Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University

All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 mission is due to lift off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on southern Hainan Island at 7:30pm AEST.

It aims to deliver several “firsts” in the increasingly crowded and competitive arena of Moon exploration.

Chang’e 6 will be only the second mission to land on the lunar far side, after Chang’e 4 successfully touched down first in 2019.

It’s the latest mission in China’s successful and long-running lunar exploration program, aimed at proving new technological advances with each mission. And this time, it’s also an inspiring feat of international collaboration.

What’s on the far side of the Moon?

The spacecraft was originally built as a backup for the previous mission – Chang’e 5 – which successfully brought back 1.73 kilograms of lunar regolith (soil) from the Moon’s near side in 2020.

However, the Chang’e 6 mission parameters are more ambitious and scientifically more highly anticipated. It is also a complicated mission. Its four separate spacecraft must work in close coordination to successfully return up to 2kg of regolith from the Moon’s far side.

From our vantage point on Earth, the Moon’s far side is never visible. The Earth-Moon system is tidally locked: even though both rotate, we always face the same half of the Moon.

When the Soviet Union’s Luna 3 probe returned the first images of the Moon’s far side in 1959, they showed a heavily cratered surface. It’s quite different from that of the familiar near side.

This pockmarked appearance, combined with samples returned by NASA’s Apollo missions, offered some support for the popular “Late Heavy Bombardment” theory. Although this theory is not universally accepted, its proponents suggest that large numbers of meteorites and asteroids may have impacted the Solar System’s rocky planets (and their moons) at an early stage of their formation.

Chang’e 6 aims to collect samples from the oldest lunar impact crater, the South Pole-Aitken basin. Many recent missions to the Moon have targeted the lunar south polar region. This was, in part, driven by the discovery of water ice in the area’s dark craters and its potential exploitation for future lunar bases.

With this imminent sample return, we are now getting tantalisingly close to learning what the lunar far side is made of and its age. It would provide more detail than ever before. This could help us really understand the early history of the Solar System and whether the Late Heavy Bombardment theory needs a rethink.

Science without borders

Any specimens retrieved will be shared with the international community for in-depth analysis, just like the Chang’e 5 samples and data from China’s other space science missions – including its recent high-resolution Moon atlas.

In the current era of increased geopolitical tensions, the Chang’e 6 mission is a rare example of constructive international collaboration. The probe carries instruments contributed by France, Italy, Pakistan and Sweden. The Swedish payload was developed with funding from the European Space Agency (ESA).

This may seem surprising given the current state of world affairs. But ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences share a history of joint space missions, although relations have withered somewhat in recent years.

A refreshing development

From a scientific perspective, Chang’e 6’s international engagement is a refreshing development. Scientists are driven by universal principles underpinning the scientific approach. We place great value on collaborative efforts, irrespective of one’s national origin. Science doesn’t know borders.

With space missions being just one example, Chinese scientists are rapidly gaining ground and increasingly leading global scientific achievements. Chinese prowess in science and technology has now reached levels that can no longer be ignored by international collaborators and competitors alike.

Yet real-world constraints in an increasingly geopolitically fraught environment do affect our work as scientists, influencing what can be shared between colleagues internationally, and must be factored into our practical decision making.

It’s important to strike a careful balance between protecting national interests and the free flow of ideas that may ultimately lead to scientific breakthroughs.

Not every scientific exchange reaches a level that warrants triggering national security or foreign interference alerts. To paraphrase the Australian government’s foreign relations policy, “collaborate where we can; exercise restraint where we must”. The Change’6 mission is an excellent example of this kind of productive international partnership.

Between 2010 and 2018, Richard held a senior academic appointment at Peking University. He continues to collaborate with Chinese scientists and students on astrophysics and space science-related projects.

– ref. China’s new Moon mission is about to launch, and it’s a rare example of countries working together – https://theconversation.com/chinas-new-moon-mission-is-about-to-launch-and-its-a-rare-example-of-countries-working-together-229122

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University

Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing classified documents) sold at auction in Canberra in 2018.

The recent (and more grievous) failure of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to transfer 14 documents about Australia’s involvement in the 2003 Iraq War to the National Archives of Australia might also fit in this category.

Other cases have raised thorny questions about ownership and access to the contentious corners of our national past. Academic and author Jenny Hocking’s successful litigation to secure the release of former governor-general Sir John Kerr’s correspondence with Buckingham Palace has led to new interpretations of the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam government. It also represents a significant victory against a transnational network of royal secrecy.

Big questions about record-keeping and ownership remain. How does Australia manage the records of its former political leaders? Who donates, collects, preserves and governs these repositories?

Our new research article examines Australia’s ad hoc, discretionary governance of politicians’ papers. These records matter, not just for researchers but also for the Australian public’s understanding of politics, past and future.

Who owns politicians’ papers?

In theory, records created by ministers in their executive capacity are Commonwealth property. This means they should be transferred to the National Archives of Australia when leaving office. In practice, political offices contain a bewildering mixture of Commonwealth and “personal records” (the latter encompassing nearly everything that is not part of their ministerial duties).

As they leave office, ministers and prime ministers have often gathered documents into boxes and departed with them. Some have used these records to furnish a tell-all memoir. In other cases, ministerial advisers have taken custody of their employer’s records in the interim, storing them until a more permanent home could be arranged.

Before the 1980s, the National Library of Australia and the fledgling Commonwealth Archives office competed for control of politicians’ papers. Relations between the institutions “were often frosty”. Wily politicians such as former prime minister Billy McMahon knew how to extract from that situation maximum personal control over their records.

In 1983, a new Archives Act provided for the Australian Archives (later National Archives of Australia) to ensure the “proper management” of and “public access to” Commonwealth records. The act, alongside the Freedom of Information Act, was intended to ensure greater transparency in public administration.

The rise of prime ministerial libraries changed the landscape again. Since the 1990s, these have been established in collaboration with Australian universities in honour of Alfred Deakin, John Curtin, Robert Menzies, Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and John Howard. (Not all contain original papers of the relevant prime minister.)

Some have welcomed these institutions and their valuable contributions to record-keeping in the “public interest”. Others have criticised what can seem an avowedly American influence on Australian political culture.

Consulting the political past

Ownership of political records is one thing, accessibility another entirely. While all of the institutions that house political records have vast record-keeping expertise, problems with acquisition and transparency remain.

Notwithstanding the legal requirement to deposit official material with the archives, politicians don’t always make for punctual depositors. In October 2018, for example, the archives advised a Senate committee that former prime ministers Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull had not yet deposited their official diaries with the archives.

Delaying deposit makes records more vulnerable to accidental destruction. Former prime minister Paul Keating reportedly lost “the Australian equivalent of a presidential library” when a fire damaged his storage container in Sydney in 2003.

The story is even more complex for personal papers. Discretionary instruments of deposit govern these personal records. Individuals can impose long closure periods or stipulate extra caveats on access.

In theory, these restrictions can’t apply to official records. However, our inquiries show personal and official papers are often inextricably mixed. This could lead to these extra restrictions being imposed on official records.

Those restrictions can sometimes be formidable. An FOI request revealed Fraser sent his personal papers to the Australian Archives in 1983 on the condition that he or his wife would determine access. After their death “access may be granted to serious students of history [who have] an established professional standing and reputation”.

Ironically, it was Fraser himself who removed those papers 20 years later. He sent them to an eponymous centre at the University of Melbourne for greater accessibility, winning something of a “coup” against the archives in the process.

Institutional priorities also matter. The “records of former governors-general and prime ministers” are the archives’ first acquisition priorities for personal papers. This inherently favours an “official” view of the political past and deprioritises the women, Indigenous, independent and minor-party MPs.

Prime ministerial libraries have been a blessing for many researchers. These are smaller and often more responsive institutions staffed by some of the best archivists, embedded in the intellectual life of their respective communities.

But problems can sometimes emerge when researchers imagine they are dealing with a complete body of records, not realising the archives, usually, still retain the official documents that complement the personal collections. Further, prime ministerial centres can feed a perception of politics in which individual leadership matters above all else, and larger systems and processes are of secondary importance.

Where to from here?

Clearly, records that are truly personal must be treated as such. But so much of the primary record of Australia’s political history has been managed in an ad hoc, discretionary way. What steps might be taken to protect the Australian public’s right to know its own past?

First, the Archives Act could be amended to strengthen Commonwealth ownership of materials created in and received by ministerial offices. This should include documents created by political staffers. Currently, advisers are restrained from destroying official documents. It is unclear, though, how many documents escape the official departmental document registration systems.

Second, we need greater transparency around the instruments of deposit and access restrictions that govern personal collections. It is one thing to protect a document, but another thing entirely to conceal its existence.

Finally, the Archives Act would benefit from amendments that would prevent unreasonable access restrictions on political records, even if they are contained in personal collections.

These institutions are tasked with preserving Australia’s collective memory. Excessive restrictions make life harder for researchers and archivists alike. They are also fundamentally undemocratic.

Dr Joshua Black holds a Palace Letters Fellowship with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University.

Daniel Casey 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. Access to documents about Australia’s political history is fraught and inadequate. It needs to change – https://theconversation.com/access-to-documents-about-australias-political-history-is-fraught-and-inadequate-it-needs-to-change-228290

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Waller, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Domestic violence is a significant personal, community and social issue attracting much attention.

After several recent horrific cases, media discussion, calls for a royal commission to end the violence and public rallies, Australia is saying “enough is enough”.

Domestic violence can be fatal and repercussions can last for years. Yet domestic violence is one of the most under-reported crimes locally and internationally, and the least likely to end in conviction.

Violence against women takes a profound and long-term toll on women’s health, wellbeing and their economic security, and negatively impacts families, communities and society at large.

Using marketing campaigns to tackle the issue

Over the past 40 years, government bodies and community organisations have attempted to tackle this problem through social marketing campaigns worldwide.

These campaigns aim to raise awareness of the issue and ultimately prevent domestic violence.

Some have received coveted awards, such as the Salvation Army South Africa campaign “Why is it so hard to see black and blue”. But others have been criticised and even banned for their violent images, like the UK Women’s Aid campaign “The Cut” featuring actress Keira Knightley, which showed violent physical abuse.

‘Stop it at the Start’ – a campaign for respect

In April 2016, the Australian government launched a national campaign “Stop it at the Start”.

This prevention campaign was jointly funded by all state and territory governments to reduce violence against women and children.

It aimed to help break the cycle of violence by encouraging adults to reflect on their attitudes and have conversations about respect with young people, addressing how violence against women starts with disrespect.

One part of the campaign encouraged community members to “unmute yourself” – to stand up to disrespectful behaviours and support those who are experiencing abuse.

The campaign’s latest phase centres on the notion of “bring up respect”, which encourages parents and other influencers of young people to positively role model and create education around respectful behaviour.

How effective are these campaigns for preventing violence?

Since “Stop it at the Start” was a prevention campaign, we examined ABS data to understand its impact in preventing domestic violence.

Reports released in 2012, 2016 and 2021 showed the number of women who had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a cohabiting partner since age 15 increased from 5% (467,300) to 23% (2.3 million) during this period.

We also examined the average word search of “domestic violence” using data obtained from Google Trends, which showed an overall increase in average search interest by 29.1% from 2012 to 2022.

This may indicate an increased awareness of domestic violence in the broader population. However, the increasing number of reported cases during the same time period suggests domestic violence campaigns, on their own, may be ineffective in reducing or preventing violence against women, although they may help increase awareness of the problem.

How effective are past campaigns?

This raises an important question of how campaigns send a message to prevent gendered violence.

To assess this, we searched various platforms such as YouTube and AdsoftheWorld and industry media, including 120 print and 25 video advertisements on YouTube. We were interested in understanding who the perceived target audience of the advertising was and its messaging.

In reviewing the advertisements, we found older examples showed a higher degree of violence by perpetrators, sometimes extremely graphic.

This type of “shock advertising” aims to get the viewer’s attention.

Shock advertising has been used in public health and safety campaigns for many years to scare people about HIV/AIDS prevention, for example.

However, research has found the use of violence in shock advertising overpowers key messages and audiences can become desensitised.

More recent campaigns appear to have moved away from shock messages to try to send the message to the broader community.

Our research team reviewed the advertising messages and created a perceptual mind map based on the (1) target of the message (perpetrator or community) and (2) the degree of violence (non-violent or graphic).

Positioning of domestic violence advertising images

We observed messaging change depending on the target audience – shocking for awareness/understanding of the issue to the perpetrator, and educating the issue/supporting the survivor to the community.

However, we identified a major gap in the messaging – the survivor.

Targeting victims and survivors

There appears to be movement from violent, shock advertisements to campaigns aimed at the community to support victim-survivors.

But few campaigns have identified the strength and empowerment needed for survivors to take action, although the NSW government’s recent campaign “it’s not love, it’s coercive control” is a start.

Domestic violence is a complex problem and more work is needed to prevent violence. In doing the same thing over and over in campaigns, there is a risk of “outsourcing” this important preventative work to future generations, as others have recently argued.

We need to also focus on more immediate actions to prevent violence in the short-term.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In immediate danger, call 000.

This work was undertaken as part of a UTS Social Impact Grant to assist a DV organisation.

Sonika Singh volunteers for Survivor Vision Australia.
This work was undertaken as part of a UTS Social Impact Grant to assist a DV organisation.

– ref. How effective are domestic violence advertising campaigns for preventing violence against women? – https://theconversation.com/how-effective-are-domestic-violence-advertising-campaigns-for-preventing-violence-against-women-228900

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University

Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat.

In recent years, China has used a variety of “grey zone” tactics to pressure Taiwan to accept the Communist Party’s attempts at unification. This has included an onslaught of cyberattacks, which not only pose a significant threat to Taiwan’s national security but also seek to undermine its democratic processes.

These attacks range from phishing attempts to sophisticated malware intrusions. Website defacement attacks and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are often seen during significant events, such as the August 2022 visit of Nancy Pelosi, then-speaker of the US House of Representatives. Government agencies, educational institutions, convenience stores and train stations are among the targets.

So, how is Taiwan defending itself from these attacks? And can it continue to do so as China’s tactics become more sophisticated?

Millions of cyberattacks a day

Despite Taiwan’s technological prowess and robust cybersecurity measures, it continues to be a major target for malicious actors seeking to sow chaos in the country.

According to senior government officials, Taiwan receives some five million cyberattacks a day. And Frontinet, a US-based cybersecurity firm, has found Taiwan experienced just over half of the billions of malware attacks detected in the Asia-Pacific region in the first half of 2023.

The intensity of cyberattacks reached new heights during Taiwan’s January 2024 elections – a critical juncture in its democratic journey. The Ministry of Digital Affairs reported on the widespread use of social engineering tactics to compel people to click on links or download files, which then allowed perpetrators to steal sensitive information.

One particularly alarming incident involved a “threat actor” named Earth Lusca, which targets organisations of interest to the Chinese government.

From December to January, this actor emailed a malicious zip file entitled “China’s grey-zone warfare against Taiwan” to selected targets, including government and educational institutions and news media in Taiwan. The file was designed to install malicious software to infiltrate computer systems. It also included documents written by experts in Taiwan–China relations, believed to have been stolen from the authors or agencies that own them.

The timing of these attacks, peaking just 24 hours before the elections, underscored their strategic intent to undermine Taiwan’s electoral integrity.

Disinformation and deepfakes

These efforts to destabilise Taiwan are not confined to conventional hacking techniques. Disinformation campaigns are also causing political, economic and social harm to the country.

In the lead-up to the elections, for instance, a deluge of false narratives and fabricated content circulated on social media. These targeted the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which advocates for Taiwanese sovereignty.

Among the most egregious examples was the dissemination of a 300-page e-book entitled “The Secret History of Tsai Ing-wen” (蔡英文秘史), laden with baseless allegations about the Taiwanese president aimed at eroding the public’s trust in her and her party. It claimed, for example, that Tsai’s mother was a prostitute. It also portrayed Tsai as a vile, morally corrupt dictator who is sexually promiscuous and hungry for power. Taiwanese security officials said the book bore the hallmark of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

Using AI tools such as Capcut, developed by the Chinese technology giant ByteDance, the book’s developers also produced and disseminated fake news videos for social media. Featuring AI-generated voices and fake news anchors, these videos were produced with alarming efficiency and promptly replaced if they were taken down by platforms.

Furthermore, rumours circulated on social media about DPP presidential candidate Lai Ching-te having illegitimate sons, and other candidates having extramarital affairs. The videos used deepfake technologies to make the claims appear more real to deceive the public.

Although these campaigns were not entirely successful – Lai won the presidency – they are still a cause for concern.

Orchestrated disinformation campaigns are becoming more sophisticated and widespread, especially with the support of generative AI and deepfake software. And their potential to influence public opinion or fuel political polarisation could gradually weaken Taiwan’s democracy and create instability.

And these tactics can also be replicated elsewhere. Other countries worried about the impact of cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns on their elections and democratic institutions should be paying attention.

How Taiwan is responding

In response to these multifaceted threats, Tsai, the outgoing president, has stressed that cybersecurity is synonymous with national security.

However, the country’s existing cybersecurity regulations primarily target cybercrime. Because of the blurry line between cybercrime and cyber warfare, Taiwan needs to adopt a more holistic approach. This should encompass preventive measures, rapid response strategies and enhanced public-private and international collaborations.

For example, Taiwan is now developing its own satellite internet service – an alternative to Elon Musk’s Starlink – to reduce the potential harm from severed underwater internet cables.

Working with the American Institute In Taiwan, the government is also promoting a US Department of Defence cybersecurity framework for local businesses to make them more resilient to attacks. And in January, Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau established a new research centre aimed at combating the threat of online disinformation.

Non-governmental organisations such as the Doublethink Lab, Cofacts and the Taiwan Factcheck Centre are also playing a significant role through real-time monitoring of foreign influence and disinformation campaigns and fact-checking services.

However, with advances in technology, cyberattacks and disinformation will evolve. This is why other components are essential to build a comprehensive cyberdefence strategy. This includes increased investment in cybersecurity infrastructure, fostering digital literacy and promoting responsible online behaviour.

Only through collective vigilance and concerted efforts can Taiwan safeguard its democratic values in the face of relentless cyber threats.

Lennon Y.C. Chang is Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy in the Centre for Cyber Resilience and Trust at Deakin University. He is also Chairperson of Doublethink Lab (Taiwan) and President of the Australasian Taiwan Studies Association (Australia).

– ref. Taiwan is experiencing millions of cyberattacks every day. The world should be paying attention – https://theconversation.com/taiwan-is-experiencing-millions-of-cyberattacks-every-day-the-world-should-be-paying-attention-225677

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Oliver Bown, Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney

In March, we saw the launch of a “ChatGPT for music” called Suno, which uses generative AI to produce realistic songs on demand from short text prompts. A few weeks later, a similar competitor – Udio – arrived on the scene.

I’ve been working with various creative computational tools for the past 15 years, both as a researcher and a producer, and the recent pace of change has floored me. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the view that AI systems will never make “real” music like humans do should be understood more as a claim about social context than technical capability.

The argument “sure, it can make expressive, complex-structured, natural-sounding, virtuosic, original music which can stir human emotions, but AI can’t make proper music” can easily begin to sound like something from a Monty Python sketch.

After playing with Suno and Udio, I’ve been thinking about what it is exactly they change – and what they might mean not only for the way professionals and amateur artists create music, but the way all of us consume it.

