Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

Lady Godiva – an icon of protest, myth and sensual defiance – has galloped through centuries of our cultural imagination. She is most widely known for the legend of her naked horse ride, in which she supposedly rode through the city of Coventry, England, in nothing but her cascading hair.

According to the popular tale, Godiva pleaded with her husband, Lord Leofric of Mercia, to lift an oppressive tax that threatened to impoverish the people of Coventry.

Leofric issued a provocative challenge: he would only revoke the tax if she rode unclothed through the town. In a gesture of defiance and compassion, she undertook the ride.

The townspeople, in respect, shuttered their windows, except for one man named Tom, who was struck blind. This is where we get the phrase “peeping Tom”. Moved by her courage, Leofric kept his word and abolished the tax – or so the story goes.

While many historians believe this naked ride never actually took place, Godiva, the 11th century noblewoman, was real – as is her enduring influence.

Godiva has been endlessly remixed, from appearances in literature, to art, to music, to comics, and even chocolate.

Although Godiva has historically been objectified, her legacy is ever-evolving. Through parades and processions, political protest, and philanthropic campaigns, fans and activists alike have transformed Godiva into a symbol of resistance.

The lady behind the legend

Countess Godgyfu (meaning “God’s gift” in Old English) was born around 990 CE and died sometime after 1066. She was the only female Anglo-Saxon landowner listed as “tenant-in-chief” in the Domesday book.

According to historian Daniel Donoghue, this implies an exceptionally high noble status and independent authority, suggesting Godiva held her estate by birth, rather than through marriage.

She married Lord Leofric of Mercia, a powerful Saxon military leader. Her Christian piety and philanthropic influence are credited with inspiring the foundation of the monastic site of Coventry’s original cathedral.

Her will included a string of prayer beads – an early reference to the rosary.

Fanning herstory

The legend of the naked horse ride draws from older mythological traditions.

In his book The White Goddess (1948), English writer Robert Graves interprets Godiva as a medieval manifestation of a pagan goddess. Her symbolic nudity and ritualistic ride echo fertility rites and goddess worship.

Like many medieval legends of pagan or folkloric origin, it was transformed into a Christian narrative over time, intertwined with the real history of the philanthropic Countess Godgyfu.

Fandom offers a compelling lens through which to view Godiva, and the ways her story continues to resonate in contemporary culture.

In the 2016 book I’m Buffy and You’re History, author Patricia Pender explores how fandom enables playful and subversive representations of femininity. For instance, Buffy – a female character who nonchalantly slayed vampires, rather than running screaming – subverted expectations. By riding naked, Godiva, too, subverts expectations.

At the same time, feminist scholars have critiqued representations of nude women in culture and the arts as catering to the male gaze, rather than being subversive. Researcher Melisa Yilmaz argues Godiva has been moulded into a passive symbol of erotic spectacle, rather than female empowerment.

Godiva’s image is also commodified globally, most notably by the Godiva chocolatier.

Yet, reinterpretations of her legend through centuries of fandom offer a counter-narrative.

Women who refuse to be shamed

Godiva became very popular in the 19th century. She is featured in a poem by Alfred Tennyson, in pre-Raphaelite paintings, in works by Salvador Dali, and even in a statuette gifted to Prince Albert by Queen Victoria.

She gained renewed popularity through women writers, activists and suffragists. For instance, in the 1870s, British political activist Harriet Martineau told women who feared exposure and condemnation for taking up controversial causes to “think of the Lady Godiva”.

Once such cause at the time was the campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act. This act, which applied only to women, meant police could arrest women assumed to be prostitutes and have them medically examined.

Similarly, social reformist Josephine Butler entitled her 1888 political play The New Godiva. In it, she wrote about the need for a female campaigner to

compare her[self] to Godiva, stripping herself bare of the very vesture of her soul […] exposing herself to something worse than physical torture.

Radical reclamation

Lady Godiva is widely referenced in film and TV. She was the subject of the historical 1955 film Lady Godiva of Coventry, starring Hollywood starlet Maureen O’Hara, and has appeared as a character in shows such as Charmed (1998–2006) and Fantasy Island (1977–84).

Contemporary women authors have also offered up various twists of Godiva’s tale.
In Judith Halberstam’s young adult novel Blue Sky Freedom (1990), for example, Godiva is the name given to an anti-apartheid resistance leader.

In the DC Comics, the character Godiva is a beautiful woman with powerful hair she can control to her advantage.

She shows up in music, too. The cover of Beyonce’s 2022 album, Renaissance, shows the singer astride a holographic horse in a seemingly Godiva-inspired pose – boldly facing the camera.

In Queen’s song Don’t Stop Me Now, Lady Godiva is likened to a racing car:

I’m a racing car, passing by like Lady Godiva
I’m gonna go, go, go, there’s no stopping me.

Coventry city has had an official Lady Godiva, Pru Porretta, for more than three decades. Porretta’s role involves a range of community and philanthropic work.

Godiva’s legacy in Coventry continues through archaeological sites such as the Coventry Cathedral, guided Godiva-themed walks, and public celebrations including the annual three-day Godiva Festival.

Elizabeth Reid Boyd 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. From a naked rider to icon of resistance, the legend of Lady Godiva lives on – https://theconversation.com/from-a-naked-rider-to-icon-of-resistance-the-legend-of-lady-godiva-lives-on-264347

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Hurley, Lecturer in Criminology (police & policing). School of International Studies, Macquarie University

Dezi Freeman has been on the run for four weeks, and police have been very careful to keep secret where and how they have been searching for him.

This is standard policing practice in any criminal investigation.

A conclusion from this lack of information is the police are not making any headway into finding him. This is not necessarily so.

However, as time progresses, police will have to weigh up changes of tactics and at some point may have to consider scaling back or even giving up.

Outlaws in modern Australian history

The word “outlaw” has its origin in old England, when someone committed a crime and was banished to the countryside by the King or Queen. Once they left the protection of the castle they were then outside the protection of the law of the land.

Outlaw now has a different meaning. It’s a person who is a habitual criminal or wanted by police for a serious crime. They are also called a fugitive.

Australia has only had four significant outlaws or fugitives in the past 40 years:

• John Bobak, who police believe was responsible for a double murder on the Gold Coast in 1991. He has been on the run since then
• Brenden Abbott, nicknamed the “postcard bandit”, escaped from Fremantle Prison in 1989. He evaded police for six years until he was captured in 1995
• New South Wales prison escapee Darko Desic evaded police for 30 years, living in sand dunes in Sydney’s Northern Beaches until he voluntarily handed himself into Dee Why Police in 2022
• Malcolm Naden hid and lived in rugged bushland around Gloucester and Scone for seven years after murdering two girls in 2005. NSW Police established Strike Force Durkin and heavily armed tactical operations police eventually found and arrested him in 2012.

Freeman allegedly shot and killed Detective Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart at Porepunkah in country Victoria on August 26.

Given the remarkable similarities to Naden’s investigation and eventual arrest, it begs the question: how long can Freeman evade police for? Both men were skilled in bush craft and knew their respective areas well.

Read more:
Treacherous terrain: the search for alleged police killer Dezi Freeman

Australia’s largest manhunt

The hunt for Freeman is already the largest tactical police operation in Australian history.

Victoria Police have already called on support from state and territory police forces, as well as the Australian Federal Police and army.

New Zealand specialists have also flown over to assist in the hunt after successfully tracking down fugitive Tom Phillips who lived off the land for five years before he was shot by police.

As the search continues, Victorian police will at some point consider “where to from here”?

Given the rarity of similar fugitives hunts in Australia, that decision will be a complex and difficult one. Police will be loathe to put a time frame on “how long”.

However, police will constantly reflect on their tactics and searching methods from the air and on foot. They will have been using police dogs and possibly advanced military equipment (normally reserved for use in the battlefield) supplied by the Australian Defence Force.

Police will want to ensure they’ve exhausted all possible hiding places and escape routes.

Only once they are satisfied with the degree of their thoroughness, along with analysing all the accompanying information from public appeals, will police consider when and how to downgrade the search.

What happens if police can’t find him?

Police will be drawing on experience from the Naden hunt as a yardstick to determine when the search might need to be downgraded, as this is the only similar manhunt.

The immediate search may last up to six months with more favourable weather, but the criminal investigation will remain open and active until Freeman is found – even if it takes years.

Police will be mindful of a host of factors in making a decision to call off the hunt.

Before making any decision, they will consult with the victims’ families, explaining the reasons.

I was a police officer for nearly three decades and was involved with former police and their families who suffered the pain and trauma of an officer’s death.

In the Freeman case, any decision to change tactics will be thoroughly explained to the victims’ families.

While this will not make the process of accepting a possible decision easier, the families will likely understand the reasons more than others in the community.

As the victims were police, their families will understand the operational practicalities of a protracted search and the resources that have been dedicated to it.

There are limits to the number of times an area can be searched and searched again before police are satisfied its been completed.

There are also limits to the use of aerial support and the number of police dogs used before they are all fatigued. All these resources have limitations.

Public perception will be another issue police will consider.

If the manhunt is downgraded, police will be mindful of the message it sends to the community.

Vincent Hurley 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. The timelines and tough decisions police will be weighing up in the Dezi Freeman hunt – https://theconversation.com/the-timelines-and-tough-decisions-police-will-be-weighing-up-in-the-dezi-freeman-hunt-265382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Johnson, Lecturer, College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University

In the past few weeks, the United States military has been involved in multiple fatal strikes on boats in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.

The first airstrike was on September 5 and killed 11 people. The second occurred this week, killing three people. No efforts were made to apprehend the vessels or identify the people before the strikes.

President Donald Trump has claimed the boats and the people on them were trafficking illegal drugs bound for the US, dubbing them “narcoterrorists”.

The White House has provided little detail about the attacks in general, and no evidence the boats were trafficking drugs. It’s possible they weren’t.

Here’s what’s going on in the region and what might happen next.

Why is this happening now?

During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to crack down on immigration from Latin America.

He often drew a connection between crime and immigration, especially from Haiti and Venezuela (though some of the cases of gang crime he cited have since been questioned or debunked).

Once in office, Trump declared a number of gangs as terrorist organisations, including one Venezuelan group, Tren de Aragua.

The Trump government has claimed that Venezuelans deported from the US were members of Tren de Aragua, often without much substantial evidence.

Trump has also entertained the idea of using the US military to target criminal groups.

This is now reality, through a large military buildup deploying multiple warships, submarines and fighter jets to the Caribbean.

A tumultuous history

This is the latest chapter in a long and sometimes hostile relationship between Venezuela and the US.

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, affording the country political and economic influence within the region. This has made Venezuela a valued ally, and sometimes a competitor, to the United States.

But for the past two decades or so, relations have been more antagonistic.

When left-wing populist President Hugo Chavez was in power in Venezuela in 2002, the US was accused of giving tacit approval to a coup attempt against him.

America has also imposed economic sanctions against the country since 2005. These particularly ramped up under Trump’s first administration against Chavez’s successor and current president, Nicolas Maduro.

While less popular than his predecessor, Maduro remains extremely powerful. US attempts to destabilise his government, including one in 2019, have been unsuccessful.

Although many in Venezuela would welcome a change of government, any US intervention in the region is likely to be immensely unpopular. It provides a nationalist rallying point for Maduro: a way to boost his local support.

What do we know about the gang?

Trump claims both boats were operated by the Tren de Aragua gang.

The group started in Venezuelan prisons before spreading across other Latin American countries, primarily through people fleeing Maduro’s authoritarian regime.

Estimates of the size of the gang are contested and hard to measure, but best guesses put it at around 5,000 members.

Tren de Aragua members have been identified in 16 US states, but there has been little conclusive evidence of large-scale criminal or terrorist activity. In New York, Tren de Aragua has primarily been associated with retail theft.

Why is the US bombing boats?

Destroying individual boats is unlikely to have an impact on drug trafficking into the US. Most fentanyl, for example, is trafficked into the US over land borders by US citizens.

However, bombing the boats does reinforce the idea of an existential threat to the United States that can only be defeated with violence. The same sense of threat is used to justify the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelans to brutal prisons in El Salvador.

The Venezuelan government is of less concern to Trump. Indeed, the White House has authorised increased imports of Venezuelan oil in recent weeks.

Others within the US government are more committed to regime change in Venezuela. For Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the military operations are a direct effort to destabilise what he sees as an illegitimate Venezuelan regime.

Is it legal?

These airstrikes are the first unilateral US military action in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in 1989.

However, the military operations fit within a much longer history of overt and covert intervention in the region.

Scholars have said the decision to attack the boats was likely illegal under the law of the sea.

The US government justifies the attack in the broadest terms: Venezuelan gangs traffic drugs that can kill American citizens, therefore any violence is warranted to prevent this. This is an argument not about legality, but urgent security.

Impunity is the larger point, a display of power in itself. After the first strike, Vice President JD Vance declared “I don’t give a shit what you call it”.

Trump and Rubio have both asserted the strikes will continue, without concern for the possibility that they could be considered war crimes.

Without a clear prospect of legal jeopardy, the strikes will remain available as a way to project US power. The strikes will likely stop, or pause, when the government wants to claim that it has achieved some victory.

