Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By A J Brown, Professor of Public Policy & Law, Centre for Governance & Public Policy, Griffith University

Australia’s new National Anti-Corruption Commission is due to begin its operations today. Already there is much talk about who and what it should investigate.

So what kinds of cases can – and will – the NACC pursue? And how will its performance be judged?

The answers will be crucial not only to its own reputation, but overall public confidence in our newly strengthened public integrity system.

Leadership is one key to success

Last-minute compromises in the NACC’s design, like the insertion of the “exceptional circumstances” threshold for Royal Commission-style public hearings, left some wondering about its capabilities.

But as an agency which still clearly has strong powers and substantial resources, its credibility now rests primarily on the good judgement of its leadership and how it performs.

The first signs are good, with widely respected appointments by the government.

The new commissioner, Paul Brereton, is best known as leader of the Australian Defence Force’s difficult and chilling inquiry into war crimes allegations in Afghanistan. Standing down as a NSW appeals judge to accept the NACC appointment, he said he sensed a changing

tide in the affairs of the nation, which might significantly change for the better the governance of our Commonwealth.

Other encouraging appointees include Nicole Rose, the former head of Australia’s anti-money laundering regulator Austrac, and Philip Reed, the former CEO of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

A clear first case for NACC to handle?

So, what should this capable team sink its teeth into first?

A clear example of the type of case the NACC should take on is the alleged abuse of public office by retiring Coalition frontbencher Stuart Robert.

While he denies any wrongdoing, the amount of taxpayer-funded time Robert is accused of spending on advising and assisting private business associates is enough to justify widespread calls for a NACC investigation.

Now allegations have emerged, which he denies, that businesses planned to secretly channel kickbacks from contracts to Robert or his Liberal National Party fundraising vehicles.

Our research shows this basic question of whether senior officials are misusing their office for personal or political gain, or for friends and associates, lies at the heart of Australians’ corruption concerns.

Vitally, there is now an independent federal agency able to investigate and say clearly if there has been wrongdoing, or not.

Who can bring a case to the agency?

How this case should get to the NACC raises important questions.

Calls for the government to “refer” Robert to the NACC point to a dangerous assumption the agency should only investigate if it receives a specific, official complaint. This risks it being seen as a political “attack dog”.

In fact, any member of the public can ask the NACC to investigate based on their concerns about what has been reported. Or, indeed, even journalists can.

Most of the NACC’s business is actually likely to come from new legal requirements for all public service agencies to notify the commission if they become aware of any issue involving staff that “could involve corrupt conduct that is serious or systemic”. This is a huge step forward.

In the Robert case, Services Australia is already investigating alleged internal conflicts of interest affecting contracts won by the same consulting firm at the centre of the allegations against Robert.

Government Services Minister Bill Shorten has asked his agencies for further advice on how all these allegations should be resolved – but obviously, this is what the NACC is for. From this point forward, the relevant agencies should simply refer such cases without needing to be asked.

Crucially, there’s another way the NACC can decide which case to take on. If its own risk assessments, intelligence or the public debate identify cases of concern, it need not wait for anyone’s “referral”. Under the act which created it, the NACC is free to commence an inquiry into any suspected corruption issue it “becomes aware of”, including on its “own initiative”. Logically, it should do so.

Could PwC be investigated?

Other possible cases are less clear cut – underlining the tests of perceived relevance the new NACC now faces.

There have been prominent calls for the NACC to investigate the PwC scandal. Here, confidential government information about planned tax avoidance laws was used by the consulting firm to help its clients avoid the crackdown. Other similar conflicts of interest continue to be revealed.

But legal experts are rightly doubtful whether the NACC could investigate. While the agency can probe allegations of improper release of government information or corruption within a “contracted” service, PwC’s conduct was part of its own business and most likely falls outside the NACC’s government-focused jurisdiction.

There is also uncertainty over when and how the agency will investigate misuse of public funds for political pork-barrelling, such as the Morrison government’s sports and carpark rorts. Or the Australian National Audit Office’s most recent scathing report on the government’s even larger health and hospital funding program.

The NACC’s scope extends to “grey area” and political corruption, like pork-barrelling. However, this is only if it involves a breach of public trust or could adversely affect the honesty or impartiality of a public official’s work and the problem is serious or systemic.

It’s not yet clear how these thresholds will be met.

Why other reforms still matter

The uncertainties are a reminder not to expect more of the NACC than it was designed to deliver – and that other reforms are still key to ensuring government integrity.

For example, it is hard to imagine a more serious lapse of public integrity than the Robodebt scandal.

However, this is not the type of case the NACC is ever likely to investigate, because no personal corruption was involved. To prevent such massive failures of fairness, transparency and legality, we need other reforms, such as a far more robust Commonwealth ombudsman.

A revamped Australian Public Service Commission, effective Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission and overhauled political finance laws are all key for ensuring a true culture of integrity. The NACC will play a vital supporting role, with its strong new corruption prevention powers. But the body can’t do it all.

Similarly, everything hinges on stronger whistleblower protections. But while there have been some welcome first steps, there is much more to be done.

For instance, we need better protections for public and private employees alike, backed up by a whistleblower protection authority. Again, this work goes beyond the NACC, but the commission’s credibility will depend upon it.

Expectations are very high

Of course, there’s even more which will influence the NACC’s effectiveness, including:

• how it balances the need for transparency with its often secret operations

• whether its work leads to timely prosecutions, sanctions and positive change, and

• whether it completes its own inquiries in a timely way – one of the biggest criticisms of the landmark NSW ICAC findings against former premier Gladys Berejiklian and state MP Darryl Maguire.

The NACC will need to be politically visible, yet totally independent. It must be scrupulously meticulous, but also clear-minded, values-driven and brave.

All this is possible. But after years of growing expectations, the NACC certainly has no small task.

A J Brown is a board member of Transparency International, globally and in Australia. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council, all of Australia’s Ombudsman offices, most of Australia’s anti-corruption agencies, other Commonwealth and State regulatory agencies, parliaments and private sector peak bodies for his research on integrity, anti-corruption and public interest whistleblowing relevant to this article, including the Australian Research Council Linkage project ‘Strengthening Australia’s National Integrity System: Priorities for Reform’ (https://transparency.org.au/australias-national-integrity-system/)

– ref. The new National Anti-Corruption Commission faces high expectations – and a potential mountain of work – https://theconversation.com/the-new-national-anti-corruption-commission-faces-high-expectations-and-a-potential-mountain-of-work-208019

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Eva, PhD Cadidate, Australian National University

The employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians has barely changed since federal and state governments vowed to halve it more than 15 years ago. It’s a failure that raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the policies pursued.

But one government program does seem to be helping, even though it isn’t explicitly designed to improve employment: the Indigenous Procurement Policy.

Since 2015 the federal government has required a percentage of government contracts to be awarded to Indigenous businesses. This is currently 3% of eligible procurements by volume and 1.75% by value (increasing to 3% in 2027-28).

State and territory governments have similar procurement targets.
(Indigenous Australians make up about 3.8% of the population).

We’ve analysed data on more than 3,000 businesses that qualify for this program, registered with Supply Nation, a directory funded by the National Indigenous Australians Agency to assist government departments (and others) to source from an Indigenous business.

Our analysis shows
3,327 businesses employed almost 38,000 people, 36% of whom were Indigenous. That compares with a 2.2% rate among 42 of Australia’s largest corporations surveyed in 2022 for the Woort Koorliny – Australian Indigenous Employment Index.

Read more:
Closing the First Nations employment gap will take 100 years

Defining Indigenous ownership

Supply Nation is Australia’s largest directory of Indigenous businesses. There are also state-based registries, such as Kinaway in Victoria, the Northern Territory’s Indigenous Business Network, and Queensland’s Black Business Finder.

To be in the directory a business must be at least 50% Indigenous-owned. The directory also shows if a business is at least 51% Indigenous-owned – the threshold to ensure real control. Some argue this or even 100% Indigenous ownership should be the standard for procurement policies.

Each registry maintains their own processes to verify bona fides.
Supply Nation checks the ownership documents of the business and Certification of Aboriginality, typically provided through an Aboriginal community organisation or land council. This information is crosschecked with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s business registry.

Not all Indigenous businesses list themselves on registries but the 3,327 in Supply Nation are a good sample size. University of Melbourne research, for example, counted 3,619 Indigenous businesses in Australia in 2018.

Small is bountiful

On average, our results show that the bigger the business, the lower the rate of Indigenous employees.

This likely just reflects limits of the number of Indigenous people in the labour market.

For example, a small family-owned and operated Indigenous business will be able to recruit from personal networks. A large company, by contrast, will recruit from a broader labour market, and find it difficult to maintain a primarily Indigenous workforce. This helps explain why smaller businesses have a Indigenous employment rates of 52%, whereas for the largest Indigenous businesses the rate is 16%. But this is still significantly higher than in non-Indigenous businesses.

Profit or not

About 93% of Supply Nation businesses are for-profit, and 7% are not-for-profit. A higher proportion of not-for-profits are located in remote areas – that likely provide Indigenous-specific community services. This also helps explain the higher rates of Indigenous employment.

Sectoral differences

Supply Nation businesses broadly reflect sectoral industry patterns, with some obvious differences. There are more businesses in education & training, arts and recreation, and public safety and administration.

This reflects government departmental interests and demand for Indigenous knowledge in certain areas. There are for example, 101 organisations offering cultural competency training.

GRAPH OF INDUSTRIES, SUPPLY NATION v ALL AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSES

Read more:
Caring for Country: how remote communities are building on payment for ecosystem services

Measuring what works

These numbers indicate Indigenous-owned business are powerful drivers of Indigenous employment. The Indigenous Procurement Policy has contributed to this.

Yet oddly, while the policy is intended to provide Indigenous Australians “with more opportunities to participate in the economy”, its contribution to employment is not explicitly mentioned or measured.

Read more:
It’s time we moved the goalposts on Indigenous policies, so they reflect Indigenous values

As the federal government considers a suite of reforms to employment programs, this is something that should be addressed to ensure the policy directing procurement dollars to where it delivers the best return, for the public purse and Indigenous people.

Our research is also a reminder to individual consumers as to the positive social impacts supporting Indigenous businesses can have.

This article is based on research undertaken at The Australian National University by Christian Eva, Kerry Bodle, Dennis Foley, Jessica Harris and Boyd Hunter.

The research project of which this article reports on is subject to funding from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA)

– ref. Indigenous-owned businesses are key to closing the employment gap – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-owned-businesses-are-key-to-closing-the-employment-gap-208579

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

Saddle up, don the fedora and crack that whip: Harrison Ford is back as the intrepid archaeologist in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The film premiered at Cannes, where Ford was awarded an Honorary Palme d’Or in recognition of his life’s work.

Reviews for the fifth film in the franchise have been mixed, and it is the first Indy film not to be directed by Steven Spielberg (this time, it’s James Mangold, best known for his motor-racing drama Ford v Ferrari).

But this is “event” cinema that combines nostalgia, old-school special effects and John Williams’ iconic score.

So, Ford is back, aged 80. What draws actors back after all this time?

Read more:
From Jaws to Star Wars to Harry Potter: John Williams, 90 today, is our greatest living composer

Role returns

Ford first played Indy in 1981 and last played him in 2008. That is a full 15 years since the most recent film in the series, and 42 years since his first outing in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ford has form in returning to celebrated characters. One of the great pleasures of watching The Force Awakens back in 2015 was seeing Ford play Han Solo again for the first time in over 30 years.

Actors return to roles for numerous reasons:

• financial (Ford was reportedly paid US$25 million for Dial of Destiny)
• protection of their brand, image and star persona (Michael Keaton returning to play Batman after three decades and three other actors who have embodied the role)
• professional (Tom Cruise admitted over the 36 years between Top Gun films he wanted to make sure the sequel could live up to the original)
• personal (once-huge stars are working less and less, and only feel the need to return to a built-in fan base every few years – Bill Murray in the 2021 Ghostbusters sequel springs to mind).

It’s not always a successful endeavour.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone – two of the biggest action stars of the 1980s off the back of iconic roles as The Terminator, Rocky Balboa and John Rambo – have repeatedly returned to those roles, and critics have been particularly harsh.

It did not work for Sigourney Weaver in Alien: Resurrection in 1997, 18 years after her first time as Ripley; nor for Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Resurrections in 2021, 23 years after the original.

And still, I’m intrigued to see what Michael Mann could do with his long-rumoured sequel to Heat, his definitive 1995 crime film. Ever since Mann published his novel Heat 2 last year – a kind of origin story for Heat’s key protagonists – fans have been hoping a de-aged Al Pacino (now aged 83) might return as LA cop Vincent Hanna.

Read more:
Heat 2, the book sequel to Michael Mann’s film, is ‘fundamentally bizarre’ – but superb

Undoing time

“Digital de-ageing” first entered the Hollywood mainstream in 2019 with The Irishman and Captain Marvel.

Via this process, older actors (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Samuel L. Jackson have all been subject to the technology) move back and forwards in time without younger actors having to play them.

Films still tend to cast two actors to play older and younger versions of the same character, a choice that dates back at least to 1974’s The Godfather Part II, in which a young Robert de Niro plays Vito Corleone, portrayed by the much older Marlon Brando in the first film.

In 1989, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade features a delightful opening scene where River Phoenix plays the young version of Indiana Jones, before Ford takes over for the rest of the film.

Actors used to just play characters of their own age when reprising earlier roles. Paul Newman finally won a Best Actor Oscar for his role as “Fast Eddie” Felson in The Color of Money (1986), a quarter of a century after first playing him in The Hustler.

The sequel plays on Newman’s age, and his role as a mentor to an upcoming Tom Cruise, and bathes viewers in nostalgia and memories of a younger Newman.

But actors no longer have to exclusively play their age.

The first part of Dial of Destiny is an extended flashback, set in 1944, in which Ford has been digitally de-aged to appear in his 40s. This process used an AI system that scanned used and unused reels of footage of Ford from the first three Indy films to match his present-day performance.

Here, it is as if we are getting two Fords for the price of one: the “younger”, fitter Indy and the older, more world-weary version. It makes for a powerfully emotional connection on screen.

Yet there are some pitfalls to de-ageing. Some viewers complain that the whole process is distracting and that the hyper-real visual look of de-aged scenes resembles a video game.

Even so, de-ageing in Hollywood cinema is here to stay. Tom Hanks’s next film is using AI-based generative technology to digitally de-age him.

Given its reduced cost, speed and reduced human input, AI-driven innovation might have industry-changing ramifications.

The star of Ford

Harrison Ford remains a bona fide “movie star” in an industry profoundly buffeted by COVID, the rise of streaming platforms, the demise of the monoculture, and the changing nature of who constitutes a star.

In the midst of all this industry uncertainty, it seems there is no longer a statute of limitations on actors returning to much-loved characters.

The next big ethical issue for the film industry as it further embraces AI is whether to resurrect deceased actors and cast them in new movies.

Still, I’m looking forward to seeing more actors de-aged as the technology improves and audiences acclimatise to watching older actors “playing” younger versions of themselves. We are only at the start of Hollywood’s next big adventure.

Read more:
Listen — Indiana Jones’s last ride: A legacy to celebrate or bury?

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

– ref. Harrison Ford is back as an 80-year-old Indiana Jones – and a 40-something Indy. The highs (and lows) of returning to iconic roles – https://theconversation.com/harrison-ford-is-back-as-an-80-year-old-indiana-jones-and-a-40-something-indy-the-highs-and-lows-of-returning-to-iconic-roles-202357

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney

Officially launched in July 2013, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reached full rollout in 2020.

The idea for such a scheme existed since the Whitlam government in the 1970s, but only really gathered steam after Australia became one of the original state signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in 2007.

Against an international backdrop of increasing personalisation of disability services, disability campaigners in Australia fought to have an individualised scheme implemented here.

A decade later, Australians with disability, their families, advocates and support providers are waiting for the NDIS independent review and Disability Royal Commission findings, both due around October. The NDIS review published its interim report today, based on what they’ve heard so far. But we already know the scheme has been transformative for some, intensely disappointing for others and the subject of controversy.

The goal posts

Intended to be a no-fault insurance scheme for Australians with severe and permanent disability, the NDIS was to provide adequate support regardless of who they are, where they live or how their disability came about. It would be administered at the federal level with joint funding from state and territory governments.

It would also aim to foster inclusion and community awareness and provide information and referrals to services outside the NDIS (such as health and education). Specialised supports (such as personal care and therapies) for those with significant and permanent impairment, would be funded directly by the scheme and allocated via individual budgets.

But in the years since, most of the focus has been on personalised plans, with goals around inclusion and community falling by the wayside.

How much funding someone receives is determined through meeting with NDIS “planners”, who explore participants’ goals and what they need to achieve these goals. In determining supports, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), which administers the NDIS, must consider what is “reasonable and necessary” for the scheme to fund. Once a plan has been established, NDIS participants can engage providers from a market to deliver the services.

Importantly, the NDIS is meant to take a lifelong view of disability funding. Unlike the previous crisis-driven system, the idea of the NDIS is to invest money in the short term (early intervention) to save money in the longer term – when disability may have progressed to a point where the person can’t live independently or undertake paid work. Investment in disability care improves social and economic participation and independence.

Read more:
Part-time work is valuable to people with disability – but full time is more likely to attract government support

Debates and controversies

Many issues have surfaced over the first decade of the NDIS, including:

Co-design

The NDIA has also not always been seen to work in partnership with disabled Australians to co-design the scheme. A number of failed reforms have damaged trust too.

But in 2022, the NDIS Act 2013 was changed to embed the principle of co-design into the legislation and new funding followed. Changes in NDIA leadership saw, for the first time, the appointment of a disabled person to the chair of the agency, along with several new directors with disability.

Read more:
A disabled NDIA chair is a great first move in the NDIS reset. Here’s what should happen next

Costs

Higher participant numbers than originally forecast have increased scheme costs. Now expected to cost A$50 billion by 2025, the NDIS will overtake the cost of Medicare or defence. Critics argue the NDIS is unaffordable.

But looking at costs alone does not tell us everything we need to know about the scheme. For every dollar spent on the NDIS, $2.25 is created in value for the Australian economy. As NDIS costs increase, so do the economic benefits.

Also, increased funding does not mean all people with disability have access to more support. The NDIS has arguably become “the only game in town” for disability funding, while the states and territories have quietly defunded previously existing programs. While some people who qualify for individual funding packages can access more supports than before the NDIS, services for the much larger group who are not eligible for individual budgets have largely dried up.

Some of the increase in NDIS costs can be traced to mainstream services ceasing disability services, meaning people must try and access the NDIS to get disability supports.

Inequality and administrative burden

NDIS participants report many problems with using their NDIS plans and appealing NDIS decisions. The complexity of how the NDIS currently works has resulted in high administrative burdens for some participants.

This is compounded by “thin markets” where there are often not enough providers to deliver services.

For example, Indigenous people experience high levels of disability, but research describes cultural and practical barriers to their full inclusion in the scheme.

Research also suggests women and girls, people involved in the criminal justice system, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and people with psychosocial disabilities are also disadvantaged within the scheme.

In our research, incorporating the lived experience of NDIS participants, some people have said their lives have been transformed through the NDIS. But many other participants also report frustration, anger, despair, disempowerment and a sense that interacting with the NDIS constitutes a full time job.

Read more:
What we know about the NDIS cuts, and what they’ll mean for people with disability and their families

Untapped potential

One reason the critiques of the NDIS are so fierce is people have seen what the scheme can do and want it to live up to the promise of promoting inclusion and wellbeing for all participants.

There are ongoing concerns about costs. These might be mitigated through better systems to reduce provider fraud and unethical practices such as overcharging, cherry picking the “easier” or more lucrative clients, and client capture (where a provider arranges to deliver all a person’s NDIS services).

Boosting the NDIA workforce, as announced by NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, should help and also reduce mistakes and delays.

And there needs to be capacity development for NDIS participants. It’s currently very hard to learn how to use the scheme, but informed consumers can choose the right providers for their needs and speak up when they encounter problems and mistreatment.

Read more:
The government says NDIS supports should be ‘evidence-based’ – but can they be?

A new decade

Next year will see re-negotiations of funding agreements with states and territories begin – with the federal government likely to ask them to address some of the gaps in mainstream and community services.

