Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah G. Phillips, Professor of Global Conflict and Development; Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies (Yemen), University of Sydney

The “Signalgate” story has received wall-to-wall coverage since Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, published explosive details about a Signal group chat where senior US officials discussed impending airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the coverage has focused on details of most concern to Western audiences, including the depth of the security breach, the classification status of the material that was shared, and the implications of sending war plans through a non-secure platform.

But what are the implications of this for Yemen? In short, it helps the Houthis and hurts the civilians living under their control.

Providing the Houthis with intelligence

Yemeni civilians are caught in an impossible position. They have suffered from years of ruthless violence in a civil war that began with the Houthi capture of the capital, Sana’a, in 2014. The conflict grew even more violent when a Saudi-led (and Western-backed) military coalition entered the fray to back the Yemeni government the following year, imposing a crippling blockade that lasted until 2021.

The war has caused a humanitarian disaster, with malnutrition rates among the highest in the world. The Houthis have consolidated their control over much of Yemen’s population through the weaponisation of food distribution and brutal repression of dissent.

In early 2024, the Houthis then began attacking ships in the Red Sea, bringing retaliatory strikes by the United States, United Kingdom, and Israel. Each of these have caused further civilian casualties and harm.

The Houthis (and their Iranian and Russian supporters) will draw comfort from the Signal chat group’s apparent confirmation the US strikes on March 15 were not a sign of the Trump administration’s intent to dislodge them from power:

Vice President JD Vance (14 March, 08:16am ET): The strongest reason to do this is, as POTUS said, to send a message.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth (14 March, 08:27am ET): This [is] not about the Houthis. I see it as two things: 1) Restoring Freedom of Navigation, a core national interest; and 2) Reestablish deterrence, which Biden cratered.

The Houthis can withstand intermittent airstrikes – they have withstood airstrikes for over two decades.

But a more substantial intervention — one that combines a coalition of local forces with guaranteed air support from Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates (with US support) — would pose a far greater threat to the Houthis.

With this apparently not being considered, the Houthis may now feel emboldened to press-gang more people into military service before a fresh assault on the strategically important oil fields in Marib. This is the last major city in northern Yemen still under government control.

The Houthis have tried to take Marib before, but were prevented by Yemeni troops supported by Saudi air cover. Controlling the oil fields in Marib is vital to the group’s ability to sustain itself economically.

Putting Yemeni civilians at risk

While the Trump administration claims the chat did not compromise sources and methods, Goldberg noted a US-based intelligence officer was named. The Atlantic removed their name for security reasons.

The publication’s decision to remove this detail is a stark reminder of whose security matters — and whose doesn’t. The transcript reads:

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz (15 March, 13:48pm ET): VP. Building collapsed. Had multiple positive ID…

Waltz (15 March, 14.00pm ET): Typing too fast. The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.

Putting aside the fact this was a residential building — it should not be an aside, but this is how most news coverage has been treating it — this detail is important to the Houthis.

This is because Waltz confirms “multiple” sources had positively identified a target, which the Houthis may use to justify further crackdowns, forced disappearances and even executions of those they accuse of being spies.

The Trump administration was clearly reckless in divulging this detail. But it’s striking The Atlantic did not consider the danger posed to Yemeni civilians by publishing it. Experts on the Houthis – and their methods of subjugation – could have quickly highlighted this point if they were consulted.

From a Yemeni perspective, a named source may have even been preferable to the hazy, but authoritative, confirmation of US operational methods and sources. The lack of specificity in the transcript plays to the Houthis’ dragnet approach to extinguishing independent voices by forcibly disappearing people on fake allegations of espionage.

These are typically aid workers, academics, minorities, journalists and members of civil society who are not vocally aligned with the group.

These abductions have been occurring for years, but ramped up in the middle of 2024. Dozens of members of civil society and aid organisations (and potentially many more) were kidnapped last year. Some are confirmed to have died in detention; many others have not been heard from since.

There are reports that abductions are already escalating in response to the latest US strikes.

The ongoing abductions have had a chilling effect on the willingness of local and international aid providers to speak out against the Houthis. This has helped the Houthis consolidate their control over the flow of humanitarian assistance (particularly food), which they divert based on political, rather than needs-based, calculations as a means of coercing compliance.

Yemeni civilians are seldom, if ever, a consideration in the geopolitical machinations that concern their country. The reflexive prioritisation of Western security interests exposed in the group chat – and the publication of these details – condemns them to further insecurity.

Sarah G. Phillips receives funding from The Australian Research Council as a Future Fellow (FT200100539), and is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies.

– ref. ‘Signalgate’ was damaging to the Trump administration. It could be deadly for Yemeni civilians – https://theconversation.com/signalgate-was-damaging-to-the-trump-administration-it-could-be-deadly-for-yemeni-civilians-253524

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a top contender for the title of Great American Novel, turns 100 on April 10.

A century later, it is invoked to help make sense of a world that still confuses “material enterprise with moral achievement” – as critic Sarah Churchwell wrote in the foreword to Gatsby’s centennial edition.

A Meta insider’s memoir takes its title, Careless People, from Fitzgerald’s novel. The same phrase circulated on social media and in The New York Times during Donald Trump’s first presidency, referring to his administration’s downplaying of COVID-19.

In 2018, The Atlantic compared Trump to Tom Buchanan, one of Fitzgerald’s “careless people”, describing “an eerie symmetry […] as if the villain of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel had been brought to life in a louder, gaudier guise for the 21st century”. More recently, others have compared Trump to Gatsby himself.

The Great Gatsby tells the tale of a lovesick man striving for social acceptance, believing personal reinvention and riches can help to rewrite the past. It is a story of longing: not just for lost love, but for an unattainable ideal.

The centenary couldn’t be more timely for this literary masterpiece, preoccupied by the same things we are: immense affluence, privilege, the limits of social mobility and the hidden underbelly of the American Dream. The Great Gatsby, while a relative literary failure in Fitzgerald’s lifetime, is enduringly popular today, with at least 25 million copies sold to date, numerous film and stage adaptations (and literary riffs), and a staple position on school and university reading lists.

“What we think about Gatsby illuminates what we think about money, race, romance and history,” wrote The New York Times’ A.O. Scott recently. “How we imagine him has a lot to do with how we see ourselves.”

The Great Gatsby is set against the backdrop of Roaring Twenties America: an era Fitzgerald famously dubbed the Jazz Age.

Fuelled by the infectious rhythms of jazz, driven by the economic forces of market prosperity and mass consumerism, and heady on the alcoholic vapours and illicit thrills associated with Prohibition-era nightlife, the 1920s were a decade where American fortunes were made and lost.

It was also, as Fitzgerald’s novel outlines, a period where individual ambition burned as fiercely as desire.

The plot follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a spotlight-eschewing, self-made millionaire whose seemingly breezy approach to life masks a singular obsession: the rekindling of a lost romance with a beautiful woman from his past.

Born James Gatz, Fitzgerald’s charismatic protagonist reinvents himself in the hope of winning back the love of his life, wealthy socialite Daisy Buchanan. Taken at face value, Gatsby’s world is one of incredible luxury and dazzling excess – lavish parties, fast cars and ostentatious attire – all designed to lure Daisy back into his arms.

But as we begin to scratch beneath the surface, the glittering facade Gatsby has constructed gives way to something far more fragile and tragic: an impossible fantasy driven by jealously, obsession and self-deception.

As the reader comes to appreciate, Gatsby’s accumulated gains may grant him partial access to the world of old money, but he will never truly be accepted by America’s elite. No matter how hard he might try, he cannot surmount the barriers of class and entitlement.

Ultimately, Gatsby’s misguided belief that he can somehow crowbar his way into the upper echelons of high society while simultaneously turning back the hands of time leads to his downfall. In Fitzgerald’s words, he ends up paying “a high price for living too long with a single dream”.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, literary celebrity

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24 1896. The son of middle-class Catholic parents, he spent much of his youth living in upstate New York. In 1913, he enrolled at Princeton University, where he formed a lasting friendship with future literary critic Edmund Wilson.

More absorbed in literary and dramatic endeavours than his studies, Fitzgerald’s grades suffered and he dropped out in 1917 – though not before falling deeply in love with Ginevra King, an heiress who would leave an indelible imprint on his writing. She would inspire many of his fictional female characters, including Daisy Buchanan.

Fitzgerald first encountered King during a winter vacation in St. Paul in January 1915. The debutante daughter of a wealthy Chicago stockbroker, she quickly became the object of Fitzgerald’s intense devotion (much to the disapproval of her family, who thought him beneath her).

In the wake of his heartbreak after the relationship broke down, Fitzgerald enlisted in the United States Army, earning a commission as a second lieutenant. During his military service, he met Zelda Sayre, the woman he would eventually marry. Meanwhile, he began work on his first novel, This Side of Paradise.

Released in 1920, Fitzgerald’s formally adventurous debut was a critical success and cultural sensation, capturing the restless energy and shifting moral landscape of a cohort coming of age in the wake of World War I.

The novel’s transparently autobiographical narrative centres on Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner whose intellectual and romantic adventures at Princeton – especially a doomed affair with the beautiful, elusive Isabelle Borgé – struck a chord with readers. It turned Fitzgerald into a media celebrity and unofficial spokesman for his generation.

Two years later, Fitzgerald published The Beautiful and Damned. It details the disintegration of a wealthy, aimless couple – Anthony and Gloria Patch – whose hedonistic lifestyle and misplaced belief in their own brilliance leads to ruin.

Fitzgerald’s tonally pessimistic second novel was again shaped by his own experiences, drawing heavily on his tempestuous marriage to Zelda, who was exhibiting symptoms of profound mental instability.

However, in stark contrast to This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned sold well, but received a lukewarm reception from reviewers. Some found its characters unappealing and its plot depressing.

By then, the Fitzgeralds had grown accustomed to the finer things in life. Which meant they needed money. Lots of it. To keep up with their lavish spending, Fitzgerald started to churn out short stories for popular magazines at a rapid pace. While this move provided him with a degree of financial security, some critics and contemporaries questioned whether he was squandering his literary gifts. Ernest Hemingway, for one, was “shocked” by his friend’s willingness to pander to commercial tastes and imperatives.

‘I want to write something new’

That said, while he was generating copy for mass-market publication, Fitzgerald was also hard at work on The Great Gatsby. In July 1922, he declared:

I want to write something new – something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned.

Determined to prove his worth as an artist, Fitzgerald, who wanted “to write a novel better than any ever written in America”, began to play with “form and emotion”. As his ideas for the new novel – which at one point bore the working title Trimalchio – took shape, Fitzgerald set up shop in Great Neck, Long Island. This location became the inspiration for East and West Egg, the fictionalised island communities that are the novel’s primary setting.

Fitzgerald, clearly not lacking in confidence, set his sights high for his third novel, taking inspiration from James Joyce’s Ulysses and T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

Departing from conventional realism, Fitzgerald experimented with modernist techniques, layering his narrative with symbolic depth, synesthetic imagery, fragmented storytelling and complex characterisation.

The result was a work both lyrical and impressionistic. Here’s a vivid, illustrative excerpt:

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. […] The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

Fitzgerald’s Midwestern narrator, Nick Carraway, is describing one of Gatsby’s legendary West Egg parties. He is renting the house next to Gatsby’s mansion,
“a colossal affair by any standard”, with “a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden”.