Philip Johnson 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. US strikes on Venezuelan ‘drug boats’ have killed 14 people. What is Trump trying to do? – https://theconversation.com/us-strikes-on-venezuelan-drug-boats-have-killed-14-people-what-is-trump-trying-to-do-265481

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debjani Ganguly, Professor of Literature, Australian Catholic University

“She was my shelter and my storm.” With these words in the opening pages of her memoir, Arundhati Roy unfurls a narrative of extraordinary filial bonds that renders trite those therapeutic memoirs of family dysfunction scattered across the publishing world.

Even Philip Larkin’s memorable poem beginning with, “They f..k you up, your mum and dad,” does not come close, though Roy’s anger is recognisable in these lines with which Larkin’s poem ends: “Get out as early as you can / And don’t have any kids yourself.”

Review: Mother Mary Comes to Me – Arundhati Roy (Penguin Random House)

Roy walked away from her abusive maternal home in Kerala at the age of 17. While training as an architect in Delhi she did not see her mother for the next seven years. She also never had children. When her lover’s young daughters ask her if she is their new mother, she quickly disavows her role and requests they call her “Noonie,” a word from a folk song in Massey Sahib, the film in which Roy acted in her early twenties.

Roy’s memoir is a powerful rendition of her mother, Mary Roy, who terrifies her children and compels them to find their place in the world bereft of the push and pull of natal intimacy. Yet when Mary dies, Roy feels orphaned at the loss of her novelistic subject, that “unpredictable, irreplaceable spark of mad genius”.

Mary remains a formal “Mrs Roy” to her daughter except when she is terminally ill. Arundhati Roy calls her “Kochamma” then. Little Mother.

The work captures in its early pages the terror of living with a formidable parent who rages against motherhood, and who makes it very clear Arundhati was an unwanted second child, the one who barely escaped being aborted by a wire hanger.

But Mrs Roy, the divorcee with an alcoholic ex, and a single mother shunned even by her own family, was also a pioneering educator and feminist icon. Mary Roy established an experimental coeducational school in Kottayam in the southern Indian state of Kerala at a time when such women-led enterprises were unheard of. Her life revolved around the school and her office was her home.

Arundhati and her brother Lalith lived in the dorms with other pupils. Mrs Roy, who suffered from debilitating asthma attacks, revelled in the veneration of her pupils and devoted staff even as she showed no mercy when they erred or failed to meet her needs.

A few comic scenes in the memoir revolve around these acolytes. One is described as a “frightened minion carrying her asthma inhaler as though it were a crown or a sceptre”.

As a child, Arundhati was so afraid she would be held responsible for Mrs Roy’s death if she suffered a fatal asthma attack she found herself breathing for her mother, becoming a “valiant organ-child”.

School and home merged in the early years of the children’s upbringing. They had no sanctuary against hard discipline and no privacy in which to cry in shame. For Arundhati, living with Mrs Roy was like picking her way through a

minefield without a map. My feet and fingers and sometimes even my head were often blown off, but after floating around untethered for a while, they would magically reattach themselves.

Before their life within the confines of the school, the children had roamed wild in their ancestral village of Ayemenem, memories of which Roy celebrates vividly in her Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things.

Blowing up the gilded cage

The memoir alternates between vignettes of Mrs Roy’s excruciating cruelty towards Arundhati and her brother, and her astonishing courage in challenging the norms of the patriarchal Syrian Christian community that chewed her up and threw her out like roughage.

Mary Roy’s own childhood in an abusive home where her entomologist father beat her and her mother – routinely throwing them out of the house in the dark of the night – sharpened her determination to take on the entire legal establishment decades later. She challenged the Travancore Christian Succession Act of 1916 that denied daughters from the Syrian Christian community their rightful share of inheritances.

In 1986 she won a landmark case in the Supreme Court of India that gave Mary and countless other women in Kerala their inheritance rights. Mary’s brother and her widowed mother, who had once threatened to evict her from their family cottage when she was a young, single mother, experienced Mrs Roy’s delayed wrath when they were forced into penury by her action.

The memoir also cuts a swathe through the Arundhati Roy’s dual authorial self: screenplay writer and renowned novelist and activist-writer of narrative non-fiction. We get a fascinating backstage tour of her evolution as a writer, a lover, a friend, and a political conscience-keeper on the global stage – currently the bête noire of India’s right-wing government.

Roy famously shunned her bird-in-a-golden-cage celebrity status after The God of Small Things won the Booker in 1997. At the turn of the millennium, she observed with dread the rise of the Hindu Right in her beloved country, especially the euphoria around India’s creation of the nuclear bomb in 1998. In 2001 she published her soul-stirring essay on 9/11, The Algebra of Infinite Justice.

What followed was an intimate and often precarious engagement with some of the iconic grassroots movements in contemporary India: the Narmada Bachao Andolan movement (Save the Narmada River), which opposed the building of a huge dam that would inundate the Narmada valley and destroy the habitation of millions across four Indian states and the Maoist Naxalites in India’s heartland, who engaged in guerrilla warfare to protect tribal lands from vast mining conglomerates.

In 2024, due to her advocacy on behalf of the Kashmiri people caught in the crossfire between India and Pakistan, the Modi government threatened to prosecute Roy under a draconian law reserved for anti-national activities.

Read more:
The prosecution of Arundhati Roy is business as usual for the Modi government – and bad news for freedom of expression in India

We begin to understand Roy’s intrepid embrace of danger, her shunning of domestic security and career comforts when she, at her most disarming, reveals to the reader that she cannot seem to help it.

With a childhood that felt like living on the edge of a ledge from which a fall was inevitable at any moment, she has grown accustomed to precarity. For years after The God of Small Things, she writes,

I wandered through forests and river valleys, villages and border towns, to try to better understand my country. As I travelled, I wrote. That was the beginning of my restless, unruly life as a seditious, traitor-writer. Free woman. Free Writing. Like Mother Mary taught me. I hadn’t just avoided the gilded age. I had blown it to smithereens.

Mary Roy’s volatility also helped incubate Arundhati’s novelistic self, a self that could stand apart and assess the turbulence around her. Towards the end of her memoir, she confesses that while she could never quite anticipate her mother’s changeable moods, she had learned “to stand outside the range of their clawing, lashing fury”.

‘Read this as you would a novel’

Some of the most compelling passages in the memoir are about Arundhati Roy’s quest for what she calls her prey, a grazing language-animal she struggled to find for ages.

Language, she claims, was rarely her friend, rarely amenable to taming. When she arrives at the realisation that she is ready to devote herself to The God of Small Things, she writes, “I knew then that I had hunted down my language-animal. I had disembowelled it and drunk its inky blood.”

Her language-animal has surrendered yet again to the power of her claw-pen. In Mother Mary Comes to Me, Roy’s novelistic self appears in full command as she steers the flow of rage, outrage, wonder, sorrow and joy with just the right touch, and at just the right moment, each time it threatens to overwhelm the narrative.

In her wry, inimitable style she writes,

most of us are a living, breathing soup of memory and imagination [..] so read this book as you would a novel. It makes no larger claim.

Not surprisingly, the magical alchemy of The God of Small Things reemerges at startling moments in this work. Unforgettable characters, images, turn of phrase, and the coruscating rhythm of the prose, remind us why Roy remains an indubitable literary force almost three decades after her blockbuster first novel.

Debjani Ganguly has received funding from the ARC and the Mellon and Chiang Ching Kuo Foundations.

– ref. Magical alchemy: Arundhati Roy’s compelling memoir illuminates a ‘restless, unruly’ life – https://theconversation.com/magical-alchemy-arundhati-roys-compelling-memoir-illuminates-a-restless-unruly-life-262506

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ang Li, ARC DECRA and Senior Research Fellow, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

This year, ten days of extreme heat in Europe killed roughly 2,300 people, severe flooding on the New South Wales coast left more than 48,000 stranded, and wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed at least 16,000 homes and other buildings.

Events such as these signal what climate scientists have long warned: climate-related extremes are becoming more frequent and intense.

Poor housing can leave us more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. So in today’s warming world, it’s increasingly important our homes and our housing system are climate resilient. This means they must protect us from heatwaves, floods and bushfires, and keep out air pollutants. And the housing system must function to provide affordable and secure housing.

Location is important too. Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment, released this week, estimates 8.7% of residential buildings are in very high-risk areas (prone to hazards). This proportion is projected to increase to 13.5% by 2090 in a scenario with a high global warming level.

Housing and health are inextricably linked. In a new paper published in the Lancet Public Health, my colleagues and I identify several ways climate change affects our homes, and in turn, our health.

On a basic level, housing shields us from the elements. But when we look at the bigger picture, resilient housing and housing systems have a key role to play in helping us face the challenges of climate change.

How does climate change affect our homes and our health?

Climate change can lead to deterioration in the indoor conditions in our homes.

For example, extreme temperatures can compromise air quality by making building materials more likely to degrade and generate pollutants. Particulate matter and other hazardous air pollutants from bushfire smoke can infiltrate indoor environments. Both of these processes can contribute to poor indoor air quality. This is not to mention that extreme heat outside can lead to unbearable temperatures indoors.

Meanwhile, floods, storms and cyclones can cause structural and water damage to homes. This can expose occupants to toxins, for example from contaminated water, and increase the risk of allergic reactions, respiratory problems, and infectious diseases (such as water-borne and mosquito-borne diseases).

Read more:
Eradicating mould would save millions in health-care costs: how our homes affect our health

Climate change and housing security

The risks associated with climate change can also influence housing security and affordability.

Both housing insecurity and unaffordability are significant predictors of poor mental health and wellbeing, and both are already significant problems independent of climate change.

But a changing climate exacerbates these problems. Equally, the housing crisis leaves us more vulnerable to climate change.

Climate-related disasters put a strain on housing costs and general cost-of-living pressures. Residents may need to pay for maintenance and repairs alongside their mortgages and rental payments. Meanwhile, increasing extreme weather events push insurance premiums higher. All this puts pressure on housing affordability.

Extreme temperatures also increase the risk of energy poverty. Not being able to adequately heat or cool a home can negatively affect both physical and mental health for its occupants.

What’s more, climate-related disasters can drive forced relocation, with flow-on effects to health and wellbeing through disruption to family life, loss of income, gender-based violence, social disconnection, and reduced access to services.

Notably, the effects of climate change reduce the supply of affordable housing, especially affordable rentals, which are more likely to be damaged or lost from hazards, for example due to lower structural quality. Lower-income renters as a result find it harder to compete for the remaining stock.

There are also other examples showing the effects of climate change on housing are inequitable, with the consequences flowing disproportionately to less advantaged groups.

When areas with low climate risk become more desirable, this can drive up housing and other costs in an area. Climate “gentrification” can displace low-income households to higher risk and less protected areas. We’ve seen this happen in countries including the United States and Denmark.

What does climate-resilient housing look like?

Housing needs to protect people from the growing risks posed by climate change. In a physical sense, this means it must be robust enough to bear more intense weather conditions, be energy efficient, and have good thermal performance that allows for both ventilation and climate control.

To achieve this, climate-resilient housing should include features such as:

• well-constructed foundations, walls and roofs
• ventilation and insulation
• energy-efficient cooling and heating
• exterior shading and roof reflectivity
• building materials that are fire- and heat-resistant.

Building codes need to be cognisant of the changing climate, while existing housing may need to be upgraded.

We’ve seen some signs of progress. For example, updates to the National Construction Code in recent years have accounted for the increasing impact of climate change, by raising energy efficiency and thermal performance standards, among other measures.

There is also a need for stronger tenant protection policies. Rental housing is disproportionately of poor quality, yet it houses a large portion of the more vulnerable people in the population. Minimum standards for rental housing must be climate resilient.

But housing people well isn’t just a question of the physical construction of homes.

Climate-resilient housing should be affordable, secure and provide residents the chance to access opportunities for work, education and social connection that sustain wellbeing.

So much public discussion has focused on the need to meet housing supply targets, but we can’t forget that people need to be housed well to flourish.

This article is part of a series, Healthy Homes.

Ang Li receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Heat, air quality, insurance costs: how climate change is affecting our homes – and our health – https://theconversation.com/heat-air-quality-insurance-costs-how-climate-change-is-affecting-our-homes-and-our-health-263278

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

After the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump claimed that radical leftist groups foment political violence in the U.S., and “they should be put in jail.”

“The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, asserting that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.

Top presidential adviser Stephen Miller also weighed in after Kirk’s killing, saying that left-wing political organizations constitute “a vast domestic terror movement.”

“We are going to use every resource we have … throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” Miller said.

But policymakers and the public need reliable evidence and actual data to understand the reality of politically motivated violence. From our research on extremism, it’s clear that the president’s and Miller’s assertions about political violence from the left are not based on actual facts.

Based on our own research and a review of related work, we can confidently say that most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.

Political violence rising

The understanding of political violence is complicated by differences in definitions and the recent Department of Justice removal of an important government-sponsored study of domestic terrorists.

Political violence in the U.S. has risen in recent months and takes forms that go unrecognized. During the 2024 election cycle, nearly half of all states reported threats against election workers, including social media death threats, intimidation and doxing.

Kirk’s assassination illustrates the growing threat. The man charged with the murder, Tyler Robinson, allegedly planned the attack in writing and online.

This follows other politically motivated killings, including the June assassination of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. and former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.

These incidents reflect a normalization of political violence. Threats and violence are increasingly treated as acceptable for achieving political goals, posing serious risks to democracy and society.