It is clear NDIS reform will stay front-of-mind for some time yet. It is crucial people with disability remain central and involved in genuinely co-designing the second decade of the NDIS and beyond.

Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC and CYDA.

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

– ref. A decade on, the NDIS has had triumphs, challenges and controversies. Where to from here? – https://theconversation.com/a-decade-on-the-ndis-has-had-triumphs-challenges-and-controversies-where-to-from-here-208463

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Felmingham, Chair of Clinical Psychology, The University of Melbourne

Do you have a friend who responds to almost every anecdote you tell with “Oh my gosh, me too! This reminds me of when that happened to me.” Or perhaps you are that friend. Maybe you instinctively aim to bond with others by talking about experiences you’ve had that feel similar to what your friend has just shared.

In psychology, this is called “self-disclosure” – a habit of disclosing something about yourself to another person, often in an effort to forge a connection.

But while this practice feels incredibly natural to some (more commonly extroverts than introverts), it can rub others the wrong way, as a recent viral tweet showed:

Some furiously agreed, while others felt not responding to a friend’s story with your own experiences would almost violate the norms of conversation.

So why does self-disclosure elicit such strong reactions? And what can psychology tell us about this habit?

Read more:
Now, let’s talk about me: self-disclosure is intrinsically rewarding

Why do people use self-disclosure?

Self-disclosure is a bonding tool – a way of sharing part of yourself. It can deepen intimacy and friendships and makes you a bit vulnerable. That vulnerability can touch other people’s emotions, make them feel you trust them and can forge a connection.

Women typically do it more than men. Perhaps that is because women tend to be socialised to be allowed to be vulnerable or express they are not coping, whereas men are often socialised not to.

So why does it rub some people the wrong way?

Nuance is important here. Not all self-disclosure is helpful, and likewise I don’t think anyone is arguing a person should just sit there mute while one friend does all the sharing.

The goal is to have a sense of balance; effective self-disclosure is reciprocal. Jumping in too quickly with “Oh yes, that happened to me” can end up saturating conversation and make your friend feel they were never heard in the first place. It can be inadvertently invalidating and feel unbalanced.

A vast body of psychology research tells us that, fundamentally, humans want to feel heard. If your friend has just told you about some significant thing that happened to them, allow them space to express their feelings and their experience.

Another way a well-meaning self-disclosure can end up worsening imbalance is when one person shares an experience that, to them, feels equivalent – but it’s not. Your experience of the time you almost lost a loved one is not the same as your friend’s experience of actually losing a loved one.

Sometimes people jump in with advice and what, to them, feel like similar stories out of a misplaced effort to “fix” the first person’s problems.

But people’s contexts are different and their capacities are different.

Ironically, your effort to “help” may leave your friend with a sense of shame they are not able to solve their problem as easily as you did.

Grief can be a flashpoint

Grief can be a real flashpoint for this clash around self-disclosure. If a friend is talking about grief and your instinct is to jump in with your own experiences, please remember no two experiences of grief are the same.

Grief can be an incredibly isolating experience. In the acute aftermath people will swarm around you and you can feel very busy, but a few days or weeks later you are stuck with the grief while everyone else gets back to normal life.

Even close friends can panic and not know what to say after the immediate dust has settled. They may try to “help” by talking about their own experiences, or encourage a person to “move on” but this can end up invalidating the grieving person’s experience.

The safest thing is to listen and let a person who is grieving just feel their emotions.

It’s not a competition

Not every clash over self-disclosure is about grief, of course. Sometimes it can happen over seemingly banal things. You’re happy about a minor achievement, but after sharing it with a friend they say they did that, too.

If you’re an instinctive self-discloser, just be aware sharing your experiences too quickly after your friend can sometimes read as competitiveness (even if unintended).

Not all self-disclosure is wrong!

Not all self-disclosure is harmful. Sharing your lived experiences can form the basis of a great conversation and a meaningful connection. We don’t want to be in a position where we have to shrink our joy because we worry about how it will affect anyone and everyone.

At the end of the day, we need to let each other have joy, sadness, anger and all the emotions.

Giving each other the space to feel those emotions is key. When your friend tells their story, ask them a few questions about it. Give them time and space to reflect on their experience and how it affected them, before you jump in straight away with your own experience.

And remember that context is key: sometimes self-disclosure will deepen your connection, while other times talking about your experiences may not actually be all that helpful.

Read more:
What do your earliest childhood memories say about you?

Kim Felmingham has received funding from the NHMRC and the ARC.

– ref. ‘Oh that happened to me, too!’ Sharing your experiences in conversation is common but sometimes it’s best to just listen – https://theconversation.com/oh-that-happened-to-me-too-sharing-your-experiences-in-conversation-is-common-but-sometimes-its-best-to-just-listen-208836

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Livingstone, Associate Professor, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

A ban on all gambling advertising within three years has attracted the most attention of the 31 recommendations made by the Australian parliamentary inquiry into online gambling, which reported this week.

But equally significant are the recommendations to adopt public health principles to prevent gambling harm, to appoint a national online regulator, and for Australian to lead the development of international agreements that “aim to reduce gambling harm and protect public policy and research from gambling industry interference”.

If implemented, the recommendations will advance gambling regulation by several orders of magnitude.

Preventing harm is a better goal than the current practice of ignoring harms until they become overwhelming. Building a fence at the top of the cliff, rather than providing a fleet of ambulances at the bottom, seems sensible.

Many countries are grappling with regulating unlicensed online gambling operators registered in places like Curaçao and the Isle of Man. The only way to effectively address this is via international agreements.

And as with many other harmful commodity industries, gambling operators advance their interests through political influence. They have enthusiastically utilised the tactics honed by the tobacco industry – lobbying, political donations and influencing research outcomes through funding.

All these aspects need addressing. For example, the inquiry recommends imposing a levy on the gambling industry to fund research.

Read more:
Place your bets: will banning illegal offshore sites really help kick our gambling habit?

Phasing out advertising

The proposals to prohibit all inducements to gamble come in four phases.

The first would ban all social media and online advertising. Radio advertising during school drop-off times would also be prohibited.

In the second phase, broadcast advertising for an hour either side of sporting broadcasts would be banned (as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has argued for).

The third stage would prohibit all broadcast advertising for gambling between 6am and 10pm.

Finally, three years on, all gambling advertising would be gone from our screens.

Not many people will miss it. A 2022 survey by the Australia Institute found 70% support for such restrictions. The evidence suggests this would be beneficial to young people, since exposure to advertising increases the likelihood of gambling as adults, with significant harm for some.

Read more:
Sport is being used to normalise gambling. We should treat the problem just like smoking

Important precedents

The recommendations would set important precedents that can be readily applied to other forms of gambling. These include the principle of establishing a public health-oriented harm prevention policy, a national regulatory system, and enhancing consumer protections to potentially include a universal pre-commitment system.

If online gambling can be better regulated – and it can – why not casinos and pokies? Casino inquiries in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia have certainly demonstrated the need. So has the NSW Crime Commission’s 2022 inquiry into money laundering in pubs and clubs. Notably, poker machines are estimated to be responsible for 51% to 57% of the total problems arising from gambling. Race and sports wagering account for 20%.

Industry will resist

The online gambling industry will do all it can to thwart these initiatives, along with broadcasters and some sports businesses.

Certainly Australia’s unenviable record of being world leaders in gambling losses will be threatened if the recommendations are implemented.

The report acknowledges wagering service providers have “successfully framed the issue of gambling harm around personal responsibility while diminishing industry and government responsibility”.

There is too much potential for the gambling industry to be involved in the development of gambling regulation and policy in Australia.

Submissions from the gambling industry reflected this.

For example, Responsible Wagering Australia, which represents wagering companies such as Bet365, Betfair, Entain, Sportsbet, Pointsbet and Unibet, suggested the industry was focused on limiting harm, and mindful of the risks of “problem gambling”.

Indeed, the inquiry’s original terms of reference were about “online gambling and its impacts on problem gamblers”.

The committee changed this to the “impacts on those experiencing gambling harm”. Its report reflects this change, and the majority of submissions and evidence given in 13 public hearings overwhelmingly in favour of improved regulation of online gambling product

In the report’s forward, chair Peta Murphy writes:

I am proud to say this Committee has delivered a unanimous report that says, ‘enough is enough’.

Read more:
Sport is being used to normalise gambling. We should treat the problem just like smoking

Gambling harm imposes enormous costs on the community, and on those affected, including families. Examples of these effects are prominent in the committee’s report. Many are harrowing.

There is some way to go before Australia joins Italy, Spain, Belgium and The Netherlands in taking action against gambling interests. But delay means more harm to more people.

The Australian government now has an excellent road map to demonstrate its commitment to the health and wellbeing of Australians. Adopting the inquiry’s recommendations should be a high priority.

Charles Livingstone has received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Finnish Alcohol Research Foundation, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, the Turkish Red Crescent Society, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010-11. He is a member of the Lancet Public Health Commission into gambling, and of the World Health Organisation expert group on gambling and gambling harm. He made a submission to and appeared before the HoR Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm.

– ref. Australia has a strong hand to tackle gambling harm. Will it go all in or fold? – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-a-strong-hand-to-tackle-gambling-harm-will-it-go-all-in-or-fold-208749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Gallagher, PhD Candidate, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland

For almost a century, zoning has been the key tool used by urban planners to influence how our cities grow and change. Our newly published research looked at whether zoning is effective at guiding new urban growth patterns.

Zoning schemes vary, but generally consist of a map that classifies land into zones and a code that says what activities are permitted in each zone.

We found simply rezoning land for higher density is not enough to transform low-density and car-centric neighbourhoods into the mixed-use and walkable neighbourhoods envisioned in our planning schemes.

Read more:
Wanted: family-friendly apartments. But what do families want from apartments?

A post-war model for guiding growth

Contemporary zoning truly developed after the second world war. Australian cities grew rapidly during this period.

A combination of large real estate interests and the emerging field of urban planning created low-density, car-centric suburbs. Urban plans called for standardised subdivisions and land uses, and engineering of streets and infrastructure.

Urban development was largely characterised by detached houses in residential suburbs. Large road networks separated these suburbs from commercial and industrial areas of the city.

Fast-forward to the late 1980s and many cities began to introduce planning mechanisms to restrict outward expansion. Changes in zoning allowed for increased density and a mix of land uses. The aim was to encourage redevelopment of existing urban areas.

Read more:
How we accidentally planned the desertion of our cities

What did the study look at?

Our research sought to understand how this new zoning, with the goal of increasing urban density, works in practice. We wanted to explore how differences in neighbourhood layouts influence outcomes.

To find out, we compared the redevelopment of six neighbourhoods over 70 years.
Each neighbourhood has zoning that allows for high-rise apartments to be built. But the six neighbourhoods have different street, land parcel and land use patterns. This is because their initial construction happened in different periods.

Study areas included: inner suburbs with a gridded street pattern; inner and middle suburbs retrofitted for motorway and road-widening projects and large drive-in shopping centres; and suburbs built with motorways, streets following curved lines and drive-in shopping centres at the outset.

Our research looked at the city at three scales: street network, land parcels and building footprints.

What did the study find?

We found street networks were stable, except for government-led motorway projects. Large-scale disruption of street networks often requires acts of overt, top-down power. This can fundamentally alter the urban fabric of a neighbourhood – a highway cut one study area in half.

We found parcel boundaries were reconfigured for new development. Parcel size was reduced for most uses, except for commercial services like shopping centres.

We found a decrease in built structures over time, but an increase in their size. This was mainly due to larger buildings replacing smaller cottages and businesses. The total area covered by buildings increased substantially.

Read more:
Why city policy to ‘protect the Brisbane backyard’ is failing

Some neighbourhoods were more adaptable to redevelopment than others. Less-connected neighbourhoods with large highways and cul-de-sacs, including those close to the city centre, had smaller increases in density than neighbourhoods with more grid-like street networks.

Read more:
Road to nowhere: why the suburban cul-de-sac is an urban planning dead end

Protections on so-called character homes and successful campaigns against zoning for housing diversity mean multi-family buildings like apartments were concentrated in specific precincts, often next to low-density areas.

Character houses in Brisbane are dwellings built before 1947. Most inner-city parcels allow the construction of small apartments or townhouses if the development retains the original house.

However, our results show most parcels with character houses still contained only houses in 2021. This could be because contemporary renovations of houses significantly increase their building footprints, leaving little space for extra dwellings.

Read more:
Whose ‘identity’ are we preserving in Auckland’s special character housing areas?

What does this mean for planning?

Our findings highlight the need to consider the existing built form and urban layout when applying generalised densification targets.

The suburbs of most cities in the developed world occupy more land than the gridded and denser city centres – and these suburban developments are not very adaptable to change.

Zoning alone may not be enough to catalyse redevelopment of suburbs that have disconnected and curvilinear street networks. Investment in infrastructure that improves transport connections may be needed if these areas are to be desirable (and practical) locations for increased urban density.

Read more:
No need to give up on crowded cities – we can make density so much better

Rachel Gallagher has worked as a Senior Planner in Queensland’s Department of State Development, Infrastructure, Local Government and Planning.

Yan Liu receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC).

– ref. Houses and high-rises (and nothing in between): why land zoning hasn’t been effective for improving urban density – https://theconversation.com/houses-and-high-rises-and-nothing-in-between-why-land-zoning-hasnt-been-effective-for-improving-urban-density-204185

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jude McCulloch, Emeritus Professor Monash University, Monash University

For over 15 years, the Victoria police used criminal barrister Nicola Gobbo as an informant against her own clients in what has become known as the Lawyer X scandal.

The scandal has been accurately described as a massive blow to the criminal justice system.

But this week it became clear the director of public prosecutions would not bring charges against any current or former police officers in the case.

The special investigator building the cases against the officers, former High Court judge Geoffrey Nettle, said it appeared to be a “waste of time and resources” to pursue the matter any further. His office has now been disbanded, with little to show for the A$120 million that was spent on years of investigations.

While the news may have only been briefly in the headlines, this case matters greatly. The shelving of the investigation should be a concern to us all.

‘Reprehensible’ behaviour

In the early 2000s, Gobbo represented a number of notorious figures in Melbourne’s criminal underground, including Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. At the same time, she was giving police information about her clients.

In 2018, the High Court said the use of Gobbo as a police informer “debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system” and that police conduct in using Gobbo as an informer was “reprehensible”.

The right to a fair trial is a cornerstone of the rule of law. No trial can be fair when a person’s defence lawyer is acting as an agent of the police.

In the wake of the High Court case, a royal commission was established. It found the police use of Gobbo as an informer may have affected the convictions or findings of guilt of more than 1,000 people.

Several convictions for serious offences have since been quashed, due at least in part to the police behaviour in using Gobbo.

The royal commission found police “corrupted the criminal justice system” and “tolerated bending the rules to help solve serious crime”. Senior police were implicated.

À lire aussi :
Lawyer X inquiry calls for sweeping change to Victoria Police, but is it enough to bring real accountability?

Why bringing charges against police is difficult

The scandal and its aftermath point to a systemic failure of police accountability. Such failure is fertile soil for police corruption and makes a repeat of the Lawyer X scandal entirely possible.

The scandal was kept under wraps for nearly a decade as police fought through the courts to suppress information about their use of Gobbo.

According to the royal commission, hundreds of people within Victoria Police knew about Gobbo. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) also knew about Gobbo, but decided in 2015 it did not have the jurisdiction to deal with it.

IBAC sent the matter back to police to investigate. The police showed little inclination to investigate.

In short, there was no investigative body capable or willing to investigate the police tactic of using a criminal lawyer as a source against her own clients.

À lire aussi :
Expanding Victoria’s police powers without robust, independent oversight is a dangerous idea

The key recommendation of the royal commission was the appointment of a special investigator, Geoffrey Nettle, to do the job. However, the director of public prosecutions maintained final say over whether any charges would be pursued.

While the director of public prosecutions is formally an independent body, bringing charges against police can still be professionally challenging, particularly when senior police may be involved. The director of public prosecutions relies on close police cooperation for its everyday operations.

The police are also politically powerful. In 1993, after a former Victorian director of public prosecutions charged police officers over fatal shootings, the government sought to undermine his independence, prompting his resignation.

Nettle believed his office had “established a powerful case of offending” in the Lawyer X scandal.

The director of public prosecutions, Kerri Judd, declined to pursue charges, however, because of the time that had elapsed since the alleged offences and because the police involved would be able to run a defence “that any wrong or improper decisions […] were made in good faith in an effort to solve and prevent serious criminality”.

In addition, she said she had no confidence in Gobbo as a witness.

Calls for reform

The Lawyer X case provides a stark demonstration of why we need to address systemic failures in investigating police misconduct.

While the IBAC provides the promise of independent oversight, it is limited by a lack of resources, jurisdiction and investigative powers. In Victoria, police investigate at least 9% of complaints against police, and very few complaints are substantiated.

À lire aussi :
Police shouldn’t be able to investigate themselves. Victoria needs an independent police accountability body

A parliamentary inquiry into IBAC made a raft of recommendations for change in the system of police oversight in 2018, but these have not been implemented.

In a positive sign, key recommendations of the royal commission into the Lawyer X scandal have been implemented. Legislation covering 25 of the recommendations related to the management of police informers has been passed.

However, these recent changes to the law also allow police to register lawyers as informants in some circumstances. This has the danger of institutionalising what could be a corrupt practice.

In addition, the external oversight of this informant registration scheme is in many respects similar to the flawed police oversight that contributed to the Lawyer X scandal in the first place.

The High Court said in relation to the scandal, “it is greatly to be hoped that it will never be repeated”. Without real reform to the way the police are policed and held to account, there is a very real possibility that it will be.

I have previously engaged in paid consultancy work for Victoria Police.
I have previously received Australian Research Council grants to engage in a research partnership with Victoria Police.
I have previously worked extensively in community legal centres on issues related to police accountability.

Michael Maguire is a member of the Yoorrook Royal Commission Advisory Committee, Melbourne

– ref. Investigation into ‘reprehensible’ failure of police ends quietly with no charges – why we must learn from the Lawyer X scandal – https://theconversation.com/investigation-into-reprehensible-failure-of-police-ends-quietly-with-no-charges-why-we-must-learn-from-the-lawyer-x-scandal-208654

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Megan Willis, Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural and Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University

Our interest in narcissism has never been higher, with Google searches for the word “narcissist” having steadily increased over the past decade. This term has become part of everyday parlance, readily thrown around to describe celebrities, politicians and ex-partners.

A byproduct of our growing interest in narcissism is a curiosity about what types of narcissist exist. But this is where things get tricky. A search for “types of narcissists” on Google returns wildly varied results. Some websites describe as few as three types. Others list up to 14.

What’s going on here?

What is a narcissist?

The word “narcissism” comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, a boy who falls in love with his own reflection.

Over the past century or so, conceptualisations of narcissism have evolved. It is now thought of as a collection of personality traits characterised by grandiosity, entitlement and callousness. “Narcissist” is the term used to describe someone who scores highly on these traits.

A narcissist may also meet the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, a mental health diagnosis that affects about 1% of people. It’s broadly described as a pervasive pattern of exhibiting grandiosity, needing admiration and lacking empathy.

Importantly, not all narcissists have narcissistic personality disorder.

Read more:
Think you might be dating a ‘vulnerable narcissist’? Look out for these red flags

How many types of narcissism are there?

There are two main types of trait narcissism (which are distinct from narcissistic personality disorder). These are grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism.

Grandiose narcissism is associated with a grandiose sense of self, aggression and dominance. Vulnerable narcissism is characterised by heightened emotional sensitivity and a defensive and insecure grandiosity that masks feelings of inadequacy.

Recent models have identified three core components of narcissism that help explain the similarities and differences between both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

1. Antagonism is common to both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. It’s linked with traits such as arrogance, entitlement, exploitativeness and a lack of empathy.

2. Agentic extraversion is unique to grandiose narcissism. It’s associated with traits such as authoritativeness, grandiosity and exhibitionism.

3. Narcissistic neuroticism is specific to vulnerable narcissism. It’s associated with fragile self-esteem and a tendency to experience negative emotions and shame.

A person will likely meet the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder when there is a convergence of high scores across each of these components.

