Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sharpe, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University

Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old Utah man suspected of having fatally shot right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, is reportedly not cooperating with authorities. Robinson was apprehended after a more than two-day manhunt and is being held without bail at the Utah County Jail.

While a motive for the shooting has yet to be established, Utah Governor Spencer Cox has highlighted Robinson’s links to gaming and the “dark internet”.

Bullet casings found at the scene were inscribed with various messages evoking gaming subcultures. One of the quotes – “Notices bulges, OwO what’s this” – can be linked to the furry community, known for role-playing using animal avatars.

Another message – “Hey, fascist! Catch! ↑ → ↓↓↓” – features arrow symbols associated with an action that allows players to drop bombs on their foes in Helldiver 2, a game in which players play as fascists fighting enemy forces.

One casing reads “O Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Ciao, ciao!”, words from an Italian anti-Mussolini protest song, which also appears in the shooter game Far Cry 6. Yet another is a homophobic jibe: “if you read this you are gay LMAO”.

If Robinson does turn out to be a shooter radicalised through online gaming spaces, he would not be the first. Previous terrorist shootings at Christchurch (New Zealand), Halle (Germany), Bærum (Norway), and the US cities of Buffalo, El Paso and Poway were all carried out by radicalised young men who embraced online conspiracies and violent video games.

In each of these cases, the shooter attempted (and in all but the Poway shooting, succeeded) to live stream the atrocities, as though emulating a first-person shooter game.

A growing online threat

The global video game market is enormous, with an estimated value of almost US$300 billion (about A$450 billion) in 2024. Of the more than three billion gamers, the largest percentage is made up of young adults aged 18–34.

Many of these are vulnerable young men. And extremist activists have long recognised this group as a demographic ripe for radicalisation.

As early as 2002, American neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale advised his followers “if we can influence video games and entertainment, it will make people understand we are their friends and neighbours”.

Since then, far-right groups have produced ethnonationalist-themed games, such as “Ethnic Cleansing” and “ZOG’s Nightmare”, in which players defend the “white race” against Islamists, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, Jews and more.

Studying radicalisation in gamer circles

For many, the Kirk shooting has resurfaced the perennial question about the link (or lack thereof) between playing violent video games and real-world violence.

But while this is an important line of inquiry, the evidence suggests most radicalisation takes place not through playing video games themselves, but through gaming platform communication channels.

In 2020, my colleagues and I studied an extraordinary data dump of more than nine million posts from the gaming platform Steam to understand this process.

We found evidence of radicalisation occurring through communication channels, such as team voice channels. Here, players establish connections with one another, and can leverage these connections for political recruitment.

The radicalisation of vulnerable users is not instantaneous. Once extremists have connected with potential targets, they invite them into platforms such as Discord or private chat rooms. These spaces allow for meme and image sharing, as well as ongoing voice and video conversations.

Skilful recruiters will play to a target’s specific grievances. These may be personal, psycho-sexual (such as being unable to gain love or approval), or related to divisive issues such as employment, housing or gender roles.

The recruit is initiated into a fast-changing set of cynical in-jokes and in-group terms. These may include mocking self-designations, such as the Pepe the Frog meme, used by the far-right to ironically embrace their ugly “political incorrectness”. They also use derogatory terms for “enemies”, such as “woke”, “social justice warriors”, “soyboys”, “fascists” and “cultural Marxists”.

Gradually, the new recruit becomes accustomed to the casual denigration and dehumanisation of the “enemies”.

Dark and sarcastic humour allow for plausible deniability while still spreading hate. As such, humour acts an on-ramp to slowly introduce new recruits to the conspiratorial and violent ideologies that lie at the heart of terrorist shootings.

Generally, these ideologies claim the world is run by nefarious and super-powerful plutocrats/Jews/liberals/communists/elites, who can only be stopped through extreme measures.

It then becomes a question of resolve. Who among the group is willing to do what the ideology suggests is necessary?

What can be done?

The Australian Federal Police, as well as the Australian parliament, has recognised the threat of violence as a result of radicalisation through online gaming. Clearly, it’s something we can’t be complacent about.

Social isolation and mental illness, which are sadly as widespread in Australia as they are elsewhere, are some of the factors online extremists try to exploit when luring vulnerable individuals.

At the same time, social media algorithms function to shunt users into ever more sensational content. This is something online extremists have benefited from, and learned to exploit.

There is a growing number of organisations devoted to trying to prevent online radicalisation through gaming platforms. Many of these have resources for concerned parents, teachers and care givers.

Ultimately, in an increasingly online world, the best way to keep young people safe from online radicalisation is to keep having constructive offline conversations about their virtual experiences, and the people they might meet in the process.

Matthew Sharpe 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. Charlie Kirk shooting suspect had ties to gaming culture and the ‘dark internet’. Here’s how they radicalise – https://theconversation.com/charlie-kirk-shooting-suspect-had-ties-to-gaming-culture-and-the-dark-internet-heres-how-they-radicalise-265279

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

Only a few months into her leadership, Sussan Ley is facing an extraordinary insurgency from Liberal frontbenchers.

Last week she had to sack Jacinta Price for refusing to endorse her leadership.

Now she is being warned, bluntly, that if the Liberals don’t drop the commitment to net zero by 2050 – or at least water it down – there will be walkouts by frontbenchers.

Andrew Hastie, the opposition’s home affairs spokesman, told the ABC on Monday if Ley stuck with net zero “that leaves me without a job”.

“I’ve nailed my colours to the mast. If I go out with the tide in two and a half years, that’s great. I’ll get a lot more time with my kids back. My primary mission in politics is to build a stronger, more secure, more competitive Australia. Energy security is a vital input to that.”

Hastie said he felt “quite passionate” about the net zero issue.

For someone with intimate knowledge of military discipline, one would have thought Hastie would have had more understanding of the need for reasonable discipline in politics too. But he has decided to make his own rules.

He is acting in a way that is quite contemptuous of Ley, whose position is weak because her party is fractured into warring factions.

With the Liberals conducting a review of their energy policy, Hastie has spoken out on net zero on multiple occasions since the election. By indicating that if he didn’t get his way he would spit the dummy rather than accept a majority decision, he is presumably seeking to turn up the heat on his leader and his party.

His reference that he wouldn’t really mind if he lost his seat at the next election is also self-indulgent, as if the seat is his personal possession rather than being more appropriately seen as belonging to his party.

On Tuesday education spokesman Jonno Duniam bought into the debate, describing Hastie as “a man of integrity”, and telling Sky News “if we just said net zero at any cost by 2050, I think you’d find there’d be a mass exodus”. This would be “bad policy”.

Duniam is pointing to a likely compromise – net zero with qualifications or conditions – which may be where Ley now hopes to land her divided party.

This would be a weakening of the net zero commitment Scott Morrison took to the Glasgow climate conference in 2021, and would invite criticism from the younger voters and in inner urban seats.

But it would be better, in political terms, than ditching the commitment entirely. It also may be the best Ley could do, given the opposition to net zero that has emerged among many in the rank and file across the country. The Victorian state Liberal council became the latest party body to vote against it last weekend.

In a week when the government is preparing to launch its 2035 target and has put out a major report on the threats posed by climate change, you would have thought the opposition would try to avoid drawing attention to its problems on climate policy.

You would have expected it would have Dan Tehan, its spokesman, on climate and energy, out and about.

But no. Tehan is overseas, and has been talking up nuclear energy.

It is a metaphor for the Liberals’ wider problem of finding themselves in the wrong places at the wrong times.

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. View from The Hill: Hastie refuses to accept that politics, like military service, requires some discipline – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-hastie-refuses-to-accept-that-politics-like-military-service-requires-some-discipline-265011

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan L. Zecher, Associate Professor, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University

Charlie Kirk: white nationalist, conservative Christian, right-wing social media personality, shooting victim, and now, a “martyr”. That is, according to his supporters.

Since Kirk’s death last week, a number of his followers from the Christian right have ascribed him the title of “martyr”. President Donald Trump himself called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom”.

Similarly, Rob McCoy, a pastor emeritus from California, said at a Sunday morning church service

Today, we celebrate the life of Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old God-fearing Christian man, a husband, father of two, a patriot, a civil rights activist, and now a Christian martyr.

Looking back at the history of martyrdom offers insight into what it means for Kirk to be hailed a martyr, both for his memory, and for the future of the United States.

From witness to criminal to witness again

The term martyr emerged in ancient law courts with the Greek word martus, meaning a witness or person who gives testimony.

From their earliest days, Christians appropriated it to refer to those who testified to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Luke even concludes with Jesus telling his disciples: “You are witnesses – martyres – of these things” (Luke 24:48).

Early Christians regularly ran afoul of Roman authorities, and were brought to court as criminals. The charges generally revolved around questionable loyalty to the Roman state and religion. Could someone worship Jesus and also offer sacrifice to the traditional gods, including the emperor or his divine spirit (his “genius”)?

Christians and Romans alike thought not. From the 2nd century onward, accounts of these trials centred on a single question: “are you a Christian?”. If the answer was “yes”, execution followed.

For local authorities, the executed person was a criminal. But for fellow Christians, they were witnesses to the truth of the gospel, and their deaths were evidence of the Christian God. They were both witness and testimony – “martyrs” in every sense.

In 2004, scholar of early Christianity, Elizabeth Castelli, argued martyrs are born only after their death. The martyr isn’t a fact, but a figure produced by the stories told about them, and the honour afforded them in ritual commemorations. A person isn’t a martyr until other people within a specific community decide they are.

To understand what makes someone a martyr, we have to ask two questions:

1. what are they a witness to? As in, what ideal or cause led to their death and how did their death testify to it?

2. who are they a witness for? Who tells their story and who calls them a martyr?

Boundaries and borderline cases

The history of martyrdom is also a history of debates over what kind of death “counts”, and what role martyrs play in the church.

Questionable cases have accumulated through the decades. Some “martyrs” volunteered eagerly, perhaps too eagerly.

On April 29 304 CE, an archdeacon named Euplus stood outside the city council chamber in Catania, Sicily, shouting: “I want to die; I am a Christian”. After some discussion, the governor sentenced him to torture and he died of his injuries. Was this martyrdom, or suicide?

Under Christian emperors from the 4th century on, soldiers who died fighting Persians (or later Arabs) also came to be called martyrs. A soldier’s death is especially considered martyrdom if they fought against members of a different religion.

However, the soldier-martyr label has also raised anxieties. The most recent example came from the troubling claim by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyrill that Russian soldiers who die fighting in Ukraine are martyrs – despite fighting fellow Orthodox Christians. What do these soldiers testify to?

The stories of martyrs define community borders. Those who kill martyrs tend to be treated as enemies of the faith, whether they are Roman authorities, enemy combatants, or even people assumed to be complicit in the event.

The MAGA martyr

Let’s apply the two questions above to Charlie Kirk, who has been dubbed both “martyr” and “patron saint of MAGA”.

What would Kirk be a martyr to? To his supporters and those on the MAGA right, he died for free speech, for Judeo-Christian values, for a commitment to “Western civilisation”, and supposedly for the “truth” itself.

To others, especially those he attacked and denigrated publicly – such as queer and trans people, immigrants, Muslims and feminists – he died for white nationalism, hatred and exclusion.

This takes us back to the second question: who is Charlie Kirk a martyr for? Clearly, the answer to this is Christian nationalists, MAGA supporters and the broader American right.

He testified in life to their shared beliefs and values, and in death is their “patron saint”. The legacy of Kirk’s death will be to define who is part of this community, and who is excluded. The question then is, will a division framed in such polarising terms come to define American society as a whole?

From revenge to love

Following Kirk’s death, people on the far-right called for violent revenge against the left – even though the shooting suspect’s political motivations are unknown.

Media have reported a surge in radicalisation on right-wing platforms. There was even a website, now removed, dedicated to doxxing anyone who spoke negatively about Kirk and using that information to get them fired.

Against this rhetoric of revenge, the history of martyrdom offers a different way forward. The early theologian, Clement of Alexandria, said someone becomes a martyr not because of their death, but because of their love.

The only true witness, he argued, is love, because God is love. The only honour one can offer the martyrs is to love as they loved. Clement suggests it’s possible to reject vengeance and sectarianism, even if one loves the martyrs.

Jonathan L. Zecher 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. Can Charlie Kirk really be considered a ‘martyr’? A Christianity historian explains – https://theconversation.com/can-charlie-kirk-really-be-considered-a-martyr-a-christianity-historian-explains-265283

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aruna Sathanapally, Chief Executive, Grattan Institute

Despite the fear of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking our jobs, we actually don’t have enough workers.

The Baby Boomer generation is retiring and Australia’s workforce is ageing. The challenge of finding the workers we need will grow over the coming years.

Meanwhile, more workers will be needed to support the clean energy transition, build more housing and meet growing demand for human services – particularly healthcare and aged care.

Here’s what’s driving this situation and what can be done to ensure we get the workforce we need for the services and infrastructure we value.

Australia’s workforce needs are growing

Australians live longer than people in almost every other country in the world, and we enjoy high standards of living in our old age.

As Australians live longer, the population that is over 75, and over 85, are growing to a size we have not seen before.

Our ageing population is already reshaping demand for labour and services, and this will continue in the coming decades. Older people need more care and other services than younger people.

And as countries get richer, their citizens’ expectations of government services increase. These trends are driving growing demand for workers in healthcare, aged and disability care.

Older people also typically live in smaller households (one or two people), which means we need to build more homes for a particular population.

Australia is also in the midst of a whole-of-economy transformation to net-zero carbon emissions, which will require substantially more infrastructure, and a major reallocation of labour and skills. It’s an industrial revolution on a deadline.

At the same time, our working age population is shrinking as a share of the total population. A smaller workforce relative to the size of the population will make it harder to build the homes and infrastructure we need, and provide the care services we expect.

The counter-trend here is technology and AI. AI is likely to bring many productivity benefits and may mean fewer workers are needed in a range of occupations.

But the balance of evidence suggests AI is overall more likely to augment than replace workers, at least in the next few years.

Read more:
These jobs will thrive – but others may vanish – as AI transforms Australia’s workforce

Making the most of our talent pool

The Australian labour market is strong. Our unemployment rate is low. But Australia can and should aim higher on workforce engagement to increase the number of workers, hours worked and making full use of workers’ skills and expertise.

Beneath the aggregate statistics, there are still many groups that face barriers to work or want to work more hours – particularly women.