Defining ‘political violence’

This article relies on some of our research on extremism, other academic research, federal reports, academic datasets and other monitoring to assess what is known about political violence.

Support for political violence in the U.S. is spreading from extremist fringes into the mainstream, making violent actions seem normal. Threats can move from online rhetoric to actual violence, posing serious risks to democratic practices.

But different agencies and researchers use different definitions of political violence, making comparisons difficult.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security define domestic violent extremism as threats involving actual violence. They do not investigate people in the U.S. for constitutionally protected speech, activism or ideological beliefs.

Domestic violent extremism is defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as violence or credible threats of violence intended to influence government policy or intimidate civilians for political or ideological purposes. This general framing, which includes diverse activities under a single category, guides investigations and prosecutions.

Datasets compiled by academic researchers use narrower and more operational definitions. The Global Terrorism Database counts incidents that involve intentional violence with political, social or religious motivation.

These differences mean that the same incident may or may not appear in a dataset, depending on the rules applied.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security emphasize that these distinctions are not merely academic. Labeling an event “terrorism” rather than a “hate crime” can change who is responsible for investigating an incident and how many resources they have to investigate it.

For example, a politically motivated shooting might be coded as terrorism in federal reporting, cataloged as political violence by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, and prosecuted as homicide or a hate crime at the state level.

Patterns in incidents and fatalities

Despite differences in definitions, several consistent patterns emerge from available evidence.

Politically motivated violence is a small fraction of total violent crime, but its impact is magnified by symbolic targets, timing and media coverage.

In the first half of 2025, 35% of violent events tracked by University of Maryland researchers targeted U.S. government personnel or facilities – more than twice the rate in 2024.

Right-wing extremist violence has been deadlier than left-wing violence in recent years.

Based on government and independent analyses, right-wing extremist violence has been responsible for the overwhelming majority of fatalities, amounting to approximately 75% to 80% of U.S. domestic terrorism deaths since 2001.

Illustrative cases include the 2015 Charleston church shooting, when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black parishioners; the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, where 11 worshippers were murdered; the 2019 El Paso Walmart massacre, in which an anti-immigrant gunman killed 23 people. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, an earlier but still notable example, killed 168 in the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history.

By contrast, left-wing extremist incidents, including those tied to anarchist or environmental movements, have made up about 10& to 15% of incidents and less than 5% of fatalities.

Examples include the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front arson and vandalism campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s, which were more likely to target property rather than people.

Violence occurred during Seattle May Day protests in 2016, with anarchist groups and other demonstrators clashing with police. The clashes resulted in multiple injuries and arrests. In 2016, five Dallas police officers were murdered by a heavily armed sniper who was targeting white police officers.

Hard to count

There’s another reason it’s hard to account for and characterize certain kinds of political violence and those who perpetrate it.

The U.S. focuses on prosecuting criminal acts rather than formally designating organizations as terrorist, relying on existing statutes such as conspiracy, weapons violations, RICO provisions and hate crime laws to pursue individuals for specific acts of violence.

Unlike foreign terrorism, the federal government does not have a mechanism to formally charge an individual with domestic terrorism. That makes it difficult to characterize someone as a domestic terrorist.

The State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list applies only to groups outside of the United States. By contrast, U.S. law bars the government from labeling domestic political organizations as terrorist entities because of First Amendment free speech protections.

Rhetoric is not evidence

Without harmonized reporting and uniform definitions, the data will not provide an accurate overview of political violence in the U.S.

But we can make some important conclusions.

Politically motivated violence in the U.S. is rare compared with overall violent crime. Political violence has a disproportionate impact because even rare incidents can amplify fear, influence policy and deepen societal polarization.

Right-wing extremist violence has been more frequent and more lethal than left-wing violence. The number of extremist groups is substantial and skewed toward the right, although a count of organizations does not necessarily reflect incidents of violence.

High-profile political violence often brings heightened rhetoric and pressure for sweeping responses. Yet the empirical record shows that political violence remains concentrated within specific movements and networks rather than spread evenly across the ideological spectrum. Distinguishing between rhetoric and evidence is essential for democracy.

Trump and members of his administration are threatening to target whole organizations and movements and the people who work in them with aggressive legal measures – to jail them or scrutinize their favorable tax status. But research shows that the majority of political violence comes from people following right-wing ideologies.

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

– ref. Right-wing extremist violence is more frequent and more deadly than left-wing violence − what the data shows – https://theconversation.com/right-wing-extremist-violence-is-more-frequent-and-more-deadly-than-left-wing-violence-what-the-data-shows-265367

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate in Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

If you could, would you pay to live forever? Some Silicon Valley billionaires aren’t just making tech products – they’ve set their sights on immortality.

Social media is flooded with influencers promoting peptides, “functional” mushroom powders and other (often non-evidence-based) hacks said to maximise your lifespan. Some even claim to reverse your “biological age”.

The quest to live longer, look younger or just live one’s “best life” has become a booming industry, encompassing treatments as diverse as ice baths, saunas, cryotherapy chambers and even red light therapy.

But behind much of the marketing and social media posts are commercial interests willing to cater to a population fearful of ageing and dying.

Nobody lives forever

The key reason humans aren’t immortal hinges on evolution. This process favours genetic traits promoting successful reproduction and adaptation over those promoting unlimited lifespan for individuals.

The ancient Greeks told cautionary tales about life extension. Those who reached for immortality mostly found this came at a terrible cost. The mythical Tithonus, for example, was doomed to endless ageing and decline after being granted eternal life without eternal youth.

Fast forward to today, the longevity industry has the backing of venture capital funds, celebrity investors and pharmaceutical companies.

But much of this money is being funnelled into products and services with little or no evidence for how they actually improve health or lengthen lifespan.

In his well-publicised quest for life extension, US venture capitalist Bryan Johnson reportedly spends millions and undergoes constant medical testing with the impossible aim of never dying.

Johnson’s longevity regimen includes a hyper-controlled diet, hundreds of daily supplements and strict sleep and exercise routines. He has even received transfusions of his own son’s blood plasma.

We see three major problems with the longevity industry that are a cause for concern.

Profit before evidence

Innovation is central to the longevity industry, attracting an influx of Silicon Valley investors seeking to “hack” the ageing process. Yet, these innovations are infrequently backed by high-quality evidence.

For example, full-body MRI is marketed as a way to identify cancer and other abnormalities early before they are harder to treat. Yet, there is no evidence these scans improve health outcomes. Medical colleges around the world do not recommend full-body MRI in healthy individuals.

Tests like these can lead to “incidentalomas” – unexpected findings that may prompt unnecessary follow-up procedures, costs and anxiety.

The longevity industry pitches itself as a disruptive alternative to mainstream health care. But it still depends on that system to function. Scans, blood tests and experimental treatments inevitably flow back into hospitals and clinics for follow-up, specialist consultations and interventions.

This puts added strain on already stretched services – both financially and in terms of workforce – while arguably delivering little benefit to population health.

Test and you shall find

Despite widespread public enthusiasm for screening tests, experts have long warned more testing does not always lead to better health.

One of the clearest risks is overdiagnosis – when an abnormality or disease is diagnosed that will never impact a person’s health during their lifetime. The more you test, the more you’ll find – much of it clinically irrelevant. This creates a self-affirming cycle.

Unnecessary investigations can result in overdiagnosis, incidental findings and potentially cascades of further unnecessary procedures or tests.

Read more:
We analysed almost 1,000 social media posts about 5 popular medical tests. Most were utterly misleading

Longevity isn’t the same as prevention

Marketers of longevity claim their services and products are part of “preventive” medicine: spotting disease before it strikes and keeping people healthier for longer.

But the longevity movement differs drastically from the public health principle of prevention.

Prevention, in mainstream medicine, is about simple, evidence-based measures. This includes immunisations and screening for cancer at the right ages.

But there’s no clear evidence many of the exhaustive tests and treatments the longevity industry promotes improve long-term outcomes for otherwise healthy people.

They simply cost a lot of money, are resource intensive and may lead to further unnecessary testing.

Why this matters

By medicalising ageing, the longevity movement is a classic example of disease mongering. It also risks embedding ageism into everyday commerce – pathologising normal ageing rather than accepting it as part of life.

It also risks diverting attention and resources away from important and basic public health system functions that can improve quality of life for millions as we all gracefully age.

The hype around many unfounded longevity claims distracts us from what we already know works: regular exercise, healthy food, sound sleep, meaningful relationships and fair access to evidence-based medical treatment.

Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Brooke Nickel receives fellowship funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She is on the Executive Committee for Wiser Healthcare and the Scientific Committee of the Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference.

Sean Docking 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. A booming longevity industry wants to sell us ‘immortality’. There could be hidden costs – https://theconversation.com/a-booming-longevity-industry-wants-to-sell-us-immortality-there-could-be-hidden-costs-264879

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Rudge, Lecturer in Law, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney

Cosmetic injectables are more popular and socially accepted than ever. In 2024, the Australian market was estimated to be worth US$3.1 billion (A$4.6 billion) and growing fast.

But these aren’t simple beauty treatments. They use serious prescription medicines such as botulinum toxin (Botox) – the most potent neurotoxin ever discovered – and can cause severe complications including botulism, tissue death and hair loss.

New national guidelines for practitioners and advertising came into effect this month to improve safety.

Yet a confusing patchwork of state laws still governs how these “poisons” are prescribed, administered and supplied across the country. Is it time they were made consistent nationally?

A long push

Scholars have long made the case for uniform legislation in this area.

Some 25 years ago, a national review found variation in state poisons laws created “a major cost for industry and, in turn for consumers”.

More recently, the Queensland Minister for Health has advocated for uniform injectables laws across Australia.

This fragmentation might also conflict with Australia’s National Medicines Policy, which states patients should have uniform access to medicines across all jurisdictions.

What do the laws actually say?

In New South Wales, prescriptions for cosmetic injectables are valid for just six months. But in Victoria, Queensland and other states, they last 12 months.

This means patients can legally receive the treatment for twice as long based on a single consultation.

The laws also govern who can buy and keep injectables. Queensland uniquely allows nurses to purchase and hold stocks of Botox, but only under strict conditions requiring special authority from Queensland Health. Nurses can’t buy Botox in other states.

Most other states, such as Victoria and South Australia, follow a traditional doctor-prescribe, nurse-administer model under general prescription drug laws, without the special cosmetic injectable regulations found in Queensland or NSW.

Victoria requires doctors to take “all reasonable steps to ensure a therapeutic need exists” before prescribing cosmetic injectables. In Queensland, treatments must be “reasonably necessary for therapeutic treatment”.

This may create ambiguity for some cosmetic uses that may not qualify as “therapeutic”. These could be considered “off-label” uses (those not approved by the regulator), such as facial asymmetry correction.

But other jurisdictions have no such explicit “therapeutic need” provisions in their legislation.

Why do the laws differ?

Inconsistent state laws in health are the norm in Australia.

When the Constitution was framed in 1901, the federal government wasn’t given a specific power to make laws about health care.

Instead, states retained that authority as an “undefined residue” from their colonial days.

Today, the federal Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) classifies substances like Botox as prescription-only through the Poisons Standard. It’s a system dating back to an 1862 “poisons book”.

But due to the states’ authority, this federal classification only becomes law once the states adopt it. While all states have adopted the federal standard, they have also added their own rules.

Significant differences between jurisdictions can create uncertainty, confusion and put both patients and practitioners at risk.

Is uniformity the answer?

While uniform laws sound appealing, the real problems might lie elsewhere.

Media investigations have revealed an alleged “black market” for prescription medicines.

There are reports of some telehealth consultations being dangerously short, lasting under a minute.

Crucially, both practices already violate existing professional standards. The regulator, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), promotes obligations for “good and safe clinical care”. It says it receives regular reports of “inappropriate consultations”.

State laws also prohibit unauthorised supply. NSW’s Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act prohibits direct-to-consumer supply without authorisation.

Victoria’s and Queensland’s laws contain similar prohibitions.

The issue isn’t missing rules. It’s failure to enforce existing professional standards.

One exception involves unregistered people administering injectables at parties, as occurred in New South Wales this year, causing life-threatening botulism.

But even here, the solution isn’t necessarily harmonising state laws.

Poisons legislation already makes unauthorised administration illegal. This is the case for NSW, Victoria, and Queensland, and in other states.

And as some practitioners warn, making legitimate channels harder to access may only drive more people underground.

A better path forward

Rather than harmonising state laws – a constitutionally difficult task – Australia has chosen a different approach: strengthened professional standards.

The new practitioner guidelines directly tackle the telehealth “rubber-stamping” problem by requiring doctors to conduct real-time consultations with detailed informed consent for every patient.

Read more:
New rules for cosmetic injectables aim to make the industry safer. Will they work?

Combined with the TGA’s stricter approach to the ban on cosmetics advertising, adopted in March 2024, and advertising restrictions from the regulator, this creates uniform conduct expectations across Australia, even with different state laws.

Even with perfectly harmonised laws, enforcement would still depend on different state regulators with varying resources and priorities.

By contrast, there is already a high level of consistency in the way AHPRA and the national boards address complaints.

The Health Practitioner National Law already provides largely consistent standards nationwide, including on how guidelines can be used to discipline practitioners.

Recommendations from an independent review of health practitioner regulations released just this week also call for more national coordination across the country.