Also, while diagnostic criteria emphasise the grandiose aspects of narcissistic personality disorder, clinicians report an oscillation between both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in people with the disorder.

Vulnerable narcissism has a considerable overlap with borderline personality disorder, particularly in terms of its causes and the displayed personality traits. A person who only scores highly for vulnerable narcissism is more likely to be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder than narcissistic personality disorder.

Read more:
Borderline personality disorder is a hurtful label for real suffering – time we changed it

Are there other types of narcissists?

Given the consensus in psychology on the two main types of trait narcissism described above (which sit alongside the clinical diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder), how can we account for the many sources describing other “types” of narcissism?

First and most concerning is the proliferation of pop psychology articles that describe types of narcissism for which there is no good evidence.

They feature terms such as “cerebral narcissist”, “somatic narcissist”, “seductive narcissist” and “spiritual narcissist”. But searching for these terms in peer-reviewed academic literature yields no evidence that they are valid types of narcissism.

Some articles also use terms often considered synonymous with grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. This likely comes from early literature, which used a range of terms to describe types of narcissism. One review from 2008 identified more than 50 different labels used to describe types of narcissism.

Conceptually, however, each of these labels can be mapped onto either grandiose or vulnerable narcissism.

Often you will see “overt” and “covert” being described, sometimes alongside descriptions of grandiose and vulnerable narcissists. Some researchers have proposed overt and covert narcissism as being akin to grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Others argue they are more appropriately considered expressions of narcissism present in both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism.

Lastly, a number of these articles describe narcissists by drawing on specific expressions of grandiose or vulnerable narcissism. For instance, they describe “antagonistic narcissists”, “communal narcissists”, “agentic narcissists” and “sexual narcissists” alongside grandiose and vulnerable narcissists.

These descriptions imply each of these are mutually exclusive types of narcissism, when really they should be thought of as aspects of grandiose and/or vulnerable narcissism. In other words, they are examples of how narcissism might be expressed.

The danger of labels

Narcissism’s multifaceted nature has likely contributed to the array of terms people use to describe narcissists.

Some of these are valid constructs. When used accurately, they can be useful for identifying the different ways narcissism is expressed – particularly in intimate relationships, where high levels of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are associated with perpetration of abuse.

However, online articles that inaccurately describe and categorise narcissism are anything but helpful. This content fuels armchair psychologists, who then jump to assign the label “narcissist” to anyone they think is displaying narcissistic traits.

Even when accurately applied in clinical settings, diagnostic labels aren’t always useful. They may bring stigma, which can discourage people from seeking mental health support.

Read more:
Narcissism – and the various ways it can lead to domestically abusive relationships

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

– ref. How many types of narcissist are there? A psychology expert sets the record straight – https://theconversation.com/how-many-types-of-narcissist-are-there-a-psychology-expert-sets-the-record-straight-207610

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mandy Hagstrom, Senior Lecturer, Exercise Physiology. School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

When you lift weights, why are you doing what you are doing? Who told you to train that way – coach, a personal trainer, an online exercise guru? And where did they learn how to prescribe exercise?

In fact, much of what we (and our trainers) think of as typical resistance training routines is heavily influenced by “governing body” fitness industry organisations you’ve likely never heard of: groups like the American College of Sports Medicine, the United Kingdom Strength and Conditioning Association, and the Australian Strength and Conditioning Association.

These peak bodies often release “consensus statements” on what works when it comes to resistance training. These statements influence TAFE and university courses, and help shape the education of personal trainers and coaches. The findings in these statements trickle down into what you and I see happen in the gym every week.

My colleagues and I wanted to take a closer look at these statements, and the studies on which they’re based. We were interested to know how many of those studies looked at both males and females, and the gender of the people who authored these statements.

Our paper, published today in the journal Sports Medicine, found most of what you are being told to do in the gym is likely primarily based upon male data, written by men.

It’s worth noting research hasn’t served sex and gender diverse people well and has tended to use a binary.

Read more:
Lift heavy or smaller weights with high reps? It all depends on your goal

What we did

Sex is a biological construct, whereas gender refers to the roles and traits society often assigns to men and women. It is important to note neither sex nor gender are binary.

However, data are typically presented in research in a binary manner. As our research was looking at the literature from a biological perspective, we used the terms female and male to describe the participants included in these studies. We used the terms woman and man to describe the gender of the authors and looked at all consensus statements published after the year 2000. As my colleagues and I noted in our paper, we acknowledge that our chosen methods of classifying sex and gender based on the above terminology may have resulted in misclassification of some people.

We then went through the list of studies referenced in these statements. We analysed the number of males and females who participated in these studies.

We also collected information about the gender of the authors of these statements. In other words, we collated the sex of over 100 million participants cited in the reference lists of 11 consensus statements from around the world.

What we found

We found:

• 91% of the first authors of these statements were men

• women made up only 13% of authors overall

• female participants only accounted for approximately 30% of all people in the studies on which adult and youth consensus statements were based

• guidelines relating to older adults were a bit more balanced, with 54% female participants.

Some may argue 30% female participant data is probably fine, because women don’t lift weights so much. In the 1980s and before, weight training was seen as a masculine pursuit.

Not any more.

In fact, a recent survey in Australia found women are more likely to report adequate muscle strengthening activities over the previous 12 months when compared to men.

All this matters because a growing body of evidence suggests physiological differences between sexes in response to exercise.

Research suggests differences in skeletal muscle structure, the way muscle fibres work, and in the time taken to recover following intense exercise.

Work from our team has also shown men gain more absolute muscle size and strength following participation in resistance training but that relative gains tend to be similar or greater in women.

And recent research has shown strength differences appear to still be present, even when muscle size is matched between sexes.

Could there be benefit in prescribing exercise differently between sexes?

We don’t know what we don’t know

We know resistance training is good for our physical and mental health.

At the moment, however, we don’t know if we are disadvantaging half the population by knowing too little about how best they should do it.

Due to the longer time course for recovery mentioned above, should females have more rest days between high intensity sessions?

Given females appear to be more fatigue-resistant, should they actually be doing more training than males per session?

Unfortunately, we don’t yet know. A lot of the research needed to answer these questions conclusively hasn’t been done yet. And the research that we do have does not seem to be making its way to the papers informing the guidelines.

What now?

We need more women researchers authoring studies that feature female participants.

In other fields of medical research, the proportion of women authors is linked to greater enrolment of female participants in research studies.

Women authors are also more likely to present data by sex or gender, making this data more useful for real world interpretation.

The bottom line? What you are being told to do in the gym is likely primarily based on studies that include more males than females. And we can’t yet be sure if that is delivering the best results for females and girls who work out.

We need more research evidence examining sex differences during exercise, and methodologically rigorous studies focused solely on female cohorts.

This will bridge the data gap, and help us understand how to get the best out of exercise for all.

Read more:
How often should you change up your exercise routine?

Mandy Hagstrom 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. New study: much of what we’re told about gym exercises and resistance training is from studies of males, by men – https://theconversation.com/new-study-much-of-what-were-told-about-gym-exercises-and-resistance-training-is-from-studies-of-males-by-men-205753

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenni Adams, Professor, Physics and Astronomy, University of Canterbury

Our Milky Way galaxy is an awe-inspiring feature of the night sky, viewable with the naked eye as a hazy band of stars stretching from horizon to horizon.

For the first time, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica has produced an image of the Milky Way using neutrinos – tiny, ghost-like astronomical messengers.

In research published today in the journal Science, the IceCube Collaboration – an international group of more than 350 scientists – presents evidence of high-energy neutrino emission coming from the Milky Way.

We have not yet figured out exactly where in our galaxy these particles are coming from. But today’s result brings us closer to finding some of the galaxy’s most extreme environments.

Neutrino astronomy

Neutrinos offer a unique view of the cosmos as they can travel directly from places no other radiation or particles can escape from. This makes them very interesting to astronomers, because neutrinos offer a window into the extreme cosmic environments that create another kind of particle called cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are high-energy particles that permeate our Universe, but their origins are difficult to pin down. Cosmic rays are electrically charged, which means their path through space is scrambled by magnetic fields, and by the time one arrives at Earth there is no way to tell where it came from.

Read more:
Spotting astrophysical neutrinos is just the tip of the IceCube

However, the environments that accelerate cosmic rays to extraordinary energies also produce neutrinos – and neutrinos have no electric charge, so they travel in nice straight lines. So if we can detect the path of neutrinos arriving at Earth, this will point back to where the neutrinos were created.

But detecting those neutrinos is not so easy.

How to hunt neutrinos

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is not far from the South Pole. It uses more than 5,000 light sensors arrayed throughout a cubic kilometre of pristine Antarctic ice to search for signs of high-energy neutrinos from our galaxy and beyond.

Vast numbers of neutrinos are streaming through Earth all the time, but only a tiny fraction of them bump into anything on their way through.

Each neutrino interaction makes a tiny flash of light – and those tiny flashes are what the IceCube sensors look out for. The direction and energy of the neutrino can be determined from the amount and pattern of light detected.

IceCube has previously detected high-energy neutrinos coming from outside the Milky Way. However, it has been more challenging to isolate the lower-energy neutrinos coming from within our galaxy.

This is because some flashes IceCube detected can be traced to cosmic rays hitting Earth’s atmosphere, which create neutrinos and other particles called muons. To filter out these flashes, IceCube researchers have developed ways to distinguish particles created in the atmosphere and those from further afield by the shape of the light patterns they create in the ice.

Read more:
An Antarctic neutrino telescope has detected a signal from the heart of a nearby active galaxy

Filtering out the unwanted detections has made IceCube more sensitive to astrophysical neutrinos. The final breakthrough that allowed the creation of a neutrino image of the Milky Way came from machine-learning methods that improve the identification of cascades of light produced by neutrinos, as well as the determination of the neutrino’s direction and energy.

Closing in on cosmic rays

The new neutrino lens on our galaxy will help reveal where the most powerful accelerators of galactic cosmic rays are located. We hope to learn how energetic these particles can get, and the inner workings of these high-energy galactic engines.

However, we are yet to pinpoint these accelerators within the Milky Way. The new IceCube analysis found evidence for neutrinos coming from broad regions of the galaxy, but was not able to discern individual sources.

Our team, at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and the University of Adelaide in Australia, has a plan to realise that next step.

We are making models to predict the neutrino signal close to likely particle accelerators so we can target our searches for neutrinos.

Undergraduate student Rhia Hewett and PhD student Ryan Burley are examining pairs of accelerator candidates and molecular dust clouds. They plan to estimate the flux of neutrinos produced by cosmic rays interacting in the clouds, after the neutrinos travel from the accelerators.

They will use their results to enable a focused search of IceCube data for the sources of neutrino emissions. We believe this will provide the key to using IceCube to unlock the secrets of the most energetic processes in the Milky Way.

Jenni Adams has received funding from the Marsden Fund Council from New Zealand Government funding, managed by the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

– ref. A neutrino portrait of our galaxy reveals high-energy particles from within the Milky Way – https://theconversation.com/a-neutrino-portrait-of-our-galaxy-reveals-high-energy-particles-from-within-the-milky-way-208622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vivienne Lewis, Assistant professor – Psychology, University of Canberra

“Food noise” or thinking about food constantly is not helpful to anyone’s mental health and wellbeing.

When we become obsessed with any one line of thought (in this case, food), we can become consumed by it and it’s very hard to think about anything else. This can be very distressing.

Some people taking the diabetes drug Ozempic for weight loss have reported a sudden silencing of food noise and cravings. But there are other ways to maintain a healthy balance when it comes to our internal food monologue.

One track thinking

Thinking about food constantly is a common feature of an eating disorder. Indeed one of the main criteria for diagnosis of eating disorders is a preoccupation with the weight, shape and size of one’s body. A person may use control, or lack of control, of food to bring their body in line with how they perceive it should look.

A person with anorexia nervosa severely restricts their food intake to the point where their body is starving. As a result of this deprivation, their brain constantly thinks about food.

People with binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa are also consumed by thoughts of food including when they’ll eat, what they’ll eat, obtaining food and where they’ll eat it.

But it’s not just those with eating disorders who can be obsessed with food. If we are dieting, undereating, restricting our intake of food or overeating, we can be consumed by thoughts about food.

An easy fix?

As a clinical psychologist, I have treated many clients and helped people with eating disorders who can not stop thinking about food. They have often tried medications and drugs to try and stop ruminating over food, usually to no avail.

Or they are prescribed medications to reduce appetite, in the case of binge eating and obesity. These might work and help the person lose large amounts of weight, only for them to put it all back on again when they stop taking the drug.

Weight loss drugs should only be used under medical supervision and some diet pills can affect the heart, breathing, blood pressure and brain.

Ozempic (and similar drug Wegovy) use the ingredient semaglutide drug to induce feelings of being full or satisfied. Side effects of semaglutide can include nausea, bloating, constipation and diarrhoea.

So, it’s important to work on developing a healthy relationship with food and your body. Often a combination of psychological therapy and seeing an accredited dietitian is needed.

Read more:
Ozempic helps weight loss by making you feel full. But certain foods can do the same thing – without the side-effects

Working out what’s driving it

With clients, I start by working on what’s driving the food obsession. Is it due to eating too little? Not eating regularly enough? Having strict rules and what you can and can’t eat?

It’s important to establish regular and adequate eating so your body and brain are well-fuelled and you can make sensible decisions around the food you consume.

Our biology ensures that when we are hungry we will think about obtaining food for survival. It can make us anxious or “hangry” and it can be hard to concentrate or focus on anything else but food. Then when we eat, our brain stops sending messages to eat and we can focus again.

The RAVES model of eating is used for people with eating disorders to help them be in tune with their body, respond to its needs and establish healthy behaviours. It’s about helping a person understand where their food rules have come from, debunk myths around eating and dieting, and challenge unhelpful ways of thinking about food.

Many people with and without eating disorders have food rules around what they can and can’t eat, when and how much and this just sets us up to be obsessed with food. Once you allow yourself to eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full and have the foods you enjoy, you free your brain to think about things other than food and eating.

Read more:
When I work with people with eating disorders, I see many rules around ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods – but eating is never that simple

A healthy food mindset

A person who has a healthy relationship with food listens to their body’s needs. They don’t have food rules around what they can and can’t eat and they feel comfortable in their body.

They can reject media and advertising around dieting and idealised bodies and they are respectful of their body. When I work with clients we work on listening to your body, respecting its needs and treating it well. This is called having a positive body image and is an important part of treatment for people with body image and eating issues.

It is often a person’s perception of their body that influences their eating. Learning to accept your physical self as well as treating the body well, with good nutrition, builds a positive body image.

If you are concerned about your relationship with food or your body, seeing your GP for a referral to a psychologist or dietitian is advised. The Butterfly Foundation is also a great source of support for information on eating disorders.

Vivienne Lewis 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. Some Ozempic users say it silences ‘food noise’. But there are drug-free ways to stop thinking about food so much – https://theconversation.com/some-ozempic-users-say-it-silences-food-noise-but-there-are-drug-free-ways-to-stop-thinking-about-food-so-much-208467

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

The Northern Territory government’s plan to turn 100,000 hectares over to large-scale crops such as cotton and its support for onshore gas extraction is threatening the world’s largest intact tropical savanna.

This is a region of immense cultural, environmental and economic value. It is home to the World Heritage listed Kakadu National Park and rich biodiversity.

As wildlife ecologists and conservation scientists, we are deeply concerned about plans announced last month that would intensify land clearing.

Accelerating habitat loss would all but guarantee failure of the Australian government’s zero extinctions plan, notwithstanding the fact many of the species placed in harm’s way by fracking and farming are yet to be discovered.

Rather than relaxing regulation to support development, we need to urgently overhaul Australia’s grossly inadequate environmental laws and safeguards, which also lack enforcement.

Read more:
EcoCheck: Australia’s vast, majestic northern savannas need more care

Land clearing leaves wildlife homeless

When we think of unregulated land clearing and habitat loss in the tropics, impoverished countries in tropical South America, Africa and Asia spring to mind. Not a relatively rich, developed country like Australia.

But across Australia’s tropical north, landscapes are afforded little protection. Land clearing leads to habitat loss, erosion and pollution of waterways.

Threatened species such as the Gouldian finch, black-footed tree-rat, and northern river shark are being put at risk.

Agriculture, including livestock grazing (pastoralism), is by far the greatest driver of land clearing in northern Australia.

The land subject to clearing approvals in the NT increased by 300% between 2018 and 2021. This trend is expected to continue.

First Nations Peoples, environmental scientists, conservation groups, and other members of the public fear the push to develop cotton in the NT will mean clearing a further 100,000 ha. That stems from the 2019 NT Farmers Association business case for the construction of a cotton processing facility in the NT, which is nearing completion.

Weak laws afford limited protection

Our national environmental protection law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, relies on self-referral of development activities for assessment.

Proponents of pastoral land clearing projects almost never refer their projects to the Australian government for assessment, even if their projects are set to deplete thousands of hectares of habitat within the known range of threatened species.

This means the potential impacts on threatened species and other natural values supposedly protected by national environmental laws, are never assessed by experts. And there is no mechanism for anyone else to refer the development for assessment.

The NT has no dedicated land clearing or native vegetation management legislation. The Pastoral Land Board approves land clearing across pastoral leases (which cover more than 45% of the territory’s land area). Permits for up to 5,000ha are generally granted without any formal environmental impact assessment.

On one occasion the proponent referred an application to the NT Environment Protection Agency. But it was deemed clearing the 10,000ha would not have a significant impact. So there was no environmental impact assessment required.

Some of the most notable examples of recent uncontrolled land clearing, without any assessment of biodiversity impacts, were for cotton on pastoral land in the NT.

Finally, the current regulatory system covers single development proposals. It is poorly equipped to consider the cumulative impacts of successive individual clearing events.

Read more:
Extinction crisis: native mammals are disappearing in Northern Australia, but few people are watching

Fuelling fires and biodiversity loss

The push to extract gas from the Beetaloo Basin represents another major threat to the region. The export of fracked gas from Beetaloo will be facilitated by the Middle Arm Sustainable Development precinct.

This runs counter to warnings from the world’s climate scientists that we must rapidly move away from a reliance on fossil fuels if we are to meet ambitions to keep global warming below 1.5℃.

For northern Australia, climate change means more severe storms, coral bleaching, death of mangroves, more intense and extended dry seasons (with less water for wildlife), and increased fire risk and severity.

Threats may compound upon each other, as invasive gamba and buffel grass that favour and promote fire would be even more likely to thrive and expand.

A better future for Australia’s tropical savannas

To protect Australia’s tropical savannas from uncontrolled land clearing and gas extraction, we need:

• Stronger national environment protection legislation. The federal government is in the process of reviewing the EPBC Act. This is a perfect opportunity to recognise and protect our tropical savannas. The new act must have stronger requirements for the formal assessment of all projects that are likely to affect threatened species. It must also take the cumulative impacts of multiple small projects into account, to avoid “death by a thousand cuts”.

• New NT-focused environmental law such as a Biodiversity Conservation Act, as proposed by the Environmental Defenders Office, Environmental Justice Australia and the Environment Centre NT, would provide tighter regulation of land clearing. This could also consider greenhouse gas emissions, carbon storage and native food production (bush tucker), as well as the intrinsic cultural values of intact ecosystems.

• Most importantly, conservation planning that is community-led, scientifically grounded and respects the wishes and concerns of First Nations Peoples regarding enterprises on and management of Country. Recent pastoral land clearing in the NT has ignored the concerns of Traditional Owners over the loss of Country (despite having legally recognised Native Title on the land).

Avoid repeating past mistakes

While Australia’s tropical savannas are massive in scale, they are increasingly insecure and under significant strain. Against a backdrop of climate change, biodiversity decline and extinction crises, any further development of the north must be subject to rigorous risk-assessment and appropriate environmental protections.

This is essential to ensure any economic benefits justify potential risks. We simply can’t afford to risk repeating mistakes already inflicted on much of southern Australia.

Read more:
‘Existential threat to our survival’: see the 19 Australian ecosystems already collapsing

Euan G. Ritchie is a Councillor within the Biodiversity Council, and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society.

Brett Murphy receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Australian Government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee, and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy’s Scientific Advisory Network. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia.

