagga Wagga. By contrast, WA would see little benefit from high-voltage lines at today’s demand levels.

Very large energy storage schemes built close enough to cities such as Snowy 2.0 could partly replace the need for long distance HVDC lines by covering seasonal gaps locally.

Our modelling poses questions for efforts to transmit power from solar farms near Tennant Creek to Singapore through a 4,600km undersea cable. Would it be better to transmit the power 2,000km southeast instead?

What does this mean for communities?

Community buy-in is essential for big projects. Locals need to see direct benefits.

To quantify these benefits, we modelled which tangible outcomes would come from newly unlocked renewables across every local government area. These include expected annual power generation, associated investment and jobs, and income from leasing land.

These benefits can be compared on our interactive maps – one focused on high solar and another with wind dominating.

For instance, a potential HVDC line west of Brisbane line would shift opportunity inland, bringing large gains to towns such as Blackall, Tambo, Barcaldine, Murweh and Maranoa.

Which way forward?

When transmission projects bog down, so does the push to get to net zero. As state and federal governments struggle to build the new transmission lines needed to unlock more renewables, our research may be useful as a complement to the grid operator’s big-picture plan. Focusing on building priority corridors will help meet new demand.

Policymakers may also look to pair new transmission with potential pumped-hydro schemes close by, as these stores of energy help balance variable renewable generation and maximise the use of transmission lines.

Cheng Cheng receives funding from CWP Renewables Pty Ltd (later acquired by Squadron Energy) through the Innovation Connections Grant. Neither Squadron nor CWP Renewables was involved in designing the methodology or conducting the research, and the research provides no direct benefit to the funder. All data is publicly available.

– ref. New transmission towers are crucial for renewables – but contentious. Here’s where they should go – https://theconversation.com/new-transmission-towers-are-crucial-for-renewables-but-contentious-heres-where-they-should-go-267867

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie M. Cairns, Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW Sydney

Dingoes are no ordinary dogs. They trace their roots back to an ancient Asian lineage and made their way to Australia more than 3,500 years ago.

Since then, they’ve become integrated into Australian ecosystems. They hold deep cultural meaning for many Indigenous Australians — woven into songlines, ceremonies, and family life, and often regarded as kin.

In research published today in PNAS, our team sought to unravel how European colonisation has shaped dingoes over the last two centuries. Like everyone and everything else in Australia when the First Fleet arrived in 1788, dingoes had to adapt to a new reality – and that adaptation is written in their bones.

Colonial conflict with dingoes

The arrival of Europeans in Australia irrevocably changed Indigenous communities, ecosystems and the continent’s apex predator, the dingo. With the First Fleet came livestock and many European dogs including greyhounds, terriers and spaniels.

During the past 237 years, public attitudes to dingoes have been shaped by the creatures’ conflict with livestock. Trapping, shooting, bounties and poison baiting have become commonplace.

Some have been concerned that interbreeding between dingoes and European dogs may lead to dingoes losing their unique identity.

However, recent DNA studies have suggested such interbreeding is uncommon, at least in the modern era.

But the extent of the historic genetic influence of dogs on dingoes has still been unclear.

Analysing ancient tissue

For our new research, we used a combination of stable isotope and ancient DNA analysis of pre-1788 and post-1788 dingoes from the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia. Stable isotope analysis looks at the chemicals found in once-living tissues to determine diet and environmental conditions.

We also compared the genomes of modern dingoes to these historic baselines to uncover the timing and extent of gene flow from modern dogs into dingoes.

Our analysis showed changes in the chemical signatures (carbon and nitrogen) of Nullarbor dingo bones post-1788. This suggests dingo diets diets changed after European arrival.

Europeans managed the landscape in completely new ways. They introduced sheep, cattle and rabbits. By killing dingoes Europeans facilitated the eruption of kangaroo numbers. This altered the native vegetation and changed which prey animals were available for dingoes to hunt.

Maintaining a distinctive identity

With pre-1788 dingoes as a baseline we can detect the presence of historic European dog DNA in many modern dingo populations, particularly in southeastern Australia.