Read more:
New study finds the gender earnings gap could be halved if we reined in the long hours often worked by men

Australian women are much more likely to work part-time than their international peers (or Australian men).

And when you consider that Australian women are among the most highly educated in the world, the untapped potential is even greater.

Migration is another essential part of meeting our future workforce needs and is Australia’s great strength among advanced economies. Migration increases the size of our working-age population, thereby slowing the ageing of the population.

But the biggest benefits come from attracting skills and talent from across the world, ensuring migrants can actually use their training and experience once in Australia, and better supporting migrants to thrive.

Pulling the policy levers

Governments hold many policy levers to help grow Australia’s talent pool.
Most directly, the federal government determines Australia’s migration intake and the skills mix.

Australia should aim to be a best-practice migration nation, with a migration system that is:

• flexible (rather than overly prescriptive)

• focused on the medium-term (rather than short-term skills shortages)

• offers a clear pathway from temporary visas to permanent residency (while acknowledging that not all temporary visa-holders can obtain residency)

• and ensures that migrants can put their skills and qualifications to best use in Australia.

Governments should also be reducing barriers to work, particularly for women with young children. Women with young children are much more likely than the general population to face high “effective marginal tax rates” – the proportion of additional income lost to taxes, reduced welfare payments, additional childcare costs, and HELP repayments – which make the pay-off from work unattractive.

Women with young children are also much more likely than other groups to increase their paid work hours if their effective marginal tax rates are reduced.

Federal and state governments have made important progress in recent years on reducing barriers to work for parents with young children. But there is more to be done.

Even after recent increases in the child care subsidy, a quarter of working-age women who use childcare still face high or very high effective marginal tax rates.

Ensuring high-quality childcare is broadly available and affordable would reduce barriers to work for parents, and older carers too, helping to boost our talent pool.

As Australia’s population ages, older worker engagement will become increasingly important too. Workforce engagement starts to decline when people reach their 50s, and drops steeply for people in their 60s.

Embracing flexible work practices and investing in healthier ageing would enable more people to work for longer.

Australia’s challenge is not job creation, but how to find the workers we need. Our governments will need to pull all the levers to ensure we do.

The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

– ref. Australia needs more workers. These are the policy changes that would help get them – https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-more-workers-these-are-the-policy-changes-that-would-help-get-them-265191

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hui Wen Quek, PhD candidate, Discipline of Pharmacy, The University of Western Australia

Australians are living longer than ever before. While this is broadly good news, ageing well comes with a range of challenges.

As people grow older, they’re more likely to develop multiple chronic conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and cognitive problems such as dementia.

These conditions often mean people need to take more medications. Around one in three Australians aged over 70 take five or more different medications. While these can be important, and even lifesaving, managing multiple medications can become a major challenge in itself.

We wanted to understand more about how older Australians use medications. In a new study, we looked at ten years of national data from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), which subsidises medications for eligible Australians.

What did we find?

Using a 10% sample of Australians between 2013–23, we examined how often people aged 65 and over visited prescribers and pharmacies for the dispensing of their PBS medicines. Prescribers included GPs and other medical specialists, for example.

We found older Australians visited their prescribers an average of five times a year and made 16 pharmacy visits annually for the supply of their PBS medications. In 2023, people over 65 had an average of 31 PBS-subsidised medicines dispensed throughout the year (this figure may include repeats of the same medicine).

We also found the number of older Australians using five or more regular PBS medications increased by 32% (from 1.03 million to 1.35 million) from 2013 to 2023, likely driven by population ageing.

It’s important to note our study only captured PBS-subsidised medications that were dispensed. Prescriptions that weren’t filled or those not subsidised by the PBS (such as over-the-counter medications and supplements) weren’t included, meaning the true number of medications older people are using is likely even higher.

Managing medications

While medications are essential for managing health, they can also pose risks. Taking more medications often means a higher likelihood of errors, side effects, drug interactions and hospitalisations.

What’s more, as we age, physiological changes such as reduced kidney and liver function can increase the risk of medication-related harms. Depending on the individual, it could come to a point where the risk of harm eventually outweighs the benefits of the medication.

Sometimes, when it comes to medications, less can be more.

As well as the physical health risks, managing multiple medications can be complex and demanding for older adults and their families. More medications mean more doctors’ visits, more trips to the pharmacy, and prescription costs can also quickly add up. All this can influence what daily life looks like for older people.

Meet ‘Jean’

Let’s look at a hypothetical case study. Jean is 80 and lives on her own. She is on ten different medications for conditions including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, arthritis, reflux and sleep problems. Some need to be taken multiple times a day, meaning she takes more than ten tablets daily.

Jean’s routine revolves around managing her medications, remembering what to take and when, coping with medication side effects including dizziness and tiredness, and making frequent trips to the doctor and pharmacy.

She’s stopped going to her weekly bowls game, and even lunch outings have become stressful as she needs to remember her pills and time them around meals. Her daughter helps with transport and picking up scripts, but the complexity of her medications has affected her lifestyle, independence, and enjoyment of life.

Although this case study is fictional, it reflects the circumstances many older people find themselves in with regards to medication use.

What can be done?

It’s important for older people taking multiple medications to talk to their doctor or pharmacist about whether their current medication regimen is still right for them, and how to manage their medication safely and effectively.

Many Australians, particularly older adults, could be eligible to be referred by their GP for a government-funded medication review. These medication reviews are conducted by a credentialed pharmacist and designed to help people get the most benefit from their medications while minimising any potential harms.

However this service remains under-utilised, which motivated a recent campaign to improve awareness and uptake.

Read more:
Taking more than 5 pills a day? ‘Deprescribing’ can prevent harm – especially for older people

Let’s return to Jean. Fortunately, she recently received a detailed medication review.

The reviewing pharmacist was able to make some practical changes to the timing of when Jean takes some of her medications. Also, by suggesting products that combine more than one medication in a single tablet, the pharmacist reduced the number of tablets Jean needs to take every day.

The pharmacist also worked with Jean’s community pharmacy to repackage Jean’s medications into a pill organiser and helped establish a reminder system to help Jean remember to take her medications at the correct times and when to refill her prescriptions.

Finally, the pharmacist queried several of Jean’s medications with her doctor in light of side effects and changes in her health status. As a result, the dose of one medication was halved, and another was discontinued.

Jean now plans to have her medications reviewed annually.

Older Australians tell us they want to enjoy happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives. With the right support, there’s a real opportunity to reduce the burden of taking multiple medications, and help older Australians like Jean not just live longer, but live well.

Hui Wen Quek is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia. Her PhD is funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

Amy T Page is supported by the Western Australian Future Health Research and Innovation Fund/Western Australian Department of Health. She receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). She is the Director for the Centre for Optimisation of Medicines, The University of Western Australia.

Christopher Etherton-Beer is the chair of the Drug Utilisation Sub-Committee of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. The views expressed in this article do not represent those of the committee.

Kenneth Lee is supported by the Western Australian Future Health Research and Innovation Fund/Western Australian Department of Health. He receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF). He is the Deputy Director for the Centre for Optimisation of Medicines, The University of Western Australia.

– ref. Older Australians collect an average of 31 PBS scripts a year – new research – https://theconversation.com/older-australians-collect-an-average-of-31-pbs-scripts-a-year-new-research-261271

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

The Australian government today released regulatory guidance on the social media minimum age law, which comes into effect on December 10. The law will restrict individuals under 16 from holding accounts on many social media platforms.

Reasonable steps for tech companies

This guidance follows a self-assessment guide for technology companies recently released by the eSafety Commission. Companies can use this to determine whether their services will be age-restricted.

That guidance included details on the types of platforms to be excluded from the age restrictions, such as those whose “sole or primary purpose” is professional networking, to support education or health, or to enable playing of online games.

Today’s guidance is aimed at services likely to be age-restricted, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. It sets out what the government considers “reasonable steps” technology companies must take to “ensure they have appropriate measures in place” to comply with the legislation.

Removing underage users

Social media platforms will be expected to “detect and deactivate or remove” accounts from existing underage users. The government advice says this should be done “with care and clear communication”, which suggests account-holders will be notified.

However, it remains unclear whether companies will delete a user’s content. Nor is it clear whether an underage person’s account could be reactivated once they turn 16.

Preservation options may demonstrate a level of “care” expected by the legislation. This may be important for young people concerned about losing their creative content and social media history.

Tech companies will also need to “prevent re-registration or circumvention by underage users whose accounts have been deactivated or removed”.

This suggests companies may need to put measures in place to counter attempts to use virtual private networks (VPNs), for example, which allow users to hide their country of residence. They may also need strategies to check whether underage users are accessing accounts due to errors made by age-assurance technologies.

How age assurance may work

For users over 16 who are erroneously restricted from accessing accounts, technology companies must “provide accessible review mechanisms”.

Companies are also expected to take a “layered approach” to age assurance to minimise error rates and “friction” for users. They must also give users choice on how age will be assured, as they “cannot use government ID as the sole method”.

This may allay some data-privacy concerns. However, the number of users who need to provide some form of personal information to assure their age will be significant.

The government guidance makes clear companies must ensure they are “avoiding reliance on self-declaration alone” (that is, simply asking users their age). Companies must also be “continuously monitoring and improving systems” to demonstrate they are effective in limiting underage account access.

Will the legislation achieve its goal?

The guidance provides clarity on many practical questions about how the legislation will be implemented. It also demonstrates that Australians under 16 are not being banned, completely, from accessing social media content.

Under-16s will still be able to view social media content online without logging into an account. This means things such as watching YouTube on a web browser.

Young people may still access content through accounts held by older people. Think of when adult accounts remain logged in on shared devices.

Parents and other caregivers will need to ensure they understand the new rules and continue to guide young people accessing content online. The eSafety Commissioner will also provide further resources to support people to understand the new laws.

What won’t be required

Importantly, the government “is not asking platforms to verify the age of all users”. The guidance explains such a blanket verification approach “may be considered unreasonable, especially if existing data can infer age reliably”. Some young people may keep their accounts, such as in cases where facial scanning technology estimates them to be over 16.

The government “does not expect platforms to keep personal information from individual age checks” or retain “user-level data”. Rather, companies will be expected to keep records that “focus on systems and processes”.

This suggests individual cases of young people accessing accounts may not mean companies have failed to comply with legislation.

However, the eSafety Commissioner said in a press conference today that companies will be expected to “make discoverable and responsible reporting tools available”. Where some young people’s accounts are missed, the government will “talk to the companies about the need to retune their [age assurance] technologies”.

What happens next?

Technology companies are likely to start implementing restrictions using data they already have for account holders, to ensure compliance from December 10. If a person signed up to Facebook in 2004, when the platform launched, for example, that could demonstrate the account holder is over 16 without additional checks.

However, the government is not prescribing specific approaches or technologies companies must use. Each service will need to determine its own strategy. This means Australians could face differing expectations for age assurance from each platform.

What the government has made clear is there will be no delay in the start date for compliance. Communications Minister Anika Wells said there is “no excuse for non-compliance”.

The next steps are now in the social media companies’ hands.

Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Association for Information Science and Technology.

– ref. Details on how Australia’s social media ban for under-16s will work are finally becoming clear – https://theconversation.com/details-on-how-australias-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-will-work-are-finally-becoming-clear-265323

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ehsan Noroozinejad, Senior Researcher and Sustainable Future Lead, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University

Climate risks are hitting where Australians feel it most: at home.

One of the headline-grabbing figures in a new climate risk assessment was that Australian property values could take a A$611 billion hit by 2050, under a 3°C warming scenario.

That level of warming is something Australia needs plan for. As a new National Adaptation Plan, also released yesterday, said:

it is prudent to plan for global warming levels of 2°C to 3°C by the end of this century, with temperatures in Australia likely to track higher than the global average.

But what does that $611 billion hit to property values actually mean? And what more can we do to better protect our homes – including 1.5 million of them already at high or very high risk today?

The $611 billion property price forecast

Australia’s first comprehensive National Climate Risk assessment, released yesterday, forecasts losses in Australian “property values” could reach $571 billion by 2030 under a 3°C warming scenario. By 2050, that could hit $611 billion.

To be clear, that isn’t the bill to repair or rebuild homes after disasters. And it doesn’t include the cost of replacing public assets such as roads, bridges or power stations.

It’s the drop in market value of properties as climate risk becomes clearer, buyers pay less, banks may value homes lower, and insurance can get more expensive or harder to obtain.

For example, if a house that might have sold for $800,000 without these risks sells for $720,000 once flood risk and higher premiums are factored in, that $80,000 difference is a “loss in value”.

Aggregated across the country, those individual discounts add up to the assessment’s forecast of $611 billion by 2050.

1.5 million homes at high risk – even now

The assessment found about 751,000 (8.2%) of residential buildings are currently located in “high risk” areas for floods, bushfires, tropical cyclones and heatwaves, while 794,000 (8.7%) are in “very high risk” areas. That’s a total of more than 1.5 million homes today.

Even under a conservative 2°C warming scenario, that’s expected to rise to 789,000 homes (8.9%) in high-risk areas, and more than 1 million (11.1%) in very high-risk areas.

And you don’t have to own a beachfront home to be at growing risk from rising sea levels.

The assessment found 1.5 million people in coastal communities – especially in low-lying areas within 10 kilometres of soft shorelines – could be in high and very high risk areas for coastal flooding and erosion by 2050. That could grow to a third of coastal communities – home to more than 3 million people – by 2090 if populations stayed put.

Read more:
Is this Australia’s climate wake-up call? Official report reveals a hotter, harder future if we don’t act now

Costlier home insurance, if you can get it

The new assessment also warns insurance affordability and availability are likely to worsen, with flow-on effects to mortgages and house prices if insurance cover is withdrawn.

Direct impacts from floods, coastal inundation, fires, wind and subsidence could more than double the number of properties classed as high risk by 2100.

For some homes, insurance premiums could rise enough to knock 10% off the property value.

Read more:
Australia faces a home insurance reckoning – and we can learn from California’s bold move

That all assumes things stay the same as they are today. Governments, communities and households can all do more in response to these two new reports.

4 key gaps we need to act on

Australia’s new adaptation plan is a start. It outlines national leadership across seven systems and sets out $3.6 billion committed since 2022 and around $9 billion to 2030 for measures that support resilience. These include the $1 billion Disaster Ready Fund and urban river cooling projects.

Read more:
Climate change is causing ever more disruption. Can Australia’s new adaptation plan help?

But what else would help?

The federal government is expected to announce its new emissions reduction targets this week.