Expressing emotion without feeling it

Generating audio from text prompts in itself is nothing new. However, Suno and Udio have made an obvious development: from a simple text prompt, they generate song lyrics (using a ChatGPT-like text generator), feed them into a generative voice model, and integrate the “vocals” with generated music to produce a coherent song segment.

This integration is a small but remarkable feat. The systems are very good at making up coherent songs that sound expressively “sung” (there I go anthropomorphising).

The effect can be uncanny. I know it’s AI, but the voice can still cut through with emotional impact. When the music performs a perfectly executed end-of-bar pirouette into a new section, my brain gets some of those little sparks of pattern-processing joy that I might get listening to a great band.

To me this highlights something sometimes missed about musical expression: AI doesn’t need to experience emotions and life events to successfully express them in music that resonates with people.

Music as an everyday language

Like other generative AI products, Suno and Udio were trained on vast amounts of existing work by real humans – and there is much debate about those humans’ intellectual property rights.

Nevertheless, these tools may mark the dawn of mainstream AI music culture. They offer new forms of musical engagement that people will just want to use, to explore, to play with and actually listen to for their own enjoyment.

AI capable of “end to end” music creation is arguably not technology for makers of music, but for consumers of music. For now it remains unclear whether users of Udio and Suno are creators or consumers – or whether the distinction is even useful.

A long-observed phenomenon in creative technologies is that as something becomes easier and cheaper to produce, it is used for more casual expression. As a result, the medium goes from an exclusive high art form to more of an everyday language – think what smartphones have done to photography.

So imagine you could send your father a professionally produced song all about him for his birthday, with minimal cost and effort, in a style of his preference – a modern-day birthday card. Researchers have long considered this eventuality, and now we can do it. Happy birthday, dad!

Can you create without control?

Whatever these systems have achieved and may achieve in the near future, they face a glaring limitation: the lack of control.

Text prompts are often not much good as precise instructions, especially in music. So these tools are fit for blind search – a kind of wandering through the space of possibilities – but not for accurate control. (That’s not to diminish their value. Blind search can be a powerful creative force.)

Viewing these tools as a practising music producer, things look very different. Although Udio’s about page says “anyone with a tune, some lyrics, or a funny idea can now express themselves in music”, I don’t feel I have enough control to express myself with these tools.

I can see them being useful to seed raw materials for manipulation, much like samples and field recordings. But when I’m seeking to express myself, I need control.

Using Suno, I had some fun finding the most gnarly dark techno grooves I could get out of it. The result was something I would absolutely use in a track.

But I found I could also just gladly listen. I felt no compulsion to add anything or manipulate the result to add my mark.

And many jurisdictions have declared that you won’t be awarded copyright for something just because you prompted it into existence with AI.

For a start, the output depends just as much on everything that went into the AI – including the creative work of millions of other artists. Arguably, you didn’t do the work of creation. You simply requested it.

New musical experiences in the no-man’s land between production and consumption

So Udio’s declaration that anyone can express themselves in music is an interesting provocation. The people who use tools like Suno and Udio may be considered more consumers of music AI experiences than creators of music AI works, or as with many technological impacts, we may need to come up with new concepts for what they’re doing.

A shift to generative music may draw attention away from current forms of musical culture, just as the era of recorded music saw the diminishing (but not death) of orchestral music, which was once the only way to hear complex, timbrally rich and loud music. If engagement in these new types of music culture and exchange explodes, we may see reduced engagement in the traditional music consumption of artists, bands, radio and playlists.

While it is too early to tell what the impact will be, we should be attentive. The effort to defend existing creators’ intellectual property protections, a significant moral rights issue, is part of this equation.

But even if it succeeds I believe it won’t fundamentally address this potentially explosive shift in culture, and claims that such music might be inferior also have had little effect in halting cultural change historically, as with techno or even jazz, long ago. Government AI policies may need to look beyond these issues to understand how music works socially and to ensure that our musical cultures are vibrant, sustainable, enriching and meaningful for both individuals and communities.

Oliver Bown receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the European Research Council to support his research into creative AI. He has ongoing collaborations with music AI companies including Uncanny Valley (Sydney) and DAACI (London).

– ref. AI can now generate entire songs on demand. What does this mean for music as we know it? – https://theconversation.com/ai-can-now-generate-entire-songs-on-demand-what-does-this-mean-for-music-as-we-know-it-228937

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Professor of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Monash University, Monash University

In the wake of numerous killings of women allegedly by men’s violence in 2024, thousands of Australians have joined rallies across the country to demand action and better responses to all forms of domestic, family and sexual violence.

Some have called for a perpetrator register or a domestic violence disclosure scheme – a resource people can check to find out if a particular person has a documented history of domestic violence. This history could include things like prior convictions, intervention order histories and other non-domestic violence related offending such as property offences.

In Australia, only South Australia has a domestic violence disclosure scheme. New South Wales piloted a scheme in 2016 but it was discontinued in 2018. No other state or territory has introduced a scheme, but several have considered the idea.

So, how well do these schemes work to improve safety for women? To find out, we interviewed scheme users, specialist service providers, legal practitioners, academics and policy makers in Australia and New Zealand.

Our new research, funded by the Australian Research Council and published today by Monash University and the University of Liverpool, found they may not improve safety for victim-survivors.

What is a domestic violence disclosure scheme

In Australia, domestic violence disclosure schemes (such as the one operating now in South Australia and the one piloted then discontinued in NSW) have broadly had three objectives:

1. to strengthen the ability of the police and specialist service providers to provide appropriate protection and support to victims at risk of domestic violence

2. to reduce incidents of domestic violence through prevention of future harm

3. to empower people to make informed choices about their safety in their relationships.

Each of the schemes are administered differently. In some cases, applicants can lodge an application online. In others, an applicant must lodge their application directly with the police.

Confirming existing suspicions

We interviewed 11 people who had used a domestic violence disclosure scheme. With the exception of two, each had already separated from the person they were seeking information about.

Each person had experienced some form of abuse before separating and before accessing the scheme. Several also held suspicions about their partner’s abusive behaviours in prior relationships.

All applicants interviewed, except one, got information about their partner’s history from the domestic violence disclosure scheme. In one case, the applicant’s request was denied. She was not told why.

Many applicants said the information they received didn’t come as a surprise, but rather confirmed suspicions they already held about their partner’s history of abuse.

In other words, most applicants interviewed in this project used the scheme after they had already left the relationship and had experienced abuse.

This signals the scheme is working different to intended. Not as a scheme to prevent violence from occurring in the first place but rather as a scheme that confirms decisions made to separate from an abuser after violence has already occurred.

Timely information is key

For information sharing to be effective it must be timely. But our interviewees reported wildly different experiences in this regard; the time between making the application and receiving the disclosure ranged between one week and three months.

An evaluation of the since-disbanded NSW pilot scheme reported similar “clunky” and time-consuming data sharing issues.

Do we have the reliable data needed to support this scheme?

Domestic violence disclosure schemes rely on the collection and sharing of reliable data about perpetrators’ histories.

But a vast amount of domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia goes under-reported. Histories of violence documented by police may fail to capture a full picture of the risk an individual poses to their intimate partner.

If a woman contacts a domestic disclosure scheme about her partner or ex and learns they have no record of them having a violent past, this could create a false sense of security for her, potentially raising the risk level.

Effective information sharing means national information sharing. But under the NSW pilot scheme, for example, offences occurring in other states and territories were not shared with the person contacting the domestic violence disclosure scheme. A state-based scheme risks lulling applicants into a false sense of security when their partner’s history of violence in another state is not visible in the state they currently reside in.

Enhancing access to supports

Advocates of domestic violence disclosure schemes often position it as an additional pathway to services and safety planning for victim-survivors. It is framed as an early intervention scheme which connects victim-survivors with support services, including safety planning, risk assessment and management, and counselling.

Numerous applicants in our study did not receive follow-up support of this kind. Sharing information with no follow up supports and safety planning may put the applicant at greater risk of harm.

Failing to provide follow-up support represents a missed opportunity to enhance the safety of victim-survivors and offer crucial supports to an individual who has sought help.

We need to fund what actually works

Australian states and territories – in partnership with the federal government – are moving ahead with the delivery of the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032. There is a critical need to scrutinise not only what works, but what doesn’t work well.

Domestic violence disclosure schemes are expensive, thanks to the cost of the administrative workload, data sharing, training and provision of follow-up support services.

Our research suggests domestic violence disclosure schemes may not improve safety for victim-survivors of intimate partner violence. Given the scale of the crisis we face, our research suggests the resources required to run them may be better spent elsewhere.

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme. Kate has also received funding for family violence related research from the Australian Institute of Criminology, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, the Victorian government and the Department of Social Services. This piece is written by Kate Fitz-Gibbon in her role at Monash University and is wholly independent of Kate Fitz-Gibbon’s role as Chair of Respect Victoria.

Ellen Reeves receives funding from receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery project scheme in support of this research.

Sandra Walklate receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery project scheme in support of this research.

– ref. Domestic violence disclosure schemes may not improve safety for victim-survivors of intimate partner violence – https://theconversation.com/domestic-violence-disclosure-schemes-may-not-improve-safety-for-victim-survivors-of-intimate-partner-violence-228994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Professor and Director, Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University

Waiting times for public hospital elective surgery have been in the news ahead of this year’s federal budget. That’s the type of non-emergency surgery that covers everything from removing cysts to hip replacements.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA), a powerful doctors’ lobby group, has called on the federal government to allocate more than A$2 billion over two years to reduce elective surgery waiting times.

While the Albanese government pledged this week to spend more on public hospitals, a substantial reduction in elective surgery waiting times won’t happen anytime soon.

Why waiting lists matter

Australians are waiting longer for elective surgery in public hospitals than ever before. Nearly one in ten wait for more than a year.

An ageing population and more chronic disease are among factors putting more stress on the health-care system generally. But public hospitals have not kept pace with our increasing health-care needs.

Long waiting times may not concern many Australians with private health insurance; waiting times are much shorter when getting care in a private hospital. For instance, you might wait over a year for cataract surgery in a public hospital. But you’re likely to wait less than a month for it in a private hospital.

For the more than half of Australians without private hospital cover, waiting times for elective surgery in public hospitals matter.

Longer waits mean more suffering for patients and potentially worse surgical outcomes. A UK study found longer waits were associated with worse health outcomes after surgery for hip and knee replacements, but not for varicose vein surgery and hernia surgery.

More worrisome, longer waits reflect a public hospital system under strain, a potential forerunner for worse health-care quality.

What’s caused the most recent backlog?

COVID is mostly responsible for waiting time increases since 2020. Lockdowns and the suspension of elective surgery created a backlog that public hospitals have struggled to clear. Once restrictions eased, hospitals were not geared for a spike in demand.

It would be wrong to blame COVID for all our waiting time woes. They were unacceptably long before COVID, and had increased in nearly all states and territories five years before the pandemic. Blaming an ageing population and chronic disease would also be wrong. Both are predictable and should not have caught governments off guard.

Public hospital waiting times are long because governments and health-care managers have struggled to reorganise their resources. This is likely due to workforce gaps for nurses, specialists and surgeons, but also due to complexity. Reforming health care is hard, and improvements to care quality have frozen in time.

The best way to reduce waiting times

A detailed international review paints a bleak picture for ready-made solutions. Changing the way patients are managed on a waiting list showed mixed success. No interventions to reduce the demand for elective surgery or increase supply were found.

In Australia, elective surgery waiting lists are managed by public hospitals using guidelines and three urgency categories (urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent) defined by the federal government.

Making the care pathway more efficient by redesigning the way patients are allocated to urgency categories and stopping low-value care may reduce waiting times. Allocating waiting patients to public hospitals with shorter waits, rather that to their local hospital, could also help.

One standout approach that may provide lessons for Australia comes from England nearly two decades ago. Maximum waiting times for elective surgery dropped from 18 months to 18 weeks between 2004 and 2008.

Success came from first creating a mandated national target, backed by the prime minister who made shorter waiting times a personal priority.

The UK government invested more in infrastructure, expanded the health-care workforce, changed clinical practice by shifting some surgeries from inpatient to outpatient care, and monitored waiting times closely. Publicly reporting hospital performance and allowing patients to choose their public hospital for elective surgery helped match demand with supply.

Importantly, public hospital managers were held accountable for achieving their waiting time targets. Public hospitals received more autonomy if targets were achieved, and chief executives faced being fired if targets were missed.

Unfortunately, waiting times for elective surgery in England have since ballooned. The 18 week standard was last achieved in 2015. This reflects historically low growth in health-care funding after the global financial crisis, a stubborn COVID backlog and, more recently, strikes by consultants and junior doctors.

Are we going to cut waiting times anytime soon?

Substantially reducing waiting times in Australia anytime soon is highly unlikely. Reorganising health-care resources, building infrastructure (such as new operating theatres), developing new care processes and filling workforce gaps will take time.

State, territory and federal governments must first make reducing waiting times a national priority within the next National Health Reform Agreement (an agreement between the Australian government and all state and territory governments on health-care roles and responsibilities).

Meanwhile, activities to reduce waiting times should begin. The midterm review of the National Health Reform Agreement recommended upfront funding to reduce elective surgery backlogs after COVID.

More funding to further reduce waiting times will be required. Just throwing money at state and territory governments would be reckless. This is a structural problem, not something one budget can fix.

Henry Cutler 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. Clearing the elective surgery backlog will take more than one budget. It’ll need major reform – https://theconversation.com/clearing-the-elective-surgery-backlog-will-take-more-than-one-budget-itll-need-major-reform-228611

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, Historical and Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne

One of the earliest descriptions of someone with cancer comes from the fourth century BC. Satyrus, tyrant of the city of Heracleia on the Black Sea, developed a cancer between his groin and scrotum. As the cancer spread, Satyrus had ever greater pains. He was unable to sleep and had convulsions.

Advanced cancers in that part of the body were regarded as inoperable, and there were no drugs strong enough to alleviate the agony. So doctors could do nothing. Eventually, the cancer took Satyrus’ life at the age of 65.

Cancer was already well known in this period. A text written in the late fifth or early fourth century BC, called Diseases of Women, described how breast cancer develops:

hard growths form […] out of them hidden cancers develop […] pains shoot up from the patients’ breasts to their throats, and around their shoulder blades […] such patients become thin through their whole body […] breathing decreases, the sense of smell is lost […]

Other medical works of this period describe different sorts of cancers. A woman from the Greek city of Abdera died from a cancer of the chest; a man with throat cancer survived after his doctor burned away the tumour.

Where does the word ‘cancer’ come from?

The word cancer comes from the same era. In the late fifth and early fourth century BC, doctors were using the word karkinos – the ancient Greek word for crab – to describe malignant tumours. Later, when Latin-speaking doctors described the same disease, they used the Latin word for crab: cancer. So, the name stuck.

Even in ancient times, people wondered why doctors named the disease after an animal. One explanation was the crab is an aggressive animal, just as cancer can be an aggressive disease; another explanation was the crab can grip one part of a person’s body with its claws and be difficult to remove, just as cancer can be difficult to remove once it has developed. Others thought it was because of the appearance of the tumour.

The physician Galen (129-216 AD) described breast cancer in his work A Method of Medicine to Glaucon, and compared the form of the tumour to the form of a crab:

We have often seen in the breasts a tumour exactly like a crab. Just as that animal has feet on either side of its body, so too in this disease the veins of the unnatural swelling are stretched out on either side, creating a form similar to a crab.

Not everyone agreed what caused cancer

In the Greco-Roman period, there were different opinions about the cause of cancer.

According to a widespread ancient medical theory, the body has four humours: blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile. These four humours need to be kept in a state of balance, otherwise a person becomes sick. If a person suffered from an excess of black bile, it was thought this would eventually lead to cancer.

The physician Erasistratus, who lived from around 315 to 240 BC, disagreed. However, so far as we know, he did not offer an alternative explanation.

How was cancer treated?

Cancer was treated in a range of different ways. It was thought that cancers in their early stages could be cured using medications.

These included drugs derived from plants (such as cucumber, narcissus bulb, castor bean, bitter vetch, cabbage); animals (such as the ash of a crab); and metals (such as arsenic).

Galen claimed that by using this sort of medication, and repeatedly purging his patients with emetics or enemas, he was sometimes successful at making emerging cancers disappear. He said the same treatment sometimes prevented more advanced cancers from continuing to grow. However, he also said surgery is necessary if these medications do not work.

Surgery was usually avoided as patients tended to die from blood loss. The most successful operations were on cancers of the tip of the breast. Leonidas, a physician who lived in the second and third century AD, described his method, which involved cauterising (burning):

I usually operate in cases where the tumours do not extend into the chest […] When the patient has been placed on her back, I incise the healthy area of the breast above the tumour and then cauterize the incision until scabs form and the bleeding is stanched. Then I incise again, marking out the area as I cut deeply into the breast, and again I cauterize. I do this [incising and cauterizing] quite often […] This way the bleeding is not dangerous. After the excision is complete I again cauterize the entire area until it is dessicated.

Cancer was generally regarded as an incurable disease, and so it was feared. Some people with cancer, such as the poet Silius Italicus (26-102 AD), died by suicide to end the torment.

Patients would also pray to the gods for hope of a cure. An example of this is Innocentia, an aristocratic lady who lived in Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia) in the fifth century AD. She told her doctor divine intervention had cured her breast cancer, though her doctor did not believe her.

From the past into the future

We began with Satyrus, a tyrant in the fourth century BC. In the 2,400 years or so since then, much has changed in our knowledge of what causes cancer, how to prevent it and how to treat it. We also know there are more than 200 different types of cancer. Some people’s cancers are so successfully managed, they go on to live long lives.

But there is still no general “cure for cancer”, a disease that about one in five people develop in their lifetime. In 2022 alone, there were about 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million cancer deaths globally. We clearly have a long way to go.

Konstantine Panegyres 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. Why is cancer called cancer? We need to go back to Greco-Roman times for the answer – https://theconversation.com/why-is-cancer-called-cancer-we-need-to-go-back-to-greco-roman-times-for-the-answer-228288

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Rose, Professor of Sustainable Future Transport, University of Sydney

Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport.

Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the recent boom in EV purchases, they’re still a tiny minority of the cars on the road.

We would get more immediate benefit by focusing on electrifying buses, which are a surprisingly large source of air pollution, and finding ways to cut rapidly growing emissions from diesel trucks.

While the electricity sector still produces the largest share of emissions in Australia (32.3%), emissions are falling. But emissions from transport (21.1%) are already the third-largest contributor – and are rising faster and faster.

Critics say EVs just shift the emissions and pollution from tailpipe to power plant smokestack. This is only partly true. A grid powered by brown coal could indeed mean EVs are dirtier than we think. But as more and more clean energy pours into the grid (or behind the grid, in the form of solar on our rooftops), this becomes less and less of a concern. Charging your EV from rooftop solar is emissions-free, and charging from a high-renewable grid means very low emissions. But even when powered by a coal grid, EVs are still much cleaner than petrol or diesel cars.

Can EVs really improve air quality?

Combustion engines expel smog-causing chemicals that are dangerous to our health, such as carbon monoxide, soot and nitrogen oxides.

Countries such as Norway and China have embraced EVs faster than others. As Chinese researchers have found, air quality in polluted cities begins to improve as EVs arrive in numbers. American researchers have found even small increases in the proportion of EVs improves air quality and reduces the number of people attending hospital with asthma attacks.

