Leo, 69, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is originally from Chicago, and has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru.
He became a cardinal only in 2023 and has become the first-ever US pope.
PCC general secretary Reverend James Bhagwan said he was not a Vatican insider, but there had been talk of cardinals feeling that the new pope should be a “middle-of-the-road person”.
Reverend Bhagwan said there had been prayers for God’s wisdom to guide the decisions made at the Conclave.
“I think if we look at where the decisions perhaps were made or based on, there had been a lot of talk that the cardinals going into Conclave had felt that a new pope would need to be someone who could take forward the legacy of Pope Francis, reaching out to those in the margins, but also be a sort of a middle-of-the-road person,” he said.
Hopes for climate response Reverend Bhagwan said the Pacific hoped that Pope Leo carried on the late Pope Francis’s connection to the climate change response.
He said Pope Francis released his “laudate deum” exhortation on the climate shortly before the United Nations climate summit in Dubai last year.
“The focus on care for creation, the focus for ending fossil fuels and climate justice, the focus on people from the margins — I think that’s important for the Pacific people at this time.
“I know that the Catholic Church in the Pacific has been focused on on its synodal process, and so he spoke about synodality as well.
“I know that there were hopes for an Oceania synod, just as Pope Francis held a synod of the Amazon. And I think that is still something that’s in the hearts of many of our Catholic leaders and Catholic members.
“We hope that this will be an opportunity to still bring that focus to the Pacific.”
He said they were confident Pope Leo would pick up many of the issues Francis was well known for, like speaking up for climate change, human trafficking and the plight of refugees; and within the church, a different way of meeting and talking with one another — known as synodality — which is an ongoing process.
“I think any pope needs to be able to challenge things that are happening around the world, especially if it is affecting the lives of people, where the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.”
Pope Leo appeared to be a very calm person, he added.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
IMO, this sounds like an expression of sorrow and regret about the conflict, and about the evils it is feeding and fostering. Regardless, the institute has described that comment by Davis as antisemitic.
“‘You cannot claim to champion social cohesion while minimising or rationalising antisemitic hate,’ the institute said. ‘Social trust depends on moral consistency, especially from those in leadership. Peter Davis’s actions erode that trust.’”
For the record, Davis wasn’t rationalising or minimising antisemitic hate. His comments look far more like a legitimate observation that the longer the need for a political-diplomatic solution is violently resisted, the worse things will be for everyone — including Jewish citizens, via the stoking of antisemitism.
The basic point at issue here is that criticisms of the actions of the Israeli government do not equate to a racist hostility to the Jewish people. (Similarly, the criticisms of Donald Trump’s actions cannot be minimised or rationalised as due to anti-Americanism.)
Appalled by Netanyahu actions Many Jewish people in fact, also feel appalled by the actions of the Netanyahu government, which repeatedly violate international law.
In the light of the extreme acts of violence being inflicted daily by the IDF on the people of Gaza, the upsurge in hateful graffiti by neo-Nazi opportunists while still being vile, is hardly surprising.
Around the world, the security of innocent Israeli citizens is being recklessly endangered by the ultra-violent actions of their own government.
If you want to protect your citizens from an existing fire, it’s best not to toss gasoline on the flames.
To repeat: the vast majority of the current criticisms of the Israeli state have nothing whatsoever to do with antisemitism. At a time when Israel is killing scores of innocent Palestinians on a nightly basis with systematic air strikes and the shelling of civilian neighbourhoods, when it is weaponising access to humanitarian aid as an apparent tool of ethnic cleansing, when it is executing medical staff and assassinating journalists, when it is killing thousands of children and starving the survivors . . . antisemitism is not the reason why most people oppose these evils. Common humanity demands it.
Ironically, the press release by the NZ Israel Institute concludes with these words: “There must be zero tolerance for hate in any form.” Too bad the institute seems to have such a limited capacity for self-reflection.
Footnote One: For the best part of 80 years, the world has felt sympathy to Jews in recognition of the Holocaust. The genocide now being committed in Gaza by the Netanyahu government cannot help but reduce public support for Israel.
It also cannot help but erode the status of the Holocaust as a unique expression of human evil.
One would have hoped the NZ Israel Institute might acknowledge the self-defeating nature of the Netanyahu government policies — if only because, on a daily basis, the state of Israel is abetting its enemies, and alienating its friends.
Footnote Two: As yet, the so-called Free Speech Union has not come out to support the free speech rights of Peter Davis, and to rebuke the NZ Israel Institute for trying to muzzle them.
Colour me not surprised.
This is a section of Gordon Campbell’s Scoop column published yesterday under the subheading “Pot Calls Out Kettle”; the main portion of the column about the new Pope is here. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on May 10, 2025.
Tracing radiation through the Marshall Islands: Reflections from a veteran Greenpeace nuclear campaigner SPECIAL REPORT: By Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands. As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we
USP World Press Freedom Day warnings over AI, legal reform and media safety World Press Freedom Day is not just a celebration of the vital role journalism plays — it is also a moment to reflect on the pressures facing the profession and Pacific governments’ responsibility to protect it. This was one of the key messages delivered by two guest speakers at The University of the South Pacific
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We’ve visited Ground Zero. Not once, but three times. But for generations, before these locations were designated as such, they were the ancestral home to the people of the Marshall Islands.
As part of a team of Greenpeace scientists and specialists from the Radiation Protection Advisers team, we have embarked on a six-week tour on board the Rainbow Warrior, sailing through one of the most disturbing chapters in human history: between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs across the Marshall Islands — equivalent to 7200 Hiroshima explosions.
During this period, testing nuclear weapons at the expense of wonderful ocean nations like the Marshall Islands was considered an acceptable practice, or as the US put it, “for the good of mankind”.
Instead, the radioactive fallout left a deep and complex legacy — one that is both scientific and profoundly human, with communities displaced for generations.
Between March and April, we travelled on the Greenpeace flagship vessel, the Rainbow Warrior, throughout the Marshall Islands, including to three northern atolls that bear the most severe scars of Cold War nuclear weapons testing:
Enewetak atoll, where, on Runit Island, stands a massive leaking concrete dome beneath which lies plutonium-contaminated waste, a result of a partial “clean-up” of some of the islands after the nuclear tests;
Bikini atoll, a place so beautiful, yet rendered uninhabitable by some of the most powerful nuclear detonations ever conducted; and
Rongelap atoll, where residents were exposed to radiation fallout and later convinced to return to contaminated land, part of what is now known as Project 4.1, a US medical experiment to test humans’ exposure to radiation.
This isn’t fiction, nor the distant past. It’s a chapter of history still alive through the environment, the health of communities, and the data we’re collecting today.
Each location we visit, each sample we take, adds to a clearer picture of some of the long-term impacts of nuclear testing—and highlights the importance of continuing to document, investigate, and attempt to understand and share these findings.
These are our field notes from a journey through places that hold important lessons for science, justice, and global accountability.
Our mission: why are we here? With the permission and support of the Marshallese government, a group of Greenpeace science and radiation experts, together with independent scientists, are in the island nation to assess, investigate, and document the long-term environmental and radiological consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.
Our mission is grounded in science. We’re conducting field sampling and radiological surveys to gather data on what radioactivity remains in the environment — isotopes such as caesium-137, strontium-90 and plutonium-239/240. These substances are released during nuclear explosions and can linger in the environment for decades, posing serious health risks, such as increased risk of cancers in organs and bones.
But this work is not only about radiation measurements, it is also about bearing witness.
We are here in solidarity with Marshallese communities who continue to live with the consequences of decisions made decades ago, without their consent and far from the public eye.
Stop 1: Enewetak Atoll — the dome that shouldn’t exist
At the far western edge of the Marshall Islands is Enewetak. The name might not ring a bell for many, but this atoll was the site of 43 US nuclear detonations. Today, it houses what may be one of the most radioactive places in the world — the Runit Dome.
Once a tropical paradise thick with coconut palms, Runit Island is capped by a massive concrete structure the size of a football field. Under this dome — cracked, weather-worn, and only 46 centimetres thick in some places — lies 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. These substances are not only confined to the crater — they are also found across the island’s soil, rendering Runit Island uninhabitable for all time.
The contrast between what it once was and what it has become is staggering. We took samples near the dome’s base, where rising sea levels now routinely flood the area.
We collected coconut from the island, which will be processed and prepared in the Rainbow Warrior’s onboard laboratory. Crops such as coconut are a known vector for radioactive isotope transfer, and tracking levels in food sources is essential for understanding long-term environmental and health risks.
The local consequences of this simple fact are deeply unjust. While some atolls in the Marshall Islands can harvest and sell coconut products, the people of Enewetak are prohibited from doing so because of radioactive contamination.
They have lost not only their land and safety but also their ability to sustain themselves economically. The radioactive legacy has robbed them of income and opportunity.
One of the most alarming details about this dome is that there is no lining beneath the structure — it is in direct contact with the environment, while containing some of the most hazardous long-lived substances ever to exist on planet Earth. It was never built to withstand flooding, sea level rise, and climate change.
The scientific questions are urgent: how much of this material is already leaking into the lagoon? What are the exposure risks to marine ecosystems and local communities?
We are here to help answer questions with new, independent data, but still, being in the craters and walking on this ground where nuclear Armageddon was unleashed is an emotional and surreal journey.
Stop 2: Bikini — a nuclear catastrophe, labelled ‘for the good of mankind’
Unlike Chernobyl or Fukushima, where communities were devastated by catastrophic accidents, Bikini tells a different story. This was not an accident.
The nuclear destruction of Bikini was deliberate, calculated, and executed with full knowledge that entire ways of life were going to be destroyed.
Bikini Atoll is incredibly beautiful and would look idyllic on any postcard. But we know what lies beneath: the site of 23 nuclear detonations, including Castle Bravo, the largest ever nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States.
Castle Bravo alone released more than 1000 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. The radioactive fallout massively contaminated nearby islands and their populations, together with thousands of US military personnel.
Bikini’s former residents were forcibly relocated in 1946 before nuclear testing began, with promises of a safe return. But the atoll is still uninhabited, and most of the new generations of Bikinians have never seen their home island.
As we stood deep in the forest next to a massive concrete blast bunker, reality hit hard — behind its narrow lead-glass viewing window, US military personnel once watched the evaporation of Bikini lagoon.
On our visit, we noticed there’s a spectral quality to Bikini. The homes of the Bikini islanders are long gone. In its place now stand a scattering of buildings left by the US Department of Energy: rusting canteens, rotting offices, sleeping quarters with peeling walls, and traces of the scientific experiments conducted here after the bombs fell.
On dusty desks, we found radiation reports, notes detailing crop trials, and a notebook meticulously tracking the application of potassium to test plots of corn, alfalfa, lime, and native foods like coconut, pandanus, and banana. The potassium was intended to block the uptake of caesium-137, a radioactive isotope, by plant roots.
The logic was simple: if these crops could be decontaminated, perhaps one day Bikini could be repopulated.
We collected samples of coconuts and soil — key indicators of internal exposure risk if humans were to return. Bikini raises a stark question: What does “safe” mean, and who gets to decide?
The US declared parts of Bikini habitable in 1970, only to evacuate people again eight years later after resettled families suffered from radiation exposure. The science is not abstract here. It is personal. It is human. It has real consequences.
The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the eastern side of Rongelap atoll, anchoring one mile from the centre of Rongelap Island, the church spire and roofs of “new” buildings reflecting the bright sun.
n 1954, fallout from the Castle Bravo nuclear detonation on Bikini blanketed this atoll in radioactive ash — fine, white powder that children played in, thinking it was snow. The US government waited three days to evacuate residents, despite knowing the risks. The US government declared it safe to return to Rongelap in 1957 — but it was a severely contaminated environment. The very significant radiation exposure to the Rongelap population caused severe health impacts: thyroid cancers, birth defects such as “jellyfish babies”, miscarriages, and much more.
In 1985, after a request to the US government to evacuate was dismissed, the Rongelap community asked Greenpeace to help relocate them from their ancestral lands. Using the first Rainbow Warrior, and over a period of 10 days and four trips, 350 residents collectively dismantled their homes, bringing everything with them — including livestock, and 100 metric tons of building material — where they resettled on the islands of Mejatto and Ebeye on Kwajalein atoll.
It is a part of history that lives on in the minds of the Marshallese people we meet in this ship voyage — in the gratitude they still express, the pride in keeping the fight for justice, and in the pain of still not having a permanent, safe home.
Now, once again, we are standing on their island of Rongelap, walking past abandoned buildings and rusting equipment, some of it dating from the 1980s and 1990s — a period when the US Department of Energy launched a push to encourage resettlement declaring that the island was safe — a declaration that this time, the population welcomed with mistrust, not having access to independent scientific data and remembering the deceitful relocation of some decades before.
Here, once again, we sample soil and fruits that could become food if people came back. It is essential to understand ongoing risks — especially for communities considering whether and how to return.
Our scientific mission is to take measurements, collect samples, and document contamination. But that’s not all we’re bringing back.
We carry with us the voices of the Marshallese who survived these tests and are still living with their consequences. We carry images of graves swallowed by tides near Runit Dome, stories of entire cultures displaced from their homelands, and measurements of radiation showing contamination still persists after many decades.
There are 9700 nuclear warheads still held by military powers around the world – mostly in the United States and Russian arsenals. The Marshall Islands was one of the first nations to suffer the consequences of nuclear weapons — and the legacy persists today.
We didn’t come to speak for the Marshallese. We came to listen, to bear witness, and to support their demand for justice. We plan to return next year, to follow up on our research and to make results available to the people of the Marshall Islands.
And we will keep telling these stories — until justice is more than just a word.
Kommol Tata (“thank you” in the beautiful Marshallese language) for following our journey.
Shaun Burnie is a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Ukraine and was part of the Rainbow Warrior team in the Marshall Islands. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa and is republished with permission.
World Press Freedom Day is not just a celebration of the vital role journalism plays — it is also a moment to reflect on the pressures facing the profession and Pacific governments’ responsibility to protect it.
This was one of the key messages delivered by two guest speakers at The University of the South Pacific (USP) Journalism’s 2025 World Press Freedom Day celebrations this week, the UN Human Rights Adviser for the Pacific, Heike Alefsen, and Fiji Media Association’s general secretary, Stanley Simpson.
In her address to journalism students and other attendees on Monday, chief guest Alefsen emphasised that press freedom is a fundamental pillar of democracy, a human right, and essential for sustainable development and the rule of law.
“Media freedom is a prerequisite for inclusive, rights-respecting societies,” Alefsen said, warning of rising threats such as censorship, harassment, and surveillance of journalists — especially with the spread of AI tools used to manipulate information and monitor media workers.
UN Human Rights Adviser for the Pacific Heike Alefsen (from left), USP Journalism programme head Dr Shailendra Singh, and Fiji Media Association’s general secretary Stanley Simpson . . . reflecting on pressures facing the profession of journalism. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau
AI and human rights She stressed that AI must serve human rights — not undermine them — and that it must be used transparently, accountably, and in accordance with international human rights law.
“Some political actors exploit AI to spread disinformation and manipulate narratives for personal or political gain,” she said.
She added that these risks were compounded by the fact that a handful of powerful corporations and individuals now controlled much of the AI infrastructure and influenced the global media environment — able to amplify preferred messages or suppress dissenting voices.
“Innovation cannot come at the expense of press freedom, privacy, or journalist safety,” she said.
Regarding Fiji, Alefsen praised the 2023 repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA) as a “critical turning point,” noting its positive impact on Fiji’s ranking in the RSF World Press Freedom Index.
World Press Freedom Day at The University of the South Pacific on Monday. Image: USP — the country rose four places to 40th in the 2025 survey.
However, she emphasised that legal reforms must continue, especially regarding sedition laws, and she highlighted ongoing challenges across the Pacific, including financial precarity, political pressure, and threats to women journalists.
According to Alefsen, the media landscape in the Pacific was evolving for the better in some countries but concerns remained. She highlighted the working conditions of most journalists in the region, where financial insecurity, political interference, and lack of institutional support were prevalent.
“Independent journalism ensures transparency, combats disinformation, amplifies marginalised voices, and enables people to make informed decisions about their lives and governance. In too many countries around the world, journalists face censorship, detention, and in some cases, death — simply for doing their jobs,” she said.
Strengthening media independence and sustainability Keynote speaker Stanley Simpson, echoed these concerns, adding that “the era where the Fiji media could survive out of sheer will and guts is over.”
“Now, it’s about technology, sustainability, and mental health support,” he said.
Speaking on the theme, Strengthening Media Independence and Sustainability, Simpson emphasised the need for the media to remain independent, noting that journalists are often expected to make greater sacrifices than professionals in other industries.
“Independence — while difficult and challenging — is a must in the media industry for it to maintain credibility. We must be able to think, speak, write, and report freely on any matter or anyone,” Simpson said.
According to Simpson, there was a misconception in Fiji that being independent meant avoiding relationships or contacts.
“There is a need to build your networks — to access and get information from a wide variety of sources. In fact, strengthening media independence means being able to talk to everyone and hear all sides. Gather all views and present them in a fair, balanced and accurate manner.”
He argued that media could only be sustainable if it was independent — and that independence was only possible if sustainability was achieved. Simpson recalled the events of the 2006 political upheaval, which he said contributed to the decline of media freedom and the collapse of some media organisations in Fiji.
“Today, as we mark World Press Freedom Day, we gather at this great institution to reflect on a simple yet profound truth: media can only be truly sustainable if it is genuinely free.
“We need democratic, political, and governance structures in place, along with a culture of responsible free speech — believed in and practised by our leaders and the people of Fiji,” he said.
USP students and guests at the 2025 World Press Freedom Day event. Picture: Mele Tu’uakitau
The new media landscape Simpson also spoke about the evolving media landscape, noting the rise of social media influencers and AI generated content. He urged journalists to verify sources and ensure fairness, balance and accuracy — something most social media platforms were not bound by.
While some influencers have been accused of being clickbait-driven, Simpson acknowledged their role. “I think they are important new voices in our democracy and changing landscape,” he said.
He criticised AI-generated news platforms that republished content without editorial oversight, warning that they further eroded public trust in the media.
“Sites are popping up overnight claiming to be news platforms, but their content is just AI-regurgitated media releases,” he said. “This puts the entire credibility of journalism at risk.”
Fiji media challenges Simpson outlined several challenges facing the Fiji media, including financial constraints, journalist mental health, lack of investment in equipment, low salaries, and staff retention. He emphasised the importance of building strong democratic and governance structures and fostering a culture that respects and values free speech.
“Many fail to appreciate the full scale of the damage to the media industry landscape from the last 16 years. If there had not been a change in government, I believe there would have been no Mai TV, Fiji TV, or a few other local media organisations today. We would not have survived another four years,” he said.
According to Simpson, some media organisations in Fiji were only one or two months away from shutting down.
“We barely survived the last 16 years, while many media organisations in places like New Zealand — TV3’s NewsHub — have already closed down. The era where the Fiji media would survive out of sheer will and guts is over. We need to be more adaptive and respond quickly to changing realities — digital, social media, and artificial intelligence,” he said.
Dr Singh (left) moderates the student panel discussion with Riya Bhagwan, Maniesse Ikuinen-Perman and Vahefonua Tupola. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau
Young journalists respond During a panel discussion, second-year USP journalism student Vahefonua Tupola of Tonga highlighted the connection between the media and ethical journalism, sharing a personal experience to illustrate his point.
He said that while journalists should enjoy media freedom, they must also apply professional ethics, especially in challenging situations.
Tupola noted that the insights shared by the speakers and fellow students had a profound impact on his perspective.
Another panelist, third-year student and Journalism Students Association president Riya Bhagwan, addressed the intersection of artificial intelligence and journalism.
She said that in this era of rapid technological advancement, responsibility was more critical than ever — with the rise of AI, social media, and a constant stream of information.
“It’s no longer just professional journalists reporting the news — we also have citizen journalism, where members of the public create and share content that can significantly influence public opinion.
“With this shift, responsible journalism becomes essential. Journalists must uphold professional standards, especially in terms of accuracy and credibility,” she said.
The third panelist, second-year student Maniesse Ikuinen-Perman from the Federated States of Micronesia, acknowledged the challenges facing media organisations and journalists in the Pacific.
She shared that young and aspiring journalists like herself were only now beginning to understand the scope of difficulties journalists face in Fiji and across the region.
Maniesse emphasised the importance of not just studying journalism but also putting it into practice after graduation, particularly when returning to work in media organisations in their home countries.
The panel discussion, featuring journalism students responding to keynote addresses, was moderated by USP Journalism head of programme Dr Shailendra Singh.
Dr Singh concluded by noting that while Fiji had made significant progress with the repeal of the Media Industry Development Act (MIDA), global experience demonstrated that media freedom must never be taken for granted.
He stressed that maintaining media freedom was an ongoing struggle and always a work in progress.
“As far as media organisations are concerned, there is always a new challenge on the horizon,” he said, pointing to the complications brought about by digital disruption and, more recently, artificial intelligence.
Fiji rose four places to 40th (out of 180 nations) in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to make the country the Oceania media freedom leader outside of Australia (29) and New Zealand (16).
Niko Ratumaimuri is a second-year journalism student at The University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. This article was first published by the student online news site Wansolwara and is republished in collaboration with Asia Pacific Report.
USP Journalism students, staff and guests at the 2025 World Press Freedom Day celebrations at Laucala campus on Monday. Image: Mele Tu’uakitau
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
I previously wrote about the Senate the morning after the election. About half the Senate is elected at each House of Representatives election. Those up for election include six senators out of 12 for every state and all four territory senators. So 40 of the 76 senators were up for election.
State senators elected at this election will start their six-year terms on July 1, while territory senators are tied to the term of the lower house.
At a double dissolution election, all senators are up for election, and this truncates the terms of senators. With Labor and the Greens so dominant at this election, the Coalition may try a double dissolution if they win the next election.
Senators are elected by proportional representation in their jurisdictions with preferences. At a half-Senate election, with six senators in each state up for election, a quota is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. For the territories, a quota is one-third or 33.3%. Half a quota on primary votes (7.1% in a state) is usually enough to give a party a reasonable chance of election.