In the meantime, there are four pillars of practical adaptation that would give Australians greater confidence, all of which align with the new assessment’s evidence.

1) National floodplain mapping with consistent data: Australians need clear, comparable hazard bands to guide land-use planning and building decisions. The assessment points to risk-based planning and building codes as core tools. National mapping would feed these directly.

Read more:
Insurers have detailed data on your home’s flood risk. So, why don’t you?

2) Open-access extreme weather–water models: publicly accessible tools linking rainfall, rivers, floodplains and coasts, so councils and insurers can stress-test decisions off the same, transparent system.

3) Continuous monitoring and event forensics: after every major flood, fire or storm, we need to collect consistent exposure, damage and claims data to reconstruct what failed – and why. This would support the adaptation plan’s push for effective, evidence-based adaptation and would avoid investing in measures that don’t work.

4) Regional ‘testbeds’ linking researchers, councils and insurers: piloting risk-based planning, climate-adjusted building codes, and nature-based coastal protections (such as mangroves) in high-risk regions. After testing, we then need to scale up what works.

This would help us develop more community-level plans to reduce damage bills and make homes insurable for longer.

What households and communities can do

If you’re in a flood-prone street, elevate electrics and appliances and use flood-tolerant materials. In bushfire zones, ember-proof vents and upgrade roofs and gutters.

Rooftop solar plus batteries and local community microgrids can help keep the power on during heat and storms. The assessment lists microgrids and storage as practical adaptation measures for energy resilience.

Finally, try using the assessment report’s new interactive online maps to understand your local risk. These show where climate risks are already high (for example, parts of northern Australia and coastal areas) and how it grows with increased warming.

Ehsan Noroozinejad has received funding from both national and international organisations. He is an expert in innovative housing policy and climate resilience. His most recent funding on integrated housing and climate policy comes from the Australian Public Policy Institute (APPI). He also serves, in a volunteer capacity, on the Executive Committee of the Early- and Mid-Career Academic and Practitioner (EMCAP) Network at Natural Hazards Research Australia, the Australian government-funded national centre for natural hazard resilience and disaster risk reduction.

– ref. New climate report warns property prices face a $611 billion hit. What does that mean? – https://theconversation.com/new-climate-report-warns-property-prices-face-a-611-billion-hit-what-does-that-mean-265284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Austin, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne; Chair of Private Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Right now in the United States, there are dozens of pending lawsuits involving copyright claims against artificial intelligence (AI) platforms. The judge in one case summed up what’s on the line when he said:

These products are expected to generate billions, even trillions, of dollars for the companies that are developing them. If using copyrighted works to train the models is as necessary as the companies say, they will figure out a way to compensate copyright holders for it.

On each side, the stakes seem existential. Authors’ livelihoods are at risk. Copyright-based industries – publishing, music, film, photography, design, television, software, computer games – face obliteration, as generative AI platforms scrape, copy and analyse massive amounts of copyright-protected content.

They often do this without paying for it, generating substitutes for material that would otherwise be made by human creators. On the other side, some in the tech sector say copyright is holding up the development of AI models and products.

And the battle lines are getting closer to home. In August, the Australian Productivity Commission suggested in an interim report, Harnessing Data and Digital Technology, that Australia’s copyright law could add a “fair dealing” exception to cover text and data mining.

“Fair dealing” is a defence against copyright infringement. It applies to specific purposes, such as quotation for news reporting, criticism and reviews. (Australian law also includes parody and satire as fair dealing, which isn’t currently the case in New Zealand).

While it’s not obvious a court would agree with the commission’s idea, such a fair dealing provision could allow AI businesses to use copyright-protected material without paying a cent.

Understandably, the Australian creative sector quickly objected, and Arts Minister Tony Burke said there were no plans to weaken existing copyright law.

On the other hand, some believe gutting the rights of copyright owners is needed for national tech sectors to compete in the rapidly developing world of AI. A few countries, including Japan and Singapore, have amended their copyright laws to be more “AI friendly”, with the hope of attracting new AI business.

European laws also permit some forms of text and data mining. In the US, AI firms are trying to persuade courts that AI training doesn’t infringe copyright, but is a “fair use”.

An ethical approach

So far, the New Zealand government has not indicated it wants similar changes to copyright laws. A July 2025 paper from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Responsible AI Guidance for Businesses, said:

Fairly attributing and compensating creators and authors of copyright works can support continued creation, sharing, and availability of new works to support ongoing training and refinement of AI models and systems.

MBIE also has guidance on how to “ethically source datasets, including copyright works”, and about “respecting te reo Māori (Māori language), Māori imagery, tikanga, and other mātauranga (knowledge) and Māori data”.

An ethical approach has a lot going for it. When a court finds using copyright-protected material without compensation to be “fair”, copyright owners can neither object nor get paid.

If fair dealing applied to AI models, copyright owners would basically become unwilling donors of AI firms’ seed capital. They wouldn’t even get a tax deduction!

The ethical approach is also market friendly because it works through licensing. In much the same way a shop or bar pays a fee to play background music, AI licences would help copyright owners earn an income. In turn, that income supports more creativity.

Building a licensing market

There is already a growing licensing market for text and data mining. Around the world, creative industries have been designing innovative licensing products for AI training models. Similar developments are under way in New Zealand.

Licensing offers hope that the economic benefits of AI technologies can be shared better. In New Zealand, it can help with appropriate use of Māori content in ways uncontrolled data scraping and copying don’t.

But getting new licensing markets for creative material up and running takes time, effort and investment, and this is especially true for content used by AI firms.

In the case of print material, for example, licences from authors and publishers would be needed. Next, different licences would be designed for different kinds of AI firms. The income earned by authors and publishers has to be proportionate to the use.

Accountability, monitoring and transparency systems will all need to be designed. None of this is cheap or easy, but it is happening. And having something to sell is the best incentive for investing in designing functioning markets.

But having nothing to sell – which is effectively what happens if AI use becomes fair dealing under copyright law – destroys the incentive to invest in market-based solutions to AI’s opportunities and challenges.

Graeme Austin 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. AI companies want copyright exemptions – for NZ creatives, the market is their best protection – https://theconversation.com/ai-companies-want-copyright-exemptions-for-nz-creatives-the-market-is-their-best-protection-264468

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saini Samim, PhD Candidate, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne

How did humans become human? Understanding when, where and in what environmental conditions our early ancestors lived is central to solving the puzzle of human evolution.

Unfortunately, pinning down a timeline of early human evolution has long been difficult – but ancient volcanic eruptions in East Africa may hold the key.

Our new study, published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, refines what we know about volcanic ash layers in Turkana Basin, Kenya. This place has yielded many early human fossils.

We have provided high-precision age estimates, taking a small step closer to establishing a more refined timeframe of human evolution.

Millions of years of volcanic eruptions

The Great Rift Valley in East Africa is home to several world-renowned fossil sites. Of these, the Turkana Basin is arguably the most important region for early human origins research.

This region is also within an active tectonic plate boundary – a continental rift – that has triggered volcanic eruptions over millions of years.

As early humans and their hominin ancestors walked these Rift Valley landscapes, volcanic eruptions frequently blanketed the land in ash particles, burying their remains.

Over time, many fossil layers have become sandwiched between volcanic ash layers. For archaeologists today, these layers are invaluable as geological time stamps, sometimes across vast regions.

Excellent timekeepers

Volcanic eruptions are excellent timekeepers because they happen very quickly, geologically speaking. As hot magma erupts, it cools and solidifies into volcanic ash particles and pumice rocks.

Pumice often contains crystals (minerals called feldspars) which act as natural “stopwatches”. These crystals can be directly dated using radiometric dating.

By dating the ash layers that lie directly above and below fossil finds, we can establish the age of the fossils themselves.

Even when such minerals are absent, volcanic ash layers can still help in dating archaeological sites. That’s because ash particles from different eruptions have unique chemical signatures.

This distinct geochemical “fingerprint” means we can trace a particular eruption across large distances. We can then assign an age to the ash layer even without datable crystals.

For instance, an ash layer found in Ethiopia, or even on the ocean floor, can be matched to one in Kenya. As long as their chemical compositions match, we know they came from the same eruption at the same geological point in time. This approach has been applied in the region for many decades.

Previous landmark studies have already established the geology of the Turkana Basin.

However, the region’s frequent eruptions are often separated by just a few thousands of years. This makes many ash layers essentially indistinguishable in time. Furthermore, some ash layers have very similar “fingerprints”, making it difficult to confidently tell them apart.

These challenges have made it tricky to date the Nariokotome tuffs, three volcanic ash layers in the Turkana Basin. While it’s clear from the rock record these are three separate ash layers, their age estimates and chemical signatures are very similar. We set out to narrow them down.

What did we find?

Compared to previous methods, modern dating tools can achieve an order-of-magnitude improvement in precision.

In other words, we can now confidently distinguish volcanic ash layers that erupted within just 1,000 to 2,000 years of each other. Applying this high-precision method to the Nariokotome tuffs, we resolved them as three distinct volcanic events, each with a precise eruption date.

However, determining the ages is not enough to fully distinguish these volcanic layers. Because the ash layers landed so close together in time – and potentially from very similar volcanoes – they also have remarkably similar major element geochemical “fingerprints”. Major elements are the most abundant elements in rocks, but they can’t always tell us much about the age and source of the rock material.

That’s where trace elements prove especially useful. These are elements that occur in very small amounts in rocks but provide much more distinctive chemical signatures.

Using laser-based mass spectrometry, we analysed the trace element composition of both the ash particles and their associated pumices. This provided us with unique trace-element fingerprints for each layer – still similar, but distinct.

Retracing human history

Once we had both precise age estimates and distinct geochemical profiles, we traced these ash layers in key archaeological sites.

For instance, the Nadung’a site in West Turkana, believed to be a prehistoric butchering site, has yielded some 7,000 stone tools. Our updated age estimates now makes this site approximately 30,000 years older than previously thought.

More importantly, we showed these refined methods can be applied beyond Kenya. We traced the ash layers of equivalent ages from Kenya to the Konso Formation in Ethiopia, indicating they came from three individual eruptions, in which material was spread across large distances.

The Nariokotome tuffs are an important case study that shows the powerful combination of high-precision dating with detailed geochemical fingerprinting. As we apply these techniques to more ash layers, both within the Turkana Basin and potentially beyond Kenya, we’ll have a better understanding of key questions in human evolution.

Did new tool technologies and species emerge gradually or suddenly? Did more than one hominin species exist simultaneously? How did shifting environments, climate and frequent volcanism affect early human evolution?

Now that we have precise geological timelines for the places where these artefacts were found, we’re a step closer to answering these long-standing questions about early humankind.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of David Phillips and Janet Hergt to this article.

Saini Samim receives funding from the Melbourne Research Schorship provided by the University of Melbourne. She has also received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Turkana Basin Institute for this project.

Hayden Dalton receives funding from The Turkana Basin Institute via a Proof of Concept Research Grant (TBI030)

– ref. Volcanoes can help us untangle the evolution of humans – here’s how – https://theconversation.com/volcanoes-can-help-us-untangle-the-evolution-of-humans-heres-how-255013

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hsiao-chun Hung, Senior Research Fellow, School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University

Smoke-drying mummification of human remains was practised by hunter-gatherers across southern China, southeast Asia and beyond as far back as 12,000 years ago, my colleagues and I report in new research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is the earliest known evidence of mummification anywhere in the world, far older than better-known examples from ancient Egypt and South America.

We studied remains from sites dated to between 12,000 and 4,000 years ago, but the tradition never vanished completely. It persisted into modern times in parts of the New Guinea Highlands and Australia.

Hunter-gatherer burials in southern China and Southeast Asia

In southern China and Southeast Asia, tightly crouched or squatting burials are a hallmark of the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region between roughly 20,000 and 4,000 years ago.

Archaeologists working across the region for a long time have classified these graves as straightforward “primary burials”. This means the body was laid to rest intact in a single ceremony.

However, our colleague Hirofumi Matsumura, an experienced physical anthropologist and anatomist, noticed some skeletons were arranged in ways that defied anatomical sense.

Combined with this observation, we often saw some bones in these bodies were partly burnt. The signs of burning, such as charring, were visible mainly in the points of the body with less muscle mass and thinner soft tissue coverage.

We began to wonder if perhaps the deceased were treated through a more complicated process than simple burial.

A casual conversation in the field

A turning point came in September 2017, during a short break from our excavation at the Bau Du site in central Vietnam.

The late Kim Dung Nguyen highlighted the difficulties of interpreting the situation where skeletons were found, likely intentionally placed and seated against large rocks. Matsumura noted problems with their bone positions.

I remember blurting out – half joking but genuinely curious – “Could these burials be similar to the smoked mummies of Papua New Guinea?”

Matsumura thought about this idea seriously. Thanks to generous support and cooperation from many colleagues, that moment marked the real beginning of our research into this mystery.

How we identified the ancient smoked mummies

With our new curiosity, we began looking at photographs of modern smoked-dried mummification practices in the New Guinea Highlands in books and on the internet.

In January 2019, we went to Wamena in Papua (Indonesia) to observe several modern smoked mummies kept in private households. The similarity to our ancient remains was striking. But most of the skeletons in our excavation showed no outwardly obvious signs of burning.

We realised we needed a scientific test to prove our hypothesis. If a body was smoked by low-temperature fire – while still protected by skin, muscle and tissue – the bones would not be obviously blackened. But they could still retain subtle signs or microscopic traces of past firing or smoking.

Then came the COVID pandemic, which led to travel restrictions, preventing us from travelling anywhere. My colleagues and I were spread across different regions, but we sought various ways to continue the project.

Eventually, we tested bones from 54 burials across 11 sites using two independent laboratory techniques called X-ray diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy. These methods can detect microscopic changes in the structure of bone material caused by high temperatures.

The results confirmed the remains had been exposed to low heat. In other words, almost all of them had been smoked.

More than 10,000 years of ritual

The samples, discovered in southern China, Vietnam and Indonesia, represent the oldest known examples of mummification. They are far older than the well-known practices of the Chinchorro culture in northern Chile (about 7,000 years ago) and even ancient Egypt’s Old Kingdom (about 4,500 years ago).

Remarkably, this burial practice was common across East Asia, and likely also in Japan. It may date back more than 20,000 years in Southeast Asia.

It continued until around 4,000 years ago, when new ways of life began to take hold. Our research reveals a unique blend of technique, tradition and belief. This cultural practice has endured for thousands of years and spread across a very broad region.

