Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gail Iles, Associate Professor – Physics, RMIT University

Two astronauts have carried out the first-ever commercial spacewalk, using new less-bulky spacesuits designed by SpaceX.

Tech billionaire Jared Isaacman (who also funded the mission) and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis together spent almost half an hour outside their spacecraft at an altitude of some 700 km, further from Earth than any human since the Apollo Moon landings.

The brief jaunt into the void is a significant milestone for commercial spaceflight, with the spacecraft, suits and the overall mission all being SpaceX productions.

What’s so interesting about the mission?

The Polaris Dawn mission stands out for several reasons. In terms of science and technology, the highlight is the test of new spacesuits for extravehicular activity (or EVA). A spacesuit that allows an astronaut to leave their vessel is a small spacecraft in its own right, and interest in new, modern suits is growing as NASA’s planned Artemis missions to the Moon approach.

The mission is travelling around Earth in a highly elliptical orbit, which means its altitude ranges from 192 km way out to 1,400 km. The orbit is taking astronauts through regions of high radiation, including the South Atlantic Anomaly, and may allow for testing of the new suits under these extreme conditions.

Polaris Dawn also carries 36 different experiments, many studying the effects of spaceflight on the human body.

Polaris Dawn is the first of three missions Isaacman plans with SpaceX, which he says will “serve the bigger purpose of opening up space for everyone and making humankind a multiplanetary species”. The second may aim to boost the Hubble Space Telescope’s orbit and prolong its life, while the third may use SpaceX’s reusable Starship rocket (which is currently in the early stages of testing).

Commercial spaceflight on the way up

Perhaps the most significant thing about Polaris Dawn is what it suggests about the future of spaceflight. This is a commercial mission, operated by SpaceX using its own technology without the involvement of government space agencies.

It is not the “space tourism” we have seen from the likes of Blue Origin, sending rich people on sub-orbital joyrides. While the SpaceX mission is funded via private wealth, it is making a genuine contribution to scientific knowledge – and to the future of spaceflight.

One crucial feature of government space programs has been the rigorous training and selection process for astronauts, ensuring those who make it to space know exactly what they are doing. SpaceX is continuing this high level of professionalism, with four extremely well-qualified and prepared astronauts participating in Polaris Dawn.

The Polaris Dawn spacewalk comes as two NASA astronauts are stranded on the International Space Station due to problems with the Starliner space vehicle, which Boeing built for the US space agency at great expense. It is now expected the pair will be rescued next February by a SpaceX vehicle (developed for far less money than Boeing’s).

For all humankind?

The rise of non-government space flight has its critics, who say commercial imperatives and private control have no place in what should be a purely scientific endeavour. SpaceX (with its controversial owner Elon Musk) has also faced criticisms over environmental concerns and treatment of staff.

However, the huge improvements in space technology and reductions in cost that have occurred in recent years are largely due to commercial involvement. When humanity returns to the Moon – and if we one day travel to Mars and beyond – private companies will play an essential role.

And while Polaris Dawn is clearly a passion project for Isaacman, it’s not a vanity project. It will have real benefits in terms of science and technology – and that’s good news for all future human endeavours, in space and here on Earth.

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

– ref. A billionaire and an engineer have completed the first private spacewalk. But this isn’t just a vanity project – https://theconversation.com/a-billionaire-and-an-engineer-have-completed-the-first-private-spacewalk-but-this-isnt-just-a-vanity-project-238980

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nusrat Homaira, Senior Lecturer, School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Sydney

We may think of air pollution as an outdoor problem, made up of car exhaust and smog. But if the air inside our homes is polluted, this can also affect our health.

In Australia, around 12% of childhood asthma can be attributed to gas stoves and the toxic chemicals they release into the air. And while there’s a growing push to phase out gas indoors, some 38% of Australian households rely on natural gas for cooking.

Recommended interventions – such as replacing a gas stove with electric – may not be possible for those who are renting or struggling with the cost of living. This is important because, as our research shows, childhood asthma is more common in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.

If you’re living with gas, here’s how it can affect you or your child’s asthma, and what you can do to improve air quality.

What is asthma?

Asthma is the most common chronic condition in Australian children. The respiratory condition affects almost 400,000 of those aged aged 14 and under – close to 9% of that age group.

Asthma narrows the airways and obstructs airflow, making it hard to breath. Many people manage the condition with inhalers and asthma action plans. But it can be serious and even fatal. Australian emergency departments saw 56,600 presentations for asthma in 2020-21.

While there is no single cause for asthma, both indoor and outdoor air pollution play a significant role.

Being exposed to small airborne particles increases your risk of getting asthma, and can aggravate symptoms if you already have it.

Gas stoves release nitrogen dioxide

The gas stoves commonly found in Australian homes release toxic chemicals into the air. They include carbon monoxide (CO), PM₂.₅ (small particles, often from smoke), benzene, formaldehyde and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). All are harmful, but nitrogen dioxide in particular is associated with asthma developing and getting worse.

Gas heaters can also produce nitrogen dioxide.

As nitrogen dioxide is a tasteless, invisible gas, it’s difficult to know how much is in your air at home unless you have an air monitor. However one US study showed houses with gas stoves can have nitrogen dioxide levels three times higher than houses with electric stoves.

This is particularly concerning for households with children, given children tend to spend most of their time indoors.

Banning gas

There is a growing push across Australia to replace gas stoves with electric stoves, which are more energy efficient and can reduce indoor air pollution.

Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory have announced bans on gas connections in new homes from 2024. Sydney’s Waverley council recently made a similar move.

But until a ban on using household gas appliances is implemented across the country, the problem persists for children who are currently living in old homes or rented properties with gas stoves.

Do exhaust fans in the kitchen help?

Using a high-efficiency exhaust hood placed over an existing gas cooktop can be effective. They can capture more than 75% of air pollutants and direct them outside.

Cooking on the back burner – rather than the front burner – can also improve their efficiency.

However exhaust hoods with lower flow rates, or hoods that don’t vent the air outside, are less effective.

And an exhaust hood only improves air quality if you use it. One study in Melbourne found more than 40% of people didn’t use an exhaust hood regularly while cooking.

For many people, installing high-efficiency exhaust hoods will not be practical – especially for those renting or experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.

Natural ventilation

There is a free way to ventilate your home. Keeping windows open during and after cooking will increase air flow and evidence shows this can improve overall air quality.

However this is not always possible, especially during cooler months of the year which can be especially chilly in places such as Victoria and Tasmania.

Unfortunately, people are also more likely to use gas heaters during those cooler months.

What about heaters?

There are two kinds of gas heaters, flued and unflued.

Like cooking with gas, unflued gas heaters release air pollutants including nitrogen dioxide directly into the home. Flued heaters are better for air quality because they use a chimney, or “flue”, to send emissions outside.

If you can, replacing your unflued gas heater with a flued one – or even better, an electric heater – can significantly alleviate asthma symptoms.

If you can’t replace your unflued gas heater, do not use it overnight in the room where you or your children sleep.

Asthma can’t be cured, but its symptoms can be controlled by managing triggers – and this may be easier to do indoors than out. Improving air quality, even in a rented or old property, can help people with asthma breathe more easily.

Nusrat Homaira receives funding from Asthma Australia, Medical Research Future Fund of the National Health and Medical Research Council of the Australian Government and NSW Ministry of Health for her research. At times Nusrat has received consultation fees from Sanofi, Pfizer, and MSD, taken part as an invited speaker for Sanofi and Advisory board for MSD, all outside of this work. The author has no conflict of interest to declare related to this work.

– ref. Your gas stove might be making your asthma worse. Here’s what you can do about it – https://theconversation.com/your-gas-stove-might-be-making-your-asthma-worse-heres-what-you-can-do-about-it-238787

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Angus, Professor of Digital Communication, Director of QUT Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology

The federal government this week introduced a new bill into parliament aimed at cracking down on the spread of misinformation and disinformation on the internet.

The government also this week announced plans to ban young people from social media platforms and improve privacy protections. These moves have been criticised by experts, who say bans are ineffective, and privacy reforms fall short of what is required in the digital age.

The government published a draft of the new misinformation and disinformation bill last year for public consultation. It received more more than 24,000 responses (including from my colleagues and me).

The new version of the bill suggests the government listened to some expert recommendations from the consultation process, but ignored many others.

What’s in the bill?

The government has adopted an “information disorder” definition of misinformation and disinformation.

Misinformation is content that contains information that is reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive. It’s spread on a digital service and reasonably likely to cause or contribute serious harm.

What makes disinformation different is the intent behind it. If there are reasonable grounds to suspect a person disseminating it intends to deceive, or if there is “inauthentic behaviour” such as the use of fake accounts, it may be disinformation.

Speaking to the ABC, Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said the new bill:

goes to the systems and processes of the platforms and says they need to have methods in place to be able to identify and do something about [misinformation and disinformation].

The design of social media platforms means misinformation and disinformation can spread rapidly. The new bill, which is yet to be voted on, requires platforms to publish a report which assesses this inherent risk. It also requires them to publish a media literacy plan and their current policies about misinformation and disinformation.

The bill also provides stronger powers for the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). These powers would enable ACMA to make specific directives to platforms and impose penalties if they do not comply.

For example, ACMA could require platforms to implement media literacy tools and submit reports on their efforts to combat harmful content.

The new bill does not aim to regulate all misinformation and disinformation. Instead, its focus is on the kind of misinformation and disinformation which is “reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm”.

The definition of serious harm includes:

• harm to the operation or integrity of the electoral or referendum process
• harm to public health
• vilification of a group or individual based on factors such as race, religion, sex or disability
• intentionally inflicted physical injury to an individual in Australia
• imminent damage to critical infrastructure or disruption of emergency services
• imminent harm to the Australian economy.

If a platform breaches the bill, it could face civil penalties of up to 5% of its annual global turnover. For a company such as Meta, which owns Facebook, this could easily run to billions of dollars.

What’s good about the bill?

It is good to see a focus on improving transparency and accountability for social media platforms. However, there is no explicit provision that data platforms share with ACMA be made available to researchers, academics or civil society.

This limits the potential for transparency and accountability.

One significant criticism of the draft legislation was that it had real potential to limit free speech. The bill remains cautious, with protections for political discourse and public interest communication. For example, there are protections for satire and humour, professional news content, and content for academic, artistic, scientific or religious purposes.

The reasonable application of these powers will also be reviewed regularly to assess the impact of the bill on freedom of expression.

Proposed limitations which would have meant the bill did not apply to electoral and referendum matters have also been removed.

This is a vitally important change. Misleading information played a significant role in the recent Voice referendum, and in other elections.

The bill also better addresses instances of coordinated activity under a definition of inauthentic behaviour. This begins to address circumstances where problematic activity is less about the truthfulness of the individual content, rather that it is part of a collective action to artificially amplify the reach of the content.