However, little European dog DNA is detected in dingoes from central and western Australia. Despite historic hybridisation, dingoes have maintained their distinctive identity.

We found that gene flow from European dogs into dingoes peaked during the mid 20th century (1960s to 1980s). We can tell this from the length of the DNA fragments inherited, with modern dingoes carrying many small chunks of historic European dog DNA rather than long stretches.

Many dingoes have had no dog ancestors in the last 10 generations (roughly five years per generation). The timing of gene flow into dingoes coincided with the intensification of large-scale dingo culling programs.

These programs may have increased opportunities for breeding between dingoes and dogs by breaking down dingo social structures and reducing the availability of dingo mates.

Overcoming inbreeding

We found that pre-1788 dingoes had high levels of inbreeding, which reflects long-term isolation and a small founding population.

After 1788, the fragments of European dog DNA present in many dingoes were important sources of genetic diversity. This extra DNA variation may be helping dingoes to overcome inbreeding.

We also found evidence that positive selection is acting to retain these fragments of European dog DNA in dingo populations. This could explain why European dog DNA is persisting through so many generations.

While gene flow between species is typically considered detrimental, we now understand that gene flow can help species adapt to challenges and changing environments.

For example, in areas with low winter snow the local snowshoe hares have gained a brown winter coat as a result of gene flow from jackrabbits.

Dingo management is divisive

Dingoes are a serious threat to livestock such as sheep. But they play an important role in maintaining healthy ecosystems and are deeply valued by many Aboriginal peoples.

Lethal control of wildlife often comes with unintended consequences. For example, reducing dingo numbers could increase the risk of hybridisation with domestic dogs, as it does with wolves and coyotes in North America.

Studies have also shown ecosystems without dingoes are less resilient. These ecosystems are also characterised by shifts in vegetation due to an increase in plant consumption and a loss of small prey species.

Our findings challenge the idea that hybridisation is negative. Historical gene flow may provide the genetic variability for dingoes to overcome inbreeding and meet the challenge of changing Australian environments.

There is a complex interplay between historic inbreeding, gene flow from dogs and the consequences of culling. Establishing historic baselines is crucial to disentangling complex evolutionary histories and informing conservation policy in a world where hybridisation is an increasingly common occurrence.

Australian policy makers should prioritise maintaining large and connected dingo populations. This will allow evolutionary forces to get rid of unhelpful European dog DNA variants while retaining beneficial diversity.

More broadly, conservation must move move beyond simplistic notions of “purity”. Worldwide, hybridisation is a growing conservation threat. But it can also be a critical tool for threatened species recovery.

Many wild canids – wolves, coyotes and jackals – have experienced gene flow from dogs. Importantly for dingoes, despite some historic gene flow, they remain ecologically and genetically distinct from dogs – as they have been since before European colonisation.

Kylie M. Cairns receives funding from the Australian Dingo Foundation, the Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, the ACT government and donations from the general public. She is a director of the Paddy Pallin Foundation and provides scientific advice to the Australian Dingo Foundation and the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation. She also serves as co-coordinator of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dingo working group which is part of its Species Survival Commission (SSC) Canid Specialist Group.

Mathew Crowther receives funding from the Australian Research Council and NSW Koala Strategy

Melanie Fillios receives funding from the Australia and Pacific Science Foundation.

Mike Letnic receives funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. Impacts of colonisation on dingoes are ‘written in their bones’, new research finds – https://theconversation.com/impacts-of-colonisation-on-dingoes-are-written-in-their-bones-new-research-finds-270082

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meena Chavan, Associate Professor of International Business and Entrepreneurship, Macquarie University

An Australian company is caught out and fined under American law despite following local shipping rules.

A Sydney couple is charged for unwittingly violating United Nations nuclear sanctions against Iran.

A New Zealand aerospace company falls foul of UN restrictions when one of its products appears at a North Korean air show.

These real world examples demonstrate the pitfalls of doing business in a volatile global trade environment fuelled by geopolitical rivalries, fragmented supply chains and weaponised economic policy.

Trade sanctions have become a key feature of all this, and they often leave small firms caught in the crossfire.