At first, Nick is fascinated by his enigmatic neighbour, drawn in by the sheer force of Gatsby’s optimism and his unrelenting faith in the transformative power of love and the trappings of wealth. But as the novel progresses, events lead Nick to reevaluate. He describes his charming friend as possessing “one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life”.

He continues, outlining attributes essential to a good confidence man:

It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

When he isn’t with Gatsby, Nick is often with his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom, the embodiment of American aristocracy and snobbery. They are, in Nick’s damning estimation, “careless” and “rotten” people.

An unreconstructed white supremacist prone to casual displays of extreme prejudice and physical violence, the adulterous Tom – who wouldn’t be out of place in the more dismal real-world and online recesses of today – is, in particular, deeply suspicious of Gatsby, regarding him as an interloper with dubious intentions.

The Atlantic wrote that Tom, “the Yale man, the football star, the spender of old money, the scion of what he calls the Nordic race – embodies the peak of social status in his century”. And that “Trump – the former Playboy-cover subject, the billionaire celebrity, the most powerful man in America – does the same for his”.

And their shared personality traits are the product of their shared relationship to power – the casual unreflective certainty that comes from inheritance, and enables its holders to wield its blunt force as both a weapon and a shield.

Tom’s “little investigation” into Gatsby’s background and finances reveals they are not what they seem. This leads to unintended, disastrous consequences.

Nick, our disillusioned observer, doesn’t quite know what to make of it all. We take leave of him at the end of the novel, on “the beach and sprawled out on the sand”, reminiscing about “Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock”.

‘A flying leap into the future’

Fitzgerald knew he had achieved something special with The Great Gatsby. His peers did too. T.S. Eliot considered it “the first step” forward “American fiction has taken since Henry James”. Edith Wharton concurred, calling it “a flying leap into the future.”

Yet, for all this critical acclaim, The Great Gatsby failed to resonate with the reading public – much to Fitzgerald’s dismay. By October, the book had sold less than 20,000 copies. (By comparison, This Side of Paradise had sold nearly 50,000 copies, across multiple printings.) As his biographer Arthur Mizener observed, by February 1926, “a few thousand more copies had been sold and the book was dead”. It was a blow the writer never really recovered from.

Fitzgerald’s personal life was tumultuous, marred by alcoholism, Zelda’s mental health issues and financial debt. This had a negative effect on his work. While he completed one more novel in 1934 – the excellent, darkly romantic Tender is the Night, arguably his best book – Fitzgerald struggled to be productive.

Following several failed suicide attempts, in 1940 he died of a heart attack, believing himself an abject failure and his career a total write-off. His most recent royalty cheque had been for $13.13. He was 44.

In the immediate aftermath of his death, writers and critics began to reassess Fitzgerald’s accomplishments. This effort was initially spearheaded by his friends, notably Edmund Wilson, who, in 1941, organised a series of tributes to be published in The New Republic.

In 1945, Viking Press released The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Dorothy Parker, which brought Fitzgerald to the attention of a new generation of readers. At the same time, the US military distributed 150,000 copies of The Great Gatsby to American servicemen during World War II as part of their Armed Services Editions.

Before long, The Great Gatsby made its way into the classroom, where it remains a staple of countless high school and university syllabuses. It continues to inspire readers, many of whom encounter it at a formative stage in their lives.

It has been adapted for the screen on multiple occasions – with mixed results. Jack Clayton’s 1974 version, starring Robert Redford as the eponymous Gatsby, was faithful to Fitzgerald’s vision, but utterly lifeless, while Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation, a hollow exercise in audiovisual bluster, failed to do justice to the novel’s subtleties. For all their shortcomings, these films helped cement Gatsby’s place in the popular imagination.

An ‘uncannily prescient’ enduring classic

Novelist Jesmyn Ward suggests Fitzgerald’s novel is

a book that endures, generation after generation, because every time a reader returns to The Great Gatsby, we discover new revelations, new insights, new burning bits of language.

I agree – and I think Fitzgerald would have had rich material to work with, had he been alive today. Ours, lest we forget, is a world where ersatz robber barons hoard nearly all our shared available assets and resources, where racist discourse resounds, and where rampant consumerism remains unchecked.

Last year America magazine argued Gatsby himself “gives the greatest insight into why Mr. Trump is still popular”, comparing Trump’s “fraudulent real estate deals” to Gatsby’s nefarious way of making his money, and Gatsby’s huge parties to Trump’s rallies. Both, the writer argued, are nouveau riche outsiders, “hell-bent on being accepted by the Manhattan set”, and scorned by the elites. (Though Trump’s second presidency seems to be ushering in a new elite.)

Thinking aloud, perhaps it’s more accurate to say Trump is a weird combination of characters. On one hand, he resembles Gatsby: a self-mythologising social climber, nostalgic for a past that never really existed. On the other, he shares much with Tom Buchanan: unscrupulous, self-interested and protected by his wealth.

In a historical moment that mirrors his own in many ways, Fitzgerald’s essentially tragic masterwork, which ends suggesting we are all forever “borne back ceaselessly into the past”, strikes me as uncannily prescient and relevant today.

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

– ref. The Great Gatsby at 100: the Jazz Age novel that helps explain Trump’s America – https://theconversation.com/the-great-gatsby-at-100-the-jazz-age-novel-that-helps-explain-trumps-america-247698

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aya Mousa, Senior Research Fellow in Women’s Cardiometabolic Health, Monash University

Good health care depends on evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. They translate the best available research into recommendations that shape diagnosis, treatment, and prevention strategies.

But what happens when the studies underpinning these guidelines are flawed?

Evidence suggests scientific misconduct – from fabricated or manipulated data to methodological errors and ethical concerns – is a growing problem. In some disciplines, estimates suggest as many as 40% of studies included in systematic reviews may have issues with their integrity.

This is not just an academic issue. When flawed studies are used to guide real-world health care, the consequences for health-care providers and ultimately patients can be serious. They include unnecessary or even harmful treatments, delay or denial of other effective treatments, wasted resources and a loss of public trust in science and health care itself.

Yet until recently, there has been no formal method to identify and manage flawed studies, before they make their way into clinical recommendations. We recently helped develop a framework that addresses this crucial gap. Published in The Lancet’s eClinicalMedicine, this framework provides a step-by-step process for evaluating the integrity of studies used in clinical guidelines and systematic reviews.

In an era of increasing concern about research misconduct, it’s a timely and much-needed advance.

Clinical care relies on research integrity

Randomised controlled trials are considered the gold standard in medical research.

Their results often underpin clinical guidelines that shape day-to-day decisions in health care. But what if a randomised controlled trial contains fabricated data? Or is conducted without ethics approval? Or is retracted after being used in a previous guideline?

A 2020 study found 44% of randomised controlled trials submitted to a major medical journal between 2017 and 2020 contained problematic or false data.

Compounding the problem is the fact that journal editors and publishers can be very slow to respond to concerns about research integrity.

For example, between November 2017 and April 2024, a group of researchers wrote to editors and publishers of 891 potentially untrustworthy papers published in 206 different journals. At the time their study was published earlier this year, only 30% of the papers they flagged had received an outcome – 58% of which were retracted.

Notably, it took a median time of 38 months for editors and publishers to make a decision. In only 13% of the flagged cases was a decision made within 12 months.

The ripple effects of this can be enormous. A review by the independent Cochrane Collaboration of nutrition interventions in pregnancy found that removing studies with integrity concerns changed the conclusions of 72% of reviews. One third (33%) needed to be updated because their guidance was no longer reliable.

Integrity concerns vary across fields. But some, such as complementary therapies or supplements, can be particularly prone to these concerns.

Despite this, most guideline development tools — including those from the World Health Organization — assess methodological quality, not the trustworthiness or integrity of the studies that are included.

A practical framework for safeguarding integrity

Our framework features a six-step process for safeguarding research integrity:

• Review: conduct a standard systematic review to identify eligible studies
• Exclude: remove studies that have been formally retracted or are flagged with serious concerns
• Assess: use available tools and checklists to assess the integrity of the remaining studies
• Discuss: convene an independent integrity committee to review ratings and vote on each study
• Establish contact: reach out to authors of high-risk studies to clarify issues or provide missing information
• Reassess: based on responses (or lack thereof), determine whether a study should be included, excluded, or held in limbo.

The integrity committee is central to this approach. It is a multidisciplinary group responsible for assessing studies objectively, without preconceived judgements or biases around which studies to exclude.

Applying the framework to the real world

Our framework was developed alongside the international evidence-based guideline for polycystic ovary syndrome.

Polycystic ovary syndrome is a common hormonal, reproductive and metabolic condition affecting 8–13% of women of reproductive age, depending on the diagnostic criteria used. It can cause irregular menstrual cycles, elevated androgen levels, and an increased number of small follicles in the ovaries, visible on ultrasound. It is a leading cause of infertility.

The guideline was developed with input from diverse professional and consumer groups. It was endorsed by 39 organisations across six continents.

In making recommendations on infertility treatment in polycystic ovary syndrome, 101 studies were initially identified. After applying our framework, 45 studies were not included due to concerns about integrity. Only three authors responded to clarification requests. This illustrates the problem with transparency after publication.

Without our framework, these problematic studies may have directly shaped recommendations and health care for women with polycystic ovary syndrome around the world.

Our framework was incorporated into the National Health and Medical Research Council review process that approved the guidelines. It has since been applied to other guidelines in women’s health. Further scale up is planned.

Some drawbacks

While our framework offers a much-needed solution, it’s not without drawbacks.

First, the tools it relies on — such as a checklist for measuring trustworthiness in randomised controlled trials and the research integrity assessment tool — are still being refined. They also need to be validated across different research contexts.

Second, older studies (conducted before trial registries were common) or those from countries with different ethics standards, may be unfairly penalised.

There is also a risk that valid research could be excluded simply because authors do not respond to integrity enquiries.

Implementing the framework can also take time. In resource-limited settings, this may be a barrier.

But failing to assess integrity will likely cost more in the long run. It could lead to flawed recommendations, misplaced public confidence and patient harm.

Aya Mousa receives funding from NHMRC.

Ben W. Mol receives funding from NHMRC, MRFF as well as international competitive grants.

Helena Teede receives funding from NHMRC and MRFF as well as international competitive grants. She is President of International Endocrine Society.

– ref. Flawed medical studies can end up in doctors’ advice. We developed a tool to stop it – https://theconversation.com/flawed-medical-studies-can-end-up-in-doctors-advice-we-developed-a-tool-to-stop-it-253213

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has finally ended weeks of speculation and named the election date for the national parliament.

After months of unofficial campaigning, Australians will now be treated to a festival of democracy as promises are made, policies are announced, and the leaders travel the country to rally support.

Much of the campaigning by the parties will be focused on the House of Representatives. This is to be expected as the lower house is where government is formed by the party that wins the majority of seats in this chamber, and the leader of this party becomes prime minister.

While the election for the lower house dominates the campaign, the contest for the Senate is rarely mentioned.

This is a bit unfair as the Senate is an immensely powerful chamber.

The power of the Senate

Barring its inability to initiate or amend supply bills, the Senate has almost the same powers as the House of Representatives. Senators can introduce their own bills, as long as they’re not supply bills.

For any proposed bill to become law, it must be passed by the Senate as well as the House of Representatives.

All states have equal representation in the chamber. Currently, every state is represented by 12 senators, each with six-year terms.

This means half the Senate is up for election at every general election.

The territories are represented by two senators each and they face re-election at every general election. The current number of senators is 76.