What most people think of as EVs are battery electric vehicles made by companies such as Tesla or BYD. While hybrid cars have small batteries, they still have combustion engines. By contrast, battery-electric cars do away with it entirely in favour of much larger lithium-ion battery packs.

If you look at the entire lifecycle of a vehicle, emissions associated with an average EV – including production, shipping, maintenance, recycling, and of course use – are estimated to be just 12% those of a traditional combustion engine vehicle.

Cutting emissions and cleaning air means actually using EVs

The main challenge in cutting transport emissions is no longer technological – it’s uptake.

Last year, more than 8% of new vehicles sold in Australia were EVs. That’s a big jump up from the previous year’s figure of 3.6%.

But the real figure we should focus on is smaller – 1.2%. That’s the proportion of EVs across Australia’s entire passenger vehicle fleet. That is, of the 15.3 million passenger cars, utes and vans on our roads, just 181,000 are EVs as of the beginning of 2023.

So yes, uptake is accelerating. But based on current market trends, it will be at least 15 years before EVs outnumber internal combustion vehicles in Australia, and at least a decade after before these polluting vehicles disappear from our roads. (It’s likely they won’t disappear entirely, due to hobbyists and collectors.)

This is why government initiatives such as the New Vehicle Energy Standards are important – they speed up this transition. Even with this, it will be decades before we actually see falls in transport emissions.

What if the grid is dirty?

Critics of EVs claim these vehicles are a form of greenwashing. If the power grid runs on dirty coal, the vehicles run on dirty coal.

Is this correct? Yes and no. First, battery electric vehicles have the benefit of zero tailpipe emissions, meaning city air quality will slowly improve.

But do they just push emissions out of the cities and into the hinterland, where the power plants are?

The answer is, it depends. Take the popular Tesla Model 3 as an example. These battery electric sedans are manufactured in both China and the United States. The Teslas we buy here in Australia are typically made in China.

While China is building out its renewable sector at tremendous speed, for now it is is still heavily reliant on black coal. The US, meanwhile, relies much more on gas, which produces fewer emissions when burned. That means a Tesla made in China is estimated to create 154% more emissions than the same vehicle made in the US.

As such, an Australian Tesla driver is (inadvertently) more polluting than their US counterpart – but still much less so than a driver of an equivalent petrol vehicle.

Where the EV is driven also matters. For example, a Tesla Model 3 driven in New South Wales and charged at public chargers will produce nearly 15,500kg of carbon dioxide equivalent over a 16-year timeframe. That’s because the state still has several coal-fired power stations, though this is changing. By contrast, drive and charge it in hydroelectricity-powered Tasmania and you’ll generate less than 500kg.

Read more:
How climate-friendly is an electric car? It all comes down to where you live

Transport emissions are more than just our cars

When we look at how to clean up transport, we have to look at trucks and buses.

Surprisingly, total petrol use has been falling in Australia for almost 20 years. The average car is driven 2,000km less per year than it was ten years ago – a trend that was happening even before COVID.

But demand for diesel has soared, almost doubling over the same period. That’s due to the growth in articulated trucks. While diesel engines produce fewer emissions than petrol, the boom in trucking means emissions keep climbing.

Electric trucks are beginning to appear. These will likely substitute for smaller trucks operating within a city at first, as the weight of batteries makes long-distance trucks less viable.

Electric buses are popping up on the streets of cities such as Melbourne and Perth. But it’s a similar story to cars – while the bus industry is enthusiastic, only around 0.2% of Australia’s buses are electric.

Put this all together, and you have a simple conclusion. Electric cars, trucks and buses can indeed cut transport emissions and clean up air in Australia. But slow adoption rates mean it will be decades before we really see the impact – and we’ll need a much greener grid to charge cleanly.

Read more:
Why electric trucks are our best bet to cut road transport emissions

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. Electric vehicles will start to cut emissions and improve air quality in our cities – but only once they’re common – https://theconversation.com/electric-vehicles-will-start-to-cut-emissions-and-improve-air-quality-in-our-cities-but-only-once-theyre-common-227364

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University

There is widespread agreement Australia needs to do better when it comes to gender-based violence. Anger and frustration at the numbers of women being killed saw national rallies over the weekend and a special National Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

This is a complex issue that still needs input from police, experts, parliaments and broader society. As part of this, it also involves our school system.

In recent years there has been a push to teach consent as part of sexuality and relationships education from the first year of school to Year 10.

This is a welcome start. But there remain large gaps in the curriculum and schools’ approaches to these issues. Here are four things schools, teachers and education authorities should implement now to make our communities safer.

1. Make ‘pornography literacy’ a mandatory part of the curriculum

We know some young people are first seeing porn online before they are ten and the eSafety Commissioner has heard anecdotal reports it is happening as young as six or seven.

Research also shows a lot of freely available pornography has high levels of aggression and dominance towards women and rarely displays safe sexual practices or consent negotiations. This inevitably shapes young people’s understanding and expectations of sex.

While exposure to porn will not necessarily have only negative impacts, and pornography is not to solely blame, studies indicate it can contribute to sexual violence.

On Wednesday, as part of a range of measures to address gender-based violence, the federal government announced A$6.5 million for an “age assurance technologies” pilot. This is technology to try and prevent young people from being able to access pornography online.

But we cannot rely on measures like this alone. Last August, the federal Infrastructure Department described current age assurance technologies as “immature” and carrying privacy and security risks. This echoes similar concerns from researchers.

As a 2020 UK study also showed, prohibiting young people from watching pornography is unrealistic and impractical. Young people also tend to find workarounds for such measures.

A more effective approach is teaching young people “porn literacy”. This means they learn to critically analyse and deconstruct messages commonly found in pornography. In doing so, they can counter the potentially harmful messages or images they might see.

But porn literacy is not currently part of the mandatory curriculum. It is only mentioned as a suggested option as part of the health and physical education learning area in Year 9 and Year 10.

Mandatory age-appropriate discussions about porn should be starting in the primary years, to match when young people may first encounter this material, and continue to develop into the high school years.

2. Keep teaching about sex and relationships in Year 11 and 12

At the moment, sexuality education in the national curriculum stops in Year 10, with students selecting specific subjects in the final two years of schooling.

This is a problem because students are increasingly likely to be dating or sexually active in their senior years. On average, Australians become sexually active at 15 (which is in Year 9 and 10).

While Year 11 and 12 students are busy with their academic studies, they can still have regular relationship and sexuality lessons. This could include sessions led by experts or teachers, or smaller group discussions with peers, which can involve anonymous question boxes.

3. Teach all young people to be ‘upstanders’

Research shows education about gender-based violence works better when it encourages boys and men to be part of the solution, rather than portraying them as “wrongdoers”.

This means education needs to focus on showing young people how to be “upstanders” when they witness harmful behaviours.

Schools and teachers can do this by offering information that helps them identify what behaviours they need to stand up to and how to stand up to them effectively.

Schools can also teach their students how to manage their emotions and communicate to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence or aggression.

All genders can experience sexual violence, although, boys and men often encounter less support and face greater stigma when disclosing their experiences. It is important for school environments to acknowledge all young people so they feel safe to get support if they need it.

4. Train teachers to teach sensitive content

Delivering such sensitive content can be difficult and therefore, requires specific training.

But at the moment, there is not enough training in sexuality education for teachers before they start teaching and once they are in classrooms. Teachers from other areas – such as maths or history – often find themselves delivering sex and relationships content.

This leaves teachers underprepared and undersupported to deliver this content.

So we need to make sure specific units on sexuality and relationships are part of all teaching degrees and there is professional development for existing teachers. This training should be mandated and funded by governments.

Giselle Natassia Woodley is a PhD scholarship recipient as part of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project Adolescents’ perceptions of harm from accessing online sexual content (DP 190102435). Giselle is also part of a not-for-profit Relationships and Sexuality education advocacy group, Bloom-Ed whose views are not expressed here.

Sarah Vrankovich receives funding via a PhD RTP Stipend scholarship. Sarah is also part of a not-for-profit Relationships and Sexuality Education advocacy group, Bloom-Ed and is a board director of The STOP Campaign. These groups’ views are not expressed here.

Sharyn Burns is Professor of Health Promotion at Curtin University. Her research focuses on sexual and mental health promotion with an emphasis on school-based programs and families. Sharyn Burns currently receives funding from WA Department of Health to implement the Relationships and Sexuality Education project to provide training to in-service and preservice teachers. Sharyn has been involved as an external evaluator for the evaluation of the pilot of the Respectful Relationships Teacher Support Project.

– ref. 4 things our schools should do now to help prevent gender-based violence – https://theconversation.com/4-things-our-schools-should-do-now-to-help-prevent-gender-based-violence-228993

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Graham, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney

As home ownership moves further out of reach for many Australians, “rentvesting” is being touted as a lifesaver.

Rentvesting is the practice of renting one property to live in yourself, while simultaneously purchasing an investment property somewhere cheaper and leasing it out.

Ideally, “rentvestors” get to enjoy the capital gains on an investment property while living where they actually want to live, allowing them to cash in and upsize to their dream home later.

It might seem like a savvy way to game the property market. But what are the risks of such an investment strategy? And how might broad adoption of this behaviour affect housing affordability in Australia?

A rising tide lifts all boats differently

The aim of the rentvesting game is to buy cheap property now, ride the expected capital gains, and move into a more desirable home down the track. The hope is that by climbing the first rung of the property ladder early, the whole thing won’t be pulled up out of reach.

The first problem with this strategy, however, is that capital gains on housing are not always and everywhere equal.

Generally, the cheapest properties available to rentvestors will be houses in the regions or apartments in the city. But both regional housing and apartment properties tend to appreciate more slowly than the inner-city houses rentvestors might hope to live in one day. They might get a foot on the property ladder, but the rungs themselves are slowly drifting apart.

Would-be rentvestors should also be aware that investments by “out-of-town” buyers tend to generate much lower returns – both capital gains and rental yields – than investments by locals. Out-of-towners don’t know the local market trends, don’t know which neighbourhoods to avoid, and aren’t able to monitor their investments as effectively from afar.

Avoiding the regions by investing in city apartments presents its own difficulties. Large, unexpected maintenance bills and poor strata management are common complaints.

Different costs lead to different returns

Perhaps the potential rentvestor should invest in something more straightforward instead, like stocks. After all, the return on equities in Australia has outperformed housing in recent decades.

However, it is much easier to borrow to invest in property than it is to borrow to invest in the stock market. And leverage is the investor’s secret weapon. For example, if house prices were to appreciate at 10% per year, then using a mortgage and a A$100,000 deposit on a $1 million property would earn you a 100% return on equity before costs.

But while both investors and homeowners would earn that same basic return, their costs could be very different. For starters, property investors face capital gains tax on the proceeds of property sales, unlike those selling their primary residence. Banks also typically charge higher interest rates on mortgages to investors than to homeowners.

At times, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has also imposed caps on bank lending against investment properties, making it more difficult to find mortgage financing in the first place.

Highly leveraged properties require mortgage insurance, too. Investors may need to take out larger insurance policies against the properties themselves, reflecting the higher risks associated with investment properties. Then, you also have to throw in property management fees, council rates, strata management fees and regular and unexpected maintenance costs.

Negative gearing offers little benefit

What about negative gearing? Property investors that generate losses on their property can deduct these costs against the tax bill on their other income.

But negative gearing disproportionately benefits high-income earners with large tax bills. The median Australian individual income is around $55,00, which generates a tax bill of about $8,000 – not a lot from which investment property losses can be deducted.

The bigger picture is that while negative gearing helps defray the regular costs of managing a property, it doesn’t do anything to change expected capital gains.

At the end of the spreadsheet tally, an investment property could end up earning rentvestors significantly less than they could have gained by simply buying their first home.

Read more:
What is negative gearing and what is it doing to housing affordability?

Effects on housing affordability

Rentvesting is new enough that its prevalence and influence awaits formal academic study. But economists might speculate about its implications for the housing market more broadly.

The simplest analysis suggests that a rentvestor occupies one rental property while supplying an additional rental property to the market. If, instead, they had bought a home, they would vacate a rental property while removing another property from the market. In this case, even rentvesting en masse would have zero net effect on the housing market.

But a more nuanced perspective might consider where rentvestors are renting and where they are investing. Perhaps they are most likely to rent properties in the already-crowded inner city, but purchase investment properties in regional areas where other first home buyers would like to live.

This would increase demand for rentals in the city and reduce the supply of owner-occupier properties in the regions, worsening the affordability of both.

Of course, if these rentvestors all eventually move up the property ladder – selling in the region and purchasing in the city – this effect would be reversed. From that longer-term perspective, rentvestors would ultimately have little effect.

We still need more houses

Rentvesting is not a panacea for Australia’s housing market woes. Potential investors should weigh the benefits of property investment against its substantial costs and risks. Additionally, they need to carefully consider the obvious alternative: simply buying their first home up-front.

We have good reason to be wary of yet another get-rich-quick scheme involving the housing market. But initial considerations suggest that for the market overall, rentvestor behaviour is no worse than someone simply buying their first home, which we would otherwise encourage.

Rather than criticising those seeking a way though our housing market morass, we might instead redouble our efforts to increase the supply of housing.

James Graham has received research grant funding from the Australian Housing Research Institute. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal New Zealand Economic Papers.

– ref. Becoming a landlord while still renting? ‘Rentvesting’ promises a foot on the property ladder, but watch your step – https://theconversation.com/becoming-a-landlord-while-still-renting-rentvesting-promises-a-foot-on-the-property-ladder-but-watch-your-step-229116

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sukhmani Khorana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney

The new season of Heartbreak High is garnering mixed reviews.

Critics are writing about the racy story lines, comparing it to other coming-of-age series about teenage relationships and sex such as Riverdale and Sex Education. Both seasons have been praised for their representation of cultural diversity – but I think the reviews are missing the real cultural influence of the show.

In this new season, the representation of culturally diverse characters on the grounds of Hartley High is “banal multiculturalism”. While season one looked closely at the entrenched racism of institutions, season two goes beyond events and institutions to explore a multifaceted, everyday reality.

In exploring this banal multiculturalism, the show gets closer to showing us everyday Australia.

Full young lives

What Heartbreak High excels at, especially in this second take, is in delving deeper into the complexity of the characters, many of whom hail from under-represented and misrepresented social groups.

In the first season, the police attack Indigenous character Malakai (Thomas Weatherall) without provocation when he is walking home after a Mardi Gras event. In another scene, Darren (James Majoos), who is mixed-race, is warned by his father about hiding goods stolen by his white boyfriend as the police were more likely to suspect him of the crime.

Season two does not have these explicit references to race-based political events or racist institutions. Here, backstories and character arcs help us see the everyday aspects of being a multicultural or First Nations young person.

Unlike in season one, this complexity does not render them simply as victims of a brutal system, but as having agency to heal themselves and represent others like them.

Amerie (Ayesha Madon) is sometimes unlikeable due to her prior popular girl narcissism in season one. In the new season, she grows into more courage and accountability as she runs for school captain and rescues a fellow student from a school fire, despite the fact he had been conspiring against her the whole term.

Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran) lives her life with an unapologetic queerness and somewhat imperfect vegan politics. Her Asian-ness only comes to light in one scene where she talks about going to a Chinese restaurant to eat a meat dish. Her overall persona is more “social justice warrior” than representative of a single ethnic group.

Missy (Arrernte actor Sherry Lee-Watson) is a feisty teenager. In a memorable scene where the school captain candidates are headed to a formal event to raise funds for their campaigns, Missy coolly gets rid of her chewing gum by pasting it on the portrait of King Charles II adorning the venue’s corridor.

In not framing these characters as solely defined by their racialised identity – but still conscious of living in a racist society – Heartbreak High gives them new agency. First Nations lingua franca (such as “deadly” and “yarn”) are peppered throughout the season and not explained for global viewers.

This is what I mean by banal multiculturalism: the use of this language is integrated as normal and everyday. This is powerful for communities who have often been positioned as needing translation. Here, they are not so much integrated as centred and normalised.

Towards an aspirational multiculturalism

Race-based stereotyping is still a reality in Australian schools. This new season of Heartbreak High helps us aspire to a multicultural future in which young people can transcend ethnic boxes.

The season certainly has its flaws and unrealistic plots. However, it manifests what I have called “aspirational multiculturalism”.

These depictions are not post-racial, but aspirational: they help us imagine a reality that is more justice-oriented than the current one. While racism exists in society, these students carve out a space in which their difference endows them with confidence and helps them to eventually express solidarity with their peers.

The new season shows us what we could be – and helps shape a more just multicultural society.

Diverse young voices

The first season of the reboot appealed to both those who watched the series in the ’90s and fresh Gen Z viewers.

The second season may not be able to retain all its older viewers, but some might persist to get another glimpse into the lives of young people and the social issues of the near future.

The coming-of-age genre transcends generations. It is no surprise representing complex culturally diverse characters is trialled in such stories.

Other recent examples on Netflix of diverse young adult content include Never Have I Ever and The Babysitter’s Club (also a reboot). These shows have heralded a new generation of content creators and actors who are centring non-Anglo stories, and doing so in ways that champion culture as a part of the messy story of growing up.

Such young adult shows are inspiring for the next generation of non-white creatives, and signal a social change agenda for all generations.

A lasting legacy

Since 2016, we have seen a doubling of non-European representation on Australian television. But people with Indian, Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese ancestry are still under-represented, even as their populations in Australia are growing.

It is here I think the reboot could have a legacy beyond helping with the careers of a very talented young cast. Heartbreak High comes at a time of seemingly deep cultural divides, but also of generations of digitally exposed youth who are being more thoughtful about what media they engage with and are shaped by.

What is likely to make a lasting impact is the normalisation of diversity for this generation, setting the benchmark for other local productions.

Banal multiculturalism in screen drama is the future of television. Not just because it is proving to be successful with viewers, but also because it is the future we should shape for generations to come.

Sukhmani Khorana receives funding from the Australia Research Council.

– ref. Season two of Heartbreak High makes diversity feel ‘banal’. This is its strength – https://theconversation.com/season-two-of-heartbreak-high-makes-diversity-feel-banal-this-is-its-strength-228514

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Beaglehole, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago

The number of people accessing medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in Aotearoa New Zealand increased significantly between 2006 and 2022. But the disorder is still under-diagnosed and under-treated compared to global ADHD prevalence estimates.

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting the part of the brain that helps people plan, control impulses and execute tasks. It is treated primarily with methylphenidate.

Our new research using demographic and dispensing data from pharmacists – showed a tenfold increase in dispensing of ADHD medication for adults over the study period. During the same time frame, there was a threefold increase in prescriptions for children.

Despite this, there remain serious access and equity issues. New Zealand will need to look at why some people are not getting help, and consider whether the treatment options are fit for purpose.

The rise of ADHD diagnoses

We speculate there are multiple reasons for the rise in ADHD diagnoses and treatment over the past two decades.

In New Zealand and elsewhere, people are becoming more literate about mental health issues, including disorders such as ADHD, depression, anxiety and autism. With increasing literacy, comes greater demand for treatment.

People may be becoming less tolerant of symptoms affecting their day-to-day activities. Generally accepted symptoms of ADHD in adults include impulsiveness, disorganisation and problems prioritising focusing on tasks and poor time management.