What’s bad about the bill?

The bill maintains a distinction between misinformation, which is spread by accident, and disinformation, which is spread deliberately.

As my colleagues and I argued in our submission to the government’s draft legislation last year, this distinction isn’t helpful or necessary. That’s because intent is very hard to prove – especially as content gets reshared on digital platforms. Regardless of whether a piece of false, misleading or deceptive content is spread deliberately or not, the result is usually the same.

The bill also won’t cover mainstream media. This is a problem because some mainstream media outlets such as Sky News are prominent contributors to the spread of misinformation.

Notably this has included climate change denial, which is a widespread and pressing problem. The bill does not include climate misinformation in its scope. This greatly diminishes its relevance in addressing the harm done by misinformation.

This bill makes many of the same mistakes as the government’s other recent attempts to reduce online harms. It goes against expert advice and neglects important issues. As a result, it’s unlikely to achieve its goals.

Daniel Angus receives funding from Australian Research Council through Discovery Projects DP200100519 ‘Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures’, DP200101317 ‘Evaluating the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation’, and Linkage Project LP190101051 ‘Young Australians and the Promotion of Alcohol on Social Media’. He is an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society, CE200100005.

– ref. A new law aims to tackle online lies – but it ignores expert advice and doesn’t go nearly far enough – https://theconversation.com/a-new-law-aims-to-tackle-online-lies-but-it-ignores-expert-advice-and-doesnt-go-nearly-far-enough-238889

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Tillott, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University

Think back to when you met someone for the first time. One of the first questions you asked, or were asked, was likely: “what do you do for work?”

It’s a polite, innocuous and socially ingrained way of getting to know more about a person. But it also demonstrates the central role of our professional lives as part of our personal identities.

For professional athletes, their careers, exploits and recognition can become the defining aspect of their identity.

So what happens when sporting careers end?

The transition to retirement, across professions and countries, can be extremely tough to navigate.

It can be especially difficult for elite sportspeople, who can experience retirement as a loss of identity, connected to their sense of achievement, meaning and control in life.

How retirement impacts athletes

A common saying with many sportspeople is “athletes die twice” – once when they retire and again at their death.

Former Wallaby Brendan Cannon has spoken of this difficulty:

[People] want to talk to you about what you used to be, and all you want to focus on is what you want to become.

During the transition to retirement, elite athletes can be affected by how they got into their chosen sport, how long they stayed in the system and the variables that either accelerated or ended their careers.

Other factors include whether they played a team or individual sport, male vs female pathways, whether their exit from sport was voluntary or involuntary and their age when retiring.

My (Sarah) interviews with former professional athletes demonstrate the complexity of retiring from elite sport.

To the public, William Zillman, former NRL star turned vet, seems to have it all together. But it didn’t come without hardship, pain and struggles in navigating the harsh terrain of retirement.

When asked about his retirement, Zillman said: “[Being an NRL player was] all I knew.”

I turned up to work each day, I was told what to do, how to do it and when to do it […] but when I left the system, I think I lost the ability to think for myself. I went from having all the help in the world to very little – it was tough.

Retiring from high-performance sport can have profound effects on an athlete’s physical and mental health, as well as their social and professional development.

While “regular people” usually retire in their 60s or 70s, an athlete’s retirement often occurs earlier, coinciding with crucial phases of career development and family planning.

Some have to adjust from being highly paid and highly managed to surviving on minimum wages with very little support.

“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Ryan James, who considers himself one of the lucky ones, said.

A former forward for the Gold Coast Titans, James has been working closely with the Rugby League Players Association (RLPA) with the aim to address some of the complex issues with the transition experience.

James knows only too well the struggles some people in the system face as their careers begin to wind down:

Many of our players come into the system from disadvantaged and vulnerable backgrounds and while we have made a start, there is more we can be doing. Financial literacy and management is just one avenue we need to tackle. I’ve known too many retired, vulnerable players who were homeless, sleeping in cars with their young families. It’s devastating.

It took former English captain turned NRL superstar James Graham a good part of 18 months to re-configure his identity:

You come out feeling so lost and alone. Most of your life is spent training, connecting with mates, having a lot of routine and structure to almost nothing. It’s strange and confronting.

What are the major codes doing?

Across various sporting codes there are programs that aim to assist athletes to prepare for retirement.

For example, the RLPA has a program to support athletes who are transitioning.

Other major professional Australian codes have similar programs, including the AFL, Professional Footballers Association (soccer) and cricket.

However, whether or not athletes choose to participate in these programs is usually at the discretion of the players.

The importance of planning, preparation and support

One of the key factors influencing how an athlete transitions into life after sport is how much they have prepared for it.

Research with elite athletes from the AFL, NRL and A-League shows those who planned and prepared for life after sport and who had goals, direction and identities beyond sport, experienced more acceptance, autonomy (control) and optimism about the future.

On the other hand, those who were unprepared or did not plan ahead experienced negative emotional and psychological states, and struggled to move on. This negative effect is even more pronounced for those who were forced to end their career due to injury.

How to improve the situation

A recent scoping review explored the notion of retirement for professional athletes and their ability to adapt to life after sport.

It summarised many areas that need more attention:

Make athletes aware of what’s ahead

Expect that when you leave, it may be hard. Reach out to your club, coach and support services and surround yourself with people who you can talk to and who may be able to help.

Athletes should expect that it will take time to adjust, and this adjustment period is crucial for mitigating the adverse effects of retirement. This adjustment period can also significantly reduce the initial negative impacts on their mental and physical health.

Tailored support programs

Developing tailored support programs that address the specific needs of different sports and athlete sub-groups can help mitigate the challenges associated with retirement.

These programs might include career counselling, mental health support and opportunities for continuous involvement in the sports community.

A need for further research

There is a pressing need for more research to identify effective support mechanisms for retiring athletes. Understanding the types of support that facilitate a smoother transition can help in designing programs and interventions tailored to the unique needs of elite athletes.

Additionally, mapping out the factors that aid or hinder the transition across different sports and athlete sub-groups would provide valuable insights.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The psychology of retirement: why do so many athletes struggle to call time? – https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-retirement-why-do-so-many-athletes-struggle-to-call-time-234559

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

The Gaza crisis is a major moral and legal challenge for New Zealand’s sense of national identity, and to its worldview based on rules and principles rather than raw power.

Over the past 11 months, the world has watched as the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel prompted an unrelenting ground and air offensive in Gaza, with financial, logistical and diplomatic backing from the Biden administration in the US.

In the words of New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, the results have been “catastrophic”. It is estimated 69% of the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children.

To date, the National-led coalition’s policy on Gaza seems caught between a desire for an immediate ceasefire and its push for closer alignment with traditional allies like the US. The upshot is a real lack of moral and legal clarity.

Ambiguous foreign policy

Last year, New Zealand backed calls in the UN General Assembly for humanitarian truces or ceasefires in Gaza. It also joined Australia and Canada in February and July of this year to demand an end to hostilities.

Peters told the General Assembly in April the Security Council had failed in its responsibility “to maintain international peace and security”.

He was right. The US exercised its veto on October 18 and December 8 last year, and in February this year, to block Security Council resolutions calling for humanitarian pauses or immediate ceasefires.

And the Biden White House has done little to ensure Israel complies with a US-sponsored ceasefire proposal adopted by the Security Council on June 10.

Nevertheless, the New Zealand government had few qualms about sending a small Defence Force deployment to the Red Sea as part of a US-led coalition effort to counter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial shipping there.

While such attacks are clearly illegal, they are basically part of the fallout from a continuing international failure to stop the US-enabled carnage in Gaza.

By sending the Defence Force team, the government has shown a selective concern for the erosion of international law at a time when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has intervened in the Gaza crisis.

Upholding international law

Closer alignment with the US should not diminish Wellington’s longstanding commitment to a rules-based international order.

Above all, this means the New Zealand government has to participate and adhere to the judgments, orders and advice emerging from the ICJ. It can do this in three ways.

1. Join South Africa’s ICJ action

New Zealand should join other Western countries (including Spain, Ireland and Belgium) and involve itself in South Africa’s case at the ICJ against Israel.

This would allow New Zealand to express an opinion on the plausible applicable of the Genocide Convention. Although official documents show the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has been considering this, it remains unclear whether the government will act.

There is a real risk New Zealand’s international credibility will be on the line if it remains detached from the debate over whether the intentional destruction of a people, in whole or in part, is happening in Gaza.

Such inconsistency is doubly worrying when New Zealand is participating at the ICJ in a similar case involving Russia and Ukraine – under the auspices of the same Genocide Convention.

2. Be consistent on Gaza and Ukraine

New Zealand needs to add its support to the ICJ order of May 24 (part of the ongoing South African case against Israel). One of the key points of the order was that Israel must:

take effective measures to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any
commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by
competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide.

New Zealand’s approach to Gaza should be consistent with its actions over Russia and Ukraine. On that matter, it has supported the International Criminal Court’s calls for accountability for breaches of international humanitarian law.

3. Follow ICJ advice on the Occupied Palestinian Territory

New Zealand should follow the advice of the ICJ’s recent advisory opinion on the “legal consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.

Very clearly, the court concluded Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful. The court also advised other countries to:

• abstain from all treaty relations with Israel in which it purports to act on behalf of the Occupied Palestinian Territory

• abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory

• and take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation.

The ICJ also noted that safe and peaceful Palestinian self-determination and independence “as envisaged in resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly, would contribute to regional stability and the security of all states in the Middle East”.

Given New Zealand is a signatory to the ICJ, it needs to participate in and comply with the court’s rulings.

This is important for bringing an end to the appalling suffering in Gaza. But it is also central to whether New Zealand can sustain its broader credibility as a country that upholds and advocates for an international rules-based order.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Principles or raw power: 3 steps NZ can take to resolve its confused stance on Gaza – https://theconversation.com/principles-or-raw-power-3-steps-nz-can-take-to-resolve-its-confused-stance-on-gaza-238306

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johanna Westbrook, Professor of Health Informatics and Patient Safety, Macquarie University

Every time you are prescribed medicine in hospital a computer will prompt your doctor about the appropriateness of the medicine and its dose.

Every time health professionals update patient records on the computer they need to fill in the appropriate information in the correct spot, or choose an option from a drop-down menu.

But as a growing body of research shows, these electronic systems are not perfect.

Our new study shows how often these technology-related errors occur and what they mean for patient safety. Often they occur due to programming errors or poor design and are less to do with the health workers using the system.

What did we look at? What did we find?

Our team reviewed more than 35,000 medication orders at a major metropolitan hospital to understand how frequently technology-related errors occur.