So while the cosmetic injectable industry needs better regulation, uniform state poisons legislation may not be the priority in this instance.

Christopher Rudge 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. Thinking of getting botox or filler? These are the laws for cosmetic injectables – https://theconversation.com/thinking-of-getting-botox-or-filler-these-are-the-laws-for-cosmetic-injectables-265196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Cooney, Lecturer in Lifestyle Journalism, Monash University

When Robert Redford launched the Utah-based Sundance Institute in 1981, providing an independent support system for filmmakers named after his role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), it would transform Hollywood and become his biggest legacy.

Redford, who has passed away age 89, was already a huge movie icon when he bought land and created a non-profit space with a mission statement “to foster independent voices, champion risky, original stories, and cultivate a community for artists to create and thrive globally”.

Starting with labs, fellowships, grants and mentoring programs for independent filmmakers, he finally decided to launch his own film festival in nearby Park City, Utah in 1985.

“The labs were absolutely the most important part of Sundance and that is still the core of what we are and what we do today,” Redford reflected during my last sit-down with him in 2013 at the Toronto International Film Festival, while promoting his own indie, All is Lost.

After the program had been running for five years, he told me

I realised we had succeeded in doing that much, but now there was nowhere for them to go. So, I thought, ‘well, what if we created a festival, where at least we can bring the filmmakers together to look at each other’s work and then we could create a community for them?’ And then, to my happy surprise, it grew beyond my imagination.

That’s putting it mildly. An astonishing list of filmmakers can all thank Redford for their career breakthroughs. Alumni of the Sundance Institute include Bong Joon-ho (who workshopped early scripts at Sundance labs before Parasite), Chloé Zhao and Taika Waititi, who often returns as a mentor.

First films that debuted at the festival include Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992), Steve Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), Richard Linklater’s Slackers (2002), Paul Thomas Anderson’s Cigarettes and Coffee (1993), Nicole Holofcener’s short film Angry (1991), Darren Aronofsky’s Pi (1998) and Damian Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014).

Australian films which recently made their Sundance debut include Noora Niasari’s Shayda (2023), Daina Reid’s Run, Rabbit, Run (2023) and Sophie Hyde’s Jimpa (2025).

Read more:
A pretty face helped make Robert Redford a star. Talent and dedication kept him one

Creating a haven

For anyone lucky enough to have attended Sundance in the early days, it was a haven for indie filmmakers. It was not uncommon to see “Bob”, as he was always known in person, walking down the main street on his way to a movie premiere or a dinner with young filmmakers eager for his advice.

Watching Redford portray Bob Woodward in the Watergate thriller All the President’s Men (1976) was one of my earliest inspirations for pursuing a career in journalism. Also, nurturing a crush since The Sting (1973) and The Way We Were (1973) made it hard not to be intimidated crossing paths with him in Park City.

Bob, however, quickly made you forget the icon status. Soon, you’d just be chatting about a new filmmaker he was excited to support, or his environmental work (he served as a trustee for five decades on the non-profit organisation, Natural Resources Defense Council).

Everyone felt equal in that indie film world, and Redford was responsible for that atmosphere.

In 1994, I waited in a Main Street coffee shop for Elle MacPherson to ski off a mountain and do an interview promoting her acting role in the Australian film Sirens. Later that day, I commiserated over a hot chocolate with Hugh Grant as he complained about frostbitten toes from wearing the wrong shoes and finding himself trekking through a snowstorm to the first screening of Four Weddings and a Funeral.

In the early days, Sundance was a destination for film lovers, not hair and makeup people, inappropriately glamorous designer gowns or swag lounges.

The arrival of Hollywood

But eventually, there was no denying the clout of any film making it to Sundance, and Hollywood came knocking.

“In 1985, we only had one theatre and maybe there were four or five restaurants in town, so it was a much quieter, smaller place and over time it grew so incredibly the atmosphere changed,” Redford reflected during our interview.

Suddenly all these people came in to leverage off our festival and because we are a non-profit, we couldn’t do anything about it. We had what we called ‘ambush mongers’ coming in to sell their wares and give out swag and I’m sure there will always be those people, but we are strong enough to resist being overtaken by it.

The festival resisted but the infrastructure gave in. In 2027, the Sundance Film Festival will finally relocate to Boulder, Colorado after a careful selection process aimed at ensuring the spirit of Sundance remains.

Redford stepped back from being the public face of the festival in 2019, dedicating himself instead to spend more time with filmmakers and their projects. But he supported the move to Colorado, and said in his statement of the announcement

Words cannot express the sincere gratitude I have for Park City, the state of Utah, and all those in the Utah community that have helped to build the organization.

The spirit of Sundance lives on, but it just won’t be the same without Bob on the streets or in the movie theatres.

Jenny Cooney 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. ‘To my happy surprise, it grew beyond my imagination’: Robert Redford’s Sundance legacy – https://theconversation.com/to-my-happy-surprise-it-grew-beyond-my-imagination-robert-redfords-sundance-legacy-265478

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put the best face on the situation after his plan to sign a major defence treaty with Papua New Guinea while in Port Moresby fell through.

Albanese said he expected the signing of the treaty – of which the wording was approved – to be finalised “in coming weeks”.

The government hopes the coming regular annual minister meeting between the two countries, on a date to be fixed, would provide the opportunity to finally land the treaty. Australia is hosting the meeting this year.

Instead of the treaty signing, Albanese and PNG Prime Minister James Marape issued a joint communique saying the two countries had agreed on a text of a Mutual Defence Treaty “which will be signed following Cabinet processes in both countries”.

The treaty would “elevate the defence relationship between Papua New Guinea and Austrlia. to an Alliance”, it said.

This is the second time within weeks Albanese’s plans for finalising a treaty with a regional country have been dashed. Last week he was unable to land a $500 million agreement with Vanuatu.

Albanese has been in PNG this week for the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence. Earlier in the week, he said the signing had been delayed because a PNG cabinet quorum could not be summoned after cabinet members had returned to their home areas for the celebrations.

Albanese told a joint Wednesday news conference with Marape: “We respect the processes of the Papua New Guinea government. What this is about is the processes of their cabinet.”

Both leaders made the point that the treaty had been sought by PNG.

Asked whether the signing delay could open a window for China to try to scuttle the deal, Marape said there was “no way, shape or form” that China could have any hand in telling PNG not to have the treaty.

While it had been a friend of PNG for the last 50 years, China knew that PNG had “security partners of choice,” Marape said.

But he said that in the next couple of days he would send the PNG defence minister first to China and then to other countries, including the United States, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines “to inform them all exactly what this is all about”.

The joint communique said the proposed Pukpuk treaty would include “a mutual defence Alliance which recognises that an armed attack on Australia or Papua New Guinea would be a danger to the peace and security of both countries”.

In other provisions the treaty also covers the recruitment of PNG citizens into the Australian Defence Force.

It would also ensure “any activities, agreements or arrangements with third parties would not compromise the ability” of PNG or Australia to implement the treaty.

Albanese said the treaty would “”be Australia’s first new alliance in more than 70 years and only the third in our entire history, along with the ANZUS treaty with new Zealand and the United States”.

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

– ref. Albanese leaves PNG with major defence treaty still a work in progress – https://theconversation.com/albanese-leaves-png-with-major-defence-treaty-still-a-work-in-progress-265377

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Kirkland, Professor of Geochronology, Curtin University

When most of us think about what shaped our planet, we probably picture volcanoes, earthquakes, and huge continents slowly drifting apart (or back together again) over millions or billions of years. We also know meteorite impacts were important; our crater-packed Moon is clear evidence of that.

But what if Earth’s geological story was also written further afield in the stars – specifically, in the spiral arms of our home galaxy, the Milky Way?

That’s the bold idea that has been resonating behind some recent research that links astrophysics with geology. So far, these controversial ideas have been based on models, limited by gaps in Earth’s geological record and the uncertainties in our Solar System’s galactic path.

But our new study, published this week in Physical Review Research, takes a different approach by comparing maps of hydrogen gas in the Milky Way with chemical fingerprints in ancient crystals on Earth. The findings support the view that Earth’s crust may have been influenced by the Solar System’s journey around the galaxy.

Reading the galaxy through hydrogen

Astronomers often use neutral hydrogen, the simplest atom of one proton and one electron, as a cosmic marker.

This atomic hydrogen emits radio waves at a wavelength of 21 centimetres, which cut through the dust and gas that obscure much of the Milky Way from our view. These emissions, from higher density regions of hydrogen, reveal the sweeping spiral arms of the galaxy, even when visible-light telescopes cannot.

The spiral arms aren’t solid structures. Instead, they’re density waves – like traffic jams of stars, gas and dust that move around the galactic disc more slowly than individual stars themselves.

As the Solar System orbits the galactic centre faster than the arms, it periodically overtakes them, roughly every 180–200 million years. Passing through a spiral arm could increase the number of comets and asteroids striking Earth.

Zircon crystals: tiny time capsules

How can we know if Earth really felt the consequences of these galactic encounters?
The answer may lie in zircon, a hardy mineral commonly found in Earth’s crust, that can survive for billions of years.

Zircon crystals form in magmas and are like tiny time capsules. Not only can they be dated, but they also carry chemical clues about what Earth was like at the moment they grew.

Inside these crystals, the oxygen atoms occur in slightly different forms, called isotopes, that have the same chemistry but different masses. These isotopes act as tracers, showing whether the magma came from deep inside Earth or had contact with surface water.

As the Solar System travels around the galaxy, it passes through spiral arms where hydrogen gas is more concentrated. If there is unusual variability in zircon oxygen isotopes at the times of high atomic hydrogen density, then this suggests something disrupted the normal balance of crust formation on Earth.

Matching Earth’s rocks with galactic maps

The new study directly compared this zircon isotope record with radio frequency-measured hydrogen density along the Solar System’s galactic orbit. The result? Striking correlations.

Periods when the Solar System passed through spiral arms – regions with denser hydrogen – line up with spikes in zircon oxygen variability.

In other words, Earth’s crust seemed more “chaotic” at the same times the Solar System was embedded in star-forming arms of the Milky Way.

A galactic fingerprint on Earth’s crust

What could explain this connection?

One idea is that when the Solar System moves through a spiral arm, it can shake up the distant icy region of space known as the Oort Cloud, a giant reservoir of comets far beyond Pluto.

Some of these comets may then hurtle toward Earth.

Each impact delivers enormous energy – enough to melt rock, trigger geological upheaval and leave lasting marks in the planet’s crust.

Crucially, this record is preserved over billions of years, much longer than the impact craters we can still see on Earth, which are often erased by erosion or plate tectonics.

Zircons may therefore offer a deep-time archive of galactic influences that we can’t observe directly through astronomy.

A cosmic connection

If Earth’s geology really responds to the rhythms of the galaxy, it expands our view of what drives planetary evolution. It suggests that to fully understand Earth, we must look beyond it, to the vast structures of the Milky Way that periodically reshaped our Solar System’s environment.

Recognising astrophysical fingerprints in planetary geology could provide new clues about crustal growth, habitability, and even the emergence of life.

Of course, caution is warranted. Correlation doesn’t always mean causation, and disentangling the effects of galactic arm crossings from Earth’s internal processes is tricky. But the emerging evidence is compelling enough to take seriously.

For now, zircon crystals, tiny grains often smaller than a sand particle, are helping us glimpse a connection between Earth and the cosmos.

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. Tiny crystals in Earth’s crust have captured the movement of the Milky Way’s spiral arms – https://theconversation.com/tiny-crystals-in-earths-crust-have-captured-the-movement-of-the-milky-ways-spiral-arms-265396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Zietsch, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland

Sex is important. Romantic, typically sexual, partnerships are often among the most central relationships in individuals’ lives, providing a host of personal, health, social and economic benefits.

But what about people who don’t have sex?

In a new study, my colleagues and I looked at the differences between mature adults who had never had sex and those who had. We found sexlessness is associated with a range of genetic, environmental, physical and mental factors – but much still remains unclear.

Life without sex

Some people – often described as “asexual” – simply don’t desire sex.

However, those who do but are unable to find suitable and willing partners may be vulnerable to poor mental health and loneliness, social embarrassment, and economic disadvantages (for example due to not cohabiting with a partner). People involved in online “incel” (involuntary celibate) cultures may even be at risk of radicalisation.

So it is important to understand more about people who don’t have sex.

Knowing the characteristics associated with sexlessness would help to understand its causes and consequences. It may even inform strategies to remove barriers to people finding fulfilling partnerships.

To find out more, we studied about 400,000 UK residents aged between 39 and 73, and a further 13,500 Australian residents aged between 18 and 89. Around 1% of both men and women had not had sex.

Our team – led by Laura Wesseldijk, Abdel Abdellaoui and Karin Verweij from Amsterdam UMC, and me – examined associations between sexlessness and genes, the social environment, and various physical, cognitive, personality and mental health traits.

Sex ratios and income inequality

We found sexless men tended to live in regions of the UK with relatively fewer women.

In both men and women, sexlessness was more common in regions with higher income inequality.

These new findings align with those of an earlier study of “incel” posts on social media. It found they were more likely to originate from regions of the United States with relatively fewer women and higher income inequality.

Wellbeing and other factors

We also looked for characteristics that were more common among people who had never had sex.

Sexless individuals tended to feel more nervous and lonely and less happy, and had fewer visits from friends and family. They were also less likely to have someone to confide in or to believe that life is meaningful.