Read more:
More adults are being diagnosed as neurodivergent. Here’s how employers can help in the workplace

While everyone may have some symptoms similar to ADHD at some point in their lives, ADHD is diagnosed only when symptoms are severe enough to cause ongoing problems. These persistent and disruptive symptoms can be traced back to early childhood.

The vast majority of medications prescribed in New Zealand are stimulant medicines. There is an assumption these medications will agitate and increase activity in whoever takes them.

But for many people with ADHD, the medication allows attention to be better focused. In fact, people become less agitated and more able to function within the demands society places on them.

The treatment gap in New Zealand

While there has been a significant increase in prescriptions for adults with ADHD since 2006, our data suggest it is likely there is a large number of people with ADHD who are not receiving treatment.

In 2022, 0.6% of the adult population in New Zealand was receiving treatment for ADHD. This compares to an estimated 2.6% of adults with the condition. This suggests a large treatment gap exists.

There were noteworthy gender and ethnicity differences across the age span within the data. Three quarters of children dispensed ADHD medication were male, whereas the gender split was more even for adults.

There is debate about the differences in ADHD symptoms between the genders. Some have suggested males tend to exhibit more external symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity. They are, therefore, more likely to be diagnosed as children. It is believed females are relatively under-recognised because they exhibit less obvious symptoms such as anxiety.

Dispensing of ADHD medication for Māori for all ages was in line with population demographics. However, adult Māori only made up 10% of people receiving prescriptions for ADHD medication, despite making up 17% of the population.

The barriers to diagnosis and treatment

Receiving treatment for ADHD relies on access to a range of assessment and treatment options. Also, the prescription of methylphenidate requires special authority from Pharmac (the government body overseeing funding and supply of medications) and endorsement by a paediatrician or psychiatrist.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, access to public mental health services is heavily restricted due to a workforce facing considerable strain. Some district health boards do not assess adult ADHD at all.

Read more:
ADHD in adults is challenging but highly treatable – a clinical psychologist explains

This means many ADHD assessments are now undertaken in the private sector at a cost of between NZ$1,000 and $3,000. The price of diagnosis and treatment is creating access and equity issues for those unable to afford the expensive assessments.

It is possible that, with greater access to ADHD assessments and treatment, the negative individual and societal effects would reduce. The known burdens associated with ADHD include lower productivity, health and education system costs, and reduced quality of life.

Increasing access to ADHD assessments and treatment will require more professionals with the skills to complete ADHD assessments, as well as revisiting the current prescribing restrictions and PHARMAC authorisation system.

This won’t be straightforward – but it needs to be a priority if New Zealand is to address the gap between those who have ADHD and those who are able to receive diagnoses and treatment.

Ben Beaglehole receives funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand for unrelated research.

– ref. Despite a tenfold increase in ADHD prescriptions, too many New Zealanders are still going without – https://theconversation.com/despite-a-tenfold-increase-in-adhd-prescriptions-too-many-new-zealanders-are-still-going-without-229179

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

A key part of the Albanese government’s political strategy is to fill the news cycle with its presence and messaging. Ministers are deployed to the maximum, even when they’ve little to say.

This week we’ve seen an opposite tactic. The government has done its best to limit, to the extent possible, ministerial visibility on a story that is bad for it.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles went to ground after it was reported one of the about 150 former immigration detainees, released late last year, was among three people who allegedly committed a violent house invasion in Perth in April.

In the incident, the perpetrators allegedly posed as police officers to get into the house of the elderly couple. The wife, Ninette Simons, suffered severe injuries to her face. Her husband was allegedly tied up.

After the matter was reported, the ministers did a single interview each: Giles on ABC radio late Tuesday, and O’Neil on her regular Seven Sunrise spot on Wednesday. There should have been a full scale news conference.

The ministers tried to justify avoiding the media by arguing the former detainee, Majid Jamshidi Doukoshkan, is before the courts. He’s charged with aggravated home burglary, robbery, impersonating a public officer, assault and detaining a person.

The ministers’ excuse for their reticence doesn’t wash, because the matter goes to wider issues around inadequacies in how these detainees, including Doukoshkan, have been handled. There are serious questions about ministerial responsibility and administrative competence (or incompetence) that need to be answered.

It is not as though we’re dealing just with history. Given what’s happened so far with this cohort, it’s possible – even likely – there will be future incidents (indeed, another man was charged on Thursday over curfew breaches).

A significant number of the former detainees have run foul of the law since their release. On figures from early February, revealed in Senate estimates, some 18 had been charged with state or territory offences. Five people have been charged with visa breaches since March 13. There were others before that but because it was found invalid visas had been issued to the ex-detainees, those cases were dropped.

The government insists it has put in place all the measures it can to ensure the ex-detainees are monitored so they don’t pose threats to the community.

The opposition contests this. It also argues all these people shouldn’t have been let out in the wake of the High Court decision that related specifically to one person. The government says it had no choice but to release them all.

Let’s assume the government is right in its insistence about the mass release. What followed that release has been a shemozzle.

The ex-detainees are supposed to be fitted with ankle brackets, where that’s considered necessary for their close monitoring. This is done on the recommendation of an expert Community Protection Board the government set up.

Doukoshkan earlier had a bracelet; before his alleged role in the home invasion, this was apparently removed, on the recommendation of the board.

Pushed for an explanation on this on Thursday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the ABC: “Well, the Community Protection Board is, of course, a board that’s independent of politicians”. As to whether the board had failed, “It’s not appropriate for me to comment on individual cases, particularly ones that are before the courts”.

This is a brush-off. Apart from the fact the board provides “recommendations” to the immigration minister (or his delegate), the public deserves to be told why this person was not wearing a bracelet. It’s hard to see how providing that information would interfere with the court case.

Born in Kuwait, 43-year-old Doukoshkan had been convicted in 2017 of drug trafficking.

This year he was released on bail three times. He was charged with a visa breach for curfew breaks – a federal offence. The other instances related to offences under WA law. He received bail the third time in mid-April after he faced a state drug charge.

There’s been much confusion on what precisely was the Commonweath’s position on bail in the federal case. Federal government talking points – revealed by Sky this week – wrongly said it had opposed bail. According to a report in the West Australian at the time, “Counsel for the Commonwealth did not oppose bail but warned: ‘Further breaches may not have the same response’”. The magistrate involved told Doukoshkan he was on thin ice and she wouldn’t have granted bail had the Commonwealth not been so “generous”. (Eventually that charge was withdrawn, because of the invalid visa hitch.)

State as well as federal authorities are involved in dealing with former detainees. But overall responsibility must be sheeted home to the federal government.

The Albanese government rushed through legislation to give it the power to apply to a court to preventatively detain these people if they were judged at a high risk of committing serious, violent or sexual crimes.

So far, no applications have been made. The government says it takes time to prepare strong cases. Albanese had all sorts of qualifications when pressed on Wednesday but said, “I want to see it happen as a matter of urgency”.

Next week we will get the report of the Senate inquiry into the government’s proposed legislation relating to people it is trying to deport. This legislation was driven by fears about another High Court case that, if the government loses, would pave the way for more people to be released. (The conventional wisdom is that the government will probably win this case.)

The legislation targets non-citizens who refuse to cooperate with their removal. They’d face a mandatory year’s jail, with a maximum of five years. Countries refusing to accept involuntary returnees would also face sanctions, with their citizens (with some exceptions) unable to get visas to come to Australia.

The government in the last sitting tried to accelerate this legislation through parliament on the assumption – which proved wrong – that the opposition wouldn’t dare delay it.

The bill has faced extensive criticism, but that coming this week from the Tamil family in Biloela must have been particularly galling for the government. Priya Murugappan said: “If this deportation bill was around a few years ago, my husband and I would have been put in jail because we did not agree to go back to Sri Lanka. Our girls would have been taken away from us by the government. We might still be in jail, instead of living safely here as a family. This shouldn’t happen to other people like us.”

One of the Albanese government’s first acts was to return the family to Biloela, promising them permanency.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: O’Neil and Giles dodge the spotlight shining on blunders over ex-detainees – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-oneil-and-giles-dodge-the-spotlight-shining-on-blunders-over-ex-detainees-229187

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Brakenridge, Postdoctoral research fellow at Swinburne University, Centre for Urban Transitions, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute

People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall health and getting good sleep is imperative.

However, if exercise in the evening may disrupt our sleep, or make us feel the need to be more sedentary to recover, a key question emerges – what is the best way to balance our 24 hours to optimise our health?

Our research attempted to answer this for risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. We found the optimal amount of sleep was 8.3 hours, while for light activity and moderate to vigorous activity, it was best to get 2.2 hours each.

Finding the right balance

Current health guidelines recommend you stick to a sensible regime of moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity 2.5–5 hours per week.

However mounting evidence now suggests how you spend your day can have meaningful ramifications for your health. In addition to moderate-to vigorous-intensity physical activity, this means the time you spend sitting, standing, doing light physical activity (such as walking around your house or office) and sleeping.

Our research looked at more than 2,000 adults who wore body sensors that could interpret their physical behaviours, for seven days. This gave us a sense of how they spent their average 24 hours.

At the start of the study participants had their waist circumference, blood sugar and insulin sensitivity measured. The body sensor and assessment data was matched and analysed then tested against health risk markers — such as a heart disease and stroke risk score — to create a model.

Using this model, we fed through thousands of permutations of 24 hours and found the ones with the estimated lowest associations with heart disease risk and blood-glucose levels. This created many optimal mixes of sitting, standing, light and moderate intensity activity.

When we looked at waist circumference, blood sugar, insulin sensitivity and a heart disease and stroke risk score, we noted differing optimal time zones. Where those zones mutually overlapped was ascribed the optimal zone for heart disease and diabetes risk.

You’re doing more physical activity than you think

We found light-intensity physical activity (defined as walking less than 100 steps per minute) – such as walking to the water cooler, the bathroom, or strolling casually with friends – had strong associations with glucose control, and especially in people with type 2 diabetes. This light-intensity physical activity is likely accumulated intermittently throughout the day rather than being a purposeful bout of light exercise.

Our experimental evidence shows that interrupting our sitting regularly with light-physical activity (such as taking a 3–5 minute walk every hour) can improve our metabolism, especially so after lunch.

While the moderate-to-vigorous physical activity time might seem a quite high, at more than 2 hours a day, we defined it as more than 100 steps per minute. This equates to a brisk walk.

It should be noted that these findings are preliminary. This is the first study of heart disease and diabetes risk and the “optimal” 24 hours, and the results will need further confirmation with longer prospective studies.

The data is also cross-sectional. This means that the estimates of time use are correlated with the disease risk factors, meaning it’s unclear whether how participants spent their time influences their risk factors or whether those risk factors influence how someone spends their time.

Australia’s adult physical activity guidelines need updating

Australia’s physical activity guidelines currently only recommend exercise intensity and time. A new set of guidelines are being developed to incorporate 24-hour movement. Soon Australians will be able to use these guidelines to examine their 24 hours and understand where they can make improvements.

While our new research can inform the upcoming guidelines, we should keep in mind that the recommendations are like a north star: something to head towards to improve your health. In principle this means reducing sitting time where possible, increasing standing and light-intensity physical activity, increasing more vigorous intensity physical activity, and aiming for a healthy sleep of 7.5–9 hours per night.

Beneficial changes could come in the form of reducing screen time in the evening or opting for an active commute over driving commute, or prioritising an earlier bed time over watching television in the evening.

It’s also important to acknowledge these are recommendations for an able adult. We all have different considerations, and above all, movement should be fun.

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

– ref. How much time should you spend sitting versus standing? New research reveals the perfect mix for optimal health – https://theconversation.com/how-much-time-should-you-spend-sitting-versus-standing-new-research-reveals-the-perfect-mix-for-optimal-health-228894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan University

Responding to a resurgence in gender-based violence and deaths in Australia, the National Cabinet has committed almost A$1 billion to a range of strategies.

Tackling “online harms” was among the new commitments, including the introduction of a pilot program to explore the use of age-checking technologies to restrict children’s access to inappropriate material online.

Under-age exposure to adult content is considered to be a contributory factor to domestic violence through fuelling harmful attitudes towards relationships. Controlling access to adult material is also aligned with debate over access to social media sites and other age-related restrictions.

While the details are yet to come, a roadmap for this was proposed more than a year ago by the eSafety Commissioner. Recent events have clearly spurred action, but there are questions over the effectiveness of tools to check the age of website visitors.

Implementing and enforcing these will be challenging and there is the potential for people to bypass such “age assurance” controls. But while there’s no easy fix, there are some checks that could help.

What’s being proposed?

In March 2023, the eSafety Commissioner published a “Roadmap for age verification”, which outlined the risks of children accessing inappropriate content (primarily online pornography). This was a comprehensive report, identifying current approaches, views from various industry representatives, and highlighting existing legislative and regulatory frameworks.

Disappointingly, this was not the first such offering. A 2020 Parliamentary paper “Protecting the age of innocence” also discussed similar issues and made similar recommendations:

It’s now not a matter of “if” a child will see pornography but “when”, and the when is getting younger and younger.

Some of the data in the 2023 report is quite shocking, including:

• 75% of children aged 16–18 have seen online pornography
• one third of those were exposed before the age of 13
• half saw it between ages 13 and 15.

The report made extensive recommendations, including:

Trial a pilot before seeking to prescribe and mandate age assurance technology.

Assurance versus verification

While they may sound similar, there are distinct differences between age assurance and age verification.

Age assurance is most often seen in social media settings where an individual is asked for their date of birth. It’s effectively a self-declaration of age. This can also be found in certain applications (such as Facebook’s Messenger Kids) where a parent is nominated to confirm a child can have access to a service. It may also use biometrics to attempt to determine a person’s age, for example by using a webcam to visually classify a person’s age range based on appearance.

Age verification is a more rigorous approach, where some form of identity is provided and verified against a trusted source. A simple example can be seen in online systems where identity is verified using a driver’s licence or passport.

Will it work?

The concept of checking a person’s age seems to be a simple and effective solution. The challenge is the reliability of the mechanisms available.

Asking a user to enter their date of birth is clearly open to misuse. Even seeking secondary approval (say, from a parent) would only work if there was a mechanism to confirm the relationship.

Similarly, a biometric approach depends on access to a webcam (or other sensor) and would itself raise concerns over privacy.

In verifying a person’s age, we are really talking about verifying identity – a topic steeped in controversy itself.

While ID verification is potentially a more reliable approach, it depends on trust and the secure access and storage of our identity records.

Given recent data breaches (including Outabox just this week, as well as Optus and Medibank incidents), any proposed system would have to rely on more than simply entering a passport number or other identifier. Perhaps it could use the myGovID service the government is currently expanding.

It needs coordinated effort

It is worth noting that any solution would likely see a verification request pushed from the content provider to an Australian-based (likely government managed) service.

This would simply provide a confirmation to the content provider that a user has been confirmed as an “adult”. It is unlikely any proposed system would require the entry of identity data into an overseas website that would then be stored outside Australia.

But with so much of the adult content itself hosted overseas, it will require a coordinated effort to enforce and to ensure that providers have the ability to connect to age verification systems in Australia.

Won’t kids just bypass it anyway?

The reality is, no system is perfect. With age assurance, children can enter fake details – or genuine information from another person – to claim they are older. Even the use of biometrics can potentially be bypassed with the cooperation of an older relative, photo filters or future AI applications.

Age verification offers potential. But for it to work, the verification process must confirm not just the age of the claimed identity, but the authenticity of the person attempting to verify their age. For example, a child could access stolen identity documentation to enter a legitimate driver’s licence or passport.

Finally, these checks are likely to be specific to Australia, with service providers implementing a solution for connections originating within the country. With easy access to virtual private networks (VPNs) or the use of anonymised browsers, such as Tor, there are many ways to potentially evade these controls.

While we may not have a simple solution, imposing constraints that affect the majority of underage access is still a worthwhile project.

Some children will always seek to access illicit materials. Those determined enough will always find a way, just as plenty of children still find a way to smoke and drink.

But doing nothing is not an option – and this may well protect at least some impressionable minds.

Paul Haskell-Dowland 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. Australia will trial ‘age assurance’ tech to bar children from online porn. What is it and will it work? – https://theconversation.com/australia-will-trial-age-assurance-tech-to-bar-children-from-online-porn-what-is-it-and-will-it-work-229184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Priestley Habru, PhD candidate, public diplomacy, University of Adelaide

Former foreign minister Jeremiah Manele has been elected the next prime minister of Solomon Islands, defeating the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, in a vote in parliament.

The result is a mixed bag for former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party. The party won just 15 of 50 seats in last month’s election, while the opposition Care coalition won 20. But even though Sogavare declined to stand for PM this week, his party still had the upper hand in the vote after courting independent MPs.

So, what kind of leader will Manele be? Will he bring big changes to the country or its relationships with China, Australia and the United States?

Quality-of-life issues remain paramount

One of the authors here (Claudina) voted in Solomon Islands’ general election in November 2014. At that time, political campaigns were low-key and largely localised to particular areas in the country.

Ten years on, we have noticed a huge change in the way campaigns are staged. This year, the livestreaming of campaign events was ubiquitous on social media, which amplified and sensationalised the messages of candidates like never before. Frenzied parades involving floats and legions of supporters were common.

Despite all the fanfare leading up to polling day, the primary concern of ordinary Solomon Islanders was not political wrangling, but the dire state of services in the country. The healthcare system is dilapidated, road conditions and infrastructure are poor and power cuts are constant.

The increased cost of living and lack of educational and job opportunities have only made daily life more difficult for residents.

For example, one voter in Isabel Province told us as part of our research that he did not care what political party his preferred candidate aligned himself with. His main concern was for his MP to continue to provide financial support through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). The fund pays for iron roofing for homes, school fees, outboard motor engines for transport, chainsaws and other material needs.

Many voters similarly wanted their MPs to join the majority coalition so they would be able to access more benefits through the government. This was why nine of the independent MPs who unseated incumbents from the governing coalition came back to join that same coalition going into the PM’s election this week.

Manele got 31 votes from lawmakers, which included 15 from his OUR Party, three from Solomon Islands People First Party, one from the Kadere Party, nine independents and three other MPs who switched allegiances from Wale’s camp.

It was a smart move for Sogavare and his coalition to select Manele as their candidate.

Sogavare’s popularity has waxed and waned over the past two decades. He was forced to vacate the PM post after no-confidence votes in both 2007 and 2017. He survived another no-confidence vote in 2021, which led to violent protests on the streets of Honiara and the destruction of Chinatown.

Though Sogavare managed to hold onto his seat in last month’s election, he won by just 259 votes. It was his narrowest margin of victory since he was first elected to parliament in 1997.

To avoid a similar backlash from voters who did not want to see Sogavare become PM again, the sensible thing for his coalition was to select another candidate.

The 55-year-old Manele is from the same village (Samasodu) in Isabel Province as the governor-general, Sir David Vunagi, which means the two men in the highest offices in the country are closely related.

Manele will likely be an inclusive leader. He has a friendly and humble personality, as reflected in his maiden speech in which he acknowledged his rival, Wale, and members of his coalition.

A more matter-of-fact foreign policy

One of the main reasons Sogavare courted controversy was his increasingly cosy relationship with Beijing since his government switched Solomon Islands’ diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China in 2019.

He signed a secretive bilateral security deal with China in 2022 that raised alarm bells in Australia. Last year came another deal to boost co-operation with China on law enforcement and other security matters.