It’s likely to take at least another three weeks to get final Senate results. All votes need to be data entered into a computer system, then a button is pressed to electronically distribute preferences. It’s only after this button press that we know final outcomes and margins.
At the 2019 election (the last time these state senators were up for election), the Coaliition won 17 of the 36 state senators, Labor 11, the Greens six, One Nation one and Jacqui Lambie one. The right won by 18–17, with one for Lambie.
Queensland’s senators split 4–2 to the right, Tasmania 3–2 to the left with one for Lambie and the other states were tied at 3–3.
The four senators from the ACT and Northern Territory were last up for election in 2022. At that election, left-wing independent David Pocock and Labor won both ACT seats, while the NT went one Labor, one Country Liberal Party (CLP).
At this election, it’s likely Labor will gain a senator in every mainland state at the expense of the Coalition, while the Greens, One Nation, Lambie and Pocock will hold their existing seats.
The most likely outcome of this half-Senate election is 18 Labor out of 40 (up five), 13 Coalition (down five), six Greens (steady), and one each for One Nation, Lambie and Pocock (all steady). This would give the left a 25–14 win with one for Lambie.
In 2022, the 36 state senators (not up for election in 2025) were 14 Coalition, 13 Labor, six Greens and one each for One Nation, the United Australia Party (UAP) and Tammy Tyrrell. During the last term Lidia Thorpe defected from the Greens, Fatima Payman from Labor and Tyrrell from the Jacqui Lambie Network.
If Labor wins 18 seats at this half-Senate election, they will have 30 total senators out of 76, the Coalition 27, the Greens 11, One Nation two, and one each for Pocock, Lambie, the UAP, Thorpe, Payman and Tyrrell. Labor and the Greens alone would have 41 of the 76 senators, above the 39 needed for a majority.
Counting Thorpe and Payman with the left, and the UAP with the right, the left would have an overall 44–30 majority with two others (Lambie and Tyrrell).
National Senate votes and a state by state breakdown
With 74% of enrolled voters counted nationally for the Senate, Labor has 35.5% of Senate votes (up 5.4% since 2022), the Coalition 29.9% (down 4.4%), the Greens 11.7% (down 0.9%), One Nation 5.6% (up 1.3%), Legalise Cannabis 3.4% and Trumpet of Patriots (ToP) 2.6%.
The national House primary votes are currently 34.7% Labor, 32.2% Coalition, 11.8% Greens, 6.3% One Nation and 1.9% ToP. Usually major parties get a lower Senate vote than a House vote owing to more parties who run in the Senate. I believe Labor is benefiting in the Senate from the lack of a viable Teal option.
In very late counting for both the House and Senate, the Greens usually gain at the Coalition’s expense as absent votes that are counted late are poor for the Coalition and good for the Greens. This would provide a further boost to Labor’s chances of gaining five senators.
In New South Wales, with 79% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.65 quotas, the Coalition 2.08, the Greens 0.78, One Nation 0.42, Legalise Cannabis 0.23 and ToP 0.16. Labor’s third candidate is 0.23 quotas ahead of One Nation and should win.
In Victoria, with 71% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.44 quotas, the Coalition 2.20, the Greens 0.88, One Nation 0.31, Legalise Cannabis 0.25, ToP 0.17, Family First 0.13 and Victorian Socialists 0.11. One Nation has the best chance to win outside Queensland, but Socialists’ preferences will flow strongly to Labor.
In Queensland, with 71% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.16 quotas, the Liberal National Party 2.15, the Greens 0.74, One Nation 0.49, Gerard Rennick 0.34, ToP 0.25 and Legalise Cannabis 0.24. Labor will win two, the LNP two, the Greens one and One Nation will probably win the final seat.
In Western Australia, with 68% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.57 quotas, the Liberals 1.83, the Greens 0.92, One Nation 0.40, Legalise Cannabis 0.28 and the Nationals 0.24. The Liberals will soak up right-wing preferences that would otherwise go to One Nation, so Labor should win the last seat.
In South Australia, with 78% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.70 quotas, the Liberals 1.94, the Greens 0.89, One Nation 0.37, ToP 0.20 and Legalise Cannabis 0.19. Labor’s third candidate has a 0.33 quota lead over One Nation.
In Tasmania, with 84% of enrolled counted, Labor has 2.49 quotas, the Liberals 1.66, the Greens 1.14, Lambie 0.51, One Nation 0.36 and Legalise Cannabis 0.23. It’s likely Tasmania will be a status quo result: two Labor, two Liberals, one Green and one Lambie. If this occurs, Tasmania would be the only state without a loss for the Coalition.
In the ACT, with 79% of enrolled counted, Pocock has easily retained with 1.19 quotas and Labor is certain to win the second seat with 0.95 quotas. The Liberals won just 17.2% or 0.52 quotas and the Greens 0.23 quotas.
Turnout is relatively low in the NT. With 57% of enrolled counted, Labor has 1.03 quotas, the CLP 1.02, the Greens 0.33 and One Nation 0.24. Labor and the CLP will hold their two seats.
Close seats in the House
Since my last update on Wednesday, the ABC has called Melbourne, Menzies, Fremantle and Bendigo for Labor, taking Labor’s seat total to 91 of 150. The Coalition has won 40 seats, the Greens zero and all Others ten, with nine seats remaining undecided.
In the undecided seats, Labor is the clear favourite in Bullwinkel and Calwell, and currently just behind in Bean and Longman but with a good chance of overturning those deficits. The Liberals are the favourites in Flinders, Monash and Bradfield, the Greens are favourites to hold one seat (Ryan) and Teal Monique Ryan should hold Kooyong.
Adrian Beaumont 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Culture and Communication. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne
Beatrice Gralton, who curated this year’s Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes, has hung the exhibition well. Julie Fragar’s Archibald-winning portrait of her friend and fellow artist Justene Williams is impossible to miss in the central court of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Fragar’s subject bursts out of the central space, as though she is herself the Big Bang that created the Universe. This is the artist as the Creator of All Things, the governor of a world that extends from her hands. Behind her are the stars from whence she may have come.
Her face is grave, but severe – governing the multiverse is a serious task. She hovers above the figures she has created, including her daughter, Honore, who has also inspired many of Williams’ works. Honore appears in the painting twice, first as a tiny child looking up, and then as an eight-year-old, half-hidden behind the assortment of objects and detritus that Williams uses to make her art.
The title, Flagship Mother Multiverse, comes from Williams’ recent New Zealand installation work, Making Do Rhymes With Poo, best described as an endurance piece where the artist used her own body to make a series of works.
By painting in monochrome, Fragar enables the viewer to focus first on the subject, before taking in the details of the confusion of the elements beneath her. Her dress, quietly captioned “Flag ship Mother” (with “mother” printed in verso), reinforces that this mother, who makes all things, is indeed captain of her ship.
The Wynne prize and urban beauty
Much of the time, the Australian landscape is imagined as bush, desert, or lush pastoral land. Winner of the Wynne prize, Jude Rae’s painting Pre-dawn sky over Port Botany container terminal, celebrates the accidental moments of urban beauty. The artist lives in Redfern where, high on the hill, it is possible to see the lights of the Botany Bay container terminal: a place that never sleeps.
The Wynne prize is awarded to a landscape painting or figure sculpture, and Rae has painted her urban landscape just at that moment where the sky blushes a faint pink, turning to dark blue, before the almost black of the night sky.
There are no stars to be seen in the city sky. They are blotted out by the dazzling multicoloured lights of the machines that govern the movement of goods and services, the creators of wealth in our artificial landscape.
The surface of Rae’s painting is disconcertingly flat, as though the paint is embedded within the canvas. It could almost have been created by her transferring her thoughts, rather than paint, onto the canvas.
‘Nature’s gestures’ in the Sulman
The calm of Rae’s approach is in marked contrast to the exuberant painterly style of Gene A’Hern’s Sky Painting, which has been awarded the Sir John Sulman Prize for “subject painting, genre painting or mural project”.
In his time, Sir John Sulman was one of the more reactionary gallery trustees, calling the modern art of the 1920s and ‘30s “awful rubbish”.
It does seem somewhat ironic that the prize that bears his name has consistently been awarded to more adventurous entries.
Unlike the Archibald and Wynne Prizes, which must be judged by the gallery’s trustees, the Sulman is judged by an artist, a different one every year. This year the judge was Elizabeth Pulie. While A’Hern’s work could hardly be described as decorative in the same way as Pulie’s, it does have a strong sense of colour and rhythm in a way that maybe spoke to her.
A’Hern describes his painting as conveying a sense of “nature’s gestures”, of the different elements of sight and sound that combine to form the country of the Blue Mountains that is his home.
His description of his prizewinning painting – as well as its appearance, with gloriously curving gestural elements – are a reminder that the barriers between the different categories in this annual festival of art are best described as “fluid”.
While I was in the crowd waiting for the announcement, I was asked to define “subject painting, genre painting or mural project”. The truth of the matter is that all categories are blurred and, with the exception of portraiture, are interchangeable.
The definition of portraiture, as established by Mr Justice Roper in the court case brought against the trustees in 1944, still stands. A portrait is “a pictorial representation of a person, painted by an artist”. A landscape, however, may represent a photographically accurate representation of a place, or a feeling about that place. A genre or subject painting may show people, or not. It may express objects, or emotions. A mural is simply a painting on a wall.
Although both Sydney and Melbourne sport many murals on laneway walls, it is many years since a mural has won the Sulman, which is a great pity.
After the television crews and crowds of journalists had departed, I returned to the gallery for a final look at Fragar’s prizewinning portrait. It was still lit up by the lights for the cameras. It struck me then that this image would make an excellent mural – or perhaps a giant projection in the sky of a woman making a universe, using the power of her mind.
Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2025 exhibition is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until August 17.
Auckland film maker Paula Whetu Jones has spent nearly two decades working pro bono on a feature film about the Auckland cardiac surgeon Alan Kerr, which is finally now in cinemas.
She is best known for co-writing and directing Whina, the feature film about Dame Whina Cooper.
She filmed Dr Kerr and his wife Hazel in 2007, when he led a Kiwi team to Gaza and the West Bank to operate on children with heart disease.
What started as a two-week visit became a 20 year commitment, involving 40 medical missions to Gaza and the West Bank and hundreds of operations.
Paula Whetu Jones self-funded six trips to document the work and the result is the feature film The Doctor’s Wife, now being screened free in communities around the country.
I met Alan and Hazel Kerr in 2006 and became inspired by their selflessness and dedication. I wanted to learn more about them and shine a light on their achievements.
I’ve been trying to highlight social issues through documentary film making for 25 years. I have always struggled to obtain funding and this project was no different. We provided most of the funding but it wouldn’t have been possible to complete it without the generosity of a small number of donors.
Others gave of their time and expertise.
Film maker Paula Whetu Jones . . . “Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre 2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers.” Image: NZ On Film
Our initial intention was to follow Dr Alan in his work in the West Bank and Gaza but we also developed a very special relationship with Hazel.
While Dr Alan was operating, Hazel took herself all over the West Bank and Gaza, volunteering to help in refugee camps, schools and community centres. We tagged along and realised that Dr Alan and his work was the heart of the film but Hazel was the soul. Hence, the title became The Doctor’s Wife.
I was due to return to Palestine in 2010 when on the eve of my departure I was struck down by a rare auto immune condition which left me paralysed. It wasn’t until 2012 that I was able to return to Palestine.
Wheelchair made things hard However, being in a wheelchair made everything near on impossible, not to mention my mental state which was not conducive to being creative. In 2013, tragedy struck again when my 22-year-old son died, and I shut down for a year.
Again, the project seemed so far away, destined for the shelf. Which is where it sat for the next few years while I tried to figure out how to live in a wheelchair and support myself and my daughter.
The project was re-energised when I made two arts documentaries in Palestine, making sure we filmed Alan while we were there and connecting with a NZ trauma nurse who was also filming.
By 2022, we knew we needed to complete the doco. We started sorting through many years of footage in different formats, getting the interviews transcribed and edited. The last big push was in 2023. We raised funds and got a few people to help with the logistics.
I spent six months with three editors and then we used the rough cut to do one last fundraiser that helped us over the line, finally finishing it in March of 2025.
Our documentary shows the humanity of everyday Palestinians, pre-2022, as told through the eyes of a retired NZ heart surgeon, his wife and two committed female film makers who were told in 2006 that no one cares about old people, sick Palestinian children or Palestine.
They were wrong. We cared and maybe you do, too.
What is happening in 2025 means it’s even more important now for people to see the ordinary people of Palestine
Dr Alan and his wife, Hazel are now 90 and 85 years old respectively. They are the most wonderfully humble humans. Their work over 20 years is nothing short of inspiring.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Glyn Davis, Anthony Albanese’s hand-picked Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will leave the post on June 16.
Albanese paid tribute to Davis for rebuilding the public service.
“One of the key priorities of our government’s first term was rebuilding the capacity of the Australian Public Service,” the PM said in a statement.
“This included rebuilding the confidence of people who worked in the APS, making sure they understood that the government valued their ideas, respected their hard work and recognised their vital role in our democracy.”
Albanese said Davis had “worked calmly and steadily to reassert the purpose of the public service”.
He described Davis as “a man of unique strengths: an intellectual who embraces the practical, an institutionalist who champions reform.
“To his enduring credit, he leaves a great national institution in far better shape than he found it, to the benefit of all Australians.”
Davis, who has written extensively on public policy, had a long career in academia before taking the PM&C post. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, where he undertook major reform.
Earlier, he had served the Queensland Labor governments of Wayne Goss and Peter Beattie.
His wife, Margaret Gardner, is former vice-chancellor of Monash University, and presently is Governor of Victoria.
Among the Albanese government’s public service reforms has been stripping back the use of consultants, bringing more work in-house.
The public service became a frontline issue at the election with the opposition promising a big cut to its size.
Davis said on Friday that he planned to take “a break, some time to think and write, some more involvement in the arts, and a moment to reflect on how best to contribute”.
He remains a visiting professor in the Blavatnik School at Oxford and hopes to spend some time there. “And I will get involved in some research projects at Melbourne also.” But he was not leaving one role for another, he added.
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.
Now, as greetings resound across the Pacific and globally, attention turns to what vision the first US pope will bring.
Change is hard to bring about in the Catholic Church. During his pontificate, Francis often gestured toward change without actually changing church doctrines. He permitted discussion of ordaining married men in remote regions where populations were greatly underserved due to a lack of priests, but he did not actually allow it.
On his own initiative, he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, but he did not follow it through.
However, he did allow priests to offer the Eucharist, the most important Catholic sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to Catholics who had divorced and remarried without being granted an annulment.
Likewise, Francis did not change the official teaching that a sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman, but he did allow for the blessing of gay couples, in a manner that did appear to be a sanctioning of gay marriage.
To what degree will the new pope stand or not stand in continuity with Francis? As a scholar who has studied the writings and actions of the popes since the time of the Second Vatican Council, a series of meetings held to modernize the church from 1962 to 1965, I am aware that every pope comes with his own vision and his own agenda for leading the church.
Still, the popes who immediately preceded them set practical limits on what changes could be made. There were limitations on Francis as well; however, the new pope, I argue, will have more leeway because of the signals Francis sent.
The process of synodality Francis initiated a process called “synodality,” a term that combines the Greek words for “journey” and “together.” Synodality involves gathering Catholics of various ranks and points of view to share their faith and pray with each other as they address challenges faced by the church today.
One of Francis’ favourite themes was inclusion. He carried forward the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Holy Spirit — that is, the Spirit of God who inspired the prophets and is believed to be sent by Christ among Christians in a special way — is at work throughout the whole church; it includes not only the hierarchy but all of the church members.
This belief constituted the core principle underlying synodality.
Pope Francis with the participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican in October 2023. Image: The Conversation/AP/Gregorio Borgia
Francis launched a two-year global consultation process in October 2022, culminating in a synod in Rome in October 2024. Catholics all over the world offered their insights and opinions during this process.
The synod discussed many issues, some of which were controversial, such as clerical sexual abuse, the need for oversight of bishops, the role of women in general and the ordination of women as deacons.
The final synod document did not offer conclusions concerning these topics but rather aimed more at promoting the transformation of the entire Catholic Church into a synodal church in which Catholics tackle together the many challenges of the modern world.
Francis refrained from issuing his own document in response, in order that the synod’s statement could stand on its own.
The process of synodality in one sense places limits on bishops and the pope by emphasising their need to listen closely to all church members before making decisions. In another sense, though, in the long run the process opens up the possibility for needed developments to take place when and if lay Catholics overwhelmingly testify that they believe the church should move in a certain direction.
Change is hard in the church A pope, however, cannot simply reverse official positions that his immediate predecessors had been emphasising. Practically speaking, there needs to be a papacy, or two, during which a pope will either remain silent on matters that call for change or at least limit himself to hints and signals on such issues.
In 1864, Pius IX condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”
It wasn’t until 1965 – some 100 years later – that the Second Vatican Council, in The Declaration on Religious Freedom, would affirm that “a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion. …”
A second major reason why popes may refrain from making top-down changes is that they may not want to operate like a dictator issuing executive orders in an authoritarian manner.
Francis was accused by his critics of acting in this way with his positions on Eucharist for those remarried without a prior annulment and on blessings for gay couples. The major thrust of his papacy, however, with his emphasis on synodality, was actually in the opposite direction.
Notably, when the Amazon Synod — held in Rome in October 2019 — voted 128-41 to allow for married priests in the Brazilian Amazon region, Francis rejected it as not being the appropriate time for such a significant change.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, expresses joy and gratitude following the election of Pope Leo XIV.https://t.co/r2GClc7hyM
Past doctrines The belief that the pope should express the faith of the people and not simply his own personal opinions is not a new insight from Francis.
The doctrine of papal infallibility, declared at the First Vatican Council in 1870, held that the pope, under certain conditions, could express the faith of the church without error.
be speaking not personally but in his official capacity as the head of the church;
he must not be in heresy;
he must be free of coercion and of sound mind;
he must be addressing a matter of faith and morals; and
he must consult relevant documents and other Catholics so that what he teaches represents not simply his own opinions but the faith of the church.
The Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption offer examples of the importance of consultation. The Immaculate Conception, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was herself preserved from original sin, a stain inherited from Adam that Catholics believe all other human beings are born with, from the moment of her conception.
The documents in which these doctrines were proclaimed stressed that the bishops of the church had been consulted and that the faith of the lay people was being affirmed.
Unity, above all One of the main duties of the pope is to protect the unity of the Catholic Church. On one hand, making many changes quickly can lead to schism, an actual split in the community.
The Catholic Church faces similar challenges but so far has been able to avoid schisms by limiting the actual changes being made.
On the other hand, not making reasonable changes that acknowledge positive developments in the culture regarding issues such as the full inclusion of women or the dignity of gays and lesbians can result in the large-scale exit of members.
Pope Leo XIV, I argue, needs to be a spiritual leader, a person of vision, who can build upon the legacy of his immediate predecessors in such a way as to meet the challenges of the present moment.
He already stated that he wants a synodal church that is “close to the people who suffer,” signaling a great deal about the direction he will take.
If the new pope is able to update church teachings on some hot-button issues, it will be precisely because Francis set the stage for him.
US President Donald Trump raised a fist in defiance after an assassination attempt on his life in Pennsylvania, Saturday, July 13, 2024 (USEDST).
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Donald Trump is a mercantilist, as noted in Trump’s tariffs: Short-term damage or long-term ruin? ‘The Bottom Line’, Al Jazeera, 11 April 2025 (or here on YouTube). But the United States, in today’s world, is not a mercantilist country. Or at least not a successful mercantilist country, though it is inhabited by many mercantilists.
In that television interview, Georgetown University professor of Public Policy, Michael Strain said: “I don’t think [Trump’s tariffs are] smart politics, but I think the president [thinks they are]. I think that President Trump is a true mercantilist. The president believes that if the United States are running a trade deficit that means we are losing economic value to the rest of the world.”
Mercantilism, in its most literal form, is the belief that international trade is ‘economic warfare’, and that winning is achieved by a country exporting more than it imports. Obviously, the total amount of exports in this world is exactly equal to the total amount of imports. Every internationally traded good is both an export and an import. So, mercantilism is a belief-system which sees the world in zero-sum terms, as winners and losers, as warfare by financial means.
My chart and article yesterday (International Trade over time: gifts with strings, Evening Report, 8 May 2025) shows the accumulated ‘excess benefits’ of unbalanced global trade over the last forty years. The countries on the top-left-side of the chart are deficit/debtor countries; and the countries on the bottom-right-side are surplus/creditor countries. (The countries are selected on the basis of available ‘current account’ data from the IMF’s World Economic Outlook Database, April 2025, and as representatives of deficit and surplus countries. China, if on the chart, would belong close to Malaysia. The chart is made from my own calculations to adjust for inflation.)
The chart necessarily – because deficits must be financed elsewhere by surpluses – has a seesaw shape. Some countries are up, some countries are down; and some countries occupy the central pivot, neither up nor down. So long as some countries have consumed substantial amounts of stuff (imports) which they have not yet paid for (the deficit countries), some other countries (the surplus countries) have supplied stuff (exports) that they have not yet accepted payment for (and are unlikely to accept payment for in the imaginable future). Imports are paid for by exports.
It’s not a true seesaw, which is typically either grounded or horizontally balanced. We may think of it as a seesaw pivoting above a chasm. What is true is that if the downside goes further down – that is, if the surplus countries’ accumulated surpluses get bigger – then the upside (accumulated deficits) must go further up. The seesaw is a ‘system’, and the only alternative to the seesaw shape is system collapse, analogous to the whole seesaw breaking off its pivot and falling into the chasm.