We focused on errors made when medications are prescribed or ordered via a computer-based system. In many hospitals, these systems have replaced the clipboard that used to hang at the end of a patient’s bed.

Our research showed that as many as one in three medication errors are technology-related. That is, the design or functionality of the electronic medication system facilitated the error.

We also examined how technology-related errors changed over time by reviewing rates of errors at three time points: in the first 12 weeks of using the system, and at one and four years after it was implemented.

We may expect technology-related errors to become less frequent over time as health professionals become more familiar with systems. However, our research showed that although there is an early “learning curve”, technology-related errors continued to be an issue for many years after electronic systems are implemented.

In our study, the rate of technology-related errors was the same four years after the system went in as it was in the first year of use.

How could errors happen?

Errors can happen for a number of reasons. For instance, prescribers can be confronted with a long list of possible dose options for a medication and accidentally choose the wrong one. This can lead to a dose less than, or more than, the one intended.

In our study, we found high-risk medications were frequently associated with technology-related errors. These included oxycodone, fentanyl and insulin, all of which can have serious adverse effects if prescribed incorrectly.

Technology-related errors can also happen at any point in a patient’s care when a computer is used.

One case in the United States involved a nurse accessing and administering the wrong medicine. She obtained the medicine from a computer-controlled dispensing cabinet (known as an automated dispensing cabinet), which is used to store, dispense and track medicines.

Through poor design, the cabinet allowed the nurse to search for a medicine by entering just two letters. Good design would not have displayed any medication options with only two letters.

The nurse selected and administered the wrong drug to the patient, causing cardiac arrest and the nurse faced a criminal trial.

Automated dispensing cabinets are being increasingly rolled out in Australian hospitals.

Earlier this year we heard of an error in South Australia’s electronic medical record system. This miscalculated the due date for more than 1,700 pregnant women, possibly prompting premature inductions of labour.

We produce a series of safety bulletins for the health system that describe and address specific examples of poor system design we have identified during our research or others working in the system have brought to our attention.

These include a drop-down menu that allows prescribing of a medicine via injection into the spine. This particular medicine would be fatal if administered this way.

Another shows an in-built calculator that rounds up or down the doses for medication according to set rules. But this may lead to incorrect doses in very young or lower-weight children.

For each example, we include recommendations to optimise the systems. Organisations can then use these specific examples to test their systems and take action.

What else would improve safety?

With increasing digitisation in our hospitals and health services, the risk of technology-related errors increases. And that’s even before we talk about the potential for error in artificial intelligence used in our health systems.

We’re not calling for a return to paper-based records. But until we commit to the task of making computer-based systems safe, we will never fully benefit from the enormous potential digital systems could deliver in health care.

Systems need to be continually monitored and updated, to make them easier and safer to use and to prevent issues from becoming catastrophic.

Health IT managers and developers need to understand errors and recognise when system design is suboptimal.

Since clinicians are often the first to notice issues, there should also be mechanisms to investigate and address their concerns promptly, supported by systematic data on technology-related errors.

Johanna Westbrook receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Medical Research Futures Fund (MRFF)

Magda Raban receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund, NSW Health and Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

– ref. Need medicine in hospital? Our study finds how often IT flaws lead to the wrong drug or dose – https://theconversation.com/need-medicine-in-hospital-our-study-finds-how-often-it-flaws-lead-to-the-wrong-drug-or-dose-238424

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University

New research published in Science shows that for some people who believe in conspiracy theories, a fact-based conversation with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot can “pull them out of the rabbit hole”. Better yet, it seems to keep them out for at least two months.

This research, carried out by Thomas Costello at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues, shows promise for a challenging social problem: belief in conspiracy theories.

Some conspiracy theories are relatively harmless, such as believing Finland doesn’t exist (which is fine, until you meet a Finn). Other theories, though, reduce trust in public institutions and science.

This becomes a problem when conspiracy theories persuade people not to get vaccinated or not to take action against climate change. At its most extreme, belief in conspiracy theories has been associated with people dying.

Conspiracy theories are ‘sticky’

Despite the negative impacts of conspiracy theories, they have proven very “sticky”. Once people believe in a conspiracy theory, changing their mind is hard.

The reasons for this are complex. Conspiracy theorist beliefs are associated with communities, and conspiracy theorists have often done extensive research to reach their position.

When a person no longer trusts science or anyone outside their community, it’s hard to change their beliefs.

Enter AI

The explosion of generative AI into the public sphere has increased concerns about people believing in things that aren’t true. AI makes it very easy to create believable fake content.

Even if used in good faith, AI systems can get facts wrong. (ChatGPT and other chatbots even warn users that they might be wrong about some topics.)

AI systems also contain widespread biases, meaning they can promote negative beliefs about some groups of people.

Given all this, it’s quite surprising that a chat with a system known to produce fake news can convince some people to abandon conspiracy theories, and that the change seems to be long lasting.

However, this new research leaves us with a good-news/bad-news problem.

It’s great we’ve identified something that has some effect on conspiracy theorist beliefs! But if AI chatbots are good at talking people out of sticky, anti-scientific beliefs, what does that mean for true beliefs?

What can the chatbots do?

Let’s dig into the new research in more detail. The researchers were interested to know whether factual arguments could be used to persuade people against conspiracy theorist beliefs.

This research used over 2,000 participants across two studies, all chatting with an AI chatbot after describing a conspiracy theory they believed. All participants were told they were talking to an AI chatbot.

The people in the “treatment” group (60% of all participants) conversed with a chatbot that was personalised to their particular conspiracy theory, and the reasons why they believed in it. This chatbot tried to convince these participants that their beliefs were wrong using factual arguments over three rounds of conversation (the participant and the chatbot each taking a turn to talk is a round). The other half of participants had a general discussion with a chatbot.

The researchers found that about 20% of participants in the treatment group showed a reduced belief in conspiracy theories after their discussion. When the researchers checked in with participants two months later, most of these people still showed reduced belief in conspiracy theories. The scientists even checked whether the AI chatbots were accurate, and they (mostly) were.

We can see that for some people at least, a three-round conversation with a chatbot can persuade them against a conspiracy theory.

So we can fix things with chatbots?

Chatbots do offer some promise with two of the challenges in addressing false beliefs.

Because they are computers, they are not perceived as having an “agenda”, making what they say more trustworthy (especially to someone who has lost faith in public institutions).

Chatbots can also put together an argument, which is better than facts alone. A simple recitation of facts is only minimally effective against fake beliefs.

Chatbots aren’t a cure-all though. This study showed they were more effective for people who didn’t have strong personal reasons for believing in a conspiracy theory, meaning they probably won’t help people for whom conspiracy is community.

So should I use ChatGPT to check my facts?

This study demonstrates how persuasive chatbots can be. This is great when they are primed to convince people of facts, but what if they aren’t?

One major way chatbots can promote misinformation or conspiracies is when their underlying data is wrong or biased: the chatbot will reflect this.

Some chatbots are designed to deliberately reflect biases or increase or limit transparency. You can even chat to versions of ChatGPT customised to argue that Earth is flat.

A second, more worrying probability, is that as chatbots respond to biased prompts (that searchers may not realise are biased), they may perpetuate misinformation (including conspiracy beliefs).

We already know that people are bad at fact checking and when they use search engines to do so, those search engines respond to their (unwittingly biased) search terms, reinforcing beliefs in misinformation. Chatbots are likely to be the same.

Ultimately, chatbots are a tool. They may be helpful in debunking conspiracy theories – but like any tool, the skill and intention of the toolmaker and user matter. Conspiracy theories start with people, and it will be people that end them.

Dana McKay has received funding from the University of Melbourne, City, University of London, RMIT University and the Google News Initiative to study how online information affects people’s views.

Johanne Trippas receives funding from RMIT University and the University of Melbourne to study conversational systems.

– ref. Can AI talk us out of conspiracy theory rabbit holes? – https://theconversation.com/can-ai-talk-us-out-of-conspiracy-theory-rabbit-holes-238580

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kit MacFarlane, Lecturer, Creative Writing and Literature, University of South Australia

Most of us can think of a TV medical drama that stood out at some point in our lives.

The Good Doctor (2017–24) is finishing its seven-year run. Grey’s Anatomy (2005–) is in its 20th year. ER (1994–2009) dominated the 1990s.

The 1980s brought St Elsewhere (1982–88) and Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989–93), and the 1970s a legendary 11 years of M*A*S*H (1972–83).

Dr Kildare and Ben Casey had similar TV lifespans, both running from 1961 to 1966, in a decade capped with Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969–76).

Even if you don’t like TV medical dramas, they’re about as easy to avoid as hay fever in Canberra. But one of the most interesting and influential shows isn’t as well remembered.

Medic was created by James Moser and first broadcast on NBC in September 1954. It only lasted for two years but played a key role in shaping not only the TV medical drama, but also the image of the medical industry itself. So what was Medic, and how does it look 70 years later?

No romantic compromises with truth

Using an anthology format, Medic would present a different medical case or concept each week. The episodes regularly focused on the process of diagnosis, treatment and fighting social stigmas. The only regular presence was Richard Boone as Dr Konrad Styner, who introduced each episode but would only sometimes appear in the stories.

What set Medic apart from other medical dramas at the time was its intense focus on medical technology and procedure.

Rather than just using a hospital as a general setting for character conflicts, Medic sought to portray the drama that is an inherent part of illness and treatment. It combined this with extensive use of actual hospital resources.

Its first episode portrays a young woman diagnosed with terminal leukaemia shortly before she is due to give birth. It’s a bold debut, including footage of a real birth and not shying away from end-of-life scenarios as part of medical care.

The episode introduction states its goal bluntly:

there’s too much dignity and too much suffering in the fact of life to justify any romantic compromises with truth. There’s excitement enough and triumph enough in truth.

Horrified fascination

Medic’s first episode had an immediate impact.

One newspaper response declared “horrified fascination. I’m not at all sure I was enjoying myself but I couldn’t tear myself away”.

Others described “the most outspoken dialogue and shocking scenes ever offered the general public” with “no cushion for the over-sensitive viewer to fall back upon”, “simple yet explosive immediacy” and “strong, gutty, graphic medicine for the average television viewer […] a record of events that happen every day to people like the next-door neighbour, the fellow at the office – and sometimes you”.

It was called “a stunner” that “may well prove to be one of the few really worthy programs on television”.

Elements may seem outmoded to a modern viewer (a couple of moments will definitely raise an eyebrow!) but the underlying human turmoil isn’t a thing of the past.

Tremendous impact

Decades before the famous ripples caused by 1980s TV productions The Day After and Threads, Medic episode Flash of Darkness presented a grim vision of a nuclear strike.

Like those later productions, the episode sparked public discussions, one report describing a

much-discussed program […] hailed as one of the most powerful and moving ever televised.