With Manele now at the helm, the country should return to a more business-as-usual approach to diplomatic ties with China. His experience as a career diplomat, public servant, opposition leader and foreign minister will help him navigate the country’s complex relationships without the fiery rhetoric his predecessor had become known for.

In addition, we may finally be able to see what the 2022 security agreement entails now that a former foreign minister is in charge.

Asked by the ABC whether his government would keep the deal, Manele said “yes”, then added:

If there is a need to review that, it will be a matter for China and Solomon Islands to discuss.

However, he may face some pressure from the opposition. Peter Kenilorea junior, the political wing leader of the Solomon Islands United Party (SIUP), has publicly expressed a desire to scrap the security agreement with China.

Manele should also maintain a cordial and perhaps more engaged relationship with Australia. When announcing his PM candidacy this week, he reiterated he would continue the long-held Solomon Islands foreign policy stance of “friends to all and enemies to none”.

What matters most to Solomon Islanders

The broader region must continue to see the plight of ordinary Solomon Islanders as separate from the decisions of its leaders, who at times may not necessarily reflect the wishes of the people.

Ask any Solomon Islander in a rural area what he or she thinks of the security agreement with China and the implications for traditional partners like the US, Australia and New Zealand. Chances are he or she might just shrug it off without uttering a response.

This is because Solomon Islanders have other pressing issues to worry about, such as how to pay school fees, how to feed their families, how to get their kids to school when the river floods and how to get fuel to take an expecting mother to the nearest health centre. This is what matters most to people’s lives, not diplomatic tussles between global powers.

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. Will Solomon Islands’ new leader stay close to China? – https://theconversation.com/will-solomon-islands-new-leader-stay-close-to-china-227905

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt?

For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try to improve projections to prepare communities for hazardous events in the future.

We rely on instrumental measurements, but such records are often short. To extend these, we use geological archives. And at the heart of this research is geochronology – a toolkit of geological dating methods that allow us to assign absolute ages to rocks.

In recent years, we have been using a state-of-the-art technique known as cosmogenic surface exposure dating which allows us to quantify the time a rock has spent on the surface, exposed to signals from outer space.

Using cosmic rays as a clock

Earth is constantly bombarded by high-energy charged particles, known as cosmic rays, coming from the depths of our galaxy. Most are intercepted by Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere. But some are sufficiently energetic to reach Earth’s surface.

On impact, they break apart atoms of common elements in Earth’s crust, such as silicon and oxygen, to create new rare elements known as cosmogenic nuclides.

The presence of cosmogenic nuclides in rocks and sediments at the Earth’s surface is a clear indicator of atmospheric exposure. Their abundance tells us how long the rock has been exposed.

Cosmic rays were first discovered in the early 1900s, but it took almost a century until sufficiently sensitive particle accelerators became available to accurately count the small number of rare atoms produced when they hit Earth.

Today, cosmogenic surface exposure dating represents a primary technique for quantifying the rates and dates of several processes on Earth’s surface.

Timing mountain collapse

In southeast Fiordland, the Green Lake landslide is one of the largest landslides on Earth. Its large size is especially unusual given the relatively small stature of the mountains from which it came.

Previous research suggested the landslide was induced by the retreat of a large glacier that formerly supported the mountainside.

Given ongoing glacial retreat today, we sought to test this hypothesis by collecting boulders on the surface of the Green Lake landslide. These rocks had previously been shielded from cosmic rays in the mountain interior before becoming exposed by the landslide.

Our measurements yielded an exposure age of about 15,500 years, which postdates the end of the last ice age in the Southern Alps by 3,000 to 4,000 years. From this result, we conclude that deglaciation is unlikely to have been the primary cause of this spectacular mountain collapse. Instead, our findings point to an extremely large earthquake as the more likely trigger.

How often do volcanoes emit lava?

Effusive (lava-producing) volcanic eruptions have built the large cone of Mt Ruapehu, the highest mountain in the North Island.

Despite some explosive episodes during the 20th century, there is no observational record of eruptions producing lava flows. Future effusive events could fundamentally reshape the volcanic cone, with potential implications for local infrastructure.

But how often do such eruptions happen?

Supported by the Resilience to Nature national science challenge, we tested whether cosmogenic dating could help us determine recurrence intervals of lava-producing eruptions on Mt Ruapehu over the past 20,000 years.

We found the mountain ejected lava in clusters of eruptive activity which could last for millennia. The cosmogenic data also provided more precise dates for recent prehistoric eruptions, compared to those produced by other common volcanic dating techniques such as palaeomagnetic and radiometric methods.

Tracking the melting of ice

Before cosmogenic nuclide measurements, glacial geologists trying to determine the age of sediments relied on serendipitous discoveries of fossil plant material for radiocarbon dating. In alpine and polar regions, where most glaciers are, such matter is rarely available.

Cosmogenic nuclides solve this problem as glaciers quarry rocks from their base and transport them to the surface where they rest on hill slopes and moraines and begin accumulating their cosmic signal.

With support from the New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform, we have applied this technique to reconstruct the recent evolution of Byrd Glacier – a large outlet of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Glacial cobbles, transported from the Antarctic interior and deposited on hillsides on either side of the flowing glacier, track how high the glacier was in the past.

Our study shows that the glacier thinned by at least 200 metres about 7,000 years ago during an interval of relative global climate stability. These results provide rare three-dimensional information that can be used to evaluate computer models used to simulate past, present and future ice sheet change.

Rising sea level is one of the biggest challenges facing civilisation this century. However, the uncertain response of ice sheets to climate change currently hampers projections.

Cosmogenic nuclide specialists are now ambitiously attempting to recover rock samples from beneath sensitive portions of the present ice sheets. Testing them for cosmic signals will yield important insights about the potential of future melting of ice sheets.

Shaun Eaves receives funding from the New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform.

Jamey Stutz receives funding from the New Zealand Antarctic Science Platform and the United States National Science Foundation .

Kevin Norton receives funding from Te Apārangi.

Pedro Doll receives funding from the Resilience to Nature national science challenge.

– ref. A clock in the rocks: what cosmic rays tell us about Earth’s changing surface and climate – https://theconversation.com/a-clock-in-the-rocks-what-cosmic-rays-tell-us-about-earths-changing-surface-and-climate-228094

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Flood, Professor of Sociology, Queensland University of Technology

Most young adult men in Australia reject traditional ideas of masculinity that endorse aggression, stoicism and homophobia. Nonetheless, the ongoing influence of those ideas continues to harm men and the people around them. These are some of the findings of a new survey of men in Australia.

The Man Box survey, led by The Men’s Project at Jesuit Social Services in partnership with Respect Victoria, spoke to 2,523 Australian men aged between 18 and 30.

We asked men how much they agreed with a stereotypical model of how to be a man. In this model, men are expected to always act tough, be aggressive, take risks, be stoic, heterosexual, homophobic and transphobic, emotionally inexpressive, hostile to femininity, and dominant.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Masculinity expert Michael Flood on boys and men behaving badly

The results showed most men don’t endorse this model of manhood, and most don’t think society is encouraging this version of manhood among them. This suggests healthier, more gender-equitable, and more inclusive norms of manhood are relatively common among young adult men in Australia.

That said, one-quarter to one-third of young men did agree with some of the attributes.

Although the results are largely encouraging, it’s discouraging that men’s levels of endorsement of traditional masculine beliefs have remained steady over the past five years.

Comparing the most recent Man Box survey with the previous survey in 2018, there has been little change in men’s attitudes towards male aggression, stoicism and self-sufficiency, domestic labour as women’s work, homophobia, and hypersexuality.

The only substantial areas of change in young men’s own beliefs have been in their comfort with men spending time on grooming and fashion and their acceptance of men not always knowing where their intimate partner is. That is, young men these days may be spending a little more time in front of the bathroom mirror, and checking up a little less on where their wives or girlfriends are.

Although only a minority of young men support male dominance and control in relationships and families overall, this has not declined much in the past five years.

On the other hand, young men report less societal pressure to conform to those stereotypical masculine norms than five years ago. While they now report feeling less pressure to be self-sufficient, stoic, and act strong, large numbers say it remains an issue for them.

Read more:
Like father, like son: new research shows how young men ‘copy’ their fathers’ masculinity

Harmful for all genders

Young men’s endorsement of traditional masculine norms plays out in a range of problematic behaviours. These include behaviour that is harmful to women and also to men themselves.

Our survey shows one-quarter of young men have used physical violence against an intimate partner, and one-fifth have used sexual violence against an intimate partner. Both behaviours are more likely among the young men who more strongly endorse more traditional stereotypes of masculinity.

Traditional masculine norms also limit young men’s own health and wellbeing. Among the men we surveyed, some had considered suicide and self-harm, were drinking at dangerous levels, taking risks while intoxicated or drug-affected, or problem gambling. Again, all of these are more common among the men with the highest conformity to traditionally masculine stereotypes.

Promoting healthy masculinity

To address the harms of stereotypical masculine norms, three tasks are crucial.

First, we must highlight why these are harmful in the first place. This means alerting policy makers, service providers and the community to the costs of men’s and boys’ blind conformity to masculinity.

Second, we must weaken the cultural influence of stereotypical masculine ideals, particularly the ones that cause harm to men and the people around them. That may involve highlighting the positive diversity among men and boys, promoting spaces where men can support each other in breaking free of rigid masculine stereotypes, and amplifying alternative male voices.

Third, we must promote healthy alternatives to rigid masculine ideals, based on qualities such as gender equality, non-violence, respect and empathy. This can be done through schools as part of respectful relationships education. There can also be social marketing and communications campaigns and changes to the policies and workplace cultures that constrain men’s parenting, among other strategies.

Building work with men and boys

The “healthy masculinities” field is taking off in Australia. There are new programs aimed at boys and men, national violence-prevention frameworks for men and boys, and new funding opportunities. Most people in Australia agree men and boys will benefit from breaking free from traditional masculine stereotypes.

If this growing field is to make a real difference, however, there are some important ways forward. The work must be scaled up, beyond programs reaching small numbers of boys in schools.

Because gender norms and patterns of interaction are embedded in organisations and communities, work must be done in those spaces too.

Intensive intervention is needed in the settings that sustain unhealthy and gender-inequitable forms of masculinity. These may include particular workplaces, informal male peer groups, and online platforms and networks on Reddit, X/Twitter and elsewhere.

There is a rich body of scholarship on how stereotypical masculinity shapes men’s and boys’ poor health, use of violence, and other social problems.

Read more:
Why ‘toxic masculinity’ isn’t a useful term for understanding all of the ways to be a man

However, we need to know more about the positives. What are the factors that shape healthy attitudes, behaviours and relations among men and boys? How do we then build on them?

We need to build services’ and practitioners’ capacity to work well with men and boys: through university teaching, professional development and practitioner networks.

Finally, we need standards for effective practice in work with men and boys, so initiatives and programs in Australia are not merely well-intended but actually make a difference.

Michael Flood has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Justice and Community Safety in the Victorian Government, the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute (APHCRI) Foundation, and other organisations. He was commissioned by Jesuit Social Service to contribute a commentary within the Man Box 2024 report.

– ref. Aggressive? Homophobic? Stoic? Here’s what thousands of Australian men told us about modern masculinity – https://theconversation.com/aggressive-homophobic-stoic-heres-what-thousands-of-australian-men-told-us-about-modern-masculinity-228187

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassy Dittman, Senior Lecturer/Head of Course (Undergraduate Psychology), Research Fellow, Manna Institute, CQUniversity Australia

With winter sports swinging into action, adults around the country have volunteered or been volunteered by others (humorously known as being “volun-told”) to coach junior sports teams.

While most coaches are eager to work with children to build their skills, confidence and passion for sport, one aspect of the job that coaches may approach with trepidation is working with parents.

This can be especially difficult for the many coaches who are also parents, as they need to balance dual roles and relationships.

As researchers in sports coaching and family psychology, we know parents play a central role in supporting children’s participation, enjoyment and development in sport.

However, as coaches of junior teams ourselves, we understand that working with parents can be challenging. Indeed, lack of support from parents has been identified as a major reason for coaches deciding not to continue.

Community sports clubs rely on volunteers to coach teams but coaches often receive limited or no training or guidance about how to work effectively with parents.

Our approach is to consider the coach-parent relationship a positive dimension of the job, working together as partners to develop young people through sport.

So, what can coaches do to build strong partnerships with parents?

Help parents feel a part of the team

In the past, most parents had an arm’s length interest in their children’s sport. Today, parents develop social connections via their children’s sport.

Parents build an identity as a “sports parent”, viewing active involvement in their children’s sport as an important part of the parenting role, helping to cultivate their child’s character and development.

As a result, parents are looking for ways to be positively involved, but may not be sure what will be most helpful. Some parents may not have the confidence to assist directly with training or games.

As a volunteer coach, you can think of practical ways parents can help and actively invite them to give you a hand in ways that support, rather than interfere with your coaching. This might include asking them to assist with setting up and packing up after training, taking turns bringing fruit for halftime, or running the player substitutions on and off the field.

For younger children, you can ask parents to assist with “crowd control” at training, keeping younger children on task and listening to the coach. And for older children and teenagers, parents can be asked to keep team statistics and provide input into the player-of-the-day award.

As many leagues don’t keep score, this last suggestion presents an opportunity for teams to focus on things beyond winning or losing – parents might record the number of “touches” each player gets or note “highlights” for each player based on what they worked on in training.

More adventurous teams might work out how players can rate the performance of their parents as spectators.

It helps to view the team you are coaching as an extended team of players and parents. In the same way you would build your relationship with a child by praising and encouraging them for being valuable team players, remember to show your appreciation for parents and family members for their efforts.

Get on the same page as parents

Parents invest considerable time, money and emotional energy into their children’s sport.

Our research has shown that in some cases, this significant personal investment can result in unhelpful sideline behaviour from parents, like yelling and shouting, contradicting the coach or giving unsolicited advice.

Coaches sharing with parents their goals and expectations for the team is a good way to turn their personal investment into positive and constructive involvement.

In our experience, an open conversation at the start of the season about everyone’s expectations can help build alignment on goals between coaches, players and parents, providing a strong foundation for establishing parent and coach relationships.

A coach might say to parents:

As coaches of junior teams, we face a few trade-offs. We need to consider the different objectives of winning and performance, sports skill development and children’s personal enjoyment and development. I would be interested in your views on this. If you had 100 points to allocate, what would be your priorities regarding the number of points to: (1) winning the game, (2) sports skill development, and (3) player personal development?

While the weight of priorities might differ between parents of an under-7s team compared to an under-16s representative side, parents’ responses will help coaches see what values are important to them.

Coaches can then share their goals and invite discussion about how this might be similar or different to the priorities among parents or between parents, players and the coach.

Keep the communication channels open

Such a frank conversation sets the stage for open, transparent and regular communication throughout the season.

Encouraging parents to listen to post-match team debriefings is a good way to continue that communication, as are informal check-ins with parents sharing your observations about how their child is progressing.

Many coaches use messaging apps to stay in touch with parents about games and training schedules, but these can also be useful tools for reviewing team goals for the week or reinforcing expectations and priorities.

This effort from the coach to share goals and maintain open communication may not reduce the prospect of having difficult conversations across the season. But it should help parents feel comfortable approaching the coach in a way that is respectful and considerate of the partnership that already exists.

Building coach-parent partnerships is about finding constructive ways for helping parents feel included, positively involved and valued in their children’s sport.

An effective coach-parent partnership will help coaches stay in the sport and support children to have a positive sporting experience into the future.

Cassy Dittman receives funding from the Commonwealth-funded Manna Institute, which aims to improve place-based mental health research for regional, rural and remote Australia, and in the past has received research funding from the National Rugby League (NRL). She holds an Honorary Senior Research Fellowship with the Parenting and Family Support Centre, which is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by The University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd is a private company licensed by UniQuest Pty Ltd on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. Cassy Dittman has no share or ownership of TPI, however as an author on Triple P Programs, she receives royalties from TPI.

Steven Rynne has previously received research funding from the National Rugby League (NRL). He has research links with the Parenting and Family Support Centre, which is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by The University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioral Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd is a private company licensed by UniQuest Pty Ltd on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. Steven Rynne has no share or ownership of TPI, however as an author on Triple P Programs, he may in the future receive royalties from TPI.

Michael John O’Keeffe 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. You’ve been ‘volun-told’ to coach junior sport – here’s how to best handle the parents involved – https://theconversation.com/youve-been-volun-told-to-coach-junior-sport-heres-how-to-best-handle-the-parents-involved-227767

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karleen Gribble, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University

Parents are often advised to burp their babies after feeding them. Some people think burping after feeding is important to reduce or prevent discomfort crying, or to reduce how much a baby regurgitates milk after a feed.

It is true babies, like adults, swallow air when they eat. Burping releases this air from the top part of our digestive tracts. So when a baby cries after a feed, many assume it’s because the child needs to “be burped”. However, this is not necessarily true.

Read more:
5 expert tips on how to look after your baby in a heatwave

Why do babies cry or ‘spit up’ after a feed?

Babies cry for a whole host of reasons that have nothing to do with “trapped air”.

They cry when they are hungry, cold, hot, scared, tired, lonely, overwhelmed, needing adult help to calm, in discomfort or pain, or for no identifiable reason. In fact, we have a name for crying with no known cause; it’s called “colic”.

“Spitting up” – where a baby gently regurgitates a bit of milk after a feed – is common because the muscle at the top of a newborn baby’s stomach is not fully mature. This means what goes down can all too easily go back up.

Spitting up frequently happens when a baby’s stomach is very full, there is pressure on their tummy or they are picked up after lying down.

Spitting up after feeding decreases as babies get older. Three-quarters of babies one month old spit up after feeding at least once a day. Only half of babies still spit up at five months and almost all (96%) stop by their first birthdays.

Does burping help reduce crying or spitting up?

Despite parents being advised to burp their babies, there’s not much research evidence on the topic.

One study conducted in India encouraged caregivers of 35 newborns to burp their babies, while caregivers of 36 newborns were not given any information about burping.

For the next three months, mothers and caregivers recorded whether their baby would spit up after feeding and whether they showed signs of intense crying.

This study found burping did not reduce crying and actually increased spitting up.

When should I be concerned about spitting up or crying?

Most crying and spitting up is normal. However, these behaviours are not:

• refusing to feed

• vomiting so much milk weight gain is slow

• coughing or wheezing distress while feeding

• bloody vomit.

If your baby has any of these symptoms, see a doctor or child health nurse.

If your baby seems unbothered by vomiting and does not have any other symptoms it is a laundry problem rather than something that needs medical attention.

It is also normal for babies to cry and fuss quite a lot; two hours a day, for about the first six weeks is the average.

This has usually reduced to about one hour a day by the time they are three months of age.

Crying more than this doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong. The intense, inconsolable crying of colic is experienced by up to one-quarter of young babies but goes away with time on its own .

If your baby is crying more than average or if you are worried there might be something wrong, you should see your doctor or child health nurse.

Not everyone burps their baby

Burping babies seems to be traditional practice in some parts of the world and not in others.

For example, research in Indonesia found most breastfeeding mothers rarely or never burped their babies after feeding.

One factor that may influence whether a culture encourages burping babies may be related to another aspect of infant care: how much babies are carried.

Carrying a baby in a sling or baby carrier can reduce the amount of time babies cry.

Babies who are carried upright on their mother or another caregiver’s front undoubtedly find comfort in that closeness and movement.