Winning a majority in the Senate has no bearing on who forms government (it’s the result of the lower house – the House of Representatives – which determines this). It does, however, make it easier for the government to pass bills to become law if it enjoys a majority in this chamber.

Who wins seats in the Senate?

The voting system in the Senate is very different to the House of Representatives. To win a seat in the House of Representatives, a candidate must win 50% +1 of the votes cast in the district.

In the Senate, however, a candidate must win a proportion (approximately 14.3%) of the state-wide vote.

This makes it a bit easier for minor parties to win representation as they can rely on broad support from across the state to reach the required threshold.

Changes introduced in 2016 mean Australians have choice on how to complete their Senate ballot paper. They can either number six or more candidates of their choice above the black line, or vote below the line by numbering 12 or more candidates.

While parties will organise their own preference deals to benefit them, voters are ultimately in control of where their preferences go.

Thanks to the voting system used in the Senate, it is rare for a government to hold a majority of seats in the upper house. The last time this occurred was in 2004 when the John Howard-led Coalition enjoyed a majority in the chamber.

The current Senate

Following the 2022 election, both major parties lost ground in the Senate. To have a majority in the chamber, a party must have 39 seats. Currently, Labor has 25 representatives, while the Coalition has 30.

The remaining seats are held by the Greens with the third highest number of representatives (11), One Nation (2), Jacqui Lambie Network (1), United Australia Party (1), and six Independents.

Several high-profile senators are up for election in 2025. In Queensland, for example, Malcolm Roberts from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation will be up for re-election, Jacqui Lambie will be recontesting in Tasmania, while Independent Senator David Pocock from the ACT will be seeking another term.

There will also be some other prominent senators hoping to be re-elected from established parties.

These include Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (Country Liberal Party) and Senator Malarndirri McCarthy (ALP) from the Northern Territory, Liberal James Paterson from Victoria, Sarah Hanson-Young from the Greens in South Australia, and Jordan Steele-John from the Greens in Western Australia.

The 2025 contest

Fewer people have been voting for the major parties in recent years. In 2022, the vote for non-major party candidates reached a high of 35.7% (which, as Antony Green reminds us, was higher than the primary vote for both the Coalition and Labor).

Since the 1980s, Australians appear to have become open to supporting non-major party candidates contesting the Senate. If this continues as expected in 2025, whoever becomes prime minister will have to deal with the diverse interests and policy demands from those in the upper house.

While the campaign for the Senate may go under the radar over the next few weeks, who is elected to the Senate will have a massive impact on Australian politics for years to come.

Zareh Ghazarian 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. Keep an eye on the Senate – the people elected to it this year will have immense power for years to come – https://theconversation.com/keep-an-eye-on-the-senate-the-people-elected-to-it-this-year-will-have-immense-power-for-years-to-come-252899

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

New laws come into effect in Australia today that change the look, ingredients, and packaging of tobacco products.

The Australian government passed the package of tobacco laws in late 2023, which include:

• standardised tobacco pack and cigarette stick sizes, no more novelty pack sizes or cigarette lengths

• updated and improved graphic health warnings and quitting advice inserts within all tobacco packs

• warnings printed directly on cigarettes

• banning ingredients that make tobacco taste better and easier to smoke, including menthol.

Retailers have a three-month grace period to sell any old stock already in their stores by July 1.

Here’s what’s behind these changes – and what needs to happen next.

New graphic health warnings

Cigarette packaging requirements have been stagnant since 2012, when Australia introduced plain packaging laws that banned the use of all on-pack logos and branding. This was a world-first.

While large graphic health warnings are effective in both preventing smoking uptake and aiding quitting smoking, the effects wear out if warnings are not refreshed and varied.

Cigarette packages must carry one of ten new health warnings. Fresh warnings that smoking doubles the risk of cervical cancer and leads to diabetes will be new information for many smokers.

There are also warnings for roll-your-own, cigar, bidi and shisha tobacco packaging.

Warnings on cigarettes

Cigarettes themselves must now include one of eight health warnings printed directly on the filter paper.

Canada was the first country in the world to adopt similar requirements in 2023.

The size, shape, and colour of cigarettes has also been standardised to prevent tobacco companies from using unique cigarette designs to attract new users. Long, thin cigarettes, for example, have been marketed to women as a fashion accessory and diet tool for nearly a century.

The ingredients permitted in cigarettes are also changing, with ingredients that enhance the flavour of tobacco being now banned. The long list of prohibited ingredients includes everything from cloves, to sugar, to probiotics and vitamins.

Until now, the tobacco industry has had free reign to add ingredients that increase the palatability and attractiveness of cigarettes. This banned list also captures menthol and any ingredients that mimic the cooling properties of menthol.

Why ban menthol?

Menthol masks the harshness of smoke. Just like cold lollies that contain menthol to soothe sore throats and tame coughs, menthol in cigarettes prevents inexperienced smokers from reacting to the rough effects of tobacco smoke in the throat. This helps to make smoking a more pleasant experience that young users will return to.

The introduction of crushable menthol capsules in cigarette filters has proven very popular with Australian teenagers. Teens who use these products are more likely to have recently smoked and have higher smoking intentions in the future. The new laws also explicitly prohibit these “crush balls” or “flavour beads.”

Other counties that have banned menthol have seen drops in tobacco sales and use and increases in quitting behaviours.

No similar reforms for the United States

Menthol cigarettes have been heavily marketed to African American people since at least the 1950s and make up one-third of the total US cigarette market share. Tobacco control groups in the US have been advocating for a menthol ban for well over a decade.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed a rule banning menthol in 2022, and a 2024 US Surgeon General report highlighted that menthol products increase addiction and are:

disproportionately used by Black people, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander people, women and people who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual.

Under the Biden Administration, the FDA delayed issuing the final rule which meant the ban was not properly enacted before Trump was elected.

In January 2025, the Trump administration completely withdrew the ban.

A menthol ban in the US was predicted to reduce total smoking by 15% and the number of smoking attributable deaths among African Americans by up to 238,000.

Reforms needed to stamp out our illicit market

Organised criminals are operating in Australia’s tobacco supply chain to illegally import and sell tobacco products. Government action to step in and gain control of that supply system is long overdue.

Until this year, Australia’s two most populous states didn’t even require tobacco sellers to be licensed, and Queensland only introduced licensing last year.

Australia will need to change how tobacco is sold. It should not be so easy and commonplace to sell such an addictive and deadly product.

Both state and national governments need timely and transparent reporting on the size and scope of the illicit market, and strict licensing of the entire tobacco supply chain.

Businesses that sell illicit tobacco must face real consequences – not only large fines and loss of licences to operate, but also criminal charges.

All aspects of the tobacco supply chain – from wholesalers to retailers – must be tightly controlled.

Becky Freeman is an expert advisor to the Cancer Council tobacco issues committee and a member of the Cancer Institute vaping communications advisory panel. She has received relevant competitive grants from the NHMRC, MRFF, NSW Health, the Ian Potter Foundation, VicHealth, and Healthway WA.

– ref. Menthol cigarettes will be banned from April 1. Here’s why – and what else is changing – https://theconversation.com/menthol-cigarettes-will-be-banned-from-april-1-heres-why-and-what-else-is-changing-251920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Frew, Lecturer in Mycorrhizal Ecology, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

If you’re walking outdoors, chances are something remarkable is happening under your feet. Vast fungal networks are silently working to keep ecosystems alive.

These fungi aren’t what you might picture. They are not mushrooms, or brightly coloured growths on tree trunks. Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi look like spools of thread wrapped around plant roots.

What makes these fungi remarkable is the deal they struck almost half a billion years ago with another kingdom of life – plants.

AM fungi make threads of hyphae thinner than spider silk and weave them through plant roots. Then, they begin to trade, offering plants water and phosphorus, a vital plant nutrient in soils. In return, plants offer carbon-rich sugars and fats from photosynthesis. Fungi can’t photosynthesise, but plants can.

This symbiotic relationship can help plants survive periods of drought and live in nutrient poor soils. More than 80% of all plant families rely on these fungi, while AM fungi cannot live without plants.

Without these fungi, many of Australia’s plants — and the soil they grow in — would be in real trouble. Our continent is ancient, dry, and nutrient-poor. But while we monitor the fate of plants and animals in response to human impact and climate change, we haven’t been tracking the fungi who support it all. We don’t even know how many species there are, let alone if we’re losing them.

To help fill this gap, I have developed the first dedicated database recording species and distributions of AM fungi in Australia – AusAMF.

The underground economy of roots and filaments

AM fungi deserve to be better known. These essential companions to most of the world’s plants maintain plant diversity, suppress invasive species, store carbon, cycle nutrients and prevent soil erosion.

Here are five remarkable things about AM fungi:

1. They’re older than roots

Incredibly, this fungus-plant symbiosis emerged before plants evolved roots some 360–420 million years ago.

AM fungi have been around for 475 million years, partnering with very early land plants such as the ancestors of today’s liverworts – which have no roots. This ancient alliance actually helped plants colonise land.

2. They can boost native plants and reject invasives

AM fungi do more than transport nutrients, carbon and water. They shape entire plant communities. Some plants benefit more than others, influencing competition and species co-existence. By giving some species a competitive edge, AM fungi allow some plants to survive which might otherwise be lost.

When AM fungal diversity declines, it can lead to a loss of native plants and open the door to invasive plant species.

But with the right management — such as reducing pesticides or reintroducing locally adapted fungi — AM fungi can boost plant nutrition and ecosystem restoration. They can help native vegetation recover and stop invasive species from gaining a foothold.

3. They run an invisible underground economy

The fungi-plant trade is more organised than you might think.

In some instances, plants reward the fungi giving them the most phosphorus with more carbon, while the fungi prioritise plants offering them the most carbon – a bit like a marketplace. Some plants have figured out how to cheat the fungi, taking resources without giving anything in return.

4. They boost plant defences against pests and disease

Fungi don’t just help plants grow, they help them fight. As AM fungi colonise a plant’s roots, they boost its defences against threats such as diseases and plant-eating insects by strengthening and speeding up chemical responses. My research shows the size of this fungal-defence boost for plants can depend on what AM fungi are present.

And if one plant is attacked, it puts out chemical signals which can move through the fungal network and let other plants know to ready their defences.

5. They take in vast amounts of carbon

Plants take carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their leaves, roots and wood. But AM fungi store carbon from plants too.

Because mycorrhizal fungi are found wherever there are plants, their underground networks are vast – and so is their carbon impact. Recent research estimates the annual figure is more than a third of global fossil fuel carbon emissions.

Vitally important, all but unknown

If AM fungi vanished, many plant species would likely follow suit. Others would become more vulnerable to drought, disease, and pests. Soil would erode more easily, and nutrient and carbon flows would shift dramatically.

Are they in trouble? We don’t know. AM fungi are out of sight, out of mind. No federal or state government agency seem to be tracking them. Our current National Soil Action Plan doesn’t mention fungi at all, despite their importance to soil health.

Other than Antarctica, Australia is the least sampled continent for soil AM fungi, with just 32 sites in global databases. Europe, by comparison, has data from more than 1,200 sites.

That’s where I hope the AusAMF database will help. I partnered with landholders and research networks to gather soil samples. So far, the database has data from 610 locations, with about 400 more on the way.

But this is still scratching the surface. AM fungal communities can differ between neighbouring fields or habitats, depending on land management methods and types of vegetation. Virtually all current records are a single snapshot in time — we lack the long-term monitoring needed to track seasonal or annual changes.