Imports are paid for by exports. But many contracted payments are deferred, indeed to the point where the payments will never actually take place. Instead of receiving payment in the form of imports, the mercantilist surplus countries have gleefully accepted ‘promises’; effectively ‘IOUs’ (‘I owe you’). (These ‘financial promises’ or ‘financial assets’ are essentially bonds [ie credit], or titles [ie equity]; promises themselves can be bought and sold, and can appreciate or depreciate in market trading [including depreciating to zero]. Promises typically earn, for their owners, additional promises in the form of interest and dividends. Interest and dividends may be realised – that is, spent – on imports, or may be ‘compounded’ – another word for ‘accumulated’ – hence the concept of compound interest.) Technically, inflation exists when the particular promise that we call money depreciates in market value.
In a mercantilist world, all countries want to occupy the low ‘ground’ (ie a point below the seesaw pivot); they want to import less than they export, and to accumulate promises. In a stable world economy, so long as some countries insist on occupying the low ground, then some others must occupy the high ground.
The most obvious deficit countries in the chart – countries with an accumulation of enjoyed (or invested in new structures) but unpaid-for imports – are the United States, Australia, Greece, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. (Another important deficit country is Türkiye, for which the data is not good enough, but would almost certainly have an accumulated ‘current account’ deficit of over $US100,000 per Turkish person.) These are the world’s ‘spendthrifts’.
The most obvious surplus countries in the chart are Taiwan, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Indeed, the European Union – more than anywhere else, including China – is a mercantilist enterprise. (Further, the European Union is starting to look quite shabby, especially the countries just mentioned.) This is what Donald Trump means by the European Union ‘screwing’ the United States. (Refer EU was born to ‘screw’ US, Trump says, France24, 26 Feb 2025.)
Surplus/creditor nations (like Germany) do not want to settle; they want to compound, they want deficit/debtor nations (like Aotearoa New Zealand) to extend their liabilities. The mercantilist countries are content – indeed, more than content – for other countries to enjoy the fruits of their labour and their capital.
Just as the deficit countries are the world’s ‘spendthrifts’, the surplus countries are the world’s ‘misers’. The global economy maintains a successful equilibrium so long as the willing spendthrifts balance out the insistent misers.
US President Donald Trump raised a fist in defiance after an assassination attempt on his life in Pennsylvania, Saturday, July 13, 2024 (USEDST).
Donald Trump threatens to disturb that global equilibrium by saying – in effect – that he wants the United States to join the ‘miser club’; he says he wants his country to stop being screwed by the misers. The thing is, though, he probably doesn’t actually mean it. His natural proclivity is to spend, and to gamble. He’s a hedonist, not a puritan nor a thriftwad; his nature is neither parsimonious nor austere.
(I would rather Donald Trump than Friedrich Merz was United States’ president; and prefer the pragmatism of the United States and Australian Treasurers over the austere Nicola Willis or the United Kingdom’s brutally austere Rachel Reeves. In 2027, I am optimistic that, in office, NZ Labour’s Barbara Edmonds will be able to break away from the austere image of female Finance Ministers with whom we have become familiar – remember Ruthenasia; public austerity is an election-losing strategy, a generator of societal inequality and low morale.)
Nevertheless, Trump may be unintentionally breaking the world economy, on account of his – or his advisers’ (eg Peter Navarro) – weak understanding of it. If the surplus/creditor nations sought to spend their credits (except for spending in very small increments) they would: either bankrupt the debtor countries, creating systemic collapse; or, due to depreciating prices of assets being dumped onto financial markets, have to accept many fewer imports than they felt they were due. Financial promises work according to the use-it or lose-it rule.
The Great Depression
Parsimony, austerity, and mercantilism in the 1920s got us into the Great Depression of 1930 to 1934. (These were the core years of the Depression; the timing varies for different countries.) The Great Depression was a global event that occurred as a ‘race to the bottom’; almost all countries wanted to be below the pivot of the seesaw and none at the top. The United Kingdom – under Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill – in particular was a deficit country that tried to push its side of the seesaw down through a process of internal devaluation (deflation) at a time when France, United States (under the curmudgeonly Coolidge), and Germany had anchored their side of the seesaw down. (At that time, Germany had been – thanks to post World War One reparations – forced onto the same downside of the seesaw. Churchill’s most specific action was the returning of the British pound to an unworkable restored Gold Standard at an overvalued exchange rate.)
(In the pre WW1 global environment, one of the most important balancing deficit/debtor countries was Russia. Russia seceded from the global capitalist system in 1917, largely as a result of the war. The loss of Russia’s pre-war presence – as a counterweight – was an aggravating factor in the Great Interwar Crisis.)
Deep Mercantilism
Donald Trump, while an overt mercantilist, is shallow in his convictions. He loves ‘money’, but he also loves what money can buy.
Deep mercantilists love money, and other financial assets (‘virtual gold’) including cryptocurrencies, in miserly ways; they believe in making money, not spending it. (Stereotypical new wave misers are young men, mining and trading in Bitcoin from bedrooms in the parents’ homes.) Through hoarding, they act to impede the global circulation of money, not to enable it.
Finance, as an academic discipline, is quintessentially mercantilist. It equates the accumulation and appreciation of financial assets – promises – with the creation of wealth; and that the wealthiest country in the world is the one with the fullest Treasury. And so many people – especially journalists – buy into that vision of wealth as a pile of treasure, as an accumulation of credits.
Modern mercantilists only regard mined gold as wealth, not gold still in the ground; and only promises that are tradeable, or at least potentially tradeable. Financial institutions regard your mortgage as their wealth; and they understand public debt to be private wealth; they buy and sell mortgages, along with other assets such as government debt.
And they believe in the magic of compound interest. They believe that unspent money – unsettled promises – grow exponentially and indefinitely. The seesaw chart, showing unpaid-for imports accumulated over 40 years, belies this. If the surplus nations all tried to spend their gold and their paper (and other virtual) riches – by becoming deficit countries, by shifting the seesaw into the alternate position – then they would find both that their ability to import from the present deficit/debtor countries would amount to less than the unpaid-for amounts shown in the chart – and they would find that many of their claims (ie promises) would be unrealisable.
As already noted, trade credits – promises – are accumulated on a ‘use-it or lose-it’ basis; this amounts to a negative form of compound interest. The surplus countries have not sufficiently used their credits; without realising it, their hoarded credits have already lost much of their initial purchasing capacity. While individual countries – especially small ones like Finland – may successfully shift from one side of the seesaw to the other, it is too late for the seesaw to swing without the surplus group of countries incurring heavy losses. The present deficit countries are simply not tooled up to produce masses of goods and services for export.
Private pension funds represent the epitome of deep mercantilism.
Deep mercantilism is not just about countries and international trade. A major feature of the next Great Depression will be the collapse of these funds, as far too many ‘first world’ people in their fifties and sixties seek to withdraw and spend their retirement savings. Thus, the next Great Depression will be one of stagflation – not 1930s’-style deflation – as there will be a rush of ‘Generation Jones’ people (born in the later 1950s and early 1960s) to spend their savings and finding that the global cupboard of goods and services is becoming bare.
Non-Mercantilism
Human wealth is actually the ‘factors of production’: people (simplistically construed as ‘labour’) and nature (simplistically construed as ‘land’) and structures [and inventories; and including intangible structures such as ‘knowledge’] (construed by economists true to their discipline as ‘capital’) and the enjoyable goods and services which flow to humans from these ‘factors’.
The next global Great Depression can be forestalled if the deficit countries (like United States and Aotearoa New Zealand) – the less-mercantilist countries, or at least the ‘unsuccessful’ would-be mercantilist countries – continue as net spenders, given that the substantial likelihood is that the prevalent mercantilist countries (like Germany and Sweden and Netherlands and China) are likely to at least try to persevere as accumulators of financial assets through the process of selling more goods than they buy.
Or the next Great Depression can be forestalled by most countries slowly moving, in concert, into a position of balance. Imagine each end of the seesaw neither up nor down, a horizontal seesaw on its pivot. Here countries like France, Italy, Indonesia and Philippines serve as examples.
Collapse and its prevention
Under prevailing mercantilist ideology, the best place for a country to be is on the downside of the seesaw. The biggest danger – the danger of system breakage – is that of the deficit countries trying to get their side of the seesaw down while the surplus countries are also trying to keep their side down. Any option of voluntary balance – of some countries trying to do what the majority are trying not to do – may forestall a global economic collapse; including a voluntary continuation of the present situation, with one group of countries happy to stay up while another group of countries want to stay down.
The irony is that the real winners are the alleged losers. For good reason, the seesaw chart shows these real-winner countries at the top rather than at the bottom. The real winners like to import, to enjoy their stuff; they do not pursue the mercantilist illusions of treasure hoards and compound interest.
Children understand that when one side of the seesaw is down, the other should be up. And that being up is fun. Will the adults learn what children already know?
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne
This year, for many Australians, it feels like summer never left. The sunny days and warm nights have continued well into autumn. Even now, in May, it’s still unusually warm.
Much of the southern half of the continent is experiencing both unseasonable warmth and dry conditions. This is linked to persistent high atmospheric pressure (called “blocking”) to the south and southeast of Australia.
While temperatures will fall across southern Australia as we approach the winter solstice, early indications are that this winter will be a warm one. Rainfall predictions are less certain.
The extra warmth we’ve experienced raises obvious questions about the influence of human-caused climate change. The warming signal is clear and it’s a sign of things to come.
A warm and dry autumn for many
March and April brought unseasonal heat to much of Australia.
March was widely hot, with temperatures several degrees above normal across much of the country. But April’s heat was largely restricted to the southeast.
Australia had its hottest March on record and the heat has continued, especially in Victoria and parts of New South Wales. Bureau of Meteorology
Victoria had its warmest April on record, and parts of the state experienced temperatures more than 3°C above normal across both March and April.
Temperatures normally fall quite quickly over the southeast of Australia during April and May as the days shorten and the continent’s interior cools. But this year, southern Australia was unusually warm at the start of May. Some locations experienced days with maximum temperatures more than 10°C above normal for the time of year.
Records were broken in Hobart and parts of Melbourne, which had their warmest May nights since observations began.
The start of May saw daytime maximum temperatures across much of Australia well above average for the time of year. Bureau of Meteorology
While Queensland and the New South Wales coast have had very wet spells, including downpours from Tropical Cyclone Alfred at the start of March, other parts of Australia have been quite dry.
The area between Adelaide and Melbourne has been exceptionally dry. A drought is unfolding in the region after a severe lack of rainfall, with deficits stretching back over the past year or so. Western Tasmania is also suffering from a severe lack of rainfall since the start of autumn, although welcome rain fell in the past week.
And it’s not just on land that unusual heat has been observed. The seas around Australia have been warmer than normal, causing severe coral bleaching to the west and east of the continent, harmful algal blooms and other ecosystem disruptions.
Warm seas likely triggered the microalgal bloom in coastal waters of South Australia. Anthony Rowland
Blocking highs largely to blame
A high pressure system has dominated over the south and southeast of Australia over the past few months.
High pressure in the Tasman Sea can sometimes get stuck there for a few days. This leads to what’s known as “blocking”, when the usual passage of weather systems moving from west to east is obstructed. This can lock in weather patterns for several days or even a week.
Repeated blocking occurred this autumn. As winds move anticlockwise around high pressure systems in the Southern Hemisphere, blocking highs in the Tasman Sea can bring moist, onshore winds to the New South Wales and Queensland coasts, increasing rainfall. But such high pressure systems also bring drier conditions for the interior of the southeast and much of Victoria and South Australia.
Often, these high pressure systems also bring northerly winds to Victoria, and this can cause warmer conditions across much of the state.
High pressure systems also tend to bring more clear and sunny conditions, which increases daytime temperatures in particular. Air in high pressure systems moves down towards the surface and this process causes warming, too.
Australia sits between the Pacific and Indian Oceans and is subject to their variability, so we often look there to help explain what’s happening with Australia’s climate. In autumn though, our climate influences, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole, are less active and have weaker relationships with Australian climate than at other times of year. Neither of these climate influences is in a strong phase at the moment.
A warm winter on the cards
One big question is how long the heat will last. In parts of southeast Australia, including Melbourne, average temperatures drop quickly at this time of year as we approach the winter solstice.
However, the seasonal outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology points to a high likelihood of a relatively warm winter.
Australians rarely escape having a winter without any significant cold spells, but the long-range forecast suggests we should anticipate above-normal temperatures on average. Both daytime maximum temperatures and nighttime minimum temperatures are expected to be above average generally this winter.
Climate and water long-range forecast, issued 1 May 2025 (Bureau of Meteorology)
Global warming is here
The elephant in the room is climate change. Human-caused climate change is increasing autumn temperatures and the frequency of late season heat events. As greenhouse gas emissions continue at a record pace, expect continued warming and a greater chance of autumn heatwaves in future.
The effect of climate change on rainfall is less clear though. For the vast majority of Australia, there is high uncertainty as to whether autumn will become wetter or drier as the world warms.
Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather and the National Environmental Science Program.
The crisis springs from decades of government policy failures in many areas. Homelessness is linked to poverty, stigma, violence and poor health.
Labor has promised to:
build more affordable housing
reduce social housing waitlists
prioritise groups vulnerable to homelessness
invest A$1.2 billion in homelessness accommodation.
This is welcome, but it’s crucial people who have experienced homelessness are involved in the design of policy and services. They are the experts.
Our recent research involved speaking with 47 people with current or past experiences of homelessness in Victoria and South Australia. The study was co-designed and co-led by people who had experienced homelessness.
See us, hear us
Participants told us their perspectives aren’t valued. One said:
Homeless people [are] looked down upon. The individual is not considered. They fall on hard times for many reasons. They will judge you and they’ll categorise you.
Another said:
Do we have a voice? No, we don’t, because they don’t care […] they don’t listen.
Many wanted to influence policy and service design. One said:
I think it’s really important that people like us […] have a say in the way we move forward, and it’s not coming from people in really nice suits […] that don’t really have any experience.
Respect our expertise
People who’ve experienced homelessness can “identify things that someone without that lived experience may simply not have thought of in the first place”, one person told us.
They should be involved as staff and leaders in service design and provision. One person said:
I think if there were people that were around with lived experience that could somehow get in contact with people like me at that time and say, “Look, mate, you don’t have to go down this path, you don’t have to live this kind of life, there’s another way”.
One participant who’d experienced domestic violence said navigating all the different non-government agencies was complicated. Decisions were made without her input.
A failure to find this woman housing eventually led to her children being removed.
Respect needs to be at the centre of service provision. One participant described overhearing workers complaining about the smell of homeless people. Another said they’d value practical advice from people who’d experienced homelessness:
Having someone who’s actually been through that and can actually then describe what navigating systems means to someone coming in could be a really useful way to employ someone in homelessness services.
Valuing and paying for the expertise of people who have experienced homelessness is vital. One participant said:
I was on a panel with CEOs of homelessness organisations [and] was asked one hour before: “Would you like to be the lived experience voice?” So, was I paid the same? No. Was I given the same respect as everyone else? No. Was I given enough time to prepare? No. But did I deliver? Yes, I delivered. I showed up and I still was able to deliver. So, I think my expertise […] is just as valid as anybody else’s.
Another said:
You need to get as wide a lived experience as possible, otherwise it’s a bit pointless if they’re all 30-year-old white guys.
Incarceration creates homelessness […] they’re released into a void […] If that was me, I would definitely rather be in prison than be on the street.
Another said:
Most women who are in prison suffered from childhood sexual abuse, they’ve suffered domestic violence and suffered a lot of trauma […] but for some reason, that’s all forgotten for us when we’re released.
People with experience of homelessness are best placed to guide the design and delivery of services, and offer pragmatic solutions.
One participant told us:
When I came out [of hospital], one of the community service people said, “Oh, we can put you in a hotel for four nights.” And I said, “Actually, the best thing I need is four new tyres on my van.” And they said, “No, we can’t do that.” The tyres would be cheaper than the hotel. But they said, “No, we can’t.” I’ve always said solutions don’t have to be pretty, but they have to work.
People told us a one-size-fits-all, box-ticking approach won’t work because:
not everybody fits into those categories. Everybody [is] in different circumstances.
Another said:
You go to a service, they don’t care about your purpose. They don’t care about your goal. They care about: “Have I provided my service that I’m obligated to give?”
Many services aren’t working for homeless people. One participant said:
One of the reasons I stayed homeless is because I either had to kill my dog or give my dog up and I couldn’t do either because he was my saviour. So, I lived
in that car. At that time, I was freezing and gave whatever blankets I could to my dog. He got so sick […] I contacted another place [and] asked for a sleeping bag and a tent to be sent to me and it was sent to the service provider that never gave it to me.
Our research participants called for policy addressing poverty and for the perspectives of people who’d experienced homelessness to be:
embedded in housing and homelessness policy, service design and practice
recognised, valued and properly remunerated
involved in leading research.
The authors thank the people with experience with homelessness who led our research.
Robyn Martin’s research was funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and was a collaboration between RMIT, UniSA, the Council for Homeless Persons and Seeds of Affinity.
Carole Zufferey’s research was funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and was a collaboration between RMIT, UniSA, the Council for Homeless Persons and Seeds of Affinity.
Michele Jarldorn’s research was funded by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, and was a collaboration between RMIT, UniSA, the Council for Homeless Persons and Seeds of Affinity. Michele is a volunteer with Seeds of Affinity and is currently chair of their board. Seeds of Affinity does not receive any ongoing funding.
Labor’s extraordinary election result has triggered a power play that has exposed the uglier entrails of Labor factionalism.
Even before the new caucus met in Canberra on Friday, the Labor right had dumped two of its cabinet ministers: Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Industry Minister Ed Husic. Dreyfus is from the Victorian right, Husic from the New South Wales right.
In Labor, factionalism can trump merit. Not always, of course, but undoubtedly more often than is desirable, and certainly in this case.
These dramatic demotions to the backbench have been driven by two factors.
The left has more numbers in the caucus after the election, meaning that to preserve factional balances, one minister from the right had to go.
And then Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles used his heft as chief of the Victorian right to protect the numbers of that group in the ministry, at the expense of the NSW right, and to secure a key promotion.
In sacrificing Dreyfus who, while from the right, isn’t a serious factional player, Marles has seen the elevation into the outer ministry of his numbers man Sam Rae (as well as another Victorian right-winger, Daniel Mulino).
Rae, little known publicly, has only been in parliament since 2022. He’s a former Victorian Labor state secretary and was a partner at PwC. Mulino, with a substantial background in economic policy, has served in both the Victorian and federal parliaments.
Some see the Marles move as, in part, looking to shore up his numbers for any future leadership race. While this might sound far-fetched, given Anthony Albanese’s huge win and declaration he’ll serve a full term, aspirants always have an eye on the future. The manoeuvre won’t be missed by another leadership aspirant, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a Queenslander who is also from the right.
Given his enhanced authority, Albanese could have intervened to protect the two ministers – there was an attempt from within the NSW right to get him to do so for Husic – but has chosen to let the factional power play take its course. He said on Thursday, “we have a process and we’ll work it through”, adding that “no individual is greater than the collective, and that includes myself”.
In the fallout, with the loss of Dreyfus there will be no Jewish minister, which is unfortunate in light of the government’s strained relations with the Jewish community. Husic’s demotion takes the only Muslim out of cabinet, although the speculation is another Muslim, Anne Aly, will be elevated to cabinet.
Former prime minister Paul Keating was scathing of the demotions, denouncing the “appalling denial of Husic’s diligence and application in bringing the core and emerging technologies of the digital age to the centre of Australian public policy”.
Keating said Albanese’s non-intervention in relation to Husic “is, in effect, an endorsement of a representative of another state group – in this case, the Victorian right faction led by Richard Marles – a faction demonstrably devoid of creativity and capacity”.
Keating described the treatment of the two ministers as “a showing of poor judgement, unfairness and diminished respect for the contribution of others”.
It will take a while to see what ripples the factional power play brings. Husic, certainly, is feisty. He could become a strong voice on a Labor backbench that has been basically quiescent. He is already booked to appear on the ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday and its Q&A panel on Monday.
Now that the factions have had their say, the prime minister allocates jobs, with particular interest on what Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek receives.
On the other side of politics, it is not surprising there is widespread anger, ill feeling and recriminations, given the magnitude of the Liberals’ defeat. The contest for leadership between the party’s Deputy Leader Sussan Ley and Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor had already become willing before the bombshell defection of Senator Jacinta Price from the Nationals to the Liberals increased the angst exponentially.
The Nationals feel betrayed that their star performer has walked out on them. Her defection will complicate negotiations between the Liberals and the Nationals over their inter-party agreement.
The move, part of the attempt by Taylor, from the right, to boost his support, is further dividing the Liberal party. It is not yet clear whether Price will join a ticket with Taylor to run for deputy. In interviews on Thursday night and Friday morning she kept her options open, presumably to determine what numbers she would draw.
While having the Liberal deputy in the Senate would be inconvenient, it has precedent. Fred Chaney, then a senator, became deputy in Andrew Peacock’s coup against John Howard in 1989. It didn’t end well.
If Price did run, that might help Taylor with some Liberals currently uncertain of which leadership contender to support, because they would know she would be popular in their branches.
But for the moderates in the party, who want the Liberals to find a path back in traditional urban areas, the arrival of Price, with her hardline right views, sends all the wrong signals. The leafy city suburbs are populated with small-l voters and professional women, who would not see themselves in tune with Price’s views.
It there was a Taylor-Price leadership team that would be an unmistakable message – that the Liberals were tracking very significantly away from the mainstream in which most voters swim.
Price was the leading figure who helped sink the Voice referendum, but she has not yet proved herself on the broader range of issues. In the campaign, her reference to “make Australia great again” was used against the Coalition to claim it was “Trumpian”.
Explaining her move, Price says that she had actually always wanted to sit in the Liberal party room. She comes from the Northern Territory Country Liberal party, whose representatives sit with either the Liberals or the Nationals, according to a formula.
On her timing, Price said, “right now, amongst many of the conversations I have had with those leading up to making this decision, is that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures”.
Within the Liberals, Price, given her profile and her status as a poster-woman of the rightwing media, will potentially be hard to handle.