Babies in slings are also being held firmly and upright, which would help any swallowed air to rise up and escape via a burp if needed.

Using slings can make caring for a baby easier. Studies (including randomised controlled trials) have also shown women have lower rates of post-natal depression and breastfeed for longer when they use a baby sling.

It is important baby carriers and slings are used safely, so make sure you’re up to date on the latest advice on how to do it.

So, should I burp my baby?

The bottom line is: it’s up to you.

Gently burping a baby is not harmful. If you feel burping is helpful to your baby, then keep doing what you’re doing.

If trying to burp your baby after every feed is stressing you or your baby out, then you don’t have to keep doing it.

Read more:
No, stress won’t dry up your milk. How to keep breastfeeding your baby in an emergency

Karleen Gribble is a volunteer breastfeeding educator and counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, a member of the Public Health Association of Australia and the World Public Health Nutrition Association.

Nina Chad has been the Infant and Young Child Feeding Consultant for the World Health Organization since 2021. She is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia, the World Public Health Nutrition Association and the Australian Breastfeeding Association.

– ref. Do we really need to burp babies? Here’s what the research says – https://theconversation.com/do-we-really-need-to-burp-babies-heres-what-the-research-says-223306

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of Sydney

What’s been described as the largest underpayment class action in Australian legal history has just been settled. Who was allegedly underpaid? Thousands of junior doctors who, subject to court approval, are set to share back-pay of more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Amireh Fakhouri, who brought the claim on behalf of junior doctors in New South Wales, alleged that when they worked in the state’s public health system from December 2014 to December 2020, NSW Health had failed to pay the overtime and weekend meal break entitlements she and her colleagues were owed.

More than 20,000 claimants are now set to be eligible for a share in the nearly A$230 million settlement.

But repayment was never the main goal of the class action. Fakhouri, who is now training as a GP in Victoria, said she hoped instead it would change the work culture in medicine.

A rite of passage?

Our health-care system has routinely relied on the labour of junior doctors. These include interns (those who have completed their university medical training and are in their first year of being practising doctors), residents (who have completed their internship and hold a general registration) and registrars (specialists in training).

Junior doctors often provide much of the staffing for night and weekend shifts and complete burdensome administrative tasks for consultants (senior doctors).

Overworking junior doctors has been normalised for decades. We see this depicted in books (such as The House of God and This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor) and TV shows (such as House and Scrubs).

This is a safety issue. Doctor fatigue has considerable effects on patient safety through potential medical errors, poor quality patient care, longer patient recovery, reduced physician empathy and impacts on the doctor-patient relationship.

A 2020 study found that when doctors reported even moderate tiredness their chance of making a medical error rose by 53%.

Put simply, stretched, demoralised and tired doctors will do harm. Eventually, that will affect you.

It’s not just long hours

The expectation of working long hours is only part of the culture of medicine.

Our research and global evidence shows “teaching by humiliation” and other forms of verbal mistreatment have also been normalised.

A 2018 study of NSW interns and residents found more than 50% experienced bullying. Some 16-19% (mostly female) experienced sexual harassment.

Some of the junior doctors who are victims of mistreatment later become the perpetrators, perpetuating this harmful culture.

Junior doctors are suffering

The impact of long hours on junior doctors and of the abuse they are subjected to is vividly evident through research, including ours. Junior doctors have significantly high levels of depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide.

As we’ve been saying for almost a decade, there is a desperate need for better work-life balance for junior doctors and deep culture change in our health-care system.

But there is often little sympathy for junior doctors. In 2022, one hospital threatened to remove comfortable lounges to prevent juniors napping on quiet night shifts. Just last week, we heard of a similar case involving junior doctors at another hospital, who were told “sleeping is not part of your job description”.

A culture of silence

This class action was needed because on a day-to-day basis, junior doctors mostly do not complain.

They internalise distress as failure (not being tough enough) and fear that a diagnosis of depression or anxiety will result in patients and colleagues avoiding them.

They don’t report mistreatment or reject overwork as, often, their
senior doctors control their career progression.

This is important, because contrary to perceptions of doctors as wealthy elites, our research shows junior doctors often find it hard to progress, get a job in their city of choice, or find full-time roles. The pressure on junior doctors to “make it” in an increasingly competitive environment grows stronger. Such professional problems reinforce the culture of not complaining for fear of blow-back.

Most of those who do take action, report ineffective or personally harmful outcomes when reporting to senior colleagues. This fulfils a vicious cycle of silence as junior doctors become ill but do not seek help.

We wanted to lift the silence

We used theatre to lift the culture of silence about health-care worker distress due to workplace pressure.

We conducted interviews with junior and senior doctors about their experiences and used their verbatim stories to craft the script of the play Grace Under Pressure.

The aim is for this “verbatim theatre” to facilitate conversations and actions that promote positive culture change.

What needs to be done?

It often takes brave public legal action such as this lawsuit to catalyse culture change – to nudge hospitals to prevent junior doctors from working back-to-back shifts, to protect time off for a personal life, ensure meal breaks, and provide means to hold powerful senior doctors to account.

Culture change is hard, slow and requires multi-pronged strategies. We need a safe way for junior doctors to report their concerns, and training so they know their options for responding to mistreatment. We need senior doctors and hospital managers to be trained in how to encourage and respond constructively to complaints.

Our research shows that when this happens, culture change is possible.

Claire Hooker receives funding from the ARC and NHMRC. In 2024 she is President of the Arts Health Network NSW/ACT.

Alex Broom receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Karen Scott receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Louise Nash has previously received funding from AVANT Foundation, NSW Institute of Psychiatry Fellowship, NSW Health HETI grants.

– ref. What junior doctors’ unpaid overtime tells us about the toxic side of medicine – https://theconversation.com/what-junior-doctors-unpaid-overtime-tells-us-about-the-toxic-side-of-medicine-228608

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney

You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is a common story we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s not quite true.

Factors outside our control have huge influence – especially products which can sicken or kill us, made by companies and sold routinely.

For instance, you and your family have been exposed for decades to dangerous forever chemicals, some of which are linked to kidney and testicular cancers. You’re almost certainly carrying these chemicals, known as PFAS or forever chemicals, in your body right now.

And that’s just the start. We now know exposure to just four classes of product – tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and fossil fuels – are linked to one out of every three deaths worldwide. That is, they’re implicated in 19 of the world’s 56 million deaths each year (as of 2019). Pollution – largely from fossil fuels – is now the single largest environmental cause of premature death. Communities of colour and low-income communities experience disproportionate impacts; For example, over 90% of pollution related deaths occur in low middle income countries.

This means the leading risk factor for disease and death worldwide is corporations who make, market and sell these unhealthy products. Worse, even when these corporations become aware of the harms their products cause, they have often systematically hidden these harms to boost profits at the expense of our health. Major tobacco, oil, food, pharmaceutical and chemical corporations have all applied similar techniques, privatising the profits and spreading the harms.

Profit and loss statements

When companies act to conceal the harm their products do, they prevent us from protecting ourselves and our children. We now have many well-documented cases of corporate wrongdoing, such as asbestos, fossil fuels, pesticides, herbicides) sugar, silica, and of course tobacco. In these instances, corporations intentionally manufactured doubt or hid the harms of their products to delay or prevent regulation and maintain profits.

Decades of empirical evidence shows these effective tactics have actually been shared and strategically passed from one industry or company to the next.

For instance, when large tobacco companies Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds bought food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco in the 1980s, tobacco executives brought across marketing strategies, flavouring and colourings to expand product lines and engineered fatty, sweet and salty hyperpalatable foods such as cookies, cereals and frozen foods linked to obesity and diet-related diseases. These foods activate our reward circuits and encourage us to consume more.

Or consider how ‘forever chemicals’ became so widespread. A team of scientists (including this article’s co-author) investigated previously secret internal industry documents from 3M and DuPont, the largest makers of forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS.

The documents showed both 3M and DuPont used tactics from the tobacco industry’s playbook, such as suppressing unfavourable research and distorting public debate. Like Big Tobacco, 3M and DuPont had a financial interest in suppressing scientific evidence of the harms of their products, while publicly declaring in-demand products such as Teflon were safe.

For decades, forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS have been used to make Teflon pans, Scotchgard, firefighting foam and other non-stick materials. By the early 2000s, one of these, PFOS, ended up in our blood at 20 times the level its manufacturer, 3M, considered safe.

As early as 1961, the chief toxicologist at DuPont’s Teflon subsidiary reported the company’s wonder-material had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses”, and recommended the chemicals be handled “with extreme care”. According to a 1970 internal memo, the DuPont-funded Haskell Laboratory found the chemical class C8 (now known as PFOA/PFOS) was “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested”.

Both 3M and DuPont did extensive internal research on the risks their products posed to humans, but they shared little of it. The risks of PFOA including pregnancy-induced hypertension, kidney and testicular cancers, and ulcerative colitis was not publicly established until 2011.

Now, 60 years after DuPont first learned of the harms these products could cause, many countries are facing the human and environmental consequences and a very expensive cleanup.

Even though the production of PFOA and PFOS is being phased out, forever chemicals are easily stored in the body and take decades to break down. Worse, PFOA and PFOS are just two of over 15,000 different PFAS chemicals, most of which are still in use.

How can we prevent corporate injury to our health?

My co-author and I work in the field known as commercial determinants of health, which is to say, the damage corporations can do to us.

One of the key ways companies have been able to avoid regulation and lawsuits is by hiding the evidence. Internal studies showing harm can be easily hidden. External studies can be influenced, either by corporate funding, business-friendly scientists, legal action or lobbying policymakers to avoid regulation.

Here are three ways to prevent this happening again:

1) Require corporations to adhere to the same standards of data sharing and open science as independent scientists do.

If a corporation wants to bring a new product to market, they should have to register and publicly release every study they plan to conduct on its harms so the public can see the results of the study.

2) Sever the financial links between industry and researchers or policymakers.

Many large corporations will spend money on public studies to try to get favourable outcomes for their own interests. To cut these financial ties means boosting public health research, either through government funding or alternatives such as a tax on corporate marketing. It would also mean capping corporate political donations and bringing lobbying under control by restricting corporate access and spending to policymakers and increasing transparency. And it would mean stopping the revolving door where government employees or policymakers work for the industry they used to regulate once they leave office.

3) Mandate public transparency of corporate funding to researchers and policymakers.

In 2010, the United States introduced laws to enforce transparency on how much medical and pharmaceutical companies were spending to influence the products doctors chose to use. Research using the data unearthed by these laws has shown the problem is pervasive. We need this model for other industries so we can clearly see where corporate money is going. Registries should be detailed, permanent and easy to search.

These steps would not be easy. But the status quo means corporations can keep selling dangerous or lethal products for much longer than they should.

In doing so, they have become one of the largest influences on our health and will continue to harm generations to come – in ways hard to counter with yoga and willpower. And your health is more important than corporate profits.

Read more:
Chemicals, forever: how do you fix a problem like PFAS?

Nicholas Chartres receives funding from The JPB Foundation, The World Health Organization and Health Canada

Lisa Bero received or receives funding from Cochrane, NHMRC, Health Canada, the State of Colorado.

– ref. We think we control our health – but corporations selling forever chemicals, fossil fuels and ultra-processed foods have a much greater role – https://theconversation.com/we-think-we-control-our-health-but-corporations-selling-forever-chemicals-fossil-fuels-and-ultra-processed-foods-have-a-much-greater-role-227776

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University

Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests.

As Australia confronts the shocking numbers of men murdering women, children and young people may have questions or want to talk about violence against women and children.

If you are a parent you may also be wondering how you can help your child develop the attitudes and skills they need to have healthy and respectful relationships throughout their lives.

While there has been consistent messaging that “we all have a role to play” when it comes to stopping violence against women, actual guidance on what parents should do can be difficult to find.

Talking to your kids about recent events

If current headlines are leading your child to ask questions, it is certainly OK to answer them. In fact, this is an excellent opportunity to talk about these issues.

Be guided by the questions your child asks and keep your response simple. Young people will typically ignore anything that exceeds their current needs. But don’t be afraid to ask your child about their thoughts first. It can be a useful way to know what they understand.

If your child is showing distress, reassure them the media attention is a positive thing. As a nation we are much more aware these issues are occurring, we are talking about it more openly, and we want to keep an eye on our friends and family.

Governments are funding various programs and Australians are holding them accountable. These issues will not be resolved quickly, but we are moving in the right direction.

Ask your child if they have any followup questions and remind them they can check back with you at any stage.

If you feel they are overly anxious about these events, it could be a good idea to seek professional advice from someone like a school counsellor or GP.

How to approach gender and relationships

There are many things parents and carers can do to help the children and young people in their lives develop healthy ideas about gender and relationships. Here are seven ideas:

1. Model respect

One of the most important things adults can do is to model respect for others, both offline and online.

This includes respecting other people’s boundaries. For example, you might seek permission before hugging someone, or ask people if it’s OK to share a picture of them on social media.

Showing respect means genuinely and politely communicating with others. This should include how you speak about people, or a group of people, when they are not present.

This is particularly important as research shows young people want less fear-based messaging from adults and more practical guidance on how to have good partnerships.

2. Point out and talk about stereotypes

Television shows, movies, popular music and online influencers can provide young people with unrealistic or harmful messages about gender roles, relationships, dating, sexual activity and our bodies.

Take advantage of these opportunities to instil more accurate messages. You can tell your child most relationships don’t play out like a romantic comedy film or “reality” dating show. Falling in love might be easy, but staying in love often takes work and communication.

The bodies and sexual acts we might see on screens have also been heavily curated and most people don’t look or act like that. Sexual activity shouldn’t be violent or aggressive and both partners should enjoy the process equally.

Discuss how gender norms and stereotypes are problematic for everyone, no matter our gender. They create unhelpful expectations about how we are supposed to look, feel and act and can pressure us to conform to certain ideals. For example, boys can and should express their emotions. They don’t have to love football or want a six pack.

Encourage your child to dress, play, study and engage in activities that bring them joy with less concern for what society might “expect” them to do.

3. Teach your child to stick up for themselves and others

Talk to your children about how to respond to sexist or inappropriate behaviour that might happen to them or to others.

There are various ways to approach this. You might encourage them to speak up and challenge the behaviour, to use their body language to show they don’t approve of what is happening, or at least redirect everyone’s focus onto something else.

They might also be able to ask a third party to get involved and help intervene.

Sometimes, there isn’t much you can do in the moment, or it might not be safe to directly involve yourself. The best thing to do in these moments is to at least check in afterwards with the person who has been harassed to make sure they’re OK.

4. Don’t have different messages for boys and girls

Try not to have different messages for boys or girls. Partly, this is because many young people today see themselves as something other than male or female, but more importantly we want everyone to receive the same key information and to develop the same skills.

5. Avoid lectures and look for everyday opportunities to chat

Your conversations don’t need to be lengthy sermons. Drip feed your thoughts and little bits of information throughout your everyday activities.

For example, you could share your thoughts about a news report, a movie scene you’re watching together, or a song on the radio.

6. Provide other information

Not all young people are big talkers, so it can be helpful to provide your child with other materials from books and websites.

If, for whatever reason, a child won’t listen to their parents, ensure they have a support network of other trusted adults they can rely on. This could be people like another family member, a close family friend, a school teacher or a sports coach.

7. Think about your own upbringing

Parents may need to reflect upon their own backgrounds before having some of these conversations. Perhaps there was a lack of correct information, positive attitudes, or modelling of appropriate behaviours when you were growing up.

Attitudes and understanding about gender-based violence and gender relations have changed a lot in recent years.

So it can be a good idea to challenge or discount anything that is unhelpful, or impacts our ability to model or speak openly about respectful relationships.

More resources

Here are some websites and podcasts with information and advice for parents on how to talk to their children about gender, sexuality, violence against women and respect.

• Talk Soon. Talk Often is a free West Australian government resource to help parents talk to children (from infancy to 18) about sex.

• Yarning Quiet Ways is a free WA government resource for Aboriginal parents and carers to talk about safe and healthy relationships with their kids.

• The Conversation Guide is a free federal government resource for parents to talk to their children about respect for women and gender inequality.

• Project Ari is a free podcast by the federal government’s Stop it at the Start Campaign and NOVA Entertainment. It follows the story of 10-year-old Ari, “the world’s first artificial intelligence prototype, as he tries to wrap his ‘data brain’ around the human experience”. It is designed to be a funny series to teach kids about respectful behaviour.

• Sex Ed Rescue has free and paid resources for parents about sex education and pornogrpahy, split into topics and ages. The site is run by sex educator Cath Hakanson.

• Talking the Talk is the website of sexual health educator Vanessa Hamilton, with free tips, scripts for talking to your children and book recommendations.

• Doing “IT” is a free podcast by Sexual Health Victoria. Every episode contains different relationships and sexuality advice for parents and carers. Topics vary from gender pronouns, to pornography and taking care of your body.

Jacqueline Hendriks (she/her) is Project Lead of the Curtin University Relationships and Sexuality Education Project and is part of the Management Team for SiREN. She receives funding from the WA Department of Health (Sexual Health and Blood-borne Virus Program) and various other Australian government and non-government organisations. They are a founding member of Bloom-ED, a collective action group to promote improved relationships and sexuality education throughout Australia, and is current Vice President of the Australian Association for Adolescent Health. Jacqui was engaged as a subject matter expert in the most recent revision of the Talk Soon. Talk Often resource and interviewed for the Doing “IT” podcast both mentioned in this article.

– ref. Here’s how you can talk to your kids about gendered violence, and 7 ways to model good behaviour – https://theconversation.com/heres-how-you-can-talk-to-your-kids-about-gendered-violence-and-7-ways-to-model-good-behaviour-228898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University

“Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView.

A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created a storm of headlines around the world, many of which have a decidedly adult tone.

As highlighted in social media fan communities and articles, the show has struck a chord with adults, many of whom aren’t parents. What do they get from a show that is ostensibly “for kids”?

Parents love Bluey (sometimes more than kids)

Our research with children aged 7-9 and their parents provides evidence of how enraptured adults are by Bluey. Our findings also suggest it’s the parents who often drive household Bluey obsessions.

As one mum told us:

If we could tell the Australian TV gods something that we’d like to have on Australian TV, it would be more Bluey, don’t get rid of Bluey. […] Bluey is loved by mums a lot.

Another explained how the show provided learning for parents:

It’s the gentle parenting, kindness, empathy for the children, the humour […] And helping kids [and] families work through real life situations with kindness and compassion.

When one eight-year-old and his mum told us about their favourite shows, the following exchange took place:

Mum:: What about Bluey?
Son: I sometimes [watch it]…
Mum: You don’t want to say. He doesn’t want to say he watches Bluey. Bluey’s fantastic.
Son: I sometimes-
Mum: He wants to be a big boy. […] Everyone in this room probably loves Bluey. It’s not just for kids.
Son: Enough about that.

Beyond families, Bluey has also attracted teen and adult fans without kids – in part thanks to a vibrant TikTok community (aka #blueytok). While some commentary suggests this adult fandom is “weird”, Bluey is only the latest in a long line of “children’s” shows with a passionate adult fanbase.

Shifting barriers in television

The distinction between “children’s” and “adult” television has long been crucial to our cultural understandings of what separates a child from an adult.

In the 1950s, academics were concerned children were watching TV content that was too mature for them, turning them into “adultised children”, and that adults watching kids’ shows were becoming “infantile adults”.