Its “tremendous impact” meant “requests from civil defense leaders for prints of the heart-tugging drama […] poured into the Medic’s production offices”.

It was said to be “directly responsible for a 200% increase in volunteers offering their services to Civil Defense”.

Not every episode of Medic had the same impact, but the approach remained largely consistent. Some episode topics could appear “for the first time on TV” such as a story on sterility. The broadcast of an episode showing a caesarean section birth for the first time was cancelled by NBC, resulting in letters of support for the series.

Doctorganda?

Medic’s legacy has some notable problematic elements.

Establishing connections with medical authorities, Medic could use real hospitals, equipment and even doctors in its weekly episodes. This made Medic a powerful tool for social influence.

Recognising this, The Los Angeles County Medical Association provided resources – but this came with the proviso of substantial control over scripts and the portrayal of doctors.

As Joseph Turow writes in his detailed study, Medic became the first time

the interests of individual producers, organised medicine, and the commercial television industry began to come together around prime-time storytelling.

This unfortunately also connected to “[enforcing] the overwhelmingly male and white complexion of their profession”.

Later medical series softened Medic’s austere tone and abandoned its anthology format. But what Turow calls the “symbiotic relationship between doctor-show producers and powerful medical organisations” stuck around.

Storytelling in today’s medical dramas remains a powerful lever for influence.

With its carefully controlled portrayal of health care, Medic is a case study for why viewers need to remain alert to the shaping of the lingering images pop culture presents.

Health and storytelling

Watching Medic 70 years later can be an austere experience – but an interesting one.

Despite social and technological changes, Medic still has a lot to offer a thoughtful viewer. Its frank presentations ultimately focus on removing social stigma and prejudice in support of physical, mental and social health.

Outdated elements are worth studying, too. They’re a sign of where we’ve been, what’s changed, and what hasn’t.

The Age may have called it “that frightening program for hypochondriacs”, but Medic’s combination of health and drama may still have things to teach us.

Storytelling can be a key method for health communication and helping doctors and patients connect. We still face serious public health challenges that require effective communication for social awareness and action.

Day 10, a Medic episode about containing an infectious outbreak despite political resistance, isn’t just a history lesson.

Medic’s socially focused approach to storytelling may not be quite so outdated after all.

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

– ref. Medic at 70: long before Meredith Grey or Doogie Howser, this show shaped the modern medical drama – https://theconversation.com/medic-at-70-long-before-meredith-grey-or-doogie-howser-this-show-shaped-the-modern-medical-drama-234371

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jaimie Monk, Research fellow , Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

Poverty has long been established as a crucial factor hindering the development of young children. Living in poverty can hurt a child’s lifelong health, social and educational outcomes.

But much less is known about the way income affects children via its effect on their parents.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, 12.5% of children live in material hardship, which means their households are going without some of the essentials due to cost.

Our new study examined whether a higher family income helps support children’s behavioural development. This is important, as children’s behavioural (or social and emotional) development sets the foundation for longer term positive mental health and academic success.

Our findings highlight the importance of supporting parents to be engaged with preschool children. And one of the key ways to do this is to reduce poverty and parental stress.

Income and behaviour

To better understand the links between childhood poverty and behaviour, we used data from more than 6,000 New Zealand mothers and their children in the Growing Up in New Zealand study. We followed the children from pregnancy to eight years of age.

We examined the same families over time and then broke down what was causing the differences in behavioural development between children from high and low-income families.

In particular, we looked at children’s social and emotional development by examining a combined score which reflected their conduct, hyperactivity, emotion and peer relationship problems, as reported by their mothers.

Children with high scores may have problems with areas such as friendship and paying attention at school, and these issues may be a forerunner for future mental health problems.

Our results showed that for periods where family income was higher, children had fewer reported behaviour problems than during periods where income was lower – but only in the preschool years.

A higher family income seemed to help children’s early social and emotional development and head off behaviour problems. But why?

The role of adults

During the preschool years, back and forth (known as “serve and return”) interactions between adults and children are considered crucial for children’s brain development.

And in our models, the factors driving differences in preschool behavioural development scores are those related to the mother-child relationship.

Some of the most important factors were differences in mothers’ stress, and in parenting behaviours related to stress, such as yelling and arguing with children.

While facing small challenges in a supportive environment is good for children’s development, being constantly exposed to a stressful environment during these developing years has been shown to wire children’s brains in unhealthy ways.

Mothers on lower incomes had higher levels of stress. When we examined what was driving these differences in stress across the income groups, we found maternal health and housing issues, such as moving frequently, were driving factors.

Overall, a higher income appears to lower stress and create space for more engaged parenting, benefiting children’s social and emotional development.

How does technology fit?

We also saw important differences in children’s screen time and reading together with parents.

When we compared children against themselves at different points in time, greater screen use was associated with more behaviour problems at two and four-and-a-half years, but not at eight years.

Screen use also explained some of the differences in behavioural problems across the income groups – but it was part of a wider picture and should not be considered in isolation.

But it is about balance. In Aotearoa, parents are often without day-to-day practical support (such as extended family) to help with caregiving. Technology may be the only way some parents feel they can get a break.

Investing in parents to help children

While our results give clear support for increasing income to encourage children’s social and emotional development, this doesn’t necessarily mean encouraging all mothers back to work. Working mothers also had higher levels of stress.

Our findings do suggest any policies that increase parental wellbeing are likely to have flow-on benefits for young children. Conversely, any policies that increase stress for parents are likely to negatively affect children’s development.

This means government agencies that support families should make it as easy as possible for families to access that support, and ensure it is provided consistently and with certainty

Jaimie Monk has received funding from the Ministry of Social Development’s Children and Families Research Fund and currently works on a project funded by the MBIE Endeavour Programme.

Arthur Grimes receives funding from an MBIE-funded Endeavour programme grant. He is a Senior Fellow with Motu Research

Kate C. Prickett has received funding from the Ministry of Social Development as part of this research.

Philip S. Morrison receives funding from from the Ministry of Social Development as part of this research.

– ref. New study links low incomes, stressed parents and child behaviour – better support would bring lifelong benefits – https://theconversation.com/new-study-links-low-incomes-stressed-parents-and-child-behaviour-better-support-would-bring-lifelong-benefits-238762

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Professor, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney

Australia’s deep housing crisis is causing enduring and widespread harm. A key impact is that it is increasing inequality.

The children of parents who have paid off their mortgage and have disposal income are far more likely to become home owners. They will be better off as a result. On the other side of the coin, a growing proportion of young Australians feel they will never be in a position to buy a home and will be lifelong private renters.

It has been powerfully argued that an overly generous tax regime has fuelled the housing crisis. Figures released recently by the Parliamentary Budget Office reveal the enormity of the tax revenue forgone due to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions on residential property. This lost revenue over the past ten years totalled A$84.11 billion.

Some recent polls suggest a majority of Australians now support limiting or abolishing these tax concessions.

Ideally, the government would reform a tax regime that strongly encourages the financialisation of housing, meaning it’s now seen as a financial asset and investment. As a result, potential home buyers must often compete with investors who are prepared to pay more, driving up prices.

What’s more, if the lost revenue had instead been available to invest in building social housing, it would have been almost enough to clear the long waiting lists across the nation.

What exactly are these tax concessions?

Negative gearing applies in a situation where “expenses associated with an asset (including interest expenses) are greater than the income earned from the asset […] Individuals who are negatively geared can deduct their loss against other income, such as salary and wages.”

Essentially, residential property investors use negative gearing to reduce their tax.

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

The capital gains tax concession greatly reduces the tax on profits from selling property. Investors who have held the property for more than 12 months are only taxed on 50% of its increase in value when it is sold. If a person sells their own home, that is the one they live in, they are not subject to any tax, however great the profit.

In opposition, the Labor Party went to the 2016 and 2019 federal elections promising to halve the 50% capital gains tax deduction and limit negative gearing to new properties only. The latter reform was designed to increase the incentive to build new homes.

There is a perception within the Labor Party that the Coalition’s attack on these policies contributed to Labor’s surprise defeat in 2019. Labor dropped the policies before winning the 2022 election. The government now appears averse to any mention of scrapping or adjusting these measures.

Read more:
Now it’s Liberals telling us we are going to have to cut the capital gains tax concession if we want to get Australians into homes

Lost revenue could fund badly needed housing

In response to the housing crisis, the federal government has put in place a range of measures it says will increase the supply of social and affordable housing. Its target is at least 30,000 homes over the next five years. (The total is made up of 10,000 affordable housing and 20,000 social housing units.)

The effect of policies announced so far is a drop in the ocean compared to the depth of the housing crisis. An analysis of 2021 census data found about 640,000 Australian households, or one in 15 households, were not in affordable or appropriate housing. That is, they were homeless or in housing that was overcrowded or they could not afford.

As for social housing, by June 2023 184,100 households were on waiting lists nationally. Of these households, 69,700 were assessed as being in “greatest need”.

Of course, it’s a challenge to find the money to build enough housing to meet this level of need. But acting on the revenue lost to negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts could make a huge difference to both the housing crisis and government’s capacity to resolve it. Labor recognised this in the past.

Imagine if the $84 billion in revenue forgone over the past decade had been available to invest in building social housing. If each dwelling cost $500,000, 168,000 homes could have been built. That would have been enough to all but eliminate social housing waiting lists across the nation.

And, as the chart below shows, the revenue forgone is expected to soar over the next decade. Compared to the past decade, the Parliamentary Budget Office predicts the cost to the budget of negative gearing will increase nearly three times and capital gains tax by around 50%. In combination, the revenue forgone is projected to double to an astonishing $165.58 billion.

Again, if hypothetically $165.58 billion was put into building social housing and each dwelling cost $500,000 to build, more than 330,000 homes could be built over the next ten years.

These figures would be very difficult for the Coalition to dispute. If Labor had the courage to act on its original convictions and the advice of economists, and housing scholars, it has 165 billion reasons to once more put adjusting, or ideally scrapping, negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions back on the table.

Alan Morris receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

– ref. $84bn lost to housing tax lurks? That would go a long way towards ending the housing crisis – https://theconversation.com/84bn-lost-to-housing-tax-lurks-that-would-go-a-long-way-towards-ending-the-housing-crisis-237333

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Clement, Research Associate in the College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University

Coelacanths are deep-sea fish that live off the coasts of southern Africa and Indonesia and can reach up to two metres in length. For a long time, scientists believed they were extinct.

In new research published in Nature Communications, we reveal the best-preserved coelacanth fossil ever found from the ancient period hundreds of millions of years ago when these ancient sea-dwellers first evolved. The fossil comes from the Gogo Formation on Gooniyandi Country in northern Western Australia.

We also studied the evolution of all the hundreds of coelacanth species we know from the fossil record to find out what drove the creation of new species across the aeons.