These findings confirm the entanglement of sex and wellbeing.

People who had never had sex tended to use drugs and alcohol less, be more educated, and to have started wearing glasses from a younger age.

Men with lower grip strength and arm muscle mass (proxies for general upper body strength) were less likely to have had sex. There were no such correlations among women.

Familiar stereotypes

The overall pattern we observe among sexless people – intelligent, academically successful, with less physical strength and more social isolation – aligns with existing stereotypes of lower romantic success, especially in adolescence.

Our participants were middle-aged adults, or older.

However, wearing glasses at an early age, and other stereotypically “nerdy” features, may disrupt adolescent dating experiences. This in turn may affect one’s romantic confidence into adulthood.

No gene for sexlessness

We also had genetic data about all participants. This meant we were able to analyse whether genetic differences were associated with having had or not had sex.

Using what’s called a genome-wide association analysis, we found genes accounted for 15% of the variation in whether or not individuals had had sex.

However, there were no individual genes with large effects. Rather, there were many genes, each with tiny effects.

Links to intelligence, introversion and other traits

Our genetic analyses also let us detect genetic correlations with any other traits that have been genetically analysed, even if in separate studies. A genetic correlation indicates the genes associated with one trait are also associated with another trait.

In this way, we found an array of interesting links between sexlessness and other traits.

In particular, there was a strong genetic correlation not only with education but also measured intelligence. There were also correlations with higher income and socioeconomic status.

Sexlessness was also positively genetically correlated with introversion, autism spectrum disorder and anorexia. However, it was negatively genetically correlated with drug and alcohol disorders and also depression, anxiety and ADHD.

Cause and effect is hard to discern

Our results paint a complex picture. One major aspect of uncertainty is what causes underlie the pattern of associations we found.

For example, not having had sex may cause unhappiness. But unhappiness may also make it more difficult to find a partner, or a third factor could cause both unhappiness and difficulty finding a partner.

Another aspect of uncertainty is that the participants only reported whether or not they had had sex, not whether they had ever desired sex. Many sexless individuals in the sample may be asexual.

However, some of our results are difficult to explain via asexuality – for example, the link with the local ratio of men to women, and the negative association with male strength. Our results likely reflect a mixture of voluntary and involuntary sexlessness.

A step forward

Our study represents a large step forward in understanding sexlessness. However, more nuanced assessment of desire and sexuality will be key to better characterising how sexlessness relates to the interplay between genes, local environments, sexuality and culture.

Studies of more people using more advanced methods may also be able to tease apart cause and consequence.

There should be no value judgement on individuals who do not have sex, whether voluntarily or otherwise. By studying this trait, we only aim for a deeper understanding, which generally benefits all concerned.

Brendan Zietsch 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. 1% of people don’t have sex. New research shows it may be partly genetic – https://theconversation.com/1-of-people-dont-have-sex-new-research-shows-it-may-be-partly-genetic-265391

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

It doesn’t take much for a journalist to get under Donald Trump’s skin. When the ABC’s United States correspondent John Lyons started questioning the president during a Washington “doorstop” about his business dealings while in office, the response was both full-on and petty.

Lyons was trying to get answers for a coming ABC Four Corners program.

He asked how much wealthier Trump was now than when he re-entered office and “Is it appropriate, President Trump, that a president in office should be engaged in so much business activity?”

Trump said that “my kids are running the business”, and mostly the deals were done before he took office.

Turning on Lyons, he asked where he was from.

When Lyons replied he was from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Four Corners, the president let loose.

“In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. And they want to get along with me.

“You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone”.

When Lyons tried to continue, Trump said “Quiet”.

The White House followed up with a post on its official response account. “POTUS smacks down a rude foreign Fake News loser (many such cases): ‘Quiet.’”

Albanese is set to have his long-sought first meeting with Trump next week on the sidelines of the United Nations leaders week. Trump’s reference to it is the first time it has been officially confirmed.

The Albanese government has been trying to clear obstacles ahead of the meeting. With the Americans pressing Australia to increase its defence spending from about 2% of GDP at present to 3.5%, defence announcements have preceded the meeting.

At the weekend the government announced $12 billion in investment over a decade in a naval facility in Western Australia.

Defence Minister Richard Marles also argues Australia is spending more than 2% on defence according to a different measure.

“There are different measures around the world of percentages of GDP. I mean, if you look at the way in which NATO accounts for its own spending in terms of percentage of GDP, based on that metric, our spending on GDP today in terms of defence is around 2.8%,” he said at the weekend.

Given how some other leaders have been treated when meeting Trump, there has been some nervousness in the Prime Minister’s Office about the initial face-to-face encounter between the president and the prime minister.

The planned Four Corners’ program adds a fresh potential irritant.

The ABC said: “John Lyons is a highly awarded journalist and one of the most experienced and respected reporters in Australia. His job is to ask questions. He has the ABC’s full support.”

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

– ref. Trump accuses ABC journalist of ‘hurting Australia’ and says he’ll report him to Albanese – https://theconversation.com/trump-accuses-abc-journalist-of-hurting-australia-and-says-hell-report-him-to-albanese-265378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yaqoot Fatima, Professor of Sleep Health, University of the Sunshine Coast

You’re gently drifting off to sleep when suddenly your arms and legs convulse and you jolt yourself awake. Or, perhaps you’re relaxing in bed when, out of the blue, your dozing partner does an almighty twitch, scaring you half to death.

This is called a hypnic jerk or sleep start. It is often accompanied by a sensation of falling or tripping over.

An estimated 70% of people will experience this at some point.

So, what causes the hypnic jerk? And can certain factors make it more likely to happen?

A minor misinterpretation

The truth is we don’t know exactly why it happens, but sleep researchers have some theories.

As we transition from wakefulness to sleep, the nervous system winds down and muscles relax.

Sometimes, the brain misreads this relaxation as a sensation of falling or tripping. The brain sends a quick but powerful signal to the body. The hypnic jerk is the result.

Hypnic jerks usually affect one side of the body and are painless. Some people, however, may experience a tingling or painful sensation.

For most people, hypnic jerks are not associated with any health or other sleep problems. When hypnic jerks occur frequently over prolonged period, however, people may come to anxiously anticipate them. This can lead to insomnia.

Are they linked to certain health conditions or medications?

Some research has shown hypnic jerks can be more common among people with certain conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease. One 2016 study suggests hypnic jerks may be a symptom that can occur in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.

However, it’s very unlikely they would happen in the absence of other common symptoms, such as changes to movement and mobility or REM sleep behaviour disorder (where people start acting out dreams). These are much more reliable potential indicators of Parkinson’s disease.

Frequent hypnic jerks that disrupt sleep can be a side effect of some prescription medications, particularly antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). This includes medications such as escitalopram, sertraline and fluoxetine.

Although considered a rare side effect and the exact cause is still unknown, researchers have reported various cases in which people using these medications experience hypnic jerks, often resolving quickly after stopping the medication.

If you’re on these medications, experiencing hypnic jerks and feel worried about it, chat to your prescribing doctor.

Other medications that contain caffeine, and non-prescribed substances that have stimulating effects, such as cocaine, have also been linked with hypnic jerks.

Good sleep hygiene

Hypnic jerks are normal and generally no cause for concern.

However, certain lifestyle factors can make them more likely. These include:

• sleep deprivation
• stress and anxiety
• excessive intake of stimulants, such as nicotine or caffeinated drinks
• strenuous exercise before bed.

Keeping these factors under control is all part of good sleep hygiene anyway – whether or not you’re worried by hypnic jerks.

Yaqoot Fatima receives funding from NHMRC, MRFF, Beyond Blue and in-kind support from ResMed.

Alexandra Metse has received funding from the Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, the Waterloo Foundation, and the NSW Department of Education.

Daniel Sullivan has previously received funding from the NHMRC/MRFF and Queensland Health. He is a member of the Australasian Sleep Association.

– ref. A big, convulsive twitch while dozing off? Sleep experts explain the ‘hypnic jerk’ – https://theconversation.com/a-big-convulsive-twitch-while-dozing-off-sleep-experts-explain-the-hypnic-jerk-264197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Harrison, Director, Master of Business Administration Program (MBA); Co-Director, Better Consumption Lab, Deakin University

When the newly appointed chief executive of tracking app Life360 recently described the company as part of the “anxiety economy”, it sounded like a throwaway phrase. But it was also surprisingly candid.

The app, which allows families to track their children’s (or parent’s) whereabouts in real time, is on one in ten phones in the US, according to some reports. What began as a niche product has become part of everyday life for many households.

Life360, along with Snapchat’s Snap Map and Apple’s Find My Friends (or Stalk My Friends as it is called in my family) is promoted as a tool for safety and peace of mind.

But the fact its chief executive was comfortable to explicitly link the app to anxiety and its commercial exploitation highlights a much larger cultural phenomenon: we increasingly exist in a world where our unease, vigilance, and even our guilt is being used for profit.

Technology can prey on anxiety

From an evolutionary perspective, anxiety is mostly a good thing. It evolved to prepare us for potential threats – things like a rustle in the grass keeping us awake at night. This bias means negative or threatening information is more easily and quickly processed.

The difficulty is that the world we inhabit now is very different to the savannah. The same vigilance that once protected us from predators now keeps us refreshing apps, scrolling news feeds, and checking digital maps for reassurance.

But technology is not neutral. Indeed, it can serve to amplify this instinct. A tracking app like Life360 sells you peace of mind, but it can also create new anxieties. If your child’s location dot pauses for ten minutes, you might feel compelled to check, to call, or to worry. The reassurance is real, but so is the unease.

The illusion of control offered by these products gives us the sense that monitoring reduces risk, when in fact it can serve to increase our dependence on the technology. In fact, some research suggests that the harder we try to suppress anxiety, the worse it becomes.

Anxiety often presents as a vague unease. The genius of marketing lies in giving that unease a focus; for example, your home might not be safe, your child might not be learning enough, or your skin might not be radiant enough. Once the unease is named, a product can be offered as the solution. In the contemporary and commercial world, consumer products become the “fixes” that we use to defend ourselves from this constant instability.

The ‘guilty mum’ marketing ploy

Parenting is one area of life that marketers have been able to exploit with products to both relieve and reinforce those fears. The “guilty mum” trope captures the way marketing exploits the gap between the actual self (“I can’t always be there for my child”) and the ought/ideal self (“a good mum should always know and protect”).

That gap produces guilt, which ultimately creates demand for products such as baby monitors, organic snacks, and tracking apps. And while the relief is genuine, it is temporary, because the underlying self-discrepancy remains.

This helps to explain why facts rarely calm us. Statistically, most children are safer today than at almost any time in history with lower mortality rates, less violence, and better health care. Yet we are drawn to extreme and noticeable events, a bias that makes threats stand out more vividly than the quieter, more ordinary evidence of safety. And because parents do not feel safer, marketers can take advantage of this gap between facts and feelings.

This is why calling it an “anxiety economy” is not hyperbole. Economies emerge when a resource can be cultivated, extracted, exchanged, and scaled. Companies identify new triggers for anxiety, create tools to manage them, and sustain the unease they claim to solve.

Algorithms then capitalise on this fear by testing millions of tiny interventions to determine which notifications, prompts and stories most effectively push our emotional buttons. By agreeing to the terms and conditions, we become part of a larger corporate consumer behaviour experiment.

The concern with these apps is not that they are inherently bad. In fact, they can and do provide a degree of comfort. However, the deeper issue is when the exploitation of anxiety becomes normalised. Once we believe in the necessity of monitoring, it becomes difficult to resist. These convictions are initially framed through the commercial lens built around personal choice, but bleed into daily routines, and eventually become part of the economy.

So, while the chief executive of Life360 may have been unusually unguarded, her statement raises a deeper question: do we want a society that commercialises fear? Anxiety is a universal human emotion, yet choosing to exploit it for profit is entirely cultural.

Markets do not care for us as people do. When even the financial press casually describes investment in a company like Life360 as a “lucrative roller-coaster”, it is worth pausing to ask whether we want investment markets and economies that reward the monetisation of anxiety.

Paul Harrison has previously received funding from ASIC, the TGA, Department of Environment and Heritage, and the Consumer Action Law Centre. He is affiliated with Deakin University, Better Consumption Lab, Consumer Policy Research Centre, Australian Health and Practitioner Regulation Agency, and Australian Internet Domain Administrator.

– ref. The ‘anxiety economy’ is booming. But should companies be profiting from our fears? – https://theconversation.com/the-anxiety-economy-is-booming-but-should-companies-be-profiting-from-our-fears-264586

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elianor Gerrard, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Reaching net zero in Australia relies on the bush. That’s where the land, sun, wind and freshwater resources are.

But as the clean energy build accelerates, some landholders are pushing back. Unfortunately, their legitimate worries have been magnified by media coverage and vested interests.

The recent series of News Corp Australia Bush Summits promoted farming and mining while mining magnate Gina Rinehart took aim at the damage she claims renewables and the “net zero ideology” were doing to farmers already struggling with “devastating droughts, fires [and] floods”.

Clean energy – key to mitigating climate change – is growing rapidly, driven by projects in rural areas. In just five years, Australia has almost doubled how much clean energy goes into its main grid, reaching 40% this year.

