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

Sussan Ley is resisting growing internal pressure for the Coalition to quickly discuss and determine the future of its policy on net zero.

A number of Liberals and Nationals urged the debate be brought forward and the process for decision making clarified, at the Liberal and Coalition party meetings on Tuesday.

The pressure reflects the surge in support especially in the Nationals – but also in parts of the Liberal Party – for dumping the 2050 net zero commitment. More generally, it is becoming increasingly politically untenable for the Coalition to remain in limbo over its policy.

The opposition’s hand is also being forced by the fact the government will announce within weeks Australia’s 2035 emissions reduction target under the Paris agreement. This target, which may be a range rather than a particular number, appears likely to between 65% and 75%, on previous indications. Australia’s 2030 target is a 43% reduction on 2005 emissions.

Sources said Tuesday’s push started in the Liberal party room meeting with the matter raised by South Australian conservative Tony Pasin and then continued at the joint party meeting.

A range of speakers including both conservatives and moderates, with differing positions on net zero, argued the Coalition needed to get on with settling a position.

Initially, the need for a position was about a 2035 target and then broadened into the need to settle its position on net zero.

Pasin later told Sky he had sought clarification on the process for making the decisions but didn’t get it. He said the opposition could not wait 12-18 months to decide a policy.

High profile Nationals Matt Canavan and Barnaby Joyce are running an intense campaign to change the Coalition’s policy. The government is ensuring Joyce’s private member’s bill to remove legislative references to net zero is regularly debated in the time given each week to private member’s bills.

The Nationals seem certain to dump net zero sooner rather than later, while the Liberals are divided and Ley is trying to stick to her timetable of a comprehensive Coalition review before a decision is made.

The review team includes representation from the Nationals, and is chaired by Victorian Liberal Dan Tehan, who is energy spokesman.

Tehan told Sky on Tuesday, “I’ve said quite clearly on the record a number of times that I support net zero by 2050”.

Last Friday the Queensland Liberal National Party convention overwhelmingly rejected net zero. Meetings of the Liberal organisations in South Australia and Western Australia had done so earlier.

While the party organisation can’t impose policy on the Liberal parliamentary party, the stands increase the pressure on MPs, who have an eye to their preselections.

Frontbencher Andrew Hastie is not waiting for the review. He
told the ABC on Tuesday, “I believe in a sovereign, secure, competitive and prosperous Australia, and I think net zero undermines that very thing”. Hastie has been outspoken on the issue before.

The Liberal leader in the senate, and fellow Western Australian, Michaelia Cash, has backed the WA motion against net zero.

Labor predictably capitalised on the Coalition’s problems with its energy policy, with Energy Minister Chris Bowen telling parliament, “What we have is two parties, one Coalition, and many, many ways of killing net zero”.

Ley told a news conference Labor’s coming announcement of its 2035 targets would give the opposition an opportunity to ask the government to demonstrate what these targets will cost, how it would deliver on promises and what they would mean for manufacturing businesses and Australian households.

Deciding the 2035 target finds the government caught between ambition and practicality. For the opposition, the government’s announcement will put it on the spot – but, if the internal heat becomes too much, it would also provide an opportunity to deal with the net zero issue. That would mean, however, dramatically accerelating the Tehan review and the policy-making process.

Whether she sticks to her present timetable or revises it, Ley finds herself in a corner. And that’s just over timing. On the substance of the issue, she is caught between the strong anti net zero lobby within the Coalition and the need to appeal to urban voters and young people, who mostly consider net zero a no brainer.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Growing push for early decision on climate policy wedges Ley – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-growing-push-for-early-decision-on-climate-policy-wedges-ley-263435

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Itai Einav, Professor in Geomechanics, University of Sydney

What looks like ordinary sand, rocks or snow flowing in one direction can actually hide swirling currents that move in multiple directions beneath the surface.

When grains move in a landslide, most follow the steepest downhill path. This is the “primary flow”, where particles largely follow the herd. But some grains move sideways or swirl in hidden patterns, forming “secondary flows” that subtly influence how far and fast the material travels.

Understanding how grains move beneath the surface could help explain the physics of avalanches and landslides, and even improve how we handle everyday materials like wheat in silos or powders in pharmaceuticals.

However, nobody has been able to observe these hidden swirls – until now. In a study published in Nature Communications today, we have captured secondary flows inside granular materials for the first time with our advanced X-ray imaging setup.

A bulldozing experiment

The idea these secondary flows exist isn’t new. Researchers have seen these hidden movements in powerful computer simulations of grains between rotating cylinders or in landslides that model each particle’s movement using basic laws of physics. But that’s a purely theoretical way to study them.

Observing the flows in real granular materials – such as sand, snow or similar – has been almost impossible. To look inside the flow, you’d either have to keep stopping the grains for standard X-ray scans or add a liquid that makes them see-through. Unfortunately, both approaches change how the grains naturally behave.

We set out to study the flow of glass beads (a perfect granular material for a lab setting) in a bulldozing experiment, where a conveyor belt pushes grains into a wall, causing them to pile up.

In our lab, we have developed an entirely new method called X-ray rheography which can take three-dimensional images of moving grains. Called DynamiX, this setup allows us to see what’s really happening beneath the surface.

To our surprise, the test revealed ripples on the surface, which earlier studies had linked to hidden secondary flows.

These flows had never been directly observed in three dimensions without stopping the motion or altering the material with fluid.

We could watch these hidden currents in action without disturbing the movement of the glass beads. Yet the complex geometry meant we could capture only the magnitude of the flow in one direction, along the conveyor belt as the primary direction, leaving the rest of the three-dimensional picture incomplete.

What we discovered underneath

To really pin down the secondary flows, we went further than just watching the grains with DynamiX.

We developed another X-ray method to map the surface of the flowing heap from X-ray images, linking tiny ripples on top to the swirling motion underneath. We also measured how grains move through the full depth of the pile, including sideways motions.

The main flow goes all in the same direction. So, the sideways movements we detected were the first direct experimental proof of secondary flows.

By looking inside these hidden flows, we are revealing the surprising versatility of granular materials. They can behave like solids that support buildings or like complex fluids with intricate internal currents.

Swirling motions are common

While we didn’t study landslides directly, our experiments on bulldozed particles reveal something important.

We now know secondary flows are at play whenever particles are pushed, such as when ploughing snow or moving grains in agriculture, for example. The swirling motions we observed appear to be ubiquitous in complex particle flows.

What does this mean for landslides? Detailed experiments like ours provide crucial data that can be used to validate and improve mathematical models. Current models often ignore secondary flows and cannot predict them.

Read more:
What causes landslides? Can we predict them to save lives?

Our work offers the experimental foundation for future modelling. Understanding and modelling these secondary flows could help engineers better predict the destructive power of landslides, including runouts that are currently underestimated.

It could also improve industrial processes, from powder handling in pharmaceuticals to snow clearing and beyond.

While our results are specific to bulldozed grains, they point to a broader principle – secondary flows are a fundamental feature of particle motion which must be considered in any realistic model of granular behaviour.

Beneath the surface of any moving pile of grains, hidden swirling currents are shaping the flow. Recognising these movements is key to understanding everything from avalanches to industrial particle handling.

Itai Einav receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. For the first time, scientists observed the ‘hidden swirls’ that affect the flow of sand, rocks and snow – https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-scientists-observed-the-hidden-swirls-that-affect-the-flow-of-sand-rocks-and-snow-262959

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Max Andrews, Associate Lecturer of Sports Science, The University of Queensland

In a recent clash against the Melbourne Storm, the Brisbane Broncos endured a nightmare rarely seen in professional sport — three players tore their hamstrings in a single game. Two players, Adam Reynolds and Ezra Mam, went down in the same play.

Hamstring strains are the most common non-contact muscle injury in running sports such as rugby league. One in three players will suffer the same injury again.

So why do they happen and what can be done to stop them?

Hamstrings are a huge issue for athletes

More than 80% of all hamstring injuries in sport occur during sprinting, while others occur during stretching movements such as kicking.

The danger point is usually the “late swing” phase of sprinting: the split second before the foot strikes the ground when the leg is swinging forward at high speed.

At this moment, the hamstrings are contracting while also lengthening.

The hamstrings’ job is to slow the leg and prepare it for ground contact. This requires very high forces at long muscle lengths — a combination that increases vulnerability to injury.

It is not just speed that is dangerous.

Using the recent Storm-Broncos game as an example, when Xavier Coates intercepted the ball, and Mam and Reynolds suddenly accelerated to chase him down, their hamstrings were actually stretched further and faster than if they were running at a steady pace, even at much higher speeds.

Think of your hamstrings like a rubber band: during constant speed running the muscles stretch gradually, but yank it suddenly (as during acceleration) and it stretches faster — making it more likely to snap.

In fact, accelerating while running at only half your top speed puts the same stretch on your hamstrings as running constantly at nearly 90% of your maximum speed.

How to reduce hamstring injury risk

While no strategy can completely eliminate risk, there is evidence that two approaches reduce hamstring injuries: sprinting and eccentric strength training.

Eccentric strength training involves exercises where the muscle lengthens under tension, such as slowly lowering a weight.

Eccentric training, particularly the Nordic hamstring exercise, can cut hamstring injuries by more than 50% when done regularly.

This exercise puts the hamstrings under high force while they are lengthening, triggering structural and functional changes that make them more resilient.

Regular sprint training may help protect against hamstring injury by preparing the muscles for the exact demands they face in competition.