The answer came as a surprise: the greatest influence on coelacanth evolution was not ocean temperature or oxygen levels but tectonic activity. When the vast plates of Earth’s crust were moving around more, new species were more likely to appear.

‘Living fossils’

Coelacanths are “lobe-finned” fish, which means they have robust bones in their fins a bit like the bones in our arms. Scientists believe they are more closely related to tetrapods (animals with backbones and four limbs, such as frogs, emus and humans) than to most other fishes.

Coelacanths have been around for a long time. The oldest known fossils are more than 410 million years old. But because these fossils are mostly fragments, we don’t know a lot about what the earliest coelacanths were like.

Later, during the age of dinosaurs which began around 250 million years ago, coelacanths became more diverse. In total, we have found traces of more than 175 fossil species from all over the globe.

Finally, at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago, all signs of coelacanths mysteriously vanished from the fossil record. For a long time, scientists assumed the coelacanths were casualties of the massive asteroid impact that also signed the death warrant of the dinosaurs (along with around three-quarters of all life on Earth).

All that changed in 1938, when fisherpeople in South Africa pulled a large, enigmatic fish from the ocean depths that was like nothing they had seen before. A local museum employee with a keen interest in the natural sciences, Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, immediately knew the fish was special.

Courtenay-Latimer enlisted her friend J. L. B. Smith, a renowned South African chemist with an interest in ichthyology (the study of fish). Smith identified and named Latimeria, the first living coelacanth known to science.

Discovering this “Lazarus fish” was like stumbling across a live Triceratops dinosaur still roaming the forests of North America today. Even today, coelacanths are often described as “living fossils”.

A new fossil coelacanth

Our team from Flinders University, together with other colleagues from Australia, Canada and Europe, discovered a new species of fossil coelacanth on Gooniyandi Country in northern WA. Around 380 million years ago, the site was a tropical reef teeming with more than 50 species of fish.

Ngamugawi wirngarri, the new fossil coelacanth, is the first fish found in the area to bear a name given to us from the Gooniyandi language. The name means “ancient fish in honour of Wirngarri”, a respected elder of the community.

Ngamugawi is the best three-dimensionally preserved coelacanth from the Devonian Period (359 million to 419 million years ago). This fossil provides a great insight into the early anatomy of this lineage.

Plate tectonics drive coelacanth evolution

Our study of the new species led us to analyse the evolutionary history of all known coelacanths. In doing so, we calculated the rates of evolution across their 410 million year history.

We found that coelacanths have generally evolved slowly, with a few intriguing exceptions.

Furthermore, we analysed a series of environmental factors that we considered potential candidates for influencing coelacanth evolutionary rates. These included tectonic plate activity, ocean temperatures, water oxygen levels, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

Of all the variables we looked at, the one with the greatest influence on the rate of coelacanth evolution was tectonic plate activity. New species of coelacanth were more likely to evolve during periods of heightened tectonic activity, as seismic movement transformed habitats.

Are coelacanths still evolving?

Along with our analysis of all fossil coelacanths, we also had a close look at the two living species, Latimeria chalumnae and Latimeria menadoensis.

At first glance, these fish look almost identical to some of their counterparts from hundreds of millions of years ago. However, on closer analysis we could see they were in fact distinct from their extinct relatives.

While Latimeria has essentially ceased evolving new features, the proportions of its body and the details of its DNA are still changing a little. So perhaps it’s not a “living fossil” after all.

Alice Clement receives funding from the Australian Research Council and is employed by Flinders University.

John Long receives funding from The Australian Research Council and is employed by Flinders University.

– ref. Exceptional new fish fossil sparks rethink of how Earth’s geology drives evolution – https://theconversation.com/exceptional-new-fish-fossil-sparks-rethink-of-how-earths-geology-drives-evolution-236693

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

In agreeing earlier to the Albanese government’s changes to the NDIS and now endorsing its aged care reforms, Peter Dutton is calculating it’s easier for Labor than the Coalition to find big savings that produce serious “losers”.

There was only a small risk for the Coalition in embracing the NDIS reforms. These are largely focused on tackling rorts and reducing eligibility, and the political pain is mostly immediate and directed at the government.

The changes to aged care are, in political terms, rather more complicated for the opposition.

People already in the system will be grandfathered. But there’ll be many who know they do or could face the prospect of entering the aged care system in the not too distant future. They and their families will be looking at paying more. And this is when everyone’s attention is on the cost of living.

Importantly for the Liberals, those particularly hit will be self-funded retirees who, as some Liberals noted at Thursday’s Coalition parties meeting, are “our people”.

Governments of both complexions have found aged care policy a nightmare. By agreeing to the deal, the opposition has limited its ability to attack the government over the issue at the coming election, although some in Labor will fear it could still find some room to do so. The final package was rushed through caucus, where there were a handful of questions but no dissent.

Essentially the Coalition has sacrificed a possible short-term political advantage for a longer-term budgetary gain for a future conservative government.

This week saw a huge flurry of government activity, on issues ranging from social media to hate speech. It’s as if the government looked up at the clock and saw time was rapidly getting away from it for passing legislation. Somehow it has slipped up in organising its program.

But what loomed largest was tying down the aged care deal.

It’s been slow in coming. Although the Coalition had signalled early on that it was likely to be up for an agreement, it was happy to string things out, both to press for concessions and to make the government sweat.

The opposition said it had extracted a number of “significant changes” in the negotiations, among them grandfathering arrangements, the removal of criminal penalties that it said could have seen staff leave the sector for fear of such punishments, as well as the removal of provisions that would have “forced unionism into every aged care home”.

Like the NDIS changes, the aged care reform is crucially about sustainability – the budget bottom line.

The key net numbers from the package are a $930 million spend over four years and a $12.6 billion saving over the coming 11 years.

The government is aiming to cut the rate of increase in spending on the NDIS from around 11% to 8% annually by 2026.

On aged care, it estimates that as a result of its reforms, spending over the decade to 2034-35 will fall from a projected average annual growth of 5.7% down to 5.2%. As a share of GDP it would decline from 1.5% to 1.4% – despite the number of participants in the system rising.

The NDIS spending has been spiralling out of financial control because of flaws in the scheme that were not corrected. It was never meant to cover the number or range of people and disabilities that have come into it.

The aged care system’s unsustainability is driven in large part by demographics – Australia’s ageing population.

The government points out that over the next four decades, the number of Australians over 65 is set to more than double. Those over 85 will more than triple. By 2050 the residential aged care sector will need $56 billion in capital funding to upgrade and expand accommodation.

As the government puts it bluntly, “current funding arrangements  are not sufficient: in 2022-23, 46% of providers made a loss from accommodation”.

Under the government’s changes, there will be larger means-tested contributions for new entrants. But half of new residents will not have to contribute more – these include seven in ten full pensioners and one in four part pensioners.

For home care, which more and more people want, the government will pay for all clinical care, such as nursing and occupational therapy. Based on their means, recipients will contribute to the help they receive to live independently (such as assistance to shower and dress) and with ordinary living costs, including cleaning, gardening and preparing meals.

While some of the potential losers will be unhappy with the changes, many experts and observers will see it as a good policy to have those who can afford it pay more for their care.

Joseph Ibrahim, professor of aged care at La Trobe University, is not one of them. Rather than expanding user pays, he believes a more equitable system would be to have the community generally contribute what more is required.

Ibrahim sees a user pays system as unfair, and casts aged care as similar to schooling and health care.

“We don’t apply a user pays system to our schools where high need students pay more. In the health system, people who are in intensive care don’t pay more than those who go to the outpatients section.

“No one chooses to have a disability that comes with cognitive or physical decline. User pays is punishing people. They are seen by politicians as soft targets.”

Ibrahim plays down the argument about the increasing proportion of GDP the aged care system is taking up, saying this could be accommodated by making adjustments to other priorities.

While Thursday saw the “deal” done, the political story is far from over. “We look forward to now having an open conversation with older Australians and the aged care sector about the government’s proposed reforms,” the Coalition’s aged care spokeswoman Anne Ruston said.

There is a Senate inquiry ahead. Stakeholders will pore over the details. Those seeing themselves as losers will raise their voices. Baby boomer heat could come onto both sides.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Coalition backs Labor’s heavy lifting on aged care, hoping to reap the benefit down the track – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-coalition-backs-labors-heavy-lifting-on-aged-care-hoping-to-reap-the-benefit-down-the-track-238878

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke McNamara, Professor, UNSW Sydney

Back in May, the Albanese government told us to expect strict new hate speech laws.

In its bill introduced to parliament this week, though, the government has stepped back from the plan to criminalise racist hate speech.

Instead, conduct will be criminalised only where it involves “threats of force or violence”.

This will be disappointing to some, particularly those who were looking for stronger protections against racism – including antisemitism and Islamophobia – in the wake of the ructions caused in Australia by the events in Israel and Palestine.

But when this latest development is placed in the longer history of the development of hate speech laws in Australia, we see it continues a consistent pattern of preferring civil remedies over criminal penalties to address most forms of group vilification.

A long-standing battle

Since at least the 1970s, Australian governments have been trying to work out what laws, and in what form, are required to address racism.

Something close to consensus was reached on the idea that racial discrimination should be unlawful. It now is under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, as well as anti-discrimination statutes in every state and territory.

Consensus on the legal regulation of racial vilification (sometimes referred to as racist “hate speech”) has been more elusive.

Nonetheless, 30 years ago, the then-Labor government did manage to add a hate speech provision (section 18C) to the Racial Discrimination Act when parliament enacted the Racial Hatred Act 1995.

The states and territories also have their own versions of vilification laws (addressing race and a range of other grounds).

A bold approach, initially

When the Albanese government announced this year it was planning to legislate further on hate speech, the suggestion it would include new criminal offences caught the attention of lots of people. This included academics like me who have researched vilification laws since the 1990s.

We raised our eyebrows because a defining feature of Australia’s attempts to legislate in this area has been a preference for civil laws – where an aggrieved person can take private action against those responsible – over criminal laws.

The use of criminal laws has been seen as too great an infringement of the right to freedom of expression.

Even though it receives only patchy and relatively weak legal protection in Australia, free speech “sensitivity” has been a powerful force in political debates in this country.

Some politicians have also not been shy about weaponising it, such as when the Coalition government established an inquiry in 2018 into whether free speech was being adequately protected on university campuses.

Given this history, the Albanese government’s announcement in May set the stage for another fiery debate about what laws were best suited to addressing hate speech. As it happens, this also came ten years on from a succession of (unsuccessful) efforts by Coalition governments to curtail section 18C or effectively repeal it altogether.

But the Albanese government has now stepped back from its initial plan. Instead, the modified and new criminal offences will only apply to conduct that not only vilifies, but also involves threats of violence or force against a group (or a member of a group).