A visible form bridging time and memory

Ethnographic records show this tradition survived in southern Australia well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the New Guinea Highlands, some communities have even kept the practice alive into recent times. Significantly, the hunter-gatherer groups of southern China and Southeast Asia were closely connected to Indigenous peoples of New Guinea and Australia, both in some physical attributes and in their genetic ancestry.

In both southern Australia and Papua New Guinea, ethnographic records show that preparing a single smoked mummy could take as long as three months of continuous care. Such extraordinary devotion was possible only through deep love and powerful spiritual belief.

This tradition echoes a truth as old as humanity itself: the timeless longing that families and loved ones might remain bound together forever – carried across the ages, in whatever form that togetherness may endure.

Hsiao-chun Hung receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP140100384, DP190101839).

– ref. 12,000-year-old smoked mummies reveal world’s earliest evidence of human mummification – https://theconversation.com/12-000-year-old-smoked-mummies-reveal-worlds-earliest-evidence-of-human-mummification-265261

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen Stollznow, Research Fellow, Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University

A few years ago, I was called a “bitch” in a workplace meeting simply for speaking up. The word stung, not just as a personal insult, but as part of a long tradition of policing women’s behaviour. Bitch is one of the most charged gendered slurs in English. And yet, today, it can be playful, empowering, or even celebratory.

This contradiction fascinated me. How did one word become both a weapon and a badge of honour? That’s the question I set out to answer in my book, Bitch: The Journey of a Word.

A word with teeth

Bitch has a long pedigree. First recorded more than 1,000 years ago as bicce (pronounced “bitch-eh”) in Old English, it began as a straightforward term for a female dog.

Almost immediately, though, it leapt into figurative use as an insult for women, comparable to calling someone a “slut” today. Interestingly, around the same time it became an insult for men as well.

The jump from “dog” to “bitch” as a slur was easy. In ancient Greece and Rome, the equivalent words for “dog” were already being used as a scathing insult – albeit used differently for both genders. Aimed at a woman, it usually implied disobedience, immodesty or shamelessness. Aimed at a man, it referred to human vices such as greed, arrogance and cowardice.

By the 18th century, bitch had become one of the most powerful gendered insults in the English language. British lexicographer Francis Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) called it “the most offensive appellation that can be given to a woman”. In many ways, it still is.

Unlike other contemporaneous slurs such as “shrew” or “harlot”, which have mostly faded from use, bitch endured. Its survival lies in its flexibility: it has been used to chastise women as nagging, manipulative, or domineering – but also, more recently, to praise them as strong, ambitious or unapologetic. For example, “you’re a bitch” versus “you’re a boss bitch”.

The long life of the word shows us how language both mirrors and moulds society. Words can wound, but they can also be repurposed as symbols of power.

A weapon against women (and men)

Bitch has long been a catch-all insult towards women. It is most often aimed at those judged “unpleasant”, but in practice can be triggered by almost anything.

Crucially, a woman can be branded a bitch not only for negative traits, but also for traits considered positive in men, such as assertiveness, ambition, sexual confidence and authority. Powerful celebrities and politicians are frequent targets.

Aimed at men, the term carries a different sting. It implies weakness, submission, or effeminacy: a man who fails to perform masculinity “correctly”.

Within LGBTQIA+ communities, the word has been reimagined. It can be used playfully, or affectionately as a term of endearment. Outside those spaces, however, it often retains its edge as a term of abuse.

Language and power

In the 1960s, feminists began reclaiming bitch, aligning it with independence and power. Campaigns and pop culture, from American feminist Jo Freeman’s BITCH Manifesto to singer Meredith Brooks’ 1997 song Bitch, recast the insult into a badge of pride signifying strength and confidence. Viral phrases like “boss-ass bitch” continue this tradition of turning stigma into self-empowerment.

Yet, the word is not, and may never be, fully reclaimed. Its sharpest edge remains a slur. For many, bitch still retains its bite. Whether it lands as offensive or complimentary depends on context, tone and power dynamics.

Like other reclaimed words such as “gay” or “queer”, bitch can empower or hurt, depending on who wields it and who it is being directed at.

The word has spawned countless contemporary idioms, from “resting bitch face” to
“life’s a bitch, and then you die”, and evolved playful modern spellings such as “biotch” to “biznatch”.

Its ubiquity shows how language reflects and reinforces attitudes about gender, power and behaviour. At the same time, it teaches a broader lesson: language is alive.

Words continually evolve along with society. And the struggle over who “owns” bitch mirrors broader struggles for gender equality. The word’s potential to empower or harm is a direct reflection of how society treats women.

The story of bitch

Over more than a millennium, bitch has survived censorship, bleeping and outright bans, only to return in ever-changing forms. Yet its original meaning remains: a female dog. All of its senses coexist, from insult to compliment, and from playful to profane. Its survival depends on its versatility and its unmistakable power to provoke.

True reclamation may depend less on the word itself and more on improving the conditions for women in modern society. Until then, bitch remains a powerful word: a sharp instrument of insult, and a mirror of our cultural values.

Ultimately, the journey of bitch shows us words are never neutral. And as our society changes, this 1,000-year-old word will continue to speak volumes.

Karen Stollznow 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. ‘Bitch’ has a 1,000-year history. Its use has always been about power – https://theconversation.com/bitch-has-a-1-000-year-history-its-use-has-always-been-about-power-264479

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland

The signing of a new defence treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea will mark one of the most significant moments in the history of the bilateral relationship since PNG’s independence 50 years ago this week.

The treaty, to be signed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his counterpart James Marape in PNG, is expected to provide for closer military integration, mutual consultation on security threats, and a large-scale Australian investment in modernising the PNG Defence Force.

It will also set the framework for Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian Defence Force on equal terms with Australian soldiers.

The broad thrust of the deal is clear: Australia and PNG are locking in a long-term, formal security partnership at a critical time in the Pacific.

Deep roots in shared history

The alliance between the two countries can be traced back to 1942, when Papua New Guinean soldiers, carriers, guides and villagers played a decisive role in the Kokoda campaign against invading Japanese forces. That experience imprinted itself deeply on Australia’s strategic consciousness and on our sense of obligation to PNG.

Formal defence cooperation began soon after PNG’s independence in 1975, with the creation of the Defence Cooperation Program. For nearly five decades, this program has provided training, infrastructure and advisory support. Thousands of PNG officers and enlisted personnel have passed through Australian training institutions, and joint exercises have become routine.

At times, however, cooperation has been complicated. During the 1990s, when conflict raged on Bougainville, many people in PNG believed Australian-supplied equipment was being used against Bougainvillean separatists.

That perception caused resentment and reminded Canberra that trust in the relationship cannot be taken for granted.

Why this treaty matters now

The new treaty comes at a significant geo-strategic moment, with China pursuing an expanded role in the Pacific. It has sought to secure a security agreement with Solomon Islands, as well as a region-wide trade and security deal. China is also suspected of playing a role in stalling a security agreement between Australia and Vanuatu.

The unresolved tensions over Indonesian rule in West Papua and Bougainville’s continued quest for independence remain potential flashpoints, as well.

For Australia, PNG is not simply a neighbour, but the key to its northern approaches. Defence Minister Richard Marles was blunt this week in describing its geostrategic weight:

PNG is obviously on our northern flank. It really matters that we have the very best relationship we can have with PNG in a security sense.

For PNG, the treaty provides a clear answer to the question of who its most trusted security partner is.

In an era where Port Moresby has expanded ties with China, the United States, Japan, Indonesia and others, this is no small step. It reflects a calculation that the Australia relationship is unique – the only one that combines proximity, capability and an enduring sense of shared history.

Partnership and equality

The symbolism of timing this announcement to coincide with this week’s independence celebrations is important. Fifty years ago, the Australian flag was peacefully lowered in Port Moresby, an act of trust between then prime minister Gough Whitlam and his PNG counterpart Michael Somare.

The defence treaty likewise needs to be understood in terms of partnership and equality. Albanese has consistently described Australia and PNG as “partners and equals”. That matters, because Papua New Guineans remain sensitive to any hint of condescension in the relationship. A treaty that enshrines mutual consultation rather than one-sided obligation fits that frame.

PNG Defence Minister Billy Joseph has said the treaty will include provisions similar to NATO’s Article 4 – requiring consultation on emerging threats – rather than NATO’s more binding Article 5 focused on collective defence.

This would allow Australia and PNG to act together when their interests align, but avoids overreach. It also reflects sensitivity to PNG’s sovereignty, and to the reality that Australia must not appear to dictate Port Moresby’s security choices.

Balancing ambition with realism

Allowing Papua New Guineans to serve in the ADF and even acquire Australian citizenship could open new opportunities for young people, but it will need careful management to avoid the hollowing out of the PNG Defence Force.

Australia’s promise of billions of dollars in support to modernise PNG’s military also carries expectations: PNG will want to see sustained delivery, not just announcements.

There are risks to be managed for Australia, as well. The treaty could, in theory, entangle Canberra in future domestic or regional disputes, from the PNG–Indonesia border to Bougainville. These are sensitive issues, and Canberra will need to tread carefully.

Still, the benefits are clear. By embedding PNG in Australia’s strategic orbit, the treaty removes ambiguity about where Port Moresby looks first for security support. It also strengthens regional stability by demonstrating that the Pacific’s largest island nation has a reliable partner committed to its success.

A relationship to be nurtured

Ultimately, treaties and defence hardware are only part of the story. What sustains the relationship is the dense web of personal and institutional ties built over generations – from soldiers on the Kokoda Track to aid workers, teachers, business people, sports teams and families across the Torres Strait.

That connective tissue has sometimes frayed, but it remains unmatched by any other partner. As I have argued elsewhere, Papua New Guineans know Australians well, even if Australians still have much to learn about PNG.

PNG’s population is expected to more than double by mid-century, potentially surpassing Australia’s. Its choices will shape the Pacific. At 50 years old, PNG is a resilient if often noisy democracy, with its own traditions of negotiation and compromise.

The new defence treaty is therefore not just about military cooperation. It is about recognising PNG as a nation that makes its own strategic decisions. It also ensures Australia is the partner that shows up, delivers and stays the course.

If the Kokoda campaign represents the historical foundation of our defence ties, the treaty marks their modern renewal. It reminds us that in security – as in so many other fields – when Papua New Guineans look for a partner they can trust, they continue to look first to Australia.

Ian Kemish is chair of the Kokoda Track Foundation, which receives funding from the Australian government and a range of corporate sponsors in PNG and Australia. He served as Australian high commissioner to PNG from 2010 to 2013.

– ref. With new PNG defence treaty, Australia is delivering on its rhetoric about trust at a critical time – https://theconversation.com/with-new-png-defence-treaty-australia-is-delivering-on-its-rhetoric-about-trust-at-a-critical-time-265064

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC L3 Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has declared a new Ebola outbreak in Kasai Province. It’s caused by the most severe strain: Zaire Ebola virus.

This outbreak began with a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to hospital on August 20 and died five days later. Two health workers who treated her also became infected and died.

By September 15, there were 81 confirmed cases and 28 deaths, including four health workers.

The DRC has had 15 prior Ebola epidemics, with the largest in 2019 and the most recent in 2022.

But genetic analysis shows the outbreak likely began after a spillover from an animal to a human, rather than a continuation of earlier outbreaks.

How does it spread and what are the symptoms?

Ebola virus disease was first identified in 1976 in a village near the Ebola River in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Sudan (now South Sudan).

Fruit bats are the natural host of the virus. Humans may become infected after contact with animals such as bats, chimpanzees, antelope or porcupines.

Ebola mainly spreads through direct contact with blood or other body fluids. It can take between two to 21 days for symptoms to appear.

Symptoms can be sudden: fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headaches and sore throat start first, then progress to vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, rash, bleeding and shock.

Without early treatment, the death rate can reach 50–90%, and depends on the availability of high-quality health care.

Ebola can spread rapidly within families, health-care facilities and during funerals, where many people gather and the bodies are washed or touched. During the largest recorded epidemic in 2014, more than 800 health workers were infected and two-thirds died.

Nurses and other front-line staff can become infected through close contact with infected patients, needle stick injuries or due to inadequate protective gear.

Read more:
How are nurses becoming infected with Ebola?

Survivors can also carry the virus in certain parts of the body that are sheltered from the immune system – such as the brain, eyes or semen – for months or years.

In rare instances, Ebola can “reactivate” in a survivor and trigger new transmission chains.

Why are health authorities worried?

The largest Ebola epidemic on record began in Guinea in 2013 and spread into Liberia and Sierra Leone. It infected more than 28,000 people and killed more than 11,000.

A number of factors contributed to this high death toll: delayed detection, slow international response, weak health systems, rumours and distrust of authorities, and traditional funeral practices.

The DRC is currently managing multiple outbreaks at once, including a large mpox epidemic, cholera and measles, which also require staff, supplies and attention.

At the same time, armed conflict is disrupting transport and limiting access to certain communities.

Although Kasai Province is fairly remote, the risk of further spread is increased by the proximity to the provincial capital, Tshikapa city, and the neighbouring country of Angola, where people travel for trade and work.

Read more:
Why the DRC Ebola outbreak was declared a global emergency and why it matters

But a vaccine adds to the defence this time

This outbreak can be prevented by the Ervebo vaccine (rVSV-ZEBOV), which showed 100% effectiveness in a clinical trial against Zaire Ebola when given immediately after exposure.

The vaccine was 95% effective if given 12 of more days after exposure.

Real-world effectiveness was 84% during the last Ebola outbreak in DRC.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is supporting vaccination efforts, sending 400 doses, with more to follow.

“Ring vaccination” of contacts of known cases has started, as well as vaccination of front-line workers.

In addition to vaccination, Ebola outbreaks can be controlled by early isolation of suspected cases, tracing contacts and quarantining them.

Adequate hospital capacity for infected people is critical. Setting up field hospitals to increase capacity was key to controlling the 2014 West African epidemic.

Additionally, practising safer funeral rituals by avoiding traditional practices, such as washing or touching bodies, helps prevent transmission.

Early supportive care, including re-hydration, electrolyte replacement and monoclonal antibody drugs, can save lives.

Yet challenges remain. Vaccination campaigns need cold storage and safe transport to remote areas. Contact-tracing is difficult in insecure settings. And infection prevention, particularly through protective gear for staff, demands a constant supply.

Early detection is important

Open-source intelligence from news, social media and online reports of unusual disease activity can provide early warnings of disease outbreaks, such as this Ebola outbreak.