While Labor savours the taste of triumph, and the Coalition drinks the the bitter brew of defeat, a week on Dreyfus, Husic and the Nationals discover the limits of loyalty.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
If you walk through your local pharmacy or supermarket you’re bound to come across probiotics and prebiotics.
They’re added to certain foods. They come as supplements you can drink or take as a pill. They also occur naturally in everyday foods.
You might have a vague idea that probiotics and prebiotics are healthy. Or perhaps you’ve heard they’re good for your “microbiome”.
But what actually is your microbiome? And what’s the difference between probiotics and prebiotics anyway?
First, some definitions
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, and the World Health Organization, define probiotics as “live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit”. These microorganisms are the bacteria and yeasts in food such as yoghurt, sauerkraut and kombucha, and in supplements.
But prebiotics refer to the “food” probiotics need to survive and replicate.
Prebiotics are better known as dietary fibre. They include specific types of fibres called inulin-type fructans, galacto-oligosaccahrides, resistant starch and pectin. Prebiotics occur naturally in plant foods, are added to foods (such as bread and breakfast cereals) and come as supplements.
Dietary fibre remains undigested in your stomach and small intestine until it reaches the large intestine. There, microorganisms (probiotics) break down (or ferment) the fibre (prebiotics), converting it into metabolites or nutrients linked to better health.
How are they related to your microbiome?
Both probiotics and prebiotics are said to encourage a healthy microbiome. That’s a healthy community of different microorganisms that live in or on your body. This includes those in the mouth, gut, skin, respiratory system and the urogenital tract (which handles urine, and has reproductive functions).
Everyone’s microbiome is different and varies throughout your life. For instance, changing your diet, physical activity, hygiene, taking antibiotics or having an infection all affect your microbiome.
These factors can change the diversity of your microbiome, that is how many different types of microorganisms you have. These factors can also alter the ratio of healthy microorganisms to unhealthy ones.
Everyone’s microbiome is different and this community of microorganisms varies throughout your life. Elif Bayraktar/Shutterstock
When your microbiome is less diverse or when the number of unhealthy microorganisms outgrow the number of healthy ones, this is known as dysbiosis. This can lead to problems including diarrhoea or constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, bleeding gums, atopic dermatitis (eczema) or acne.
Probiotics and prebiotics are marketed as ways to support a healthy, diverse microbiome, and help to reduce the chance of dysbiosis.
As taking antibiotics can alter your microbiome, they’re also marketed as a way of improving its microbial diversity when taking antibiotics or afterwards.
Do probiotics work?
The microbiome plays a crucial role in our health. For instance, a healthy microbiome has been linked to reduced risk of cancers, cardiovascular (heart) diseases, allergy diseases and inflammatory bowel disease.
But how about taking probiotic supplements to boost your microbiome?
A review of clinical trials looked at probiotic supplements in healthy people. It found no increase in the diversity of their microbiome.
Another review of clinical trials looked at the impact of probiotic supplements while people were taking antibiotics. The diversity of their microbiome did not improve.
Another study not included in these two reviews found probiotics could make microbial diversity worse in the short term. It found probiotic supplements delayed restoring the microbiome after taking antibiotics.
Trying probiotics around the time you take antibiotics doesn’t seem to help your microbiome. one photo/Shutterstock
What about prebiotics?
There have been few studies on the impact of healthy people just taking prebiotic supplements. However, there are studies of people taking prebiotics with probiotics on particular aspects of health.
For instance, one large review looked at various neuropsychiatric outcomes, including dementia, Parkinson’s disease and mild cognitive impairment, when people took prebiotics and probiotics (together or separately). Another review looked at the effect of prebiotics, probiotics or synbiotics (supplements that contain both prebiotics and probiotics) on people with diabetes.
But their findings are not conclusive. So we need more research to routinely recommend these supplements. They are also no replacement for standard medication and a healthy, balanced diet.
So how do I keep my microbiome healthy?
You’re better off getting your probiotics from everyday fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and kimchi. Tatjana Baibakova/Shutterstock
Naturally occurring probiotics and prebiotics are in everyday foods.
Probiotics are found in fermented foods such as cheese, sauerkraut, yoghurt, miso, tempeh and kimchi.
Prebiotics are in the foods that contain fibre – all plant foods. It is important to have a variety of plant foods in your diet. This will ensure you get all the different types of fibre needed to keep your healthy bacteria alive, and to increase the diversity of your microbiome.
Eating foods rather than consuming supplements also means you get the extra nutrients in the food.
The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating recommends a diet rich in plant foods, and promotes eating fermented foods (in the form of cheese and yoghurt). This combination is ideal for maintaining a healthy microbiome.
Evangeline Mantzioris is affiliated with Alliance for Research in Nutrition, Exercise and Activity (ARENA) at the University of South Australia. Evangeline Mantzioris has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, and has been appointed to the National Health and Medical Research Council Dietary Guideline Expert Committee.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland
Composite image by The Conversation. Images courtesy of TruthSocial/@realDonaldTrump and Wikimedia Commons
The US presidency and the papacy came together on May 3 when Donald Trump posted an AI-generated photograph of himself dressed as the pope to Truth Social. The image was then shared by the White House’s accounts.
Seated in an ornate (Mar-a-Lago-style) golden chair, he was wearing a white cassock and a bishop’s hat, with his right forefinger raised.
Trump has since told reporters he “had nothing to do with it […] somebody did it in fun”.
This image of “Pope Donald I” is of historical significance, for reasons of which, no doubt, the White House and Trump were blissfully unaware. It is the first ever image to combine the two most important understandings of the figure of the Antichrist in Western thought: on the one hand, that of the pope, and on the other, that of the authoritarian, despotic world emperor.
On April 22, the day after Pope Francis’ death, Trump declared “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number one choice”. On April 28, Trump told The Atlantic “I run the country and the world”.
So, both pope and world emperor.
The Imperial Antichrist
In the New Testament, the First Letter of John says, before Christ came again, the Antichrist will appear: the most conspicuous sign the end of the world was near. nb small tweak to wording here
The Antichrist would be the archetypal evil human being who would persecute the Christian faithful. He would be finally defeated by the forces of good. As Sir Isaac Newton suggested, “searching the Prophecies which [God] hath given us to know Antichrist by” is a Christian obligation.
The first life of the Antichrist was written by a Benedictine monk, Adso of Montier-en-der, around 1,100 years ago. According to Adso, the Antichrist would be a tyrannical evil king who would corrupt all those around him with gold and silver. He would be brought up in all forms of wickedness. Evil spirits would be his instructors and his constant companions.
The Antichrist, left, is depicted as a king, in this image from a 12th century manuscript. Wikimedia Commons
Seeking his own glory, as Adso put it, this king “will call himself Almighty God”.
The Antichrist was opposite to everything Christ-like. According to the Christian tradition, Christ was fully human yet absolutely “sin free”. The Antichrist too was fully human, but completely “sin full”. The Antichrist was not so much a supernatural being who became flesh, as a human being who became fully demonised.
Influenced by Christian stories of the Antichrist, Islam and Judaism constructed their own Antichrists – al-Dajjal, the Antichrist of the Muslims, and Armilus, the Antichrist of the Jews. Both al-Dajjal and Armilus are king-like messiahs.
Over the centuries, many world leaders have been labelled “the Antichrist” – the Roman emperors Nero and Domitian were Antichrist figures, and the French emperor Napoleon was named the Antichrist in his own time.
In the year 1190, King Richard I of England, on his way to the Holy Land, was informed by the Italian theologian Joachim of Fiore (c.1135–1202) the next pope would be the Antichrist.
In the history of the Antichrist, this was a momentous occasion. From this time on, the tyrannical Antichrist outside of the Church would be juxtaposed with the papal deceiver within it.
That the Catholic pope was the Antichrist was the common reading of the pope in the 16th-century Protestant Reformation.
Martin Luther (1483–1546), the founder of the Protestant revolution, declared the pope “is the true […] Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ”.
Just as all Christians would not worship the Devil as God, he went on to say, “so we cannot allow his apostle the pope or Antichrist, to govern as our head or lord”.
This 1877 painting depicts Martin Luther summoned by the Catholic Church in 1521, to renounce or reaffirm his views criticising Pope Leo X. Wikimedia Commons
As he was about to be burned by the Catholic Queen Mary for his Protestant beliefs, the Anglican bishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) declared, “as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and antichrist with all his false doctrine”.
Even in 1988, as Pope John Paul II addressed the European Parliament, the Northern Ireland hardline Protestant leader Ian Paisley roared, “Antichrist! I renounce you and all your cults and creeds” – to which, we are told, the pope gave a slight bemused smile.
Except among the most extreme of Protestant conservatives, the idea of the papal Antichrist no longer has any purchase. The papal Antichrist has vacated the Western stage for the imperial Antichrist.
The Antichrist and the end of the world
In the history of Christianity, the idea of the Antichrist was a key part of Christian expectations about the return of Christ and the end of the world.
In the final battle between the forces of good and evil, the Antichrist would be defeated by the forces of Christ. In short, the rise of the world emperor who was the Antichrist was a sign that the end of the world was at hand.
In the light of the Western history of “the Antichrist”, the image of the imperial and papal US president is a powerful sign that the global order – at least as we have known it for the last 80 years – may be at an end.
Philip C. Almond 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.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on May 9, 2025.
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A community-led health program in remote Arnhem land is showing promising results for First Nations locals Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hasthi Dissanayake, Research Fellow in Indigenous Health, The University of Melbourne The Doherty Institute Indigenous Australians are more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to suffer from disease, particularly chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. The health disparities are worse in remote
Why it’s important to read aloud to your kids – even after they can read themselves Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Cox, Professor of Literacy Education, University of Tasmania Mart Production/Pexels , CC BY Is reading to your kids a bedtime ritual in your home? For many of us, it will be a visceral memory of our own childhoods. Or of the time raising now grown-up children.
Old drains and railways are full of life. Here’s how to make the most of these overlooked green spaces Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Stanford, Researcher Associate, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University Much of the old circular railway line in Paris, La Petite Ceinture, or Little Belt, has been turned into a public park. ldgfr photos, Shutterstock Across Australian cities, leftover and overlooked green spaces are everywhere. Just think
Ever wanted to ditch the 9-to-5 and teach snowsports? We followed people who did it for 10 years Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marian Makkar, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT University Konstantin Shishkin/Shutterstock Workplace burnout – a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion – and the COVID pandemic have sparked a rethink of the traditional 9-to-5 job. It’s been estimated 30% of the Australian workforce is experiencing some degree
Stepmums, alien mums, robot mums, vengeful mums: 7 films to watch this Mother’s Day Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Gildersleeve, Professor of English Literature, University of Southern Queensland With Mother’s Day around the corner, you may be wondering what gift you’ll give mum – or any of the mums in your life. This year, why not skip the fancy dinner and offer one of the
Fiji media’s Stan Simpson blasts ‘hypocrites’ in social media clash over press freedom Pacific Media Watch Barely hours after being guest speaker at the University of the South Pacific‘s annual World Press Freedom Day event this week, Fiji media industry stalwart Stanley Simpson was forced to fend off local trolls whom he described as “hypocrites”. “Attacked by both the Fiji Labour Party and ex-FijiFirst MPs in just one
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Have you ever felt an unexpected sense of calm while walking barefoot on grass? Or noticed your stress begin to fade as you stood ankle deep in the ocean? If so, you may have unknowingly “grounded” yourself to the earth.
Grounding, also known as earthing, is the practice of making direct physical contact with the Earth’s surface. Our ancestors embraced this trend without knowing it. But with the invention of indoor homes, footpaths, roads, and even shoes, we have become less physically connected with the earth.
Grounding has been suggested to have a number of benefits, such as improving mood, and reducing stress and pain. But overall, there’s limited conclusive evidence on the benefits of grounding.
Somewhat ironically, the concept of grounding in 2025 is heavily influenced by technology, rather than getting out into nature. Consumers are being hit with social media reels promoting a range of technologies that ground us, and improve our health.
Among the most common are promises of improved sleep with the use of a grounding sheet or mat. But is this just another TikTok trend, or could these products really help us get a better night’s sleep?
Bringing the outdoors in
The human body is conductive, which means it can exchange electricity with Earth and artificial sources, such as electronic devices or objects. (Sometimes, this exchange can result in an electric or static shock.)
Proponents of grounding claim the practice reconnects “the conductive human body to the Earth’s natural and subtle surface electric charge”.
They credit this process with physiological and psychological benefits (but again, the evidence is limited).
Grounding technologies can vary in type (for example, under-desk foot mats, mattress toppers and bed sheets) but all are designed to provide a path for electric charges to flow between your body and the earth.
The bottom prong you see in your three-prong wall socket is a “ground” or “earth” terminal. It provides a direct connection to earth via your building’s wiring, diverting excess or unsafe voltage into the ground. This protects you and your devices from potential electrical faults.
Grounding technology uses this terminal as a pathway for the proposed electrical exchange between you and earth, while in the comfort of your home.
Could grounding improve your sleep?
The research in this area is still emerging.
A 2025 study from Korea recruited 60 participants, gave half of them a grounding mat, and gave the other half a visually identical mat that didn’t have grounding technology. The researchers used a “double-blind” protocol, meaning neither the participants nor the researchers knew which participants were given grounding mats.
All participants wore sleep trackers and were asked to use their mat (that is, sit or lie on it) for six hours per day. The researchers found that after 31 days, participants in the grounding mat group slept longer on average (as measured by their sleep trackers) than those in the control group.
The researchers also used questionnaires to collect measures of insomnia, sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and stress. After 31 days, participants in both groups improved on all measures.
There were no differences between the grounded and ungrounded groups for sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and stress. And while grounded participants showed significantly lower insomnia severity after the intervention, this difference was also present at the start of the study. So it’s unclear if grounding had a tangible impact on sleep.
In another double-blind study, published in 2022, researchers in Taiwan examined the effectiveness of using grounding mats to improve sleep among patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The findings indicated that spending 30 minutes on a grounding mat five times per week resulted in improved sleep quality.
While previous research has suggested using grounding technologies may lead to improvements in mood, no differences were seen in measures of anxiety and depression in this study.
Grounding for gains?
Grounding technology has also been touted as having other benefits, such as reducing pain and inflammation.
A 2019 study found participants who slept on a grounding mat after intense exercise felt less sore and showed lower levels of inflammation in their blood compared to those who were ungrounded.
Grounding after a workout may help you feel better and recover faster, but it’s still unclear whether and how grounding affects long-term training results or fitness gains.
So should you cash in on your favourite influencer’s discount code and grab a grounding mat? At the risk of spouting a common cliche of cautious scientists, our answer is that we don’t know yet.
What we do know is the existing research, albeit emerging, has shown no evidence grounding technology can negatively affect your sleep or recovery after exercise. So if you love your grounding mat or grounding sheet, or want to see if grounding works for you, feel free to give it a go.
Keep in mind, grounding products can retail for anywhere from around A$30 to $300 or more.
On the other hand, grounding on the grass in the great outdoors is free. While there’s limited evidence that grounding outdoors can improve sleep, spending time in outdoor light may itself benefit sleep, regulate circadian rhythms, and improve mood.
Finally, while grounding could be an interesting strategy to try, if you’re experiencing ongoing problems with your sleep, or suspect you may have a sleep disorder, the first step should be reaching out to a medical professional, such as your GP.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University
While the launch starts within the next week in the United States and Canada, it will launch in Australia later this year. The chatbot will only be available to people via Google’s Family Link accounts.
But this development comes with major risks. It also highlights how, even if children are banned from social media, parents will still have to play a game of whack-a-mole with new technologies as they try to keep their children safe.
A good way to address this would be to urgently implement a digital duty of care for big tech companies such as Google.
How will the Gemini AI chatbot work?
Google’s Family Link accounts allow parents to control access to content and apps, such as YouTube.
Chatbot access will be “on” by default, so parents need to actively turn the feature off to restrict access. Young children will be able to prompt the chatbot for text responses, or to create images, which are generated by the system.
Google acknowledges the system may “make mistakes”. So assessment of the quality and trustworthiness of content is needed. Chatbots can make up information (known as “hallucinating”), so if children use the chatbot for homework help, they need to check facts with reliable sources.
What kinds of information will the system provide?
Google and other search engines retrieve original materials for people to review. A student can read news articles, magazines and other sources when writing up an assignment.
Generative AI tools are not the same as search engines. AI tools look for patterns in source material and create new text responses (or images) based on the query – or “prompt” – a person provides. A child could ask the system to “draw a cat” and the system will scan for patterns in the data of what a cat looks like (such as whiskers, pointy ears, and a long tail) and generate an image that includes those cat-like details.
Understanding the differences between materials retrieved in a Google search and content generated by an AI tool will be challenging for young children. Studies show even adults can be deceived by AI tools. And even highly skilled professionals – such as lawyers – have reportedly been fooled into using fake content generated by ChatGPT and other chatbots.
However, these safeguards could create new problems. For example, if particular words (such as “breasts”) are restricted to protect children from accessing inappropriate sexual content, this could mistakenly also exclude children from accessing age-appropriate content about bodily changes during puberty.
Many children are also very tech-savvy, often with well-developed skills for navigating apps and getting around system controls. Parents cannot rely exclusively on inbuilt safeguards. They need to review generated content and help their children understand how the system works, and assess whether content is accurate.
Google says there will be safeguards to minimise the risk of harm for children using Gemini, but these could create new problems. Dragos Asaeftei/Shutterstock
What risks do AI chatbots pose to children?
The eSafety Commission has issued an online safety advisory on the potential risk of AI chatbots, including those designed to simulate personal relationships, particularly for young children.
The eSafety advisory explains AI companions can “share harmful content, distort reality and give advice that is dangerous”. The advisory highlights the risks for young children, in particular, who “are still developing the critical thinking and life skills needed to understand how they can be misguided or manipulated by computer programs, and what to do about it”.
My research team has recently examined a range of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Replika, and Tessa. We found these systems mirror people’s interactions based on the many unwritten rules that govern social behaviour – or, what are known as “feeling rules”. These rules are what lead us to say “thank you” when someone holds the door open for us, or “I’m sorry!” when you bump into someone on the street.
By mimicking these and other social niceties, these systems are designed to gain our trust.
These human-like interactions will be confusing, and potentially risky, for young children. They may believe content can be trusted, even when the chatbot is responding with fake information. And, they may believe they are engaging with a real person, rather than a machine.
AI chatbots such as Gemini are designed to mimic human behaviour and gain our trust. Ground Picture
How can we protect kids from harm when using AI chatbots?
This rollout is happening at a crucial time in Australia, as children under 16 will be banned from holding social media accounts in December this year.
While some parents may believe this will keep their children safe from harm, generative AI chatbots show the risks of online engagement extend far beyond social media. Children – and parents – must be educated in how all types of digital tools can be used appropriately and safely.
As Gemini’s AI chatbot is not a social media tool, it will fall outside Australia’s ban.
This leaves Australian parents playing a game of whack-a-mole with new technologies as they try to keep their children safe. Parents must keep up with new tool developments and understand the potential risks their children face. They must also understand the limitations of the social media ban in protecting children from harm.
This highlights the urgent need to revisit Australia’s proposed digital duty of care legislation. While the European Union and United Kingdom launched digital duty of care legislation in 2023, Australia’s has been on hold since November 2024. This legislation would hold technology companies to account by legislating that they deal with harmful content, at source, to protect everyone.
Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Association for Information Science and Technology.
At Papua New Guinea’s Post-Courier, our senior journalists often operate in the shadows, yet their courageous efforts are often overlooked — continuously pushing boundaries to bring us important stories that shape our lives and venturing outside their comfort zones to deliver top-notch content.
This is the tale of one of Post-Courier’s esteemed senior journalists, Gorethy Kenneth. From Tegese Village, Lontis on Buka Island in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, “GK” (Gee-Kay) as her colleagues fondly call her, has dedicated 23 years of her life to journalism at this newspaper.
When asked about who inspired her to pursue a career in media and journalism, she said, “My late father!” She mentions that she “always wanted to be an economist like her uncle Julius Longa”.
However, she states that “Maths was horrible . . . So, my late papa told me, I talk too much and should think about television — I ended up with newspaper reporting.”
Fast forward to 2024 Through her dedication and persistence, Kenneth is now a senior journalist within the company, specialising as a political editor. She commends the company for its commitment to well-researched investigative journalism, impartial reporting, comprehensive coverage, community involvement, thorough analysis, and informative content.
Starting off with Uni Tavur student journalist newspaper at the University of Papua New Guinea, Kenneth has amassed a wealth of experience as a profound writer and encountered different personalities over the years, noting numerous stories she covered during her tenure at the Post-Courier.
As a proud Bougainvillean, she highlights her interview with Francis Ona, the reclusive leader of her home province at the time. Reflecting on the experience, she remarks, “I was the first and last to interview him — the journey to get through to him was tough, despite my Bougainvillean heritage.”
Kenneth is known for her unique approach to investigative journalism. One memorable story she recalls, is about a scandalous love triangle between a former Secretary of Foreign Affairs and his secret lover, known as “Jolyne”.
Senior Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth . . . a distinguished career marked by championing significant projects and advocating for social change. Image: Post-Courier
Using a clever tactic, Kenneth assumed the identity of “Jolyne” and managed to reach the Secretary through a landline call, shedding light on the secretive affair. Amusingly, veteran journalists now refer to her as “Jolyne”, a nod to the character she ingeniously portrayed to deceive the unsuspecting Secretary.
In the early 2000s, she, alongside security reporter Robyn Sela, daringly stepped out of their comfort zone, orchestrating an audacious plan: deliberately getting themselves arrested and spending time in Boroko Jail.
Their goal? To delve into the conditions of a prison cell in Port Moresby and report on it firsthand. However, their scheme didn’t escape the notice of chief-of-staff Blaise Nangoi and editor Oseah Philemon, who, upon discovering their intentions, expressed concern.
“They almost sidelined us for getting bailed out with company money – BUT, we got our story,” she gladly remarked.