It would be a mistake to remain in the dark about AM fungi. The more we learn, the more we see their importance, not only in supporting biodiversity, but in helping our crops and ecosystems cope with a changing world. If they are in decline, we need to know – and set about protecting them.

Adam Frew receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the British Ecological Society.

– ref. From trading nutrients to storing carbon: 5 things you didn’t know about our underground fungi – https://theconversation.com/from-trading-nutrients-to-storing-carbon-5-things-you-didnt-know-about-our-underground-fungi-252184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Deane, Professor of Trade Law, Taxation and Climate Change, Queensland University of Technology

The future of Australia’s key climate policy is uncertain after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said a Coalition government would review the measure, known as the “safeguard mechanism”, which is designed to limit emissions from Australia’s largest industrial polluters.

According to the Australian Financial Review, if the Coalition wins office it will consider relaxing the policy, as part of its plan to increase domestic gas supplies.

Evidence suggests weakening the mechanism would be a mistake. In fact, it could be argued the policy does not go far enough to force polluting companies to curb their emissions.

Both major parties now accept Australia must reach net-zero emissions by 2050. This bipartisan agreement should make one thing clear: winding back the safeguard mechanism would be reckless policy.

What’s the safeguard mechanism again?

The safeguard mechanism began under the Coalition government in 2016. It now applies to 219 large polluting facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. These facilities are in sectors such as electricity, mining, gas, manufacturing, waste and transport. Together, they produce just under one-third of Australia’s emissions.

Under the policy’s original design, companies were purportedly required to keep their emissions below a certain cap, and buy carbon credits to offset any emissions over the cap. However, loopholes meant the cap was weakly enforced.

This meant greenhouse gas pollution from the facilities actually increased – rising from 131.3 million tonnes to 138.7 million tonnes in the first six years of the policy.

Labor strengthened the safeguard mechanism after it won office, by setting a hard cap for industrial emissions. The Coalition voted against the reforms.

Dutton has since labelled the safeguard mechanism a “carbon tax”
– a claim that has been debunked. Some members of the Coalition reportedly believe the policy makes manufacturers globally uncompetitive.

Now, according to media reports, a Coalition government would review the safeguard mechanism with a view to weakening it, in a bid to bolster business and increase gas supply.

Why the safeguard mechanism should be left alone

Weakening the safeguard mechanism would lead to several problems.

First, it would mean large facilities, including new coal and gas projects, would be permitted to operate without meaningful limits on their pollution. This threatens Australia’s international climate obligations.

Second, if polluters were no longer required to buy carbon offsets, this would disrupt Australia’s carbon market.

As the Clean Energy Regulator notes, the safeguard mechanism is the “dominant source” of demand for Australian carbon credits.

In the first quarter of 2024, about 1.2 million carbon-credit units were purchased by parties wanting to offset their emissions. The vast majority were purchased by companies meeting compliance obligations under the safeguard mechanism or similar state rules.

If companies are no longer required to buy offsets, or they buy fewer offsets, this would hurt those who sell carbon credits.

Carbon credits are earned by organisations and individuals who abate carbon – through measures such as tree planting or retaining vegetation. The activities are often carried out by farmers and other landholders, including Indigenous organisations. Indigenous-led carbon projects have delivered jobs, cultural renewal and environmental benefits.

The safeguard mechanism, together with the government pledge to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, also provides certainty for the operators of polluting facilities. Many in the business sector have called for the policy to remain unchanged.

And finally, winding back the safeguard mechanism would send a troubling signal to the world: that Australia is stepping back from climate action.

Now is not the time to abdicate our responsibilities on climate change. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen dramatically since 1960. This increase is driving global warming and climate change, leading to extreme weather events which will only worsen.

A hard-won policy

The safeguard mechanism has not had time to deliver meaningful outcomes. And it is far from perfect – but it is hard-won, and Australia needs it.

The 2023 reforms to the mechanism were designed to support trade-exposed industries, while encouraging companies to invest in emissions reduction.

Undoing this mechanism would risk our climate goals. It would leave the government limited means to curb pollution from Australia’s largest emitters, and muddy the roadmap to net-zero. It would also create uncertainty for all carbon market participants, including the polluting facilities themselves.

Felicity Deane 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. Under a Coalition government, the fate of Australia’s central climate policy hangs in the balance – https://theconversation.com/under-a-coalition-government-the-fate-of-australias-central-climate-policy-hangs-in-the-balance-253426

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Richards, Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia

Drowning in streaming choices? If so, you’re not alone – as our experts have a particularly wide range of picks this month.

From musicals and comedy, to serial killers and twisted fictional corporations, there’s plenty to get stuck into.

The Pitt

Binge (Australia), Neon (NZ)

The Pitt is best described as a cross between ER and 24. The series follows an emergency room in Pittsburgh in real time across a 15-hour shift. Each one hour episode is an hour of their shift. Creator R. Scott Gemill and executive producer John Wells both worked extensively on ER, as did Noah Wyle who plays Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, the senior attending.

The day in question falls on the anniversary of the death of Robby’s mentor during the COVID pandemic and he experiences several flashbacks throughout the shift. The ER ward is chaotic due to the nursing shortage and failing American healthcare system. The series regularly cuts to the overcrowded waiting room of desperate people, waiting to receive care.

The large ensemble is fantastic and it’s great to see a medical show that actually includes nursing staff as key characters (take note, Grey’s Anatomy!). By unfolding in real time, we get a sense of how chaotic their work is, with several doctors jumping between patients. Several key cases also unfold across several episodes, with many building to dramatic effects.

It should also be noted that due to having its home on a streaming platform, the show is allowed to depict graphic and sometimes gruesome medical scenes without intruding soundtracks or montages, which only adds to the realism.

– Stuart Richards

Severance, season two

Apple TV

In absurdist psychological thriller Severance, individuals working for the multinational biotech corporation Lumon Industries can have their work-selves surgically “severed”, separating the memories and experiences of their workplace “innies” from those of their “outies”.

The second season, three years in the making, looks at the fallout from season one’s cliffhanger finale, in which the innies of Macrodata Analysis, Helly R (Britt Lower), Irving B (John Turturro) and Dylan G (Zach Cherry), led by Mark S (Adam Scott), staged a revolt and busted briefly into their outies’ worlds. In doing so, they exposed shocking secrets about Lumon – including that outie Mark’s wife, thought dead, is somehow alive but being held by Lumon.

This season has been as stylish and weird as the first, revelling in striking cinematography, impeccable direction, quirky scripting and inspired world-building. It also becomes increasingly eerie, focusing more on Lumon’s bizarre, cult-like history and culture, and the unsettling nature of the innies’ jobs.

Although lore-heavy, the show has avoided many of the pitfalls of “puzzle box” shows, balancing revelations with astonishingly good performances, particularly from Trammell Tillman as Lumon floor manager Mr Milchick. This uncanny and perversely funny season deserves its status as a water cooler hit. Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait three more years for a resolution.

– Erin Harrington

Happiness

ThreeNow (New Zealand) from April 3

With their new show Happiness, airing on Three and Three Now, Kip Chapman and Luke Di Somma have created a welcome New Zealand answer to the popular style of “backstage” musical TV show.

The protagonist is stage director Charlie (Harry McNaughton), who has returned from New York to his hometown of Tauranga having been dismissed from helming a Broadway revival of Cats. In a desperate attempt to demonstrate competency for a renewal of his visa, and to please his mum Gaye (Rebecca Gibney), Charlie decides to help out the local amateur musical theatre society Pizzaz (“the finest large-scale yet boutique classical musical theatre company in Tauranga”) with its latest production, an original musical called The Trojan Horse.

While the story is fairly predictable, the show blessed with an engaging pastiche score by Luke Di Somma that references a variety of fun musical theatre tropes. It is a welcome addition to the “let’s put on a show” backstager genre, and will appeal to fans of musical theatre as well as workplace comedies.

Happiness paints New Zealand musical theatre talent in a positive light – showing what the locals can do – while being highly entertaining in its own right.

– Gregory Camp

Running Point

Netflix

Running Point is writer-producer Mindy Kaling’s return to her roots with an office-family comedy. After spending some time in high-school with Never Have I Ever and college with Sex Lives of College Girls, Kaling returns to where she started her TV career with The Office and The Mindy Project. Based very loosely on the real-life story of Los Angeles Lakers President Jeanie Buss, this Kate Hudson vehicle is ripe with satire, family dynamics and absurdity.

When her older brother (Justin Theroux) goes to rehab, he names his sister (Hudson) as the new president of their family business: basketball empire the Los Angeles “Waves”. Running Point feels like a more fully-realised version of Kaling’s previous short-lived family sports comedy Champions.

The cast is stacked with TV comedy MVPs including Brenda Song, Drew Tarver, Scott MacArthur, Jay Ellis, Max Greenfield and Jon Glaser. Hudson is at her most Goldie Hawn-like here, mixing physical comedy with goofiness and heart. It’s easy and enjoyable watching, even if (like me) you are not a big sports fan!

– Jessica Ford

Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer

Netflix

True crime documentaries, particularly those concerned with serial killers, are often criticised for their silencing of the victims, while elevating the perpetrator and perversely celebrating their crimes.

Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer bucks that trend. Its focus is on the women who were murdered by Rex Heuermann, and the families and friends who band together in their shared suffering and pursuit of justice over a period of more than two decades. In particular, it is the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, and her mother’s dogged perseverance in keeping the police department’s attention on her missing daughter, which leads to the discovery and identification of the bodies of another six women.

Like his namesake, the “Long Island Ripper”, Heuermann relied on the fact that his victims were sex workers – assuming their deaths would be of little consequence to law enforcement, or that their disappearances wouldn’t even be noticed. For some time this was true, as one interviewee observes: “knowing that sex workers might be afraid to come forward with information, police were not active in reaching out to them and making them feel comfortable coming forward”.

But these women were mothers, daughters, sisters and friends. Gone Girls rejects the marginalisation of the victims, just as their communities had worked so hard to do.

– Jessica Gildersleeve

Adolescence

Netflix

Why do children kill other children? What makes an intelligent boy from a loving suburban family borrow a knife from a school friend and, on a casual Sunday evening, stab another child to death? When someone so young commits a horrific act, who is to blame – the child, the family, or society?

With its technical mastery and gut-punch power, Adolescence is a tour de force. The series tracks the story of 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) after he is arrested and later charged with the murder of his classmate, Katie. Co-creator Stephen Graham stars as Jamie’s father, Eddie.

The series is a harrowing take on male violence and rage, and the misogynist radicalisation of vulnerable boys. Trapped in the dark mirrors of the manosphere, and allured by the grim logic of Andrew Tate, Jamie represents a generation of boys tragically and perhaps permanently lost to incel culture.

Skilfully filmed in Philip Barantini’s signature one-shot style, the series pushes the limits of television production. The high-wire act of timing and trust amplifies the message that one misstep can lead to failure. In Adolescence, however, there are no easy outs. Just as the continuous filming style offers no reprieve, the show refuses to offer a simple explanation for why Jamie did it.

Adolescence is not an easy watch, but for those parenting teens, it is a necessary one.

– Kate Cantrell

Read more:
Adolescence is a technical masterpiece that exposes the darkest corners of incel culture and male rage

The Role of a Lifetime

ABC iView (Australia)

Edutainment at its finest, The Role of a Lifetime approaches contemporary parenthood with good humour and even better, good research. Informative without being preachy, the short series focuses on parenting tweens (children in late primary school) and above, with a sympathetic approach to the pressures of modern life. In a nutshell: social media is everywhere, what can and should we do about it?