EPIWATCH, an AI-driven platform, detected a sharp rise in outbreak reports from DRC in early September, coinciding with the case report to the WHO.

There were also reports of symptoms in the month leading up to the official confirmation in Kasai. These signals don’t replace lab testing but can give authorities early warning, especially when diagnostic capacity is low.

If contained quickly, this outbreak may remain localised, with limited regional or international impact. The WHO currently assesses the risk as high for DRC, moderate for the region, and low globally.

C Raina MacIntyre is the founder of EPIWATCH Global Pty Ltd which tracks global epidemics. She receives funding from NHMRC Investigator Grant 2016907 and NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence GNT2006595.

Ashley Quigley, Mohana Priya Kunasekaran, and Noor Jahan Begum Bari 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. There’s a new outbreak of Ebola in Africa. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-new-outbreak-of-ebola-in-africa-heres-what-you-need-to-know-264896

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Birt, Associate Professor, Film, Screen and Creative Media, and Associate Dean Engagement, Bond University

This month, the Australian-made video game Silksong became one of the most played titles worldwide.

Created by Team Cherry, a three-person indie studio in Adelaide, the sequel to 2017’s Hollow Knight shows how small studios can capture global attention.

Its success matters not just for its artistry but because it demonstrates why video games are more than entertainment. They are central to how people play, connect and participate in culture.

A global moment for a small Australian studio

Hollow Knight and Silksong are atmospheric side-scrolling Metroidvania adventures set in hand-drawn underground kingdoms.

While attempting to uncover the mysteries of fallen realms and restore balance to their worlds, players encounter insect-like characters, uncover secrets and face formidable bosses.

The games are punishing, but each hard-won success makes the struggle worthwhile.

On launch day, Silksong rose to the top of Steam’s charts, with more than half a million people playing at once.

Critics praised it as one of the finest action video games of the decade. Others noted its steep difficulty, while Polygon published a dissenting review. Metacritic currently rates the game 92 out of 100, with a user review score of 9.1 out of 10.

The excitement of the new release had a ripple effect. Hollow Knight surged again, breaking records seven years after release.

For a small Adelaide studio to dominate global charts with two titles at once is extraordinary.

Why these games matter to players

As someone who has played games for over 40 years and now researches immersive media and game technology, I see more than just stylish combat and art. Hollow Knight and Silksong are built on the psychology of play. They punish mistakes but reward resilience.

Psychologists call this state flow – the same feeling as losing yourself in a book or a sport when challenge and skill are perfectly balanced. Every setback teaches, every retry builds mastery, every breakthrough delivers satisfaction.

Flow and immersion in games can build presence – the feeling of actually being inside the world rather than just observing it – and wellbeing. Scholars such as linguist James Paul Gee have long argued that video games can teach us how to learn, by placing players in problem-solving environments where they must experiment, fail, adapt and try again until they master a challenge.

Games aren’t just entertainment: they are complex systems that show how people acquire knowledge, test ideas and build skills through active engagement.

A 2025 report found 82% of Australians play video games. The average player is 35, and for the first time, women made up the majority of players. Families play to connect, adults to relax after work, and two-thirds of older Australians continue to play in retirement.

Nine in ten Australians also believe games help build confidence and resilience. Action-adventure is the most popular genre – exactly what Team Cherry has mastered.

A small but global industry

These cultural breakthroughs emerge from an industry smaller than many realise. The Australian Game Development Survey 2024 reported just 2,465 people employed nationwide in game development, generating A$339 million in annual revenue. A remarkable 93% of that comes from exports.

More than half of local studios are less than five years old, while a quarter have lasted more than a decade. Most focus on original ideas rather than contract work (projects made on behalf of another company, such as licensed games or porting existing titles).

While contract work can provide reliable income, it rarely allows studios to retain creative control. Developing original intellectual property showcases Australia’s creativity to the world – but it also exposes studios to greater financial risk if a game fails to find an audience.

Globally, gaming now generates more revenue than film and music combined. Yet in Australia, the sector still fights for recognition as a cultural industry equal to screen and television. Policies like the digital games tax offset have provided stability, but early-stage investment remains a hurdle.

The risks of global fame

Global attention also brings sudden risks. Within days of release, Silksong faced a flood of negative reviews on Steam from players in China upset with its translation. More than 14,000 one-star reviews pushed its score to “mixed”, despite strong critical acclaim.

It shows how player feedback can highlight legitimate concerns – in this case, the need for better localisation.

I have previously written about the benefits of online feedback and published articles on community feedback on game production. Team Cherry responded swiftly, promising to improve the translation.

Even the most successful indie studios must navigate the volatility of global audiences.

Why this matters

The story of Hollow Knight and Silksong is about more than two acclaimed video games. It shows how Australian indie studios can influence global play, and how success can be both celebrated and contested.

Games are now central to everyday life. They connect families, help manage stress, and build communities across borders. They are also one of Australia’s most dynamic cultural exports.

Hollow Knight and Silksong prove that a modest Adelaide studio can captivate millions. But without consistent investment, publishing opportunities and education pipelines, the next Team Cherry may never emerge.

If Australia wants to keep shaping how the world plays, video games must be recognised alongside film, TV and music as a cultural and economic force. Games are already bigger than both industries combined. They should no longer be treated as an afterthought.

When Australians play, the world takes notice.

James Birt 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. Hollow Knight Silksong: how 3 people in Australia made the world’s hottest game – https://theconversation.com/hollow-knight-silksong-how-3-people-in-australia-made-the-worlds-hottest-game-265069

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jemma Hamley, Lecturer in Social Work, James Cook University

When teenage girls fall pregnant, many report facing stigma from teachers and peers at their own school. What’s less well known, however, is that the stigma often continues at the school their child attends, and often long after the mother has aged out of her teen years.

A growing body of research, including my own interviews with women who were teens when they had their first child, reveals it’s not uncommon for these parents (and their children) to face exclusion by other parents, or unkind comments from educators.

By better understanding the experiences of teen mums and their children, we can challenge stigma and ensure more equitable access to education.

Excluded by other parents

Teenage mothers represent a minority of the population, yet are a vulnerable social group. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, teenage mothers are more likely to be from remote and socio-economically disadvantaged areas.

They often experience barriers in educational opportunities, which can perpetuate social disadvantage for both mother and child.

Research has shown judgmental attitudes and stigma can lead to isolation.

My research, published in the journal Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, involved interviews with women who had been teenagers when their child was born.

Many reported feeling scrutinised and judged as a younger mum when their child started school. This stigma can continue even as the parent aged; one woman felt judged within her children’s school into her thirties.

One explained how:

When they started school all I wanted was some friends, you know, I wanted someone who had kids to be friends with you know […] but none of ‘em wanted to be friends with me […] right through primary school honestly.

She also reported feeling anxious at school drop-off and pick up:

I’d sit there, and you know how you’ve gotta sit and wait for them […] they’d either be gossiping about me or so I thought they were gossiping about me.

Another woman explained that social exclusion extended to her child:

They would literally not talk to me, they wouldn’t let their children come over […] to play with [my child].

Judged by educators

Judgmental and patronising attitudes also came from teachers. Another woman explained how:

One thing I found as well as a single young mum, was not being taken seriously at school, when I’d go to the school for a reason, you know to see them about my child — they’d treat me like I was child.

In the words of another former teen mum:

I do remember one teacher at school, being very judgmental to me because I was a young mother…

One woman described how her daughter faced judgmental attitudes from educators when at university:

One of her lecturers actually said in a lecture, that if you were brought up by a teenage mum, basically you’ve got no hope…

A growing body of research

While research has found teen mothers often prioritise motherhood as providing meaningful directions within their lives, they can encounter harmful stereotypes which undermine their dignity and worth.

Research by the National Children’s Commissioner found young mothers can feel judged and undermined across a range of social settings, including school.

A UK biographical study involving former teenage mothers captured stories of women feeling judged in places such as their child’s school. Some women in that study said they felt reluctant to disclose their status as former teenage mothers due to fear of judgment.

A different study on the language used to describe teenage mothers and their children in medical journals noted how early motherhood is positioned as a disease which requires a public health response and surveillance, and that teenage mothers are portrayed as being an economic drain on society at a cost to both mother and child.

Focusing on strengths

Supporting young mothers and their children requires sensitivity to a range of complex factors, including class, sexism and trauma.

Focusing on young parents’ strengths can help us all to work towards a more positive and inclusive environment for these women and their children.

Jemma Hamley 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. When the kids of teen mums go to school, both mum and child can cop stigma – https://theconversation.com/when-the-kids-of-teen-mums-go-to-school-both-mum-and-child-can-cop-stigma-241673

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael P. Cameron, Professor of Economics, University of Waikato

An ageing population not saving fast enough for its retirement has been called a “timebomb” and a looming crisis, with many New Zealanders facing the prospect of hard times when they stop earning.

So, NZ First leader Winston Peters was on the money at his party’s recent annual conference when he pitched a major KiwiSaver overhaul. Under the plan, membership would become compulsory and minimum contributions from both employees and employers would increase to 8% of income, rising to 10% later.

To soften the hit to pay packets and business costs, Peters suggested tax cuts for KiwiSaver members and employers. These proposals go well beyond the already budgeted increases to minimum KiwiSaver contributions from 3% to 3.5% in April 2026, and 4% in April 2028.

But while there are good arguments for boosting KiwiSaver, there is a better option: increasing government contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (or Super Fund) – already a very well performing fund by world standards.

A top performing fund

New Zealand saves for future pensions in two distinct ways: KiwiSaver, the voluntary retirement savings scheme predominantly funded through employee and employer contributions; and the Super Fund, a Crown investment vehicle set up to alleviate the future tax burden of the universal public pension.

The two have different purposes and distributional effects, and that matters when deciding where the next dollar of public support for retirement savings should go.

KiwiSaver is designed primarily to build household retirement balances (with early access for first home deposits). By design, contributions scale with wages. Higher earners contribute and accumulate more.

In contrast, the Super Fund is a sovereign wealth fund and part-funds superannuation payments. So, every additional dollar earned by the fund ultimately supports a benefit paid essentially equally to all retirees.

On investment grounds alone, there is a strong case for channelling extra public resources to the Super Fund. Kiwisaver funds earn investment returns. But those returns pale in comparison to the returns earned by the Super Fund.

Independent sovereign investor analysts Global SWF recognised the Super Fund as the world’s top performing sovereign wealth fund over both 10- and 20-year horizons. Over the 20 years to June 2024, the fund delivered a 10.03% return per year after costs. That compares favourably with the average Kiwisaver 10-year return (for the higher risk growth funds) of 8.3%.

Of course, past performance is not a guarantee. But if New Zealand wants the most funds available for future retirement, it seems the Super Fund might be a better bet than KiwiSaver.

A fairer pension

Because KiwiSaver contributions are a percentage of wages, and participation is tied to employment, increases in minimum rates (even when partly offset by tax cuts) tend to boost balances most for higher earners and those with uninterrupted careers.

This inequality is exacerbated by the number of Kiwisaver members who do not contribute to Kiwisaver at all in any given year, which was 30% of the membership in 2024-25.

By contrast, a dollar paid into the Super Fund sits on the Crown’s balance sheet and helps fund a universal pension that every qualifying retiree receives.

If we want to reduce inequality in retirement resources, then rather than providing tax cuts to increase Kiwisaver contributions, the government should put an equivalent amount of money into the Super Fund – without cutting taxes.

Of course, KiwiSaver does more than simply fund retirement. Allowing early withdrawals to fund first home purchases supports home ownership, which itself improves retirement wellbeing. Making contributions compulsory (and larger) could also improve long-run financial resilience for many households.

But those goals don’t appear to be central to the NZ First policy proposal. Instead, Peters argued they would “turn KiwiSaver into a serious New Zealand asset-owning entity”.

New Zealand already has a serious asset-owning entity. As at June 2024, the Super Fund had NZ$76 billion in total assets, of which $8 billion was invested domestically.

Targeting the core problem

The Retirement Commission made a strong case for increasing KiwiSaver contributions, and the government listened. However, the commission only proposed an individual contribution increase to 4%, and did not propose funding the additional contributions through tax cuts.

Putting aside the issue of the affordability of tax cuts proposed by NZ First, funding increased KiwiSaver contributions through tax cuts is effectively the same as if the government itself was saving.

On the other hand, increasing contributions to the Super Fund would back the world’s best performing sovereign fund (over the long run), target the core problem the fund was created to solve, and deliver benefits more evenly across future retirees.

In the current environment, with KiwiSaver contributions already set to increase, the Super Fund looks like the better option.

Michael P. Cameron 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. NZ First wants a compulsory KiwiSaver. Boosting the Super Fund is a better bet – https://theconversation.com/nz-first-wants-a-compulsory-kiwisaver-boosting-the-super-fund-is-a-better-bet-261946

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Wagner, Research Fellow – Forest Resilience and Adaptation, The University of Melbourne

The sound of a large drone humming over a forest at night, combined with a bright floodlight, is an eerie sight. It might evoke ominous thoughts of a search-and-rescue operation.

But our new study published in Ecological Applications shows that drones equipped with thermal cameras could also help detect and monitor some of Australia’s most elusive forest wildlife. In turn, they can help us make smarter, evidence-based decisions for conservation.

Elusive creatures few have seen

Eucalypt forests across Victoria shelter some of our most threatened nocturnal wildlife, such as Victoria’s critically endangered faunal emblem, Leadbeater’s possum, and the endangered southern greater glider. Few people would have seen these creatures in the wild – in large part because they spend most of their time high in the trees and can be incredibly difficult to detect.

But monitoring them is crucial. Populations are shrinking due to habitat loss, forest fires and climate change. Conservation and management decisions depend on accurate data about where these animals live and how abundant they are.

Traditionally, researchers conduct these surveys by walking along defined paths called transects through the forest, sweeping torches to catch the eyeshine of animals as it reflects back to the observer. Eyeshine varies by species – greater gliders glow golden, Krefft’s gliders blue, and brushtail possums red. But binoculars help in identifying species as well.

But this process – known as “spotlighting” – can be slow, labour intensive and potentially dangerous for the survey teams, especially in steep or dense forests. Even with careful sampling, spotlighting often fails to detect all the animals present.

Remote sensing techniques that help collect information from a distance are changing the game for wildlife monitoring. For example, acoustic recorders can survey birds and frogs and motion-activated cameras can detect shy mammals. This recently led to the discovery of critically endangered Leadbeater’s possums far outside their assumed range.