The speed of the rollout has caused fractures in regional and rural areas as the “presumed benevolence” of renewable energy comes face-to-face with the realities of large-scale infrastructure development. In Victoria, controversial new laws mandating access for transmission line builders are likely to inflame relations with host landowners. The carrot of increased payments seems barely enough.

Farmers worry more and more about changes to the climate. Most quietly support renewables and many benefit directly from the reliable income of solar and wind. But rapid change can create real tensions, especially when change is seen as being done to a community, not with it.

What should be done? Policymakers, project developers and landowners should focus on finding ways of equitably sharing the very real benefits of the clean energy transition with the communities who will host them.

Polarisation serves vested interests

The energy debate has long been polarised in Australia, characterised by outrage and negativity. Australia’s long-running “climate wars” gave rise to a decade of political instability and a succession of prime ministers.

Media coverage amplifies the sense of an intractable conflict between clean energy projects and the bush.
In politics, energy and climate policy continues to be weaponised in debates. The debate over the “net zero agenda” has fractured the Coalition.

Inflaming this debate is useful for vested interests who benefit from delaying climate action as long as possible.

Farmers see climate change as their top threat

Farmers are already feeling the effects of climate change. In a 2023 survey of Australian farmers, 92% reported experiencing unwelcome changes in seasons and climate in recent years, and 71% are spending money to cut emissions from their farms.

Asked to name the main threat they were facing, 55% chose climate change. Just 1% chose transmission lines and another 1% chose the renewable rollout.

“The bush” is often presented as an immovable bloc resistant to renewables, but this framing is simplistic. Farmers have long fought against coal and gas projects in fertile areas such as the Hunter Valley. And many farmers directly benefit from clean energy projects, quietly exploring ways of pairing renewables and transmission lines with farming.

In July, Bendigo hosted a national expo on renewables and agriculture. Farmers, researchers, policymakers and advocates discussed methods such as agrivoltaics, where sheep graze under solar panels.

This month, Farmers for Climate Action hosted a national summit exploring similar territory. At the conference, farmers spoke about how renewables were a financial lifeline amid challenging conditions.

Taking the heat out of the debate

Rural concerns should not be dismissed. Wind farms attract fears over noise and visual impact, and large transmission lines provoke concerns over potential impact on farming through to lower property values.

The best way forward? Ignore the noise, listen to genuine concerns, and focus on sharing benefits, clear communication and making decisions collaboratively. Here’s how:

Share the benefits

Renewable developers often initiate community benefit schemes such as funding community initiatives or committing to local jobs. The Clean Energy Council estimates these schemes could be worth A$1.9 billion by 2050.

Renewable projects can help by leaving a legacy of infrastructure and programs to make life better in the bush. Shared equity schemes go even further. In Canada, communities get a mandatory 25% of project equity. In Australia, the First Nations Clean Energy Network is pushing for similar shared equity.

Decide together, share knowledge

Towns in designated renewable energy zones are getting in early to ensure the community has a bigger role through community meetings and discussion. Residents in Hay made it clear they wanted to ensure benefits would flow to their region.

Citizen assemblies can help create common ground in communities before conflict sets in.

Open discussion gives communities more power and more buy-in. Local knowledge and expertise can feed into related initiatives, such as encouraging biodiversity on solar farms.

Fill the information vacuum

When communities aren’t kept well informed, misinformation can flourish. Trust and transparency are key. Communication has to be early, two-way and ongoing. One solution may be local energy hubs, where staff can answer questions directly.

Share the load

Rural and regional areas are doing the heavy lifting on clean energy, as a NSW Parliamentary Inquiry recently heard. Urban areas can contribute through mechanisms such as the new urban renewable energy zone in the Illawarra, though these have their own complexities.

Community power networks offer another way for urban communities to shoulder some of the responsibility for the energy shift by producing, storing and using their own energy.

Through the increased electrification of homes – coupled with flexible demand and greater network utilisation – cities and urban areas could become “giant batteries.”

Polarisation is pointless

Change is not always easy. Anxieties can be magnified to create polarisation or gridlock. But issues can be worked through.

We need to put aside fearmongering and collaboratively decide how best to shape the emerging clean energy era to benefit all Australians – rural or otherwise.

Elianor Gerrard previously worked for the Community Power Agency, which runs two initiatives mentioned in this article.

Kimberley Crofts has previously consulted for RE-Alliance, a nonprofit who ran an initiative mentioned in this article.

– ref. Battle for the bush? Ignore the noise – most farmers like renewables – https://theconversation.com/battle-for-the-bush-ignore-the-noise-most-farmers-like-renewables-264680

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Richardson, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University

A frequent question around peace talks over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is whether Ukraine should give up land as part of an interim or final settlement.

United States President Donald Trump has often suggested this would be a natural and inevitable outcome, particularly given Ukraine has – in his view – a weak hand of “cards”. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House last month, Trump told him there was no getting back Crimea, which has been occupied by Russia since 2014.

Trump has jokingly described his motivation for promoting peace in Ukraine as a desire to “get to heaven”. But as the saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Indeed, Trump has aligned himself with many Russian officials on territorial concessions, including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who has said history has many examples of peace agreements that shift borders.

It is important to debunk this notion. Acquisition of territory through war has, in fact, been taboo since the end of the second world war and the establishment of the United Nations.

While there have been many military conflicts, there are no evident examples of a UN member country ceding recognised, independent territory to another UN member following a war or invasion.

Wars and conquest

Until the early 20th century, territorial concessions were the norm after wars, backed by all sorts of narratives about hereditary rights, ancient borders, superior civilisations, punishments for unpaid debts or simple law of the jungle.

A classic example was the Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War of 1846–48. Mexico was forced to cede 55% of its territory, including present-day New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, California, Texas and western Colorado.

In a recent article, Yale academics Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro explain that before the first world war, shifting borders was a legally recognised means by which states resolved disputes. They calculate there were more than 150 territorial conquests around the world before 1945.

The end of the second world war saw massive border changes in Eastern Europe. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin shifted the borders of Poland hundreds of kilometres westward at the expense of Germany, while the Soviet Union swallowed swathes of eastern Poland. Italy also lost some its pre-war territory to Yugoslavia and France.

The Soviet Union also got to keep regions it had absorbed in the wake of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, including the Baltic States, Moldova, western Ukraine and parts of Finland. These changes reflected the facts on the ground and were accepted at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

But in the broader zeitgeist, it was time to put an end to wars of conquest. This was articulated in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which requires states to refrain from the use of force against the “territorial integrity or political independence” of any other state.

The principle was further cemented in UN Security Council resolution 242 following the 1967 Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, which decrees that acquisition of territory following war cannot be accepted.

That is why the international community has largely rejected any move towards Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, along with the Golan Heights. (The United States, however, accepted the latter in 2019.)

The taboo on conquest since 1945

The only successful territorial conquests broadly accepted by the international community since 1945 have been a few cases of newly independent countries in the 1960s taking over enclaves or neighbouring territory formerly held by colonial powers. This includes, for example, India taking Goa from Portugal.

But other seizures of ex-colonial territories have been broadly rejected, or at least strongly contested. The main examples are Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara and Indonesia’s seizure of East Timor. Indonesia’s [takeover of West Papua] was accepted by the international community as part of a UN-mandated self-determination process, though this has since been condemned by many as deeply flawed.

South Vietnam’s ultimate takeover by the North might be regarded as a conquest, but neither Vietnam recognised the other as a separate country, seeing the conflict effectively as a continuation of civil war. Neither was a UN member.

Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the most blatant attempt to conquer independent territory was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait. This was repelled by a UN-sanctioned force.

Global opposition to Russia’s seizures

Distinct from invasions, there have been many unresolved border disputes that have occasionally flared into armed conflict. Russia, however, had no such dispute with Ukraine before its 2014 takeover of Crimea.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine negotiated a border treaty to delineate their borders in precise detail. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the treaty in 2003 and later affirmed that Russia had no territorial claim against Ukraine.

An overwhelming number of UN members have rejected Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four other regions of southeastern Ukraine.

However, the initial outrage at the invasion has weakened over time. Many countries have accused the US of a double standard, given its invasion of Iraq in 2003 (even if that didn’t involve territorial conquest). Trump’s statements about acquiring Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal have only further weakened confidence in US opposition to territorial conquest.

As political scientist Tanisha Fazal argues, the norm against territorial conquest risks suffering a “death of a thousand cuts”. Allowing Russia to keep parts of Ukraine could be a terminal blow.

What a lasting peace should look like

Some commentators have argued for an interim settlement under which Russia would retain control of occupied territory without Ukraine ceding it formally. A final settlement would be left to the future.

Some have called this de facto recognition of Russian annexation, but that is a misguided notion. De facto recognition implies acceptance of a new status quo, along with a return to business as usual.

The outcome of the war will only be partially about territory. Russia has imposed a brutal occupation on these regions, with widespread allegations of torture, killings, disappearances, population transfers and thefts of Ukrainian businesses and homes. Ukrainian language, culture and identity are being erased under a draconian regime.

Ukraine appears willing to accept an interim ceasefire to stop the bloodshed. But its territorial integrity should be fully supported by making clear to Russia that its invasion and occupation remain illegal and unacceptable.

This would include maintaining economic sanctions, demanding accountability for war crimes, returning property stolen from Ukrainians, and allowing Ukrainians transferred to Russia to return home. Ukraine must also be given the means to defend itself against a renewed Russian attack.

Advocates of anything less would be condoning and normalising flagrant territorial aggression. They would merit neither earthly rewards, such as Nobel Prizes, nor divine blessings.

Jon Richardson 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. Since WWII, it’s been taboo to force nations to cede land after war. Russia wants to normalise conquest again – https://theconversation.com/since-wwii-its-been-taboo-to-force-nations-to-cede-land-after-war-russia-wants-to-normalise-conquest-again-264590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate in Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

When news broke last week that US political influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event at Utah Valley University, millions of people around the world were first alerted to it by social media before journalists had written a word.

Rather than first seeing the news on a mainstream news website, footage of the bloody and public assassination was pushed directly onto audiences’ social media feeds. There weren’t any editors deciding whether the raw footage was too distressing, nor warnings before clips auto-played.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner called on platforms to shield children from the footage, noting “all platforms have a responsibility to protect their users by quickly removing or restricting illegal harmful material”.

This is the norm in today’s media environment: extreme violence often bypasses traditional media gatekeepers and can reach millions of people, including children, instantly. This has wide-ranging impacts on young people – and on society at large.

A wide range of violence

Young people are more likely than older adults to come across violent and disturbing content online. This is partly because they are more frequent users of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and X.

Research from 2024 from the United Kingdom suggests a majority of teenagers have seen violent videos in their feeds.

The violence young people see on social media ranges from schoolyard fights and knife attacks to war footage and terrorist attacks.

The footage is often visceral, raw and unexpected.

A wide range of harms

Seeing this kind of violent footage on social media can make some children not want to leave the house.

Research also shows engaging with distressing media can cause symptoms similar to trauma, especially if the violence feels close to our own lives.

Research shows social media is not simply a mirror of youth violence but also a vector for it, with bullying, gang violence, dating aggression, and even self-directed violence playing out online. Exposure to these harms can have a negative effect on young people’s mental health, behaviour and academic performance.

For others, violent content on social media risks “desensitisation”, where people become so used to suffering and violence they become less empathetic.

Communication scholars also point to cultivation theory — the idea in this case that people who consume more violent content begin to see the world as potentially more dangerous than it really is.

This potentially skewed perception can influence everyday behaviour even among those who do not directly experience violence.

Read more:
How images of knives intended to stop youth knife crime may actually be making things worse

A long history of violence

Violence distributed by media is as old as media itself.

The ancient Greeks painted their pottery with scenes of battles and slaying. The Romans wrote about their gladiators. Some of the first photographs ever taken were of the Crimean War. And in the second world war, people went to the cinema to watch newsreels for updates on the war.

The Vietnam war was the first “television war” — images of violence and destruction were beamed into people’s homes for the first time. Yet television still involved editorial judgement. Footage of violence was cut, edited, narrated and contextualised.

Seeing violence as if you were there has been transformed by social media.

Now, footage of war, recorded in real time on phones or drones, is uploaded to TikTok or YouTube and shared with unprecedented immediacy. It often appears without any additional context – and often isn’t packaged any differently to a video of, say, somebody walking down the street or hanging out with friends.

War influencers have emerged – people who post updates from conflict zones, often with no editorial training, unlike war journalists. This blurs the line between reporting and spectacle. And this content spreads rapidly, reaching audiences who have often not sought it.

Israel’s military even uses war influencers to “thirst trap” social media users for propaganda purposes. A thirst trap is a deliberately eye-catching, often seductive, social media post designed to attract attention and engage users.

How to opt out of violence

There are some practical steps that can be taken to reduce your chances of encountering unwanted violent content:

• turn off autoplay. This can prevent videos from playing unprompted

• use mute or block filters. Platforms such as X and TikTok let you hide content with certain keywords

• report disturbing videos or images. Flagging videos for violence can reduce how often they are promoted

• curate your feed. Following accounts that focus on verified news can reduce exposure to random viral violence

• take a break from social media, which isn’t as extreme as it sounds.

These actions aren’t foolproof. And the reality is that users of social media have very limited control over what they see. Algorithms still nudge users’ attention toward the sensational.