Our research examines how sanctions operate in practice, the loopholes that weaken them, and the burden placed on smaller firms that lack the compliance capacity of multinationals.

We examined how sanctions affect day-to-day business operations, why targeted economies continue to function, how firms circumvent restrictions, and what this means for enforcement.

The findings reveal the need for strong oversight combined with flexibility that means legitimate small businesses are not unfairly penalised.

More sanctions mean more loopholes

Sanctions now frequently target Russia, Iran, North Korea and Syria, restricting access to oil, technology and finance. Yet they often contain legal grey areas that blunt their intended effects.

When Australia banned direct imports of Russian oil in 2022, for example, fuel refined from Russian crude continued arriving through intermediary countries. Once it has been “substantially transformed” in India or China, crude becomes a legally different product, even though revenue still flows to Russia.

This is not smuggling. It is a structural gap in sanctions design.

Supply chains add further confusion. A product banned in Australia may legally pass through a state with lighter restrictions, while US sanctions apply internationally and can penalise businesses far beyond American borders.

For example, one Australian logistics company received a US$6 million fine because shipments processed through the United Sstates financial system were linked to Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Compliance costs hurt small businesses

Large corporations have legal teams dedicated to sanctions. Small and medium enterprises do not and must interpret constantly shifting rules with limited staff. This makes them especially vulnerable to inadvertent breaches or manipulation by intermediaries.

In 2009 and 2010, a Sydney couple became the first Australians charged with violating UN sanctions after diverting 90 tonnes of nickel alloy material usable in nuclear facilities to Iran via Dubai.

Prosecutors alleged they misdeclared the end user, whether intentionally or through poor due diligence. The case illustrates how even modest exporters can become entangled in global security issues.

Similarly, New Zealand company Pacific Aerospace faced penalties after one of its aircraft appeared at a North Korean air show, in breach of strict UN restrictions.

The company pleaded guilty to indirectly exporting aircraft parts, underscoring how smaller firms can violate sanctions without realising the implications until regulators intervene.

How businesses circumvent sanctions

When companies intentionally bypass sanctions, they often rely on long-established methods common to illicit trade:

Rerouting through third countries: intermediaries in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey or Central Asia frequently trans-ship goods to Russia or Iran. The practice became so common that New Zealand explicitly tightened its ban on exports to Russia “via third countries”.

Shell companies and falsified paperwork: front companies and forged end-user certificates can disguise the true destination of shipments. A notable case involved German firm Aiotec, which secretly diverted, piece by piece, a decommissioned Australian industrial plant to Iran before US authorities uncovered the scheme.

Hard-to-trace financial transactions: cryptocurrencies, digital assets and barter arrangements are increasingly used to bypass the traditional financial systems monitored by regulators. Australian Senate inquiries have highlighted how these methods can appeal to small firms seeking less scrutiny and lower costs.

Such practices also weaken the political impact of sanctions and demonstrate a consistent economic truth: where there is demand, supply channels (legal or not) will emerge.

Consequently, many sanctioned economies adapt quickly. Russia has redirected trade to friendly nations, developed a shadow tanker fleet to transport oil and relied on parallel imports to replace banned Western goods.

Iran and North Korea, accustomed to decades of sanctions, maintain economic activity through extensive illegal and semi-legal channels.

Enforcement versus economic survival

Regulators face a difficult balancing act: ensuring strong enforcement while not crushing legitimate business activity.

Most small business owners are not geopolitical actors. They are trying to survive, employ staff and honour contracts amid shifting and often confusing rules. Many breaches occur through confusion rather than malice.

But policymakers must still deter those intentionally exploiting loopholes. This requires stronger but smarter enforcement, clearer guidance, timely regulatory updates and better industry education.

Closing known loopholes such as third-country re-exports and crypto-based transactions, must be combined with reforms that acknowledge real-world commercial pressures. To improve compliance while still supporting small businesses, governments should:

• provide clearer, accessible guidance tailored to small and medium enterprises

• harmonise sanctions across jurisdictions to reduce contradictions

• invest in targeted enforcement aimed at deliberate evasion

• and design sanctions with nuance so compliant firms are not forced out of markets.