But animals like the greater glider rarely make calls that can be captured by acoustic recorders and their strict diet of eucalypt leaves means they can’t be attracted to baited camera traps.

This is where drones equipped with thermal cameras come in.

Scanning the canopy – from above

Until recently, most thermal drone surveys had been tested on animals in open landscapes, such as feral goats, or in tree plantations, such as koalas. They have also helped find some elusive species in the rainforests of Queensland that are active during the day. But no one has previously studied their effectiveness in detecting nocturnal animals in native forests.

As part of our new research, we flew drones across forest compartments up to 200 hectares in size while also conducting ground-based surveys to compare results. Drones flew systematic paths over the canopy, using thermal cameras to detect animals’ heat signatures. After an animal was spotted, a zoom camera and floodlight were then used to identify species.

The results were striking. Our drones detected all nine tree-dwelling mammals expected in the study areas. Species commonly surveyed using spotlighting were recorded most frequently. But we also recorded species that are usually detected using remote cameras, such as Leadbeater’s possums, or through their calls, such as yellow-bellied gliders.

In total, we made more than 1,000 observations of native mammals, as well as forest birds, and ground-dwelling fauna such as bandicoots, wombats, feral deer and cats.

Drone surveys were also far more efficient – one drone survey could cover roughly ten times the area a spotlighting team could survey in the same time.

Guiding future forest management

Once we knew that thermal drone surveys are effective in finding forest-dwelling species, we conducted over 100 additional drone surveys and found more than 4,000 animals, including observations of more than 400 greater gliders.

The ongoing study will help inform wildlife recovery in Victoria. It allows us to explore questions such as: do specialist species such as greater gliders use younger forests for foraging? Are they truly edge sensitive – meaning do they avoid the areas where mature forest borders young forest or other land uses? At what forest age may they re-establish stable populations?

Answers to these questions will help guide future forest management – including where and how to conduct prescribed burns, where to establish fire breaks, and how to buffer key habitat from future disturbance.

While drones will not entirely replace all ground-based surveys, they vastly improve the scale and detail of our wildlife observations. And while there may be concerns about disturbances to the observed animals from the sometimes loud drones overhead, collected footage indicates that most animals don’t seem to notice they are being observed from the air.

This contrasts with what we usually experience during spotlighting, where animals “freeze” in place while being observed with a strong torchlight. Analysing hours of videos from our drone surveys, we are currently researching potential behavioural impacts of these new methods to contrast them with traditional ground methods.

So, while the buzzing of a drone overhead at night may feel unfamiliar for now, this new technology will provide great leaps in monitoring and protecting some of Australia’s most iconic and threatened forest species.

Benjamin Wagner receives funding from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

– ref. Drones with thermal cameras are revealing the secrets of elusive Australian forest wildlife – https://theconversation.com/drones-with-thermal-cameras-are-revealing-the-secrets-of-elusive-australian-forest-wildlife-258906

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

“Microdosing” originally meant taking tiny amounts of psychedelics (such as mushrooms) to enhance mood or performance, with fewer side effects.

But the term has taken off to mean anything where you incorporate a much lower “dose” of something – and still reap the benefits.

So, does this work for exercise? If you can’t make time for a 30-minute run, will shorter bursts of activity do anything for your health?

Here’s what the evidence says.

The minimum you should move

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adults should aim each week for either a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise – meaning it’s hard to hold a conversation – or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity – you are gasping for air at the end of it. Or you can do a combination of moderate and vigorous activity.

This can include activities such as brisk walking, cycling, running, swimming or rowing, and team sports such as football and basketball.

If you exercise every day, you’d need to do 20–30 minutes of these activities. Or you might do a couple of longer training sessions or matches two or three times a week.

WHO guidelines also recommend including muscle-strengthening activities (such as lifting weights, or high-impact exercise like sprinting) at least twice a week.

What counts as exercise?

Incidental activity – unplanned or everyday movement, such as playing with kids or walking to the bus stop – may contribute to your physical activity levels over the week.

So, yes, housework can count. For example, chores like mopping and vacuuming tend to have a similar physical demand as going for a walk.

While this activity wouldn’t be considered vigorous, it could contribute to your moderate intensity minutes.

So, do smaller chunks work?

Yes, the good news is doing small amounts of exercise throughout the day is just as effective as doing one long session.

In fact, it may have some additional benefits.

A 2019 review of 19 studies looked at this question, involving more than 1,000 participants. It found multiple, shorter “chunks” of exercise in a day improved heart and lung fitness and blood pressure as much as doing one longer session.

And there was some evidence these chunks actually led to more weight loss and lower cholesterol.

The most common way this exercise was compared in the 19 studies was with one group doing three ten-minute bouts of exercise five days a week, and another doing one 30-minute session, five days a week.

Even very short bouts might help

Another 2019 study in young adults examined the effect of short “exercise snacks” on fitness. While small, it had some interesting and positive results.

The exercise “snack” group did three very short sessions per day, three times a week, for six weeks. Each session involved a light two-minute warm-up, followed by a 20-second maximal effort sprint – where you push as hard as you can – and then a one-minute cool-down.

In total: just three minutes and 20 seconds of exercise, three times a day, three days a week.

The control group did one session a day, three days a week, but it was longer – a total of ten minutes. It involved a two-minute warm-up, followed by three  20-second sprints, with three minutes of light recovery between sprints, then a one-minute cool-down.

The “snack” group saw significant improvements in aerobic fitness, which is one of the strongest predictors of your risk of dying early and overall health.

Similar research has suggested this same approach can have positive effects on lowering cholesterol levels. However, it may not provide enough total exercise time to lose weight.

Shorter – but harder?

The research outlined above suggests the shorter your exercise session, the harder you need to push.

So you might need to adapt your exercise to increase intensity. For example, one minute of maximal intensity exercise might be worth two minutes of moderate intensity exercise.

Basically, if you’re short on time you will get more bang-for-your-buck by going harder.

So, is it worth still doing longer sessions?

For health and general fitness, the research suggests there aren’t downsides to breaking a long workout into smaller chunks.

But there are some reasons you might still want to keep exercising longer.

If you are training for a longer duration event (maybe a 10 kilometre run, a 30km ride, or even a marathon), you will need to do some longer sessions. This will ensure your muscles and joints are prepared to tolerate the demands of the event, and help your body adapt to maximise performance on the day.

For mental health, there is also some evidence to suggest doing more than the recommended minimum exercise might be better.

For example, two recent meta-analyses (studies which review the available evidence) found that around one hour of moderate intensity exercise a day can significantly improve anxiety and depression symptoms.

But these studies didn’t compare the benefits of one session versus chunks, so it’s likely you can still break up your exercise across the day and feel an effect.

The bottom line

Any exercise is better than none. If you struggle for time, as little as three minutes a day, spread across three sessions, can have a positive effect on our health.

But don’t forget – the shorter the session, the harder it needs to be.

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

– ref. Can you ‘microdose’ exercise? – https://theconversation.com/can-you-microdose-exercise-263049

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ehsan Nabavi, Senior Lecturer in Technology and Society, Responsible Innovation Lab, Australian National University

“This is a game changer”.

That’s how Paul Scully, New South Wales Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, described the state government’s launch of a tender for an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to the housing crisis earlier this month.

The system, which is aimed at cutting red tape and getting more homes built fast, is expected to be functioning by the end of 2025.

“This is allowing construction to get underway and new keys into new doors,” Scully added.

The announcement was later endorsed by federal treasurer Jim Chalmers as a model for other states and territories to replicate, to “unlock more housing” and “boost productivity across the economy”.

Speeding up building approvals is a key concern of the so-called abundance agenda for boosting economic growth.

Those wheels are already in motion elsewhere in Australia. Tasmania is developing an AI policy, and South Australia is trialling a small-scale pilot for specific dwelling applications to allow users to submit digital architectural drawings to be automatically assessed against prescribed criteria.

But will AI really be a quick fix to Australia’s housing crisis?

Cutting red tape

Housing and AI were both key themes at last month’s productivity roundtable.

In a joint media release, federal Minister for Housing Clare O’Neil and Minister for the Environment and Water Murray Watt said “easing the regulatory burden on builders” is what Australia needs.

They point to the backlog of 26,000 homes currently stuck in assessment under environmental protection laws as a clear choke point. And AI is going to be used to “simplify and speed up assessments and approvals”.

None of this, however, explains AI’s precise role within the complex machinery of the planning system, leaving much to speculation.

Will the role of AI be limited to checking applications for completeness and classifying and validating documents, as Victorian councils are already exploring? Or drafting written elements of assessments, as is already the case in the Australian Capital Territory?

Or will it go further? Will AI agents, for example, have some autonomy in parts of the assessment process? If so, where exactly will this be? How will it be integrated into existing infrastructure? And most importantly, to what extent will expert judgement be displaced?

A tempting quick fix

Presenting AI as a quick fix for Australia’s housing shortage might be tempting. But it risks distracting from deeper systemic issues such as labour market bottlenecks, financial and tax incentives, and shrinking social and affordable housing.

The technology is also quietly reshaping the planning system – and the role of planners within it – with serious consequences.

Planning is not just paperwork waiting to be automated. It is judgement exercised in site visits, in listening to stakeholders, and in weighing local context against the broader one.

Stripping that away can make both the system and the people brittle, displacing planners’ expertise and blurring responsibility when things go wrong. And when errors involving AI happen, it can be very hard to trace them, with research showing explainability has been the technology’s Achilles’ heel.

The NSW government suggests putting a human in charge of the final decision is enough to solve these concerns.

But the machine doesn’t just sit quietly in the corner waiting for the approve button to be pressed. It nudges. It frames. It shapes what gets seen and what gets ignored in different stages of assessment, often in ways that aren’t obvious at all.

For example, highlighting some ecological risks over others can simply tilt an assessor’s briefing, even when local communities might have entirely different concerns. Or when AI ranks one assessment pathway as the “best fit” based on patterns buried in its training data, the assessor may simply drift toward that option, not realising the scope and direction of their choices have already been narrowed.

Lessons from Robodebt

Centrelink’s Online Compliance Intervention program – more commonly known as Robodebt – carries some important lessons here. Sold as a way to make debt recovery more “efficient”, it soon collapsed into a $4.7 billion fiasco.

In that case, an automated spreadsheet – not even AI – harmed thousands of people, triggered a hefty class action and shattered public trust in the government.

If governments now see AI as a tool to reform planning and assessments, they shouldn’t rush in headlong.

The fear of missing out may be real. But the wiser move is to pause and ask first: what problem are we actually trying to solve with AI, and does everyone even agree it’s the real problem?

Only then comes the harder question of how to do it responsibly, without stumbling into the same avoidable consequences as Robodebt.

Responsible innovation offers a roadmap forward

Responsible innovation means anticipating risks and unintended consequences early on – by including and deliberating with those who will use and be affected by the system, proactively looking for the blind spots, and being responsive to the impacts.

There are abundant research case studies, tools and frameworks in the field of responsible innovation that can guide the design, development and deployment of AI systems in planning. But the key is to engage with root causes and unintended consequences, and to question the underlying assumptions about the vision and purpose of the AI system.

We can’t afford to ignore the basics of responsible innovation. Otherwise, this so-called “gamechanger” to the housing crisis might find itself sitting alongside Robodebt as yet another cautionary tale of how innovations sold as efficiency gains can so go wrong.

The author would like to acknowledge the enormous contribution of Negar Yazdi, an experienced urban planner and a member of ANU’s Responsible Innovation Lab and Planning Institute of Australia, to this article.

Ehsan Nabavi 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. Politicians are pushing AI as a quick fix to Australia’s housing crisis. They’re risking another Robodebt – https://theconversation.com/politicians-are-pushing-ai-as-a-quick-fix-to-australias-housing-crisis-theyre-risking-another-robodebt-265062

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Keating, Lecturer, UnISQ College, University of Southern Queensland

Fifty years ago this week, Papua New Guinea became independent from Australia. This anniversary gives both nations cause to reflect on our shared histories, as both colony and coloniser.

Once separate territories under Australian administration, Papua and New Guinea became Papua New Guinea in 1971. The land and its people have had a profound influence on Australian history and Australians’ lives.

PNG has also played an important role in some of our nation’s most significant military experiences, as well as in Federation in 1901.

An annexation and a federation

Australia’s federation was not just due to the great ideas of powerful men from New South Wales and Victoria, looking to create a great democratic and egalitarian experiment in the South Pacific, as we are so often led to believe.

The real catalyst for Federation was far less noble. Queensland, newly separated from NSW, had discovered the potential of further plantation expansion to the north, beyond the Torres Straits. With ample water, land and labour, politicians argued a plantation economy would enrich Queensland.

The excess labour could also be exported back to the Australian mainland to meet the labour shortages on the frontier. This process, known as “blackbirding” is a shameful moment of our history, not dissimilar to slavery.

In 1883, the governor of Queensland, Thomas McIlwraith, sent an official, Henry Majoribanks Chester, to claim Papua and New Guinea for Queensland. This came to fruition on April 4 1883.

The British government was horrified. Secretary for the colonies, Lord Derby, saw the actions of Queensland as a major overstep of their authority as a colony. British parliamentarians also saw the potential of colonial abuse.

Britain’s disavowal led to the gathering of an Intercolonial Convention in Sydney during November and December of the same year. The main themes of the meeting were Federation and annexation. In short, the colonies were unhappy with their colonial masters in Britain. They wanted to have the power to act without British disapproval or interference.

Paranoia and invasion from the north

Without Queensland’s cavalier annexing of Papua, the process of Federation would have likely taken a very different path. Fuelling the push for Federation came the news that in November 1884, German colonists had established a protectorate over the northern half of New Guinea.

This news caused paranoia within the colonies about a potential German invasion. This invasion would require the need for defence co-operation across Australia. Without Papua and New Guinea, it can be argued Federation might have been substantially slower.

Fear of an invasion from the North is a recurring theme in Australian military history. Again, the importance of New Guinea has been sidelined to conflicts further afield. In the first world war, for example, we remember the actions in the Middle East and in Europe, but forget the Australian Army’s first deployment was not across the world, but instead across the Bismarck Sea.

Within a month of Australia’s declaration of war on Germany in 1914, 100 soldiers and 500 naval reservists undertook our first seaborn invasion of the war, at modern Kokopo, in what is now New Britain, PNG.