Leads Kate Ritchie and Nazeem Hussain serve as part-segment presenters and part-parent role players in this mixture of magazine show and sitcom, while the steady hands of Amanda Keller and Maggie Dent provide context and permission to get it wrong.

Aimed very squarely at a nuclear heterocentric Australian middle class, there are moments that still stray into cliché. For instance, why is mum still in charge of dinner even though she’s also worked a full day, often still in full work clothes, until late at night? Nonetheless, the warm dynamic between the family members and the chosen experts makes the show really engaging and invites further discussion rather than dictating rules and failures.

The featured “young experts” who participate in the casual panels are also excellent. If they are anything resembling Australia’s future, we are in good hands.

– Liz Giuffre

Nickel Boys

Prime Video

Nickel Boys, a new film adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel, follows Elwood Curtis – a studious, law-abiding teenager who is sent to the Nickel Academy in mid-1960s Florida after he unwittingly accepts a ride in a stolen car and is unjustly convicted as an accessory to the theft.

The Nickel Academy, based on the real-life Dozier School for Boys, is a segregated reform school operating as a front for the coercion of unpaid labour from the boys detained there. These boys are subject to beatings, rapes and psychological torture. And their efforts to run away or resist often prove fatal.

At Nickel, Elwood bonds with another 17-year-old inmate, Turner, whose cynicism provides a foil to Elwood’s idealism. A second timeline follows the adult Elwood’s efforts to build a life and maintain relationships in the aftermath of his imprisonment and escape.

You don’t watch Nickel Boys so much as experience it – seeing and hearing what Elwood and (later) Turner see and hear. The film’s first-person approach can sometimes be distracting, not least because of the impulse to compare it with your own sense of what looking looks like.

That said, the film honours Whitehead’s ambivalence, developing a visual style that amplifies a major plot twist in the novel. It turns the darkest events into a luminous fable of endurance.

– Sascha Morrell

Read more:
Nickel Boys could be the most radical literary adaptation ever made – but how does it compare to the book?

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. A child killer, parenting struggles and ‘innies’ running wild: what to stream in April – https://theconversation.com/a-child-killer-parenting-struggles-and-innies-running-wild-what-to-stream-in-april-253018

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jesse Austin-Stewart, Lecturer, School of Music and Screen Arts, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

One year after Video Ezy opened its first store in Aotearoa New Zealand, the Broadcasting Act 1989 was introduced. It established frameworks and funding for local content that largely still exist.

But in 2025, New Zealanders’ viewing and listening habits are radically different. We’ve shifted from local broadcasters to international streaming and online media services. Video and music streaming platforms now reach more people than local TV and radio.

This brings convenience and access to a world of film, TV, news, and music. But it also means local content risks being swamped on its own shores. A recent discussion document from Manatū Taonga/Ministry for Culture and Heritage is the latest attempt to address the problem.

Among the suggested changes to local content funding, promotion, and distribution are:

• requiring newly manufactured smart TVs to pre-install New Zealand apps

• the merger of NZ On Air with the NZ Film Commission

• changes to the Broadcast Standards Authority

• increased captioning and audio description

• and requiring local and global media providers to invest in and promote New Zealand content.

Some of these are welcome – and long overdue. But broader media reform must also take this opportunity to create future-proofed policy; one that’s responsive to where local audiences are consuming content, and which supports the media sector to adapt to a rapidly changing landscape.

Why local content struggles

New Zealand media, already hit by wider platform choice and the movement of advertising revenue offshore, has experienced deep job cuts, including at state-owned TVNZ, and the complete closure of Newshub.

As audiences migrate towards online streaming services, TVNZ’s digital platform TVNZ+ now has a daily reach of 26% of local audiences. In 2024, nine New Zealand shows featured in its top 20 most watched.

While that might seem positive, Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram each individually outperform TVNZ+ viewership. And many global video-on-demand platforms have fewer than ten local titles available for New Zealand audiences to watch.

Local music is also struggling. In 2024, only two national radio stations hit the voluntary 20% local music target. Only one local song featured in the end-of-year top 50 singles charts.

These figures might suggest New Zealanders aren’t interested in local content – but that isn’t necessarily true. If we compare local media structures to overseas markets, we see major differences in the opportunities for local content to reach audiences.

Unlike other comparable countries, New Zealand lacks government-owned and fully-funded platforms for locally produced content to find local audiences. Where these platforms exist overseas, engagement with local content is higher.

For instance, Norway’s publicly-owned youth station saw local music comprise 50% of its annual top 40 charts in 2023. Australia’s state-funded Triple J has a 40% local music quota, and the state-owned, advertising-free ABC iview platform has a weekly national audience reach of 62%.

Finding audiences where they are

Announcing his government’s creative sector strategy last year, Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith said it aims to “nurture talent and support a pipeline to provide sustainable career opportunities”.

The strategy also speaks of “modernising and streamlining government regulation to enable our cultural sectors to thrive”.

But there are significant omissions in the latest discussion document. Video gaming, for example, is largely missing from the proposals, although research suggests the industry could represent up to 44% of global consumer entertainment spending by 2040.

Global video sharing platforms such as YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are similarly absent in the proposals, despite their 81% daily reach among Aotearoa New Zealand’s 15-39 age bracket.

Addressing those omissions and strategically embracing new opportunities offers a chance to support local producers in two key ways: enhancing the global presence of New Zealand content, and ensuring local audiences see themselves in the media they enjoy.

This would require an ambitious rethink around media infrastructure and investments, focused on what can have the biggest impact long term. This might include:

• investing in a fully-funded youth radio station

• changing the revenue structure of TVNZ to be primarily state funded

• legislating global video sharing platforms like YouTube and TikTok to promote New Zealand content

• or developing a progressive, industry-informed video game policy.

It’s vital that any proposed policy changes are fit for purpose and adaptable for years to come.

Past attempts at media reform in Aotearoa New Zealand have often been reactive to changing environments, rather than proactive. But there’s an opportunity now to consider more meaningful changes, addressing current challenges while looking to the future.

Jesse Austin-Stewart has completed commissioned research for NZ On Air and participated in focus groups for Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. He has received competitive funding from Creative New Zealand, NZ On Air, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture & Hertiage, and the NZ Music Commission. He is a writer member of APRA AMCOS and a member of the Composer’s Association of New Zealand

Catherine Hoad has previously completed research in partnership with or commissioned by APRA AMCOS, Toi Mai Workforce Development Council, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture & Heritage, ScreenSafe, and NZ On Air.

Dave Carter is a writer member of APRA AMCOS and has previously received funding from Manatū Taongao Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

Oli Wilson has previously completed research in partnership with or commissioned by APRA AMCOS, Toi Mai Workforce Development Council, Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture & Heritage and the NZ Music Commission. He has also received funding, or contributed to projects that have benefited from funding from NZ on Air, the NZ Music Commission and Recorded Music New Zealand. He has provided services to The Chills, owns shares in TripTunz Limited, and is a writer member of APRA AMCOS.

– ref. NZ’s Broadcasting Act is as old as Video Ezy. We need media reform for the streaming age – https://theconversation.com/nzs-broadcasting-act-is-as-old-as-video-ezy-we-need-media-reform-for-the-streaming-age-252713

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Markus Wagner, Professor of Law and Director of the UOW Transnational Law and Policy Centre, University of Wollongong

Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has doubled down on using trade measures – mostly tariffs – to reshape global trade. He plans to impose reciprocal tariffs on what he has labelled “Liberation Day”, April 2.

The Trump administration claims US producers face higher tariffs and more restrictions abroad than foreign producers when they export to the US.

The administration also examined tax systems such as Europe’s Value Added Tax and Australia’s GST, import regulations and other factors. It believes – mostly wrongly – these unfairly disadvantage American businesses and contribute to the US trade deficit.

As with many Trump initiatives, actual tariffs often change significantly between announcement and implementation, if they are implemented at all.

His reciprocal tariffs have been narrowed to imports from the US’ largest trading partners instead of imports from all countries. There may also be tariffs on specific sectors. Last week, Trump announced 25% tariffs on cars from overseas. At the weekend said he “couldn’t care less” if this made cars more expensive for US consumers.

Coercive control, revenue and re-shoring

President Trump has raised a myriad of puzzling arguments in favour of tariffs. They largely fall into three categories:

The first is the use of tariffs as a coercion tool against other countries. In the first Trump presidency, trading partners were pressured to renegotiate trade agreements such as the renamed but largely identical US-Mexico-Canada agreement.

Similarly, the Trump administration used the threat of tariffs to gain market access, elicit better trade terms or as a form of weaponised trade to achieve unrelated foreign policy goals.

Last week, Trump suggested he would consider a reduction in tariffs on China in exchange for a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner.

The second category is the use of tariffs as a source of revenue. The Trump administration envisions tariffs to be collected by a yet-to-be-created External Revenue Service. This would form the flip side of the powerful and much-maligned Internal Revenue Service.

Trump claims tariffs will be paid by the exporting country. This would be in theory to finance future tax cuts. In practice, tariffs are almost always paid by the importer of goods and usually get passed on to consumers.

There is a potential contradiction between these two rationales. It appears the Trump administration wants to make at least some tariffs permanent. But doing so would almost nullify the use of tariffs as a bargaining chip and coercion tool.

The final category is to encourage companies to “re-shore” production to the US to avoid tariffs and to support US jobs.

This would signal a reversal of what 1994 presidential candidate Ross Perot, speaking of the North American Free Trade Agreement, called the “giant sucking sound going south”. Some manufacturing may return to the US. But the high costs of building new factories, re-routing supply chains and uncompetitive US labour costs will hinder large-scale re-shoring efforts.

A long-term plan?

The Trump administration’s trade moves can be seen as part of a larger strategy to reshape the US domestic and the global economic system.

In a recent speech, US Vice-President JD Vance argued for a structural reshaping of the US economy, to increase domestic innovation capacity.

Vance warned “deindustrialisation poses risks both to our national security and our workforce”. Vance himself sums up this approach by characterising tariffs as a “necessary tool to protect our jobs and our industries”.

This line of argument overlooks a number of critical factors. Tariffs lead to higher prices for consumers. Unless currencies adjust, the inflationary impact could disadvantage the very people that can least afford it.

The same is true if other countries respond to US trade measures by responding in kind, as Canada and the European Union already have.

American farmers and other export-oriented industries will be hard hit. From a strategic perspective, the US position as global leader has suffered a severe blow. Some countries are openly pivoting to its geopolitical and economic rival, China.

If this scenario comes to pass, the US pullback – an outright withdrawal is unlikely – from the highly integrated international trading system might end up a more chaotic version of the UK’s pursuit of Brexit.

A step back in time

The world of liberalised trade that followed the end of the Cold War in 1990 is ending. Countries will turn inwards, prioritising their economic security and resilience. The costs of this turn away from multilateralism and international institutions, however, are not just economic.

The close economic integration we have witnessed post-1990 has led to reduced uncertainty in international economic relations, increased international security and greater prosperity.

A return of the “beggar thy neighbour” policies of the 1930s would be a dangerous path, with the world inching closer to the abyss. “Liberation Day” might push the world over the edge.

Read more:
What are non-tariff barriers – and why is agriculture so exposed?