Sanctions will continue to shape diplomacy and economic strategy. But their credibility depends on recognising the realities faced by small businesses that form the backbone of global commerce.

Meena Chavan is affiliated with the Academy of International Business, the Academy of International Business Oceania, the Australia and New Zealand International Business Association (ANZIBA), and the International Council of Small Business.

Anna Earl is affiliated with Academy of International Business Oceania.

– ref. Risky business: how small firms can be caught in the trade sanctions crossfire – https://theconversation.com/risky-business-how-small-firms-can-be-caught-in-the-trade-sanctions-crossfire-269696

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

As Russian bombs continued to pound Ukraine, a different conflict has blown up over plans to end that almost four-year-long war. The Trump administration on Nov. 20, 2025, formally presented Ukraine with a 28-point proposal to end the war, and President Donald Trump announced the country had until Thanksgiving to sign it. But Ukraine and its European and U.S. allies said the plan heavily favored Russia, requiring Ukraine to give up territory not even held by Russia, diminish the size of its military and, ultimately, place its long-term sovereignty at risk. The Trump administration was accused by policy experts and some lawmakers of fashioning a plan to serve Russia’s interests, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio got enmeshed in an argument with U.S. senators over whether the U.S. or Russia had authored the document. On Nov. 23, Ukrainian and U.S. officials held talks in Geneva, which Rubio declared were “productive and meaningful,” and those negotiations continue. The Conversation U.S. politics editor Naomi Schalit asked longtime diplomat Donald Heflin, now teaching at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, to help make sense of the chaotic events.

I have a whole list of questions to ask you, but my first question is what on earth is going on?

It’s hard to say. Ever since the Trump administration took power for the second time, it’s alternated between leaning towards Russia in this war or being more neutral, with occasional leaning towards Ukraine. They go back and forth.

This particular peace plan gives Russia a lot at once. It gets the size of the Ukrainian army cut down from 800,000-plus to 600,000, when the country is barely hanging on defending itself with 800,000 troops. Russia gets land, including land that it has conquered. A lot of people expected that might be one of the conditions of a Ukraine-Russia peace deal. But this also gives Russia land that it hasn’t taken yet and may never take.

It bars Ukraine from seeking NATO membership. That’s not a huge surprise. That was probably always going to be part of an eventual deal. Ukraine gets security guarantees from the West. Unfortunately, the U.S. gave ironclad security guarantees in 1994 when Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons voluntarily. It’s been invaded by Russia twice since then, in 2014 and 2022. So our security guarantees really don’t mean a whole lot in that area of the world.

And there’s more, right?

I think this is the most important part, what Putin is looking for more than anything else. Russia gets released from economic sanctions and it rejoins the group of G7 industrialized countries.

Putin’s economy is under a lot of stress. The cash that would flow in for the sale of Russian goods, particularly energy, would enable him to build a whole new army from scratch, if he needed to. That’s a huge strategic advantage. This would be a major shot in the arm for the Russian economy and for the Russian war economy.

So this is a very pro-Russian deal, unless it’s modified heavily, and there’s argument in Washington now whether the Russians just plain drafted it, or whether our State Department drafted it but for some reason leaned heavily towards Russia.

I’m inclined to think the original draft came from the Russians. It’s just too loaded up with the stuff that they want.

There was a fair amount of confusing back-and-forth on Nov. 23 that Rubio had told some senators that, in fact, the plan wasn’t generated by the United States, that it reflected a Russian wish list. The senators revealed this publicly. Then a State Department spokesman called that claim “blatantly false.” You’re a former diplomat. When you see that kind of thing happening, what do you think?

It’s amateur hour. We’ve seen this before. With this administration, it puts a lot of very amateurish people – Rubio’s not one of them – in place in important offices, like Steve Witkoff, the special envoy for Russia and Ukraine who is also the special envoy for the Middle East. And they’ve gotten rid of all the professionals. They either just fired some or ran some off.