John Woinarski is a member of the Biodiversity Council and a Director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy

– ref. Land clearing and fracking in Australia’s Northern Territory threatens the world’s largest intact tropical savanna – https://theconversation.com/land-clearing-and-fracking-in-australias-northern-territory-threatens-the-worlds-largest-intact-tropical-savanna-208028

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

If students have poor academic results early in school, do they continue to fall further and further behind as they move through their education?

The intuitive answer to this question is yes. This perception is fuelled by relentless media reporting about falling standards in Australia, and claims about “widening gaps” between advantaged and disadvantaged groups of students.

Read more:
No wonder no one wants to be a teacher: world-first study looks at 65,000 news articles about Australian teachers

The ‘Matthew effect’

If achievement gaps do widen as children develop, this would be evidence for what researchers call the “Matthew effect”. This theory, first described by Canadian psychologist Keith Stanovich, proposes students who start with poor academic skills early in school make less progress over time compared with their higher-achieving peers.

Referencing a verse from the Bible’s Book of Matthew, Stanovich argued children who initially had strong skills should become even stronger over time, because academic skills build on each other. (Or, as Matthew put it, “For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”).

According to this argument, higher-achieving students have an extra advantage over time because their skills, knowledge and ability will snowball, allowing their progress to accelerate relative to less able students.

But is this phenomenon universally true? Not necessarily, according to our latest research on Australian students.

Our research

We have a unique advantage in Australia because our national NAPLAN tests are designed to track students’ progress over time. So results on one test can be directly compared to the next or the previous one. This is rare internationally, and very powerful for answering questions about development.

Our research
examined patterns growth in literacy and numeracy in two states. We looked at 88,958 New South Wales students (who were in Year 3 in 2012), and 65,984 students in Victoria (who were in Year 3 in 2011).

We matched NAPLAN reading comprehension and numeracy results for each student from Year 3 through to Year 9. We examined reading and numeracy, as these two skills form the basis of learning in many other areas of the curriculum.

Read more:
Australia’s Year 4 students have not lost ground on reading, despite pandemic disruptions

Our findings

Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of the Matthew effect in either reading or numeracy amongst students sitting NAPLAN tests in NSW or Victoria.

Instead, we found the reverse pattern, called “compensatory growth”.

That is, students starting with below average NAPLAN results are making more progress from Year 3 to Year 9 compared with students starting above average. This compensatory growth pattern was seen in both reading and numeracy, but was particularly strong in reading.

This pattern can be seen in the figure below which plots trajectories for 100 randomly-selected students sitting NAPLAN reading tests in NSW.

While surprising, our research aligns with findings from a 2014 meta-analysis of Matthew effects research in reading.

This earlier study examined all longitudinal research on reading development across primary school. Studies were drawn from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Greece, Canada, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands, and the combined sample included 425,685 students. Matthew effects were only observed in a quarter of the included samples.

Our research is the first in Australia to build on these findings and examine reading and numeracy development in state-wide data using individual student scores across the NAPLAN years.

Given the widespread beliefs about widening gaps, our results should be reassuring. Although, our findings also indicate the highest achieving students do not make as much growth in NAPLAN as their lower performing peers.

But what does this mean for high achievers?

There is a popular perception teachers are not effectively teaching students basic skills. But our research suggests students who begin with poorer literacy and numeracy skills are supported by classroom teachers, and do make progress over time.

However, while our results indicate poorly performing Year 3 students do “catch up” somewhat, a small proportion of students still fail to meet minimum standards for literacy and numeracy by Year 9. Ongoing efforts to identify and support these students in secondary school is vitally important.

On the other hand, our results also suggest students who begin with high achievement in NAPLAN reading and numeracy tests in Year 3 are not making the amount of progress to Year 9 they are capable of.

While both NSW and Victoria have clear policies and resources for teaching high-ability students, it is difficult for teachers to enact them if the majority of classroom time is focused on struggling students.

Perhaps the progress of high-ability students is not a high priority for schools once these students have attained the basic skills expected of their age group. Further research in Australian schools is needed to identify the reasons for underachievement relative to potential for high-ability students.

Nevertheless, our finding that struggling students can make good progress over time rather than falling further behind should be a cause for optimism among educators and the community.

Read more:
A pandemic silver lining: how kids in some disadvantaged schools improved their results during COVID

Sally Larsen 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. Our research shows Australian students who are behind in primary school can catch up by high school – https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-australian-students-who-are-behind-in-primary-school-can-catch-up-by-high-school-208364

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sue Turnbull, Senior Professor of Communication and Media Studies, University of Wollongong

You know how it starts: a drone shot across an expanse of grey water under a leaden sky accompanied by eerie music and a sense of foreboding. Clearly someone is going to die, if they are not already dead, and a small community will be riven as its dark secrets are exposed to the pale light of a wintry Nordic day.

But we’re in Tasmania, and the dead body is not the violated, naked body of a young white girl, but a bloke whose tongue is missing, possibly eaten by the town’s resident seal, Kevin.

This is Deadloch, the fictional town that is the setting for a comedy crime drama that flips the Nordic Noir genre on its arse, so to speak.

Funny Broadchurch

The creators of this loving, yet savage, parody of Nordic Noir are Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney. In 2015, they launched The Katering Show on YouTube: a web series spoofing the homely genre of the cooking show that eventually found its way onto ABC iview.

They followed it with Get Krack!n, an attack on the genre of the cheerful but inane television breakfast show. It concluded with a memorable episode in which, left in charge of the couch, Indigenous actor Miranda Tapsell berated the Australian public for their treatment of First Nations people. While it might not have been comedy, it was magnificent in its ferocity.

Deadloch (2023) continues the Kates’ take-no-prisoners assault on television’s favourite genres with a series they described as “funny Broadchurch” in their pitches to the powers that be.

Apparently, the inspiration emerged from the “explosion of Nordic Noir” they were watching while breastfeeding at in the early mornings of 2015.

As a warning: there’s so much “colourful vernacular” in this series that the creators had to write an essay drawing on Shakespeare’s Bawdy to defend their extensive use of the word “cunt” to the Amazon Prime executives.

Indeed, linguistically, the Kates do for “cunt” what director Martin Scorsese did for “fuck” when it comes to turning a profanity into a rhetorical gesture.

What is Nordic Noir anyway?

The impact of Nordic Noir on television production around the world has indeed been significant. British academics Richard McCulloch and William Proctor have described it as a “Scandinavian invasion”.

While there are those who suggest Nordic Noir may have already passed its use by date, McCulloch and Proctor argue that the ripple effects are still being felt. Crime dramas everywhere continue to riff on the aesthetics and themes of the Scandinavian series that have captured the attention of a global niche audience.

Australia, it might be recalled, was one of the first countries to screen Danish crime shows including Rejeseholdet/Unit One (2000–04) and Ørnen/The Eagle (2004–06), even before Forbrydlesen/The Killing (2007-12) appeared on the SBS2 digital channel in 2010.

While the audiences for these shows may have been small, they included, as academics Pia Majbritt Jensen and Marion McCutcheon say in their analysis of the Australian audience for Nordic Noir, the “influential and trend-setting” creatives who would go on to produce new Australian crime dramas in which the traces of Nordic Noir are clearly visible.

Australian Noir

Australian crime dramas with clear Nordic Noir influences have become common. This would include the political thriller Secret City based on a series of books by journalists Steve Lewis and Chris Uhlmann.

Produced by Matchbox pictures for Foxtel Showcase in 2016, Secret City re-imagined Canberra as the sexy setting for a Nordic Noir drama that owed as much to the Danish series Borgen as it did to The Bridge in terms of its aesthetics and style. The politics, however, were resolutely Australian, featuring Australia’s pig-in-the-middle predicament in the US-China power game.

And then there was The Kettering Incident, also produced for Foxtel Showcase by a Tasmanian-based team. While shades of David Lynch’s genre-bending Twin Peaks loomed, Kettering bore more than a passing resemblance to the Swedish eco-thriller Jordskott.

This show encompassed a blonde female protagonist returning home, the mystery of a missing girl, small town politics, environmentalism and supernatural happenings in a mystical forest – not to mention the spectacular drone shots of a misty and mountainous hinterland overlaid in blue and black tones.

Flip the colour palette

Not all story boards for Australian Noir are coloured Antarctic grey. The ABC Indigenous crime drama Mystery Road flipped the colour palette to orange and red in what Bunya Productions producer David Jowsey described as “tropical outback gothic noir”.

Mystery Road managed to retain the measured pace of Nordic Noir and exquisite attention to a monumental and threatened landscape, while focusing on Indigenous issues.

They even imported Sofia Helin, star of The Bridge, for series two as a Swedish archaeologist digging in the iron-red dirt of the Kimberley for Indigenous artefacts.

Potty-mouthed satire

Which brings us back to Deadloch and the apotheosis of the Australian assimilation of Nordic Noir as a potty-mouthed satire that is also a feisty feminist take on the more usual gender politics of the crime drama.

Instead of a mismatched male and female cop from different cultural backgrounds, we have a couple of mismatched female detectives whose initially testy relationship gradually ameliorates as they join forces in the quest for the truth.

Rather than a married male detective having problems at home, we have a female detective whose lesbian wife needs constant affirmation. Replacing the sexually violated female victims naked on the autopsy table, we have dead men with missing tongues and a self-important fool of a male forensic examiner who misses all the important stuff.

Read more:
Miss Fisher and her fans: how a heroine on Australia’s small screen became a global phenomenon

As in the best Nordic Noir, there appears to be a serial killer at work who is trying to send some kind of a message through the murders, but what is it? Is it personal or political – or both?

In the meantime, everyone in this female-centric community, from the mayorette to the members of the lesbian choir singing I Touch Myself at the Winter Feastival, is a suspect. It just couldn’t get any better.

Sue Turnbull has received funding from the Australian Research Council for two projects related to this article. LP 180100626 Valuing Web Series: Economic, Industrial, Cultural and Social Valuation, and DP 1600102510 Border Crossing: The Transnational Career of the TV Crime Drama.

– ref. How Deadloch flips the Nordic Noir crime genre on its arse and makes it funny – https://theconversation.com/how-deadloch-flips-the-nordic-noir-crime-genre-on-its-arse-and-makes-it-funny-208478

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

If then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison had had his way, Gladys Berejiklian would have run for the Sydney seat of Warringah, held by independent Zali Steggall, at last year’s election.

Imagine the situation Opposition leader Peter Dutton would be in now – after Thursday’s Independent Commission Against Corruption finding the former New South Wales premier had acted corruptly – if she’d agreed, and pulled off a very long-odds win against the popular Steggall.

Dutton might have been facing yet another byelection, on top of the current one in the Queensland seat of Fadden, which has been triggered by the resignation of former minister Stuart Robert.

Robert, as it happens, has been accused of misusing his position in relation to government contracts, allegations he totally denies, but which are being exploited by Labor in the July 15 contest.

Morrison wanted Berejiklian as candidate because she was a vote magnet; he dismissed ICAC as a kangaroo court. Some other Liberals, and many voters, couldn’t believe Berejiklian might have compromised her integrity. One line being put forth painted her as the victim of an unscrupulous man. Some people simply didn’t much care about the claims against her.

For many female voters, Berejiklian was the poster face for how high women could fly in politics. During COVID, her status soared as a leader who successfully juggled health and economic imperatives. In May 2021, the Australian Financial Review magazine proclaimed her “The Woman Who Saved Australia”.

But it had been clear in October 2020 when she gave evidence (as a witness) to ICAC, in which she revealed her secret relationship with ex-boyfriend and former member for Wagga Wagga, Daryl Maguire, that she had not followed proper standards of conduct.

The phone taps of their conversations, in which Berejiklian turned a deliberately deaf ear to Maguire’s dodgy dealings, were devastating. Her failure to disclose this personal relationship was inexplicable to those who thought they knew her well, including former Premier Mike Baird. Suddenly, she became a mystery to them.

It was, however, not until a year later that Berejiklian resigned, after ICAC turned its blowtorch directly on to her. She strongly maintained her innocence, and the NSW Coalition government lost what was probably its last chance of survival.

ICAC’s findings against Berejiklian are blunt and damning. It condemned as “serious corrupt conduct by breaching public trust” her intense efforts to ensure Maguire obtained the funding he sought for his electorate, while she failed throughout to disclose their personal relationship.

It also found she did not do her duty under the ICAC Act “to notify the commission of her suspicion that Mr Maguire had engaged in activities which concerned, or might have concerned, corrupt conduct”.

Despite the ICAC findings, many people are likely to remain sympathetic to Berejiklian. For them, she is not just someone who was successful as premier, but a very relatable person.

Even NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns said nothing in the report took away from Berejiklian’s “handling of the COVID emergency, which I still regard as excellent”.

In the wake of the ICAC report, Berejiklian was, as ever, publicly defiant. “At all times I have worked my hardest in the public interest. Nothing in this report demonstrates otherwise,” she said in a brief statement. Berejiklian, now in a senior position with Optus, doesn’t do contrition.

She is the third Liberal premier to be brought down by ICAC – the others were Nick Greiner (who set up ICAC and later had the finding against him overturned in court) and Barry O’Farrell (over an expensive bottle of wine). It is an extraordinary record.

ICAC itself has not emerged unscathed from the Berejiklian inquiry, with criticism in particular of the extremely long time it has taken to deliver its report. Minns has indicated he is open to reforms of ICAC, and will seek bipartisan support.

Notably, Minns also flagged public figures should not necessarily have to stand down while inquiries into their conduct run. “It shouldn’t happen in an automatic way. People have a right to have an investigation and the final findings submitted to the public and the parliament, before their political life has stopped or ended.”

Some critics believe ICAC’s conclusion on Berejiklian is too harsh. The argument is also being put that it leaves Berejiklian in limbo – condemned as “corrupt” but with no charges recommended. Former NSW treasurer and leading party moderate Matt Kean declared: “So it has taken ICAC two years to tell us that Gladys Berejiklian has not broken the law.”

The counter argument, however, is that conduct can be “corrupt” without actually meeting the standard of illegality, and that such findings by an anti-corruption body act as deterrents and protect the body politic.

By coincidence, the finding on Berejiklian has come just as the new federal National Anti-Corruption Commission, under Paul Brereton (of the Afghanistan war crimes inquiry), comes into operation on Saturday. We know a federal body is overdue; we can’t know what impact the NACC will have over coming years, except that there will be surprises.

Under the NACC’s act, a public official engages in corrupt conduct if they breach public trust, abuse their office, or misuse official information. The act catches a person who is not an official (for example, a contractor to government) who does something adversely affecting an official’s “honest or impartial exercise of powers”. In their detail, these provisions are very broad.

Bearing in mind the experience of ICAC and other anti-corruption bodies, safeguards have been built in by the government. The NACC (which starts with about 180 staff) will have fewer public hearings than ICAC. It will have these only in “exceptional circumstances and where it is in the public interest”. This restriction was strongly contested by those who argued more transparency was desirable.

Even with the safeguards, there are said to be some private concerns within Labor about how the NACC will work out, given how feral federal politics can become.

Aware of the criticism of ICAC, the new federal body will presumably be very cognisant of the need to do its work in a timely fashion.

It won’t be short of suggestions for its early investigations. Possible or likely referrals range from the allegations against Robert to the PwC affair, while former minister Linda Reynolds has said she will refer the government’s compensation payment to Brittany Higgins.

Robodebt has had a royal commission – its report will be out imminently – so there would be little point in the NACC redoing that investigation.

It will be completely up to the NACC what it decides to investigate and, mostly, we won’t know what it is doing until the late stage or end of an inquiry.

While the NACC has strong public support, the experience of ICAC indicates any anti-corruption body will inevitably, over the years, find itself at the centre of intense controversies. With the power to break public figures, the stakes in some investigations will be very high.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: ICAC shows it has the power to break public figures, but doesn’t escape criticism itself – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-icac-shows-it-has-the-power-to-break-public-figures-but-doesnt-escape-criticism-itself-208756

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel Strauss, Psychiatrist and Clinical Associate at The Centre of Mental Health, Swinburne University of Technology

Many people in Australia, including psychiatrists, were surprised when earlier this year the medicines regulator down-scheduled MDMA, known colloquially as ecstasy, and psilocybin, from magic mushrooms.

This means that under certain circumstances from July 1, authorised psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin to treat depression that has not responded to other treatments. Patients must also undergo psychotherapy (talking therapy).

It all sounds very certain but it’s not really.

Read more:
Explainer: what is post-traumatic stress disorder?

Beware the hype

The Therapeutic Goods Administration decision has left a lot of questions unanswered about how the new scheme will be implemented and operated, both effectively and safely.

There are a small number of countries where psychedelic-assisted therapies are used outside clinical trials – in a very limited manner. However, this is the first time a national government has altered the way these substances are formally classified.

So the world is watching closely how “psychedelic-assisted therapy”, as it’s officially called, is rolled out in Australia.

It’s a hot topic, with much public interest. But for researchers, there are concerns the hype is getting way ahead of the research.

Read more:
The TGA has approved certain psychedelic treatments: the response from experts is mixed

The first steps

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists this week released guidance to their members about how this would work in practice.

As researchers in this field, we helped develop these guidelines. They cover topics such as patients’ suitability for this therapy, and how to administer and monitor it.

The guidelines also stress the importance of patient safety and appropriate training for prescribers, and advocates for continued research.

What does this mean for patients?

This has several implications for potential patients:

• their existing psychiatrist may not be authorised to prescribe these psychedelics. So patients will have to ask their psychiatrist or GP for a referral to one who is

• the psychiatrist authorised to prescribe these psychedelics will need to assess whether the therapy is suitable for each individual patient. This involves a detailed and comprehensive assessment. If the treatment is suitable, several sessions of further assessment and therapy are required before the actual dosing session

• patients will be informed of what to expect before, during and after treatment, and need to give consent to proceed. We also recommend psychiatrists tell patients this therapy is not guaranteed to work, and provide patients with a clear account of the risks and possible negative side effects of psychedelic medications.

Read more:
Psychedelics: how they act on the brain to relieve depression

Expectations are high, but clear evidence is lacking

Despite a growing body of evidence, psychedelic-assisted therapies are in their infancy.

In a time when demand for mental health services far outstrips supply, exaggerated promises about the effectiveness of these drugs, before the research results are in, has many researchers worried. Patient expectations remain high but good clear evidence is still lacking.

Australian research is just getting under way and so far most psychedelic research has been done overseas. Yes, early findings have been quite promising, but numbers are small, long-term follow-ups sparse, and potential risks and dangers still need to be explored.

Destigmatising these drugs has allowed us to begin our research, but sensationalising their effectiveness has the potential to disappoint and even harm patients because we really don’t know enough about how they work and who is suitable for this treatment.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is no miracle cure. Espousing the benefits without a thorough examination of the risks and limitations is not only a misrepresentation of the science, it is arguably unethical.

Very few psychiatrists have had much experience in this fascinating but challenging field. We still have a lot to learn about the use of psychedelic medicines to treat psychiatric illness.

Undue haste in translating psychedelic-assisted therapy conducted in clinical trials to community clinics could affect how well these treatments work and their safety. Outside clinical trials, patients will also need to shoulder the cost of this therapy, raising equity issues.

Read more:
The tricky economics of subsidising psychedelics for mental health therapy

There’s potential for harm

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not simply “doing shrooms with your shrink”.

There is potential for psychedelic substances to cause fear, panic or cause psychological damage if given to susceptible and vulnerable people who have been inadequately screened or assessed.

Paranoia, traumatisation, worsening depression, and even suicidal behaviour, among other serious side-effects, have been observed in some cases.

So we need ongoing monitoring of outcomes, including adverse events.

We also know psychedelic substances render patients particularly vulnerable. Boundary issues and safeguards are vital considerations for patient safety, particularly when patients are under the influence of the psychedelic drug. For instance, it is important to discuss and agree with patients beforehand about the nature and timing of any touch during treatment sessions, so any touch is appropriate and done with full informed consent.

An exciting prospect

Despite the potential harms, we remain excited at the prospect of psychedelic-assisted therapy becoming an established treatment to help a select group of patients.

But we want to do this in a safe, controlled and sustainable manner.