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

– ref. These 3 arguments are part of the long game in Trump’s trade wars – https://theconversation.com/these-3-arguments-are-part-of-the-long-game-in-trumps-trade-wars-252516

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kitty Smith, PhD Candidate in Classical Greek and Roman History, University of Sydney

Once yelled at women seen to be pestering or annoying – or at feminists questioning and threatening the status quo – “harpy” has long been used as a derogatory term targeting women.

But have you ever wondered what a harpy was in the first place?

Much like similar derogatory titles “siren” and “fury”, the term “harpy” is derived from a group of monstrous female figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology.

Who were the harpies?

In Greek and Roman myth, the harpies were a group of animal-human hybrid monsters on par with other such mythological creatures like the sirens, the sphinx, and the centaurs.

Harpies were commonly imagined as an amalgam of a bird’s body, such as wings and claws, with a woman’s head.

The ancient story of the Aeneid, by Latin poet Virgil, describes the story’s hero Aeneas encountering harpies on his quest to found Rome, saying:

Maiden faces have these birds, foulest filth they drop, clawed hands are theirs, and faces ever gaunt with hunger.

This description matches a common design from Greek and Roman art of birds with women’s heads.

In Greco-Roman myth, the harpies were typically tasked with meting out justice on behalf of Zeus and other gods by using their great speed from their wings and sharp talons.

The importance of their claws was likely a result of their name, which was derived from the Ancient Greek word for “snatching” (ἁρπάζω or harpazdo).

As was common of many mythological figures with hybrid features, the way their animal features were portrayed tended to vary across different media (art or literature), different narrative purposes, and over time.

Sometimes the claws were emphasised; other times it was their supernaturally swift wings and voracious hunger.

Enforcers of swift justice

The harpies were not nice people. They existed in myth to dish out punishments from the gods.

Their primary target? Phineus, a seer and king of Salmydessus in Thrace, a city believed to have been located on the Western coast of the Black Sea near the modern day Turkish town of Kıyıköy.

His story is told in the Argonautica by ancient Greek author Apollonius of Rhodes. This tale centres on the journey of Jason and the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece.

In the story, Phineus is said to have abused his powers as a seer by sharing too many of the gods’ secrets with mortals.

This was among the most egregious of crimes in the eyes of the gods, so an especially awful punishment was decided upon.

Phineus was blinded and given the dubious gift of immortality while still allowed to age endlessly. And worst of all, he was set upon by the harpies.

Every time Phineus picked up and tried to eat food, the harpies would burst out from the clouds, moving as fast as lightning, and

with their crooked beaks incessantly snatched the food away from his mouth and hands.

The harpies brought a further gift for Phineus: their smell. This supernaturally “intolerable stench” could putrefy food, so any scraps the harpies didn’t grab were left rotting on the table. You couldn’t even stand near it, “so foully reeked the remnants of the meal”.

And while the harpies swooped in and out in seconds, their smell stuck to the rotting food (and probably poor Phineus).

Some ancient poets add a little extra zest and disgust by also suggesting the harpies may have been defecating on the food, and presumably Phineus.

Most notable is Virgil in his text the Aeneid who wrote about “foedissima ventris proluvies”, meaning:

the foulest discharges from their bellies.

This was likely an exaggeration of their bird-like qualities, used to emphasise how disgusting and monstrous they were.

Phineus was eventually given a reprieve from the harpies, by order of Zeus, so he could help the hero Jason on his quest for the golden fleece.

Having completed their job, the harpies then flew to Crete to live in a cave far away from annoying mortals – only being disturbed once by Aeneas on his meandering path to Rome.

The story of Phineus helped harpies become a metaphor for greed.

Those compared to harpies could include greedy house-guests overstaying their welcome, people living extravagantly or frivolously, or even family members taking advantage of wealthy relatives.

Although the harpies were female monsters, the term was not exclusively applied to women, but used to describe groups of greedy people.

Harpies today

Happily, today the title of “harpy” is falling out of favour as a derogatory term. But the hordes of monstrous, snatching, winged women live on in modern books, games, comics, movies and TV shows.

From video games with swathes of harpy-like creatures snatching and clawing at the protagonist, like the 2020 video game Hades, to characters in stories inspired by Greek and Roman myth, the harpies are sticking around – like a bad smell.

Kitty Smith is a member of the Australian Society for Classical Studies.

– ref. In Ancient Greece and Rome, who were the harpies, and why did they stink so much? – https://theconversation.com/in-ancient-greece-and-rome-who-were-the-harpies-and-why-did-they-stink-so-much-249722

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cara Swit, Associate professor, School of Health Sciences, University of Canterbury

One year after the government banned cellphones from schools to help students focus and reduce distractions in class, we’re beginning to see how it has been implemented and how successful it’s been.

As part of that process, our new research asked young people about the ban. Unsurprisingly, they had a lot to say.

Schools around the world, including in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, China and parts of the United States, have implemented similar bans. The guiding principle everywhere has been to help students do better in school.

When New Zealand’s ban came into effect in April 2024, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said it was time to cut the distractions so kids could learn and achieve.

But studies have shown these bans often don’t work as planned. For example, recent research from the UK involving over 1,200 students found no significant difference in academic grades or wellbeing between schools with strict phone bans and those with more relaxed policies.

With so many questions at the time of the ban about how it would be enforced, we wanted to hear what was going on in schools and what young people really thought. We spoke to 77 young people aged 12 to 18 from 25 schools around the country. Some liked the bans, some didn’t and some weren’t sure.

Mixed feelings

Many students had mixed feelings about the bans. Some admitted the bans helped reduce distractions and gave them a break from using their phones. As one explained,

otherwise, we’ll be on our phone all day, all afternoon, all night, and it won’t be healthy for our minds.

But other students said the ban had created new problems.

First, some students felt stressed and anxious when they couldn’t contact their parents or caregivers during the day. Second, they said the rules weren’t always clear or fair. Some teachers were strict, others weren’t. And sometimes, teachers used their phones in class, but students couldn’t.

That perceived double standard – where teachers can use phones but students can’t – left many of our respondents feeling frustrated and unfairly treated. In some cases, it even made them more secretive about their phone use. One student said,

Even though we’re not allowed to use our phones, everyone is sneaky and uses it anyway.

A lack of consultation

A lot of students said they weren’t asked what they thought before the bans were introduced. They felt as if adults made the rules without asking them or listening to them. One of our interviewees said,

It feels like they just ban everything, thinking it will fix the problem.

Many didn’t understand the purpose of the ban, especially since they still have to use laptops and other technology in class.

Recent research found more than 80% of students in Aotearoa New Zealand say technology in class is distracting – not just phones.

Already, some students have found clever ways around the phone ban. At one Auckland school, students started using walkie-talkies instead of phones to stay connected with their peers.

Examples like this show bans don’t always change behaviour the way they’re intended to. It can simply make students feel as though adults underestimate how tech-savvy they really are.

Young people as active problem solvers

The young people in our research offered some alternatives to the ban.

Many suggested allowing phones at break and lunch times. That way, they could stay connected without interrupting class. They also said adults needed to model healthy digital habits, not just set the rules.

Based on student responses, it does appear that learning and teaching how to use phones in healthy ways would be more helpful than banning them altogether.

Research from the Digital Wellness Lab supports this balanced approach, emphasising skill building over restriction. But for this to work, adults need support too. Teachers and parents need training and resources to help guide young people – and should also be surveyed on how they feel about the ban.

Banning phones doesn’t fix the bigger issue of helping young people to use technology safely and responsibly. If schools really want to support students, they need to move beyond one-size-fits-all rules.

Our research shows young people aren’t just passive users of technology. They’re active problem solvers. They want to be part of the conversation – and part of the solution.

This would involve replacing top-down bans with meaningful conversations involving young people and adults to build fair and practical digital guidelines, where everyone benefits.

Cara Swit received funding from The Oakley Mental Health Foundation, InternetNZ and the University of Canterbury’s Vision Mātauranga Development Fund to conduct this research.

Aaron Hapuku received funding from The Oakley Mental Health Foundation, InternetNZ and the University of Canterbury’s Vision Mātauranga Development Fund to conduct this research.

Helena Cook received funding from InternetNZ, Oakley Mental Health Foundation and UC Vision Mātauranga Development Fund.

Jennifer Smith received funding from Internet New Zealand and The Oakley Mental Health Foundation.

– ref. School phone ban one year on: our student survey reveals mixed feelings about its success – https://theconversation.com/school-phone-ban-one-year-on-our-student-survey-reveals-mixed-feelings-about-its-success-252179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danny Kingsley, Visiting Fellow, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University

In December 2001, a small but lively meeting in Budapest, Hungary, launched a whole new international movement. The resulting Budapest Open Access Initiative opened with the words: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good”.

This was the first definition of open access and referred to harnessing the internet to make scientific research openly available, without a subscription. It was a “statement of principle, a statement of strategy, and a statement of commitment”.

More than two decades later, the open access movement has broadened beyond simply research articles. It now incorporates research data, protocols, software and all aspects of the research process. The universal term for this is “open science”.

With its focus on transparency, open science offers part of the solution to the growing problem of scientific misconduct.

A system that enables misconduct

Academic institutions and researchers are focused on a very narrow set of metrics for success. These come down to authorship on a publication being the most valued currency in academia because this is the primary measure towards career progression and academic prestige.

Another industry resulting from these metrics is the international university ranking systems. These are run by commercial organisations that publish lists of universities, which in turn promote their institution as being in the “top X%” of whichever list they have done well in.

Despite widespread criticism, these systems continue to give institutions incentive to reward their academics for publishing in certain journals for the purpose of raising their rank.

This “publish or perish” push is undermining science.

For example, it has opened up several exploitative industries, such as predatory publishers. These are entities that exploit authors by charging fees for publication without providing adequate editorial services.

Also on the rise are covert entities known as “paper mills”, which manufacture academic articles (either using a human or a machine) and submit them to journals on behalf of paying researchers. This causes serious issues for editors who need to work through an increasing number of rubbish articles to choose which ones are genuine before sending them out for review by other researchers.

These paper mills create major problems for the scientific record. Some experts believe they are also illegal.

Many of the current problems with research integrity were highlighted by a 2024 study, which estimated that as many as one in seven papers is based on suspect data. A whole new area of research called forensic scientometrics has developed to try to identify some of these questionable publishing practices.

Science does have a way of correcting itself through retractions, where a problematic paper is withdrawn from the journal and a retraction notice put up instead. But identifying problem papers is only part of the solution. For example, one 2024 study found less than 5% of all papers identified as retracted were actually removed from journal websites.

Working openly improves science

So how can making science more open and transparent help?

When we talk about research integrity, we often look to the integrity of the researcher – expecting them to show “moral character”. However, ultimately it is the integrity of the research itself that really matters.

Working in an open environment helps research integrity in several ways.

Making the data used for the work freely available means the work can be better scrutinised. This is something that would have helped prevent the publication of the now-retracted study in The Lancet examining whether the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine was effective at treating COVID. The study was retracted after investigations revealed the data the research was based on was deeply flawed and unable to be verified.

Requiring clinical trials to be registered means drug studies that are unfavourable or show no effect cannot be buried.

Reviewing the “instruction manuals” of how research studies are going to be conducted, called the protocols, before the studies are undertaken also ensures more rigorous research. That’s because the quality of the protocols determines the robustness of the work.

These are just a few of the ways open science creates an environment where poor research practice is much harder to undertake.