So you know, the problem here is implementation. Politicians can have great thoughts, but they usually then turn to the professionals and say, “Here’s what I’m thinking.” The people they would turn to are gone. And that was their own doing – the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

How might that affect the ultimate goal, which is peace?

This is a very delicate situation that calls for delicate peace talks from professional diplomats. There are a couple of things that need to happen and aren’t happening very much. First off, this is a war in Eastern Europe. Europe should be very involved now. They lean against Russia, so they probably can’t be honest brokers, but they need to be involved in every step of this process. If there’s going to be any rebuilding of Ukraine, Europe’s going to have to help with that. If there’s going to be pressure on Russia, Europe buys a lot of its goods, especially energy. They’re just a necessary player, and they haven’t been included.

What else?

The other is that when people have these great ideas, normally they would turn to their professionals. Those professionals would then talk to the professionals on the other side or other sides. Staff work would be done, then your presidents or your prime ministers or your secretaries of state would meet and hammer out the deal.

None of that’s happening in this process. People are having great thoughts and getting on planes, and that’s not a recipe for a permanent peace deal.

Europe is champing at the bit to try to get involved in this, because they’ve got professional diplomats still in place, and it affects them.

Why is this happening now?

The timing of all this is really interesting. Winter’s coming, and Northern Europe, particularly Germany, is very dependent on Russian natural gas to heat their homes. These sanctions against Russia make that difficult. They make it more expensive. Should Russia decide it wanted to play hardball, it could cut off its natural gas in Northern Europe, and people in Germany would be freezing in the dark this winter. This timing is not an accident.

Trump said he wanted an agreement by Thanksgiving. Is that a reasonable requirement of a process to bring peace after a multiyear war?

No, it’s not. I don’t know if they even realize this in the
Trump administration, but that’s another sign – just as we had ahead of the Alaska Summit between Putin and Trump – that this isn’t really about trying to make peace. It’s for show and to get credit. In a war that’s been going on now for almost four years, you don’t say, “OK, within the next week, come up with a very complicated peace deal and sign off on it and it’s going to stick.” That’s just not the way it works.

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

– ref. Peace plan presented by the US to Ukraine reflects inexperienced, unrealistic handling of a delicate situation – https://theconversation.com/peace-plan-presented-by-the-us-to-ukraine-reflects-inexperienced-unrealistic-handling-of-a-delicate-situation-270488

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gemma Hamilton, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, RMIT University

While most sexual violence is not reported to police, recent Australian statistics show reports of sexual assault to police are rising.

But deciding to report is just the first step in a potentially long legal journey. A new research report, What No One Told Us, highlights that most victims don’t know what to expect from the legal process.

Victims need clear information about the criminal justice system so that they can be prepared and make informed choices. Here’s how it works.

Reporting to police

There are different ways to report sexual assault to police in Australia. Victims can call or visit a police station. Several states have online form options, where victims can stay anonymous or include details to be contacted by police.

Victims may be referred to a specialist sexual offences team, who have more training in how to investigate sexual crime.

Police responses can vary. Some investigators can be empathetic and supportive. Others can show victim-blaming attitudes that discourage victims from continuing with their reports. This has been described as the “police rape lottery”.

Race can play a role in how victims are treated by police. As Indigenous academic Amy McQuire points out, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims are more likely to be dismissed and ignored.

A victim cannot choose who investigates their case. But they may be able to request a new investigator if they feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

Victims may need to retell their accounts multiple times if investigators go on leave or change roles.

In Australia, there are no time limits for reporting sexual assault to police. Victims can report even if the violence occurred years or decades ago.

The investigation

After a victim has given an initial report, they may be asked to provide a formal statement as evidence. There are different ways to give a statement.

In some states, victims might be asked to participate in a video interview. In other states, police might type up a statement to be signed by victims.

Victims can request an interpreter or an intermediary to help with communication.

They can also have a support person present during a police interview, such as a friend, family member, community elder or psychologist. There are, however, restrictions on who can be a support person if they could also be a witness in the case.

Police may use an interview approach that asks about memories of the event/s. They may ask lots of questions to figure out what type of crime occurred.