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

Nigel Strauss is a psychiatrist and senior consultant with St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, an investigator on several psychedelic clinical trials, is on the scientific advisory board of the European Mind Foundation, and is the medical director of the Millswyn Clinic in Melbourne, a private psychiatric clinic. He has made his own philanthropic donation to Monash University for a trial of MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. The trials he’s involved in have not personally received any funding.

Colleen Loo receives research grant funding from the Australian NHMRC and MRFF.

David Jonathan Castle has received grant monies for research from Servier, Boehringer Ingelheim; travel support and honoraria for talks and consultancy from Servier, Seqirus, Lundbeck, Mindcafe, Psychscene, Inside Practice. He is a founder of the Optimal Health Program (OHP) and holds 50% of the IP for OHP; and is part owner (5%) of Clarity Healthcare. He is an unpaid Chair of an Advisory Board of Psychae, an Australian not-for-profit institute specialising in psychedelic medicines research. He is a member of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Working Group. He does not knowingly have stocks or shares in any pharmaceutical company.

Steve Kisely was the first author of the report commissioned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration on the possible clinical benefits of MDMA and psilocybin.

– ref. Psychedelic medicine is on its way. But it’s not ‘doing shrooms with your shrink’. Here’s what you need to know – https://theconversation.com/psychedelic-medicine-is-on-its-way-but-its-not-doing-shrooms-with-your-shrink-heres-what-you-need-to-know-208568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Graycar, Professor of Public Policy, University of Adelaide

When an anti-corruption agency issues a 688-page report with findings a former premier engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” and breached the public’s trust, it puts all public officials on notice.

In an extraordinary report released today, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) found former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian had taken steps to award government grants in a “desire on her part to maintain or advance” her relationship with former state MP Daryl Maguire.

The commission also faulted her for not disclosing her relationship with Maguire and for failing to report any suspicions she had about Maguire’s activities to the ICAC, calling this “grave misconduct”.

Read more:
Stadiums, bushfires and a pandemic: how will Gladys Berejiklian be remembered as premier?

Is Australia a corrupt country?

Compared with most of the world, Australia is not a highly corrupt country. Yet, its ranking on the global Corruption Perceptions Index slipped significantly between 2012 and 2021, before stabilising this year.

The ICAC report on Berejiklian’s conduct will further diminish Australia’s standing, but does it mean we necessarily have more corruption?

We always need to distinguish between situations in which corruption is the norm – such as in Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria who are at the bottom of the Corruption Perceptions Index – or the exception, as in Australia.

In countries like Australia, citizens can go about their daily lives without the fear of being shaken down by a public official or being asked for a bribe to receive a public service, as they are in countries at the bottom of the standings.

However, in countries like ours, there is much more fury when corruption is uncovered because, above all, it is a betrayal of trust. We trust our politicians and public servants to act in the public interest, and when it is found they have not, we are rightfully outraged.

As cases like this demonstrate, corruption in richer countries often involves conflicts of interest, the misuse of information and the purchase of government access. This is why investigatory bodies like the ICAC are so vital to maintaining government integrity.

Read more:
After a decade of decline, Australia is back on the rise in a global anti-corruption ranking

Criticism of anti-corruption bodies

On the federal level, the government has finally established a National Anti-Corruption Commission, which commences operation on July 1.

This came into being after a long discussion about whether we really needed such an agency. When the allegations against Berejiklian first came to light, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison disparaged the idea of an anti-corruption body, likening it to a “kangaroo court”.

He also accused the ICAC in NSW of making “shameful attacks” on Berejiklian and tarnishing the reputation of public figures.

However, the whole point of anti-corruption agencies is they ensure the integrity of our public system is not compromised. This work does take time and careful consideration.

Anti-corruption agencies bark, but they do not bite. If they make findings of corrupt conduct, they leave prosecution to the discretion of the director of public prosecutions. If there are findings of misconduct or maladministration, it is up to government departments and public service commissioners to address them.

Not only do we now have a National Anti-Corruption Commission, but at the top of the Australian public service, there is now a huge focus on integrity and better behaviour and better processes.

This is no longer politics as usual

Most politicians and public servants in Australia operate with great integrity, but we have had significant shocks to our system in recent years.

The list includes the Robodebt fiasco, the sports and car park rorts scandals, an Australian National Audit Office report on community health centre funding breaches and allegations of a plan to funnel kickbacks to a minister for steering contracts to a favoured company.

Read more:
The ‘car park rorts’ story is scandalous. But it will keep happening unless we close grant loopholes

Then, of course, there is the ongoing PwC saga, where allegations of conflicts of interest have been raised, alongside a confidentiality breach.

This catalogue of alleged activities stains our public sector (though PwC did not involve public officials) and must be investigated. They raise questions not just of behaviour, but go to the root of what is the public interest.

In the case of the former NSW premier, it seems a personal relationship ended up compromising her judgement. In the other cases, there was political advantage to be gained by breaching standards and acting inappropriately. Generally speaking, these are not things that make politicians or public servants rich. But it may make some of their mates rich.

The response from politicians typically has been “that’s politics” or “if you don’t like it, vote me out at the next election”.

These are not adequate responses to integrity breaches. We have started on an integrity-building process in the Australian public service and around the country. More action needs to be taken on areas like pork-barrelling (about which the NSW ICAC has written an extensive separate report) and election funding.

These findings by the NSW ICAC signal that holding public office is a matter of great trust, with standards that are expected are high. Excuses do not wash anymore.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: the PwC scandal should be ripe for the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s attention

Adam Graycar has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘Grave misconduct’: Gladys Berejiklian corruption report should put all public officials on notice – https://theconversation.com/grave-misconduct-gladys-berejiklian-corruption-report-should-put-all-public-officials-on-notice-208668

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Donne Potter, Professor, Research Centre for Hauora and Health, Massey University

A recent survey suggests that 58% of workers in New Zealand are exposed to at least one cancer-causing agent at work. Almost one in three are exposed at a high level, at or above the standards set by WorkSafe New Zealand, and almost one in four are exposed to five or more carcinogens at any level.

The New Zealand Carcinogens Survey (NZCS), commissioned by WorkSafe New Zealand, was the first to examine the prevalence of occupational carcinogens in the working population.

It identified the ten most common cancer-causing substances and exposures across all industries as benzene (30%), solar UV (27%), UV exposure to the eye (26%), diesel engine exhaust (24%), second-hand tobacco smoke (15%), styrene (12%), crystalline silica (10%), shift work (9%), wood dust (8%) and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (8%).

The main tasks associated with benzene exposure are fuelling vehicles and equipment with petrol, using petrol or other solvents to clean hands and using solvent-based paints. The industries with the highest exposure to at least one carcinogen are mining, electricity and gas, water and waste services, construction, transport, postal and warehousing, and primary industries (agriculture, forestry, fishing).

Workers in primary industries are exposed to the highest number of carcinogens at any level. Specific occupations with the highest exposures include construction workers, farmers and emergency responders.

The distribution of carcinogen exposure differs by gender and ethnicity. Māori and Pacific workers and men are the most likely to be exposed to at least one carcinogen.

Work-related exposures

Work-related disease is estimated to account for 750-900 deaths a year in New Zealand. Cancer contributes to about half of these deaths and at least a third of work-related hospitalisations. These figures are largely based on overseas estimates applied to Aotearoa New Zealand health data.

Establishing the number of workplace injuries is relatively straightforward but investigation of work-related cancers is much more difficult because:

• there is often a long latency period between work exposure and the onset of disease

• it is difficult to attribute a particular cancer to a specific exposure

• very few cancers are the result of a single occupational exposure (asbestosis in asbestos-exposed workers is an exception)

• hazardous exposures often cluster in work environments

• lifestyle factors (e.g. smoking) also contribute to cancer risk.

Therefore, understanding the prevalence, frequency and distribution of exposure to work-related carcinogens is crucial.

Read more:
Nail salon workers suffer chemical exposures that can be like working at a garage or a refinery

Which exposures matter?

How do we know which workplace exposures contribute to cancer risk?

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) regularly undertakes expert reviews of the relevant scientific literature to identify cancer-causing substances and practices. They classify exposures on the basis of the quality of evidence as:

• Group 1: sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans

• Group 2A: probably carcinogenic to humans

• Group 2B: possibly carcinogenic to humans

• Group 3: not classifiable.

Until the NZCS report, New Zealand-specific data on work exposures to carcinogens have been lacking.

Read more:
Does this cause cancer? How scientists determine whether a chemical is carcinogenic – sometimes with controversial results

The survey did not measure exposure directly. It used a web-based exposure-assessment programme to estimate the likelihood of exposures and probable level based on questions to workers about substances, jobs and specific tasks.

Māori and Pasifika are under-represented in the survey compared to their population numbers. It seems likely the sample does not reflect the occupational distribution of Māori and therefore we must be cautious when extrapolating to the wider population for these groups.

What is to be done?

There are some limitations to the NZCS report. This means we cannot easily generalise its findings to the wider working population. However, it is important to concentrate on the unmistakable evidence that a large number of people are exposed to high levels of workplace carcinogens.

The NZCS is an important step in improving data collection. But data alone are not sufficient; they need to inform action. There are too many examples of Aotearoa being slower than other countries to act when sufficient evidence exists.

New Zealand was the last country in the world to halt the production of the toxic dioxin-contaminated herbicide 2,4,5-T, in 1987. As late as 1986, it was still being declared harmless.

The importation of asbestos-containing products was banned only in 2016. New Zealand still has not limited widespread use of the weed killer glyphosate.

Protective efforts should start with the most common carcinogens and high-risk industries and occupations. Others have recommended an integrated system for exposure surveillance in the past.

Ideally, this would be combined with surveillance of health outcomes and actual exposure measurements. These recommendations are not new; indeed, they have been ignored for decades.

The NZCS report reinforces findings from previous studies that occupational exposures are not distributed equally across men and women and Māori and non-Māori. It is increasingly clear that high-exposure work is more commonly done by Māori.

Kia manawaroa (a call to action) is key to improving prevention and protection. As an immediate step, we suggest the Māori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora is brought into the conversation about Māori-led solutions to reducing risk.

A lack of dedicated health services for occupational health hampers progress in addressing work-related diseases in New Zealand. We strongly recommend setting up an occupational health service to improve access to screening and healthcare for those at high risk of exposure over their whole lifetime, not just while they are in employment.

We acknowledge the contribution of Jim McLeod, an independent occupational health physician who was employed by WorkSafe New Zealand and was involved in discussions about the NZCS. An earlier commentary was published by the Public Health Communication Centre.

Prof. John D. Potter is Professor, Research Centre for Hauora & Health, Massey University, Wellington; Professor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle; Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle; and was formerly US Representative (2001-06) to, and Chair (2005-06) of, the Science Council, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon, France.

Dr. Amanda Eng is a Senior Research Officer at the Research Centre for Hauora & Health at Massey University who also works on research contracts funded by WorkSafe. Dr Eng was involved in an initial discussion about the questionnaire content of the NZCS.

– ref. NZ workers have unacceptably high exposures to carcinogens – they need better protection and long-term health monitoring – https://theconversation.com/nz-workers-have-unacceptably-high-exposures-to-carcinogens-they-need-better-protection-and-long-term-health-monitoring-208573

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Heterick, Adjunct Research Associate, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University

Two of the worst ant pests on the planet are invading Australia. Red imported fire ants have been detected for the first time on the western side of the Great Dividing Range in Toowoomba, Queensland. Yellow crazy ants recently reached the Whitsundays.

The yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) ranks among the world’s 100 worst animal pests because of its impacts on agriculture and biodiversity. The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) poses similar threats, and is also one of the world’s most dangerous ants. Its intensely painful stings, which give the ant its name, can kill people.

The prospects of total eradication of these ants in Australia are poor. Both species are highly adaptable and colonies need to be detected and eradicated early to contain them. Eradication efforts face other several challenges, including:

• inadequate biosecurity resources for checking incoming cargo
• the need for the public to maintain constant vigilance
• spread from built-up urban areas into bushland that’s much harder to monitor
• other pressing issues, such as the housing crisis, demand attention and resources, crowding out threats from insects.

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Eradicating fire ants is still possible, but we have to choose now

Where did the crazy ants come from?

The origin of yellow crazy ants is disputed but is likely in South-East Asia or Africa. Workers are yellowish orange, medium-sized (around 4-5mm) and have long legs and antennae. They run rapidly in a seemingly random fashion, hence their name.

Workers and queens have a small funnel on their gasters (the bulbous end of their bodies) from which they can spray formic acid. It can burn human skin and is lethal for other ants and many native arthropods. Small animals such as lizards and bird chicks are at risk of being blinded or eaten.

These ants have spread to much of South-East Asia, parts of central America and the United States. They can be found indoors in the United Kingdom and a handful of European nations.

Since reaching the Australian territory of Christmas Island, yellow crazy ants have devastated the native wildlife. They killed up to 20 million of the famous red land crabs, causing major changes in the rainforest.

On the mainland, this species has reached the Northern Territory and Queensland, where it is most entrenched, having been discovered in Cairns in 2001. As well as spreading to Hervey Bay, Townsville and other coastal sites, the ant is now in Brisbane.

Brisbane City launched an eradication plan in 2022. Control measures include baiting using a fishmeal-based ant attractant combined with an insecticide. However, recently reported infestations in the Whitsundays and elsewhere suggest eradication will be difficult.

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Northern Territory authorities have had more success. Some 26 locations covering nearly 300 hectares of Indigenous land have been freed of the pest.

The prospects of total eradication of yellow crazy ants in Australia are not promising. Like other serious ant pests, this species can form “super-colonies” with multiple queens, eats a wide variety of foods and readily colonises both exotic and native environments.

Such species are often only eradicated if their presence is detected before they become established. For eradication programs to succeed, local councils need landholders’ full support, plus adequate federal and state funding. Late last year the federal government provided another A$24.8 million, so there is some hope.

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And what about the fire ants?

The red imported fire ant differs from the yellow crazy ant in having two waist segments (instead of one) and a powerful sting. The workers also come in different sizes, around 2.5mm and 6mm. They are reddish or yellowish with a darker gaster.

The fire ants are less distinctive than the crazy ants. They look like some small native ants in the genera Monomorium and Chelaner. However, their antennae have two segments, while these native ants have three segments.

Another introduced Solenopsis species, S. geminata, looks even more similar. They are distinguished by the teeth on the mandible, or jaws: the red imported fire ant has four teeth and the other species has three. The nest mound of S. invicta is distinctive without any obvious nest entrance.

Native to South America, red imported fire ants have spread to the southern US, the South American tropics, the Caribbean, China and some Pacific Islands. Indoor infestations have been reported in Finland and Canada.

In Australia this species has become established in south-east Queensland. Small incursions have been eradicated in Port Botany, New South Wales, and, more recently, Fremantle, Western Australia.

In the US, fire ant stings have caused scores of human deaths due to anaphylaxis, or allergic shock. The stings cause small pustules on the skin, which can lead to infection or tissue death.

Fire ant stings also kill or injure domestic animals and livestock, and can cause serious economic loss. Like the yellow crazy ant, this species will protect disease-carrying plant bugs that produce honeydew. The ants will attack anything that threatens their food source and so help the bug population grow.

The ants also damage many crops themselves and destroy honey bees in their hives. They may nest in electrical utility boxes, causing outages.

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Cannibalism helps fire ants invade new territory

Spreading corn bait laced with insecticide is the main means of control. Insecticide or steam can also be injected into nests.

Unfortunately, red imported fire ants were only identified in Brisbane in 2001, some years after the estimated date of the first arrivals. These ants likely came from the US. Despite successful eradications at sites including the Port of Brisbane and a separate incursion in central Queensland, the Brisbane outbreak has not been controlled.

The prognosis for controlling this pest is grim. It has super-colonies like the crazy ant and is equally adaptable in terms of food, nest sites and multiple queens (in some, but not all colonies). On top of that, identification and detection are more difficult.

Brian Heterick ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Why red fire ants and yellow crazy ants have given themselves a green light to invade Australia – https://theconversation.com/why-red-fire-ants-and-yellow-crazy-ants-have-given-themselves-a-green-light-to-invade-australia-208479

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Schwartz, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

This week, a new report revealed First Nations people, as well as people of African or Middle Eastern appearance, were disproportionately targeted by police in issuing COVID-19 fines.

Despite the Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton acknowledging structural racism when appearing before the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria, Victoria Police have denied racial profiling in response to this report.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission, established in May 2021, is Victoria’s (and Australia’s) first truth-telling commission into past and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria. The Commission will run until 2025 and is due to release an interim report in August 2023.

The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, where I work as a police accountability lawyer, provided evidence to the commission of our clients’ daily experiences of police racism and violence, and the lack of accountability for this.

When appearing before the commission, Commissioner Shane Patton apologised to First Peoples for past and ongoing trauma caused by police and accepted there was a lack of accountability for misconduct. Police Minister Anthony Carbines accepted the current police accountability system was “not fit for purpose”.

Currently, in Victoria, police investigate over 99% of complaints about police misconduct, and most complaints are “not substantiated” by investigators. This lack of accountability has affected community trust in Victoria Police.

This is why our submission, and many others, outlined the need for an independent, robust and culturally appropriate police complaints body, instead of relying on police investigating police.

Read more:
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Victoria Police abuse of power

The commission heard evidence from many First Nations peoples of their experiences of police misconduct. Aboriginal man Eathan Cruse spoke of brutal police raids on his family’s home, despite not being charged with an offence. Gunditjmara woman Aunty Doreen Lovett spoke of her teenage son being assaulted by police after being arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.

First Nations people in Victoria are more likely than non-Indigenous people to be arrested by police, and report higher rates of police assault.

Police are also more likely to arrest and detain First Nations children. I have represented Aboriginal children who have been violently arrested, including being placed in choke-holds, and injured to the point of hospitalisation.

In May this year, an audit by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission found predatory behaviour exists within Victoria Police. This included predatory behaviour against Indigenous and non-Indigenous women experiencing domestic violence. Several women have also come forward to expose police misusing police databases to stalk and harass them.

When Aboriginal women do call for help, their calls are often ignored or they may even be arrested instead of supported.

Deaths in police custody and at the hands of police, such as those of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, Walpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker, and 95-year-old Clare Nowland, are reminders of the power held by police over our lives.

Read more:
First Nations people have made a plea for ‘truth-telling’. By reckoning with its past, Australia can finally help improve our future

Police are rarely held accountable for misconduct

The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is the only body outside of police that can investigate police complaints in Victoria. But it only investigates less than 1% of these, with the rest investigated by police themselves.

In most cases police find no wrongdoing by their colleagues, with the substantiation rate of complaints against police in Victoria being somewhere between 2% and 9%.

At Yoorrook, the Victorian government acknowledged “limited police accountability” has perpetuated mistrust of police in Indigenous communities.

Aunty Doreen Lovett told Yoorrook that her family withdrew the police complaint about her son’s assault after finding out it was being investigated by officers from the same station as his abuser.

Eathan Cruse told Yoorrook that despite receiving compensation in court for the abuse he suffered, police maintained “officers had not acted unlawfully”.

Experiences like this are common. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission found high rates of bias and conflicts of interest where police investigate complaints made by Aboriginal people. It also found that police did not substantiate any complaints about uses of force against Aboriginal people.

Information from lawsuits such as Eathan’s are not recorded on police personnel files nor considered in promotions. This can lead to the situation where officers who are the subject of legal proceedings for misconduct are promoted instead of disciplined.

Police are also responsible for investigating deaths in custody, despite the conflict of interest. Families often have to push for investigations into these deaths. Even with the national crisis of Aboriginal deaths in custody, no police officer has ever been convicted.

Independent and culturally appropriate police accountability

Those who have suffered from Victoria’s lack of police accountability, including Aunty Doreen Lovett and Eathan Cruse, and a coalition of community groups, have called for the establishment of a fully independent body to investigate police complaints.

It’s important this body is victim-centred. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and Victoria Police do not prioritise and support the needs of complainants or protect them from police retribution. Many of my clients at the Victorian Aboriginal Service are never even informed about the outcome of their complaint.

This body must be responsive to the needs of Aboriginal complainants. This includes adequate investigations into individual and systemic racism.

It also needs to achieve timely outcomes. In the current system, extreme delays can mean that by the time a complaint is resolved the time limit for bringing criminal charges against police has expired.