As one of Post-Courier’s prominent writers, Kenneth has faced numerous hurdles during her time as a journalist. She faced threats and legal disputes from unsatisfied readers and grappled with “ethical dilemmas” while covering sensitive topics — she has encountered her fair share of challenges.
Moreover, she has confronted issues surrounding gender and diversity during her career.
Senior Post-Courier journalist Gorethy Kenneth with her “big, big, big very big boss”, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch. Image: Gorethy Kenneth/FB
In addition to these personal and professional obstacles, Kenneth highlights the impact of “digital disruption” on the newspaper industry. The transition from traditional print media to digital platforms, including the widespread use of social media and streaming services, has significantly challenged newspaper companies like the Post-Courier in recent years.
Fortunately, Kenneth managed to power through these challenges with the support of training and supervision provided by Post-Courier. She applauds the company for its unwavering support during trying times.
Additionally, she took proactive steps to enhance her understanding of journalistic issues, demonstrating her commitment to growth and professional development.
Gorethy Kenneth . . . proactive steps to enhance her understanding of journalistic issues, demonstrating her commitment to growth and professional development. Image: Post-Courier
Continuing to persevere, Gorethy forged a distinguished career marked by championing significant projects and advocating for social change. Armed with the ability to influence public opinion, she found her work as a journalist immensely rewarding.
Her career afforded her the opportunity to travel both locally and internationally, and she reported on stories rife with conflict and controversy. Furthermore, she finds fulfillment in the role of mentoring future journalists, cherishing the chance to impart her knowledge and experience onto the next generation.
When asked about what she is proud of, she says . . . “I am still 16 at heart – don’t tell me I’m old among my young journo colleagues.”
During her free time, she enjoys sipping on her whiskey and reading. She continues to support her family, friends, enemies and her community at a personal level and at a professional level as a senior journalist.
Republished from the Post-Courier with permission.
Reporting during the covid-19 pandemic in Papua New Guinea. Image: Post-Courier
When Robert Francis Prevost appeared on the loggia of St Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV, he set three precedents.
He is the first pope from North America, the first Augustinian to occupy the throne of Peter, and the first native English-speaker to do so since Adrian IV in the 12th century.
Pope Leo XIV greeted Rome and the world with a simple benediction: “peace be with all of you”.
In choosing a blessing that stressed concord – and in issuing it in Italian and Spanish – he signalled both pastoral directness and cultural breadth.
A Chicago childhood and academic rigour
Prevost was born in Chicago in 1955.
Raised in the working-class suburb of Dolton, he served as an altar boy and attended St Augustine Seminary High School. He studied a bachelor of science at Villanova University, and earned a doctoral degree in canon law at the Angelicum in Rome.
Prevost entered the Augustinian order in 1977, professed solemn vows in 1981 and was ordained in 1982.
For Augustinians, virtue lies not in poverty for its own sake, but in the radical sharing of goods: community precedes individual achievement.
There are three pillars: interiority, the practical love of neighbour, and a relentless search for truth. This framework would guide Prevost’s missionary work, and his call for unity and peace.
Chiclayo Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of Saint Mary in Chiclayo, Peru is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Chiclayo. BETO SANTILLAN/Shutterstock
Prevost has administered communities in more than 50 countries, but he first arrived as a missionary in northern Peru in 1985. Over the next decade he taught canon law, ran a seminary in Trujillo, judged marriage cases and led a fledgling parish on Lima’s urban fringe.
The experience sharpened his awareness of informal employment, extractive industries and migration – concerns that echo the Rerum novarum , an open letter issued by his namesake Leo XIII in 1891. They remain visible in Prevost’s social priorities today.
In 2015, he was appointed Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, and, in 2023, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, effectively placing him in charge of vetting episcopal appointments world-wide.
What’s in a name?
Created cardinal in September 2023 and elevated to the rank of cardinal-bishop of Albano in February 2025, Prevost entered the conclave with a reputation for quiet competence, linguistic dexterity (he speaks five languages fluently) and unspectacular holiness.
The electors turned to him on the fourth ballot. An hour later he greeted the city and the world as Pope Leo XIV, first in Italian then in Spanish: a bilingual gesture honouring his Italian American Chicago roots and his Peruvian citizenship.
Leo XIV’s choice of name is a programmatic signal. By invoking examples of Rome’s protector Leo the Great (pope from 440–61) and the great social teacher Leo XIII (1878–1903), the new Pontiff intimates he will draw upon their precedent.
Raphael’s The Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila, painted in 1514, depicts Leo, escorted by Saint Peter and Saint Paul, meeting with the Hun king outside Rome. Wikimedia Commons
His substantive focus will remain squarely on the challenges of 2025: translating Augustinian communal spirituality into governance, extending the social teaching inaugurated by Leo XIII, and mediating polarised factions.
The memory of his Leo predecessors functions as a compass rather than a map, orienting a pontificate whose horizon is the digital, migratory and climatic upheavals of the 21st century.
Pope Leo XIV will draw inspiration from his namesake, Leo XIII. Library of Congress
We can expect where Leo the Great entered dialogue, Leo XIV will offer diplomacy. Where Leo XIII defended trade-union rights and attacked exploitative capitalism, Leo XIV must address labour, climate disruption and forced displacement.
If Leo XIII gave Catholicism its first systematic response to industrial modernity, Leo XIV may be tasked with articulating an Augustinian vision for the digital Anthropocene: a view of humanity as a pilgrim community, bound by shared love rather than algorithmic preference-profiling.
The order’s stress on interior prayer rather than external activism complements Leo XIV’s preference for silent Eucharistic adoration over elaborate ceremony. The Augustinian tradition of learning aligns with his own scholarly instinct.
Consistent with Francis, Leo XIV has condemned abortion and euthanasia. He has criticised hard-line immigration policies in the United States. He holds the line only men can be deacons. In a 2012 address, he pointed to media normalisation of “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners”.
The combination marks him as a centrist prepared to defend doctrinal boundaries while pressing assertively on social justice, climate action and the governance transparency that Francis began but did not finish.
Challenges ahead
Leo XIV inherits a fragmented Church. Traditionalists fear doctrinal drift, while progressives want accelerated reform of governance, liturgy and the role of women.
His Augustinian commitment to shared discernment could provide a mediating structure. Meanwhile geopolitical crises demand renewed Holy See diplomacy and Vatican finances still run unsustainable deficits.
Ultimately, Leo XIV embodies a living dialogue between tradition and modernity.
Whether he succeeds will depend on his capacity to translate the Augustinian Order’s ancient ideal of one heart, one mind into structures that protect the vulnerable worker, the displaced migrant and the wounded planet.
Yet his formation, intellect and record of bridge-building suggest he understands the Church’s credibility now rests where it did in 1891 under Leo XIII: in that social charity and theological clarity are not rivals, but partners on the road to God.
Like Leo XIII, Leo XIV approaches the world not as an enemy to be refuted but as a moral terrain to be cultivated. His pontificate must confront the ecological, technological and migratory questions of our age.
His inaugural plea for peace hints at an integral vision in which social justice, ecological stewardship and human fraternity intersect.
Whether he can translate that vision into institutional reform and global moral leadership remains to be seen.
By invoking the heritage of Leo XIII, Leo XIV has set the compass of his papacy. It points toward a Church intellectually serious, socially committed and pastorally close: one speaking anew to workers in Amazon warehouses, migrants in detention camps, students in schools, refugees in the Sahel and young people navigating the gig economy.
If he succeeds, the name he chose will read as prophetic promise, linking 1891’s clarion call for justice with the uncharted demands of 2025 and beyond.
Darius von Guttner Sporzynski 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.
Australia’s plan to recruit from Papua New Guinea for its Defence Force raises “major ethical concerns”, according to the Australia Defence Association, while another expert thinks it is broadly a good idea.
The two nations are set to begin negotiating a new defence treaty that is expected to see Papua New Guineans join the Australian Defence Force (ADF).
Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James believes “it’s an idiot idea” if there is no pathway to citizenship for Papua New Guineans who serve in the ADF
“You can’t expect other people to defend your country if you’re not willing to do it and until this scheme actually addresses this in any detail, we’re not going to know whether it’s an idiot idea or it’s something that might be workable in the long run.”
However, an expert associate at the Australian National University’s National Security College, Jennifer Parker, believes it is a good idea.
“Australia having a closer relationship with Papua New Guinea through that cross pollination of people going and working in each other’s defence forces, that’s incredibly positive.”
Parker said recruiting from the Pacific has been an ongoing conversation, but the exact nature of what the recruitment might look like is unknown, including whether there is a pathway to citizenship or if there would be a separate PNG unit within the ADF.
Extreme scenario When asked whether it was ethical for people from PNG to fight Australia’s wars, Parker said that would be an extreme scenario.
“We’re not talking about conscripting people from other countries or anything like that. We’re talking about offering the opportunity for people, if they choose to join,” she said.
“There are many defence forces around the world where people choose, people who are born in other countries, choose to join.”
However, James disagrees.
“Whether they’re volunteers or whether they’re conscripted, you’re still expecting foreigners to defend your society and with no link to that society.”
Both Parker and James brought up concerns surrounding brain drain.
James said in Timor-Leste, in the early 2000s, many New Zealanders in the army infantry who were serving alongside Australia joined the Australian Army, attracted by the higher pay, which was not in the interest of New Zealand or Australia in the long run.
Care needed “You’ve got to be real careful that you don’t ruin the Papua New Guinea Defence Force by making it too easy for Papua New Guineans to serve in the Australian Defence Force.”
Parker said the policy needed to be crafted very clearly in conjunction with Papua New Guinea to make sure it strengthened the two nations relationship, not undermined it.
Australia aims to grow the number of ADF uniformed personnel to 80,000 by 2040. However, it is not on track to meet that target.
Parker said she did not think Australia was trying to fill the shortfall.
“There are a couple of challenges in the recruitment issues for the Australian Defence Force.
“But I don’t think the scoping of recruiting people from Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands, if it indeed goes ahead, is about addressing recruitment for the Australian Defence Force.
“I think it’s about increasing closer security ties between Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Islands, and Australia.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
From the enormous blue whale to the delicate monarch butterfly, animals of all shapes and sizes migrate across the globe. These migrations connect distant habitats, from the tropics to the poles. They are also crucial to both the health of species making these epic journeys, and the habitats where they live.
It is hard to visualise these epic, globe-spanning journeys and the habitats they connect. But an interactive map we developed, alongside an international team of scientists from the University of Queensland and Duke University and in partnership with the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative, can help.
Known as Mico (Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean), this map is a valuable conservation tool that demonstrates just how connected our oceans are due to animal migration. It is freely available here, and has just been updated with our newly published research in Nature Communications. This research synthesises thousands of records of more than 100 species of birds, mammals, turtles and fish that connect almost 2,000 crucial habitats.
Humans have contemplated animal migrations for millennia. Representations of and theories about these journeys are observable in Stone Age rock art and the writings of Ancient Greek philosophers. Indigenous peoples and local communities have also long relied upon and understood the seasonal movements of culturally important species.
But for much of human history, identifying specific destinations of migratory species was an inexact science. This has started to change in recent decades, as scientists have developed and deployed animal-borne satellite tags which can record and transmit an animal’s location as it migrates.
These tags can be very expensive to deploy and collect data from. They also require enormous investments of time and expertise. But they are crucial if we are to understand where migratory species go when they’re outside the range of normal human observations.
The journeys of migratory species also span multiple jurisdictions. This means cooperation between countries is required to ensure they are protected.
For example, many albatross species receive significant conservation investment at their nesting islands within national jurisdictions. But they are at high risk of being incidentally caught and killed or injured in longline fisheries operating in international waters.
Synthesising more than 1,300 studies
For our new study, we reviewed the literature on the movements of marine migratory species from 1990 to 2017. We synthesised the start and end points of migrations reported in more than 1,300 individual studies. These studies covered 109 marine species.
This information was then aggregated to remove duplicate data and combine sites very near to each other (on a global scale) into one “metasite” to make it easier to display. Each data point is also linked to the study from which it comes. This means you can always find the work of the original team who tagged those animals.
In synthesising the studies in this manner, we created an interactive map and downloadable dataset estimating the measured migratory connections of the global ocean.
If you look up the green turtle map, for example, you can see just how much information there is for this highly-studied species. The red links show many tracked movements from breeding to foraging areas within each ocean basin.
Sperm whales, on the other hand, are globally distributed – you can toggle on the species distribution in the top menu. But we only have information about connectivity for animals in the Atlantic and east Pacific oceans. You can see these sites on the map, mostly in North America and in the Mediterranean.
Because researchers are yet to track animals in all parts of the globe, the map is missing some information about the migratory movements of key species in particular areas. We are planning updates as more information becomes available.
Sperm whales are globally distributed, but Mico currently only captures their connectivity in the Atlantic and east Pacific oceans. Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean/Mico
A tool for conservation
This summary of migratory information is important for improving global conservation.
Scientists have published many papers on migrations, both of single populations or species, and combining data about taxonomy from several different sources. But these can be difficult to keep up with for managers or policymakers who may not have time to engage with every single piece of emerging scientific literature.
Our information can help identify stakeholders when planning or managing a conservation project. Many of these stakeholders may be across an ocean basin or even in a different hemisphere.
The scientific synthesis we provide can help countries take more informed actions to achieve the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework’s target of conserving a “well-connected” 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine areas by 2030. This is particularly true in the high seas, as a mechanism to implement protected areas outside of national waters is developed under the soon-to-be-ratified High Seas Treaty.
Various seabirds, including the Amsterdam Albatross, are included in the new research. Sergey 402/Shutterstock
In addition to sharing the enormous scope of work that has been conducted on the migration of large ocean animals over the last decades, our work has already fed into policy processes.
For example, it has been used by seven United Nations conventions or organisations. We hope to formalise the role of our map as a node of the Convention on Migratory Species’ Atlas of Animal Migration at their next meeting in March 2026.
More broadly, we hope this work will support better international collaboration to conserve our incredible oceanic migrants for years to come.
Lily Bentley receives funding from a Queensland-Smithsonian Fellowship on understanding migratory connectivity of seabirds in the Great Barrier Reef. She has presented on the work discussed at policy fora including the Conference of Parties (COP) for the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on Migratory Species. She works on the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO; mico.eco) system, which has been previously supported by the German International Climate Initiative (IKI) and UNEP-WCMC.
Autumn-Lynn Harrison directs the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute’s Migratory Connectivity Project, supported by a gift to the Smithsonian by ConocoPhillips. She is also a Partner Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant for understanding migratory connectivity in the ocean.
Daniel Dunn receives funding to support the development of the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MICO) system from a grant to the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative (GOBI) from the International Climate Initiative (IKI), UNEP-WCMC, and from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) supports the IKI on the basis of a decision adopted by the German Bundestag.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Noel Morada, Visiting Professor, Nelson Mandela Centre, Chulalongkorn University; and Research Fellow, Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Chulalongkorn University
It’s been two months since former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face potential prosecution for crimes against humanity.
Duterte’s arrest has angered his supporters and caused polarisation to worsen in the lead-up to important parliamentary elections on May 12.
The election could be a referendum on the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose approval rating fell to 25% in March after Duterte’s arrest. It had been 42% a month earlier.
Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, meanwhile, has seen her approval rating increase to 59%, despite the fact she was impeached by the House of Representatives earlier this year for threatening to assassinate Marcos.
Some of Marcos’ former allies are now drifting towards Sara Duterte, potentially setting her up for a successful run for the presidency herself in 2028.
Family feuding
Marcos is not only dealing with the resentment of some segments of the public, he’s also facing a challenge from his own sister, Imee Marcos, a senator.
Imee Marcos conducted several hearings in the Senate to probe into the procedures followed by the national police and other government agencies in implementing Duterte’s arrest warrant, which had been issued through Interpol.
Right from the start, she denounced Duterte’s surrender to the ICC as a violation of the Philippine constitution and the country’s sovereignty. She asserted the court did not have jurisdiction over the Philippines after it withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019.
In a press conference on April 29, Imee Marcos announced a Senate committee is recommending the filing of criminal charges against the head of the Department of Justice and other officials who arrested and turned him over to the ICC. On May 7, the ombudsman asked these officials to respond to the Senate committee complaint within 10 days.
Imee Marcos has political motivations of her own for acting in this way. She is seeking another term herself and has been trailing in public opinion polls.
To make the political machinations even more complex, Sara Duterte has now endorsed Imee Marcos’ bid for re-election. Some of Duterte’s supporters, however, have been sceptical about Marcos’ motives in conducting the hearings.
Controlling the narrative
Though Duterte’s arrest has dominated the headlines in the Philippines, it’s unclear whether Marcos’ declining popularity as president is tied solely to this incident.
The outcome of the elections in the Philippines next week will no doubt have short- and medium-term implications for the country’s politics.
First, if all nine of the Senate candidates backed by the Marcos administration win, they would expand his bloc of supporters in the chamber. This bloc may then vote to convict Sara Duterte when her impeachment case moves to a Senate trial.
If she’s convicted, she would be banned from running for president in 2028. But it’s uncertain if two-thirds of senators would vote to convict – the threshold necessary for impeachment. Some pro-Marcos and independent senators may be wary of antagonising loyal Duterte supporters.
If Sara Duterte is acquitted, this would likely only boost her bid for the presidency.
The ICC’s pre-trial chamber will hold a hearing in September that will be watched closely by pro- and anti-Duterte forces in the Philippines. On May 8, the chamber rejected a petition filed by Duterte’s defence team to excuse two judges over alleged bias.
His loyal supporters will likely increase their attacks against the ICC, the victims of Duterte’s drugs war, and the Marcos administration through the use of fake news and disinformation as the trial progresses.
If Duterte is convicted by the court prior to the 2028 election, it will certainly be used as a campaign issue by both sides, too. And this will only further worsen polarisation in the Philippines.
Noel Morada 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.
Imagine a young man whose voice has been worn down by years of feeling invisible. Plain, numb and bitter, the “incel” tries to explain the kind of hopelessness most of us would rather not confront:
I believed I was unlovable, so who the hell is gonna love me? I won’t get a good job, and if I don’t get a good job, I won’t be able to live the kind of life I want. I’ll be lonely and depressed, and what’s the point of living?
You start seeing life not as something to look forward to, but as something you just have to survive.
The pain it describes is far more common than we care to admit.
Today, the word “incel” conjures images of angry online forums, misogyny and even mass violence.
But it didn’t start that way. Incel began as a term for the ache of not being chosen – an ache that, for many young men, has become defining.
In the late 1990s, a Canadian woman known only as Alana created “Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project”, a support group for people of all genders struggling to form romantic or sexual relationships.
There was no ideology, just stories of heartbreak, confusion and the quiet sadness of feeling left behind.
She coined the term “invcel”, later shortened to incel. It was a label for isolation, not anger.
The term hardened: incel began to describe a threat.
Today, it refers to a loosely connected online subculture of young men who see themselves as romantically excluded, blame women or society for their condition, and often express their resentment through misogynistic language, fatalism and at times, violent rhetoric.
How did a word born in solidarity become shorthand for male radicalisation and resentment?
Incel evolution
By the mid-2000s, forums such as 4chan, Reddit and obscure message boards had begun to distort the term.
The digital architecture of these spaces didn’t just permit this shift, it accelerated it. Anonymous avatars, endless algorithms and upvote economies rewarded extremity.
Pain was no longer expressed, it was curated, memed and weaponised.
Incel communities developed their own jargon: “Chads” (attractive, socially successful men), “Stacys” (the women who desire them), and “blackpill theory” (a fatalistic belief that one’s romantic or sexual failure is biologically determined and irreversible).
This crude mythology was used to explain why some men supposedly get everything and others get nothing.
As these forums grew, many also became incubators for dehumanising language and open hostility towards women.
Some of the most active subreddits and boards were eventually banned for promoting violent content or glorifying attacks on women.
Law enforcement agencies in several countries have since begun monitoring incel spaces as potential sites of radicalisation.
While these online communities became more extreme, they also came to dominate the cultural narrative – distracting us from a quieter, more pervasive truth: most young men who feel unwanted or invisible aren’t in these online spaces at all.
They’re not angry or radicalised. They’re just trying to make sense of a life that feels increasingly empty – the very men the word incel was once meant to describe.
That emptiness is part of a growing epidemic of loneliness, particularly among young men.
As social ties fray and emotional isolation deepens, many find themselves without the friendships, intimacy or sense of belonging that once buffered against despair.
These young men are also struggling with the language to name what they feel.
Being single often makes these men feel irrelevant and worthless. Disconnected and ashamed, many go silent. Or they go online in search of community.
What can be done?
The first step is resisting the urge to caricature and dismiss.
Most of these young men are not ticking time bombs – they are simply struggling with disconnection. We need more places where that pain can be acknowledged without shame or fear of ridicule.
It starts with how we talk to, and about, young men. That means fostering emotional literacy in ways that feel authentic and supporting initiatives that build connection without moralising.
This can be done through mentorships and community groups that allow for real relationships to form.
Mental health services that reflect men’s lived realities – through tone, approach and practitioner experience – are more likely to break down the barriers that keep many men away.
Policy can help, too: civic infrastructure that fosters belonging – such as community sports clubs, trade apprenticeships and structured volunteering opportunities – play a critical role. These are the spaces where purpose grows roots and where men in particular often find meaning and community outside formal support systems.
Time for a change?
While the threat from radicalised men online remains, maybe it’s time to retire the word incel.
What began as a label for loneliness has become a painful slur for many men – a shortcut for contempt.
When we lose the language to describe the pain, we can lose the people too.
Farid Zaid 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.
There is a well-known whakatauki (Māori proverb) that goes: “Ka mua, ka muri” – “walking backwards into the future”. It applies to many areas of life, but in education the idea of looking to the past to inform our way forward seems more relevant than ever.
New Zealand was once a world leader in reading. In the early 1970s, as leading literacy educationalist Warwick Elley reminds us, Kiwi teenagers performed best of all countries participating in the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.
Overall, New Zealand children are still above average. But while many children learn to read successfully, significant numbers do not. And concern about reading capability has led to a recent curriculum overhaul.