Police might try to gather supporting evidence, such as CCTV footage or statements from witnesses. Victims might be asked to complete a forensic medical examination at a hospital to gather physical evidence.

Read more:
I’m a medical forensic examiner. Here’s what people can expect from a health response after a sexual assault

An investigation can take weeks, months or years. It’s important to have strong support while an investigation takes place.

Most cases do not make it past the police investigative stage. Police might not be able to identify an offender. They might decide there is not enough evidence to proceed.

Victims might decide to withdraw their complaint if they find the process distressing.

Police should talk to victims about restorative justice options. These aim to give victims an opportunity to discuss the harm that has been caused, along with steps to address the impacts of the harm.

Cases may progress through the criminal justice process if police decide to charge an offender.

Prosecution

A prosecutor’s job is to look at the evidence police have collected. They will decide if there is enough evidence to take the case to court.

It’s important to remember that a prosecutor is not a victim’s lawyer. A prosecutor represents the state. The victim is treated as a witness in the case.

But prosecutors are expected to treat victims with dignity and respect and keep them informed about their case.

Victim-led organisations have called for the national rollout of independent lawyers for victims. Victim’s lawyers already exist in some states and the Australian Law Reform Commission has recently recommended further funding to support independent legal advisers.

Read more:
Victims of sexual violence often feel they’re the ones on trial. Independent lawyers would help

Court and beyond

The court process can be complicated. In short, a person who is accused of a sexual crime may decide to plead guilty or not guilty. If they plead “not guilty” and a judge is satisfied there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial, then a trial date will be set.

Most states have a service to support victims during the trial.

At trial, a victim will give evidence. This may be via closed-circuit television or in the courtroom.

Victims will be cross-examined by the accused’s lawyer. They will ask questions to test the evidence. This can be confronting, especially when questions are designed to cast doubt on a victim’s account.

A judge will determine what evidence the jury can hear. The jury will decide whether the accused is guilty “beyond reasonable doubt”.

This can be a hard standard to prove in sexual offence cases. Only a small number of cases result in a conviction or proven outcome.

Victims may still be eligible for financial support, compensation or a recognition payment from the state, even if there is not a trial or guilty verdict.

Overall, this information is not intended to dishearten victims, but to equip them. When victims know what to expect, they are better placed to advocate for their rights, access support and make informed decisions about engaging with the criminal justice system.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

The author would like to acknowledge campaigner and researcher Sarah Rosenberg for her support with this article.

Gemma Hamilton receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. You’ve reported sexual assault to police. What happens next? – https://theconversation.com/youve-reported-sexual-assault-to-police-what-happens-next-269941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Harding, Professor of Allied Health and Implementation Science, La Trobe University

ABC analysis shows some patients wait six years or more for outpatient medical appointments in Australia’s public hospital system.

According to the ABC, the delays are longest in parts of South Australia, where some patients waited more than six years to see a neurologist and 5.5 years to see ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists and gastroenterologists.

In parts of Tasmania, waits for ENT specialists, neurologists and urologists were almost five years. Some families needing their child assessed for allergies waited more than five years.

Some patients find their condition deteriorates as they wait. Others live with chronic pain. All live with uncertainty. In our past interviews patients described “becoming more anxious”, and feeling “forgotten” and “alone […] like no one cares”.

Health Minister Mark Butler says the government is working to bolster the medical workforce. But while training more specialist doctors is an important part of a long-term plan, it’s not the only thing needed to reduce outpatient wait times.

Our research spanning more than a decade shows there are ways to reduce waiting lists that can be implemented now.

What’s going wrong?

When a patient needs to see a specialist but doesn’t require hospitalisation, a GP or emergency department can refer them to a public outpatient clinic. In a public outpatient clinic, they can see a specialist or allied health provider – or receive a test or treatment – for free.

Some patients may go on to have elective surgery, but they must first wait for an outpatient appointment.

There are around 41 million public hospital outpatient visits each year. But data isn’t routinely collected on how long patients wait for outpatient appointments, so it’s often referred to as the “hidden waiting list”.