To be effective, this body needs powers to compel evidence and to discipline officers and refer them for criminal prosecution. At present, the Anti-corruption Commission is often limited to making recommendations, which police are not bound to implement.

Finally, this body should be able to monitor systemic issues such as racism, as well as collect data on police powers, such as how often they are using force.

In a letter to Yoorrook, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews lauded truth-telling as an “opportunity to heal, and to change”. One change needed is the end of police investigating police.

Sarah Schwartz is the Principal Lawyer of the Wirraway Police and Prison Accountability Practice at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) and contributed to VALS’ submission to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.

– ref. Police shouldn’t be able to investigate themselves. Victoria needs an independent police accountability body – https://theconversation.com/police-shouldnt-be-able-to-investigate-themselves-victoria-needs-an-independent-police-accountability-body-207608

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Reardon, Postdoctoral researcher in pulsar timing and gravitational waves, Swinburne University of Technology

When black holes and other enormously massive, dense objects whirl around one another, they send out ripples in space and time called gravitational waves. These waves are one of the few ways we have to study the enigmatic cosmic giants that create them.

Astronomers have observed the high-frequency “chirps” of colliding black holes, but the ultra-low-frequency rumble of supermassive black holes orbiting one another has proven harder to detect. For decades, we have been observing pulsars, a type of star that pulses like a lighthouse, in search of the faint rippling of these waves.

Today, pulsar research collaborations around the world – including ours, the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array – announced their strongest evidence yet for the existence of these waves.

What are gravitational waves?

In 1915, German-born physicist Albert Einstein presented a breakthrough insight into the nature of gravity: the general theory of relativity.

The theory describes the Universe as a four-dimensional “fabric” called spacetime that can stretch, squeeze, bend and twist. Massive objects distort this fabric to give rise to gravity.

A curious consequence of the theory is that the motion of massive objects should produce ripples in this fabric, called gravitational waves, which spread at the speed of light.

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It takes an enormous amount of energy to create the tiniest of these ripples. For this reason, Einstein was convinced gravitational waves would never be directly observed.

A century later, researchers from the LIGO and Virgo collaborations witnessed the collision of two black holes, which sent a burst of gravitational waves chirping throughout the Universe.

Now, seven years after this discovery, radio astronomers from Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America have found evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves.

A slow rumbling of gravitational waves

Unlike the sudden burst of gravitational waves reported in 2016, these ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves take years or even decades to oscillate.

They are expected to be produced by pairs of supermassive black holes, orbiting at the cores of distant galaxies throughout the Universe. To find these gravitational waves, scientists would need to construct a detector the size of a galaxy.

Or we can use pulsars, which are already spread across the galaxy, and whose pulses arrive at our telescopes with the regularity of precise clocks.

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, Murriyang, has been observing an array of these pulsars for almost two decades. Our Parkes Pulsar Timing Array team is one of several collaborations around the world that have today announced hints of gravitational waves in their latest data sets.

Other collaborations in China (CPTA), Europe and India (EPTA and InPTA), and North America (NANOGrav) see similar signals.

The signal we are searching for is a random “ocean” of gravitational waves produced by all the pairs of supermassive black holes in the Universe.

Observing these waves is not only another triumph of Einstein’s theory, but has important consequences for our understanding of the history of galaxies in the Universe. Supermassive black holes are the engines at the heart of galaxies that feed on gas and regulate star formation.

The signal appears as a low-frequency rumble, common to all pulsars in the array. As the gravitational waves wash over Earth, they affect the apparent rotation rates of the pulsars.

The stretching and squeezing of our galaxy by these waves ultimately changes the distances to the pulsars by just tens of metres. That’s not much when the pulsars are typically about 1,000 light-years away (that’s about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres).

Remarkably, we can observe these shifts in spacetime as nanosecond delays to the pulses, which radio astronomers can track with relative ease because pulsars are such stable natural clocks.

What has been announced?

Because the ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves take years to oscillate, the signal is expected to emerge slowly.

First, radio astronomers observed a common rumble in the pulsars, but its origin was unknown.

Now, the unique fingerprint of gravitational waves is beginning to appear as an attribute of this signal, observed by each of the pulsar timing array collaborations around the world.

Read more:
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This fingerprint describes a particular relationship between the similarity of pulse delays and the separation angle between pulsar pairs on the sky.

The relationship arises because spacetime at Earth is stretched, changing the distances to pulsars in a way that depends on their direction. Pulsars close together in the sky show a more similar signal than pulsars separated at right angles, for example.

The breakthrough has been enabled by improved technology at our observatories. The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array has the longest high-quality data set, thanks to the advanced receiver and signal processing technology installed on Murriyang. This technology has enabled the telescope to discover many of the best pulsars used by collaborations around the globe for the gravitational wave searches.

Earlier results from our collaboration and others showed the signal expected from gravitational waves was missing from pulsar observations.

Read more:
Where are the missing gravitational waves?

Now, we seem to be seeing the signal with relative clarity. By segmenting our long data set into shorter “time-slices”, we show the signal appears to be growing with time. The underlying cause of this observation is unknown, but it may be that the gravitational waves are behaving unexpectedly.

The new evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves is exciting for astronomers. To confirm these signatures, the global collaborations will need to combine their data sets, which increases their sensitivity to gravitational waves many-fold.

Efforts to produce this combined data set are now in progress under the International Pulsar Timing Array project, whose members met in Port Douglas in Far North Queensland last week. Future observatories, like the Square Kilometre Array under construction in Australia and South Africa, will turn these studies into a rich source of knowledge about the history of our Universe.

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. Using a detector the size of a galaxy, astronomers find strongest evidence yet for gravitational waves from supermassive black hole pairs – https://theconversation.com/using-a-detector-the-size-of-a-galaxy-astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-for-gravitational-waves-from-supermassive-black-hole-pairs-208484

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Lin, Professor, University of Sydney

Opioids are the one of the most prescribed pain-relief for people with low back and neck pain. In Australia, around 40% of people with low back and neck pain who present to their GP and 70% of people with low back pain who visit a hospital emergency department are prescribed opioids such as oxycodone.

But our new study, published today in the Lancet medical journal, found opioids do not relieve “acute” low back or neck pain (lasting up to 12 weeks) and can result in worse pain.

Prescribing opioids for low back and neck pain can also cause harms ranging from common side effects – such as nausea, constipation and dizziness – to misuse, dependency, poisoning and death.

Our findings show opioids should not be recommended for acute low back pain or neck pain. A change in prescribing for low back pain and neck pain is urgently needed in Australia and globally to reduce opioid-related harms.

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Comparing opioids to a placebo

In our trial, we randomly allocated 347 people with acute low back pain and neck pain to take either an opioid (oxycodone plus naloxone) or placebo (a tablet that looked the same but had no active ingredients).

Oxycodone is an opioid pain medicine which can be given orally. Naloxone, an opioid-reversal drug, reduces the severity of constipation while not disrupting the pain relieving effects of oxycodone.

Participants took the opioid or placebo for a maximum of six weeks.

People in the both groups also received education and advice from their treating doctor. This could be, for example, advice on returning to their normal activities and avoiding bed rest.

We assessed their outcomes over a one-year period.

What did we find?

After six weeks of treatment, taking opioids did not result in better pain relief compared to the placebo.

Nor were there benefits to other outcomes such as physical function, quality of life, recovery time or work absenteeism.

More people in the group treated with opioids experienced nausea, constipation and dizziness than in the placebo group.

Results at one year highlight the potential long-term harm of opioids even with short-term use. Compared to the placebo group, people in the opioid group experienced slightly worse pain, and reported a higher risk of opioid misuse (problems with their thinking, mood or behaviour, or using opioids differently from how the medicines were prescribed).

More people in the opioid group reported pain at one year: 66 people compared to 50 in the placebo group.

Read more:
Ouch! The drugs don’t work for back pain, but here’s what does

What will this mean for opioid prescribing?

In recent years, international low back pain guidelines have shifted the focus of treatment from drug to non-drug treatment due to evidence of limited treatment benefits and concern of medication-related harm.

For acute low back pain, guidelines recommend patient education and advice, and if required, anti-inflammatory pain medicines such as ibuprofen. Opioids are recommended only when other treatments haven’t worked or aren’t appropriate.

Guidelines for neck pain similarly discourage the use of opioids.

Our latest research clearly demonstrates the benefits of opioids do not outweigh possible harms in people with acute low back pain and neck pain.

Instead of advising opioid use for these conditions in selected circumstances, opioids should be discouraged without qualification.

Change is possible

Complex problems such as opioid use need smart solutions, and another study we recently conducted provides convincing data opioid prescribing can be successfully reduced.

The study involved four hospital emergency departments, 269 clinicians and 4,625 patients with low back pain. The intervention comprised of:

• clinician education about evidence-based management of low back pain
• patient education using posters and handouts to highlight the benefits and harms of opioids
• providing heat packs and anti-inflammatory pain medicines as alternative pain-management treatments
• fast-tracking referrals to outpatient clinics to avoid long waiting lists
• audits and feedback to clinicians on information about opioid prescribing rates.

This intervention reduced opioid prescribing from 63% to 51% of low back pain presentations. The reduction was sustained for 30 months.

Key to this successful approach is that we worked with clinicians to develop suitable pain-management treatments without opioids that were feasible in their setting.

Read more:
Why does my back get so sore when I’m sick? The connection between immunity and pain

More work is needed to evaluate this and other interventions aimed at reducing opioid prescribing in other settings including GP clinics.

A nuanced approach is often necessary to avoid causing unintended consequences in reducing opioid use.

If people with low back pain or neck pain are using opioids, especially at higher doses over an extended period of time, it’s important they seek advice from their doctor or pharmacist before stopping these medicines to avoid unwanted effects when the medicines are abruptly stopped.

Our research provides compelling evidence opioids have a limited role in the management of acute low back and neck pain. The challenge is getting this new information to clinicians and the general public, and to implement this evidence into practice.

Christine Lin receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She is affiliated with the Australia and New Zealand Musculoskeletal (ANZMUSC) Clinical Trials Network and the Australia and New Zealand Low Back Pain (ANZBACK) Centre of Research Excellence. She is a registered physiotherapist and serves on the editorial board of Journal of Physiotherapy and British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Andrew McLachlan receives research funding from the NHMRC and the Sydney Pharmacy School receives research scholarship funding from GSK for a PhD student under his supervision. Andrew has served as a paid consultant on Australian government committees related to medicines regulation.

Christopher Maher received funding for the OPAL trial from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council; University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health; and SafeWork SA.

Caitlin Jones 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. Opioids don’t relieve acute low back or neck pain – and can result in worse pain, new study finds – https://theconversation.com/opioids-dont-relieve-acute-low-back-or-neck-pain-and-can-result-in-worse-pain-new-study-finds-203244

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Huber, Astronomer, University of Sydney

The search for planets outside our Solar System – exoplanets – is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. Over the past few decades, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been detected and astronomers now estimate that on average there is at least one planet per star in our galaxy.

Many current research efforts aim at detecting Earth-like planets suitable for life. These endeavours focus on so-called “main sequence” stars like our Sun – stars which are powered by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium in their cores, and remain stable for billions of years. More than 90% of all known exoplanets so far have been detected around main-sequence stars.

As part of an international team of astronomers, we studied a star that looks much like our Sun will in billions of years’ time, and found it has a planet which by all rights it should have devoured. In research published today in Nature, we lay out the puzzle of this planet’s existence – and propose some possible solutions.

A glimpse into our future: red giant stars

Just like humans, stars undergo changes as they age. Once a star has used up all its hydrogen in the core, the core of the star shrinks and the outer envelope expands as the star cools.

In this “red giant” phase of evolution, stars can grow to more than 100 times their original size. When this happens to our Sun, in about 5 billion years, we expect it will grow so large it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.

Eventually, the core becomes hot enough for the star to begin fusing helium. At this stage the star shrinks back to about 10 times its original size, and continues stable burning for tens of millions of years.

Read more:
Explainer: how do you find exoplanets?

We know of hundreds of planets orbiting red giant stars. One of these is called 8 Ursae Minoris b, a planet with around the mass of Jupiter in an orbit that keeps it only about half as far from its star as Earth is from the Sun.

The planet was discovered in 2015 by a team of Korean astronomers using the “Doppler wobble” technique, which measures the gravitational pull of the planet on the star. In 2019, the International Astronomical Union dubbed the star Baekdu and the planet Halla, after the tallest mountains on the Korean peninsula.

A planet that should not be there

Analysis of new data about Baekdu collected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope has yielded a surprising discovery. Unlike other red giants we have found hosting exoplanets on close-in orbits, Baekdu has already started fusing helium in its core.

Read more:
NASA’s planet-hunting spacecraft TESS is now on its mission to search for new worlds

Using the techniques of asteroseismology, which studies waves inside stars, we can determine what material a star is burning. For Baekdu, the frequencies of the waves unambiguously showed it has commenced burning helium in its core.

The discovery was puzzling: if Baekdu is burning helium, it should have been much bigger in the past – so big it should have engulfed the planet Halla. How is it possible Halla survived?

As is often the case in scientific research, the first course of action was to rule out the most trivial explanation: that Halla never really existed.

Indeed, some apparent discoveries of planets orbiting red giants using the Doppler wobble technique have later been shown to be illusions created by long-term variations in the behaviour of the star itself.

However, follow-up observations ruled out such a false-positive scenario for Halla. The Doppler signal from Baekdu has remained stable over the last 13 years, and close study of other indicators showed no other possible explanation for the signal. Halla is real – which returns us to the question of how it survived engulfment.

Two stars become one: a possible survival scenario

Having confirmed the existence of the planet, we arrived at two scenarios which could explain the situation we see with Baekdu and Halla.

At least half of all stars in our galaxy did not form in isolation like our Sun, but are part of binary systems. If Baekdu once was a binary star, Halla may have never faced the danger of engulfment.

A merger of these two stars may have prevented the expansion of either star to a size large enough to engulf planet Halla. If one star became a red giant on its own, it would have engulfed Halla – however, if it merged with a companion star it would jump straight to the helium-burning phase without getting big enough to reach the planet.

Alternatively, Halla may be a relatively newborn planet. The violent collision between the two stars may have produced a cloud of gas and dust from which the planet could have formed. In other words, the planet Halla may be a recently born “second generation” planet.

Whichever explanation is correct, the discovery of a close-in planet orbiting a helium-burning red giant star demonstrates that nature finds ways for exoplanets to appear in places where we might least expect them.

Daniel Huber receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Sloan Foundation. He is also affiliated with the University of Hawaiʻi.

– ref. Astronomers puzzled by ‘planet that shouldn’t exist’ – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-puzzled-by-planet-that-shouldnt-exist-208649

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Gyngell, Research Fellow in Biomedical Ethics, The University of Melbourne

At the same time as it has attracted support and understanding, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has invoked passionate debate in recent years. One hot topic is whether ADHD is being over-diagnosed.

This concern dovetails with calls from GPs to be able to help provide wider access to diagnosis and for the condition to be added to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Public hearings for the Australian Senate’s inquiry into “consistent, timely and best practice assessment” of ADHD and support services begin today.

Reflecting on the unique features of ADHD, as well as how the idea of overdiagnosis came about, shows this misplaced concern should not distract us from helping people impacted by the condition.

Read more:
Wondering about ADHD, autism and your child’s development? What to know about getting a neurodevelopmental assessment

What is ADHD?

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that involves a person’s ability to regulate their behaviour, attention, and/or activity levels. Worldwide, around 5% of children and 2.5% of adults meet the full diagnostic criteria for ADHD.

Importantly, just having hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive symptoms is not sufficient to qualify for a diagnosis of ADHD. To meet current diagnostic criteria, these symptoms must have a negative effect on a person’s “social, school, or work functioning”.

This makes ADHD (and other mental health conditions) different from most physical health problems like cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. You can have cancer without it affecting your family, work, or social life. Some people might have cancer but not show any symptoms and still be doing well.

But by definition, you can’t have ADHD without both showing its symptoms and feeling their impact.

Read more:
29,000 cancers overdiagnosed in Australia in a single year

Overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis?

Overdiagnosis is a concept first developed in cancer screening to highlight situations where “the diagnosis of disease that would never cause symptoms or death during a given patient’s lifetime”. This definition has since been employed in many other areas of medicine, as well as analyses of health systems.

When defined in this way, overdiagnosis is distinct from the concept of misdiagnosis, which is where an incorrect diagnosis has been made. Misdiagnosis is when someone is diagnosed with a condition when they do not meet diagnostic criteria.

Overdiagnosis is something we should avoid. If a condition is not going to cause a person harm, we should not waste medical resources identifying it, or use invasive procedures to treat it. But when we reflect on the fact it’s impossible to have ADHD and not experience negative effects, we can see ADHD is not a condition that can be over-diagnosed in the way a disease such as cancer can.

Read more:
Is it anxiety or ADHD, or both? How to tell the difference and why it matters

Different definitions

Of course, there are other ways we could define overdiagnosis, so that it could apply to ADHD.

One 2021 article on ADHD and overdiagnosis defined it as occurring when the “net effect of the diagnosis is unfavourable”. But the implications of this definition of overdiagnosis are difficult to unpack.

There are many reasons an ADHD diagnosis may be “unfavourable”, for some individuals. It could be a misdiagnosis. A person might not have access to any needed treatments and/or social supports. Some people experience negative side effects from ADHD treatments, or experience stigma as a result of ADHD diagnosis.

One finding sometimes quoted as evidence for overdiagnosis of ADHD is that children who are youngest in their class are the ones most likely to be diagnosed.

But when you think about ADHD as not just having certain symptoms, but as having harmful outcomes, this might be expected. Trouble staying focused during class is more likely to be harmful if you are already behind your classmates – so harms are compounded.

In contrast to over-diagnosed physical diseases, it will still be important to identify such children, to reduce the negative impact of their inattentiveness. This need not involve medications but could involve environmental interventions – including perhaps repeating a year of school.

Read more:
What is ADHD coaching and do I really need it?

Not a medical condition

Some concerns about ADHD overdiagnosis appear to be based on a belief ADHD should not be considered as a medical condition. From this perspective, the concerns would again be more accurately and transparently phrased in terms of misdiagnosis.

It is true some children who currently have an ADHD diagnosis might in fact be hyperactive, impulsive, or inattentive, but these traits may have neutral or positive effects on their lives. Again, this would not be an overdiagnosis, but an incorrect diagnosis.

Even in the United States where rates of ADHD diagnosis exceed 5%, they still fall short of the estimated epidemiological prevalence. That means even though there have been significant increases in the rates of diagnosis of ADHD over recent years, there are still many more children, adolescents and adults who likely meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. They may never have had these problems recognised, do not have a diagnosis and do not get any support.

Where to from here?

So GPs and others – like Mental Health Nurse Practitioners – may well play an important role in assessing and managing ADHD.

There would clearly need to be extensive training and support and also changes in the way assessments are funded. A good assessment takes time and at the moment funding preferences shorter appointments.

As things stand, we are a long way from “overdiagnosis”. In fact, we are still a long way from adequately supporting those who need it.

Christopher Gyngell via his affiliation with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute received funding from the Victorian State Government via the Operational Infrastructure Support Program. He also receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund

David Coghill receives funding from The National Health & Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund. He consults to Takeda, Medice, Novartis & Servier. He is a board member and director of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association.

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

– ref. You might have heard ADHD risks being over-diagnosed. Here’s why that’s not the case – https://theconversation.com/you-might-have-heard-adhd-risks-being-over-diagnosed-heres-why-thats-not-the-case-208581

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

We are seeing the biggest changes in our energy and transport systems since industrialisation. By 2026, global renewable energy generation is expected to match total fossil fuel and nuclear output. Building the wind and solar farms, batteries and electricity networks we need to run our system on renewables will use a huge array of mined minerals, known as “transition minerals”.

The numbers are staggering. The International Energy Agency estimates a sixfold increase in demand for these minerals by 2040 to meet climate targets of well below 2℃ of warming. We could need 21.5 million tonnes for electric vehicles and battery storage alone.

Transitional minerals include metals such as lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite, magnesium and nickel. They also include rare earths like neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.

Currently, mining provides almost our entire supply. The scale of demand for these minerals could result in almost 400 new mines by 2035.