The reforms focus on raising reading standards and regular testing. But the lessons of the past suggest we performed better with less focus on raising test scores. In fact, it was a more flexible, balanced approach to English education that provided a strong foundation for literacy.
Some clues to why this was possible can be found in the 1953 Primary School Reading Syllabus from the old Department of Education. It was among the first of many research-based reading initiatives in the mid-20th century, along with Ready to Read books in the 1960s, and the Reading Recovery program developed by Marie Clay in the 1970s.
Given New Zealand was a conservative postwar society that was yet to grapple meaningfully with colonial history and Treaty rights, the document is surprisingly less rigid than one might expect.
In fact, it is largely compatible with contemporary ideas about teaching and learning. In some areas, the 1953 syllabus seems more progressive than the current curriculum, with clear views on inclusiveness and designing teaching to meet individual needs.
Ironically, many of today’s parents and grandparents – some of whom support a “back to basics” school system – were educated using this flexible and purpose-driven approach.
New Zealand in 1953
According to the New Zealand Official Yearbook for 1953, the country was enjoying postwar prosperity with 72% of its exports going to other Commonwealth countries.
England was still the “mother country” and the young Queen Elizabeth’s post-coronation visit – also in 1953 – fuelled intense royal fervour. Edmund Hillary conquered Everest, and a highly publicised air race from London to Christchurch helped popularise plane travel.
Society was far more egalitarian. In a population of just over two million, only 15 people received an unemployment benefit (there were a variety of other welfare payments such as war pensions).
At the same time, New Zealand did not view itself as bicultural in the way it does today. For many Pākehā, Māori culture was little more than a curiosity or a tourist attraction.
School was already compulsory from ages seven to 15, and roughly 17% of the population were enrolled in primary schools. These were the children taught to read according to the 1953 syllabus.
A brief A5-sized booklet of just 13 pages, it recognises reading as a central component of a rich and full life – and that it can be used for “useful, harmless or nefarious” purposes.
Competing with other temptations such as “the exploits of Superman and Mighty Mouse”, as well as cinema and radio, is one of its concerns. But its main aim is to “teach the child to read […] in ways that will encourage him (sic) to use his skill freely and naturally”.
Postwar prosperity and a royal tour too: schoolchildren wave Union Jack flags at the Duke of Edinburgh during in early 1954. Getty Images
Avoiding a standardised approach
The syllabus outlines ideal components of a classroom reading programme: reading to self (silently) and peers (aloud), listening to story and verse, participating in dramatisation, word study and study skills.
Word study should include learning about phonics. But the syllabus tempers this with the advice that “there can be no doubt that too early a preoccupation with phonics may serve to kill interest in reading”.
This might have been written today by those concerned that structured approaches to literacy will crowd out other important parts of early reading education.
The 1953 syllabus says reading material should encompass fiction (including local authors), non-fiction, plays and poetry. While competent reading by all is the goal, the syllabus also states: “A uniform standard of achievement […] is a mistaken aim.”
This recognition of variable individual capability is something critics say is missing from today’s curriculum. Expectations are set for each year at school, with teachers strongly encouraged to teach to the year level.
The fear is that some students will fall behind as their class moves on, while progress for others will be restricted if they are ahead of those expectations.
The 1953 syllabus cautions that the “results of standardised tests should be weighed against the teacher’s own observation […] and modified accordingly”.
Encouraging teacher autonomy
By comparison, the new English curriculum is long at 108 pages, complex and prescriptive. It includes a range of aims clustered under the headings “Understand”, “Know” and “Do”.
The first encompasses five big ideas learners are expected to develop during their schooling. The second covers the knowledge required in English to become literate. The third outlines the practical steps learners will take in the different phases of their schooling.
To be fair, the new curriculum aims to make all children feel good about reading. It encourages using different kinds of texts, focuses on assessment activities that build on one another, and supports teachers to adapt for student differences.
And, given its contemporary context, there is an awareness of the important role of culture and the unique place of Māori in New Zealand that is entirely missing in the 1953 document.
But the new curriculum also contains directives the 1953 syllabus warned teachers against – namely a preoccupation with teaching phonics, and teaching linked to prescriptive progress measurement and outcomes.
Although brief, the 1953 document is arguably broader in scope and requires teachers to have greater skills. A strength of the old syllabus is that it encouraged teacher professionalism, autonomy and judgement in deciding the best next steps for each learner.
Overall, the 2025 curriculum seems the more constrictive document. The 1953 syllabus presents a view of reading that prioritises the human experience – reading as an aesthetic experience as well as a practical skill.
This article is based on original work by Jayne Jackson, senior lecturer and educational researcher at Manukau Institute of Technology, with the help of AUT’s LitPlus research group.
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.
In today’s fractured online landscape, it is harder than ever to identify harmful actors such as trolls and misinformation spreaders.
Often, efforts to spot malicious accounts focus on analysing what they say. However, our latest research suggests we should be paying more attention to what they do – and how they do it.
We have developed a way to identify potentially harmful online actors based solely on their behavioural patterns – the way they interact with others – rather than the content they share. We presented our results at the recent ACM Web Conference, and were awarded Best Paper.
Beyond looking at what people say
Traditional approaches to spotting problematic online behaviour typically rely on two methods. One is to examine content (what people are saying). The other is to analyse network connections (who follows whom).
These methods have limitations.
Users can circumvent content analysis. They may code their language carefully, or share misleading information without using obvious trigger words.
Network analysis falls short on platforms such as Reddit. Here, connections between users aren’t explicit. Communities are organised around topics rather than social relationships.
We wanted to find a way to identify harmful actors that couldn’t be easily gamed. We realised we could, focusing on behaviour – how people interact, rather than what they say.
Teaching AI to understand human behaviour online
Our approach uses a technique called inverse reinforcement learning. This is a method typically used to understand human decision-making in fields such as autonomous driving or game theory.
We adapted this technology to analyse how users behave on social media platforms.
Behavioural analysis could help the fight against the growing problem of online misinformation. Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock
The system works by observing a user’s actions, such as creating new threads, posting comments and replying to others. From those actions it infers the underlying strategy or “policy” that drives their behaviour.
In our Reddit case study, we analysed 5.9 million interactions over six years. We identified five distinct behavioural personas, including one particularly notable group – “disagreers”.
Meet the ‘disagreers’
Perhaps our most striking result was finding an entire class of Reddit users whose primary purpose seems to be to disagree with others. These users specifically seek out opportunities to post contradictory comments, especially in response to disagreement, and then move on without waiting for replies.
The “disagreers” were most common in politically-focused subreddits (forums focused on particular topics) such as r/news, r/worldnews, and r/politics. Interestingly, they were much less common in the now-banned pro-Trump forum r/The_Donald despite its political focus.
This pattern reveals how behavioural analysis can uncover dynamics that content analysis might miss. In r/The_Donald, users tended to agree with each other while directing hostility toward outside targets. This dynamic may explain why traditional content moderation has struggled to address problems in such communities.
Soccer fans and gamers
Our research also revealed unexpected connections. Users discussing completely different topics sometimes displayed remarkably similar behavioural patterns.
We found striking similarities between users discussing soccer (on r/soccer) and e-sports (on r/leagueoflegends).
This similarity emerges from the fundamental nature of both communities. Soccer and e-sports fans engage in parallel ways: they passionately support specific teams, follow matches with intense interest, participate in heated discussions about strategies and player performances, celebrate victories, and dissect defeats.
Despite their differences, fans of soccer and the online multiplayer battle game League of Legends behave in very similar ways online. Vasyl Shulga/Shutterstock
Both communities foster strong tribal identities. Users defend their favoured teams while critiquing rivals.
Whether debating Premier League tactics or League of Legends champions, the underlying interaction patterns – the timing, sequence and emotional tone of responses – remain consistent across these topically distinct communities.
This challenges conventional wisdom about online polarisation. While echo chambers are often blamed for increasing division, our research suggests behavioural patterns can transcend topical boundaries. Users may be divided more by how they interact than what they discuss.
Beyond troll detection
The implications of this research extend well beyond academic interest. Platform moderators could use behavioural patterns to identify potentially problematic users before they’ve posted large volumes of harmful content.
Unlike content moderation, behavioural analysis does not depend on understanding language. It is hard to evade, since changing one’s behavioural patterns requires more effort than adjusting language.
The approach could also help design more effective strategies to counter misinformation. Rather than focusing solely on the content, we can design systems that encourage more constructive engagement patterns.
For social media users, this research offers a reminder that how we engage online – not just what we say – shapes our digital identity and influences others.
As online spaces continue to grapple with manipulation, harassment and polarisation, approaches that consider behavioural patterns alongside content analysis may offer more effective solutions for fostering healthier online communities.
Marian-Andrei Rizoiu receives funding from the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator, the Australian Department of Home Affairs, the Defence Innovation Network, and the National Science Centre, Poland.
Lanqin Yuan and Philipp Schneider 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.
When United States President William McKinley advocated high‑tariff protectionism in 1896, he argued squeezing foreign competitors behind a 50% wall of duties would make America richer and safer.
That logic framed US trade debates for a generation, but it was always an economic device – not a geopolitical lever.
In 2025, Donald Trump, now the 47th US president, slapped tariffs on most imported goods to the United States, specifically targeting Chinese imports.
Yet, despite the fact he idolises McKinley, Trump’s emerging grand strategy looks less like his customs schedule and more like Richard Nixon’s “madman” diplomacy of the early 1970s.
Trump is signalling that unpredictability, not price schedules, will coerce adversaries and reorder alliances.
An image of irrational resolve
McKinley’s 1890s tariffs nearly doubled average duties, shielding domestic manufacturers but doing little to shift the global balance of power.
The lesson from these tariffs was straightforward: protectionism may enrich some sectors, but it rarely bends rivals’ strategic choices.
Trump’s first term flirted with McKinley-inspired trade wars, industrial policy and “America First” rhetoric. His second term “strategic reset” moves onto darker, Nixonian ground.
Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, cultivated an image of irrational resolve. They hinted they might do “anything”, even use nuclear weapons, to force concessions in Vietnam and alarm the Soviet politburo.
Nixon’s White House chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, recalled the president demanding Moscow and Hanoi see him as a man “with his hand on the nuclear button”.
The gambit dovetailed with a bold diplomatic inversion. By opening to Mao Zedong’s China, Nixon sought to isolate the Soviet Union.
Trump’s ‘reverse Nixon’ efforts
Half a century later, Trump appears to be running the tape backward.
Rather than prying China from Russia, he is testing whether Moscow can be prised from Beijing.
In early April, he imposed a blanket 54% tariff on Chinese goods – yet exempted Russia, Cuba and North Korea from the harshest duties.
The White House has simultaneously floated selective sanctions relief for Moscow if Vladimir Putin shows “flexibility” on Ukraine.
Trump’s boosters call the manoeuvre a “reverse Nixon”: befriend the weaker adversary to hem in the stronger.
Al-Jazeera recently reported senior US officials and analysts believe deepening ties with Russia could splinter the Sino‑Russian axis that has unnerved US strategists for years.
But Foreign Affairs warns that even if Washington dangled lavish incentives, Putin would “play Washington and Beijing off each other” rather than choose sides.
Australia’s Strategic Policy Institute is blunter: the idea of splitting the pair is “a delusion”.
Nor is the madman pose guaranteed to intimidate. Scholars note Nixon’s bluff worked only when coupled with painstaking back‑channel diplomacy; the façade of irrationality still required a coherent end‑game.
Trump’s record of erratic statements on NATO, sudden tariff escalations and social media outbursts risks convincing adversaries that chaos is the message, not the method.
Success would require discipline
Yet, the strategic prize is real.
A durable Sino‑Russian alignment forces Washington to split resources across two theatres, complicates sanctions enforcement, and gives Beijing access to Russian hydrocarbons and military technologies.
Even a partial wedge – Moscow adopting neutrality in a potential Indo‑Pacific crisis, for instance – would lighten America’s load and disadvantage China.
Can Trump craft a credible offer? Tariff exemptions and the hint of sanctions relief are carrots; resumed arms‑control talks and guarantees of Russian equities in a post‑war Ukraine settlement could sweeten the pot.
The sticks are clear: escalating tariffs and technology bans on China, plus renewed US gas exports aimed at undercutting Sino‑Russian energy deals.
The fact CIA Director John Ratcliffe called China the “top national security threat” in his confirmation hearings earlier this year – relegating Russia to a lesser threat – underscores the hierarchy.
Still, success would require disciplined messaging and allied buy‑in, traits not often associated with madman theatrics.
If European and Indo‑Pacific partners suspect Washington will mortgage Ukraine’s security or trade their markets for a fleeting Moscow détente, unity will fray.
For Australia, the stakes are immense
For Canberra, the calculus is stark.
Australia’s primary challenge is a more assertive China, not a distant Russia.
If Trump could drive even a hairline crack between Moscow and Beijing, the Indo‑Pacific balance would tilt in favour of the US and its allies.
A Russia preoccupied with Europe or simply unwilling to share sensitive missile and space technologies would deprive China of critical enablers.
Conversely, a bungled “reverse Nixon” strategy could embolden both autocracies.
Should Putin benefit from US tariff exemptions and sanctions relief while deepening defence ties with Beijing — as recent drone and satellite deals suggest – Australia would face a sharper, more integrated adversarial bloc.
The lesson, for Australia, is to hedge: continue deepening AUKUS technology sharing, accelerate long‑range strike acquisition, and tighten diplomatic coordination with Japan, India and ASEAN states.
For Australia, perched on Asia’s faultline, the stakes are immense. A successful wedge would ease pressure on the “first‑island chain” – the chain of strategic islands that stretches from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia – and give Canberra precious strategic depth.
A failed gambit risks confronting Australian forces with a tandem of nuclear‑armed revisionists (Russia and China) emboldened by US miscalculation.
Ian Langford 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.
Indigenous Australians are more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to suffer from disease, particularly chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease.
The health disparities are worse in remote and very remote areas. The burden of diabetes in the remote Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory, where it affects more than one in four adults aged over 20, is among the highest in the world.
The Yolŋu (or Yolngu) people of Northeast Arnhem land, a large, remote area in the NT, maintain one of the oldest continuously living cultures in the world. They also represent one of the largest Indigenous groups in Australia.
Yet, people in these communities face the highest number of avoidable deaths in Australia, mostly from chronic disease. A diet of too much sugar, refined and processed food products, smoking and an unhealthy lifestyle contribute to this region’s health crisis.
Beginning in 2014, senior Yolŋu women in Galiwin’ku, one of the largest communities in Northeast Arnhem land, have been developing a unique diet and lifestyle change program called Hope for Health. The program has been running intermittently since then, and includes on-Country health retreats, individualised health coaching, and group classes and activities.
We recently evaluated this program. We found it offers significant benefits which could reduce chronic disease risk among the Yolŋu people.
Hope for Health participants and staff at a cooking workshop. Hope for Health
A holistic approach
Most Yolŋu live on Aboriginal land in remote communities of various sizes and hold a deep unbroken connection to their ancestral country.
Health and wellbeing is considered a holistic concept that connects physical, social, emotional, cultural, spiritual and ecological wellbeing at both an individual and community level.
The Hope for Health program is based on the values of Margikunhamirr (making known and sharing understanding) and Goŋ-ŋthanhamirr (supporting and walking alongside each other) to empower Yolŋu to gain control of their health.
Over four months, the program focuses on giving people the knowledge to make their own lifestyle changes and choices to improve health and prevent chronic disease.
It includes:
An on-Country health retreat: this is an immersive 12-day bush retreat focused on reconnecting with the Yolŋu tradition of living, eating, and healing from the land, and learning about the body and health.
In-community support and mentoring: over 14 weeks following the retreat, this part of the program is focused on overcoming barriers to introducing lifestyle changes. It includes group activities for identifying healthy food options at the shops, storing and cooking fresh produce, and yarning about healthy lifestyles.
Individual and home-based health coaching: this takes place during the retreat and afterwards in participants’ homes or places of their choosing. Health coaches explain blood test results to participants, offer education in their language and help with goal setting, such as reducing sugar consumption, smoking, or increasing exercise.
The Hope for Health program seeks to give people the knowledge they need to make their own lifestyle changes.
What we found
Together with colleagues at the Doherty Institute and other collaborators, we evaluated a Hope for Health program in the second half of 2022.
We assessed outcomes such as body weight and blood sugar levels among 55 adults before and after they took part in the program. All participants were overweight or obese at the beginning.
By the end of the program, 52% of participants reduced their HbA1c – a measure of blood sugar – by at least 0.3%. Some 33% of participants lost at least 3% of their body weight.
Changes such as these are called “clinically significant” because they’re big enough for doctors to see real health benefits such as reduced risk of chronic disease, including diabetes and heart disease.
Other outcomes we looked at improved too. Overall, participants had smaller waist circumferences at the end, lower body-mass index, better “good” cholesterol levels, were drinking less sugary drinks, and doing more daily exercise.
Why did it work?
Behavioural change is not necessarily easy to achieve in these communities, which have a very different language and culture from mainstream Australia.
Our study is the first in remote Aboriginal communities to comprehensively evaluate a lifestyle change program with such promising results.
The study design cannot prove the intervention directly caused the changes. That is, there may have been other factors which contributed to the outcomes.
A randomised controlled trial would have provided stronger proof the program led to the health improvements we observed, but these trials can be unsuitable in remote Indigenous communities. In this study, the community was concerned delaying the program for some people would harm their health. Also, many wanted their extended family to take part, making it difficult to select a representative control group which would be needed for this type of study.
Nonetheless, our results suggest support for culturally sensitive health initiatives such as Hope for Health is crucial for reducing the burden of chronic disease in remote Indigenous communities.
We believe Hope for Health worked because it was led by Yolŋu people and is built on Yolŋu knowledge, language and culture. Education provided to remote Aboriginal people such as the Yolŋu needs to be liya-lapmarnhamirr – that is, presented in a way that brings revelation and understanding.
Hasthi Dissanayake receives or has received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and Australian government postgraduate and research grants.
Beverley-Ann Biggs receives research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and Medical Research Future Fund competitive grant schemes.
George Gurruwiwi 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.
Is reading to your kids a bedtime ritual in your home? For many of us, it will be a visceral memory of our own childhoods. Or of the time raising now grown-up children.
Perhaps it involves a nightly progression through the Percy Jackson series or the next Captain Underpants book. Or maybe there’s a request to have Room on the Broom again (and again).
But for some households, reading aloud is not a regular activity. A recent UK report by publisher Harper Collins found many parents are not reading to their kids. Fewer than half (41%) of 0–4-year-olds are read to frequently. More than 20% of parents surveyed agreed reading is “more a subject to learn than a fun thing to do”.
The report also found some parents stop reading to their children once they can read by themselves. As the Guardian reported, some parents assume “it will make [their child] lazy and less likely to read independently”.
Here’s why it’s important to read to your children – even after they have learned to read.
What’s involved in reading skills?
Research on reading skills suggests there are two main types of skills involved in learning to read.
Constrained skills are skills that once we learn, we keep. For example, once we learn the alphabet we don’t have to keep learning it. It’s like riding a bike.
Unconstrained skills are skills we continue to learn throughout life. For example, vocabulary, reading fluency (how quickly and smoothly you read) and reading comprehension. Even as adults we continue to learn new word and language forms.
The books we read aloud at bedtime to young readers tend to be those they can’t read themselves.
So it introduces more complex ideas, words and sentence patterns. This is why reading aloud to your children is a parental superpower – you can continue to build where the school learning stops.
When you are reading to your child, they have your full attention, which also makes the time special.
What should you be reading?
Reading aloud doesn’t necessarily have to involve multiple chapters of a book. Research suggests what matters is that it’s something you are both interested in and enjoying.
You could read to your child on a device, or you could even tell a traditional tale without a book.
You could read poetry, news articles or magazine articles about a favourite football team or player – these can all build unconstrained literacy skills.
Even re-reading a beloved picture book from younger years can build fluency and focus on direct speech in text (especially when the reader does “funny” voices).
You can read non-fiction as well as fiction books, magazines and news articles. Kindel Media/Pexels, CC BY
How often should you read to your child?
Family life is busy and parents often have many commitments. So there are no rules, other than to make it fun. Don’t be put off by “how much you have to do” – a few minutes of engaged reading time together is better than none at all.
You could read to your child when you yourself are reading something and want to share it. If it’s too hard to read to your child every night, do it every weekend night or make another time during the week. Or ask a grandparent or older sibling to help.
And there is no set age to stop – if you like, keep reading to your kids until they leave home!
Robyn Cox 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.
Much of the old circular railway line in Paris, La Petite Ceinture, or Little Belt, has been turned into a public park. ldgfr photos, Shutterstock
Across Australian cities, leftover and overlooked green spaces are everywhere. Just think of all the land along stormwater drains, railway lines and vacant lots. While often dismissed as useless or unsightly, there’s a growing understanding of the value these spaces bring to cities.
My new research looks at how cities globally are rethinking overlooked green spaces. I identified three ways to unlock the value of these areas: leaving spaces intentionally unmanaged, supporting temporary or informal uses, or formalising them as parks or other public places. Each approach offers different benefits and challenges for cities trying to create greener, more liveable neighbourhoods.
Local councils are under increasing pressure to create more formal green space, with residents, at times, calling on councils to buy land for new parks. But let’s start with what’s already there.
1: Hands off: the case for doing less
In some cases, doing nothing can be surprisingly powerful.
When governments step back, communities and nature can step in, with potentially joyful, creative and ecologically rich results. In the Belgian capital of Brussels, for example, disused railway land, left unmanaged, has become a haven for biodiversity, offering valuable insights into how ecosystems can regenerate without human interference.
Closer to home, there are many examples of railway land being used informally as green space. One site, in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote, has become a makeshift trail used by walkers, dog owners and children on bikes. Though not officially a park, it functions like one, with its informal character fostering a sense of ownership and spontaneity among users. In the past few months, local residents have started planting native vegetation and putting up makeshift art installations, and even a swing.