Further attacks at Bita Paka and Rabaul saw Australian troops take possession of the capital of German New Guinea, at the cost of seven dead and five wounded, one of those being the commander of the force, Lieutenant-General Charles Elwell.

New Guinea is not invisible from our military memory; after all, the Australia victory at Kokoda in the second world war (July-November 1942) is celebrated as a hugely significant moment in our national history and the creation of our national identity.

However, it was at Milne Bay on the far south-eastern tip of PNG, not Kokoda, where Australian troops inflicted the first defeat on land of the Japanese in the Pacific in August 1942.

The actions of Australian soldiers and airmen saw the decisive defeat of a Japanese effort to further isolate Australia and endanger supply lines to Port Moresby.

The battle resulted in the deaths of 167 Australians, with another 206 wounded. It was also notable due to the very visible were known as the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels” fought alongside Australian troops and tended to the wounded.

Australia has had a long and complicated history with our northern neighbour before and after independence. Many find it hard to accept that, as Australians, we were a colonial master. Yet Papua New Guinea and its people have, time and time again, shown they have been integral to the Australian story.

Geoff Keating 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. Papua New Guinea has played an important role in Australian history – it’s time we acknowledged that – https://theconversation.com/papua-new-guinea-has-played-an-important-role-in-australian-history-its-time-we-acknowledged-that-264785

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Underhill, Research fellow, Deakin University

On April 20 1972, 100 newly elected parliamentarians gathered in Port Moresby for the opening of the Third House of Assembly, Papua New Guinea’s legislative body.

Many of these members were young and some were new to politics: Chief Minister (later Grand Chief) Michael Somare was 37, Minister of Finance Julius Chan was 33, and Josephine Abaijah, the only woman, was 32.

Within three years, these trailblazers would steer the country from a colonial territory of Australia to a newly independent nation, declared on September 16 1975, 50 years ago this week.

As they moved from colony to self-government to independence, the members of the Third House of Assembly held sophisticated debates on decolonisation.

Leaders did not simply inherit Australian institutions. They reimagined them, arguing about land, law, unity, culture and what the concept of “development” should mean in a Melanesian society.

These speeches and debates are captured in Debating the Nation: Speeches from the House of Assembly, 1972–1975, the recently published book we co-edited along with Keimelo Gima, a historian at the University of Papua New Guinea.

The formation of the ‘mother law’

Papua New Guinea prepared for independence with a radical approach to the drafting of its constitution. The task fell to the Constitutional Planning Committee (CPC) — led in practice by Bougainville priest-politician John Momis.

Over three years, the committee held meetings across the country, gathering the “raw materials” of people’s views on citizenship, governance and development. The result was a constitution known as the “mother law”. It was one of the most inclusive in the world, and, in Momis’ words, a truly “home-grown” document.

At its heart was a redefinition of development in the context of PNG. Momis believed progress should not just be measured in gross domestic product (GDP) and prestige projects, but also in the continuation of the traditional values of PNG – liberally sprinkled with the progressive ideals of the 1970s, which celebrated small-scale societies.

Momis declared that true development was “integral human development” – measured by people’s wellbeing, not wealth or power.

This was a radical stance in the 1970s. It defined development in terms of human dignity, fairness between regions, grassroots participation and the preservation of cultural and spiritual values. It foreshadowed the “Melanesian Way”, the celebration of Melanesian communalism developed by another central figure in PNG independence, the esteemed jurist and philosopher Bernard Narokobi.

This concept remains strikingly relevant today. Allan Bird, the governor of East Sepik province, recently invoked the spirit of this philosophy in an address to students at the University of Papua New Guinea’s 60th anniversary symposium last month.

Putting policy into action

If the constitution set out the vision for the nation, the Eight-Point Plan put forth by Somare, who would become the country’s first prime minister, translated it into policy.

It called for Papua New Guinean control of the economy, decentralisation, support for village industries, equal participation for women and self-reliance. Somare warned against foreign dependency and of a “very rich black elite [emerging] here at the expense of village people.”

Turning ideals into practice also required new institutions. That task fell in part to Chan, the finance minister, who in 1972 delivered the first budget by a Papua New Guinean — a symbolic moment in the transfer of power.

For Chan, controlling the purse strings was the foundation of self-government, and he insisted the country must “look to its own resources” if it was to pay its own way. Within three years, the Central Bank and the kina were also in place.

Citizenship proved explosive. Many Australians living in the territory feared they would be expelled from an independent PNG and were loud in their demands.
Parliamentarians such as Ron Neville urged an open, multi-racial citizenship model to attract investment.

Momis argued, however, that three million Papua New Guineans “had nothing” and needed protection from Australian control. United Party leader Tei Abal rejected dual citizenship for Papua New Guineans and Australians and insisted the law should be “firm but not racist”.

The eventual compromise — single citizenship, no automatic rights for expatriates, but scope for naturalisation — reflected the balancing act between inclusion and integrity. But if citizenship defined who belonged to the new nation, the harder question was whether the nation itself would hold together.

The trials of decolonisation

Unity was not guaranteed. Secessionist movements such as Abaijah’s Papua Besena, which advocated for an independent Papuan state separate from New Guinea, threatened the territorial integrity of the new nation, but it was not the only threat.

At the same time, leaders on the island of Bougainville pushed for their own secession, citing grievances over the Panguna copper mine, which began production in 1972 under a subsidiary run by Rio Tinto.

Somare declared, however, that unity was not up for negotiation. He staved off the disintegration of the nation by introducing provincial governments and a federalised system in the months before independence.

Holding the country together was only part of the challenge. Independence also demanded a deeper transformation — freeing PNG from the colonial institutions and mindsets that still shaped daily life.

As Momis argued in 1974, true freedom was a difficult task when education and the very institutions of nationhood were all created by the colonial regimes, first under the Germans and British, and then the Australians. Decolonisation meant more than simply raising a new flag – it entailed building a society grounded in justice, dignity and local values.

Those ideals still shape PNG today, but they also matter for Australia. PNG’s independence is part of Australia’s story.

When PNG became independent in 1975, many people on both sides of the Torres Strait feared fragmentation or chaos. But despite secessionist pressures and economic challenges, PNG has remained a parliamentary democracy for 50 years: no coups, no military takeovers, no descent into dictatorship.

That outcome was not inevitable. It was the product of hard debates and principled choices in the 1970s. Leaders such as Somare, Chan, Abel, Momis, Abaijah and John Guise fought over unity, land and development — but they fought in parliament, not through violence.

Half a century later, their words still resonate. At the University of Papua New Guinea symposium we attended in August, speaker after speaker referred to the ideals of the founders. They reminded us the constitution was never just a legal framework. It was a profound statement about what development actually means. This is not simply growth, but dignity, participation, fairness and cultural identity.

That is a legacy Australians should not forget.

Brad Underhill receives funding for the “Debating the Nation” book from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Helen Gardner received funding for Debating the Nation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

– ref. 50 years without coups or dictators: how PNG built a durable democracy based on dignity and fairness – https://theconversation.com/50-years-without-coups-or-dictators-how-png-built-a-durable-democracy-based-on-dignity-and-fairness-264484

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Larsen, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of New England

So far, 2025 has been a horror year for early education and care. Much of the recent media and political coverage about childcare has focused on safety. This is understandable, given the numerous, shocking allegations of abuse in the sector.

But early childhood education should be doing more than keeping children safe. It is also supposed to help them learn and develop and ultimately, be on track for school.

Our latest study suggests early education is not making as much of a difference as it should when it comes to young children’s development and learning.

We compared data on children’s development with their attendance at daycare, preschool and other early learning services. We found improvements in early childhood education quality since 2009 have not been accompanied by improvements in Australian children’s development.

How do we track development?

The Australian Early Development Census tracks the development of all Australian children in their first year of formal school. Information for the census is collected by teachers.

It looks at five areas:

• physical health and wellbeing

• social competence

• emotional maturity

• language and cognitive skills

• communication skills and general knowledge.

The latest 2024 results revealed a decreased percentage of children assessed “developmentally on track” – from 54.8% in 2021 to 52.9% in 2024.

There was also in increase in children flagged as “developmentally vulnerable” in two or more areas – from 11.4% in 2021 to 12.5% in 2024. This is the highest percentage of developmentally vulnerable children starting school since data collection started in 2009.

Our research

Going to high-quality early childhood education or preschool is one way to ensure children do not fall behind before they even start school.

So in our study, we set out to investigate what was happening to Australian children who attend an early learning service. Our study looked at census data from 2009 to 2021.

How does learning in early education work?

Since 2009, the Early Years Learning Framework has been used in Australian early childhood education and care to ensure consistent quality across services.

It is billed as a national guide to “extend and enrich children’s learning from birth to 5 years and through the transition to school”.

It’s not prescriptive like the school curriculum, given it is for young children. For example, the framework wants to see children develop a strong sense of identity, be confident learners and effective communicators.

At the same time, the quality of services is assessed against the National Quality Standard.
Overall, quality ratings assessed against the National Quality Standard show enormous improvement. In 2013, 59% of rated services were at least meeting the national quality standards. By 2021, 87% were at least meeting the standards.

Outcomes for children in early education settings

Our research showed from 2009 to 2021, the proportion of Australian children attending early education and care in the year before they start school increased from 83% to 86%. In particular, attendance in the year before school jumped from 66% to 81% for children in very remote locations, and from 72% to 87% for children in remote locations.

Because service quality has increased and the number of children attending early learning has increased, we expected to find improvements in children’s development from 2009 to 2021.

In our study, we grouped the developmental data for children who attended early education and care in the year before school. Then we grouped the developmental data for children who did not attend early learning in the year before school. We compared averages of the two groups over time.

We found children who attended early learning and care had higher developmental scores on all five areas in every year of assessment from 2009 to 2021. This was good to see.

Shouldn’t we be seeing more improvements?

But since quality and attendance had both increased, we expected to see the gap between the two groups increasing over time.

We expected the average for children who had attended early learning and care would steadily increase because the quality of early childhood education and care was reported to have improved over the same period.

But we did not find this. As you can see from the charts above (on cognitive skills) and below (on language skills and general knowledge) averages for the two groups stayed pretty stable despite improvements in quality according to the national quality standards.

So, what’s going on?

It is hard to know for sure.

It could be the Australian Early Development Census is not precise enough to pick up on the aspects of children’s learning and development that are supported by attending early childhood education and care programs.

We definitely need more information about how frequently children attend early learning and care, how much time they spend there, and the quality of the services children are attending because this varies a lot.

It is possible children who spend the most time in early learning are going to services of lower quality. Or that services “meeting” the national quality standards may not be of high enough quality to improve children’s learning outcomes.

A 2019 study found some services rated as “exceeding” the national quality standards (the highest possible level) were rated at basic levels of quality using other, research-based scales.

Other studies have found services need to be “exceeding” the standards to reduce a child’s developmental vulnerability.

Why do the development census results matter?

Federal and state governments are spending huge amounts of money to encourage families to send children to early childhood education and care settings and to preschool/kinder.

For example, in December 2024, the federal government pledged an extra A$1.47 billion to build more centres and for new fee subsidies. Next year, all eligible Australian children will be able to access three days of subsidised early learning and care a week.

We need to know that attending early childhood education and care programs will make a difference to children’s learning and development. Looking at the whole group of children attending early childhood education and care from 2009 to 2021, we did not see this.

We may need to collect better data from the development census (and researchers are currently looking at how to improve this). Alternatively – and this would be a significant change – policymakers may need to look more carefully at what aspects of early childhood education are prioritised in Australia, and to identify what makes the most difference to children’s early learning and development.

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. Despite improvements to early education, more children are starting school developmentally behind. What’s going on? – https://theconversation.com/despite-improvements-to-early-education-more-children-are-starting-school-developmentally-behind-whats-going-on-264770

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Elphinstone, Lecturer in psychology, Swinburne University of Technology

Over the next decade, Elon Musk could become the world’s first trillionaire. The Tesla board recently proposed a US$1 trillion (A$1.5 trillion) compensation plan, if Musk can meet a series of ambitious growth targets.

Australia’s corporate pay packets aren’t quite on that scale. Yet even here, on Friday it was reported departing Virgin chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka will collect nearly $50 million in shares and other cash benefits on her way out the door.

Research from the United States suggests people think the average CEO earns ten times more than the average worker – and would prefer it was closer to only five times more.

In fact, the real gap in the US over the past decade has been estimated to mean CEOs earn a staggering 265 to 300 times more than average US workers.

Australians think CEOs earn seven times more than the average worker and would prefer if it was only three times more.

But the real gap here is also much higher. A long-running study found CEOs of the top 100 Australian companies earned 55 times more last financial year than average workers.

So, how much money is enough?

People have asked this question for thousands of years. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle explained the idea of eudaimonia, or a roadmap of “living well”, saying it:

belongs more to those who have cultivated their character and mind to the uttermost, and kept acquisition of external goods within moderate limits, than it does to those who have managed to acquire more external goods than they can possibly use, and are lacking goods of the soul.

Aristotle’s philosophy doesn’t call on us to shun money or wealth entirely, but argues it shouldn’t become life’s sole focus.

Research over recent decades has come to different conclusions on how much money is needed to achieve peak wellbeing.

A US study in 2010 suggested wellbeing maxes out around US$75,000. This figure naturally needs to be increased today to account for inflation – which, if those research findings are still true today, would be closer to US$111,000 in today’s dollars. You’d also need to take into account the cost of living in your area.

Other findings suggest wellbeing may continually increase with growing wealth, but the increase in wellbeing from $1 million to $10 million is likely less than when someone moves from poverty to middle class.

A 2022 experiment studied 200 people from Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya, Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom who were randomly given US$10,000 (A$15,000 at today’s exchange rate).

It found people in lower income countries “exhibited happiness gains three times larger than those in higher-income countries”, including Australia. But that cash still provided detectable benefits for people with household incomes up to US$123,000 (roughly A$184,000 today).

Remarkably, the people in that experiment (explained from 4:42 minutes into the video below) gave away more than two-thirds of that money to family, friends, strangers and charities.

Valuing time and relationships

Decades of international research have consistently shown materialistic goals – acquiring wealth and possessions for reasons associated with image and status – undermine wellbeing.

This is because materialistic striving is often borne out of low self-esteem or tending to compare oneself negatively to others, and there is always someone else to compare yourself against.

People can get stuck on the “hedonic treadmill”, where they get used to their new level of wealth and the luxuries it provides and then need more to feel happy.