To put this in perspective, Australia has around 350 operating mines. More than 50% of the world’s lithium and much of its copper, cobalt, nickel and rare earths come from our mines.

Australia is hosting the World Mining Congress this week. A key issue for the industry is how we can ensure the minerals needed for the energy transition are sourced responsibly.

Read more:
More clean energy means more mines – we shouldn’t sacrifice communities in the name of climate action

How can we manage demand?

We can design energy and transport systems to minimise mineral demand. Strategies include:

• reducing our dependence on cars and using smaller vehicles
• improving energy efficiency
• moving to a circular economy that makes reuse and recycling a priority.

All these changes can reduce the need for new mines.

Recycling, for example, could reduce demand for mined materials. For lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, estimated reductions are 25% for lithium, 35% for cobalt and nickel, and 55% for copper by 2040.

This recycled content will mainly come from waste batteries. However, large volumes of lithium-ion batteries won’t start reaching the end of their lives for at least a decade. Recycling will only have a significant impact from 2035.

Read more:
Batteries are the environmental Achilles heel of electric vehicles – unless we repair, reuse and recycle them

Mining is unavoidable, so we must limit its impacts

If we are destined to continue mining for the minerals needed for the energy transition, how can this be done responsibly? And what exactly do we mean by responsible sourcing?

Responsible sourcing minimises the environmental, social and governance impacts and risks of mining. Key concerns include the use of child labour and forced labour, damage to the environment, impacts on Indigenous rights and cultural heritage, and corruption.

In 2011, the Australian government released guidance on sustainable mining. Historical and recent harmful impacts highlight the need for a fresh look at mining practices. In 2020, for example, Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site in Juukan Gorge.

First Nations people worldwide are calling for free, prior and informed consent when mining and renewable energy developments are proposed for their land. This approach recognises the right to be consulted early in the process, informed of the impacts, and supported to take part in negotiation and making agreements. Most importantly, it includes the right to say no.

In many parts of Australia, Indigenous communities have been locked out of economic opportunities, despite mining generating enormous wealth on their Country.

Read more:
54% of projects extracting clean energy minerals overlap with Indigenous lands, research reveals

What does responsible sourcing involve?

How do we do things more responsibly? We need to ensure activities comply with a range of sustainability criteria. An agreed standard will mean we have information that enables us to compare the good and bad apples.

The problem is there isn’t a common approach to measuring, managing and reporting environmental, social and governance performance. Our recent research analysed the plethora of voluntary standards and certifications available to battery materials producers. No common global or Australian standard has been adopted.

Smaller mining companies also struggle with the administrative complexities of sustainability reporting and management criteria. An agreed common language for reporting and management is needed. Only then can traceability solutions, such as the Global Battery Alliance’s blockchain-enabled “battery passport”, produce trustworthy and comparable results.

Read more:
Australia has rich deposits of critical minerals for green technology. But we are not making the most of them … yet

Let’s set the bar high

Our research identified the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) as one of the more rigorous standards. Its credibility is built on how it is governed. This involves six stakeholder groups: mining companies, purchasers, NGOs, affected communities, labour organisations and the finance sector.

There are still questions to be answered. How do practices in Australia measure up to the standard? And how can regulatory reform help to steer mining operations in the right direction?

A focus on environmental, social and governance practices in the Australian Critical Minerals Strategy, released last week, is a welcome first step.

Issues that must be front and centre include:

• mining impacts on water supply
• free, prior and informed consent from First Nations communities
• integrated planning for climate change impacts such as extreme weather that may affect management of mine tailings
• biodiversity protection
• mine closure planning that integrates progressive rehabilitation of ecosystems
• circular business practices to make the most of what we have.

Read more:
Tapping mineral wealth in mining waste could offset damage from new green economy mines

As a leading mining nation, Australia is in a position to leverage its historical environmental leadership, show renewed responsibility and integrity, and lead by example. We can then help leave the planet in a shape that future generations will be proud to inherit.

Rusty Langdon receives funding from a range of government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this included the BSC and the FBI CRC.

Elsa Dominish receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this includes DFAT, Earthworks, WWF-Australia and UNESCAP.

– ref. We could need 6 times more of the minerals used for renewables and batteries. How can we avoid a huge increase in mining impacts? – https://theconversation.com/we-could-need-6-times-more-of-the-minerals-used-for-renewables-and-batteries-how-can-we-avoid-a-huge-increase-in-mining-impacts-206864

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Jefferson, Senior Lecturer in Education, Edith Cowan University

School holidays become a very different challenge when kids leave primary school. The holiday program arrangements that once enabled parents to juggle work commitments may no longer be suitable or even available.

You may find your child is at home largely unattended for two or three weeks. This can put you at direct loggerheads with your child over what you both see as a productive use of their time. They may see this as a golden opportunity to establish their position as a world leader in the online video game Fortnite, or to plan a shopping spree with funds they don’t actually have.

Success lies in planning together and keeping the lines of communication open. Remember, not every day needs to be packed with activities, but it’s important for everyone to have a clear sense of structure and purpose.

As a parent, education researcher and former high school teacher, here are some suggestions for managing this time. And for encouraging responsibility, productivity, independence, wellbeing and a bond with your child.

1. Set ground rules and assign jobs

Establish clear ground rules early on and try to structure each day. Agree on three tasks to complete per day and write them down. A simple sticky note on the fridge is fine. This way, there is no room for error.

These tasks can vary from mundane household chores (like decluttering the plastic cupboard and finding those lost Tupperware lids) to more academically-focused activities. If your child has a part-time job, then this can be open to negotiation depending on the shifts they may have worked that day.

Or if you have a senior school student and there is room to improve on their school report, you could enrol your child in revision courses. Going with friends also makes this a much more palatable endeavour and lots of universities run free programs.

Read more:
Holiday help! An art expert suggests screen-free things to do in every room of the house

2. Promote rest and a reset

School holidays offer a great opportunity for your teenage child to unwind from what may have been a stressful term, recharge and rediscover their passions.

Remember when your teen was little and the fortune you spent on loom bands? Encourage them to get creative again, whether it is through painting or drawing or taking a trip down memory lane to get some craft based materials.

Also encourage your teenager to spend time outdoors, such as heading to the beach or park for a BBQ with their friends.

Many teens today are acutely aware of mental health. Encourage your child to establish a daily meditation and mindfulness routine during the holidays that can continue when term begins.

Chances are your child will want to sleep in. But watch out for the other end of the day. Research clearly shows screens just before bed mean children sleep less and their quality of sleep is poorer. So you may need to navigate boundaries about when phones get put on charge or laptops are switched off.

3. Ensure they see their friends IRL

For teens in the lower years of high school, talk to other parents in similar situations and negotiate catch-ups for your kids. Creating opportunities for social interaction in real life and not just over phones or computers is vital during the holidays so students maintain healthy human interactions

Consider getting your child to arrange meetups at public locations like local sporting facilities, allowing the children to navigate their way to and from these places.

This fosters independence, builds trust among friends and promotes healthy social development.

4. Encourage physical activity

It is crucial for secondary school kids to be physically active every day.

Numerous studies reinforce the positive impact of regular physical activity on adolescent wellbeing. Research has shown exercise not only improves physical health but also contributes to mental and emotional wellbeing.

Participating in a sport they currently play, such as basketball, rowing, or tennis, can provide both physical exercise and opportunities for social interaction and skill development.

For those who may not have a preferred sport, it is important to emphasise other options for getting active. This might be a free online yoga class, a swim, a bushwalk or just a jog around the neighbourhood.

We all know the saying, “kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do”. So if your child errs more towards staying indoors, it’s a good idea to head out for a walk with them. Even if it is just a 15-minute walk around the block, it’s a small but significant way to spend time together.

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5. Share your world

Whenever possible, invite your child into your world. While it’s not about having a “bring your child to work” day, you can encourage them to use public transport to meet you for lunch at your workplace or somewhere else important to you.

This experience offers them insight into your daily life and helps them understand the world beyond their school environment. By sharing your experiences and providing exposure to different professional settings, you broaden their horizons and nurture their understanding of the wider world.

As a parent and educator, I understand the challenges of navigating school holidays with secondary school kids. However it is possible to transform these breaks into opportunities for growth, rest and shared experiences.

Sarah Jefferson 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. Set ground rules, get them outside and do things together: how to navigate school holidays with high school kids – https://theconversation.com/set-ground-rules-get-them-outside-and-do-things-together-how-to-navigate-school-holidays-with-high-school-kids-208474

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Crosby, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie University

Desire, anticipation, frustration and disappointment – any time tickets for a Taylor Swift tour go on sale there is Bad Blood.

The release of tickets for the Australian leg of Swift’s Eras world tour has been far smoother than the debacle in the United States, which led to calls for greater regulation of the US ticketing industry. Even so, hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – of Australian “Swifties” will miss out, or resort to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra to secure a ticket.

It’s a function of the idiosyncrasies of the concert-ticketing industry, amplified by the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift.

More than 1 million people reportedly registered for a presale code within 12 hours of the Australian concert dates being announced. When tickets went on sale on Wednesday morning, more than 4 million users reportedly queued.

But no more than 450,000 tickets are available for Taylor’s five Australian shows (three at Sydney’s Accor Stadium and two at the Melbourne Cricket Ground). The maths are simple. Most people wanting tickets will miss out.

The economics of this scenario, however, are a bit more complicated.

Supply and demand

Typically when demand outstrips supply, suppliers will – in the interest of maximising profit – look to do one of two things: increase supply, or increase the price.

Compared with most other markets, however, suppliers of concerts have less capacity to respond to demand signals.

For Swift’s US tour, 17 concerts were added to the originally planned 35. But the juggernaut of her world tour, playing more than 100 shows in 18 countries, makes adding shows more logistically complex.

This is apparently the reason Brisbane missed out on a Swift concert. Though the management of Brisbane’s Lang Park stadium (capacity 52,500) reportedly held open dates, organisers considered it impractical with the Australian tour “being sandwiched” between dates in Japan and Singapore.

Even without these logistical issues, and with venues and other infrastructure being available, matching supply to demand is an inexact science, and organisers will prefer sold-out shows and to avoid the risk of a half-empty auditoriumum.

Pricing tickets

When demand outstrips supply, economics says the way to reduce demand and achieve market equilibrium is to increase the price.

Concert organisers do this to some extent by offering tickets at a range of price points.

For the vast bulk of tickets for Sydney and Melbourne, there are seven price points, ranging from A$79.90 (for “back row” seats) to A$379.90 for “A Reserve” seats in front of the stage. There are also VIP packages, ranging from $349.90 (for a ticket in a section otherwise costing A$159.90, plus merchandise) to $1,250 for the “It’s Been A Long Time Coming” package (for which you get an “A Reserve” seat plus merch).

Read more:
How does a Taylor Swift fan prove their love? Money

Organisers could feasibly increase all these prices and still sell out (according to a survey US consulting firm, 45% of Swift fans are millennials and just 11% Gen Z, that is aged less than 24).

Taylor Swift’s American fan demographics

Typically, however, artists are reluctant to be seen to be ripping off their fans, and their most loyal and enthusiastic fans are not necessarily the ones that can afford to pay the most for tickets.

Dynamic pricing

Ticket sellers such as Ticketmaster have also been experimenting with maximising allocative efficiency (and profits) through “dynamic pricing” – charging higher prices when demand is high. This is similar to the way the cost of airline tickets or Uber rides fluctuate according to demand.

But Ticketmaster says it only uses dynamic pricing if the artist agrees – and for good reason.

Rocker Bruce Springsteen allowed about 11% of tickets for his 2023 tour to be sold this way. Reports of “platinum seat” tickets costing as much as US$4,000 outraged fans (though Ticketmaster says the average ticket price was US$262). Fanzine Backstreets announced it would close after 43 years, citing disillusionment over the ticket prices. Publisher Christopher Phillips declared

These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.

Swift’s fans may be more tolerant. She has been allowing dynamic pricing since at least 2018. But no tickets for the Australian concerts are being sold using dynamic pricing.

Enter the scalpers

With demand outstripping supply and the reticence of artists to charge as much as they possibly can, a perfect opportunity is created for reselling tickets at a higher prices.

Economists call this a “secondary market”, and see it as sign a product or service has been undersupplied or underpriced (or both). It’s more commonly called “ticket scalping” or “ticket touting”, and condemned as opportunistic and unethical.

Read more:
The economics of ticket scalping

After reports that tickets offered exclusively to American Express customers were being resold for up to A$3,000, the Victorian government declared Swift’s two Melbourne shows “major events” to trigger a law prohibiting resale at more than 110% of the resale price. (NSW has had a law applying to all tickets since 2018.)

But the rise of ticket bots, which can flood ticketing websites with millions of requests, and online markets that allow sellers to be anonymous, makes stopping scalpers increasingly difficult. (Ticketmaster blamed scalping bots for its US site crashing in November).

Ticket company efforts to combat scalping include limiting the number of tickets that can be bought at one time, and requiring customers to verify their identity when buying the ticket and attending the show. They have also set up “fan to fan” platforms for secondary sales, recognising there can be legitimate reasons to sell tickets.

Swifties who want to resell their Australian tour ticket will be able to do so using a platform provided by Ticketek – but for no more than 110% of the purchase price.

Read more:
Ticket touts have been around for centuries – but the tide could be turning against them

Rock band Rage Against the Machine has sought to combat scalping with its own form of dynamic pricing. This involves holding back 10% of show tickets, which are then sold at a higher price but undercutting scalpers, with the the extra profit going to “charities and/or activist organizations”. The band reckons this has reduced scalping by 85% and raised millions for charity.

US singer Maggie Rogers has gone altogether more analogue by skipping online presale and selling tickets at box offices.

But these strategies will not help overcome the iron laws of supply and demand for Taylor Swift fans. They can only hope Karma is on their side.

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

– ref. Why are Taylor Swift tickets so hard to get? The economics are complicated – https://theconversation.com/why-are-taylor-swift-tickets-so-hard-to-get-the-economics-are-complicated-208567

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leo Roberts, Research Fellow, Centre for Mental Health, The University of Melbourne

With dual men’s and women’s Ashes series under way, the performance of elite Test cricketers is in the spotlight. For psychologically minded researchers like us, one aspect of play is attracting particular interest: the performance of batters progressing through the famed “nervous nineties”.

Popularised by commentators, this terminology captures the idea that batters with 90 or more runs become anxious about reaching (or not reaching) a century (100 runs).

Commentators and journalists (and Wikipedia) often portray the nervous nineties as a problematic moment for batters. This anxiety, the story goes, leads to lost ability, slow run-scoring and timid play.

These ideas are intuitive – but are they correct?

In fact our new research, published today in PLOS ONE, shows batters approaching 100 runs typically increased their scoring rate (more runs per ball) and became more likely to score a boundary (a four or a six), without being any more likely to get out than at any other point between 70 and 130 runs.

100 is not an arbitrary number

While cricket is a team sport, the individual accumulation of 100 runs is universally hailed as a major batting achievement.

Notably, 99 runs is an impressive individual total; yet in cricket culture, 99 is a world away from 100.

Watching a batter reach 100 runs reveals its significance. Jubilation and relief flood out, teammates stand and applaud, and crowds respond. Even nearby opponents offer congratulations.

Scoring centuries builds a batter’s reputation, while enhancing their legacy, their chance of team selection and, let’s not forget, their team’s chances of winning.

In stark contrast, getting out just short of a century is a bitter experience.

Beyond the disappointment, being dismissed in the 90s can attract stigma of mental weakness (especially if repeated) and is widely considered “a failure to convert”.

Who wouldn’t be nervous?

Read more:
What cricket can teach us about the mind’s experience of time – and how to deal with anxiety

Challenges of realising success

Many people can think of a time when a desired achievement slipped through their fingers just when success seemed assured.

Humans have imperfect thought control and can experience unhelpful thoughts at inconvenient times, like pondering the consequences of failing when success is in sight.

The possibility of gaining or losing reputation is also a common source of performance anxiety.

For athletes, performance anxiety places extra demands on the ability to execute precise actions.

Generally speaking, the anxious brain is thought to be less efficient at perceiving relevant information in the environment, and at planning and executing movement.

To counteract this, performers need to apply coping strategies to maintain performance, such as the acceptance of negative thoughts or directing their thoughts to a single focus, like the ball in cricket.

According to the mythology of the nervous nineties, these strategies could include more cautious behaviour to try to avoid getting out.

What does the data say?

In our new research, we examined data about every ball bowled in 712 men’s and women’s Test matches played between 2004 and 2022 (over 1.4 million deliveries).

In stark contrast to the colloquial phenomenon of the nervous nineties, we found batters in their 90s generally scored faster without increasing their chances of dismissal.

Importantly, accelerated scoring – that is, a progressive increase in the average runs per ball and the probability of a boundary – was uniquely large throughout the 90s when compared to the 70s, 80s and immediately after 100.

Some key examples from this year’s Ashes series bear out this finding. When Usman Khawaja brought up his century in the first men’s Ashes Test of 2023, it was with a boundary.

When Ellyse Perry was caught out on 99 runs in the women’s Test match, she was dismissed playing an aggressive shot destined for the fence – not exactly the timid play expected of the “nervous nineties” phenomenon.

In fact, Perry’s forceful batting is precisely the kind of playing our analysis predicts for those nearing a century.

And throughout the 90s, we estimated the probability of a batter getting out on any given score to be about 1.3% – much the same as throughout the 70s, 80s and just after 100.

Managing the nerves

We have come up with several explanations for the productive batting observed in the 90s.

Possibly, batters rush to escape their nervous discomfort by batting aggressively or with more urgency (such as running faster between the wickets).

The bowling team could also play a role. Bowling sides often try to limit run-scoring as batters near 100 by bringing fielders closer to the pitch, hoping to build pressure and encourage a mistake.

Ironically, a field packed tightly around the batter may offer a faster path to a century by leaving the boundary unprotected from any shot that passes through or over the infield.

While we can’t judge a batter’s emotional state from historical cricket data, we suspect many players are actually nervous when progressing from 90 to 100 runs. But we find no evidence the “nervous nineties” leads to widespread poor functioning or timid play.

International cricketers appear to typically manage any nerves and capitalise on the situation. It’s a fine example of coping among an elite population in a career-defining situation.

Read more:
What Olympic athletes can teach us about regulating our emotions and staying dedicated

Daniel R. Little receives funding from ARC Discovery Project DP160102360.

Leo Roberts, Matthew J. Spittal, and Mervyn Jackson 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. Cricket commentators love to talk about the ‘nervous nineties’ – but our new research suggests there’s no such thing – https://theconversation.com/cricket-commentators-love-to-talk-about-the-nervous-nineties-but-our-new-research-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-208027

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Wiltshire, Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Canterbury

Our ideas about the Universe are based on a century-old simplification known as the cosmological principle. It suggests that when averaged on large scales, the Cosmos is homogeneous and matter is distributed evenly throughout.

This allows a mathematical description of space-time that simplifies the application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the Universe as a whole.

Our cosmological models are based on this assumption. But as new telescopes, both on Earth and in space, deliver ever more precise images, and astronomers discover massive objects such as the giant arc of quasars, this foundation is increasingly challenged.

In our recent review, we discuss how these new discoveries force us to radically re-examine our assumptions and change our understanding of the Universe.

Einstein’s legacy

Albert Einstein faced huge dilemmas 106 years ago when he first applied his equations for gravity to the Universe as a whole. No physicist had ever attempted something so bold, but it was a natural consequence of his key idea. As a 50-year-old textbook reminds us:

Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move.

Data were almost completely lacking in 1917 and the idea that galaxies were objects at vast distances was a minority view among astronomers.

The conventional viewpoint, accepted by Einstein, was that the whole Universe looked like the inside of our galaxy. This suggested stars should be treated as pressure-less fluids, distributed randomly but with a well defined average density – the same, or homogeneous, anywhere in space.

Based on the idea that the Universe is the same everywhere, Einstein introduced his cosmological constant Λ, now known as “dark energy”.

On small scales, Einstein’s equations tell us that space never stands still. But forcing this on the Universe on a large scale was unnatural. Einstein was therefore relieved by the discovery of the expanding universe in the late 1920s. He even described Λ as his biggest blunder.