But if athletes go long periods without sprinting, a sudden spike in sprinting load can greatly increase their risk.

Consistency is crucial

Eccentric training can lengthen muscle fibres within 2-3 weeks, mainly from stretching existing sarcomeres (tiny building blocks inside each muscle fibre that allow it to contract and stretch).

This short-term (two to three weeks) change may not provide much real protection from injury.

However, with longer-term training (around nine weeks), new sarcomeres are added, creating longer fibres that can better withstand the big stretches of sprinting.

This difference helps explain why short pre-season training blocks may be insufficient and why consistent eccentric training is needed to build lasting protection.

Eccentric training also increases strength by building the size of the muscles.

Bigger hamstrings are stronger and can cope better with the huge forces they face during sprinting.

These two changes — longer fibres and greater strength — appear to be the main reasons eccentric training cuts injury risk by half.

It’s also possible other changes play a role, like the muscles switching on more quickly or the tendons and connective tissues getting stronger but research in this area is still limited.

Challenges for athletes and teams

The protective changes from eccentric training are not permanent.

Fibre length and added sarcomeres begin to regress within three weeks of stopping.

This is a major challenge in professional sport, where busy schedules and muscle soreness from eccentric exercise mean few teams stick with these prevention strategies in-season.

The good news is muscles quickly adapt to eccentric training, so soreness diminishes over time. Once players build up a tolerance to eccentric training, just four Nordic reps per week may be enough to maintain the protective benefits without overloading athletes.

Teams that consistently use these exercises experience fewer injuries than those that don’t.

An issue that shouldn’t be ignored

Even with world-class sports science support, hamstring injuries are still the number one cause of time loss from training and competition in professional football codes.

Predicting and preventing hamstring injuries remains a challenge. But eccentric strength training and regular sprinting can provide protection.

Effective prevention requires not just using eccentric strength training exercises but doing them consistently, alongside careful management of load, recovery and other risk factors.

Putting this into practice in elite sport is difficult, which may help explain why hamstring injury rates are not decreasing.

Anoosha Pai S receives funding from Stanford Graduate Fellowship, Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance

Anthony Shield has received funding from the Queensland Academy of Sport.

Matthew Bourne is a recipient of an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship in partnership with VALD.

Max Andrews and Patricio Pincheira 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. Why do hamstring injuries happen so often and how can they be prevented? – https://theconversation.com/why-do-hamstring-injuries-happen-so-often-and-how-can-they-be-prevented-263038

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney

The media spotlight is once again on the issue of prison conditions, as sentencing looms for Erin Patterson – convicted for three murders after serving a beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms.

The prosecution has called for a sentence of life imprisonment.

The defence has drawn attention to the harmful conditions of prison isolation, which Patterson has endured for approximately 400 days.

Supreme Court Judge Beale has said he would give “weighty consideration” to her prison conditions in determining the sentence, noting Patterson’s prison conditions do not “sound very humane”.

A principle of modern democracies where the rule of law prevails, such as Australia, is that people are sent to prison as punishment – not for punishment.

The Dame Phyllis Frost Centre

For more than a year Patterson has been held in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a maximum-security women’s prison in the western suburbs of Melbourne.

For most of this time, she has been in the Gordon Unit. This is a protected area where women are held in solitary confinement without meaningful human contact for almost the entire day.

Patterson has been locked in her cell alone for between 22 and 24 hours, and can only speak to one other inmate.

Jenny Hosking, the assistant commissioner for the sentence management division at Corrections Victoria, provided the sentencing court with details about Patterson’s custody conditions.

It was following this evidence that Justice Beale noted Patterson’s prison conditions do not “sound very humane”.

The Gordon Unit is notorious for high suicide risk. Prisoners are confined to a small space and rarely given more than an hour outside their cells.

One prisoner who was in the Gordon Unit, Ashleigh Chapman, has described being locked up for 23 to 24 hours each day. She reported water from the tap turning the sink and shower floor green.

Government documents obtained by the ABC revealed at least 106 lockdowns between July 2024 and June 2025.

This included, according to one prisoner log, a 43-hour lockdown.

Inhumane conditions

In 2017, the Victorian Ombudsman made damning findings of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre. It noted

some practices used to maintain order in prisons pose a high risk of torture or degrading treatment if used improperly: these include the use of force and restraint, prolonged solitary confinement and strip searches.

It recommended the Victorian government “consider options for replacing” the solitary confinement unit.

It also recommended improvement of health services.

However, between 2020 and 2021, five women died at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.

In 2025, the ABC reported on a cluster of suicide attempts at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre after rolling lockdowns due to staff shortages.

Women with physical and mental health conditions have reportedly been denied medical appointments, legal appointments and family visits.

Indigenous women particularly bear the burden of poor care in prison.

One notable case involved Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson, who was imprisoned having been denied bail for shoplifting-related charges. She died alone in a cell at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in 2020 after being denied healthcare, despite her repeated cries for assistance.

Another case involved Yamatji, Noongar, Wongi and Pitjantjatjara woman Heather Calgaret, who had been denied parole due to a lack of accommodation. She died in 2021 at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre after being given a Buvidal injection (as part of opiate replacement therapy).

Both inquests found serious flaws in the health care women received during their time in prison.

Solitary confinement and international law

Following its visit to Australian prisons in 2022, the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment condemned the prolonged use of solitary confinement. It recommended that

solitary confinement is used only in exceptional cases as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority.

It urged compliance with international laws, including the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules).

These provide for at least one hour of access to open air for exercise, clean drinking water, and a ban on prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 consecutive days.

An appetite for punishment?

Media stories have overwhelmingly focused on Erin Patterson’s access to a hair straightener, crochet materials, a television, a computer, books and a fan. The implication is that Patterson is on a good wicket in prison.

However, this narrative likely misrepresents the reality of prison conditions for Patterson – and for the many other women on much lesser charges who also face lockdowns and a lack of health support.

Prison conditions should comply with human rights obligations and avoid cruel, inhumane, degrading treatment of prisoners.

When a crime affronts the moral fibre of society, such as the triple murder committed by Erin Patterson, it is common for society, the media and institutions to respond with moral outrage.

Such instincts, however, can run against the standards for civilised treatment of people in prison.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

13YARN is a free and confidential 24/7 national crisis support line for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are feeling overwhelmed or having difficulty coping. Call 13 92 76.

Thalia Anthony receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Erin Patterson is a triple murderer. That’s no excuse for inhumane prison conditions – https://theconversation.com/erin-patterson-is-a-triple-murderer-thats-no-excuse-for-inhumane-prison-conditions-263906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keiran Hardy, Associate Professor, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

In a joint press conference, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Iran orchestrated two antisemitic attacks on Australian soil: the October 2024 attack on Sydney’s Lewis Continental Kitchen and the firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024.

As part of its response, the Australian government will list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.

The listing triggers various offences that people can be charged with, including being a member, supporting or meeting with members of the organisation.

It will place the IRGC alongside al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and neo-Nazi and other far-right groups as a recognised, criminal terrorist organisation under Australian law.

What is a proscribed terrorist organisation?

Under division 102 of the Criminal Code Act, the Australian government has the power to designate an organisation as a “terrorist organisation”.

The governor-general can make a regulation to this effect if the home affairs minister is satisfied on reasonable grounds that an organisation is either:

• directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of a terrorist act

• advocates the doing of a terrorist act.

The IRGC listing has not happened yet, so the government’s full reasons are not available. Based on the recent announcement, it is likely the IRGC will be listed under the first of these grounds.

There are currently 31 terrorist organisations on the government’s list. Most of these are Islamist fundamentalist organisations in the mould of al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Hezbollah was listed in 2021 and Hamas in 2022, though their paramilitary wings had been listed and re-listed since 2003.

Four far-right groups were recently added: National Socialist Order, Sonnenkrieg Division, The Base, and Terrorgram.

Terrorgram was listed in June 2025. It is more of an online network than a clearly defined organisation. The banning of an online group, and now the IRGC – a branch of another country’s armed forces – suggests that listings under division 102 will evolve in line with the changing nature of terrorism.

As Burgess has explained, threats to Australia’s national security are becoming more “dynamic, diverse and degraded”.

In the past, threats of terrorism came from a smaller number of groups that were heavily influenced by al-Qaeda. Now, terrorist threats involve mixed and unclear ideologies, conspiracy thinking, anti-government beliefs, state-sponsored terrorism and foreign interference.

What offences does the listing trigger?

Once an organisation is proscribed under division 102, this triggers a series of criminal offences.

It is a crime, punishable by up to 25 years in prison, to direct the activities of a terrorist organisation – or to recruit for, train with, fund or support one. Being a member of a terrorist organisation is punishable by 10 years in prison.

It is even an offence, punishable by three years imprisonment, to “associate with” a member of a terrorist organisation. The association must take place on two or more occasions and provide support to the organisation. This offence could be used, for example, to charge proxy criminals who meet with members of the IRGC or another terrorist group.

Strictly speaking, an official listing is not needed for these offences to be prosecuted. Prosecutors can also prove in court, as an element of the offence, that a group of people is a terrorist organisation. This happened in the Benbrika case, when a group of men in Melbourne were found by a jury to be members of a terrorist organisation.

Still, listing a group makes it easier to prosecute these offences, as the fact that the group is a terrorist organisation does not need to be separately proven in court.

In this case, it also sends a clear signal from the government and ASIO that foreign interference on Australian soil will not be tolerated.