Outpatient services typically manage their demand using a triaged waiting list. Referrals are received, given a triage category based on urgency and placed on a waiting list, to be contacted when a place eventually becomes available.

There are several problems with this approach.

First, it’s difficult to come up with systems to make fair decisions about who should be seen first, which can turn access into a lottery.

Second, triage systems weigh up the needs of patients as they arrive but don’t reassess the priority of those already in the system.

Third, managing long waiting lists diverts resources from patient care, but poorly maintained lists create inefficiencies and are demoralising for health providers, contributing to burnout.

Finally, the unlucky patients at the lowest triage level are constantly overtaken by those entering at higher priority.

First, clean up the list

Our research shows investing in short-term, targeted strategies can reduce outpatient backlogs.

We tackled a waiting list of 600 patients in a neurology outpatient clinic. We found the list was full of errors, patients who no longer wanted or needed the service, and patients who had previously been offered appointments but never attended.

In the end, only 11% of patients still required an appointment.

Then consider supply and demand

These strategies work in the short term but waiting lists will soon grow back if underlying imbalances between supply and demand are not addressed.

We created a new approach to address this issue. It starts with an analysis of supply and demand, followed by protecting sufficient capacity in clinic schedules to see all new patients at the rate they arrive.

These changes are coupled with short-term, targeted strategies to reduce existing waiting lists, enabling services to “catch up” while underlying service changes allow them to “keep up”.

On referral, all patients get rapid access to a first appointment but are then triaged for ongoing care according to need – anything from a brief assessment and advice to intensive ongoing treatment.

Using more of each health workers’ skills

Thinking creatively about models of care can then help to maximise the value of specialised clinicians. Empowering allied health professionals or nurses to see less straightforward cases or conduct preparatory assessments can free up specialists’ time to provide complex assessment and treatment.

Some care can be delivered by different types of health-care providers without compromising quality.

Physiotherapists, for example, have been shown to be very effective at assessing some patients waiting for hip and knee joint replacements and identifying those who might benefit from exercise-based treatment, allowing orthopaedic surgeons to focus on those who require surgery.

Investing in clerical staff can ensure patients have the information they need to get to their appointments at the right time, with the right test results in hand.

Testing this approach

In a trial involving more than 3,000 patients, we tested the model across eight allied health and community services in Victoria. These services provide care from professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists, as well as team-based services such as memory clinics, in the community.

Each participating service received a small grant to support targeted strategies to address the existing backlog, such as waiting lists audits, but no ongoing additional funding. Changes were made by reorganising existing resources, not adding new ones.

This multi-pronged approach reduced waiting time by 34% with minimal extra resources. Median waiting times reduced from 42 to 24 days, with bigger reductions for the longest waiters. This model is now being widely used in Victorian Community Health Services.

We are now testing this way of managing demand in a group of outpatient medical specialist clinics with waiting lists of 13,000 patients to see if it can work at the scale required in specialist clinics at public hospitals.

It’s still early days but initial signs are promising, suggesting that waiting lists can be reduced by better understanding supply and demand, cleaning up long waiting lists, and using more of each health-care workers’ skills.

Read more:
Hospitals are under pressure. These changes could save $1.2 billion a year – and fund 160,000 extra hospital visits

Nicholas Taylor (Professor of Allied Health at La Trobe University and Eastern Health) and Annie Lewis (Post-Doctoral Researcher at La Trobe University and Eastern Health) co-authored the research on which this article is based.

Katherine Harding receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Some patients wait 6 years to see a public hospital specialist. Here’s how to fix this – https://theconversation.com/some-patients-wait-6-years-to-see-a-public-hospital-specialist-heres-how-to-fix-this-270284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andres Molina, Senior Research Fellow, Mitchell Institute/Centre for International Research on Education Systems, Victoria University

Inequality is one of the most urgent challenges facing Australian schools. For decades, governments have invested billions of dollars in schools with the promise every child should have the opportunity to succeed.

But clear divides remain between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
For example, in 2024, the average attendance rate of students in Australia’s most disadvantaged schools was almost 10 percentage points lower than for students in the most advantaged, up from a 6.6 percentage point gap in 2018.