Read more:
Dark matter: our review suggests it’s time to ditch it in favour of a new theory of gravity

Ideas about matter have evolved, but not geometry

We now have amazingly detailed models of the physics of stars and galaxies embedded in the evolving Universe. We can trace the astrophysics of “stuff” from tiny seed ripples in the primordial fireball all the way to complex structures today.

Our telescopes are wonderful time machines. They look back all the way to when the first atoms formed, and the Universe first became transparent.

Beyond is the primordial plasma, opaque like the interior and surface of the Sun. The light that left the Universe’s “surface of last scattering” was very hot back then, about 2,700℃.

We receive that same light today, but cooled to minus 270℃ and diluted by the expansion of the Universe. This is the cosmic microwave background and it is remarkably uniform in all directions.

This is strong evidence the Universe was very close to spatially uniform when it was a fireball. But there is no direct evidence for such uniformity today.

A ‘lumpy’ Universe

Far back in time, our telescopes reveal small merging galaxies, growing into ever larger structures until the present day.

The expansion of the Universe has been halted entirely within the largest matter concentrations known as galaxy clusters. Where space is expanding, the clusters are stretched in filaments and sheets that thread and surround vast empty voids, all growing with time but at different rates. Rather than being smooth, matter forms a “cosmic web”.

But the idea that the Universe is spatially homogeneous endures.

There would be a gross inconsistency between the observed cosmic web and an average curved geometry of space if all we see is all there is. Evidence for missing matter has been around since the first observations of galaxy clusters in 1933.

Our first observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and its ripples in the decade from 1965 changed that idea.

Our models of nuclear physics are wonderfully predictive. But they are only consistent with observations if the missing mass in galaxy clusters is something like neutrinos that cannot emit light. Thus we invented cold dark matter, which makes gravity stronger within galaxy clusters.

Billions have been spent trying to directly detect dark matter, but decades of such efforts have yielded no definitive detection of what makes up 80% of all matter and 20% of all the energy in the Universe today.

An anomalous sky

The cosmic microwave background radiation is not perfectly uniform. Superimposed on it are fluctuations, one of which is abnormally large and has the shape of a dipole: a yin-yang diagram covering the whole sky.

We can interpret this as an effect due to relative motion, provided we define the cosmic microwave background radiation as the rest frame of the Universe. If we didn’t do this, we would need a physical explanation for the large dipole.

Much of the puzzle boils down to a power asymmetry – a lopsided Universe. The temperatures of the hemispheres above and below the plane of the Milky Way are slightly different to expectation.

These anomalies have long been explained as a result of unaccounted physical processes in modelling microwave emissions from the Milky Way.

Read more:
The largest structures in the Universe are still glowing with the shock of their creation

Matter within the sky

The cosmic microwave background radiation is not the only all-sky observation to show a dipole. Last year, researchers used observations of 1.36 million distant quasars and 1.7 million radio sources to test the cosmological principle. They found that matter, too, is unevenly distributed.

Another even more widely discussed mystery is the “Hubble tension”. Conventionally, we assume that an all-sky average of the Universe’s present expansion rate gives one well defined value: the Hubble constant. But the measured value differs from expectation, given a standard expansion history based on the cosmic microwave background radiation. If we allowed for inhomogeneous cosmologies, this problem may simply disappear.

Using cosmic microwave background data from individual opposing hemispheres, a standard expansion history implies different Hubble “constants” on each side of the sky today.

These puzzles are compounded by an ever-growing list of unexpected discoveries: a vast giant arc of quasars and a complex, bright and element-filled early Universe unveiled by the James Webb Space Telescope.

If matter is much more varied and interesting than expected, then maybe the geometry is too.

Models which abandon the cosmological principle do exist and make predictions. They are simply less studied than standard cosmology. The European Space Agency’s Euclid satellite will be launched this year. Will Euclid reveal that on average space is not Euclidean? If so, then a fundamental revolution in physics might be around the corner.

Read more:
The Euclid spacecraft will transform how we view the ‘dark universe’

David Wiltshire received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand, most recently a Catalyst Seeding Grant. With previous Marsden funding, he developed the first detailed observational tests of the non-standard timescape cosmology. These will include tests by the Euclid satellite mission.

Eoin Ó Colgáin most recently received funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea (2020-2022) to conduct research into cosmological tensions.

Jenny Wagner received funding from the German Science Foundation to investigate the biasing model-dependencies and degeneracies of strong gravitational lensing as a cosmological probe, for instance to constrain the Hubble constant.

Shahin Sheikh-Jabbari receives funding from IPM, Tehran and ICTP, Trieste, Italy, which has been used to investigate cosmological tensions and non-standard alternatives such as the dipole cosmology.

– ref. Cosmological models are built on a simple, century-old idea — but new observations demand a radical rethink – https://theconversation.com/cosmological-models-are-built-on-a-simple-century-old-idea-but-new-observations-demand-a-radical-rethink-204190

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madi Day, Lecturer, Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University

With NAIDOC week coming up, there is already a surge in expectations for extra labour from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in workplaces.

Events like NAIDOC Week see employers across the country leaning on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. They are expected to plan and organise cultural events and experiences, which is rarely reflected in their job description or pay packet.

The Make us Count report, which we co-authored, found this is not just limited to NAIDOC Week. This report reflects on the experiences of Aboriginal women in workplaces within the Victorian public sector, and reveals this additional labour is a burden on Aboriginal women. Regardless of their employment level or role in their respective workplace, this unpaid labour is often expected of them.

One participant stated,

The value [of Aboriginal cultural knowledge] is only when I organise NAIDOC or Reconciliation Week celebrations. The worst part is that it is up to me to drive recognition of these important events and for the rest of the year, culture and I are forgotten.

Many organisations publicly state they are committed to acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, which is often outlined in their Reconciliation Action Plans or other organisational strategy documents. They rarely, however, provide resources to meet this commitment.

Read more:
Attention managers: if you expect First Nations’ staff to do all your ‘Indigenous stuff’, this isn’t support – it’s racism

Aboriginal unpaid labour is nothing new

Australia has a long history of capitalising on Aboriginal women’s unpaid work. Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru author and academic Dr Jackie Huggins, has written about unpaid domestic service provided by Aboriginal women and girls.

This occurred in white settler homes and on missions and reserves into the 1970s. Many who were supposed to be paid had payments withheld, misappropriated or were underpaid and are still seeking compensation.

Huggins, in her foreword for Make Us Count, writes, “workplaces are a microcosm of Australia”, meaning what happens in workplaces is a small representation of what happens everywhere. Huggins goes on to say the report reveals little has changed and Aboriginal women are still expected to perform unpaid labour.

It’s not ‘cultural load’

The Healing Foundation, an organisation dedicated to healing trauma in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, describes “cultural load” as an accumulative trauma and stress experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are navigating systemic adversity in their lives while they are also trying to succeed in their careers.

Ngadjuri and Bundjalung academic Kelly Menzel has argued workplaces often misuse the term “cultural load”. This term is often used to describe the additional unpaid work expected of people because they are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander – like organising NAIDOC week events or educating non-Indigenous staff.

Overburdening Aboriginal women with unreasonable workloads not part of their job description is not reflective of cultural responsibilities or cultural load. It is gendered and racial exploitation.

Last week, a piece by Bundjalung Mununjali NITV digital journalist and producer Bronte Charles detailed the emotional and psychological toll of additional expectations and responsibilities imposed on Indigenous staff by non-Indigenous supervisors and colleagues.

Many of the participants in the Make it Count research participants also spoke about feeling tokenised and not seen as professionals with genuine skills and expertise.

What the ‘Make us Count’ research found

We interviewed 25 Aboriginal women working in the Victorian public sector and a further ten responded to an online survey. They reported multiple forms of racism and gendered violence in their workplaces. Many expressed they were undervalued compared to non-Indigenous colleagues and Aboriginal men.

One participant stated, in terms of recruitment and promotion opportunities, that “Aboriginal women are the bottom of the pecking order”.

The Make Us Count research found managers in the Victorian public sector failed to act on reports of bullying, harassment and racism.

One participant shared,

I spoke to my manager about what was going on and he agreed that we would come together with these two particular people. Then said to me that this must be a cultural thing as opposed to it being the bullying and harassment that it was. So, they failed to act.

Some Aboriginal women who reported receiving unwanted attention or harassment from Aboriginal men were told the issue was cultural. And for some, when the offender was a non-Indigenous colleague who bullied, harassed or were racist toward them, they were only referred to “cultural safety” training.

Some participants referred to harassment from Aboriginal men as lateral violence (meaning violence from within the same group). However, in most cases these men were in higher ranking positions, making this an abuse of power.

Overworking and undervaluing Aboriginal women in the workplace is discrimination and a systematic barrier to career progression. One participant stated, “It’s taken me 17 years to get from entry level to where I am now”.

Another commented “Unless you’re always performing at 150% or more, people don’t see you”.

Aboriginal transgender women and gender diverse people, as well as Aboriginal queer women, were invited to participate in this research. However, none of the participants chose to share this information about themselves, which may be telling in its own right.

In the Victorian public sector, just 0.7% of employees identify as transgender, non-binary and gender diverse. Research on the experiences of Indigenous LGBTQIA+ people in the workforce in general reveals high levels of discrimination, racism, social exclusion, queerphobia and transphobia.

As demonstrated by the Make Us Count report and other research, there is an urgent need for workplaces to take action to address racism and misogyny.

This includes unpaid labour, precarious working conditions like recurring short-term contracts and workplace harassment and violence. Aboriginal women want to be able to enjoy their work and have productive careers without being subjected to racism, discrimination, and exploitation.

As the following woman from our survey makes clear,

I just want to be able to be in a job where I can actually do the job and then still have the capacity to give back to the community.

Madi Day received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Round 2022- Victoria State Government.

Bronwyn Carlson received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Round 2022- Victoria State Government.

Debbie Bargallie received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Rounds 2022 – Victoria State Government.

– ref. During NAIDOC Week, many Indigenous women are assigned unpaid work. New research shows how prevalent this is in the workplace – https://theconversation.com/during-naidoc-week-many-indigenous-women-are-assigned-unpaid-work-new-research-shows-how-prevalent-this-is-in-the-workplace-208454

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Judge, Associate Professor (Prosthodontics) Melbourne Dental School, The University of Melbourne

It seems our perception of dental health and beauty has changed over the last 20 years or so. Social media posts, TV shows and films depict a perfect smile as being dominated by a broad pearly white teeth.

The idea of this kind of “perfect” smile was born in early Hollywood and popularised by actors including Julia Roberts. Advertisements for toothpaste or other oral health products commonly use models with wide, bright smiles, creating an aesthetic ideal.

Now some dental practitioners are beginning to self-identify as “cosmetic dentists”. And new technologies and materials allow dentists to make significant changes to the shape and colour of teeth.

But are these changes purely for looks? And what do they do to people’s natural teeth.

What are veneers?

One way of changing your smile is using dental veneers.

Veneers are coverings (usually made of porcelain) constructed in a laboratory and then bonded with adhesive to teeth.

Dental veneers can be used to change the colour and shape of teeth. They are commonly used at the front of the mouth and most often on the top teeth as this is the area of the mouth of maximum visual impact.

Veneers can be applied to lower anterior (front) teeth however, but this is technically more difficult due to these teeth’s smaller size and reduced surface area for effective bonding. Veneers can be applied to single teeth or multiple teeth.

The shape of veneers is matched to the shape of adjacent teeth. They should be in proportion to the facial profile and in harmony with the lips. Veneers are technically demanding for the dentist and technician to construct, blend and fit. The cost of each veneer can vary with the level of complexity of each case, patients should ask for a written quote before starting care.

Read more:
Curious Kids: what is inside teeth?

What lies beneath

What patients should know about dental veneers is that the dentist will most often have to shave down the front portion of the tooth to make room for the veneer.

And veneers do not last forever. They may need to be replaced if they chip, discolour or come unstuck. Each time a veneer is replaced the amount of the tooth left can reduce in size, making each round of care more difficult.

Eventually veneers may not be a viable choice. Then the patient may need need to move on to more extensive treatment choices such as crowns, which are thicker and more permanent.

To help patients make informed decisions dentists have the ability to provide trial digital or handcrafted mock-ups for patients to evaluate before committing to a treatment approach. This “try before you buy” step can be invaluable to ensure the patient’s expectations are likely to be achieved after the application of veneers. If this step is missed then the veneers may not meet the patient’s aesthetic needs requiring removal and replacement.

High levels of oral hygiene by the patient are a must to maximise the quality of fit of the bonded veneers as well as longevity within the mouth.

Read more:
Doctors may soon get official ‘endorsements’ to practise cosmetic surgery – but will that protect patients?

Professional guidelines

Recently the Medical Board of Australia has issued guidelines for medical practitioners who perform cosmetic surgery, with stronger regulation due to come into effect at the start of July this year.

They include patient screening for body dysmorphia – a mental health condition characterised by excessive concern about one’s appearance or specific physical features. This is intended to ensure each patient’s assessment of their own needs can be met in a biologically safe and predictable manner by their treating clinician.

Veneers can be the right choice for some people. But before embarking on this form of irreversible care there should be an informed risk-versus-benefit discussion between the patient and clinician. If the individual patient still wants aesthetic improvement but decides they don’t want veneers, there are other treatment choices available.

Alternatives

Bleaching and orthodontics can also change the colour and position of teeth.

Bleaching (or whitening) has been a standard clinical activity since the late 1980s and is normally undertaken using customised trays and prescription of a range of bleach treatments. Ideally this is done in consultation with a dental practitioner to understand the cause of tooth discolouration. This will determine whether bleaching is the appropriate choice and if it is likely to work.

Orthodontics is the controlled movement of teeth using bonded attachments and activated orthodontic wires (braces). In recent times, dentists have been able to provide individualised clear aligners to move teeth in a controlled manner. The principle of tooth movement using incrementally modified aligners is available through many providers, but should always be carefully and regularly managed by the treating dentist or orthodontist.

A patient should understand the risks and benefits of each of these choices as they relate to their individual needs rather than a generic approach to planning.

Read more:
50 shades whiter: what you should know about teeth whitening

Teeth for life

Dentists are trained to provide lifelong care and should be keen to explain and tailor treatment choices for informed and considered patients.

Patient-centred care should drive treatment choices and advocate for the best interests of patients. As such, we must maintain a balanced approach towards the delivery of idealised look, keeping in mind the importance of teeth function for a healthy diet and wellbeing.

Roy Judge receives funding from various granting bodies supporting dental research, these include the University of Melbourne, Australian Dental Research Foundation, Australian Prosthodontic Society, Australian Osseointegration Society, Australian Society of Periodontology and the Biomedical Translation Bridge Program. Roy is an academic at the University of Melbourne, he also works in private practice as a specialist prosthodontist providing care for referred patients, including dental veneers.

– ref. Smile! What are veneers and what do they do to your natural teeth? – https://theconversation.com/smile-what-are-veneers-and-what-do-they-do-to-your-natural-teeth-207112

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Cripps, Director of Technology UTS Human Technology Institute, Professor of Mathematcis and Statistics, University of Technology Sydney

Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) has spurred some leading voices in the field to call for a research pause, raise the possibility of AI-driven human extinction, and even ask for government regulation. At the heart of their concern is the idea AI might become so powerful we lose control of it.

But have we missed a more fundamental problem?

Ultimately, AI systems should help humans make better, more accurate decisions. Yet even the most impressive and flexible of today’s AI tools – such as the large language models behind the likes of ChatGPT – can have the opposite effect.

Why? They have two crucial weaknesses. They do not help decision-makers understand causation or uncertainty. And they create incentives to collect huge amounts of data and may encourage a lax attitude to privacy, legal and ethical questions and risks.

Cause, effect and confidence

ChatGPT and other “foundation models” use an approach called deep learning to trawl through enormous datasets and identify associations between factors contained in that data, such as the patterns of language or links between images and descriptions. Consequently, they are great at interpolating – that is, predicting or filling in the gaps between known values.

Interpolation is not the same as creation. It does not generate knowledge, nor the insights necessary for decision-makers operating in complex environments.

However, these approaches require huge amounts of data. As a result, they encourage organisations to assemble enormous repositories of data – or trawl through existing datasets collected for other purposes. Dealing with “big data” brings considerable risks around security, privacy, legality and ethics.

Read more:
Robots are creating images and telling jokes. 5 things to know about foundation models and the next generation of AI

In low-stakes situations, predictions based on “what the data suggest will happen” can be incredibly useful. But when the stakes are higher, there are two more questions we need to answer.

The first is about how the world works: “what is driving this outcome?” The second is about our knowledge of the world: “how confident are we about this?”

From big data to useful information

Perhaps surprisingly, AI systems designed to infer causal relationships don’t need “big data”. Instead, they need useful information. The usefulness of the information depends on the question at hand, the decisions we face, and the value we attach to the consequences of those decisions.

To paraphrase the US statistician and writer Nate Silver, the amount of truth is approximately constant irrespective of the volume of data we collect.

So, what is the solution? The process starts with developing AI techniques that tell us what we genuinely don’t know, rather than producing variations of existing knowledge.

Why? Because this helps us identify and acquire the minimum amount of valuable information, in a sequence that will enable us to disentangle causes and effects.

A robot on the Moon

Such knowledge-building AI systems exist already.

As a simple example, consider a robot sent to the Moon to answer the question, “What does the Moon’s surface look like?”

The robot’s designers may give it a prior “belief” about what it will find, along with an indication of how much “confidence” it should have in that belief. The degree of confidence is as important as the belief, because it is a measure of what the robot doesn’t know.

The robot lands and faces a decision: which way should it go?

Read more:
Bayes’ Theorem: the maths tool we probably use every day, but what is it?

Since the robot’s goal is to learn as quickly as possible about the Moon’s surface, it should go in the direction that maximises its learning. This can be measured by which new knowledge will reduce the robot’s uncertainty about the landscape – or how much it will increase the robot’s confidence in its knowledge.

The robot goes to its new location, records observations using its sensors, and updates its belief and associated confidence. In doing so it learns about the Moon’s surface in the most efficient manner possible.

Robotic systems like this – known as “active SLAM” (Active Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) – were first proposed more than 20 years ago, and they are still an active area of research. This approach of steadily gathering knowledge and updating understanding is based on a statistical technique called Bayesian optimisation.

Mapping unknown landscapes

A decision-maker in government or industry faces more complexity than the robot on the Moon, but the thinking is the same. Their jobs involve exploring and mapping unknown social or economic landscapes.

Suppose we wish to develop policies to encourage all children to thrive at school and finish high school. We need a conceptual map of which actions, at what time, and under what conditions, will help to achieve these goals.

Using the robot’s principles, we formulate an initial question: “Which intervention(s) will most help children?”

Next, we construct a draft conceptual map using existing knowledge. We also need a measure of our confidence in that knowledge.

Then we develop a model that incorporates different sources of information. These won’t be from robotic sensors, but from communities, lived experience, and any useful information from recorded data.

After this, based on the analysis informing the community and stakeholder preferences, we make a decision: “Which actions should be implemented and under which conditions?”

Finally, we discuss, learn, update beliefs and repeat the process.

Learning as we go

This is a “learning as we go” approach. As new information comes to hand, new actions are chosen to maximise some pre-specified criteria.

Where AI can be useful is in identifying what information is most valuable, via algorithms that quantify what we don’t know. Automated systems can also gather and store that information at a rate and in places where it may be difficult for humans.

AI systems like this apply what is called a Bayesian decision-theoretic framework. Their models are explainable and transparent, built on explicit assumptions. They are mathematically rigorous and can offer guarantees.

They are designed to estimate causal pathways, to help make the best intervention at the best time. And they incorporate human values by being co-designed and co-implemented by the communities that are impacted.

We do need to reform our laws and create new rules to guide the use of potentially dangerous AI systems. But it’s just as important to choose the right tool for the job in the first place.

Sally Cripps receives funding from Paul Ramsay Foundation, The Medical Research Futures Fund, the Australian Research Council and The National Health and Medical Research Council.

Edward Santow, through HTI, receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Nicholas Davis, through HTI, receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

Alex Fischer and Hadi Mohasel Afshar 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. How should a robot explore the Moon? A simple question shows the limits of current AI systems – https://theconversation.com/how-should-a-robot-explore-the-moon-a-simple-question-shows-the-limits-of-current-ai-systems-199180