Keiran Hardy receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project on conspiracy-fuelled extremism.

– ref. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will be proscribed as a terrorist organisation. What does this mean? – https://theconversation.com/the-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps-will-be-proscribed-as-a-terrorist-organisation-what-does-this-mean-263922

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Davis, Chair of Women’s Health, Monash University

If you’re a woman approaching middle age and you’re on social media, you might have been urged to get your hormones checked.

These posts often highlight troubling symptoms of perimenopause. Then they flag blood tests as a way to help you understand what’s going on and to guide treatment.

Some women are now turning to wellness providers and online services seeking these types of tests, often at substantial expense.

But these tests don’t provide any benefits. An editorial in the British medical journal BMJ has raised an alert about these tests. The authors conclude they’re unnecessary and shouldn’t guide treatment decisions.

So what hormonal changes occur in the transition to menopause? And why is hormonal testing mostly unhelpful?

What do hormones do during menstrual cycles?

The key hormones the ovaries produce before menopause are oestrogens (mostly as oestradiol, but also as oestrone) together with progesterone and testosterone.

The amount of each hormone produced changes during the menstrual cycle.

Blood oestradiol levels double around the time of ovulation. This is followed by an increase in progesterone.

Testosterone blood levels also increase around ovulation, but the increase is less than about 10%.

What’s the difference between menopause and perimenopause?

Menopause happens when the ovaries have lost the capacity to produce an egg.
After menopause, oestrogen and progesterone blood levels are dramatically lower than before menopause.

Perimenopause is the time between being pre-menopausal, through to the first 12 months after having the last menstrual bleed. But the end of perimenopause is difficult to determine if you don’t menstruate, for example after a hysterectomy or when you have a hormonal intra-uterine device (IUD).

Testosterone blood levels don’t meaningfully change at natural menopause; they slowly decline with age.

What are the symptoms of perimenopause?

During the transition to menopause, the ovaries function haphazardly. So oestrogen and progesterone blood levels can be unpredictably very high or very low.

Hot flushes and night sweats, also known as vasomotor symptoms, commonly start in early perimenopause and may persist for many years. Vasomotor symptoms occur intermittently during perimenopause and persist after menopause.

Perimenopause is identified by irregular periods (cycles closer together or further apart) or changed bleeding patterns (bleeding becoming scant or heavy), together with the onset of vasomotor and other symptoms such as:

• increased abdominal fat
• low mood
• vaginal irritation and dryness
• urinary symptoms, such as bladder irritability
• memory difficulties, or “brain fog”. This seems to relate to the fluctuations in oestrogen levels and mostly resolves in the early postmenopausal years.

Our recent study shows the onset of vasomotor symptoms is the hallmark of perimenopause, and should also be used to diagnose perimenopause in women not menstruating (after hysterectomy or for other reasons).

Can a blood test tell you’re perimenopausal?

Blood oestradiol and progesterone levels are continually fluctuating during perimenopause. A blood test cannot be “timed” to any specific part of the cycle, as cycles vary in length and frequency.

So the results can’t generally be interpreted and are therefore not helpful.

However, it’s sensible to have blood tests to check for common causes of fatigue (under-active thyroid or iron deficiency) and palpitations and overheating (over-active thyroid).

How is perimenopause managed?

Treating perimenopause is not the same as treatment after menopause. Perimenopause is a time of hormonal chaos, rather than deficiency. So standard menopause hormone therapy (also called MHT) can make things worse.

Adding in an extra layer of hormones with the MHT that’s used after menopause will ease symptoms during the hormone lows, but often worsens symptoms during hormone highs (heavy bleeding, breast tenderness, fluid retention).

Instead, getting on top of perimenopause requires managing heavy and unscheduled bleeding, symptom relief, and, where needed, contraception, as the ovaries are still randomly producing eggs.

Can blood tests individualise hormone therapy?

No. Blood hormone tests can’t determine whether you might benefit from menopause hormone therapy or what dose you might need.

People’s oestrogen receptors have different levels of sensitivity and are turned up and down by other proteins and hormones in the cells. So even achieving the same blood oestradiol level with oestrogen therapy can have completely different effects in different people.

Individuals also respond differently to prescribed oestrogen, whether it’s tablet or through the skin. For transdermal patches or gels, the temperature of the skin, exercise, skin hydration and site of application affect absorption.

After absorption, oestradiol is metabolised rapidly to other oestrogens which are not measured in a standard blood test. So the total amount of oestrogen circulating is not determined by simply measuring blood oestradiol.

Do you need a blood test to check your dose?

No. There is no target blood oestradiol level that is right for everyone, and no established blood level that will prevent bone loss, heart disease or dementia.

Nor is there a perfect time of day to measure oestradiol, as the pattern of absorption of oestrogen over 24 hours varies, especially with transdermal oestradiol.

Plus, different commercial laboratories use different measurement systems so you cannot always directly compare test results between laboratories.

What about progestogen and testosterone?

Progestogens, including progesterone, are required to protect against thickening of the uterine lining by oestrogen.

The type and dose of progestogen needed can vary substantially and this cannot be predicted, or fine tuned, by a blood test.

For testosterone, there is no cut-off below which a woman can be diagnosed as having “insufficient testosterone”.

Whether hormone therapy involves oestrogen, progesterone or testosterone, for women who experience natural menopause after the age of 45, diagnosis and treatment is determined on symptoms, not blood hormone levels.

Susan Davis has served on Advisory Boards for Theramex, Astellas, Abbott Laboratories, and Besins Healthcare, and as a consultant to Besins Healthcare. She receives funding from the NHMRC, Medical research Future Fund, MS Australia and the Heart Foundation and has received research support from Lawley pharmaceuticals paid to Monash University. She is affiliated with the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

– ref. I’m a woman approaching middle age, do I need to get my hormones checked? – https://theconversation.com/im-a-woman-approaching-middle-age-do-i-need-to-get-my-hormones-checked-263541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Vardon, Associate Professor at the Fenner School, Australian National University

Human economies are made possible through natural capital – stocks of land, fresh water, oceans, biodiversity and soils, among others. Farming isn’t possible without soil or water. Manufacturing isn’t possible without raw materials to convert into products. Service industries aren’t possible without reliable food.

This may seem like stating the obvious. But what’s obvious isn’t always acted upon. At last week’s high-profile Economic Reform Roundtable, natural capital was conspicuously absent. At the table were bankers, unionists, housing experts and business groups – but only one environmental advocate, former treasury secretary Ken Henry.

The government’s goals were to make the economy more productive and resilient and the budget more sustainable. The health of our natural capital underpins all of these.

This missed opportunity is symptomatic of a wider challenge. The very real risks we face if natural capital degrades are mostly ignored, virtually unmonitored and not part of mainstream economic discussions. Small wonder environment groups launched their own alternative roundtable to make the economic case for nature.

In the mid-20th century, economists and policymakers commonly assumed nature had no limits. By the end of the century, it was abundantly clear this wasn’t true. In the 21st century, this view is patently absurd. Nature has hard limits. Water can be used up. Fisheries can be fished out. Pollinators can die out. The environment and the economy are not separate – one enables the other.

Natural capital underpins the economy

Other countries have moved faster in recognising how fundamental natural capital is to a thriving economy. The United Kingdom’s 2021 Dasgupta Report is one of the best-known explanations. Many businesses recognise the risks of declining natural capital through taskforces on nature-related and climate-related financial disclosures.

Integrating the environment into economic thinking is crucial. It lets us think about these limited resources and ecological systems alongside other factors such as factories, roads, financial capital, labour and knowledge.

Natural capital matters for productivity in many ways, some obvious and others less so. In cities, trees reduce temperatures and cut air pollution. This in turn helps human health, increases productivity and reduces the need for air conditioners and hospitals, lowering energy costs and boosting public finances.

Human wellbeing is improved by access to nature and the services it delivers. When we’re well and happy, we’re more productive at work and take less time off.

We need data on nature

When making economic decisions, properly accounting for the value of functioning natural systems requires starting with good information.

The Bureau of Statistics provides voluminous economic data, from GDP to jobs to building approvals to inflation and more. But these are no longer enough.

What’s needed is “natural capital accounting” – tracking the health of natural systems and the size of the stocks. It shows how much is in our natural capital bank, how it is being used, and what value we derive from it. Many examples exist in projects in Australia and internationally, such as in water and forests.

In 2018, the Australian government adopted this approach, using the internationally agreed System of Environmental-Economic Accounting.

In 2020, the approach was backed by the sweeping Samuel Review into Australia’s main environment laws, and in 2022, the government’s Nature Positive Plan adopted it.

While several natural capital accounts have been produced, their potential has gone largely unrealised.

Faster approvals may boost productivity – but damage nature faster

One widely publicised outcome from the roundtable is a focus on faster approvals for developments. This week, Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt announced updated environment laws will be brought to parliament before the end of the year.

This is welcome. Linking revised laws to boosted economic productivity may be worthwhile. But without natural capital accounting, there’s no guarantee it will work.

If we relied on 20th-century thinking to assess productivity, it would be simple to assume speeding up approvals by cutting red and green tape would be a step forward. But this century is one of environmental consequences.

At present, environmental approvals for big developments allow companies to make natural capital withdrawals – such as converting habitat to a warehouse – even if nature is approaching thresholds of no return, such as the extinction of species or the disappearance of ecosystems. This is a key reason why box-gum grassy woodlands remain critically endangered.