Barriers to learning often begin well before a child enters a classroom.

Poverty, housing insecurity, health issues and limited access to early learning all shape students’ readiness and capacity to engage in education.

“Full-service schools” are increasingly being talked about as a way of overcoming these barriers, including in latest school funding agreement between the federal and state governments.

What are full-service schools? And what can we learn from their implementation internationally? Our new report explains.

Australia’s disadvantage problem

Media and policy debates tend to focus on what is taught in classrooms, the quality of teaching and student behaviour. These are only part of the challenges facing Australia students. Despite more than a decade of reforms – including needs-based funding, curriculum updates and a focus on teacher quality – large and persistent inequities remain.

Australia’s school system is highly segregated compared to other developed countries. This means disadvantaged students tend to go to schools with other disadvantaged students and advantaged students go to schools with other advantaged students. This deepens inequalities.

As the chart below shows, there is a significant learning gap between high- and low-socioeconomic status students. This equates to more than five years by Year 9, according to NAPLAN results.

Socially disadvantaged students are almost three times more likely than their advantaged peers to miss school for long periods. The reasons can include illness, family caring responsibilities and lack of safety at school.

Meanwhile, one in three students from a low-socioeconomic status background skip breakfast before school, compared with one in six from high-socioeconomic status families.

Traditional reforms focused on teaching and curriculum can’t address the out-of-school barriers – poverty, poor health, food insecurity, unstable housing – students face in disadvantaged communities. This is where full-service schools can help.

What are full-service schools?

Full-service schools combine education, health, social and wellbeing supports inside the school. They are designed to help remove barriers that prevent primary and high school students from attending, engaging and learning.

They require a dedicated coordinator, community partnerships and tailored supports. Examples of additional supports include: long day care, dental services, breakfast and lunch programs and mental health and wellbeing services. The services are also accessible to families and the community, but the student remains the central focus.

There are four key principles that set them apart from traditional schools.

1. A focus on the whole child – for example, a school would not just look at a child’s academic progress but also make sure they are getting nutritious food and psychological support.

2. Integrated services – supports are built into everyday schooling, delivered as part of the school’s core program.

3. Tailored supports for each school – to meet the needs of their particular community.

4. Families and the wider community are involved – on what is needed and how it works.

What happens overseas?

California has invested US$4.1 billion (A$6.2 billion) to expand full-service schools in high-poverty communities. Evidence suggests the model works when there is sustained funding, government support, expert coordination and supports are specifically tailored to the needs of their communities.

The state of New York established a network of more than 420 “community schools”, similar to full-service schools. An independent evaluation of 300 community schools trialled between 2014–19 showed strong outcomes, with a drop in chronic absenteeism and suspensions and an increase in graduation rates. Surveys also found a stronger student sense of belonging and better student–adult relationships.

Full-service schools have also been implemented in the United Kingdom since 2003. Assessments have also found an economic return on this type of investment, with £2.2 (A$4.5) return for every £1 (A$2) invested.

Similar models have also been introduced in Canada, New Zealand and Finland.

What is needed now?

Earlier this month, federal Education Minister Jason Clare flagged his support for a pilot program for four new full-service school sites in Western Australia.

If we bring in potentially doctors or nurses or psychologists or occupational therapists or speech pathologists into the one place then we can support the students here with the needs that they have.

Many Australian schools already offer elements of these models but support can be patchy and reliant on local capacity or existing partnerships.

Read more:
Will social workers in schools stop young people committing violent crimes?

What’s needed now is for states and territories to develop a clear, evidence-based framework for full-service schools. Full-service schools will also need significant and sustained funding from governments at both state and federal levels.

If we do this properly, full-service schools can combine all the supports children need to engage, learn and thrive. When those supports are in place, students arrive more ready to learn, teachers can focus on teaching, and families and communities are better connected to their schools.

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

– ref. ‘Full-service schools’ redefine how education works. Here’s why Australia needs them – https://theconversation.com/full-service-schools-redefine-how-education-works-heres-why-australia-needs-them-270283