The industry took note. In 1957, a reduction in children’s TV production in the United States made space for so-called “kidult” shows designed for both age groups.

Since then, the boundaries between children’s and adult television have continually shifted. In television’s early days, science fiction was associated with child audiences (which is why many initially assumed Star Trek was a kids’ show).

These boundaries were also influenced by television scheduling. Warner Bros’ early animation shorts were initially all-ages theatrical releases, but in 1960 were packaged into the Bugs Bunny Show – pitched for kids and aired on Saturday mornings. As a result, by 1967 animation was considered kids’ fare.

The boundaries shifted again in the 1980s as adult Japanese anime such as Akira (1988) became popular in the West.

In 1989, The Simpsons debuted on TV. Our research reveals even today there is confusion regarding the show’s suitability for young children. Some of our seven-to-nine-year-old participants described secretly watching it without their parents’ knowledge.

Childhood healing

Bluey’s adult appeal is credited to the show’s playful yet emotionally complex content. One reason adults tune into today’s kids’ TV is because it’s far more diverse than the shows they could access growing up.

Take 19-year-old Bluey fan Darby Rose, who points to an episode in which a Jack Russell terrier has ADHD. “As a neurodivergent person myself, this representation makes me ecstatic,” Rose says. This is also true of many teen programs, with the queer-friendly high-school romance Heartstopper attracting a large adult following.

It’s not just childhood nostalgia that drives adults to kids’ shows (although this is one aspect). Watching kids’ shows can be self-affirming for adults who missed out on seeing their identity onscreen growing up. Some adult fans even say Bluey has helped them heal childhood wounds.

Children’s television meets adult fan cultures

Watching “adult” television enables kids to feel more grown-up. Conversely, adults can watch children’s television to embrace aspects of their personality they feel social pressure to repress.

The latter is often the case for “Bronies” (a portmanteau for “bro” and “pony”): adult male fans of the animated kids’ show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (2010-20). The community has attracted much controversy. But research has found the reasons behind being a Brony aren’t suspicious or bizarre, but are empowering in unexpected ways.

As Bronies themselves have explained, the fandom allows them to rethink what masculinity means to them, with the support of other fans online and at events such as BronyCon.

Why can’t “manliness” include watching a cute show about ponies with friendship at its heart?

The changing nature of children’s television

The rise of streaming has led to yet another shift. On-demand viewing means freedom from the constraints of TV scheduling, which historically set the terms for “child” and “adult” viewing.

As our book details, Netflix has invested in the expansion of cultural expectations around what makes “child-appropriate” television.

Netflix’s mega hit Stranger Things deliberately pushes at these boundaries to attract a wide audience, from children and teens, to families, to adults without kids. As co-creator Matt Duffer explains, the aim was to get children hooked on the show, and then later in the season “scare the shit out of them. Then the parents can get mad.”

Parents certainly aren’t mad about their children getting hooked on Bluey. They may even be the secret to its global success: to keep the children watching, get the adults hooked.

Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. The child audience study outlined in this article is part of the project Australian Children’s Television Cultures in partnership with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, a project based at Swinburne University of Technology in collaboration with RMIT University.

Djoymi Baker receives funding from The Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

The child audience study outlined in this article is part of the project Australian Children’s Television Cultures in partnership with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation, a project based at Swinburne University of Technology in collaboration with RMIT University.

– ref. Why are adults without kids hooked on Bluey? And should we still be calling it a ‘kids’ show’? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-adults-without-kids-hooked-on-bluey-and-should-we-still-be-calling-it-a-kids-show-228610

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey University

Christopher Luxon’s sacking of two struggling cabinet ministers last week was praised by pundits as a sign of decisive – even “brutal” and “ruthless” – leadership. But this week’s 1News-Verian poll suggests the public is far less convinced of his leadership performance.

Based on those poll numbers, the National-led coalition would be out of office if an election were held now. And Luxon’s “preferred prime minister” rating fell further to 23%.

Politics is often a brutalising business. Machiavelli famously argued it is safer for leaders wanting to keep their job to be feared rather than loved. Countering perceptions of weak leadership may have been the motivation for Luxon’s decision to demote two ministers this early in his government’s term.

But those perceptions have been fuelled by the manner in which the prime minister’s coalition partners have tested, if not undermined, his authority and credibility.

We can trace this back to November last year, with the press conference announcing the coalition agreement, the ministerial swearing-in ceremony and the first cabinet meeting. NZ First leader and deputy prime minister Winston Peters repeatedly stole the limelight with a series of provocative, headline-grabbing statements.

Peters is a highly experienced politician, so would have known he was taking centre stage from the prime minister. But the mere fact he could do this was an early indicator of Luxon’s tenuous grip on power.

Coalition collisions

ACT Party leader David Seymour has also more than once undermined Luxon’s authority and credibility.

When the prime minister finally confirmed National would not support ACT’s contentious Treaty Principles Bill beyond its first reading, Seymour’s response was to openly state he didn’t believe Luxon’s commitment to that position.

Luxon brushed off the incident. But more recently he sought to publicly reprimand both Seymour and NZ First minister Shane Jones for critical comments each had made about the Waitangi Tribunal, which could have breached the cabinet manual.

Seymour’s response this time was to say it was Luxon who had erred by publicly stating those concerns.

Some of this can be put down to the policy tensions and competing political ambitions inherent in a three-party coalition. It’s the first such arrangement since New Zealand adopted the MMP proportional system.

But does Luxon’s leadership style make him unusually vulnerable to these kinds of tactics from his putative parliamentary allies?

Leadership and power

Power is a fundamental aspect of both politics and leadership. Complex, dynamic and multifaceted, it is neither a zero-sum game nor solely rooted in laws or formal authority.

Leaders can enhance their power, in the sense of securing more respect and influence, through personal characteristics that garner admiration and support. They can demonstrate expert knowledge and skills, and use reason, logic and evidence to persuade others.

They can gain power through rewarding supporters. But least effective in most circumstances is the power to punish others, which risks turning erstwhile supporters into enemies.

In theory, Luxon has access to all these bases of power. But so far he has struggled to mobilise them in ways that command the respect of his coalition partners.

According to this week’s 1News-Verian poll, this is also increasingly evident to the public: only 51% said Luxon is the decision-maker in the coalition government.

Luxon’s relative lack of political experience (compared to Peters, in particular) may be a contributing factor. But his continued low poll rating as preferred prime minister also likely weakens his sway over cabinet – possibly even his own caucus.

Live by the sword …

Should that lack of popularity continue, it imperils National’s chances of success at the next election. Regardless of the formal reality that he has the lawful mandate to be prime minister, Luxon needs to convince the public he deserves their support.

The signs so far aren’t promising. His party did not see a post-election bump in the polls and hasn’t enjoyed a traditional honeymoon effect.

Lack of judgment over his “entitlement” to an accommodation allowance preceded Luxon’s drop in “net favourability” (favourable minus unfavourable results) in the March Taxpayers Union-Curia poll – to below Labour leader Chis Hipkins, who recently led his party to a historic defeat in the election.

In a subsequent poll from Talbot Mills (one of whose clients is the Labour Party), Luxon’s net favourability was –7%. By contrast, former National prime minister John Key scored around +58% at a similar time in his tenure.

In that same survey, the words people associated with Luxon’s character are indicative of the problem. While “business” and “leader” likely hold reasonably positive connotations, “greedy”, “unsure” and “arrogant” clearly do not.

Luxon claimed his sacking of the cabinet ministers demonstrated an ability to “adapt very quickly and dynamically to changing circumstances and situations”. He will need those qualities if he is to turn around public opinion about his character and his government’s performance.

Unless his personal standing with the voting public becomes a key source of his political power, such that his colleagues feel he can carry them to re-election, Luxon may learn the hard way what “live by the sword, die by the sword” means in politics.

Suze Wilson 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. Luxon’s leadership test: what would it take to win back unimpressed NZ voters? – https://theconversation.com/luxons-leadership-test-what-would-it-take-to-win-back-unimpressed-nz-voters-229103

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

The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year.

The killings have shocked the nation and led to mass demonstrations across the country last weekend.

In this podcast, we’re joined by Dr Anne Summers, a longtime writer and advocate on women’s issues.

Half a century ago, Summers helped start Elsie, Australia’s first women’s refuge. She’s currently a professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s business school, where she specialises in domestic and family violence issues.

On what came out of the national cabinet meeting, Summers says:

I found it was quite reassuring that the meeting had addressed a lot more than just some of the sort of, if you like, sexy items to do with deepfakes and regulating the age at which children can watch porn.

The First Ministers recommitted their, to my view, somewhat controversial pledge that they made two years ago that they would end violence against women in a generation. Now they have recommitted to that today and having done so in this context suggests they better get busy with how they’re going to make that happen.

The explosion of technology has brought some extremely harmful effects for women, with the spread of cyberstalking:

It’s the fastest growing form of abuse. What is very disturbing about this is that the kind of equipment that guys are using against, women is very sophisticated. It’s the kind of stuff that, you know, ASIO would only […] have had access to 10 years ago.

A predator […] can install spyware on the telephone of his former partner, remotely, without her knowledge. That enables him to listen in to all her calls, read her texts, read her photographs, and generally keep tabs on her.

Summers says it’s vital we find out more about the perpetrators of the crimes against women, instead of only focusing on the victims:

We have to learn more about the perpetrators – who they are, what they do, how many there are, what their patterns of behaviour are, where they come from. You know, what the issues are in their lives. And we know so much about the women. I mean, the women are researched to death. Every four years the federal government does a personal safety survey which documents in immense detail what women suffer. And that’s great. We know a huge amount about that. But we need to have the same level and depth of information about the men.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Anne Summers says we need much more information on male perpetrators of violence against women – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-anne-summers-says-we-need-much-more-information-on-male-perpetrators-of-violence-against-women-229123

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago

Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. His new series for Netflix, Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, lives up to these expectations.

Against this visually rich backdrop emerge the scheming, menacing and murderous courtesans of Heeramandi.

The series is set in Heeramandi, a historical red-light district of Lahore in present-day Pakistan. It unfolds against the backdrop of the Indian freedom struggle against British rule.

The show is an entanglement of plot lines – a murder investigation, a war of succession, a budding love story and a courtesan’s secret involvement in a rebellion against British rule.

Eventually, all characters and storylines converge around the central theme of anti-colonial nationalism. Driven by nationalist fervour, the courtesans call themselves “patriots” and willingly sacrifice their careers and lives for the country.

But who were the real courtesans?

Role models for female independence

The show takes creative liberties by distorting the lives and timelines of the historical courtesans.

The North Indian tawa’ifs (courtesans), or nautch-girls (dancing girls, as the British called them), were cultural idols, female intellectuals and entrepreneurs.

Dating back to ancient India, these women were trained in music, dance, fashion, poetry, repartee, etiquette, languages and literature from a young age. Typically following a system of matrilineal inheritance, courtesans passed down their professional knowledge and skills to talented daughters of the household.

Once trained, courtesans attracted patronage from royal courts, feudal aristocrats and colonial officers.

This unique class enjoyed privileges not afforded to most women in Indian society, such as education and personal income. They led glamorous lifestyles, wielded power and wealth, and paid taxes.

As independent professionals, they contributed to Indian arts and culture, travelled extensively, made connections with chosen kin and often embraced gender fluidity.

Their financial, political and sexual independence challenged patriarchal gender norms and restrictive Hindu moral laws that dictated the lives of women from upper-middle-class families.

Complicated relationships

In Heeramandi, the courtesans turn patriotic to avenge the British police officers for raping and killing the natives. While these actions are dramatic, the historical relationship between courtesans, the British empire and Indian nationalism was more complex.

The politically engaged Bibbojaan (Aditi Rao Hydari) mirrors Azizan Bai, a courtesan from Kanpur who is said to have financially supported the 1857 mutiny against the British East India Company.

While the mutiny was one of the most widespread anti-colonial revolts of the 19th century, Indian nationalism was not its primary aim, but a consequence. Azizan’s interest was in maintaining her patronage from the native rulers for her social and economic wellbeing.

After 1857, India’s governance shifted from the East India Company to the Crown, leading to the spread of British rule across India alongside Western education and Victorian morality. Meanwhile, nationalist leaders envisioned a nation as a pure land of sacred Hindu ancestors and valued chastity in women.

Both the imperial and nationalist ideals clashed with the courtesans’ sexual freedom.

In the 1890s, Hindu reformers and bourgeois nationalists joined Christian missionaries in organising anti-nautch campaigns that advocated boycotting them to “rescue” art and culture from perceived immorality. This led to the downfall of the courtesan class.

In Heeramandi, patronage diminishes and the women’s dreams of marriage fade. The courtesans shut down their salons, give up their careers and sacrifice their lives for the nation.

But historical courtesans were quick to reinvent themselves in the face of declining patronage and social stigma.

They turned to the power of modern technology. Gauhar Jaan, a famous courtesan, became a celebrated concert singer and gramophone artist, earning the title of “India’s Melba” in the international press.

In 1921, Gandhi asked Gauhar Jaan to perform for the Swaraj Fund. Aware of the ambiguous position courtesans held in nationalist discourse, she agreed on the condition that Gandhi attend her performance. When Gandhi failed to show up, she contributed only half of the raised amount to the cause.

Courtesans contributed significantly to the founding of the Indian film industry through their artistry, star power and capital investment. The first generation of female film stars came from courtesan backgrounds: Jaddan Bai, Kajjan Bai, Akhtaribai Faizabadi and Naseem Banu entered the industry as actors, singers, composers, directors and studio owners.

Later, some acted as managers and costume designers for their daughters, the emerging actors of the next generation.

By becoming modern-day artists, the courtesans preserved their art. They remained visible and relevant in a society that was increasingly obliterating women’s cultural contributions and diminishing their role as citizens in an emerging nation.

Patriarchal nationalism

In the show, a woman’s value is judged by her respectability, marital status and the presence of a male guardian controlling her sexuality. Courtesans refer to themselves as “birds in gilded cages” and dream of freedom from their courtesan lifestyle.

Here, the courtesans’ nationalism resonates with present-day far-right Hindu nationalists, seemingly promising women empowerment in nationalism but, in reality, reserving only regressive roles for women.

Heeramandi oversimplifies the multilayered persona of tawa’ifs. The series portrays them as melancholic victims yearning for patriarchal married bliss, while remaining marginalised in respectable society. But these women should be remembered as celebrated figures filled with joie-de-vivre, gusto and spiritedness.

They should be honoured for their strategies of self-representation and processes of self-determination, as they turned resilience into a way of life.

Radhika Raghav 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. Who were the real courtesans at the heart of Netflix’s Heeramandi? – https://theconversation.com/who-were-the-real-courtesans-at-the-heart-of-netflixs-heeramandi-228600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University

Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility.

Those were the words of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as he reported on the outcomes of today’s National Cabinet meeting on gender-based violence.

This is a crucial moment.

It’s not the first time Australian government leaders and senior officials have met to discuss strategies to address violence against women. But it’s the first time the National Cabinet has met specifically to commit to greater action. Seen in recent protest marches across the country, there’s a lot of public demand for rapid change.

Out of today’s meeting there is a renewed commitment for “national unity”, across all governments, towards the shared mission to end gender-based violence.

We know why this mission continues to be urgent.

At least 28 women have died, allegedly at the hands of men’s violence, so far this year. And many more women are living with the harms of men’s violence all across the country.

One in four women have experienced violence by an intimate partner or family member since the age of 15. One in five women have experienced sexual violence and one in five women have experienced stalking. While we seem to be making progress in reducing 12 month prevalence rates of intimate partner violence, our Personal Safety Survey also indicates the rates of sexual violence and stalking have not been changing. It’s clear we need more action.

What came out of National Cabinet?

The biggest announcement from today’s meeting is a new federal government investment of A$925 million over five years to permanently establish the Leaving Violence Program. This is to be included in the upcoming budget and builds on the existing pilot scheme. The scheme delivers up to $5,000 in crisis support for women leaving violent relationships, as well as risk assessments and access to support services.

There was also a big focus on online measures to combat online harms and to reduce the exposure of children and young people to violent and misogynistic content. This included commitments to new laws banning sexualised “deepfake” images, as well as a review of classifications to reduce exposure to violent sexualised content. And $6.5 million will be committed to pilot age assurance technologies to restrict children’s exposure to inappropriate content, including violent pornographic material.

Read more:
Whether of politicians, pop stars or teenage girls, sexualised deepfakes are on the rise. They hold a mirror to our sexist world

The government will also bring forward a review of the Online Safety Act and fast-track already proposed anti-doxing laws. The aim of these steps is to protect victims from online harms, including the non-consensual disclosure of their personal information.

The prime minister also highlighted several existing federal government commitments. These included the funding commitments to women’s homelessness and housing services and funding increases for the eSafety Commissioner. Also mentioned was the next phase of the national Stop It At the Start campaign, which is due to be released mid-year and will focus on how to have preventative conversations with young people around their attitudes and behaviours.

Importantly, there is an agreement for National Cabinet to meet again on violence against women next quarter and to report back on progress made and crucial next steps. The states and territories also agreed to collaborate and share their own best-practice evidence and initiatives.

What further changes might be on the horizon?

To end gender-based violence we need to do everything we can. We need a range of short, medium and long-term actions. The outcomes of the National Cabinet meeting today indicated some further areas earmarked for ongoing discussion.

There were suggestions of the need for greater harmonisation of laws between states and territories. This is vital if we are to ensure women have equal protections and justice mechanisms in place no matter where in Australia they live. What was not mentioned, however, was the need for adequate resourcing of specialist police, legal and court services to support access to justice for victims of family and sexual violence.

There was also mention of improved information sharing between states and territories to promote greater accountability for repeat violent perpetrators. This is not a straight-forward area, but there are good examples of coordinated system responses that show when and how the sharing of information might be vital for women’s safety.

Workforce issues were also referred to, with an urging for a more rapid rollout of the federal government’s existing commitment of 500 extra domestic and family violence support workers. If you speak with these support services, it is clear they are under high demand from victim-survivors. There are often unacceptable wait lists. The extra workers are much needed, but it will also take accessible and affordable training to extend this specialist workforce.

Albanese also highlighted both the effectiveness of respectful relationships education in schools and the need for a national approach to respectful relationships education across the country. To date, both Victoria and Queensland have led the way in this work but certainly we need to scale-up our prevention efforts with young people if we want to end gender-based violence for the next generation.

Delivering on the National Plan

The National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children (2022 to 2032) and its first action plans already identify a shared roadmap across prevention, early intervention, response, and recovery. Each of these four priority areas are crucial to a holistic strategy to end gender-based violence.

And for the first time, we have a stand-alone Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander action plan with an already-announced federal government commitment for a National Plan for First Nations women. This is especially vital in light of the over-representation of First Nations women experiencing violence.

Delivering on these strategies must continue to be a priority. The National Plan has been developed over many years of research evidence, consultation, as well as both sector and lived-experience expertise. And it is arguably world-leading in its comprehensive approach.

But as Micaela Cronin, Australia’s first Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner, remarked today:

No plan in such a complex area can be a “set and forget plan”.

It’s vital we draw on evidence-based approaches and best practice as we continue to refine our actions to address and prevent gender-based violence. This includes addressing the gender inequality and intersecting inequalities that drive violence against women. And also directly addressing the reinforcing factors that can contribute to violence and its escalation, such as prior experiences of violence, drug and alcohol misuse, problem gambling and poverty.