Working openly won’t necessarily stop bad actors. But it will make it much harder for them to operate without being noticed.

A true paradigm shift

A 2022 study on open access policies in Australian universities showed only 50% had an open access policy at the time, even though this is a requirement under the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research.

Despite this, there is some hope for open science in Australia.

For example, in 2024, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia convened a roundtable event to discuss how to transition to a fair and equitable open research system. This led to the formation of the National Open Science Taskforce, which is currently co-ordinating open activity in Australia.

Internationally, the European Union was an early advocate for open science, beginning work on the European Open Science Cloud in 2015.

Individual European countries are forging ahead, with The Netherlands having a National Open Science program and Ireland launching its National Framework on the Transition to an Open Research Environment in 2019.

The EU-funded Open and Universal Science is being implemented by a consortium of 18 organisations across the world. It’s due to be completed this year.

Countries worldwide also submitted their first reports last month on their implementation of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

Open science is a radical departure from traditional research practices. As the summary report of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia’s roundtable event says, transitioning to it requires “a true paradigm and cultural shift”.

But for the sake of improving research integrity, this shift is urgently needed.

Danny Kingsley is a member of the National Open Science Taskforce, a Board member of FORCE11 (Future of Research Communications and eScholarship) and a member of the Royal Society Advisory Group on the Future of Scientific Publishing.

– ref. Show your working: how the ‘open science’ movement tackles scientific misconduct – https://theconversation.com/show-your-working-how-the-open-science-movement-tackles-scientific-misconduct-249020

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor Emerita in Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

Now that the election has been called for May 3, parliament has been dissolved and the caretaker government period has commenced. During this period, the caretaker conventions require the government to exercise self-restraint. It must stick to routine government business and not embark on major new commitments.

There are commonly claims in the media that various actions by the government breach the caretaker conventions. Before the accusations start flying, here are the basics to help you make your own assessment.

Why do we have caretaker conventions?

There are two reasons for caretaker conventions. First, once parliament is dissolved, the government can no longer be called to account by parliament. It should therefore be more restrained in its actions while not under parliamentary scrutiny.

Second, as a matter of fairness, the government should not be entering into binding commitments immediately before an election, if they will burden an incoming government. It is unfair for an outgoing government to stack important statutory positions with its own people or enter into contracts that commit a new government to policies it opposes.

When do the caretaker conventions apply?

The caretaker conventions commence from the moment parliament is dissolved. They continue until the election result shows the existing government has been returned to office or a new government is formed.

If there is a hung parliament, it may take a few weeks before we know who will form the new government. If important matters have to be resolved during that prolonged caretaker period, the opposition may be consulted to try to get a cooperative outcome. The existing government, however, retains full legal power to act at all times.

How do the caretaker conventions restrict government actions?

Before each federal election, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet issues a document called Guidance on Caretaker Conventions. It sets out the rules for ministers and public servants.

During the caretaker period, a government must avoid:

• making major policy decisions that are likely to commit an incoming government
• making significant appointments
• entering into major contracts or undertakings, such as entry into treaties or other international agreements.

Whether a decision, appointment or policy is major, is a matter of judgement. In making this assessment, consideration is given to whether it is likely to be controversial or a matter of contention between the government and the opposition. The cost of the decision and its impact on future resources and policies will also be considered.

Both the government and the opposition can still, of course, make election commitments about future action. The caretaker conventions only apply to actions taken within the caretaker period. They also do not apply to decisions made and actions taken before the caretaker period commenced, even if they are only announced after it has commenced.

The public service and the caretaker period

Rules have also developed on the fair use of the public service and public resources before and after elections. Technically, these are not part of the caretaker conventions, which concern self-restraint by ministers. But because they concern fairness in relation to elections, they are often lumped in with the caretaker conventions and they are included within the official guidance document.

These rules are based upon obligations imposed on public servants by statutes and other instruments, such as the Public Service Act 1999 (Cth), and APS Code of Conduct. They require public servants to behave in an impartial and apolitical manner. They also require that public resources not be used to advantage political parties during an election campaign.

It is also customary to restrict the use of government advertising during the caretaker period to necessary matters, and those that do not highlight the role of ministers or promote the achievements or policies of the government.

Two recent examples show how these rules can become controversial during an election campaign. In 2013, the Rudd Labor government was criticised by the opposition for breaching the caretaker conventions by running ads, within Australia, about asylum-seekers not being settled in Australia. The ads were reluctantly approved by public servants under a ministerial direction that they were obliged to obey.

The opposition was happy for the ads to be run in overseas countries, as a source of information and deterrence, but regarded their publication in Australia as partisan and breaching the rules. Opposition spokesperson Scott Morrison called it a “shameless and desperate” grab for votes, with the government spending taxpayers’ money to advertise to the vote-people, rather than the boat people.

On the day of the 2022 election, the Morrison Coalition government instructed the Department of Home Affairs to publish a statement that a boat containing asylum seekers had been intercepted.

It requested that this information be emailed immediately to journalists and tweeted by the Australian Border Force. The issue was highly political. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told a press conference before any announcement had been made that:

I’ve been here to stop this boat. But in order for me to be here to stop those that may come from here, you need to vote Liberals and Nationals today.

Officials published a factual statement about the boat, because they were required to act as directed by the minister. But, as a subsequent investigation revealed, they refused requests to amplify the controversy by sending material to journalists and to publish it on social media, as this would breach their obligations to be apolitical.

Who enforces the caretaker conventions?

The caretaker conventions are not legally binding and cannot be enforced by a court. But some governors-general have given effect to the conventions by deferring action on anything that would breach them. Then, when the election is over, a new government can decide whether to proceed with the matter.

Breaches by public servants of their obligations under codes of conduct and the Public Service Act can have real consequences, such as disciplinary action being taken against them.

While conventions are not legally enforceable, they ordinarily work because there is agreement among political actors that these rules are fair and politically binding on them. Controversy in the media about breaches of conventions can raise public anger. Punishment is left in the hands of the voters.

Anne Twomey has received funding from the Australian Research Council and occasionally does consultancy work for governments, parliaments and inter-governmental bodies.

– ref. What are caretaker conventions and how do they limit governments during election periods? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-caretaker-conventions-and-how-do-they-limit-governments-during-election-periods-251366

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

Tony Abbott was once unelectable. So were Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

And so was Peter Dutton, not so long ago. But opinion polls over much of 2024 and early 2025 indicated otherwise, and a nightly assault of pre-election political advertising – as my wife and I watched reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent – suggested that the Liberals had done their research and needed to humanise their man.

Devotees of Detectives Goren and Eames in that venerable program were able to enjoy briefly reviewing Detective Senior Constable Dutton’s time as a Queensland cop, as well as his splendid business career (which has received some closer scrutiny since) and his more recent meeting and greeting of ordinary Australians as a likeable everyman and all-round good guy.

The ad sometimes played twice in a particular break: the saturation coverage suggested that the Liberals had done rather well with donors. Unfortunately for Dutton, we later gained a deeper insight into the very high priority he attaches to rattling the can for the Liberal Party. Dutton’s decision to attend a fundraiser in Sydney while a cyclone was descending on Queensland did him immense damage, recalling his predecessor’s “I don’t hold a hose, mate” response to the Black Summer bushfires of 2020-21.

If historical precedent is any guide, Dutton’s task should be somewhere between formidable and impossible. When Australians elect their national governments, they can normally assume they are doing so for at least two terms. The last one-termer was the Labor government of James Scullin, elected in October 1929 and sent into oblivion via an election held a few days before Christmas in 1931.

Scullin was a victim of the century’s greatest international economic crisis; governments everywhere faltered or disintegrated under similar pressures. The economic challenges faced by the present Labor government have been more modest. But will it suffer a similar fate to Scullin’s Depression-era administration?

Normally, the rarity of one-termers might have provided Anthony Albanese with a measure of reassurance. But we live in an era where historical precedent seems to count for little.

That was clear enough even at the 2022 election. It was unprecedented in several respects. There was nothing resembling the atmosphere of excitement of 1972, 1983 and 2007 – or, for that matter, 1929 – which had brought Labor governments to power from opposition and awarded them solid or large majorities.

Labor’s majority on the floor of the House of Representatives following the 2022 election was piddling – a mere three seats, and just two after the election of a speaker. Its primary vote was about 32%. It won just five of the 30 available seats in the third most populous Australian state, Queensland.

There had never been a Labor victory like this one. Its exceptionalism haunts Labor’s efforts to gain re-election in 2025.

Labor won in 2022 rather like many state Labor oppositions have won in recent decades. The margin was narrow. The unpopularity of a government, and its leader, was there to be exploited. Again and again, state Labor oppositions have fallen over the line at an initial election, sometimes able only to form minority government: Bob Carr, Mike Rann, Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and Annastacia Palaszczuk were all examples.

Voters seemed at best grudging in their support, but enough were willing to give Labor a go and then look over the results when a new election came round a few years later. In each case, governments were able to consolidate, sometimes winning landslide victories by establishing their credentials, exploiting incumbency, and building new constituencies.

There were signs Albanese might do the same after May 2022. His slim three-seat majority became a five-seat advantage when Labor’s Mary Doyle won the Aston byelection on April 1 2023 – a seat deep in the traditional Liberal heartland. As late as the Dunkley byelection of March 2 2024, also in Melbourne, the base of electoral support that had seen Albanese into office almost two years before looked to be more or less intact.

Part of the problem for the Coalition seemed to lie with Dutton himself. Would Australians vote for him? Or to put it more precisely: would the kinds of voters in the mainland capital cities who had turned so sharply against Scott Morrison in 2022 shift their votes to a figure as conservative and as bleak as Dutton?

That bleakness always struck me as being a bigger problem than the conservatism. Australians routinely elect conservative prime ministers. They elected Malcolm Fraser when they thought he was a conservative (as indeed he was). Then they elected him twice more. They elected John Howard, who had proudly called himself the Liberal Party’s most conservative leader ever. Then they elected him another three times. They elected Abbott, even if buyer’s remorse quickly followed. They elected Morrison when the Coalition had seemed dead in the water.

But leaders such as Howard and Morrison were much more optimistic than Dutton. They both seemed to think Australia was a pretty good place full of pretty good people and that all things being equal, the future was likely to be pretty good too while there were pretty good blokes in charge (but, of course, it would be much better under a Coalition government, which had the best blokes).

Abbott, to be sure, was more pessimistic – his description of the Syrian conflict as a struggle between “baddies” and “baddies”, and his references to “death cults”, said more about his habit of reducing complexity to melodrama than it did about that Middle East. Yet Abbott’s outlook, at least as expressed publicly while in office, was nowhere near as dismal as Dutton’s.

For Dutton, the enemy is close to home, menacing us in the dark. His bleakness is in a league of its own.

Lech Blaine’s portrait in his Quarterly Essay Bad Cop was convincing: Dutton was a man formed and perhaps damaged by his experience as a policeman, and a political hardman in the habit of painting whole groups of people – commonly politically vulnerable – as a threat to society. Dutton evokes a vision of good people besieged by bad, of the decent and law-abiding as in constant danger of being swamped by the immoral and the criminal – or possibly mugged on their way home from a Melbourne restaurant.

As 2024 unfolded, no one doubted there was sufficient dissatisfaction with Labor building, especially in many outer Australian suburbs, to do the government serious damage at an election. Persistently high interest rates had increased the cost of a mortgage. Inflation had moderated, but living standards had taken a beating. The chattering classes started talking of the inevitability of minority government, but they usually meant minority Labor government. Then they started talking about minority Coalition government, as the polls turned nastier for Labor.