But this hands-off approach has limitations. It works best where a strong sense of community, or ecological value, already exists. And while nature can bounce back in surprising ways, it often needs a helping hand.
Locals have embraced a small patch of land in a railway reserve near Dennis Station in Northcote, Melbourne. Hugh Stanford
2. Helping out: supporting informal or temporary uses
Where informal installations already exist – such as art installations or unauthorised plantings known as guerrilla gardens – councils can support and even help grow these initiatives.
Some councils may see local-led efforts as a liability, but these efforts represent an opportunity to bring life to underused land at minimal cost. By recognising and supporting such activities, including financially, councils can empower residents to shape their own neighbourhoods in meaningful ways. This can include expanding existing installations or establishing new installations on other underused sites.
There is also benefit in local councils creating their own temporary installations such as pop-up parks. This has been shown to be an effective way to activate underused space and trial initiatives before more permanent plans are developed.
Examples include the creation of a temporary park in Ballarat Street, Yarraville in 2012. Community support for the temporary park led to the construction of a permanent park in 2014.
Local councils can offer support to communities seeking to revitalise disused green space. Hugh Stanford
3. Stepping in: when formalising makes sense
There are times where formal intervention is warranted – for example, where land is contaminated or supports invasive weeds. In such cases, transforming a site into a fully developed park can deliver significant benefits. Land alongside a river, road or railway line, can be readily transformed into a long “linear park” with walking trails and bike paths.
In Paris, the conversion of a former industrial railway line into a linear park is a great example, attracting both locals and tourists.
Melbourne, too, has its own success in revitalising disused infrastructure. The Greening the Pipeline project in Melbourne’s west involves converting a disused sewer main into a vibrant linear park. These projects demonstrate the benefits that can be achieved from developing high-quality, permanent public green spaces from underused land.
But formalising public use of urban green space comes at a cost, financially and otherwise: a highly designed park can crowd out the quirky, unplanned character that makes many informal spaces feel special. That’s why it’s crucial to see formalising green space as one option among many, and to reserve it for sites where potential benefits justify the investment.
The Greening the Pipeline project in Melbourne’s west highlights what can be achieved. Hugh Stanford
A call to action
If you work in urban planning or local government, resist the urge to control and replace. Look at what’s already available. Sometimes the best thing you can do is observe, step back and support. Not all public spaces need a master plan.
If you’re a resident, get out there. Start small: plant something native, or set up a swing (where safe to do so). By engaging with the green spaces already around you, you might help create your own slice of urban paradise – no land purchase required.
Start small and set up a swing, where safe to do so. Hugh Stanford
Hugh Stanford 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.
Workplace burnout – a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion – and the COVID pandemic have sparked a rethink of the traditional 9-to-5 job.
It’s been estimated 30% of the Australian workforce is experiencing some degree of burnout, raising serious concerns about the possible impacts on mental health.
Is it possible – and if so, wise – to take addressing burnout into your own hands? Some responses to the problem, such as “micro-retirement”, have enjoyed recent popularity on social media.
But a small number of people take an even more radical approach – dumping the 9-to-5 path entirely for careers that prioritise meaning, enjoyment and personal growth. We sought to find out how this move played out for one group in particular – snowsports instructors.
Our research – published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing – covers a 10.5-year study of snowsports instructors who left their 9-to-5 jobs for a meaningful career on the slopes of Canada, Japan, the United States and New Zealand.
We looked at instructors’ journeys into the lifestyle, how they managed their new careers, and what led some to eventually return to the 9-to-5.
Chasing winter
We interviewed 13 snowsports instructors aged 25 to 40 (seven men, six women), collected image and video artefacts, followed social media accounts and surveyed snow school reports. Our lead researcher also participated in the lifestyle herself.
All our participants had at least a bachelor degree and previous steady careers in fields such as education or information technology.
During our decade-long field work, we found instructors earned just enough money to maintain this lifestyle, often travelling with their possessions in one or two bags.
Whistler Mountain, Canada: instructors get to live and work in places of great natural beauty. Kevin503/Shutterstock
Beyond the adrenaline and beauty of a life in the snow, we found people were first motivated to enter this career to escape the corporate world and ties of modern life. One participant, Lars, said:
If you just get a job, you get maybe 20 days off a year for the next 40 years, and once you stop, once you’ve got a job and a house and a mortgage and a kid […] you’re trapped.
A sense of accomplishment
At the centre of our research was the idea of building a career around the ancient Greek concept of “eudaimonia”. This term is sometimes translated to “happiness” in English, but its broader connotations mean it’s closer to “flourishing” and involves a sense of purpose and living a life of virtue.
That’s in contrast to the related concept of “hedonism” – which centres on the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. Eudaimonia is meant to make us reflect on life’s purpose, potential and meaning.
As our participants mastered the sport and career, they moved from mere enjoyment or hedonism of being in the snow to finding meaning and purpose in their jobs.
They felt a sense of accomplishment and appreciation of snowsports as a sport and job requiring dedication, care and commitment.
Challenges along the way
However, with every career there are demands that shape how people manage work and purposeful pursuits. Instructors must bear financial costs such as buying their own equipment, paying for certifications and accommodation.
Eventually the lifestyle was not sustainable for some due to precarious working conditions and minimal wages. Relying on the weather to produce snow, unfair compensation and fixed-term contracts wore many down.
An unhappy participant confessed:
You think about money all day everyday […] working out the costs, staffing and lesson prices! Yet they (ski resort managers) tell me as an instructor that I shouldn’t think about my monetary work. Well, if it wasn’t about the money, you wouldn’t charge as much for lessons.
In the period we studied, six returned to a regular 9-to-5 job.
An alternative to meaningless jobs?
The late American anthropologist David Graeber coined the phrase “bullshit jobs” to describe jobs that comprise meaningless tasks that add no real value aside from providing a salary.
Our study offers a window into the lives of those who sought an alternative, trying to build something they love into the daily work they do to earn a living.
For many, despite challenges the ability to ride slopes daily remained more appealing than a desk job. One told us:
At university my first management lecturer said, ‘you could go on to be a CEO, earn $300,000 a year and have a month off every year to go skiing’, and I said, ‘or I could go skiing every day and still afford to eat and pay my rent’. It’s all I really need.
But things didn’t work out for all of them. The experience of those who left suggests choosing meaningful work can be difficult and can force people out if the surrounding organisational system is not supportive.
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.
With Mother’s Day around the corner, you may be wondering what gift you’ll give mum – or any of the mums in your life. This year, why not skip the fancy dinner and offer one of the most precious gifts there is: quality time, in front of the TV.
When I asked seven experts what movies they’d recommend for Mother’s Day, I wasn’t expecting I, Tonya or Alien: Romulus – but their responses have made me realise just how multifaceted the experience of motherhood is, and how weirdly and wonderfully it can be reflected onscreen.
So here’s what to watch if you want to laugh, cry, or scream, in an ode to mothers everywhere.
I, Tonya (2017)
The first film from Margot Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment – which earned Robbie an Oscar nomination for best actress – is an ideal viewing choice for anyone wanting to support Aussie female talent.
Former American figure skater Tonya Harding became a household name in 1994, after her then-husband Jeff Gillooly orchestrated an assault on her primary rival, Nancy Kerrigan, in a bid to block Kerrigan from representing the United States at that year’s Winter Olympics.
I, Tonya presents the event, and those of Harding’s career leading up to it, from a more sympathetic perspective than usual. Although it is careful to open with the caveat that the story is derived from “irony-free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly”, the film presents Harding’s life as one of abuse and cruelty at every turn.
The judges can’t stand her “unfeminine” power. Her husband only shows love through violence. And her heartless mother, LaVona (Alison Janney) is desperate to cash-in on the financial gains from her career success, while simultaneously resenting it.
Janney’s performance as LaVona won her the Academy Award for best supporting actress, a title thoroughly deserved as an ice-cold LaVona chainsmokes through barbed criticisms and physical threats. While I, Tonya may not be the most obvious choice for a film to watch on Mother’s Day, it certainly will make you appreciate yours.
– Jessica Gildersleeve
Stepmom (1998)
Stepmom, starring Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon, is a family weepy for anyone who needs a cathartic cry. Directed by Chris Columbus, the comedy–drama follows the story of terminally ill woman Jackie Harrison (Sarandon) as she comes to grips with the fact her ex-husband’s new girlfriend Isabel (Roberts) will soon be her children’s stepmother.
The film, like others under Columbus’ direction, is a critique of domestic dysfunction (think Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, or Nine Months), and an exploration of the lengths characters will go in order to restore the ruptured (nuclear) family, whether literally or symbolically.
Despite its melodramatic machinery and predictable ending, Stepmom offers a nuanced portrayal of the struggles of children during separation or divorce. We see 12-year-old Anna and her little brother, Ben, an aspiring magician, caught in an emotional tug-of-war between their loyalty to their dying mother and their natural affection for their new stepmum.
In an honest moment, an anxious Ben asks his dad, “can you ever fall out of love with your kids?”
“No, that’s impossible,” Dad responds.
In an equally realistic thread, the sullen Anna begrudgingly turns to Isabel for advice on boys, clothes and makeup – their relationship soon resembling one of sisters rather than adversaries (controversially, Roberts’ character even takes it upon herself to explain the concept of “snowblowing” to the tween).
In 1998, Stepmom was ahead of its time – not in its representation of motherhood, but in its acknowledgement the nuclear family was, even back then, a thing of the past.
– Kate Cantrell
Double Jeopardy (1999)
Like most thrillers made in the 1990s, Double Jeopardy begins in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States: the epicentre for murder and mist.
Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd) is living the idyllic waterfront life with her husband Nick (Bruce Greenwood) and son Matty. After being convinced by Nick to go yachting, Libby wakes up on the boat (during what could best be described as a mist storm) to discover Nick is missing, and there is an endless path of blood from her hands to the yacht’s edge.
Libby is tried and convicted for Nick’s murder. While grieving her son in jail, she finds out her husband is actually alive and has framed her. Libby’s cellmate tells her about the “double jeopardy” rule: you can’t be tried for the same crime twice.
The montage of Libby preparing for revenge in jail signals an uptick in campy action. Upon her release, we’re introduced to parole officer Travis (Tommy Lee Jones). A game of cat and mouse ensues that is equal parts thrilling and ridiculous.
Ultimately, Libby must choose between vengeance and getting her son back. Will she follow the rules and wait, or will she put her relentless jail workouts to good use? Double Jeopardy is profoundly stupid and fun, with all the unexpected charm of a midday movie that pulls you in, despite not making much sense.
It’s just the kind of movie my mum and I have found ourselves glued to on a Saturday afternoon – cheerleaders for revenge.
– Kathleen Williams
Monster-in-Law (2005)
What lengths would you go to protect your son from marrying someone unsuitable? One of the first references to the roles of the mother-in-law can be traced back to Latin literature, and the comedic play Hecyra, by Roman playwright Terence, which was first successfully performed in 160 BC. The play’s comedic twist is that the mother-in-law is accused of hating her son’s wife.
The 2005 box office hit Monster-in-Law (2005) follows this trajectory and takes it to the extreme. Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) becomes manipulative and acts downright dirty to prevent her son, Kevin (Michael Vartan), from getting married to his fiancée Charlie (Jennifer Lopez) – who she thinks is not good enough for him.
This romantic comedy has the conventions of love, romance, a wedding, and overall impending chaos. It is about a mother trying to do what she thinks is best for her son, as well as the fragile links between romantic love, familial love and matriarchy.
In parts, the film transgresses into slapstick territory, as Kevin remains oblivious of Viola’s volatile antics towards Charlie. The tension between the two strong female leads hilariously spirals out of control in the lead-up to the wedding.
Monster-in-Law is a feel-good film that draws on the close bond between mother and child, making it good viewing for Mother’s Day.
– Panizza Allmark
The Wild Robot (2024)
There’s a cultural belief that once your baby is in your arms, you’ll immediately know how to look after them, or that you can draw on your own experience of being mothered, or find the right path in one of eleventy billion parenting books.
But even if you did have a good experience of being mothered (and many don’t), or you find some great books, parenthood remains a journey of uncertainty and trial and error.
When I took my young children to see The Wild Robot, I laughed and cried way more than them. Not just because the animation was so beautiful, or because the story was so moving, but because of the non-didactic moments that resonated so strongly with how we parents feel.
We often don’t know what we’re doing; we’re trying our best, and wishing it will be the right thing – playing out an internal war between wanting to protect our children and wanting them to forge their own path.
In The Wild Robot, Roz the robot (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) is focused on helping her adopted gosling Brightbill (Kit Connor) learn how to fly – something she has no experience of. More importantly, Brightbill must fly on a migration flight with other birds, where she can’t join him.
The film mirrors the beautiful and horrifying knowledge parents carry: if we do our job, our children will become their own individuals who are able and willing to leave us. All we can hope is we’ve formed a bond that will make them want to return.
– Rebecca Beirne
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
Was your mother born overseas? It’s likely. Nearly half of all Australians have a parent born overseas. Or perhaps you married into a family where your “new mum” was born overseas?
Your mother-in-law counts on Mother’s Day. Don’t forget it. And if you married into a wonderfully loud Greek/Italian family as I did, then your mother-in-law is likely a hard worker who deserves to be entertained. So why not offer her, and all the mums in your life, a sweet, disarming rom-com about a clash of cultures and a life milestone all mums can get behind: a wedding. A Big Fat Greek Wedding, to be precise.
Written by and starring Nia Vardalos, this film tells the tale of Toula Portokalos, who, at the “advanced” age of 30, remains persistently unmarried in the early aughts Chicago. In Greek terms, this is already a tragedy. The title does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of what comes next.
The real charm of the film is the clash of cultures that anyone with any ethnic background will recognise.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a small film with huge global success. Will your mum care it was made with a budget of just US$5 million but grossed more than US$360 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable films of all time, with a more than 6,150% return? Probably not.
But she’ll love John Corbett, that tall guy who was also in Sex in City (and he’s really good in this one). Just make sure you skip the sequels.
– Ruari Elkington
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Not everyone wants to watch saccharine romantic comedies on Mothers’ Day. If you can relate, dystopian horror film Alien: Romulus (2024) offers much darker pleasures.
Feminist scholars have long found the Alien franchise to be rife with symbolism and repressed fears about motherhood, birth and reproductive organs. Alien: Romulus goes further than the original 1979 film in making the theme of sexual violation explicit. As you might expect from Fede Álvarez, the director of Evil Dead (2013), there is plenty of body horror as human characters are assaulted and orally impregnated by Alien species.
The film also includes neo-Marxist messages about “the company” and its violation of workers’ bodies. Working mums may enjoy the dark humour of a futuristic corporation that literally sucks the life out of workers before politely thanking them for their service.
Leading action woman Rain Carradine (Cailee Spaeny) is more vulnerable and relatable than the iconic character Ripley of previous films. When Rain discovers her work contract has tipped over into slavery, she joins up with her ex-boyfriend Tyler (Archie Renaux) and his pregnant sister Kay (Isabela Merced) to hijack a space station.
They must then manage a coolly indifferent IT operating system called “MU/TH/UR” to control the ship. The fact Kay is pregnant does not bode well; her baby eventually bursts out as a hideous alien-human mutant which tries to eat her.
Alien Romulus is basically every unspeakable anxiety about pregnancy and motherhood realised through spectacular special effects. It’s also the franchise’s best film since the original.
– Susan Hopkins
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.
Attention now turns to what vision the first U.S. pope will bring.
Change is hard to bring about in the Catholic Church. During his pontificate, Francis often gestured toward change without actually changing church doctrines. He permitted discussion of ordaining married men in remote regions where populations were greatly underserved due to a lack of priests, but he did not actually allow it. On his own initiative, he set up a commission to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, but he did not follow it through.
However, he did allow priests to offer the Eucharist, the most important Catholic sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, to Catholics who had divorced and remarried without being granted an annulment.
Likewise, Francis did not change the official teaching that a sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman, but he did allow for the blessing of gay couples, in a manner that did appear to be a sanctioning of gay marriage.
To what degree will the new pope stand or not stand in continuity with Francis? As a scholar who has studied the writings and actions of the popes since the time of the Second Vatican Council, a series of meetings held to modernize the church from 1962 to 1965, I am aware that every pope comes with his own vision and his own agenda for leading the church.
Still, the popes who immediately preceded them set practical limits on what changes could be made. There were limitations on Francis as well; however, the new pope, I argue, will have more leeway because of the signals Francis sent.
The process of synodality
Francis initiated a process called “synodality,” a term that combines the Greek words for “journey” and “together.” Synodality involves gathering Catholics of various ranks and points of view to share their faith and pray with each other as they address challenges faced by the church today.
One of Francis’ favorite themes was inclusion. He carried forward the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Holy Spirit – that is, the Spirit of God who inspired the prophets and is believed to be sent by Christ among Christians in a special way – is at work throughout the whole church; it includes not only the hierarchy but all of the church members. This belief constituted the core principle underlying synodality.
Pope Francis with the participants of the Synod of Bishops’ 16th General Assembly in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican on Oct. 23, 2023. AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
Francis launched a two-year global consultation process in October 2022, culminating in a synod in Rome in October 2024. Catholics all over the world offered their insights and opinions during this process. The synod discussed many issues, some of which were controversial, such as clerical sexual abuse, the need for oversight of bishops, the role of women in general and the ordination of women as deacons.
The final synod document did not offer conclusions concerning these topics but rather aimed more at promoting the transformation of the entire Catholic Church into a synodal church in which Catholics tackle together the many challenges of the modern world. Francis refrained from issuing his own document in response, in order that the synod’s statement could stand on its own.
The process of synodality in one sense places limits on bishops and the pope by emphasizing their need to listen closely to all church members before making decisions. In another sense, though, in the long run the process opens up the possibility for needed developments to take place when and if lay Catholics overwhelmingly testify that they believe the church should move in a certain direction.
Change is hard in the church
A pope, however, cannot simply reverse official positions that his immediate predecessors had been emphasizing. Practically speaking, there needs to be a papacy, or two, during which a pope will either remain silent on matters that call for change or at least limit himself to hints and signals on such issues.
In 1864, Pius IX condemned the proposition that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.” It wasn’t until 1965 – some 100 years later – that the Second Vatican Council, in The Declaration on Religious Freedom, would affirm that “a wrong is done when government imposes upon its people, by force or fear or other means, the profession or repudiation of any religion. …”
A second major reason why popes may refrain from making top-down changes is that they may not want to operate like a dictator issuing executive orders in an authoritarian manner. Francis was accused by his critics of acting in this way with his positions on Eucharist for those remarried without a prior annulment and on blessings for gay couples. The major thrust of his papacy, however, with his emphasis on synodality, was actually in the opposite direction.
Notably, when the Amazon Synod – held in Rome in October 2019 – voted 128-41 to allow for married priests in the Brazilian Amazon region, Francis rejected it as not being the appropriate time for such a significant change.
Past doctrines
The belief that the pope should express the faith of the people and not simply his own personal opinions is not a new insight from Francis.
The doctrine of papal infallibility, declared at the First Vatican Council in 1870, held that the pope, under certain conditions, could express the faith of the church without error.
The limitations and qualifications of this power include that the pope be speaking not personally but in his official capacity as the head of the church; he must not be in heresy; he must be free of coercion and of sound mind; he must be addressing a matter of faith and morals; and he must consult relevant documents and other Catholics so that what he teaches represents not simply his own opinions but the faith of the church.
The Marian doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption offer examples of the importance of consultation. The Immaculate Conception, proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854, is the teaching that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was herself preserved from original sin, a stain inherited from Adam that Catholics believe all other human beings are born with, from the moment of her conception. The Assumption, proclaimed by Pius XII in 1950, is the doctrine that Mary was taken body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life.
The documents in which these doctrines were proclaimed stressed that the bishops of the church had been consulted and that the faith of the lay people was being affirmed.
Unity, above all
One of the main duties of the pope is to protect the unity of the Catholic Church. On one hand, making many changes quickly can lead to schism, an actual split in the community.
In 2022, for example, the Global Methodist Church split from the United Methodist Church over same-sex marriage and the ordination of noncelibate gay bishops. There have also been various schisms within the Anglican communion in recent years. The Catholic Church faces similar challenges but so far has been able to avoid schisms by limiting the actual changes being made.
On the other hand, not making reasonable changes that acknowledge positive developments in the culture regarding issues such as the full inclusion of women or the dignity of gays and lesbians can result in the large-scale exit of members.
Pope Leo XIV, I argue, needs to be a spiritual leader, a person of vision, who can build upon the legacy of his immediate predecessors in such a way as to meet the challenges of the present moment. He already stated that he wants a synodal church that is “close to the people who suffer,” signaling a great deal about the direction he will take.
If the new pope is able to update church teachings on some hot-button issues, it will be precisely because Francis set the stage for him.
Dennis Doyle 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.
By late last week it was clear Labor would win the election, but it came as more of a surprise when Peter Dutton lost the Queensland seat of Dickson he’d held since 2001.
Nor did many anticipate Greens leader Adam Bandt, member for Melbourne since 2010, would be swept away, in a lower house rout that has seen the minor party stripped of three of its four House of Representative seats.
Both the Liberals and the Greens are in existential moments, in need of new leaders and some painful introspection’s about their future directions.
Thinking back to the Liberal experience after Kevin Rudd’s 2007 victory, some wonder why anyone would be putting up their hand for the party leadership.
The Liberals churned through three leaders between 2007 and 2009. Brendan Nelson took over the party after Labor’s victory; undermined by Malcolm Turnbull, he lasted less than a year. Turnbull survived just over a year before being ousted by Tony Abbott.
Admittedly the experience of Peter Dutton was different – he was given a full term as opposition leader.
But the chances of Dutton’s successor becoming prime minister will be very low. With the added seats Labor has won, the Liberals are looking at a two-term strategy. The odds are on more than one leader, and generational change, in that time. Tim Wilson, 45, who has won back Goldstein, obviously has his eye on the prize in the longer term.
Despite all the disincentives, Sussan Ley, 63, and Angus Taylor, 58, both want this thankless post that’s up for grabs at Tuesday’s party meeting.