This is a much less controversial form of criminalisation. And most Australian states and territories already have offences of this sort – for example, the offence of publicly threatening or inciting violence in the NSW Crimes Act.

What will the impact be?

We should be cautious about expecting too much from the proposed new federal criminal offences.

Prosecutions and convictions for these “aggravated” forms of vilification are extremely rare in Australia. The tally in NSW is zero, some 35 years after that state pioneered the criminalisation of vilification involving threat of physical harm or property damage.

The NSW Law Reform Commission is currently conducting an inquiry into why this is and whether further reforms are warranted.

It seems unlikely things will be different with new Commonwealth offences. They have complex definitions and will be challenging to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

Of course, just because a criminal offence is not regularly prosecuted doesn’t mean it has served no purpose. Sometimes, governments turn to criminalisation for its symbolic and “message-sending” powers.

And yes, sometimes this is a cynical exercise in being seen to be doing something without changing much at all. Whether this is a fair characterisation remains to be seen.

In the meantime, perhaps the great disappointment will be felt by members of Australia’s Muslim communities.

The new criminal laws on threats of violence will apply to a wide variety of identifying characteristics. They include religion, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality, national or ethnic origin or political opinion.

However, the bill will not amend the more useful civil laws in the Racial Discrimination Act to extend to religious vilification.

Whether Islamophobia is correctly characterised as “religious” or “racial” vilification, it is clear that, at the federal level, Australian Muslims are not protected by the section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act in its current form.

In my previous research with Professor Katharine Gelber, we identified this as the biggest gap in Australia’s hate speech laws.

By contrast, antisemitism is legally regarded as a form of racism, and section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has been effectively engaged by Jewish organisations and individuals against forms of antisemitism, including Holocaust denial.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 2023, the Australian government has attempted to hold the public position that it is equally concerned about all forms of discrimination and hate speech, including both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

And yet, while a special envoy to combat antisemitism has been appointed, the promise of a special envoy on Islamophobia has yet to materialise.

The new hate speech bill introduced by the government does little to deliver on a true commitment to multiculturalism and anti-racism. We await the Albanese government’s more active steps in that direction.

Luke McNamara receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Does the Albanese government’s proposed ‘hate speech’ law give us what we need? – https://theconversation.com/does-the-albanese-governments-proposed-hate-speech-law-give-us-what-we-need-232384

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

Mike Sneesby’s resignation as chief executive of the Nine Entertainment Company completes a cleanout at the top of an organisation besieged by the consequences of cultural toxicity.

These consequences began coming to light in March, when News Corporation newspapers and Nine’s own mastheads published allegations that Darren Wick, who was Nine’s head of news and current affairs for more than a decade, groped three women in public view of their colleagues.

Wick denied the allegations but left Nine that same month following a formal complaint against him and the establishment of a related investigation.

Nine also commissioned an external firm to conduct a review into “broader cultural issues”.

At the time, Sneesby said:

I believe we have taken positive steps in recent years at Nine to improve our culture […] but the recent reports that detail alleged serious failings of leadership in television news clearly tells me more work needs to be done to ensure we have a safe and inclusive workplace throughout Nine.

Serious failings of leadership: Sneesby might have been writing his own corporate obituary.

The company’s, and his own, responses to the unfolding scandal were always reactive and invited the question: if reporters at a rival news organisation and in his own newspapers’ newsrooms could find out what was going on, why couldn’t the boss?

He confessed he had not directly received any information about the alleged behaviour of Wicks. He then added: “I would encourage those individuals, or anyone else with information, to provide it […] so it can be independently investigated.”

It is fair to assume that if those individuals had any faith at all in the corporate culture, they would have complained years ago.

Sneesby also observed that a concentration of power at the organisation had “damaged the trust and fairness within our television newsrooms”. This raises further questions, such as: how did he allow that to happen and what did he do about it?

These unanswered questions fuelled relentless media interest in the story, which reached its climax on a June afternoon at Canberra airport when Peter Costello, a former federal treasurer and then chair of Nine, was accosted by a News Corp reporter.

The reporter wanted to know whether Costello had known about the allegations against Wick. Did Costello support the way Sneesby was handling the issue?

Costello moved in on the reporter, there was a jostling motion on the reporter’s camera and the reporter fell to the floor. Costello denied having assaulted him, but resigned as chair within the week.

On his way out the door, Costello said Sneesby “always had my full support”.

It now falls to the new chair, Catherine West, and a stand-in chief executive, Matt Stanton, to try to clean up the mess. Stanton is the company’s chief finance and strategy officer.

The company promised in May to establish an external formal complaint line for people to provide information independent of management, and a helpline for “emotional or psychological support”.

The extent to which this works and the external cultural review produces any real change will be important benchmarks against which the performance of the new leadership will be assessed.

The free-to-air television industry is under the same severe commercial strain as newspapers, as streaming services and other internet platforms challenge their traditional supremacy in electronic news and entertainment.

Commercial television newsrooms have never been a place for shrinking violets. But their blokey whatever-it-takes management style seems ill-adapted to cope with the acute stresses created by the digital revolution. They are also increasingly out of step with modern workplace culture and social mores.

This is evident not just at Nine but at Australia’s other two commercial television networks as well.

In April, James Warburton, chief executive of Seven West Media, which operates the Seven Network, resigned during a torrid period for the organisation. Allegations had been made during a defamation trial that Seven’s current affairs program Spotlight had reimbursed Bruce Lehrmann for money spent on cocaine and sex workers while duchessing him for an interview.

Although Seven denied these allegations, in the aftermath Spotlight’s executive producer Mark Llewellyn left the network.

The evidence in court, given by a former Spotlight producer Taylor Auerbach, revealed a ruthless newsroom culture and a determination to secure what was regarded as a prize interview with Lehrmann, who was subsequently found by the court, on the balance of probabilities, to have raped Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019.

Lehrmann has always denied the charge, and his criminal prosecution was aborted because of juror misconduct.

Channel Ten’s journalism came in for close scrutiny in the same proceedings. It had been sued for defamation by Lehrmann over an interview with Higgins on The Project in which she said she had been raped. Lehrmann was not named in the broadcast, but was able to satisfy the court that he was the person referred to as having allegedly raped Higgins.

While finding that Ten succeeded with its defence of truth, Justice Michael Lee was critical of what he said was Ten’s failure to test “inconsistencies and implausibilities” in Higgins’s story. He said Ten had ignored “flashing warning lights” and had shown a “lack of curiosity” over certain aspects of the matter to avoid “unnecessary doubt” about the story.

These examples of newsroom culture, whether they concern sexual predation, abandonment of journalistic ethics or poor editorial judgement, clearly have a tendency to undermine public trust in the media as a whole, which is bad for commerce and for democracy.

Ten’s future became uncertain as its parent company, Paramount, faced severe financial pressures. It recently merged with Skydance Media in the United States, but whether this stabilises Ten’s ownership position is unclear.

These developments, plus the management shakeups at Nine and Seven, show the pressure on Australia’s commercial television networks is likely to continue for some time yet.

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

– ref. Sneesby’s resignation from Nine points to host of problems besetting commercial TV networks – https://theconversation.com/sneesbys-resignation-from-nine-points-to-host-of-problems-besetting-commercial-tv-networks-238876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Nordberg, Senior Lecturer (Applied Ecology and Landscape Management), University of New England

Freshwater turtles live in farm dams, creeks and wetlands across Australia. They often travel over land when these wetlands or farm dams dry up, or during breeding season.

But when a turtle encounters a fence, they can get stuck on one side, become entangled, overheat or even die.

We wanted to test how different fence types influence turtle movement patterns. In our latest research, we attached GPS tracking devices to 20 adult eastern long-neck turtles in Armidale, New South Wales. Each week, we located the turtles and recorded how far they had moved, what habitat they were in, and how many fences they had encountered.

We found turtles often encountered fences. Sometimes they had to walk long distances, for days, before finding a suitable place to cross. Here we recommend some simple, cheap ways to make fences more turtle-friendly – and help other wildlife too.

Active in agricultural lands

The eastern long-neck turtle is one of Australia’s most widespread turtle species, but populations may be in decline. As a result, their conservation status could soon be upgraded to “vulnerable”.

Its range includes the Murray-Darling, Australia’s longest river system and most intensive agricultural area.

Long-neck turtles are also among the most active turtles on land, often travelling kilometres to find water. So they frequently encounter fences.

We found all sorts of farm fences in our 1,000 hectare study area, stretching over 95km in total. Fencing materials included:

• plain or barbed wire
• “hinge joint” wire (grid pattern)
• single-strand electric wire
• chicken wire
• corrugated iron.

We classified the different types of fences as turtle-friendly, or not. In turtle-friendly fences, the mesh or wire spacing is greater than the body size of the turtle. Unfriendly fences, in contrast, have mesh or wire spacing smaller than turtle, barring their passage.

Our turtles encountered fences 120 times in the ten months of the study, from November 2022 to September 2023. Most of the time they managed to get through. But in some cases, turtles had to walk up to four times further before finding a suitable gap or fault in the fence.

Some fences at our study site were damaged. Broken wire, gaps or holes from fallen trees or burrowing wildlife actually turned an unfriendly fence into a turtle-friendly fence. So turtles were able to walk along the fence and locate a suitable gap or fault that allowed them to cross.

However, this meant turtles had to walk up to four times further along unfriendly fences before finding suitable passage. Turtles were walking an additional 1,000 metres over the course of nine days in some cases.

The search for a gap or hole potentially exposed turtles to predators, excessive heat and dehydration.

In Armidale, adult eastern long-neck turtles are smaller than in other parts of its range. This means they fit through fences more easily than larger eastern long-necks from other regions, or other larger turtle species.

So, while turtle-friendly fences were abundant in our study, many of these would have been unfriendly fences for larger turtles living elsewhere.

How to make farm fences more wildlife-friendly

Replacing millions of kilometres of farm fencing around the world is not feasible, so we recommend a range of targeted and realistic tactics.

Species-specific wildlife gates allow wildlife such as bettongs and wombats to travel in and out of fenced areas. These gates can be installed in places where wildlife are most likely to encounter fences, such as wildlife corridors, rather than randomly throughout a property.

Other strategies are more simple and cost effective, such as clipping one vertical bar of hinge joint fencing to make the mesh gap twice as large. This creates a “turtle gate” that allows larger turtle species to move through the fence.

Similarly, ensuring the bottom of the fence is at least 50mm above the ground can help facilitate movement by small animals.

Where possible, chicken wire style fencing should be avoided because the mesh diameter is too small to allow turtles and many other wildlife species to pass through.

For more tips on building your own turtle-friendly fence and information on other turtle projects, check out our downloadable fencing brochure.