Labor spirits have revived in recent weeks after Dutton’s missteps over Cyclone Alfred, a comfortable victory in the Western Australian election, and opinion polling that shows the ALP ahead on a two-party preferred count. Still, uncertainty abounds.

Albanese often campaigned poorly last time: will he again falter? Dutton, meanwhile, is untested as leader in an election campaign, has little policy on the table, and has a habit of going missing when there are hard questions to be answered.

For me, the key to this election is whether there is a sufficient number of voters, concentrated in the right places, who share enough of Dutton’s pessimism about their own circumstances and, to a lesser extent, about the general state of the country. If, indeed, there is enough congruence between Dutton’s bleakness and theirs, Australia may well have a new government and a new prime minister by winter.

But Dutton’s blessed run might well have now come to an end. Inflation has moderated, the Reserve Bank has made a cut to interest rates, and a sense of scepticism seems to have settled in about Dutton among voters taking a serious look at him as a potential prime minister a few weeks ago.

He now looks more like Old Mother Hubbard with a bare policy cupboard, desperately seeking to shore up the hard right vote against depredations from Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer, than Australia’s answer to Donald Trump.

Frank Bongiorno 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. Uncertainty and pessimism abound. Will fear be enough to push Dutton into office? – https://theconversation.com/uncertainty-and-pessimism-abound-will-fear-be-enough-to-push-dutton-into-office-247360

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcus Foth, Professor of Urban Informatics, Queensland University of Technology

When Brisbane was awarded the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it came with a widely publicised landmark promise: the world’s first “climate-positive” games.

The International Olympic Committee had already announced all games would be climate-positive from 2030. It said this meant the games would be required to “go beyond” the previous obligation of reducing carbon emissions directly related to their operations and offsetting or otherwise “compensating” for the rest.

In other words, achieving net-zero was no longer sufficient. Now each organising committee would be legally required to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than the games emit. This is in keeping with the most widely cited definition of climate-positive.

Both Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028 made voluntary pledges. But Brisbane 2032 was the first contractually required to be climate-positive. This was enshrined in the original 2021 Olympic Host Contract, an agreement between the IOC, the State of Queensland, Brisbane City Council and the Australian Olympic Committee.

But the host contract has quietly changed since. All references to “climate-positive” have been replaced with weaker terminology. The move was not publicly announced. This fits a broader pattern of Olympic Games promising big on sustainability before weakening or abandoning commitments over time.

A quiet retreat from climate positive

Research by my team has shown the climate-positive announcement sparked great hope for the future of Brisbane as a regenerative city. We saw Brisbane 2032 as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to radically shift away from the ongoing systemic issues underlying urban development.

This vision to embrace genuinely sustainable city design centred on fostering circular economies and net positive development. It would have aligned urban development with ecological stewardship. Beyond just mitigating environmental harm, the games could have set a new standard for sustainability by becoming a catalyst to actively regenerate the natural environment.

Yet, on December 7 2023, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) initiated an addendum to the host contract. It effectively downgraded the games’ sustainability obligations.

It was signed by Brisbane City Council, the State of Queensland, the Australian Olympic Committee and the IOC between April and May 2024.

Asked about these amendments, the IOC replied it “took the decision to no longer use the term ‘climate-positive’ when referring to its climate commitments”.

But the IOC maintains that: “The requirements underpinning this term, however, and our ambition to address the climate crisis, have not changed”.

It said the terminology was changed to ensure that communications “are transparent and easily understood; that they focus on the actions implemented to reduce carbon emissions; and that they are aligned with best practice and current regulations, as well as the principle of continual improvement”.

Similarly, a Brisbane 2032 spokesperson told The Conversation the language was changed:

to ensure we are communicating in a transparent and easily understood manner, following advice from the International Olympic Committee and recommendations of the United Nations and European Union Green Claims Directive, made in 2023.

Brisbane 2032 will continue to plan, as we always have, to deliver a Games that focus on specific measures to deliver a more sustainable Games.

But the new wording commits Brisbane 2032 to merely “aiming at removing more carbon from the atmosphere than what the Games project emits”.

Crucially, this is no longer binding. The new language makes carbon removal an optional goal rather than a contractual requirement.

Aiming high, yet falling short

Olympic Games have adopted increasingly ambitious sustainability rhetoric. Yet, action in the real world typically falls short.

In our ongoing research with the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, we analysed sustainability commitments since the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. We found they often change over time. Initial promises are either watered down or abandoned altogether due to political, financial, and logistical pressures.

Construction activities for the Winter Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi, Russia, irreversibly damaged the Western Caucasus – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rio 2016 failed to clean up Guanabara Bay, despite its original pledge to reduce pollutants by 80%. Rio also caused large-scale deforestation and wetland destruction. Ancient forests were cleared for PyeongChang 2018 ski slopes.

Our research found a persistent gap between sustainability rhetoric and reality. Brisbane 2032 fits this pattern as the original promise of hosting climate-positive games is at risk of reverting to business as usual.

Victoria Park controversy

In 2021, a KPMG report for the Queensland government analysed the potential economic, social and environmental benefits of the Brisbane 2032 games.

It said the government was proposing to deliver the climate-positive commitment required to host the 2032 games through a range of initiatives. This included “repurposing and upgrading existing infrastructure with enhanced green star credentials”.

But plans for the Olympic stadium have changed a great deal since then. Plans to upgrade the Brisbane Cricket Ground, commonly known as the Gabba, have been replaced by a new stadium to be built in Victoria Park.

Victoria Park is Brisbane’s largest remaining inner-city green space. It is known to Indigenous peoples as Barrambin (the windy place). It is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register due to its great cultural significance.

Page 90 of the Olympic Host Contract prohibits permanent construction “in statutory nature areas, cultural protected areas and World Heritage sites”.

Local community groups and environmental advocates have vowed to fight plans for a Victoria Park stadium. This may include a legal challenge.

What next?

The climate-positive commitment has been downgraded to an unenforceable aspiration. A new Olympic stadium has been announced in direct violation of the host contract. Will Brisbane 2032 still leave a green legacy?

Greater transparency and public accountability are needed. Otherwise, the original plan may fall short of the positive legacy it aspired to, before the Olympics even begin.

Marcus Foth receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a Senior Associate with Outside Opinion, a team of experienced academic and research consultants. He is chair of the Principal Body Corporate for the Kelvin Grove Urban Village, chair of Brisbane Flight Path Community Alliance, and a member of the Queensland Greens.

– ref. Brisbane 2032 is no longer legally bound to be ‘climate positive’. Will it still leave a green legacy? – https://theconversation.com/brisbane-2032-is-no-longer-legally-bound-to-be-climate-positive-will-it-still-leave-a-green-legacy-246672

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kidson, Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership, Australian Catholic University

School principals around Australia are responsible for about 4.5 million staff and students in almost 10,000 schools. Not only do they oversee students’ progress, but they are also responsible for the performance of staff and the wellbeing of everyone at their school. Their jobs are huge.

As we have previously tracked in our annual survey of principals, their jobs are also extremely stressful and they are subject to regular abuse – often from parents.

Our latest survey shows these trends are not changing. And more than 50% of those we surveyed are seriously thinking about quitting.

Our research

Since 2011, we have surveyed Australian school leaders. This includes principals, deputy principals, and other school leaders such as heads of junior or senior schools.

In our new report, we surveyed almost 2,200 people, which is more than 20% of Australian school leaders. In 2024, we surveyed primary and high school leaders from government, independent and Catholic schools all around the country.

This makes it the most comprehensive data set on principals’ health and wellbeing in Australia. It is also the longest-running survey of its type in the world.

High workloads and stress

Previous surveys have shown school principals face unsustainably high workloads and high levels of stress. Unfortunately, these trends continue in our latest 2024 results.

School leaders work an average of 54.5 hours a week during term time and 20.6 hours during holidays. They nominated the “sheer quantity of work” as the biggest source of their stress.

This was closely followed by “lack of time to focus on teaching and learning” and “student-related issues”.

As a high school principal from Western Australia told us:

I do love what I do however it is a seriously difficult role and only getting harder.

Generalised anxiety and depression reports have also increased from last year’s survey. Severe anxiety was reported by 14.8% of participants, up from 11.4% in 2023. Moderate depression is reported by 11.1% of participants, up from 10.6%.

Critical incidents

For the first time, our 2024 survey asked principals about the number of “critical incidents” they have to deal with. These are defined as an “often unexpected event that may involve loss or threat to wellbeing or personal goals”.

Nearly three-quarters (73.7%) said they had experienced a critical incident while in their role. The most common type of incident was violence and security threats (43.9%). Suicide and suicidal threats represented 12.6% of reported incidents. Participants also reported medical emergencies (10.3%) and custody or child-protection incidents (7%).

As one NSW principal told us:

I think it is untenable for principals to continue to be under constant stress at this level and am aware that many of my colleagues are also retiring or considering retiring. I have only just turned 59 and would like to work for another 5-10 years but can’t continue due to the ridiculous workload and pressure.

Schools are not safe for principals

An increasing number of principals report being subject to offensive behaviours that are unacceptable in any workplace – let alone one that involves children and young people.

Nearly 55% reported they are subjected to threats of violence, 57% are subjected to gossip and slander, and 35% are subjected to cyberbullying. These are the highest levels we have ever reported.

When asked “from whom”, more than 65% of school leaders said parents and caregivers. Students also contribute, but unfortunately, so do staff. They were the source of 29% of “gossip and slander” reported by school leaders.

As one ACT school leader told us:

The major cause of distress are parents. Parents behave in an unreasonable manner, have ridiculous expectations and think that because they went to school they can therefore run a school. Principals are constantly defending staff from parents. Parents are rarely told to stop and desist by Education Support Offices.

Many prinicpals want to leave

In 2023, we first asked the question whether school leaders seriously consider leaving their job. More than half (56%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

It’s pleasing to report this has reduced slightly to 53% nationally, but the trend is, unfortunately, not consistent across the country.

For example, the figure in NSW has dropped from 63% to 51%, but in Victoria it has increased from 48% to 54%. Policymakers across jurisdictions could benefit from working together to address these findings, to see what is working and what is not.

How can we help?

The demands on today’s school principals are significant – the work takes an emotional toll – and this means we need different approaches to supporting them.

It’s why we recommend education departments and school boards provide “reflective supervision” for school leaders. This gives professionals a regular chance to reflect on what they are doing with a confidential and experienced practitioner in the field, which in this case would be another experienced school leader.

This is a widespread practice in other demanding workplaces, such as family violence, healthcare, and child mental health. Practitioners in these fields benefit through improved management of their own wellbeing, which in turn helps them support their clients and patients.

We also need to make sure governments regularly and routinely consult principals about education policy.

Schools and education departments should also explore alternative models to make the job more sustainable. This could include co-principals or job sharing models.

Without change, too many leaders will leave too quickly, without anyone left to replace them.

Herb Marsh receives funding from ARC research grant funding

Theresa Dicke has received funding from ARC and still receives funding from several peak principal associations to complete this research.

Paul Kidson 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. ‘It is a seriously difficult role and only getting harder’: school principals speak about stress, violence and abuse in their jobs – https://theconversation.com/it-is-a-seriously-difficult-role-and-only-getting-harder-school-principals-speak-about-stress-violence-and-abuse-in-their-jobs-253327