The viral videos of Kirk’s assassination highlight the failures of platforms to protect their users. Despite formal rules banning violent content, shocking videos slip through and reach users, including children.

In turn, this highlights why more stringent regulation of social media companies is urgently needed.

Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.

– ref. Viral violent videos on social media are skewing young people’s sense of the world – https://theconversation.com/viral-violent-videos-on-social-media-are-skewing-young-peoples-sense-of-the-world-265371

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Professor in Public Health, University of Sydney

Australia aims to reduce rates of daily smoking to 5% or less by 2030. By 2023, we got down to 8.3%.

A key tool to encourage smokers to quit has been to raise the tobacco taxes. Now a pack of 20 cigarettes costs over A$40, with the excise making up around 70% of the price.

Meanwhile, illegal cigarettes have flooded the market, often costing $20 or less a pack. People who wouldn’t normally break the law are now buying cheap, illicit tobacco.

Critics of the current tobacco excise argue the tax has stopped working to further reduce smoking rates and should be lowered. But what would this mean for illicit tobacco consumption?

We asked five experts: could making tobacco cheaper actually cut down smoking rates?

Five out of five said no. Here are their detailed responses.

Becky Freeman is an unpaid expert advisor to the Cancer Council tobacco issues committee and a member of the Cancer Institute vaping communications advisory panel. She has received relevant competitive grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund, NSW Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, VicHealth, and Healthway WA; consulting fees from the World Health Organization, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Department of Health, the United States Food and Drug Administration, the NHMRC e-cigarette working committee, NSW Health, and Cancer Council; and travel expenses from the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference and the Australia Public Health Association preventive health conference.

Coral Gartner receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and Australian Institute of Criminology. She has been engaged as an expert for the Australian government in litigation. She is a member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco and the Public Health Association of Australia and is the Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for the BMJ Journal, Tobacco Control. She is a member of Project Sunset, which is a non-profit network of tobacco control researchers and advocates who support phasing out the general retailing of commercial tobacco products.

Roger Magnusson previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council.

Ron Borland receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the United States’ National Institute for Health.

Fei Gao 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. Could making tobacco cheaper actually cut down smoking rates? We asked 5 experts – https://theconversation.com/could-making-tobacco-cheaper-actually-cut-down-smoking-rates-we-asked-5-experts-265384

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Hatfield-Dodds, Honorary Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

The clock is ticking on the federal government’s big climate reveal: Australia’s 2035 emissions targets. The declaration is expected later this week, and will signal to the world how hard Australia will go to help avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Draft advice by the Climate Change Authority, which is advising the government on the target, flagged it may recommend a range of emissions cuts between 65-75%, from 2005 levels. The government is being pushed from both sides – to either go bold, or settle on a conservative figure.

Adding heat to the debate, the government on Monday released the National Climate Risk Assessment, which laid bare the frightening implications for Australia if global warming is not curbed.

So what must the government weigh up when choosing the 2035 emissions target? What is at stake? And how should we judge whether the government’s decision is good or bad?

The target must be genuinely achievable

Steep emissions reductions will be required across all sectors of the economy to land anywhere inside the 65-75% range by 2035.

Some sides of the debate, such as the Climate Council and Business for 75, suggest Australia can rapidly accelerate its pace of emissions reduction.

To deliver these emissions cuts in ten short years requires real-world investment and action. In the electricity sector, for example, an estimated A$142 billion in capital investment is needed for essential electricity infrastructure by 2050 – to deliver, among other things, a 140% increase in generation by 2035.

However, the rollout of electricity generation and transmission infrastructure is struggling to meet even the current 2030 targets. This should give optimists pause.

Other voices have sought to highlight the potential negative impacts of higher emissions targets. The Business Council of Australia, for example, says a target over 70% may send businesses offshore, leading to a loss of export earnings.

However, good policy design can avoid or minimise these outcomes. For example, the Safeguard Mechanism – which aims to reduce industrial pollution – already includes carefully designed rules for trade-exposed heavy industry.

Importantly, when it comes to setting an emissions target, all argument and analysis used to inform the decision should be evidence-based and grounded in reality. And real-world policies must be available to deliver the target.

So when assessing the achievability of the government’s target, we should ask ourselves:

– does the target reflect what the evidence says is possible in the next decade?

– how can Australia speed up action and negate potential economic and social harms?

– does the government have the right policies to achieve the targets?

The target must be genuinely ambitious

The benefits-versus-costs ratio of climate action has improved markedly in recent years, for several reasons.

First, the cost of renewable energy has fallen quickly. And analysis shows around 60% of the emissions reductions required to 2035 can be met using renewable energy and other existing technologies. These also have the potential to save households and businesses money.

Second, our understanding of current and future climate harms is growing. For example, as the National Climate Risk Assessment revealed, projected climate disaster costs could total $40.3 billion every year by 2050, even if global warming was limited to 1.5°C.

What’s more, Australia has much to gain from the global clean energy transition. Its world-class sun and wind resources can underpin new export industries in energy-intensive commodities such as iron and steel. My research in 2023 showed new energy industries and related opportunities could boost national income by at least $60 billion by 2050. The potential has only expanded since then.

Ambitious targets are important. They provide businesses with the clarity and confidence to deploy the capital and workers to actually make the net-zero transition happen. They are also crucial to attracting international investment and talent.

Conversely, a low target would discourage potential investors and entrepreneurs, and undermine Australia’s future prosperity.

Ambitious targets also motivate government, driving both policy tweaks and more substantive changes.

And Australia’s global reputation is on the line. We must walk the talk on climate – both to maintain our status as a responsible global citizen, and to encourage others to do the same.

All this strengthens the case for Australia to set the most ambitious target it can confidently achieve.

So when assessing the ambition of government’s target, we should ask ourselves:

– is it proportionate to climate impacts and threats we seek to avoid?

– will it attract the investment and talent needed?

– will it encourage (or discourage) stronger climate action by other countries?

Consolidating momentum

Global action is not yet sufficient to limit climate change to 1.5°C. However, the emissions curve has tilted down from previous runaway growth – and policy momentum is building.

Crafting an effective global response to climate change is a diabolical problem for the world’s democracies, but we are making progress.

Australia’s middle ground is now larger, more diverse and better-informed than it was 15 years ago. Many more people now understand the need for sensible emissions reduction and the potential benefits of the energy transition.

Some may argue Australia must go on a war footing – set a 2035 target of at least 85% and do whatever it takes to meet it. Maybe they’re right. But no democractically elected government could follow this path unless the majority of Australians were convinced.

Australia cannot afford to get stuck in the past. Setting – and delivering – an ambitious emissions target will leave the nation better placed than a timid target will.

The 2035 target is a huge opportunity for Australia. The government must ensure it is evidence-based, achievable, ambitious, and in the national interest.

Steve Hatfield-Dodds is head of research for the EY Net Zero Centre. As EY-Parthenon Strategy’s Chief Climate Economics and Policy Officer (Oceania) he advises not-for-profits, businesses, and national, state and territory governments on climate and sustainability strategy. Recent engagements have included advice and expert review for Australian Treasury and the Climate Change Authority. He was a member of the Chubb Review of arrangements for Australian Carbon Credit Units in a personal capacity in 2022.

– ref. Australia’s 2035 climate target is coming. Here’s how we’ll know if it’s good enough
 – https://theconversation.com/australias-2035-climate-target-is-coming-heres-how-well-know-if-its-good-enough-265372

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Bertram, Visiting Scholar, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The growing view that New Zealand’s energy market is “broken” has brought with it a stream of suggestions for piecemeal changes that nibble at the edges of the problem, without tackling the real structural, legal and distributional issues.

Nor do those suggestions demonstrate how such changes would fit into a coherent overall scheme for the future industry, or truly bring down soaring prices that are crippling households and businesses.

NZ First’s Shane Jones seems to agree, and recently called for his party to consider a policy of renationalising the big “gentailers” (the combined generation and retail companies). But his solutions appear designed to lock in dependence on fossil fuels rather than hasten the 100% renewable energy future that now beckons.

From the outset, it’s important to set clear goals for the electricity industry. Mine are: reliable abundant supply, and the lowest possible price to end-users, especially households.

Those were the goals of the old New Zealand Electricity Department, and they had been largely achieved by 1986. So-called reforms since then have reduced reliability while massively increasing prices and profits for the benefit of asset owners (including the government).

So, it’s also important to remember there are now entrenched vested interests whose incomes and asset portfolios are dependent on high prices and monopoly profits.

Bringing prices and profits down will mean writing down the asset values of the gentailers, the national grid and the lines companies – at the expense of their shareholders.

New Zealanders in general may be big winners. But there would be powerful and noisy losers. The sums involved will be large, and the politics will be difficult.

Rents and rising prices

Most of New Zealand’s electricity is generated from low-cost renewables – hydro, geothermal and wind – but also some high-cost thermal generation (mainly from the coal-and-gas-fired Huntly power station).

Before reform, the wholesale electricity price was set to cover the average cost of generation. Since reform, the wholesale price has been set by the highest-priced supplier, which these days mostly means Huntly.

That highest price is paid to all generators, despite the fact most of them will have offered to supply (and would have covered their genuine costs) at much lower prices.

As long as Huntly is kept in the mix as the highest-cost supplier that sets the market price, the market design will keep prices high – far above the cost of the solar and wind generation, whose entry to the market is being blocked by that same market design.

The result has been to enrich the owners of low-cost hydro and geothermal plant inherited from the old New Zealand Electricity Department.

From the moment this market mechanism was proposed in the mid-1980s, it was obvious it would drive prices up and deliver large rents (pure excess profits) on the legacy hydro and geothermal assets.

Equally, from the moment the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter’s cut-price supply contract was signed in 1960, it was clear that exceptions could be made. It was – and is – possible to impose long-term contracts to have electricity supplied to target groups of consumers at a low price.

In 1992, I and colleagues suggested how a contract similar to Tiwai Point’s could have provided 20,000 gigawatt-hours per year at two cents per kilowatt hour, to be passed through to consumers. The same contract structure remains an option today to lessen the burden of energy poverty on residential consumers.

However, what would have been simple back in 1992 was rejected as too “regulatory” by the head of Electricorp, which was overseeing the deregulation of the electricity market in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, it is politically hard because of the overblown asset values, dividends and tax revenues that have flowed from the high-price regime.

Worse, the first beneficiaries of monopolistic prices and asset values throughout the 1990s and 2000s have in many cases taken their capital gains and departed. The investors who bought their shares at high prices are now exposed to regulatory risk if the flow of economic rent is cut back.

Energy poverty and job losses

In 2012, in my submission to the select committee considering the Mixed Ownership Model Bill, I warned that future governments might find themselves forced to restrain anti-consumer and anti-competitive behaviour, which would push down the gentailers’ asset values and share prices.

I wrote then that this would “be financially devastating for the balance sheets of the companies, in precisely the same way as their conduct since 1990 has been devastating for the household budgets of millions of ordinary people”.

In the 13 years since, the conflict between monopoly profit and the public interest has worsened steadily, producing energy poverty for households and job losses in manufacturing, while asset values have soared.

Meanwhile, the arrival of energy-hungry computer data centres threatens to preempt any low-cost new generation that comes online.

Bringing down prices

Governments seem paralysed, both by their own conflicts of interest as owner-shareholders and by the prospect of backlash from powerful corporate and shareholder interests that benefit from the status quo.

Several broad solutions are straightforward in principle:

• breaking up the gentailers

• bringing in enough wind, solar, geothermal and battery power to remove the need for Huntly, even in dry years

• and redirecting the legacy hydro assets to operate as a battery-equivalent rather than a profit centre.

But for electricity prices to come down significantly, the government would need to do at least these four things:

• break down monopoly power and the sympathetic regulatory regime of the Electricity Authority and Commerce Commission

• resurrect local electrical supply authorities to operate “energy communities”, combining the cost benefits of local small and medium-scale sources of renewable supply, with local network operators as coordinators

• tender out procurement contracts for large-scale offshore wind, onshore solar and battery storage, owned and operated outside of the gentailers

• and factor the true economics of renewable energy into the market by forcing the established vested interests to genuinely compete in the face of the renewables revolution.

Consumers and small business deserve a break after three decades of the current system. The outlook, alas, is for more of the same government fiddling while the economy suffers.

Geoff Bertram 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. Power struggle: why fixing NZ’s ‘broken’ electricity market is such a formidable challenge – https://theconversation.com/power-struggle-why-fixing-nzs-broken-electricity-market-is-such-a-formidable-challenge-264582

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Menezes, Professor of Economics, Director of the Australian Institute for Business and Economics, The University of Queensland

New figures show Australians bought a record 85,000 home batteries in the first half of 2025. That’s almost three times more than the year before, and nearly fivefold growth since 2022.

Eventually, those batteries will need to be reused or recycled. What happens then? The rules we create today will shape whether that’s affordable or easily available for householders.

My research – prepared for the federal Treasury at the request of the Australian and New Zealand governments – shows how both countries can reduce regulatory barriers to the net-zero transition.

For example, my consultation with industry revealed that moving a home or car battery from Melbourne to Perth can require multiple permits. This makes transporting batteries across different Australian states needlessly costly.

Unless this is addressed, battery recycling and repurposing markets will be smaller in some places than necessary. This drives up prices and reduces consumer choice.