Reducing the harm of fences

Although fences are useful for managing livestock, protecting crops and keeping out predators, they can have unintentional and harmful effects on other species such as turtles.

Fence design, location and upkeep should be more carefully considered, with wildlife in mind.

Eco-friendly fence designs (for turtles, mammals, or any other wildlife) should be used whenever possible, to help wildlife travel through their now-fragmented habitat.

Eric Nordberg is affiliated with the University of New England and receives external grant funding through NSW, SA, and QLD governments.

Deborah Bower works for the University of New England. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW, SA, QLD and Commonwealth Governments.

James Dowling is affiliated with The University of New England and The Ohio State University. He receives no external funding directly.

– ref. Farm fences trouble turtles in search of water. Here’s how to help – https://theconversation.com/farm-fences-trouble-turtles-in-search-of-water-heres-how-to-help-236939

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karley Beckman, Senior Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Learning, University of Wollongong

Earlier this week, the federal government announced it is going to introduce a social media ban for children.

It hasn’t nominated a minimum age yet, but the focus of political and media debates has been on teenagers. What about younger users of social media?

According to a 2022 Australian report, 22% of children aged eight to ten and 46% of children aged 11–13 visit social media sites. This suggests parents are involved in setting up and supporting children’s access.

We also know schools use social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, to share activities that involve children and young people.

In our as yet unpublished research on Australian parents’ approaches to social media, parents said they saw social media as part of the world we live in. The study spoke to 44 parents of school-aged children across three states, who said their children need to learn to engage with it in healthy ways – as well as be protected by governments and schools.

There are several things parents of younger children can do to protect their kids on social media and prepare them to participate safely.

Read more:
Should parents be worried about social media? We asked 5 experts

1. Be aware of what social media your children are using

Much of the focus by government and media is on social media sites used by teens such as TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat.

But social media also includes apps such as Messenger, Messenger Kids and YouTube. Even if younger children do not have their own accounts, they may be using a family member’s account.

Children’s use of social media can be positive – it can be a way for them to connect with others, learn and access information. But for younger children, as with any new activity, it should always be under the watchful guidance of a parent or caregiver who can support them to build independence.

When you use technology together, you can have conversations with your child to help them learn and create a habit of open communication. For example, point out persuasive design features (such as features that encourage them to click or keep scrolling), or talk about privacy.

Parents can also negotiate shared rules with their children, such as not using devices in bedrooms.

2. Model healthy social media use

Be mindful about your own use of social media and the ways you manage and balance this. What you do is visible to your children and sends a powerful message. For example, do you have breaks and keep your device away from you when you’re talking to people or eating?

Do your posts feature information about your children, or images and videos of them? Conversations about consent and respectful use of others’ images can start at a young age.

As parents, we can also advocate for others to respect children in their social media use, such as schools, sports clubs and community groups. You can ask that your child’s image and personal information is not shared on social media.

3. Learn about social media

Understanding the risks and harms associated with social media is an important step in helping children and young people to be informed and critical in their use (or future use) of these platforms.

These harms and risks include privacy and safety settings, “recommender systems” that dictate what kind of content is directed to your feed, data privacy and profiling, and the limitations of social media content moderation and reporting systems.

Parents can find helpful resources and sign up to a newsletter from the eSafety Commissioner. Ironically, following the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child on social media can be a convenient way to stay up to date. This is a government-funded research centre that provides evidence-informed resources for parents, educators and policy-makers.

4. Demand improvements to social media design

In addition to current government plans, we need to ensure technology companies redesign their platforms with stronger privacy for children by default.

Many of the risks and harms we are talking about are associated with the design of social media that prioritises profit over user safety. Australian researchers have been calling for a “Children’s Code” or Age-Appropriate Design Code, which have improved platforms in the United Kingdom. The federal government’s plan announced on Thursday to require technology companies to redesign their services to better protect children, is a step in the right direction.

Importantly, we can all start talking about the type of digital environments we want for our children and share these ideas with politicians and policy-makers. This includes the concept of a “Children’s Internet” – a set of principles to reimagine the web as a safer and more appropriate digital environment for our children.

Karley Beckman is an Associate Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Claire Rogerson is a Research Fellow with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Tiffani Apps is an Associate Investigator with the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child

– ref. Kids under 13 use social media. How can parents help keep them safe online? – https://theconversation.com/kids-under-13-use-social-media-how-can-parents-help-keep-them-safe-online-238795

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Third, Co-Director, Young and Resilient Research Centre/Professorial Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Banning children under 16 from social media sounds like a seductive idea. For overwhelmed parents navigating their kids’ lives in a digital age, this move from the Australian government may seem like welcome relief.

But evidence shows it’s highly unlikely bans will positively impact the youth mental health crisis in this country. Indeed, bans may make our children even more vulnerable online.

Children and young people go online primarily to socialise with their peers. Online spaces are one of the few avenues our overscheduled children have to interact freely with each other, which is crucial for their wellbeing.

A social media ban will close down this avenue and force children into lower-quality online environments. Children already say adults don’t understand what they do online and are underequipped to support them.

A blanket ban affirms parents “don’t get it”. Kids will find ways to get around the ban. And if their interactions turn sour on social media, the fact they were not supposed to be there will make it more difficult to reach out to adults for help.

Crucially, demands for blanket bans – challenging to implement – also force tech platforms into “compliance mode”. They divert company resources away from designing better online environments for children and into litigation.

What should we do instead of a ban?

Our children’s online safety is a collective responsibility. There are constructive steps we can take, but they need more cooperation between governments, industry, the community sector, parents, caregivers, educators, researchers, and children and young people themselves.

All children learn by taking risks and making mistakes. The focus needs to be on eliminating online harms, and equipping children and their caregivers to deal confidently with the digital world.

Tighter regulation is part of the solution. But making the internet a better place for children – not just banning them – is the very best protection we can provide.

So, what would that look like?

One way is to implement safety-by-design principles. Popularised internationally by the Australian eSafety Commissioner, safety by design is what it sounds like – baking safety features into the DNA of technological products and platforms.

Here, we should take the lead from children themselves. They are urging platforms and governments to do several things:

• give minors privacy by default
• provide standardised, easily accessible and well-explained reporting processes across diverse platforms
• use AI to detect bad actors attempting to interact with children.

Children also want to know what data is collected from them, how it is used, by whom, and for what purposes.

They’re also calling for safety-by-design features that eliminate sexual, violent and other age-inappropriate content from their feeds.

All of these steps would help to strengthen the things they already do to take care of themselves and others online – like being cautious when interacting with people they don’t know, and not sharing personal information or images online.

Not just safe, but optimal

Safety by design is not the whole solution. Building on the efforts to develop industry codes, industry and government should come together to develop a wider range of standards that deliver not just safe, but optimal digital environments for children.

How? High-quality, child-centred evidence can help major platforms develop industry-wide standards that define what kinds of content are appropriate for children of different ages.

We also need targeted education for children that builds their digital capabilities and prepares them to deal with and grow through their engagement online.

For example, rather than education that focuses on extreme harms, children are calling for online safety education in schools and elsewhere that supports them to manage the low-level, everyday risks of harm they encounter online: disagreements with friends, inappropriate content or feeling excluded.

Heed the evidence

Some authoritative, evidence-based guidance already exists. It tells us how to ensure children can mitigate potential harms and maximise the benefits of the digital environment.

Where the evidence doesn’t yet exist, we need to invest in child-centred research. It’s the best method for gaining nuanced accounts of children’s digital practices, and can guide a coherent and strategic long-term approach to policy and practice.

Drawing on lessons from the COVID pandemic, we also need to better align evidence with decision-making processes. This means speeding up high-quality, robust research processes or finding ways for research to better anticipate and generate evidence around emerging challenges. This way, governments can weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of particular policy actions.

Technology is not beyond our control. Rather, we need to decide, together, what role we want technology to play in childhood.

We need to move beyond a protectionist focus and work with children themselves to build the very best digital environments we can imagine. Nothing short of the future is at stake in doing so.

Amanda Third currently receives funding from Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund; UNICEF Australia; ChildFund, World Vision, Save the Children. She is a member of the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Online Safety Advisory; Google Kids and Families Global Advisory Board; and Snapchat’s Online Safety Advisory.

– ref. Instead of banning kids from online spaces, here’s what we should offer them instead – https://theconversation.com/instead-of-banning-kids-from-online-spaces-heres-what-we-should-offer-them-instead-238798

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

Self-funded retirees and many part pensioners will pay more for their aged care under the government’s reform package, endorsed by the opposition and announced on Thursday.

The changes involve a $930 million extra spend over four years, and $12.6 billion savings over 11 years.

The package, which the government says is biggest reform in 30 years, will shift the system further towards home care, so people can stay at home as long as possible.

A “no worse off” principle will protect those presently receiving aged care from the higher imposts. The treatment of the family home won’t change.

There will be a $4.3 billion investment for Support at Home, starting on July 1 next year.

Under the new arrangements, the government will pay 100% of clinical care services, with recipients contributing to services such as help with showering and taking medications, as well as to every day living costs such as shopping and meal preparation.

How much a person contributes will be based on the age pension means test and their personal circumstances, including their level of need and their income and assets.

A lifetime contribution cap will apply across the aged care system. This will mean no one will contribute more than $130,000 to their non-clinical care costs, regardless of their means or the length of their care. This exceeds the current cap of about $78,000.

For every dollar full pensioners contribute, the government will contribute on average $12.90. For part pensioners the government will contribute on average $6.10 for every dollar.

For self-funded retirees the government will contribute $1.60 on average for those with a Commonwealth Seniors Health Card and $1.20 on average for those without the card.

New entrants to residential care will also pay larger means-tested contributions

There will be a higher maximum room price that will be indexed.

Providers will be able to retain a portion of the refundable accommodation deposit (2% a year for each of five years), rather than paying it all back when the resident dies or leaves.

Under the new consumer contributions, half of new residents won’t contribute more, including all “fully funded” residents. These are defined as full pensioners with limited assets.

Seven in ten full pensioners and one in ten part pensioners will not contribute more.

The government introduced legislation for the new scheme on Thursday.

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

– ref. Age care changes will hit self-funded retirees and many part pensioners to sustain the system long term – https://theconversation.com/age-care-changes-will-hit-self-funded-retirees-and-many-part-pensioners-to-sustain-the-system-long-term-238879

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

A national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted September 3–7 from a sample of 1,614 people, gave Labor a 51–49% lead using 2022 election preference flows. However, respondent-allocated preferences favoured the Coalition by 51–49%.

Primary votes were 37% Coalition (steady since the August Resolve poll), 28% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady), 1% UAP (down one), 12% independents (up two) and 3% others (down one).

For both the Resolve and Wolf + Smith polls below, support for independents is higher than they would achieve at an election, as not every seat has a strong independent candidate.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped one point to -18, with 53% giving him a poor rating and 35% a good rating. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net approval dropped four points to -1.