We could avoid this by using natural capital accounting. If the stocks of natural capital are known, developers can avoid wasting time applying for approvals where stocks are too low, while regulators can make faster assessments if the development will consume too much. What defines “too much” would be set in the planned national environmental standards.

This would flip the development process from reactive to proactive. Need more homes? Let’s identify areas with enough natural capital to build them and avoid areas that don’t, such as threatened woodland ecosystems or grasslands. This would save time and money for everyone.

Policymakers already use this approach in banking. Banks have to keep some funds to buffer against unexpected losses, under the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s requirements. Surely we can imagine similar requirements for natural capital.

The age of environmental consequences

If we draw down on natural capital without knowing how much we have, how much is needed, or how it contributes to the economy or wellbeing, we risk what Henry calls “intergenerational bastardry” – worsening the lives of future generations through our actions today.

To achieve productivity in a sustainable way, we need 21st-century thinking, better information and long-term reform based on a clear understanding of how the natural environment and the human economy intersect. Let’s hope policymakers are up to the challenge.

Acknowledgements: Carl Obst contributed to this article.

Michael Vardon has received funding from the Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW) and serves on the department’s Technical Advisory Panel for Environmental-Economic Accounting.

– ref. We’re still not measuring our reliance on nature as we rush to boost productivity – https://theconversation.com/were-still-not-measuring-our-reliance-on-nature-as-we-rush-to-boost-productivity-263716

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stefani Vasil, Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Australian Catholic University

In 2024, a young mother in Victoria ended her own life. As family violence services and Victoria Police pointed out, there were key circumstances that may have contributed to her death.

Her former partner was about to be released from prison. He had been serving time for a criminal conviction for abusive behaviour towards her.

This case is not an isolated one. Media coverage in November last year reported other young women who died by suicide whose partners had been alleged abusers.

There is mounting evidence about the role family violence can play in suicides. Last year, data from the Victorian Coroners Court revealed family violence was present in one in four (24.5%) suicides recorded between 2009 and 2016.

Data also highlight family violence was more likely to be present in the lives of women who died by suicide than men.

But there’s still a lot we don’t know about these issues. Our study, released today, examines the circumstances surrounding women’s deaths by suicide following experiences of family violence in Victoria.

Our findings point to ways systems could be improved to better understand how family violence and suicide might be linked. These may help prevent women’s deaths.

Taking a broad view

We conducted interviews with 20 people working across the family violence, health and justice sectors in Victoria and the United Kingdom.

We found there needs to be greater attention paid to understanding how experiences of family violence contribute to suicide risk. This is in line with international research.

In our interviews, participants described women’s experiences of entrapment and their fear of the perpetrator. Some women often didn’t have many options to seek help and they experienced the cumulative effects of violence over time.

This pain and fear often stayed with them after a relationship, sometimes for a very long time.

Professionals interviewed also raised concerns about how the link between family violence and suicide may be missed. This is especially the case where other factors are also present, such as drug or alcohol dependencies, or mental ill health.

The current approach to investigating these cases often focuses on immediate, recently reported and/or clearly evidenced links. There is an opportunity for police and coronial investigations to be broadened to better understand the full and longer term impacts of family violence.

Better screening for risk

Our study found current approaches to risk identification and assessment may not effectively identify or respond to a victim’s risk of suicide.

One limitation is how systems respond when women seek help and how this shapes the support they receive. We were told that women with alcohol and other drug dependencies may not have their past or ongoing experiences of family violence adequately identified or addressed.

The risk assessment process also may not effectively capture the cumulative impact of family violence when combined with other vulnerabilities. These can include economic pressures, mental health conditions and other health challenges.

Recognising mental health, suicide and family violence as interconnected experiences may help women to get appropriate help sooner. In order to do this, different sectors would need to collaborate more to make support timely and effective.

Victoria, alongside other Australian state and territories, has undertaken significant reforms to risk assessment and management practices in recent years. Our study points to further opportunities to enhance current practices and the frameworks used.

Safer places to live

Victim-survivors of family violence need access to safe and supported accommodation when leaving abusive relationships. Experts have increasingly called for this in recent years.

The use of motels as a short-term safe housing option when there is no specialist housing available is unstable and unsafe for many women. Short stays in motels can compound feelings of isolation and fail to connect the victim-survivor with suitable support services.

Read more:
Crisis accommodation is failing women fleeing domestic violence. Here’s how to fix it

During our interviews, we were told that motels are a particularly unsuitable option for women thinking of taking their own lives.

There is an urgent need for long-term, sustainable housing solutions for family violence victim-survivors. Moving away from a reliance on emergency motel accommodation is an important first step.

Getting the full picture

In 2024, the Australian government commissioned a rapid review of prevention approaches to gender-based violence. It found improving understanding of, and responses to, suicides related to family violence must become state and national priorities.

Delivering on this recommendation requires:

• sustained investment in prevention

• better data collection

• long-term government support for changing these systems.

Since the 2022 release of the family violence national plan, significant attention has been paid, rightly so, to the ongoing killing of women allegedly by men’s violence across Australia.

But we are yet to grapple with the full spectrum of those deaths. Doing so requires a better understanding of how women who experience family violence die by suicide.

That understanding can improve system responses, prevention work and ultimately, help save lives.

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. For mental health support, you can call call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Stefani has received funding from Respect Victoria, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the e-Safety Commissioner and the Victorian Women’s Trust.

Kate has received funding for research on violence against women and children from a range of federal and state government and non-government sources, including Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS), South Australian Government, ACT Government, Australian Childhood Foundation, and the Victorian Women’s Trust. This article is written by Kate Fitz-Gibbon in her role with Monash University, and is wholly independent of Kate Fitz-Gibbon’s role as chair of Respect Victoria and membership on the Victorian Children’s Council.

Marie Segrave receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a board member of inTouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence.

– ref. Some victim-survivors take their own lives. We need to better understand how suicide and family violence are linked – https://theconversation.com/some-victim-survivors-take-their-own-lives-we-need-to-better-understand-how-suicide-and-family-violence-are-linked-262111

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Richter, Professor of Information Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

When artificial intelligence (AI) enters the classroom, the focus is often on the risk of plagiarism or shortcuts.

But in a postgraduate business analysis course on digital innovation and strategy, taught in early 2025, we tried a different approach. Students were asked to use AI purposefully at every stage of the digital innovation process, reflect on the outcomes and assess where it genuinely added value.

Their end-of-course feedback told a clear story: students shifted from seeing AI as a task robot to viewing it as a partner in innovation – albeit one that had to be governed carefully.

This aligns with our recently published research, which finds that although AI lacks consciousness, it can act as a meaningful collaborator, making complementary contributions to teams.

A broader view of AI

Many students began the course with a narrow perspective on AI, seeing it as either a threat or as a tool for basic automation.

By the end, most described it as a way to augment the human element and unlock new forms of value, such as providing data-driven insights to support the development of ideas. As one student put it:

My view shifted from “will AI take over jobs?” to “how can humans and AI work together?”

These reflections stemmed from an assignment that required students to document their AI use, critique outputs and link those experiences to strategic decisions.

Two mindset shifts stood out:

1. From tool to partner

The students worked on a case study in recruiting. They began by exploring using AI as a simple tool for isolated tasks, such as screening hundreds of CVs for keywords.

They then began seeing it as a collaborative partner to ask more fundamental questions: how do we identify the skills that predict long-term success? How can we uncover hidden talent from unconventional backgrounds?

This partnership led to a deeper realisation: the right strategic move wasn’t just for a company to use an AI tool, but to build a new business where the AI is part of the product.

Their conversation shifted from using AI to make hiring faster, to designing a recruitment service whose entire business model was an AI platform that matched a company’s culture with a candidate’s potential. We saw a narrow, tool-based mindset replaced by a more holistic and strategic perspective.

One student wrote:

Instead of seeing AI as something to bolt on, I now see it as a core design decision.

2. From blind trust to responsible use

Initial enthusiasm for AI also gave way to critical habits. Students checked sources, spotting “AI hallucinations” and debated trade-offs around privacy, bias and accountability. One student wrote:

Earlier, I more or less blindly trusted AI results. Now I understand the need for credibility checks.

Students repeatedly raised concerns about transparency, fairness and the absence of clear organisational guardrails in the workplace.

Several concluded that how AI is deployed mattered as much as what it can do. Rather than treating ethics as an afterthought, they framed it as integral to design: what intent drove the use case, what data was touched, who was affected, and how decisions could be explained.

As one noted:

Responsible innovation requires deliberate choices guided by ethics and contextual awareness.

When some AI tools produced confident yet inaccurate outputs, students encountered the risks firsthand. That friction fostered healthy scepticism and a habit of testing AI against domain knowledge and external evidence.

Their reflections showed a shift from passive use to active evaluation and a mindset of responsibility.

Many students said they planned to continue building their skills while maintaining a critical eye, and to bring these lessons into family firms and small businesses, where even modest AI tools can improve service and decision making.

As one student put it:

I now see myself as a professional who must apply AI thoughtfully.

We believe this mindset is the course’s real outcome: informed, responsible use. AI is not merely about efficiency – it raises ethical questions and demands thoughtful governance.

Why this matters beyond the classroom

Workplaces today face two simultaneous realities. AI can accelerate routine work and also shift how and where value is created. The approach we took with students entering the workforce applies equally to organisations. Here are some suggestions:

• Anchor AI in intent. Start with the outcome, then choose tools and data accordingly.