It’s also because the work needed to acquire that wealth can mean less time focusing on hobbies and with loved ones.

Harvard research tracking two generations of men and their children over their lives, going back to 1938, shows deep, meaningful relationships with others are key to mental and physical wellbeing.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a “hierarchy” of people’s “needs” in 1943. This suggested “self-actualisation” – reaching your pinnacle of personal growth – starts by having enough money to cover the basics of food, shelter, and access to the opportunities needed to grow as a person.

In line with this, research has shown “time affluence” (maximising free time by paying people to do things you don’t want to) and “experiential buying” (for example, meals out with loved ones, going on holidays) can support wellbeing by helping people develop new skills, build relationships, and create lifelong memories.

It’s in most of our interests to close the wealth gap

Recent data shows economic inequality in Australia is increasing. This is particularly affecting young Australians, as housing becomes less affordable.

At a broader social level, research from the UK indicates that as inequality increases, social outcomes get worse. These include increased crime, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity as people struggle to afford nutritious food, and reductions in social trust.

What percentage of wealth do you think is owned by the richest 20% of Australians? And in your ideal Australia, how much wealth should the richest 20% own?

The most recent Bureau of Statistics data we have, from 2019-20, showed the richest 20% of Australians owned around 62% of our wealth.

As inequality gets worse, evidence suggests it will lead to social problems that threaten to undermine the wellbeing of the whole community.

The irony is those who pursue extreme wealth and benefit most from this inequality will not necessarily be happier or more fulfilled because of it.

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

– ref. How much money do you need to be happy? Here’s what the research says – https://theconversation.com/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-be-happy-heres-what-the-research-says-265184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Power, Principal Research Fellow, Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

Parents play an important role in teaching their children about sex and relationships. But our new report shows many parents – fathers in particular – find it mortifying.

Our national survey of 1,918 parents shows they are most likely to be very confident talking with children about body image (45%) and puberty (38%) and least confident talking about masturbation (12%) or sexual satisfaction (13%).

Mothers are more likely than fathers to start discussions about sex (32.3% vs 23.9%).

Our survey confirms the most common barriers to discussing sex with children are children feeling uncomfortable or refusing to engage. But parents are uncomfortable too, fearing they’ll say the wrong thing, and not knowing how to start the conversation.

But if a teenager knows their parents are up for non-judgemental discussions about sex, they’ll be more likely to share what is happening in their lives, ask questions and seek help when they need it.

Here’s how to start those discussions, even if you feel awkward.

Our top tips for talking about sex

1. Start when children are young. “The sex talk” is not one single conversation. Parents should aim to open the door to ongoing, age-appropriate dialogue about issues related to bodies, reproduction and puberty when children are young. Even children under five should be learning about their bodies and the basics of reproduction.

Starting conversations when kids are young will make it easier to continue into the teenage years. But it’s never too late. Children will benefit from parents engaging with them on these issues at any age.

2. Find everyday opportunities to ask questions. Television, movies and radio mention sex and relationships all the time.

For instance, issues relating to young people viewing pornography or the impact of social media are regular features on the news. Use these opportunities to ask teenagers what they understand, know or think. Show interest in your teenager’s opinion and ask questions about how this portrayal fits with their experiences or that of their friends.

The conversation doesn’t need to lead to a specific message or outcome. The purpose is to talk and listen.

3. Try not to lead with what not to do. Telling a young person not to have sex or watch pornography is unlikely to stop them doing it and may shut down future conversation. Many young people become sexually active from around 15 to 17 years of age and a majority have viewed pornography at least once by this age.

The best we can do is support them to think carefully and critically about what they need to stay safe. Let them know you can help with things such as finding a good doctor if they need advice on contraception or sexual health care.

4. Tell your teenagers stories about yourself. Young people don’t always appreciate being reminded their parents were once teenagers, but they might be interested in a story about your first relationship, first kiss or an embarrassing date. Showing your own vulnerability may help open dialogue on these topics.

If you aren’t comfortable telling stories about yourself, perhaps tell stories you have read or heard about in the news.

5. Own your embarrassment. It is hard to talk about intimate or embarrassing topics. For some people even saying the word “masturbation” is uncomfortable, let alone speaking with children or teenagers about it.

Keeping it light and being prepared to laugh at your own awkwardness can help break the ice for both you and your teenager.

6. Do some reading and practise talking about it. Most of us don’t have a lot of experience talking intimately about sex or relationships. Do some research on topics you would like to speak with your teenagers about and then have a chat to your partner or a friend about it.

The aim is to get more comfortable talking about things we don’t often talk about. You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to give it a go.

Will talking about sex encourage my child to do it?

Parents are often told they need to be “sex positive” when talking to teenagers about sex. This doesn’t mean avoiding talking about risks and responsibilities. Rather, it means holding the perspective that, in the right circumstances, sex can be a safe, enjoyable and positive part of a young person’s life.

Talking about sex will not encourage a young person to have sex before they are ready.

Teaching young people about sexual consent relies on valuing pleasure. If someone can understand, and articulate, what they like and want, they will be in a stronger position to assert what they do not want. Young people should be encouraged to tune into what they, and their partner, enjoy and value when it comes to sex.

Sexual health messages for young people often focus on dangers and negative outcomes. It can be easy to forget that sex education should also be about supporting young people to have safe and enjoyable sex when they are ready. Parents play a key role in delivering this message.

Talk soon. Talk often: A guide for parents to talk to their kids about sex helps parents judge age-appropriate information and how to talk about it.

Jennifer Power receives funding from The Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and the Australian Research Council.

Alexandra James receives funding from The Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

Thomas Norman receives funding from The Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing.

– ref. 6 ways to talk to your teens about sex without the cringe – https://theconversation.com/6-ways-to-talk-to-your-teens-about-sex-without-the-cringe-263639

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Hoek, Professor in Public Health, University of Otago

Large pictorial warning labels on smoked tobacco products typically feature confronting images of the harmful health outcomes of smoking. Pictures of diseased lungs, gangrene and mouth decay aim to elicit strong emotional responses that reduce the appeal and acceptability of smoking, particularly among young people.

Warning labels also aim to increase knowledge of the many risks smoking poses. Plain packaging increases the attention paid to warning labels and reduces pack appeal, brand loyalty and product perceptions.

However, like any marketing campaign, warning labels on tobacco products need regular updating so they continue to attract attention and communicate the latest research evidence. Maintaining the same images risks “wear-out”, when people lose interest in campaign images and messages, or counter argue these.

Our recent work found existing tobacco warnings have lost impact. Study participants had created cognitive defences and exempted themselves from the risks shown.

While some still found images of diseased body parts shocking, others did not consider the illustrated risks personally relevant and thought warnings lacked credibility.

Our findings raise the important question of how we can make on-pack warnings more impactful and effective. Our new study addresses this question by exploring the lived experiences of people who smoke.

Creating more effective warnings

Many find smoking imposes a heavy financial burden on them, and others worry about the impact smoking has on whānau (families).

Others resent the hold nicotine addiction has over them and feel concerned that young people may want to adopt the behaviour they see modelled by adults who smoke.

Working with a graphic artist, we developed images and messages to represent the ideas we had heard.

After extensive review with people who smoke, we identified three potential warning themes for final testing: the cost of smoking, smoking’s impact on family, and the health risks presented in a more empathetic way (by featuring people rather than diseased body parts).

Using a choice study, we examined how well warnings representing these themes prompted thoughts of quitting compared to a novel graphic health warning showing a mouth cancer.

We found two different groups among our sample of people who smoke: one responded more strongly to warning labels emphasising the cost of smoking and its effect on families than to the graphic warning we used as a control; the other group reacted more strongly to an empathetic health warning than to the control.

5 ways to improve on-pack warnings

1. We need warnings that reflect people’s experiences of smoking, recognise smoking’s various harms, and understand that people who smoke are not a homogenous group. While most people who smoke regret smoking and hope to quit, they are at different life stages, have different backgrounds and interests, and respond to different stimuli.

For example, the cost-of-living crisis means warnings reinforcing the cost of smoking, the opportunities forgone and the impacts on others may be more motivating for some people than graphic health warnings.

2. We should think more creatively about the health harm from smoking. We found images of children losing a parent to an illness caused by smoking created strong emotional connections, as did images of adults smoking near children.

This approach, which illustrates how smoking causes emotional and physical harm to others, was at least as effective as the graphic mouth cancer image we used as a control.

3. We should consider the impact of warnings on emotions. Early graphic warnings aimed to arouse fear, in the belief it would galvanise attempts to quit. However, people who smoke also experience regret and shame, which may be more motivating than fear.

4. We need to balance negative emotions, which may stigmatise people and lead them to feel powerless, by introducing pack inserts with positive messages. Our work found that offering helpful advice and outlining the benefits of quitting inspired participants and could support attempts to quit.

5. We need to refresh and rotate warnings much more often. We suggest new warnings should be introduced every six months and that no warning should run for longer than a year.

On-pack pictorial warnings are a proven best-practice approach to encouraging smoking cessation. However, failure to introduce new and more diverse warnings has compromised the impact these have.

Given people who smoke consume, on average, ten cigarettes a day, on-pack warnings have high potential exposure. We should be making this measure as effective as possible and embed it within a comprehensive strategy that will reduce tobacco’s addictiveness, appeal and accessibility.

Janet Hoek receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, the Marsden Fund, NZ Cancer Society and NZ Heart Foundation. She is a member of smokefree expert advisory groups at the Health Coalition Aotearoa and the Ministry of Health as well as the Health Research Council’s public health research committee and a senior editor at Tobacco Control (honorarium paid).

Andrew Waa receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

Lani Teddy receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. She is a member of ASPIRE Aotearoa which undertakes research to inform tobacco policy.

Philip Gendall has received funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

– ref. Graphic warnings on tobacco products are losing their impact – here are 5 ways to improve them – https://theconversation.com/graphic-warnings-on-tobacco-products-are-losing-their-impact-here-are-5-ways-to-improve-them-263415

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bentley, Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

Housing is a key determinant of physical health. Housing conditions can increase or reduce the risk of problems including respiratory illness, heart disease and injury.

Improving housing conditions would see an improvement in health at the population level and reduce health-care costs.

In a study yet to be peer-reviewed, our research team has estimated eradicating mould and damp in Australian housing could cut health expenditure by A$117 million per million people, and increase income by $174 million. These figures represent 0.5%–2.1% of annual health spending and 0.08%–0.36% of gross domestic product.

We also estimated tackling mould and damp could result in an extra 4,190 health-adjusted life years (the number of years a person can expect to live in good health) per million people over 20 years. This is equivalent to about 1.5 healthy days per person. We’d see the greatest gains among people who are most disadvantaged.

In Australia and several similar countries, the conditions and location of many people’s homes are heavily influenced by housing affordability and the failure of successive governments to treat housing as a human right. Instead, it’s often been treated as a wealth-generating asset.

But it’s time to change things. The significant effects of poor housing on health, and a growing body of evidence indicating healthier homes could lead to tangible improvements, build a strong case for prioritising healthy housing policy in Australia.

Respiratory health

Numerous studies have established strong links between poor housing quality and increased risk of respiratory issues.

Exposure to damp, mould and poor ventilation in homes has consistently been associated with higher rates of asthma, allergies and other respiratory conditions, particularly among children and vulnerable groups.

Cold and poorly insulated homes can exacerbate respiratory symptoms. Meanwhile, overcrowding may make it easier for respiratory infections to spread.

Indoor air pollutants, from sources such as building materials and inappropriate heating systems, can further compromise lung function and respiratory health.

On the flip side, interventions to improve housing conditions – such as enhancing insulation, reducing dampness and improving ventilation – can positively affect respiratory health.

For instance, studies have shown retrofitting homes with proper insulation can lead to significant reductions in asthma symptoms and hospital admissions for respiratory conditions.

Heart health

The conditions and location of housing are also linked to cardiovascular health (for example, blood pressure) and metabolic health conditions such as diabetes and obesity.

Cold and damp housing conditions can increase the risk of disease through their effect on blood pressure. Exposure to low indoor temperatures can lead to high blood pressure, a major risk factor for conditions including heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

Poor insulation and energy inefficiency can exacerbate these effects, especially in regions with cold climates or during winter months.

Conversely, changes to housing that make temperatures more comfortable – such as installing insulation or efficient heating and cooling systems – could reduce disease risk.

For example, studies have shown reductions in blood pressure and fewer hospital admissions following interventions designed to warm homes.

Where we live also matters. For instance, the location of our home determines how much we’re exposed to air pollution – a risk factor for a range of diseases.

Access to green spaces and places to exercise near home is linked to reduced risk of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Read more:
What if I discover mould after I move into a rental property? What are my rights?

Injuries

Poor housing conditions can increase the risk of injuries such as falls and burns.

Inadequate lighting, uneven flooring, and poorly maintained or constructed stairs are common hazards that increase the risk of falls, especially among older adults. What’s more, the absence of proper accessibility features in homes can lead to increased risk of injuries among people with disabilities.

Studies have shown low-cost housing modifications – such as installing grab bars and handrails, improving lighting and childproofing measures – can markedly reduce injury rates.

Faulty electrical wiring and inadequate fire safety measures, such as the absence of smoke detectors, increase the risk of injuries and deaths. When New South Wales made smoke alarms compulsory in all homes in 2006, hospitalisation rates for residential fire injuries decreased by an estimated 36% annually.

But there’s variation in smoke alarm legislation across different Australian jurisdictions. And challenges remain with enforcement and ensuring alarms are functional.

Failing to act will cost us

Lower-income households, and especially renters, are at higher risk of the health consequences of poor housing. This contributes to health inequities across society.

In a new paper published in The Lancet Public Health, we present housing as a key social determinant of health. We highlight how affordability, security and suitability of housing shape health and wellbeing.

At the same time, our recent modelling and other research internationally provide compelling evidence that improving housing could have substantial benefits.

These models consistently show targeting mould, damp and cold in housing not only improve health outcomes, but also offer significant economic gains. This positions housing improvement as a cost-effective public health strategy.

As well as interventions to directly improve housing conditions for the homes that most need it, we also need structural reform of our housing systems. We must ensure everyone has access to an affordable, secure and suitable home.

This article is part of a series, Healthy Homes.

Rebecca Bentley receives funding from National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council.

Kate Mason receives funding from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Eradicating mould would save millions in health-care costs: how our homes affect our health – https://theconversation.com/eradicating-mould-would-save-millions-in-health-care-costs-how-our-homes-affect-our-health-260311