So how do Australia and New Zealand compare on our current approaches to regulatory standards? And what three reforms do we need to deliver practical changes across the two countries, such as rolling out EV chargers that work with all electric cars, at the lowest price possible?

How standards affect our lives

When we picture barriers to a cleaner economy, we often think of coal plants or polluting petrol cars. Yet a serious obstacle is less visible: regulatory standards.

These technical rules were first introduced in Australia a century ago, for bolts on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Today Australia has around 10,000 voluntary standards, covering everything from workplace and car safety to EV chargers and batteries. These can become mandatory when adopted by regulators or governments.

Operating out of sight, standards are like the economy’s plumbing.

Built well, they help the economy run smoothly. Standards give businesses, investors, and consumers confidence that products are safe, compatible and reliable. They enable trade, cut transaction costs, and help scale up new technologies.

But when standards are set up poorly, we get blockages: slower investment, stifled competition and higher costs.

It’s crucial we get this right now. Over the next decade alone, it’s estimated Australia will need up to 4,000 more new standards to help manage the net-zero transition, along with cyber-security and more.

The price of getting it right or wrong

Take the example of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.

If we want more people to buy EVs, drivers need to know that chargers are safe, “interoperable” (able to seamlessly work for different cars) and widely available.

But if each Australian state sets slightly different regulatory standards, manufacturers and operators face higher costs. Electric car owners then risk ending up with incompatible systems or paying higher prices.

For new technologies, aligning with international benchmarks would cut costs, improve safety, and accelerate the development of a circular battery economy.

The Australian Productivity Commission has estimated that simply broadening recognition of overseas standards in mandatory consumer safety product rules could save businesses A$500 million a year.

In the energy sector, the commission found adopting international standards for vehicle-to-grid technology – to allow electric cars to feed power into the grid – could unlock a net present benefit of $2 billion by reducing the need for extra grid-scale battery storage.

How Australia and NZ compare

Right now, Australia faces three systemic problems.

• Duplication: regulators often replicate the work of international bodies, such as the International Electrotechnical Commission. For small economies, this adds cost without value and delays access to technology.

• Fragmentation: states, territories, and regulators adopt or interpret standards differently. Businesses must comply with multiple regimes, raising costs and discouraging investment.

• Outdated processes: standards are slow to update, leaving Australia out of step with global best practice. Consumers risk missing out on newer, safer, and cheaper products.

The impact is clear. Australia’s small economy is split into eight smaller slices. Consumers face fewer choices, higher prices, and slower adoption of innovation.

In contrast, I found New Zealand takes a more pragmatic approach. It defaults to trusted international or overseas standards unless there is a strong local reason to do otherwise.

3 fixes for Australia and NZ

The report recommended three reforms for both Australia and New Zealand.

• Clarity: clearly define when standards should be mandatory. They should be adopted only when essential for achieving public policy objectives, and designed to avoid unnecessary burdens on competition and innovation.

• Default to international standards: international and trusted overseas standards should be the starting point, with regulators required to justify any departure. This would reduce duplication, cut compliance costs, and make it easier for firms to participate in global supply chains.

• Coordination: regulators must collaborate across jurisdictions to close gaps, avoid overlaps, and consider the broader policy impacts of standards.

What to watch next

Since receiving my report, the Australian and NZ governments recently committed to work together on electric vehicle charging, electrical products (including batteries), building and construction standards and product safety standards.

If they do adopt a smarter approach – clarifying when standards are needed, defaulting to trusted international norms, and improving coordination across jurisdictions – Australia and New Zealand can better support and speed up the clean energy transformation.

This article draws on the report I prepared for Treasury at the request of the Australia–New Zealand 2+2 Climate and Finance Dialogue. I am also the Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority and a member of the Australian Competition Tribunal.

– ref. From batteries to EV chargers, Australia and NZ need these 3 fixes to hit net-zero at less cost – https://theconversation.com/from-batteries-to-ev-chargers-australia-and-nz-need-these-3-fixes-to-hit-net-zero-at-less-cost-265197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Skoyles, PhD Candidate, School of Planning, University of Waterloo

The housing affordability crisis is top of mind for many around the world, including Canadians. Between 2019 and 2024, house prices in Toronto and Montréal had an average annual increase of 6.7 per cent and 10.2 per cent, respectively.

Prices throughout the country are expected to continue increasing over the next decade and as a result, the pressure is intense to rapidly increase residential development.

Yet, municipal governments must balance this pressure with other tasks, like preparing for the effects of climate change. Some of the most pressing challenges for cities include meeting their housing and climate change goals without massive changes in land use to maintain green spaces and the benefits they provide to people.

Natural spaces like parks and woodlands provides many diverse benefits to city residents, from helping to cool off surrounding neighbourhoods to providing recreational areas.

The advantage these spaces have over grey infrastructure is that they can simultaneously help combat multiple challenges faced by cities, including poor air quality, heatwaves and flooding. When nature is intentionally used to combat these types of challenges, it is referred to as nature-based solutions.

Nonetheless, nature-based solutions are still rarely implemented in developments. Therefore, it’s important to identify and use key opportunities that can help communities balance their competing goals by increasing the use of nature-based solutions.

By highlighting these opportunities, we can inform municipal governments, developers and residents about how communities can be built to successfully combat climate change and other challenges.

In our recent study, we interviewed planners and developers throughout Ontario to identify these opportunities.

Nature in development

Municipal planners and private land developers across Ontario are obliged by provincial policy to consider nature in their decisions about the planning and development of neighbourhoods.

However, this largely happens because they are required by law to protect municipal natural heritage systems (large woodlots or wetlands, for example), and not because they understand or support the benefits from nature, such as flood prevention.

Natural features that fall outside the natural heritage system, such as smaller woodlots or individual trees, are not protected by provincial policy. Instead, they can be protected by municipal policy or bylaws. However, these policies and bylaws vary, and some municipalities do a better job than others in protecting nature for their residents.

Developers often see protected nature as a barrier to development, but some of them also understand that it provides benefits to residents. Some try to make use of nature in innovative ways, like building natural pathways or naturalized creeks through a subdivision.

Unfortunately, municipalities sometimes push back against these innovations because of concerns over maintenance costs and worries about possible interference with infrastructure.

Read more:
Bringing forests to the city: 10 ways planting trees improves health in urban centres

Nature and climate change

Overall, the planners and developers we interviewed recognized that nature can help communities fight the effects of climate change.

They stated that planning policies and bylaws are also starting to change in ways that can address these concerns. For example, many municipalities have established tree canopy targets or introduced more restrictive stormwater management requirements.

But climate change is rarely stated as the reason for a change to policy and bylaws. For example, a city might recognize tree cover is important for the city environment and introduce a tree protection bylaw, but that does not mean the bylaw addresses climate change.

Similarly, developers might plant trees to beautify a neighbourhood and make it more desirable for home buyers, but they might not do this to reduce climate change impacts. Addressing climate change only implicitly or as a side effect makes it much harder to co-ordinate different actions and can limit their overall effectiveness.

A main reason why the climate change benefits of nature are considered only implicitly is that planners and developers are uncertain about how reliable the information is for quantifying these benefits.

Another problem is that municipalities differ in how they address these issues, which creates highly variable regulatory conditions. Having province- or nation-wide standards would help fix this issue.

Though they are not yet widely implemented across Canada, some municipalities use green development standards as a key mechanism for introducing benefits of nature in developments. These standards work, for example, by mandating a minimum percentage of green landscaping on a development site. Unfortunately, Ontario’s recently passed Bill-17 has created uncertainty around these standards.

Ways to support nature-based solutions

There are key opportunities to support building more sustainable and climate-ready communities through increased use of nature-based solutions in developments. These opportunities largely come through policy, tools and people:

1. Provincial and municipal policy changes that consider the climate change benefits of nature-based solutions could help increase its use in development. This could be done by strengthening and expanding green development standards, like those currently implemented in some cities.

2. Developing and using tools that can rigorously quantify the climate change benefits of nature-based solutions could also have substantial impact. These tools could clarify the benefits of nature-based solutions and provide a solid argument for their increased use.

3. Collaboration between the public and private sectors is crucial to encourage increased use of nature-based solutions. Whether it is working together to craft realistic policy goals or to incorporate new tools, both sectors are key to ensuring changes are effective and efficient.

Adam Skoyles has received funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Michael Drescher receives or has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, and the Natural Assets Initiative. Michael Drescher has had a volunteer position for Carolinian Canada and has worked with the Ontario Land Trust Association.

– ref. Canadian cities can prepare for climate change by building with nature – https://theconversation.com/canadian-cities-can-prepare-for-climate-change-by-building-with-nature-263608

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

Opposition leader Sussan Ley says welfare should be targeted “to those who truly need it”, and people should be helped “off welfare and into self-reliance”.

In her first major economic speech as leader, Ley on Wednesday will lay down some policy markers to contain spending and the size of government, with more people looking after their own needs rather than expecting government to do so.

Welfare benefits should not be paid to wealthier households, Ley says in her speech, titled “From Dependency to Empowerment: Restoring Responsibility to the Budget”. To be given to CEDA in Melbourne, it has been released ahead of delivery.

“We must move from a time of dependency to empowerment,” she says.

“By ‘dependency’, I mean the growing expectation that government will provide for every need and solve every problem by spending more.

“This mindset, supercharged in recent years, weakens both our finances and our national character.

“My message is that we must put guard rails around government spending, not as an end in itself, but so that we can strengthen our economy, preserve our capacity to help those truly in need, and ensure the next generation inherits opportunity, not debt.

“Because debt is an issue of intergenerational fairness.”

Ley says that moving to empowerment is about getting the balance right between what people do for themselves and the taxpayer-funded safety net.

“It’s about reaffirming that government can do a lot of good but it cannot and should not do everything.”

There is general agreement about the importance of a safety net, Ley says, “but true compassion is sustainable compassion.

“A welfare system that attempts to be all things to all people will eventually collapse under its own weight, and that outcome would hurt the most vulnerable most of all.

“If we want to keep the safety net strong, we have to ensure it is financially sustainable and targeted to genuine need.

“Unfortunately, in the past few years, the pendulum has swung too far toward dependency.

“It has become almost taboo in politics to suggest that not everyone is entitled to every government benefit.
But I ask: is it fair to pile up debts that our children will have to pay off?”

Ley’s speech will win support from those who believe more discipline should be imposed on government spending and on the reach of government, and those who want the Coalition to differentiate itself from Labor. But her pitch is also risky, because opponents will fan fears of some people losing benefits under the Liberals.

In 2012, then shadow treasurer Joe Hockey stirred criticism with a speech on “The End of the Age of Entitlement”. Treasurer in the Abbott government, Hockey’s first budget, incorporating much of his approach, triggered a massive backlash.

Ley points to research from the Centre for Independent Studies that said more than half of adults relied on government for most of their income, and 10% of taxpayers paid two thirds of all income tax.

“The time of reflexively looking to Canberra to solve every problem with a blank cheque, must give way to a time of empowerment, personal responsibility, and fiscal commonsense.”

Ley says the Albanese govenrment has “normalised and extended the era of big government,” rather than shifting back to normalcy after the big COVID spending.

“Rather than using the recovery to pare back spending, the current government has layered on even more permanent programs and higher baseline spending.
The mindset of “government will take care of everything” has been actively encouraged.

“If we keep spending at pandemic-emergency levels during ordinary years, we will inevitably lose our AAA credit rating.”

Ley says this year government spending will reach 27% of GDP. This is the highest (outside recession) since 1986, and up from 24% since the government came in.

“We are essentially running a peacetime economy on emergency fiscal settings. That is obviously not sustainable.”

The first step in moving to “empowerment” and responsible budget management must be to re-establish “some fundamental principkle in our public discourse,” Ley says.

“Principles that used to be broadly accepted across politics, but which have been allowed to erode.” The default position should be balancing the budget over the economic cycle, with surpluses in prosperous times to pay down debt. Spending growth had to be restrained, and over-reliance on volatile revenue booms had to be avoided.

Policies were needed to incentivise people.

“This means winding back disincentives to work and save.

“It means targeting welfare to those who truly need it, while encouraging those who are able to work or study to do so.

“Our goal should be to help people off welfare and into self-reliance , not to add more people onto government support unnecessarily.

“As a government , we cannot, and should not, shield everyone from every cost of living pressure by writing a cheque.

“Ultimately, the best form if welfare is a job and a thriving private economy.

“Universal free everything might sound nice, but in reality it drains resources from those who need help most.

“We believe government support should be a safety net, not a blanket.

“That means, for example, we should not be paying welfare benefits to high-income households.”

The Liberals would be “unrelenting” in pursuing efficiencies, and eliminating duplicative or low-value programs.

“We are at a crossroads. Down one path is a continuation of the status quo. Bigger government, higher spending, higher debts and eventually higher taxes to pay for it, and a people increasingly reliant on Canberra’s largesse.

“Down the other path is a course correction restoring sustainability and unleashing the power of our people and businesses to drive progress.

“The first path may feel comfortable for a time, until it hits the wall of economic reality. The second path may require some hard work and adjustment now, but it will lead to far greater rewards in the future.”

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

– ref. Opposition leader Sussan Ley commits to more targeted welfare, saying it shouldn’t go to high income households – https://theconversation.com/opposition-leader-sussan-ley-commits-to-more-targeted-welfare-saying-it-shouldnt-go-to-high-income-households-265379