• Treat ethics as design, not compliance. Embed checks for bias, privacy and provenance within the workflow. Be transparent about decision making when AI is involved.

• Invest in fluency, not just tools. Exposure to multiple systems created adaptable thinkers who knew when to trust, verify or pivot – deepening their digital literacy.

• Measure value at the business model level. Gains often come from new revenue streams or reduced risk, not just saved time.

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. From fear to fluency: what our students learned when they used AI across an entire course – https://theconversation.com/from-fear-to-fluency-what-our-students-learned-when-they-used-ai-across-an-entire-course-263805

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Bosch, Associate Professor (Law), Edith Cowan University

Senior Israeli Defence Force (IDF) officials have announced that around 130,000 reservists will take part in Israel’s planned military operation to take over Gaza City. Fighting is expected to continue well into 2026.

The first set of 40,000–50,000 reservists are due to show up for duty on September 2.

Our research, to be published in a forthcoming book, shows the call-up plans raise significant legal issues for countries that permit their dual-Israeli nationals to serve in the IDF — whether through voluntary enlistment programs such as Mahal and Garin Tzabar, or compulsory reserve duty.

Compulsory service and dual citizenship

Under Israeli law, every citizen or permanent resident must serve in the IDF for between 18 to 36 months (based on their age, marital status and gender), followed by ten years of reserve duty.

Dual citizens living abroad are not exempt and are expected to settle their conscription status through Israeli consulates and embassies.

Following the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks, Israel expanded compulsory service to three years, boosting the IDF to 169,500 active troops and 465,000 reservists.

While many reservists are currently residents in Israel, significant numbers also live overseas.

What the ICJ and UN experts have said

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) handed down an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory. The court advised that all UN member states are obligated to refrain from providing assistance to Israel in maintaining the occupation.

This came after the ICJ had already issued a preliminary ruling saying Palestinians in Gaza had a plausible right to protection from genocide in Gaza.

In response to the ICJ’s July 2024 opinion, 40 independent UN experts advised that states should be taking steps to prevent their dual Israeli citizenship from serving in the IDF to avoid being potentially complicit in war crimes or crimes against humanity.

And earlier this year, an independent international commission established by the UN Human Rights Council urged UN member states to investigate and prosecute those accused of committing crimes in Gaza, either under their own domestic laws or using universal jurisdiction.

These opinions and reports have intensified the debate over the legal obligations of states that allow their dual Israeli nationals to enlist in the IDF.

How other countries view serving in foreign armies

The countries with the largest Jewish populations have done little to restrict IDF recruitment.

The United States, France, Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom all have laws against foreign enlistment. However, they allow IDF recruitment through exemptions, treaties or permissive interpretations of the laws.

Australian law prohibits citizens from engaging in foreign conflicts as mercenaries, but permits enlistment in foreign armies. Recruiting Australians to join a foreign military, that aligns with Australia’s defence or international interests may be permitted by the Attorney General, but the Criminal Code Act of 1995 does however prohibit Australian nationals entering foreign military zones where a designated terrorist organisation is engaged.

South Africa has a law against its citizens fighting in foreign wars without permission. It has also explicitly threatened to prosecute those who join the IDF. Yet, enforcement has been rare and selective. .

Civil society mobilisation

In Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed in June it was investigating possible war crimes in Gaza. Many believed this was targeted at dual national IDF reservists.

In May 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Palestinian advocacy group based in Belgium, submitted a dossier of evidence to the International Criminal Court alleging war crimes committed by some
1,000 IDF soldiers, including a number of dual citizens.

A related group also filed a complaint with the ICC about dual Dutch-Israeli soldiers allegedly committing war crimes in Gaza.

And in April 2025, UK advocacy groups submitted a dossier to the Metropolitan Police war crimes team targeting ten British nationals for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a legal group called the Australian Centre for International Justice has been monitoring about 20 dual nationals who have served in the IDF.

In response to the group, the government urged Australians seeking to serve in foreign armies to “carefully consider their legal obligations and ensure their conduct does not constitute a criminal offence”.

Obligations of countries

All ten countries we surveyed — the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Russia and South Africa — are parties to the Geneva Conventions, the Convention against Torture, and the Genocide Convention. These treaties impose obligations on members to not only punish violations, but prevent them.

Israel’s mobilisation of 130,000 reservists dramatically increases the potential that more dual nationals will be drawn into operations that have been condemned by the UN and ICJ as unlawful.

For dual citizens, the risks are profound. Not only can they be involved in a protracted conflict, but they can also be potentially exposed to future prosecution for grave crimes.

For states, the stakes are just as high – silence and inaction may amount to complicity in genocide. The question now is whether governments will uphold their obligations and effectively warn their citizens about fighting in Gaza, and investigate and prosecute them, where necessary.

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. Israel’s call-up of 130,000 reservists raises legal risks for dual citizens and their home countries – https://theconversation.com/israels-call-up-of-130-000-reservists-raises-legal-risks-for-dual-citizens-and-their-home-countries-263783

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suzanne Nielsen, Professor and Deputy Director, Monash Addiction Research Centre, Monash University

Medicinal cannabis use has increased rapidly in recent years in Australia. Since access pathways were expanded in 2016, more than 700,000 prescription approvals have been issued.

The vast majority of medicinal cannabis products on the market have not been registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. But medical practitioners can apply to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for approval to prescribe them to patients.

Data shows the three most common conditions for which scripts are approved are chronic pain, anxiety and sleep disorders.

Although many patients report benefits, professional bodies and regulators have raised concerns about whether prescribing is outpacing the evidence.

So what does the evidence actually say? Does medicinal cannabis work for the conditions for which it’s most commonly prescribed?

Medicinal cannabis for pain

Medicinal cannabis refers to cannabis products that are legally prescribed to treat a medical condition. This can be the plant itself, or natural compounds extracted from the plant. Some compounds similar to or the same as those found in cannabis (for example, dronabinol and nabilone) are made in a lab.

Two of the most common compounds in the plant are THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), known as cannabinoids.

These are commonly found at various concentrations in medicinal cannabis products which come in forms including oils, capsules, dried flower (used in a vaporiser), sprays and gummies.

Chronic pain is the most common reason for medicinal cannabis use. But as we’ve written in a previous article, research shows only modest benefits, with limited improvements in pain and physical functioning.

The TGA says there’s limited evidence medicinal cannabis provides clinically significant pain relief for many conditions, and should only be tried if other standard therapies haven’t helped.

Does medicinal cannabis work for anxiety?

Beside chronic pain, a growing number of people are now turning to medicinal cannabis for anxiety.

Multiple reviews have examined whether it works for this purpose and have come to similar conclusions. For THC-based products the evidence is mixed, with some patients finding relief, while others report their symptoms are worse.

There is emerging evidence for CBD, however it’s too soon to recommend medical cannabis as a first-line treatment for anxiety. So far, studies of CBD in anxiety have been small, only measured effects under experimental conditions designed to induce stress, had no comparison group, or only tested a one-off dose. Because of these limitations, the studies can’t tell us if CBD is effective for ongoing anxiety management.

A recent review found CBD had positive effects on anxiety, but these effects were seen in studies deemed to have problems with their methods, and not in studies that were more rigorously designed and conducted.

Similarly, a small Australian study (with no control group) demonstrated positive effects of CBD in young people with anxiety who had already tried other treatments. However, the authors stated more rigorous trials were still needed.

What’s more, there are recent case reports of acute psychosis arising from medicinal cannabis use. Taken together with the ambiguous evidence, the role for cannabinoids for anxiety remains far from clear.

How about sleep disorders?

The evidence for cannabis in the treatment of sleep disorders and insomnia is perhaps even more limited, with neither CBD or THC having shown clear benefits reducing the number of awakenings or time spent awake during the night, or improved sleep quality. That said, some people do report they have fewer symptoms of insomnia when using medicinal cannabis.

Similar to anxiety, many of the studies have major weaknesses in their study design which make it difficult to draw strong conclusions. There are also few studies that compare medicinal cannabis to proven treatments for sleep disorders and insomnia. This makes it hard to make recommendations for treatment based on the current research evidence.

THC can make you drowsy, and in the short term, may help people fall asleep, or feel like they’re getting more sleep. But there are some important downsides to consider, too.

For example, if you take medicinal cannabis regularly to fall asleep your body can get used to it, making it harder to fall asleep without it. In the long term, medicinal cannabis can also affect the amounts of light and deep sleep a person will have, which can result in poorer sleep quality.

Read more:
Cannabinoid products may reduce total sleep time in adults with insomnia: new study

There is good evidence for some conditions

Some of the strongest evidence for medicinal cannabis products are for rare forms of epilepsy that don’t respond to existing treatments, and for treating symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis.

The only TGA-approved medicinal cannabis products are for these conditions.

There’s also evidence medicinal cannabis can help with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Though as newer medications with fewer side effects are now available, medicinal cannabis products are not considered first-line treatments.

Risks and side effects

Common side effects with THC in the short term include drowsiness, anxiety, dry mouth, nausea, vomiting and appetite changes. For some people, these effects reduce over time.

Some people with preexisting health conditions such as schizophrenia, psychosis or heart conditions may be more prone to experiencing side effects.

An estimated one in four people using medical cannabis meet the criteria for dependence (known as cannabis use disorder). In the longer term, dependence appears more common with medical use, particularly when combined with non-medical use.

If you are suffering with anxiety, sleep problems or chronic pain, and are wondering what treatments might be most effective for you, speak to your regular GP.