There is also a pressing need for governments to continue to work collaboratively to coordinate action and adequate investment across all levels of government. This is not the time to play politics between parties.

No Australian government has yet solved this problem. Every Australian government can and should do more to advance women’s safety.

Perhaps the most important outcome from today’s National Cabinet meeting is not just a renewed national commitment on action to end gender-based violence, but an Australia that will hold all governments to account on delivering their promises.

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

Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). Anastasia is also a director of Our Watch (Australia’s national organisation for the prevention of violence against women), and a member of the National Women’s Safety Alliance (NWSA).

– ref. National Cabinet has committed to a range of strategies to stop violence against women, but has it done enough? – https://theconversation.com/national-cabinet-has-committed-to-a-range-of-strategies-to-stop-violence-against-women-but-has-it-done-enough-229106

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle

Plans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station have previously not gone ahead. As we grapple with decarbonisation, bioenergy (energy derived from harvested trees and other plants) is often put on the table as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels.

But is it environmentally sound? The annoying answer is: it depends.

Trees and other plants soak up carbon from the atmosphere and store it as biomass. When they are burnt for electricity production the same carbon is released. This would suggest bioenergy is “carbon-neutral”.

But it’s not that simple. Many things can change the environmental credentials of a bioenergy project. Every project is unique and must be considered independently.

So let’s break down the five key questions we should ask about every bioenergy project.

1. What is the source of the biomass?

The bewildering array of plants on our planet means a huge amount of biomass “feedstock” is available. So what should we use?

First, we do not want to be cutting down native forests. Even using native forestry “residues” (by-products like bark and ends of trees that can’t be directly used) is problematic. The residues are made regardless of the bioenergy project, but tethering a power station to the native forestry industry, and creating a reliance on it continuing, is contentious. Some states have already flagged the end of native logging.

Fast-growing biomass species such as mallee could instead be harvested as purpose-grown energy “crops”. This can seem like an attractive option, but the sheer amount of land needed for energy crops on any reasonable scale can be prohibitive.

Agricultural residues and “waste” biomass, such as organic material sent to landfill (from household bins, for example), are also readily available. The Australian Bioenergy Roadmap shows large amounts of potentially usable waste biomass nationally.

In most cases waste biomass would otherwise go into landfill, be burnt in an open field or be left to decompose without emission controls. The most pressing issues for using waste biomass then come from our next question.

2. How much energy is needed to collect the biomass?

Biomass energy literally grows on trees. But it’s spread out over a large area and requires a central processing facility.

Collecting biomass, processing it and getting it where it needs to go takes energy. At present, that’s mostly fossil-fuelled energy, including diesel trucks and chippers.

The more spread out the biomass is, the more energy is used for harvest and collection. Transport and processing usually accounts for most bioenergy-related emissions.

And the need for biomass is continuous. It must be collected and delivered to the central facility every day without fail.

The electrification of transport, including electric or hydrogen-fuelled trucks, might help offset this energy use. However, this is still a costly option and not often considered in bioenergy projects.

3. What would happen without the bioenergy project?

What would happen to the biomass if it wasn’t being used for bioenergy? If it is expected to remain in a stable carbon form (such as a tree), burning it would be a comparative net-positive carbon release.

If, however, the biomass is contributing to emissions or causing local environmental problems, such as invasive weeds, using it for bioenergy might be a better environmental outcome. The Hunter Valley project proposes to use woody weeds cleared from rural properties for part of its inputs.

What about the land used? Should we use land to harvest energy (bioenergy or otherwise)? Or can it be used to restore habitat?

We need to minimise land use for energy and be as efficient as possible. We need to be thinking regeneratively and taking back wild places for vulnerable fauna and flora.

4. What are the (real) alternatives?

If we compare a bioenergy plant with a coal-fired power station, biomass is usually greener. But new coal-fired electricity is not on the table in Australia.

Solar and wind are the true competitors for future electricity generation. These energy sources are readily available and have very low associated costs and emissions.

Solar and wind are inherently variable. Biomass electricity generation is more like traditional coal-fired power, operating continuously. That might sound like a good way to produce an energy “baseload”. However, it might not be particularly useful in a future grid where variation is a design feature, not a flaw.

We can make things other than electricity with biomass. Sustainable aviation fuels, methanol, or gases like hydrogen and biomethane are some examples. These products can replace fossil fuels in hard-to-abate sectors.

Biochar, a charcoal-like product made by heating biomass without air, could also be produced. It has several environmental advantages when used to improve soil, including increasing the carbon content. Even so, suggestions to use biochar as a strategy to reduce emissions must be approached with great caution.

Since biomass is made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, the same starting elements as fossil fuels, more advanced bio-derived products can also be made as substitutes for petrochemical products.

5. What other impacts would the project have?

Irrigating bioenergy crops can create water stress. Soil quality and land degradation must also be considered.

And transporting and processing biomass might create other emissions such as particulates that would affect project neighbours.

The reality is that modern-day humans and our technologies are bad for the environment, full stop. Every technology will have an impact. So the question is: which option has the least impact?

Getting bioenergy right is a challenge

The best bioenergy projects should make useful products or offer a substitute to fossil fuels. They should complement renewable energy generation.

They should use readily available waste or sources of biomass that would otherwise cause environmental problems. They should also minimise (or electrify) energy use for collecting and processing biomass.

Yes, bioenergy can be environmentally sound. It’s not impossible. But it’s not always easy to get it right.

Jessica Allen 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. Is bioenergy ever truly green? It depends on 5 key questions – https://theconversation.com/is-bioenergy-ever-truly-green-it-depends-on-5-key-questions-228202

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University

Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media and polling data tell us about the outcome six months on?

Our expert team analysed over 3 million social and mainstream media posts and stories, thousands of online political ads, and scores of public opinion polls to address common misconceptions about the outcome. We identified key factors that contributed to the defeat. They are:

1. Lack of bipartisan support. As history has shown, bipartisan support is critical for success in Australia referendums. The Voice was no different.

Public support nose-dived after Peter Dutton’s announcement of opposition to the Voice in April 2023, following the Nationals’ decision to reject the “yes” case in November 2022.

As indicated by opinion polls, support for “Yes” dropped 25 percentage points in the year leading up to the vote. The decline accelerated after Dutton’s announcement.

Averaging public opinion polls over 2022-23, support peaked around 65% in October 2022. This is a long way from the final result of 39.94% of voters nationally supporting a change to the Constitution, compared to 60.06% rejecting it.

But this initial majority backing for the Voice was likely due to early surveys overstating support. This was a function of the issue’s low salience, the superficially positive character of the “Voice” label, and biases in survey responses attributable to social desirability and acquiescence.

Even by historical standards, this was a significant shift in public opinion over a short time and shows the influence political elites have on public opinion. It also underscores the structural difficulty of constitutional change without bipartisan consensus.

2. Labor voters divided. Labor voters were equivocal about the Voice, affecting the outcome. We find wide variation in support for the Voice across Labor-held seats, which was a principal contributor to the referendum’s failure.

Only 21 of Labor’s 78 seats in the House of Representatives returned “yes” majorities. Most of these most were inner-city electorates. Three Labor-held seats – Spence (outer Adelaide), Hunter (regional NSW) and Blair (Qld) – had “no” votes exceeding 70%.

In contrast to Labor, Greens and Teal voters overall supported the Voice. If the 2022 federal election results were to be transposed directly onto the Voice referendum, the Voice would have prevailed.

3. Demographic fault lines. Generally speaking, voters in inner metropolitan electorates in capital cities were more likely to back the Voice proposal. Rural and regional seats recorded the largest “no” votes.

Support for the Voice also cleaved along lines marked by age, educational attainment and wealth. In the small number of locations where it is clear Indigenous people comprised the bulk of voters, we see Indigenous Australians overwhelmingly supported the Voice.

4. The “no” campaign was simple, repetitive and targeted. While it is impossible to draw direct lines between campaign messaging and electoral outcomes, we see patterns in paid online advertising and free mainstream and social media data that offer insights into the success of the “no” campaign. It was highly targeted.

While its message was channelled through a range of entities such as “Referendum News”, “Not Enough”, “Not My Voice” and “Fair Australia”, these were all overseen by conservative lobby group, Advance Australia. Their focus-group-tested messages were simple – “the voice will divide us” and “if you don’t know, vote no” – and repeated frequently across Australia’s diverse media ecosystem.

When it comes to media coverage, content volume mattered less than strategy. While “no” attracted less overall mainstream media coverage, according to our analysis of Meltwater data, it honed its key messages much earlier and embraced social media, particularly TikTok.

Spearheading these narratives were Indigenous campaigners Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine. Both were household names by polling day. They were a potent team and bolstered the credibility of arguments against the referendum for non-Indigenous Australians.

Refining the “no” narrative early on enabled proponents to amass more followers across social media platforms than “yes” – with the exception of the Uluru Statement’s Instagram presence.

Media coverage by Sky News Australia amplified the “no” case. Sky had a vast reach through its YouTube channel (over 9 million views from 500 Voice clips), subscription TV and free regional TV programs. Its commentators and conservative politicians also used story snippets to spread the “no” message on social media.

In contrast, the “yes” campaigns were disparate. These consisted of at least three major groups – “Yes23”, “Uluru Statement from the Heart” and “Liberals for Yes” – offering a range of messages and messengers. This diversity of actors and narratives, including business, unions and civil society groups, may have generated voter confusion, message overload and, in some instances, backlash.

5. Mis- and disinformation and targeted attacks. This was prevalent during the referendum across both mainstream and social media spheres. It coincided with unprecedented attacks on third-party fact-checkers, notably RMIT FactLab. Our post-referendum survey showed subsequent falls in trust for RMIT FactLab among right-leaning voters.

The referendum also prompted unsubstantiated American-styled attacks on the Australian Electoral Commission, with accusations of “vote rigging” including from the opposition leader. But unlike the US, these claims were by the victors, not the vanquished.

Some reporting – including by the BBC – also linked this “disinformation ecosystem” to the amplification of racist memes and commentary during the campaign.

6. Crowding-out by other issues. As the Voice campaign unfolded, other concerns, notably the cost-of-living crisis, dominated the policy agenda and polls. The “no” campaign strategically utilised voter concerns about personal finances and the economy in its paid advertisements, highlighting the referendum’s cost and future implementation expenses.

Critics leveraged the economic downturn to downplay the Voice as a secondary issue.

Together, we argue these six factors contributed to the Voice to Parliament defeat. You can read the full report here.

Andrea Carson receives funding from Meta and a La Trobe University Synergy grant to undertake this project.

Rebecca Strating receives funding from a La Trobe University Synergy grant to undertake this project.

Simon Jackman was a paid consultant on this project.

– ref. Why did the Voice referendum fail? We crunched the data and found 6 reasons – https://theconversation.com/why-did-the-voice-referendum-fail-we-crunched-the-data-and-found-6-reasons-228383

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

The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies.

The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue at Wednesday’s special national cabinet meeting on the issue of violence against women.

After the meeting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the federal government would devote $925.2 million over five years to establish permanently the Leaving Violence Program. Those eligible will be able to receive up to $5000, as well as help with referral services, risk assessment and safety planning.

A $5000 “escaping violence” payment was introduced under the Morrison government. The Albanese government stresses that was a “trial” program.

The role of the access to pornography and other misogynistic material has become an increasing matter of concern in gendered violence.

Deepfake pornography is visual content created using AI technology.

“I understand parents want to protect their kids from harmful material online,” Albanese said. “Social platforms have important social responsibilities and we need them to step up. Taken together, these reforms will give Australian families some of the tools they need to navigate the complexity of the digital world.”

He said the legislation would carry “serious criminal penalties”.

The prime minister admitted it was hard to police the internet. “We don’t under-estimate how difficult this is,” he said. But “online players need to understand exactly what the consequences are of a free-for-all online”.

The age-assurance pilot was recommended by the eSafety Commissioner and has also been supported by the federal opposition.

Communication Minister Michelle Rowland said the pilot would address access to age-inappropriate material including pornography.

“Taking steps to prevent access for minors to age-inappropriate content like pornography is one tool that can help protect young minds from damaging and misogynistic behaviours,” Rowland said.

The leaders at national cabinet agreed there needed to be more focus across jurisdictions on “high-risk perpetrators and serial offenders to prevent homicides”.

Police ministers and attorneys-general will develop “options for improving police responses to high risk and serial perpetrators, including considering use of focused deterrence and fixated threat strategies”.

There will be reports back to a later national cabinet meeting.

Bail has become a hot-button issue after New South Wales woman Molly Ticehurst was allegedly murdered by her former partner who was on bail.

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

– ref. Albanese government flags measures to tackle online misogyny in the battle against violence towards women – https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-flags-measures-to-tackle-online-misogyny-in-the-battle-against-violence-towards-women-229109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology

In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of job vacancies fell by 6.1% between November 2023 and February 2024. Every click on a job ad can either open doors to amazing opportunities, or plunge job seekers into perfectly set up cyber traps.

The latest annual Targeting Scams report shows a seemingly encouraging 13.1% decline in scam losses reported by Australians – down to A$2.74 billion in 2023. But it doesn’t mean we should get complacent. Scammers are continuously refining their techniques and expanding their reach.

Particularly alarming is the volume of job scams (also known as employment or recruitment scams). These scams were among the top ten scam categories in 2023, with a dramatic 150% increase in financial losses compared to the year before.

How exactly do job scams work? And how can job seekers distinguish between legitimate job offers and deceptive schemes?

What is a job scam?

Job scammers attract people by promising fake jobs that require little effort but promise a substantial financial reward or “guaranteed” income, or perhaps even a “dream job” at a real company they’re impersonating. The end goal in all cases is to extract money and/or personal details from the victim.

Employment scams may take many forms, but there are several tell-tale signs.

Scammers use social media, unsolicited emails, encrypted chat applications (such as WhatsApp or Telegram), phone calls or even legitimate employment websites to advertise non-existent jobs.

Job scammers may also impersonate recruiters from genuine organisations, including high-level executives or even hiring managers conducting interviews for jobs that do not exist.

For some of these jobs, the scammer will ask for some type of upfront fee to secure the employment, pay for onboarding, or to purchase (non-existent) products the job seeker is supposed to sell. The moment the fee is paid, the scammer will instantly disappear.

Sometimes, job scammers promise a high commission if the person uses their own bank account to transfer existing funds into an offshore account, cryptocurrency exchange or gift cards. This is likely money laundering.

Depending on the type of job scam, cyber criminals conducting a fake application and onboarding process may even gain access to sensitive information such as your passport number, driver’s licence and other credentials. This puts you at high risk of identity theft.

Who is vulnerable to job scams and why?

Scammers target their victims based on their online behaviour, financial situation, needs and even vulnerability to certain types of persuasion.

The increasing cost of living in Australia is creating a fertile ground for job scams. People in desperate need of employment, those who have been unemployed for a very long time and those seeking additional income via part-time (usually remote) jobs are all at high risk of becoming victims to these job scams.

These individuals are driven by economic need and will easily overlook or not recognise red flags. University students and recent graduates looking for valuable work experience in tough job markets are increasingly becoming targets of job scams, too.

Immigrants can be particularly susceptible to job scams, mainly because they may not be familiar with legitimate employment processes, standard recruitment practices and Australian employment rights.

In extreme cases, employment scams can even result in international human trafficking, as shown by an incident in Cambodia last year, with victims being locked into compounds, having their passports confiscated and being trained to scam others. Captors would release them only upon receiving a ransom fee payment.

How can I avoid a job scam?

Apart from using a “stop, think and protect” approach, here are more tips on how to protect yourself from job scams:

• Use only legitimate job boards and networking sites. For example, LinkedIn verifies recruiters with a visible badge on their profiles.

• Critically evaluate and check job listings by looking for comprehensive information and list of qualifications. Seek advice from trusted professionals to validate the legitimacy of the job offer.

• Don’t respond to non-corporate emails, texts or other messages offering “too good to be true” unsolicited employment opportunities with high returns.

• Conduct thorough research by always verifying the legitimacy of the offer. Check the company’s official website, read trusted reviews, call or even visit.

• Avoid providing credentials including passport details, a driver’s licence, Medicare number, or financial information (a bank account number or PayID) during the application or onboarding process.

• Don’t provide an upfront payment and don’t pay fees for training, equipment or software as a condition of being hired.

• Never agree to receive or transfer funds through your own bank account on behalf of someone else for a commission.

Overall, stay vigilant. If you do come across any job scams, make sure to report them to the Scamwatch website.

Dimitrios Salampasis is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia and member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

– ref. Job scams are on the rise. What are they, and how can you protect yourself? – https://theconversation.com/job-scams-are-on-the-rise-what-are-they-and-how-can-you-protect-yourself-228996

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia

How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra

What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics.

What is sugar?

Sugar is an important substance for our body and brain to make energy.

Sugar comes from foods called carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates help our bodies to keep strong muscles. They help our brains to think and learn. They support our organs like the heart and liver to work well, and help our intestines to digest our food and remove waste.

When we eat fruits, vegetables, cereals and grains, we get helpful sugar that the cells in our body and brain need to make energy.

When we eat processed foods like lollies, ice creams and soft drinks, we get extra or added sugars that can be unhelpful in large amounts.

These added sugars were thought to provide extra energy – a “sugar rush” that makes us feel good, happy and energetic.

When we eat sugary treats, it was thought that they make us do more jumping, playing, thinking and learning.

But this is where it gets interesting. A sugar rush is a myth because the body and brain work hard to keep sugar steady. This means you probably feel good from having a treat, not the sugar!

If a ‘sugar rush’ is a myth, what happens?

It can be hard to stay away from sugary treats and lollies when they are right in front of us.

When we eat lollies, we get an extra amount of sugar in our bodies. Our bodies, taste buds and brain like it because we can use the sugar to do things.

Sugar is taken up into your bloodstream quickly. Cleverly, our body then moves the sugar around in the bloodstream to your cells, muscles and organs, like your heart and brain.

The sugar in your bloodstream is very carefully handled.

Your body will make sure all the muscles and organs have just the right amount of sugar that they need to make energy and do their job.

This means that the flow of sugar in the body is kept steady and there is no “sugar rush”.

The body and brain have lots of support systems in place to make sure there isn’t too much or too little sugar.

Sometimes, if there is too much sugar in the bloodstream and the body doesn’t use all the sugar at once, the sugar will be stored. There are lots of storage places in the body. In fact the body is very good at storing the sugar for use later so that your muscles and organs have just the right amount of sugar when they need it.

Because the body and brain are very busy making sure there is just the right amount of sugar, it can get tired. When this happens, this is called a “sugar crash”.

Huh?! We get a sugar crash instead?

Many experiments with lots of people show us that when we eat lots of sugar, we can get a “sugar crash”.

Scientists have shown that even just 30 minutes after eating lots of sugar, you can end up feeling not quite as good as you did before. A sugar crash is why, after eating sugary treats, you may find yourself feeling sad and tired – even a little bit grumpy.

So this means that if you’ve had a sugary treat and you’re feeling good, you’re probably feeling good because you’re having fun with family and friends, rather than from the sugar.

Doing fun things, playing and trying new games and activities will help your body and brain to feel good, with or without sugar!

Hello, Curious Kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

Talitha Best 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. Curious Kids: how do sugar rushes work? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-sugar-rushes-work-224512