The battle has turned into a fight over negatives as much as positives. Supporters of Ley say Taylor did a dreadful job as shadow treasurer, including not producing a tax policy. The Taylor camp argues Ley, the deputy leader, under-performed generally.
Both contenders hold regional NSW electorates. Taylor’s support base is the conservative wing of the party; Leys’ is the moderate wing. The relative weightings of the factions in the Liberal party room has changed somewhat as a result of the election, in the favour of the moderates.
For those Liberal MPs whose votes are not tightly locked in by factional allegiances, there are multiple questions they need to consider.
Who will be able to keep the party together, while forcing it to face up to what changes it must make, and driving a major overhaul of policy? Who can improve the Liberals’ standing with women, and with younger voters? Who can better handle the relationship with the Nationals?
On the last point, anyone who might think it would be best to break the Coalition is, I believe, misguided. Going it alone didn’t work in the 1970s and the 1980s. Different as they may be, the Liberals and Nationals are, electorally, two parts of a whole.
They need their collective numbers to win and they’re better to stay together in opposition, to make the partnership in government work. But the relationship may be rocky.
At the election, the Nationals retained almost all their seats and will have a relatively bigger voice from now on.
On Thursday, however, their highest profile senator, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, jumped from the Nationals to the Liberals. She said she thought she could be more effective in the Liberals, “especially as the party faces a significant rebuild […] I feel obliged to play a robust part in”.
This was a concerted move from the right, and will play into the leadership contest in an as-yet unclear way. With speculation that she might run as Taylor’s deputy, Price was asked on Sky on Thursday night she would be willing to be drafted for a position. “I will not put limitations on myself,” she said.
For the Liberals, there is absolutely no silver lining from this election. The Greens can take some comfort in the fact they’ve retained their numbers (11) in the Senate, with only a small fall in their Senate vote. On the projected results, the Greens are set to be the sole negotiators with the government in the Senate on legislation opposed by the Coalition.
Who will become leader is still an open question, with South Australian veteran Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi, and the party’s Senate leader, Larissa Waters, mentioned. Whoever gets the post, the leadership will return to the Senate, where it always was until Bandt obtained the position in early 2020.
Post election, Anthony Albanese has continued his fierce pre-election attack on the Greens. “What I hope comes out of the new Senate is a bit of a recognition that one of the reasons why the Greens political party have had a bad outcome in the election is the view that they simply combined with the Coalition in what I termed the ‘noalition’, to provide blockages, and that occurred across a range of portfolios, housing, treasury, as well as environment,” he told the ABC.
Albanese was particularly scathing about Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather who lost his seat and criticised parliament as a “sick place”.
“Maybe what he needs is a mirror and a reflection on why he’s no longer in parliament. […] This is a guy who stood before signs at a CFMEU rally in Brisbane describing me as a Nazi.”
Bob Brown, the Greens’ inaugural leader from 2005 to 2012, describes Albanese’s comments as “ungracious” in “his moment of glory”.
While the Greens’ pro-Palestinian position came under much criticism, Brown strongly defends it, declaring it “honorable”.
Brown, speaking to The Conversation, says the Greens will be in an extraordinarily powerful position in the Senate, and their “environmental origins will come back to the fore”. He urges the Greens to “have deaf ears to calls for the Senate to be a rubber stamp”. The Constitution, he says, has the Senate with equal powers with the house except on money matters.
Brown predicts the Greens will be “resurgent” at the next election. His strongest message is directed squarely at the government. “The Greens should never direct preferences to Labor again – because Labor takes preferences with one hand and stabs the Greens with the other.”
Like the new Liberal leader, Bandt’s successor will inherit a party at a fork in the road. Does it become more militant or more moderate, more confrontational in its dealing with the government, or as transactional as possible?
Bandt’s hope of the Greens power-sharing with a Labor government in the lower house has evaporated. So how does the party use what power it has in the Senate, while trying to put itself in the best position to avoid going further backwards at the next election?
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.
Barely hours after being guest speaker at the University of the South Pacific‘s annual World Press Freedom Day event this week, Fiji media industry stalwart Stanley Simpson was forced to fend off local trolls whom he described as “hypocrites”.
“Attacked by both the Fiji Labour Party and ex-FijiFirst MPs in just one day,” chuckled Simpson in a quirky response on social media.
“Plus, it seems, by their very few supporters using myriads of fake accounts.
“Hypocrites!”
Simpson, secretary of the Fiji Media Association (FMA), media innovator, a founder and driving force of Mai TV, and a gold medallist back in his university student journalist days, was not taking any nonsense from his cyberspace critics, including Rajendra, the son of Labour Party leader and former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry.
“I stand by my statements. And I love the attention now put on media freedom by those who went missing or turned a blind eye when it was under threat [under Voreqe Bainimarama’s regime post-2006 coup]. Time for them to own up and come clean.”
Briefly, this is the salvo that Simpson fired back after Rajendra Chaudhry’s comment “This Stanley Simpson fella . . . Did he organise any marches [against the Bainimarama takeover], did he organise any international attention, did he rally the people against the Bainimarama regime?” and other snipes from the trolls.
1. FLP [Fiji Labour Party] At a period 2006-2007 when journalists were being bashed and beaten and media suppressed — the Fiji Labour Party and Chaudhry went silent as they lay in bed with the military regime.
“They try to gloss over it by saying the 1997 constitution was still intact. It was intact but useless because you ignored the gross human rights abuses against the media and political opponents.
“Where was FLP when Imraz, Laisa, Pita and Virisila were beaten? Where were they when Netani Rika, Kenneth Zinck, Momo, Makeli Radua were attacked and abused, when our Fiji Living Office was trashed and burnt down, and Pita and Dionisia put in jail cells like common criminals?
“It was when Chaudhry took on Fiji Water and it backfired and left the regime that they started to speak out. When Aiyaz [Sayed-Khaiyum, former Attorney-General] replaced him as No. 2. By then too late.
“Yes FLP — some of us who survived that period are still around and we still remember so you can’t rewrite what happened in 2006-2007 and change the narrative. You failed!”
“2. Alvick Maharaj [opposition MP for the FijiFirst Party] “The funny thing about this statement is that I already knew last night this statement was coming out and who was writing it etc. I even shared with fellow editors and colleagues that the attacks were coming — and how useless and a waste of time it would be as it was being done by people who were silent and made hundreds of thousands of dollars while media were being suppressed [under the draconian Fiji Media Industry Development Act 2010 (MIDA) and other news crackdowns].
Troll-style swipes. Image: APR screenshot
“Ex-Fiji First MPs protecting their former PR colleagues for their platform which has been used to attack their political opponents. We can see through it all because we were not born yesterday and have experience in this industry. We can see what you are doing from a mile away. Its a joke.
“And your attacks on the [recent State Department] editors’ US trip is pathetic. Plus [about] the visit to Fiji Water.
“However, the positive I take from this — is that you now both say you believe in media freedom.
“Ok now practice it. Not only when it suits your agenda and because you are now in Opposition.
“You failed in the past when you governed — but we in the media will continue to endeavor to treat you fairly.
“Sometimes that also means calling you out.”
USP guest speech As guest speaker at USP, Simpson had this to say among making other points during his media freedom speech:
The USP World Press Freedom Day seminar on Monday. Image: USP/APR
“Journalists today work under the mega spotlight of social media and get attacked, ridiculed and pressured daily — but need to stay true to their journalism principles despite the challenges and pressures they are under.
“Today, we stand at a crossroads. To students here at USP — future journalists, leaders, and citizens — remember the previous chapter [under FijiFirst]. Understand the price paid for media freedom. Protect it fiercely. Speak out when it’s threatened, even if it’s unpopular or uncomfortable.
“To our nation’s leaders and influencers: defend a free media, even when it challenges you. A healthy democracy requires tolerance of criticism and commitment to transparency.”
Fiji rose four places to 40th (out of 180 nations) in the RSF 2025 World Press Freedom Index to make the country the Oceania media freedom leader outside of Australia (29) and New Zealand (16).
In the new parliament the government is expected to need only the Greens to pass the legislation opposed by the Coalition. Counting is not finished but on present indications it won’t require any other Senate crossbenchers.
Given Labor’s enhanced position it makes much harder an independent’s job of holding the Labor government to account and pursuing their own agenda.
One independent who had considerable success pursuing his issues in the last parliament is ACT Senator David Pocock. Pocock saw a massive 18-point swing towards him at the election, easily finishing first, above Labor’s Katy Gallagher.
Pocock now faces the reality that, despite an increase in his vote share, his actual negotiating power is weakened.
Pocock joins us today to talk about the new Senate situation, his aspirations for the next three years and the election generally.
On his stunning result from the ACT,
It was a really humbling result to see so much support. At the last election, I said to Canberrans that I wanted to be accessible and accountable to them and then stand on my record and I really tried to do that. So I think it’s probably a combination of things. One, people wanting someone who’s actually going to stand up for the ACT.
Couple that with a campaign where Peter Dutton and the Coalition made it just so hard for Canberra Liberals. You had a situation where the ACT Senate candidate for the Libs, Jacob Vadakkedathu, was pushing back on public service cuts, was saying how desperately the national capital needs a convention centre and needs it to be funded at least partially by the feds.
On the results more broadly, while Labor saw a massive positive result, Pocock asserts that voters don’t want the status quo.
It’s clearly a big victory for the Labor Party, but I don’t think this is a vote for the status quo. We saw independents across the country making seats marginal, potentially winning seats or holding on to their seats. The swing towards independents was about the same as the swing towards the Labor party.
I think the task of this next parliament is to really crack on with dealing with the big challenges we face in a really constructive way. I don’t think people just want more of the same.
Asked what 2035 climate change target he would like to see, Pocock stresses now is not the time to be cautious,
I think we’ve got to be really ambitious. From what I’ve heard from experts, we need to be looking at [a] 75 to 85, 90% [2035 emissions reductions target]. This is a time to go really hard on this, and we’ll hear the Labor Party, we’ll hear the Coalition say that, well we’re a small jurisdiction, what we do is important but it’s not the big game, we’ve got to support our partners overseas. We are one of the biggest fossil fuel exporters in the world, and we’re one of the highest per capita emitters. So what we do actually really matters.
I think people want to see that sort of leadership. We’re being, I think, essentially conned now that places like Japan need our gas for their energy security – when Japan is now exporting more gas than we send to them.
Pocock highlights that the conduct from both sides during this campaign is why truth in political advertising laws are needed,
When it comes to something like electoral reform, we saw [Labor] do a deal with the Coalition under the guise of we need the major parties to agree on this and get it through parliament. Then when it comes to truth in political advertising laws, Which they’ve committed to doing, they introduced a bill and then they just shelved it because I think it was actually inconvenient for them – because we saw them during this election use some pretty questionable tactics. Both the major parties are doing this, and I think more and more Australians expect better, want better.
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.
The New Zealand Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa made a high profile appeal to Foreign Minister Winston Peters over Gaza today, calling for urgent action over humanitarian supplies for the besieged Palestinian enclave.
“Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court,” said the open letter published by the two organisations as full page advertisements in three leading daily newspapers.
Noting that New Zealand has not joined the International Court of Justice for standing up to “condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war”, the groups still called on the government to use its “internationally respected voice” to express solidarity for humanitarian aid.
The plea comes amid Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza which have killed at least 61 people since dawn, targeting civilians in crowded places and a Gaza City market.
The more than two-month blockade by the the enclave by Israel has caused acute food shortages, accelerating the starvation of the Palestinian population.
Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies — while more than 3000 trucks laden with supplies are stranded on the Egyptian border blocked from entry into Gaza.
At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade. The overall death toll, revised in view of bodies buried under the rubble, stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1139 people killed in Israel.
The open letter, publlshed by three Stuff-owned titles — Waikato Times in Hamilton, The Post in the capital Wellington, and The Press in Christchurch, said:
Rt Hon Winston Peters Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz
Open letter requesting government action on the future of Gaza
Kia ora Mr Peters,
The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.
We urge our country to speak out and join other nations demanding humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
For more than two months, Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Food Programme says food stocks in Gaza are fully depleted. UNICEF says children face “growing risk of starvation, illness and death”. The International Committee of the Red Cross says “the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse”.
Meanwhile, 3000 trucks laden with desperately needed aid are lined up at the Occupied Gaza border. Israeli occupation forces are refusing to allow them in.
Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of International Humanitarian Law and a War Crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.
At the International Court of Justice many countries have stood up to condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war and to demand accountability for Israel to end its industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.
New Zealand has not joined that group. Our government has been silent to date.
After 18 months facing what the International Court of Justice has described as a “plausible genocide”, it is grievous that New Zealand does not speak out and act clearly against this ongoing humanitarian outrage.
Minister Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs you are in a position of leadership to carry New Zealand’s collective voice in support of humanitarian aid to Gaza to the world. We are asking you to speak on behalf of New Zealand to support the urgent international plea for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and to initiate calls for a no-fly zone to be established over the region to prevent further mass killing of civilians.
We believe the way forward for peace and security for everyone in the region is for all parties to follow international law and United Nations resolutions, going back to UNGA 194 in 1948, so that a lasting peace can be established based on justice and equal rights for everyone.
New Zealand has an internationally respected voice — please use it to express solidarity for humanitarian aid to Gaza, today.
Nā
Ann Kendall QSM, Co-chair Tā Taihākurei Durie, Pou [cultural leader] NZ Māori Council
Maher Nazzal and John Minto, National Co-chairs Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)
The NZ Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa advertisement in New Zealand media today. Image: PSNA
Over the last decade, humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) have stabilised after a period of huge growth. Average growth is now down to just 0.6% per year, compared to 2% per year in the previous decade. But levelling off isn’t the same as declining – and we’ve levelled off at a very high rate of emissions. The Global Carbon Project estimates human activities released a record high of 10.2 gigatonnes of carbon (GtC) in 2024.
Last year, the atmosphere’s concentration of CO₂ rose at the fastest rate on record. Over the last decade, atmospheric CO₂ increased an average of 2.4 parts per million (ppm) a year. But last year, concentrations jumped by 3.5 ppm, reaching 424 ppm in the atmosphere. These concentrations are more than 50% higher than the pre-industrial period.
While we’re burning more fossil fuels than ever, recent emissions growth has been offset by falling rates of deforestation and other land use emissions.
Why are CO₂ concentrations still rapidly increasing? We’re still pumping massive amounts of long-buried CO₂ into our atmosphere. The only way for this carbon to leave the atmosphere is through natural carbon sinks – and they’re struggling to keep up.
How do we know the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere?
Perched on a remote and windy clifftop on Tasmania’s northwest tip lies the Kennaook/Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station. This station has an important job: monitoring baseline changes in atmospheric gases. The location was chosen because air here has travelled hundreds of kilometres over the ocean in an area unaffected by local pollution.
CSIRO’s Kennaook/Cape Grim monitoring station on Tasmania’s northwestern tip was chosen because of the clean ocean air. Issy Borley, CC BY-NC-ND
For decades, Australian scientists have directly measured the changes to the atmosphere here. Alongside other monitoring stations worldwide, this gives us an accurate and precise record of changes in greenhouse gases and ozone depleting chemicals in the atmosphere.
Filling the bathtub
Carbon dioxide is very good at trapping heat. Over the Earth’s 4.5 billion years, pulses of CO₂ have created hothouse worlds, very different to the pleasant climate humans have enjoyed since the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago. The last time CO₂ went past 400 ppm was likely more than two million years ago.
It’s easy to confuse CO₂ emissions and concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Emissions influence atmospheric concentrations, but they are not the same.
Releasing long-buried carbon back into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and producing CO₂ emissions is like turning on the tap in a bathtub and the amount of water in the tub is the atmospheric concentration.
The Earth has natural ways of dealing with carbon dioxide. Plants, soils and oceans are carbon “sinks” – they all draw down carbon from the atmosphere and store it. Think of them as the bath’s plughole.
If we think of the atmosphere as a bathtub, our emissions are the tap turned on, natural carbon sinks are the plughole and the water in the bath are the atmospheric CO₂ levels. Issy Borley, CC BY-NC-ND
The problem is, we’re filling up the tub with CO₂ much faster than the Earth’s carbon sinks can pull them out. As a result, CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere rises. Atmospheric CO₂ matters because it is what actually influences climate.
If we apply current global emissions and scenarios where emissions decrease either steadily or rapidly to the CSIRO Simple Carbon-Climate Model, we can estimate how much our bathtub is likely to fill. These graphs show emissions must be significantly cut before we can start to see a fall in atmospheric concentration.
Why did CO₂ concentration jump last year?
The single largest influence in last year’s spike in CO₂ concentration is likely to be changes to carbon sinks.
Every year, oceans, forests and soils absorb about half the emissions humans produce. But this figure isn’t set – it changes as the Earth’s systems change.
For instance, plants grow more in wetter years and store more carbon in their structures through photosynthesis and growth.
But climate change is making fires more intense and more frequent. As trees burn, they release stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Emissions from enormous wildfires in Canada in 2023 and South America in 2024 likely contributed to the atmospheric CO₂ jump.
Recent research suggests a weakened biosphere has strongly contributed. Severe droughts across the northern hemisphere in 2024 cut the ability of the planet’s soils and plant life to soak up and store CO₂.
The speed at which carbon sinks soak up CO₂ depends on environmental conditions, which are largely out of our control. As climate change worsens, the capacity of natural carbon sinks to draw down our emissions will likely reduce.
In the bathtub analogy, water leaves the tub through the plughole. If the plughole narrows, less water can escape and our tub will fill up even faster.
The main lever we can control is the tap on the bathtub – the emissions we produce. Many nations are now cutting their emissions, but not enough to begin the sharp decline in concentration we need.
In the 1980s, the Earth’s thin, protective layer of ozone – just 10 parts per million – was being eaten away by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other chemicals in fridges, air conditioners and aerosol cans. Nations replaced these chemicals and the ozone hole began to close. Fossil fuels are far more important to our current way of life than CFCs were. But we now have good options to replace them across many industries.
This is a crucial moment. Our current rate of emissions will only cause CO₂ concentrations and global temperatures to rise. Natural carbon sinks will not pull out enough carbon to stabilise our climate on a time frame meaningful to humans. The earlier the action and decrease in emissions, the better our future.
Issy Borley receives funding from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Cathy Trudinger 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.
Ray Langenfelds receives funding from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Donald Trump has said the United States should be applying tariffs to movies “produced in foreign lands”. This has the potential to deeply impact the Australian film industry.
Local crews are currently celebrating a boom in big budget production at studios on the Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne. Over the last five years, foreign production has represented almost half of all drama production expenditure in Australia.
But the history of Hollywood making movies in Australia warns us not to get complacent.
When times are good for Australian film crews they can be very good indeed. But global events can leave studios empty and film crew without work.
Hollywood’s influence was felt in Australian production from the silent era.
For its 1927 adaptation of Marcus Clarke’s literary classic For the Term of His Natural Life, local production and distribution company Australasian Films hired Hollywood director Norman Dawn. They felt this was necessary to appeal to American audiences.
For most of the 20th century, Hollywood production used Australia for its exotic setting. Films like On the Beach (1959), Kangaroo (1952) and The Sundowners (1960) brought their crews from America, rather than using Australians.
The Australian federal government established new grant and investment schemes for local films, intended to establish Australian culture in response to American influence.
The local industry’s independence was fervently protected, and we saw the release of films like Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and Newsfront (1978), aimed at establishing a distinct Australian film culture.
The international box office success of George Miller’s 1979 film Mad Max motivated a shift to more commercial, Hollywood-aligned filmmaking in Australia. Many in the industry argued the film illustrated the value of pursuing a popular cinema modelled on American production practices.
This laid the groundwork for Hollywood to become even more integrated with the local production industry.
Studios and infrastructure
The 1988 opening of Village Roadshow Studios and the filming of the 1988 Mission Impossible television series on the Gold Coast ignited the relationship between the Australian film industry and Hollywood that exists today.
These studios were followed by Fox Studios Australia (now Disney Studios Australia) in Sydney, home to productions including The Matrix and Star Wars: Episodes I–III.
Throughout the 1990s, there was a rapid increase in the quantity of footloose production – a term referring to films originating from Hollywood but shooting elsewhere to reduce costs.
The comparatively weak Australian dollar, low labour and construction costs, and strong state government incentives meant that blockbusters like The Matrix could cut their budgets by as much as a third by shooting in Australia rather than Hollywood.
The local industry grew as big budget Hollywood films created jobs for Australian production crews. These crews depended on a steady supply of foreign production, because local productions were not big enough to support local crews.
Bust
The Australian film production industry was thrust into crisis in the second half of the 2000s, when a strong Australian dollar coupled with the global financial crisis wiped out the supply of footloose productions.
In 2008–09, foreign production brought just A$31 million into the country, from a high in 2003–04 of $519 million, adjusted for inflation.
This saw screen employment drop and some production facilities close.
Industry lobbying encouraged the federal government to introduce a 16.5% location tax offset for foreign films shooting in Australia, and a 30% tax offset for post, digital and visual effects.
Combined with the weakening Australian dollar, this brought Hollywood production back with a vengeance by 2014–15.
But the impact that a dry spell of blockbuster production could have on the Australian industry gave Hollywood producers significant negotiating power. In response, state and federal governments offered heavy hitters like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) and Thor: Ragnarok (2017) tens of millions of dollars on top of existing offsets.
Boom
In 2020–21, the expenditure of foreign films shooting in Australia more than doubled compared to previous years. This was due to Australia, and especially Queensland, being one of the few places in the world where production could take place during COVID lockdowns.
Due to stretched infrastructure, parts of the film Spiderhead were shot in the Gold Coast convention centre. Netflix
Growing capacity became a policy priority, and significant investment was directed towards training crew and expanding studio facilities.
The boom in Hollywood expenditure in Australia has resulted in an expansion of local production capability through crew training and investment in facilities.
But, as the global financial crisis bust shows, growth can be a double edged sword. It requires a consistent supply of footloose production to sustain itself.