Suzanne Nielsen receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, and has previously received funding from Worksafe and the Therapeutic Goods Administration to provide independent evidence reviews on medical cannabis. She is the president-elect of the Australasian Society for Professionals on Alcohol and other Drugs.

Myfanwy Graham receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, alongside government and university institutes. Myfanwy has served as a consultant for the UNODC, WHO and NASEM. She is an appointed member of the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s Medicinal Cannabis Expert Working Group. This article does not represent the views of the TGA or the Expert Working Group.

– ref. Medicinal cannabis is most often prescribed for pain, anxiety and sleep. Here’s what the evidence says – https://theconversation.com/medicinal-cannabis-is-most-often-prescribed-for-pain-anxiety-and-sleep-heres-what-the-evidence-says-262429

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Hill, Speech Pathologist and Senior Lecturer, School of Allied Health, Curtin University

From mid-2027, the government will divert children with mild and moderate developmental delay and autism away from the NDIS and onto a program called Thriving Kids.

The government is also considering new Medicare items for allied health services when children need additional support. This may include occupational therapy, speech pathology and psychosocial (psychological and social) therapy.

But what exactly is a developmental delay?

Read more:
‘Thriving Kids’ could help secure the future of the NDIS. But what will the program mean for children and families?

Progressing more slowly than their peers

Developmental delay is a general label for a range of conditions. Developmental refers to something arising during development and delay means a child is progressing in the expected way, just more slowly.

Up to 24% of children are considered “developmentally vulnerable”. This means they haven’t met a key milestone and are at risk in one or more areas, including speech and language, motor skills, thinking and learning, social and emotional development, and everyday life skills.

A child might be delayed in their speech and not speak in sentences by the age of three.

A child might not crawl or walk by around 18 months or may have difficulty using their hands to play with toys or feed themselves.

Thinking skills such as memory and problem-solving may develop more slowly. Or a child might have more trouble controlling their emotions or interacting with parents or siblings than others their age.

Everyday tasks such as dressing, going to the toilet and brushing teeth can also be difficult for children with developmental delay.

It ranges in severity

When a child shows difficulty in one area, it’s called a specific delay.

When multiple areas are impacted, it’s called a global delay. Around 1–3% of children experience global developmental delay.

Developmental delays are usually identified as a result of parental concern, observations at daycare, or during routine milestone checkups by a family GP and/or child health nurse. They’re then confirmed by a GP, paediatrician, or allied health provider.

Delays are described as mild, moderate, or severe. Mild delays occur when a child is developing at less than about one-third of their actual age, moderate between one-third and two-thirds, and severe at less than two-thirds.

In reality, judging severity is complicated. Children’s abilities can vary from day to day. Assessment tools may not fully capture their strengths and needs, especially if the child is shy, tired, or unfamiliar with the environment.

This means severity labels don’t always fully reflect a child’s abilities or the support they require.

Do kids grow out of it?

Some children with developmental delays will “catch up” over time. A child who has had fewer opportunities to hear and use language, for example, may make progress with the right support. Early intervention can be highly effective.

However, a large proportion of children won’t grow out of their difficulties.

The term developmental delay is frequently criticised for failing to recognise that delayed development is often associated with long-term difficulties (not just a lag). And it can be difficult to identify which young children have delays that will improve over time.

Globally, around 15% of children are diagnosed with a developmental disorder: lifelong conditions that affect how they grow and participate in the world.

Developmental disorders include autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), specific learning disorders (for example, dyslexia), and developmental language disorder, which impacts a child’s ability to use and understand language.

If a child is still having difficulties by the time they are four or five, they would be considered to meet criteria for a developmental disorder.

How should children be supported?

Whether a child has a developmental delay or disorder, research shows a strong link between early support and better outcomes. Support often comes from a team of specialists such as:

• occupational therapists. They help children develop skills such as dressing, playing and managing emotions

• speech pathologists. They help with feeding and support children to express their wants and needs, and to be understood clearly

• physiotherapists. They focus on movement and physical skills, helping children improve their balance, coordination and strength for activities such as walking and playing

• psychologists. They implement strategies to help children and families manage difficult behaviours and emotions, and improve daily functioning

• audiologists. They assess and support hearing difficulties that can contribute to developmental delays in communication and social skills

• specialist teachers in schools and early learning settings. They have extra training and experience in supporting children with additional needs.

Intervention should begin as soon as difficulties are noticed, rather than waiting to see what happens and should be tailored to the needs and preferences of each child and their family.

Therapists work directly with children individually or in small groups, either in clinics, at home, or at daycare or school, where they collaborate with teachers to embed strategies such as visual supports or play-based activities.

This can be combined with helping family members and other professionals (such as teachers) develop the skills to support the child. However, coaching others takes time and training to ensure success.

Therapists also provide advocacy and systems support, helping families navigate services, school and funding pathways to ensure children receive the right help at the right time.

The best outcomes for children with developmental differences, whether delay or disorder, are achieved by a combination of one-on-one as well as systems-level support. It’s important policymakers keep this in mind as they design the Thriving Kids program and new Medicare items.

Read more:
Occupational therapists tackle obstacles in the home, from support to cook a meal, to navigating public transport

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. Kids with ‘developmental delay’ will be diverted from the NDIS. But how do you know if your child is delayed? – https://theconversation.com/kids-with-developmental-delay-will-be-diverted-from-the-ndis-but-how-do-you-know-if-your-child-is-delayed-263633

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of Sydney

Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith has a long held fascination with the brilliance of Patricia Highsmith, who published the classic novel The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1955.

In 2014, Murray-Smith’s Switzerland explored Highsmith’s life, directed by Sarah Goodes for the Sydney Theatre Company. Now, Goodes directs Murray-Smith’s new adaptation of Highsmith’s novel, continuing their engagements with the author’s morally ambiguous characters.

Murray-Smith describes Tom Ripley as “the world’s most famous serial killer […] waiting for his moment in the spotlight”. And while this accolade could be disputed, it reveals Murray-Smith’s fascination with the psychological and ethical complexities of the Ripley novel.

The story follows Ripley (played neatly and commendably by Will McDonald), a man in his 20s who lost his parents young and was raised by a poor but nasty aunt.

A surprise encounter sees Ripley sent to Europe by a wealthy shipping magnate (astutely played by Andrew McFarlane) to bring back his wayward son, Dickie Greenleaf (Raj Labade) – an inciting incident not unlike Henry Jame’s novel The Ambassadors. The publisher describes the novel as “a blend of the narrative subtlety of Henry James and the self-reflexive irony of Vladimir Nabokov”.

In Italy, Ripley becomes thoroughly enamoured with Greenleaf and his glamorous life. Labade plays the laid-back Greenleaf with spades of charm and panache, and Claude Scott-Mitchell plays Greenleaf’s girlfriend, Marge, with tremendous poise, increasingly wary of the interloping Ripley.

Mr. Ripley’s “talent” is mimicking others, and he starts using his talent to take over Dickie’s identity.

As Ripley and Greenleaf take vacations around Italy, Ripley’s deceptions graduate to murder and identity theft. While his motives are framed around class envy, he seems motivated more by the dread of returning to his mundane life.

Ripley does not commit murder because he wants to become Dickie Greenleaf, so much as he assumes Dickie Greenleaf’s identity because this proves the most expedient way of escaping his despised past.

A filmic production

The performances and production values are impressive, but the play itself does not quite land. The inescapable need for Ripley to narrate his own tale directly to the audience breaks the golden rule of theatre: show don’t tell. As Anton Chekhov reputedly said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

The need for pace and momentum sees the narration interspersed with performed vignettes, rather than fuller dramatic scenes. This becomes more filmic than theatrical, lacking tension, dramatic stakes, subtext and climax.

Ripley’s backstory seems important to his psychology, but the snippets we receive didactically through narration make his motives seem trite. When Tom crumples to the floor and sobs because Dickie Greenleaf doesn’t see him, it is difficult to connect with: framed as a standalone vignette that arises from nowhere.

Unlike Shakespeare’s disgruntled villains Richard III and Edmond the Bastard, it is difficult to accept Ripley’s motives. Perhaps if Ripley was given more charismatic soliloquies of self-justification like Richard and Edmond, we could better attend his plight.

The bare set offers dynamic opportunities for clever stagecraft and lighting (sets by Elizabeth Gadsby, lighting by Damien Cooper), helping to facilitate these quick vignettes (sunny umbrellas for the beach, snazzy lights for a nightclub, a yellow dinghy for an ocean jaunt). But these values only add to the filmic effect.

Good theatre should do things films can’t do, not emulate their fluent realism.

Reworking old stories

The artistic genesis of this adaptation seems to gratify a programming trend more than an ardent need to tell this particular story.

It has been unnerving to see so many adaptations staged by major theatre companies of late. In recent years, the Sydney Theatre Company has staged many adaptations of novels: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (2024), Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words (2023), Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (2023), Wong Shee Ping’s The Poison of Polygamy (2023), and Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow (2021), to name a few.

In 2019, playwright Ross Mueller critiqued this trend of “risk-averse programming”, acknowledging that “selling new plays is tough”, but noting it’s much easier for theatre companies if playwrights “can write plays with titles that we can all google”.

Today’s playwrights, Muller writes, “compete for programming with films, novels and fully developed and proven Broadway hits and West End darlings”. And this unusual demand for adaptations comes on the back of staging less Shakespeare to make room for new plays by local writers.

Some of these adaptations have worked, drawing critical acclaim and box office success. But it seems short shrift to have so much narration in a theatrical adaptation of a novel. Would we not rather buy and read the novel? And save our precious theatre pennies for attending new original plays or classics?

Those familiar with the book might enjoy yet another rendition, but this The Talented Mr. Ripley moves too swiftly through its plot points; telling the story, but scant on forging connections with the audience.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is at the Sydney Theatre Company until September 28.

Kirk Dodd 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. Impressive performances and production values – but Joanna Murray-Smith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley doesn’t quite land – https://theconversation.com/impressive-performances-and-production-values-but-joanna-murray-smiths-the-talented-mr-ripley-doesnt-quite-land-260921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Austin, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, The University of Melbourne

Award-winning playwright and actor Kristy Marillier’s new work, Destiny, is an ensemble drama set in 1976 South Africa, against a backdrop of rising resistance to the apartheid regime.

Commissioned and developed through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage Writers’ Program, Destiny is an intimate fictional family drama based on real world events.

Through a complex set of relationships, the play provides a searing insight into the fear, brutality, rebellion and activism of 1970s South Africa.

Della (played by Marillier) is the feisty protagonist and matriarch of the Meth family. Since her mother’s death, she has stepped into caring for both her hard-working and broken-hearted father Cliff (Patrick Williams), who has a tendency to drink and become lost in his memories and grief, and her antagonistic and excitable brother Rocky (Gaz Dutlow).

Della finds herself in dangerous territory when Ezra Jones (Barry Conrad) – a charismatic and irresistible student activist who broke her heart years earlier – returns to their small town to lie low.

Ezra’s confidence in his political views is both alluring and terrifying for the Meth family members, as they wrestle with a desire to imagine new futures while also struggling with the grief and fear that dominates their past.

The impressionable Rocky is particularly seduced by the seductive glamour of Ezra and his cause, and yearns for the kind of freedom he represents.

Fractured within and without

The story is set largely in the Meth family home, with a black and white portrait of Della’s mother taking centre place on the living room wall.

Cliff can often be found chatting and singing to the photograph of his long departed wife. The domestic space is represented as porous and permeable, with a summer breeze that blows through the kitchen windows and lifts the lace curtains. The front door opens on to an often wide-open stoop.

This family home, in an unnamed small mountainous town, is far away from the politics of the city – yet not immune from the effects of brutal policies and regimes.

The domestic setting becomes the site of both grief and joy of an epic and intimate nature, with the family’s personal tragedy reverberating within the broader injustices of their context. The fractures in the family are inextricably tied to the fractures in society at large.

Beyond the interior and exterior of the Meth family home, set designer Sophie Woodward has created a series of angular pathways evoking the mountainous terrain, leading to the simple general store where Della works.

Rich emotional terrain

In one powerful moment, Della tells the story of a white woman who comes to the coloured part of town, to the coloured general store where Della works, seeking a specific treat for her son. This tale hints at the casual cruelty routinely endured by the Meth family, and others who the system classifies as lesser.

Despite these harsh realities, there are many gloriously funny, laugh out loud moments throughout the play. The writer, performers and director Zindzi Okenyo all deftly employ humour, and the characters are enormously likeable. As the story unfolds, love, loss, hope and uncertainty all coalesce around a deceptively simple family tale.

There is also a deeply personal note present in the writing and performances – which may be explained by the fact that three of the actors have parents who lived through apartheid.

The title of the play evokes the inevitable ramifications of our choices on the future. Resistance and rebellion come at great personal cost, but ultimately create hope for a new future – just as they did in the 1970s in apartheid South Africa.

The personal is political

Destiny reminds us that although 1994 marks the official end of the regime, the aftermath continues to ripple through generations of people whose lives have been impacted.

In the final scene, Della enacts a small act of her own resistance by smashing a radio that has been a source of propaganda and control. She directs the smallest of wry looks at the audience, breaking the fourth wall, before the stage blacks out; we are all implicated.

What might this final, direct look compel us to consider? Marillier’s unsettling moment of acknowledgement of the audience stayed with me long after the play ended.

I am left with a resounding sense of the weight of history and the importance of resistance and rebellion in the face of brutality and injustice. In a fractured and uncertain time, Destiny reminds us the personal is political.

Destiny is playing at Melbourne Theatre Company until September 13.

Sarah Austin is an employee of the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Theatre Company is a department of that institution.

– ref. Destiny is a fierce new stage show exploring love, loss and rebellion under the shadow of apartheid South Africa – https://theconversation.com/destiny-is-a-fierce-new-stage-show-exploring-love-loss-and-rebellion-under-the-shadow-of-apartheid-south-africa-262515

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Thompson, Associate Professor in Media and Communication, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The recent internal report on RNZ’s performance, variously described as “scathing” and “blunt” in news coverage, caused considerable debate about the state broadcaster’s performance and priorities – not all of it fair or well informed.

The report makes several operational recommendations, including addressing RNZ National’s declining audience share by targeting the 50+ age demographic and moving key program productions from Wellington to Auckland.

But RNZ’s diminishing linear radio audience has to be understood in the context of its overall expansion of audience reach online, and audience trends across the radio sector in general.

Total audience engagement with RNZ content on third-party platforms (including social media, YouTube and content-sharing partners who are permitted to republish RNZ material) now exceeds the reach of its radio audience.

There has also been a steady but significant decline in the daily reach of linear radio overall. NZ On Air audience research shows that in 2014, 67% of New Zealanders listened to linear broadcast radio every day. A decade later, this had dropped to 42%.

RNZ National’s share of the total 15+ audience peaked at 12% in 2021, following the initial pandemic period. By 2024, this had declined to 7%, having been overtaken by Newstalk ZB on 8% (also down from 9% in 2021).

But using comparative audience reach and ratings data to gauge the performance of a public service media operator does not capture the quality or diversity of audience engagement, or the extent to which its charter obligations are being met.

Nor do audience data reflect the positive structural role RNZ plays in supporting other media through its content-sharing model, the Local Democracy Reporting scheme or its RNZ Pacific service.

Clashing priorities

Data provided by RNZ show the decline in RNZ National’s audience to be primarily in the 60+ age groups. How much that reflects recent efforts to appeal to a more diverse demographic through changed programming formats is unclear.

The RNZ report also suggests staff are uncertain about what audiences their programmes are aiming at. If so, this could explain the departure of some older listeners.

But that doesn’t necessarily support the report’s conclusion that RNZ National should stick to its radio knitting and double down on the 50+ audience, especially in Auckland, to compete with Newstalk ZB.

In fact, prioritising the 50+ audience at the expense of a broader appeal might reinforce RNZ’s brand image as a legacy service for older listeners – a prospect its commercial rivals would doubtless welcome.

Between 2007 and 2017, RNZ was subject to a funding freeze and was pressured by successive National-led governments to justify any claim for future increases with evidence of improved performance. Its Queenstown, Tauranga and Palmerston North offices all closed during this period of austerity.

In the 2017 budget, RNZ eventually received an extra NZ$11.4 million over four years. Its statement of intent that year acknowledged funding increases were premised on achieving a wider audience and that budgets needed to make “operational expenditure available for new online initiatives and updated technology”.

Given that expanding the online arm of RNZ would affect investment in its radio service, it would be surprising if operational priorities didn’t sometimes clash. While commercial broadcasters prioritise their most lucrative demographics, public service operators have the perennial challenge of providing something for everyone.

The risk of pleasing no one

The online reach of RNZ’s website and app is now comparable to the reach of its linear broadcasts. Critics might frame that as under-performance on the radio side, but it also shows audience reach has grown beyond the older-skewing linear radio demographic.

According to RNZ’s 2024 audience research, 80% of New Zealanders engage with its content every month. Meanwhile, amid growing concern about declining trust in news, RNZ ranked top in the 2025 JMAD survey on trust in media. None of this supports the narrative of a failing legacy operator that has lost its way.

Some of the issues raised in the RNZ report may simply reflect the reality of modern media management: maintaining the character, quality and demographic appeal of existing radio services while trying to reach broader demographics on new platforms.

Meeting that challenge was perhaps made more realistic when the previous Labour government increased RNZ’s baseline funding by $25.7 million in 2023. So the current government’s recent decision to cut RNZ’s budget by $18 million over the next four years represents a real setback.

RNZ’s charter obliges it to serve a diverse range of audiences, something the data show it achieves with a broad cross-section across all platforms.

If it were to now prioritise the 50+ or even 60+ radio audience at the expense of expanding online services and audience diversification, there would likely be more criticism and calls for further defunding from the broadcaster’s political and commercial enemies.

Rather like the moral of Aesop’s fable about the man, the boy and the donkey, if RNZ is expected to please everyone, it runs the risk of pleasing no one.

Peter Thompson is a founding board member of the Better Public Media Trust, a registered charity which advocates for public media. He has previously undertaken externally-commissioned research contracts, including work for the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, NZ On Air, the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the Department of Internal Affairs, the Canadian Department of Heritage and SPADA.

– ref. A ‘scathing’ report on RNZ’s performance obscures the good news – and the challenge of serving many audiences – https://theconversation.com/a-scathing-report-on-rnzs-performance-obscures-the-good-news-and-the-challenge-of-serving-many-audiences-263618

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Williams, Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash University

It’s no secret the Liberal Party of Australia has a problem with women. The party has made headlines over the years for its toxic blokey “Big Swinging Dick” culture, underrepresentation of women in the party, and dwindling support from women voters.

Yet it hasn’t always been this way. In its early years, the Liberals achieved most of the “firsts” for women in Australian politics and, for much of the 20th century, enjoyed more support from women than from men. So what changed?

In a new open-access study, I traced this transformation by exploring the influence of leaders on the party’s ideology and changing prioritisation of women’s issues.

A party for women

Women played a crucial role in the founding of the Liberal Party in 1944. In creating a new party, Robert Menzies depended on the support of established conservative women’s organisations such as the Australian Women’s National League (AWNL).

As the largest conservative political organisation in Australia at the time, the AWNL brought an existing branch structure and volunteer base. Its chair, Elizabeth Couchman, came to the table with strong negotiating power and ensured structural equality for women at all levels of the party.

Though not labelled as such, these could be considered early examples of “gender quotas”.

As leader, Menzies was also central to the inclusion of women and their issues in the Liberal Party. Although a staunch traditionalist, he could see the changing times in postwar Australia and acknowledged women’s increasing roles in the workforce and politics.

While Labor remained a blokey party that mainly spoke to working-class male voters, the Liberals were the first party to specifically target women in the 1949 election campaign.

Through socially liberal policies such as legalising divorce, provision of vocational training for women re-entering the workforce, and the landmark Child Care Act in 1972, the Liberals achieved important progress for women.

The party also put more women into federal parliament than Labor, including the first woman cabinet minister.

Enter John Howard

The Liberals began to abandon women’s issues in the later years of the Fraser government. Their social liberalism was replaced with a neoliberal approach that pushed free-market capitalism, corporate deregulation and privatisation, and rugged individualism.

Yet neoliberalism has a woman problem. Neoliberals argue against using the state to pursue social justice, instead favouring traditional roles for women in the home. This is known as the “markets and motherhood” push.

As Fraser’s treasurer, John Howard championed this approach and combined it with the social conservatism of the US-influenced New Right.

This push took greater hold when Howard became opposition leader. The party positioned the family as Australia’s moral centre, with policy manifestos implying women in the home should replace the state in providing care.

Despite the record number of Liberal women politicians, the election of the Howard government in 1996 wound back many of the advances for women achieved in the previous two decades.

Howard opposed feminism. He swiftly defunded women’s organisations and dismantled gender equality measures. Despite pushing “choice”, his government legislated policies such as the Family Tax Benefit, which shaped women’s roles in society to conform with a socially conservative vision.

In doing so, Howard sidelined many of the party’s moderates, and especially its liberal feminists.

Howard’s neoliberal approach ignored the social conditions and structural origins that create inequalities, ultimately worsening conditions for women and minority groups.

While women once voted for the Liberals in greater numbers than men, this changed in 2001. It’s been on a downward spiral since the 2013 election.

Casting a long shadow

Subsequent leaders from Tony Abbott to Peter Dutton have channelled Howard in various ways, especially in their approach to gender equality policy, women voters and women in the party.

Abbott continued to draw on the Howard blueprint. It was during his term that rumours of the “Big Swinging Dicks” club first broke.

Abbott’s “women problem” gained further attention when his first cabinet included only one woman, and the Women’s Budget Statement wasn’t included in the 2014 budget.

Though Turnbull resembled Fraser more than Howard, it was under his watch that the infamous “bonk ban” was introduced.

Morrison also evoked Howard, but with an added layer of evangelical fundamentalism. The Liberal Party’s “woman problem” defined Morrison’s second term, from a blokey “build back better” approach to COVID, to the mishandling of sexual assault allegations from political staffers in Parliament House.

After three governments and almost a decade in power, the party failed to improve women’s economic security, safety or wellbeing. In fact, the Liberals’ “women problem” had only worsened and became a factor in costing them the 2022 election.

With party leadership falling on the shoulders of Dutton, it lurched further to the right. Dutton’s leadership style of protective masculinity channelled Howard, but his conservatism was more reactionary, focusing less on economics and more on culture wars.

Looking back to move forward

In May 2025, the Liberals were defeated in a landslide election, receiving the worst seat result since the party’s inception. In the aftermath of this crushing defeat, Sussan Ley was elected leader: the first woman to hold the role in the party’s 80-year history.

The number of Liberal women across both houses has fallen to its lowest since 1993. This has sparked renewed calls from those within and outside the party to introduce quotas. Yet the party remains divided.

Given the significance of gender equality for many of its constituents, the party must reflect on why women are losing interest – as voters, members and political candidates – before it can begin to remedy the problem.

Moderates are urging the party to return to the Menzies-era centre and broaden its appeal to reconnect with women and younger voters. Conservatives, however, insist on a move to the right.

By dominating the Liberal Party and shaping it in his image, Howard’s legacy is the transformation of the party for women into one that women largely shun.

If the party wants to solve its “women problem”, it must return to its liberal roots.

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

– ref. The Liberals used to be the party for women – then John Howard came along – https://theconversation.com/the-liberals-used-to-be-the-party-for-women-then-john-howard-came-along-262614

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sora Lee, Lecturer in Ageing and End of Life, La Trobe University

Australia’s job market is facing a paradox. Employers across every major sector – from construction to healthcare – report crippling skills shortages.

A key measure of skills shortages, the proportion of advertised vacancies filled, shows 30.3% of surveyed occupations were in shortage in the March quarter.

Yet there are more than two million people – hidden workers – who remain on the fringes of the labour market. They might just be a missing piece in solving Australia’s talent crisis.

This mismatch is more than a numbers problem – it’s a systemic failure to connect the untapped talent with unmet industry demand.

Businesses need to rethink rigid hiring practices, challenge outdated stereotypes and create pathways for those sidelined from work. Policymakers need to build in targeted pathways that connect their skills to shortage areas.

Who are the hidden workers?

Each month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) releases official data on the labour force: new jobs created, the unemployment rate and other measures. But these figures don’t tell the whole story.

Collectively, the term hidden workers encompasses:

• people who are underemployed (working one or more part-time job but willing and able to work full-time)
• the unemployed (without work but seeking work)
• discouraged workers (who are not currently working or looking, but are willing and able to work if the right circumstances arise).

Using nationally representative data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, our research reveals some patterns of hidden workers.

Women are predominant among the hidden workers, reflecting ongoing gendered divisions in caregiving. Half of the discouraged workers, who have given up looking for work, are over 41.

Those with lower educational attainment (below Year 12) are more likely to be discouraged or unemployed. Hidden workers often lack networks or live in disadvantaged areas.

It’s not just discouraged workers

Our research shows hidden workers make up 21.1% of Australians aged 15 and over, according to the HILDA 2022 survey data. We use broader definitions of discouraged workers and the underemployed than the ABS does, and we include people over 65. The ABS, which uses a different survey and methods, arrives at a rate of about 17%. We explain these differences in further detail below.

Discouraged workers are most common among the youngest and oldest age groups, comprising 43.17% of hidden workers. Discouraged workers are a big part of the story, but not the whole picture.

Many hidden workers are underemployed (39.1%). They are actively working, but in casual or part-time jobs that don’t give them the hours or income they need. Working parents, especially mothers, are underemployed in unstable part-time roles, juggling caregiving responsibilities.

Findings from another study which analyses the probabilities of becoming a hidden worker, confirms women’s participation in the labour market is hindered at various stages of life by the unequal sharing of childcare and other care responsibilities.

Limited local job opportunities and economic resources further widen the gender gap, particularly among those aged 45–64.

Why our research paints a fuller picture

The ABS defines “potential workers” as people who are willing and able to work, a group that includes both those classified as unemployed and those considered discouraged workers. However, the ABS publishes underemployment as a separate category. This mainly covers people employed part-time who wanted more hours, and were available.

However, in hidden worker research, underemployed workers are defined more broadly, as people who want more hours and can’t get them, without the readiness-to-start condition.

By grouping them as a category under hidden workers, we get a fuller picture of the “missing” labour that could be mobilised if structural and systemic barriers were addressed.

My research into hidden workers stems not just from academic curiosity, but from my own experience. As a newly completed PhD, a migrant woman of culturally and linguistically diverse background, and a mother of two young children, I found it challenging to navigate a labour market that didn’t fully recognise my skills, experience or potential.

Despite being “willing and able to work”, I was underemployed, unemployed and then discouraged.

Why does this matter for the economy?

Australia cannot afford to address only the visible tip of the labour market iceberg. The hidden workers in Australia are a vital yet invisible part of the workforce.

Bringing hidden workers into policy focus is not only an economic priority, but also a public health imperative. A young hidden worker may start out in insecure, low-paid jobs that limit access to good food, safe housing and adequate health care.

These early disadvantages don’t just affect the present. Over time, these disadvantages may compound, leading to chronic stress, mental health challenges and a higher risk of long-term illness. The accumulated disadvantages can lead to inequitable ageing.

To make a difference, job services, health care, housing and community support all need to work together so these challenges don’t keep them stuck. The Victorian state government has an initiative for a community council to help design better solutions.

Governments should link employment services with health and social protection systems to address compounding disadvantages. Unlocking this hidden workforce could be a game-changing step toward securing Australia’s economic resilience and strengthening its social fabric.

Sora Lee 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. Officially, the unemployment rate is 4.2%. But that doesn’t count all the hidden workers in Australia – https://theconversation.com/officially-the-unemployment-rate-is-4-2-but-that-doesnt-count-all-the-hidden-workers-in-australia-262870