After trailing Dutton by one point as preferred PM in each of the last three months, Albanese led by 35–34% in this poll.

The Liberals led Labor as best on economic management by 37–26%, but this lead was reduced from 40–23% in August. The Liberals’ lead over Labor on keeping the cost of living low was also reduced to 32–25% from 34–23%.

Asked who had the greatest responsibility for keeping inflation down, 51% said the federal government and treasurer, while 27% chose the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Asked about gambling ads on TV, 51% wanted them banned entirely, 32% favoured limiting them to two per hour during live sport, and 7% backed allowing unrestricted gambling ads.

Asked whether government should prioritise tackling sports betting or pokies, 47% said both, 12% said sports betting, 11% said pokies and 17% wanted gambling left alone.

Queensland polls indicate big LNP win

The Queensland state election is on October 26. A Resolve poll for The Brisbane Times, conducted over four months from June to September from a sample of 939 people, gave the Liberal National Party (LNP) 44% of the primary vote (up one since February to May), Labor 23% (down three), the Greens 12% (down one), One Nation 8% (steady), independents 9% (up one) and others 4% (up two).

Resolve doesn’t usually give a two-party figure, but The Poll Bludger estimated a 58–42% LNP lead from these primary votes.

LNP leader David Crisafulli’s net likeability improved four points to +18, while Labor Premier Steven Miles’ net likeability improved only slightly to -13. Crisafulli led as preferred premier by 40–27%.

A Redbridge Queensland poll, conducted in two waves between May 15 and August 27 from a sample of 829 people, gave the LNP a 54.5–45.5% lead, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since a February to May poll.

Primary votes were 42% LNP (down five), 29% Labor (up one), 11% Greens (down one) and 18% for all Others (up five). The Redbridge poll is Labor’s best Queensland poll since March, but it would still be a thumping, and the other two polls are worse for Labor.

Wolf + Smith federal and state polls

A national poll by the Sydney-based agency Wolf + Smith gave federal Labor a 51–49% lead over the Coalition, from primary votes of 36% Coalition, 29% Labor, 13% Greens, 6% One Nation, 11% independents and 4% others. This poll was conducted August 6–29 by online methods from a very large sample of 10,239 people.

Living costs were rated the top issue by 41% of respondents and one of the top three issues by 62%. By contrast, climate change was rated the top issue by only 5%, while immigration was rated top by just 2%.

Wolf + Smith also conducted polls in all states. In New South Wales, there was a 50–50% tie between Labor and the Coalition, from primary votes of 38% Coalition, 32% Labor, 12% Greens, 14% independents and 4% others.

In Victoria, the Coalition led by 52–48%, from primary votes of 40% Coalition, 28% Labor, 14% Greens, 15% independents and 3% others.

In Queensland, the LNP led Labor by 57–43%, from primary votes of 42% LNP, 24% Labor, 12% Greens, 8% One Nation, 9% independents and 4% others.

In Western Australia, Labor led by 55–45%, from primary votes of 37% Labor, 32% Liberals and Nationals, 12% Greens, 4% One Nation, 8% independents and 8% others. The WA election is in March 2025.

In South Australia, Labor led by 60–40%, from primary votes of 41% Labor, 28% Liberals, 11% Greens, 5% One Nation, 10% independents and 5% others.

In Tasmania, which uses a proportional system for its elections, vote shares were 32% Liberal, 23% Labor, 14% Greens, 11% Jacqui Lambie Network, 15% independents and 4% others. This poll was mostly taken before the August 24 JLN bust-up.

The Wolf + Smith polls had similar results in NSW, Victoria and Queensland as other recent polls. The SA poll is the first in the state by any pollster since Labor won the 2022 state election.

Federal Essential and Morgan polls

A national Essential poll, conducted September 4–7 from a sample of 1,132 people, had a 48–48% tie between Labor and the Coalition, including undecided voters (Labor had a 48–46% lead in late August). Primary votes were 35% Coalition (up two), 30% Labor (up one), 13% Greens (steady), 8% One Nation (up one), 1% UAP (steady), 8% for all Others (down three) and 5% undecided (down one).

On the international student cap, 53% thought it was about right, 37% too high and 10% too low.

For the 2026 Census, 42% said there should be questions on both gender and sexual orientation, 25% no such questions, 23% questions on gender but not sexual orientation, and 10% questions on sexual orientation but not gender.

A national Morgan poll, conducted September 2–8 from a sample of 1,703 people, gave Labor a 51–49% lead over the Coalition, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the August 26 to September 1 Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 36.5% Coalition (up 0.5), 30% Labor (down 0.5), 14.5% Greens (up 1.5), 6% One Nation (steady), 9.5% independents (steady) and 3.5% others (down 1.5).

The headline figure uses respondent preferences. By 2022 election preferences, Labor led by an unchanged 52–48%.

Final NSW federal redistribution

I wrote about the final federal redistributions of Victoria and Western Australia on Monday, which only had minor changes from the draft redistributions. The final New South Wales redistribution were released today.

Consistent with the draft redistribution, the North Sydney electorate has been abolished. ABC election analyst Antony Green said he does not believe “any of the final changes have much impact on marginal seats”. I covered the draft redistributions in June.

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.

– ref. New polling: half of Australians want gambling ads banned entirely; LNP has big Queensland lead – https://theconversation.com/new-polling-half-of-australians-want-gambling-ads-banned-entirely-lnp-has-big-queensland-lead-238525

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Casey Peter Mainsbridge, Senior Lecturer in Personal Devlopment, Health and Physical Education, University of New England

Sport is a significant part of Australian culture and for many represents national pride and social connection.

So, it would be fair to assume sport is viewed as central to Australian schools, with physical education (PE) ingrained into the curriculum.

However, increasingly, some school students are not provided with opportunities to learn through PE and engage with physical activity regularly.

This is concerning because PE and physical activity can provide benefits in terms of physical fitness, fundamental movement skills, mental health, social integration and overall wellbeing.

Because of this, we recently researched what is actually learnt by Australian school students in PE and how things could be improved.

Why is physical education important?

With students spending up to 200 days per year at school, regular PE can contribute to the development of skilled movement and feelings of success and confidence to pursue physical activity.

Broadly, students who enjoy PE are likely to feel positive about being physically active.

Evidence suggests attitudes, beliefs and behaviours learned during the school years, including those relating to physical activity, track into adulthood.

This highlights the importance of PE in shaping healthy habits.

Some concerning trends

Despite the benefits of physical activity, studies show the levels of physical activity among children and adolescents globally have decreased over the past 25 years.

This trend exists in Australia, with decreases in student fundamental movement skill levels and increases in screen time in the past ten years.

This trend is demonstrated by Australia receiving a grade of D- on the Global Physical Activity Report card in 2014, 2018, and 2022 – suggesting the future health of Australian children and our status as a “sporting nation” is at risk.

To address this decline, PE teachers and the school community must be leaders in supporting the health and wellbeing of students by emphasising regular participation in physical activity, promoted by quality PE.

What is the current state of PE in Australia?

The Australian school curriculum provides schools, teachers, parents and students with a clear understanding of what students should learn from the first year of school through to Year 10.

The curriculum applies no matter where a student lives or what school system they are in. It includes eight key learning areas, one of which is Health and Physical Education.

This part of the curriculum aims to prepare students to take positive action to protect, enhance and advocate for their own and others’ health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation across their lifespan.

In Australia, PE is usually taught by a specialist teacher in secondary schools, although this is not always the case in primary schools.

A lack of teaching expertise, together with other factors – a teacher’s negative experiences from their own schooling, perceived lack of time and interest, low confidence levels to teach the subject – can often lead to less curriculum time being given to PE compared to subjects such as maths, science and English.

Also, some school leaders and teachers view PE as less academically rigorous and less important to the primary mission of education. This is often informed by their own experience of PE in schools, rather than its curricular potential.

Despite Health and Physical Education being an essential key learning area that is compulsory in Australian schools, there are sometimes significant challenges for PE teachers to achieve curriculum aims, such as subject marginalisation due to its practical nature, lack of time, lack of resources and facilities, and staff outsourcing.

Our research and next steps

To try to get a better understanding of PE in this country, we recently conducted a systematic review trying to understand what Australian school students learn in PE.

A systematic review is a structured and detailed analysis on a presented topic, with our review analysing 27 studies.

Broadly, we found an absence of research in Australia that explored this issue.

However, our research did identify that teachers and schools should be encouraged and supported to engage in research to measure and evaluate their own teaching practices.

More teacher-engaged research and partnerships between schools and higher education institutions will help to truly understand what students are learning in PE.

There is also a need to recognise the challenges faced by PE teachers and to enable them to help students gain the broad physical and mental health benefits associated with PE.

What could this look like?

For teachers, regular professional development opportunities particularly for primary school teachers, greater consideration for PE curriculum time that is comparable to other subjects, and time to measure and track longitudinally the impact of PE on student learning.

There is also a need for PE to be at the forefront of a national conversation to respond to low levels of child and youth physical activity.

A strong link exists between childrens’ health status and their learning capacity, so placing more value and resources towards PE, physical activity opportunities during the school day, and sport in schools must become an educational priority and prominent part of school culture.

Through PE, schools should be providing young people with opportunities to be physically active now and into their future.

John Williams receives funding from a range of organisations including an international sporting body and a local government education authority, to conduct research.

Shane Pill receives funding from the Education Department, national and local sport, and not for profit organisations to conduct research.

Casey Peter Mainsbridge and Cassandra Iannucci do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In sports-mad Australia, new research suggests physical education can be undervalued at school – https://theconversation.com/in-sports-mad-australia-new-research-suggests-physical-education-can-be-undervalued-at-school-233448

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fron Jackson-Webb, Deputy Editor and Senior Health Editor

One in four Australian children aged two to 17 are classified as above a healthy weight, based on their body mass index (or BMI, which is weight divided by height squared).

The Australian College of Nursing says school nurses can play in curbing childhood obesity and preventing chronic disease by weighing and measuring school-aged children.

Karen Grace, the Australian College of Nursing’s national director of professional practice told the Nine newspapers:

Nurses are perfectly placed to help identify when further help is needed and to refer to a GP or dietitian.

The proposal has sparked anger from health professionals and parents, but the college says its aim is to reduce stigma and judgement, and to support families.

So, should school nurses weigh students? We asked five experts.

Five out of five said no.

Here are their detailed responses.

Disclosure statements:

Brett Montgomery is an inactive Greens member. The Greens have supported taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages, among other public health policies to address weight challenges.

Clare Collins AO is a Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) affiliated researcher. She is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Leadership Fellow and has received research grants from NHMRC, Australian Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund, HMRI, Diabetes Australia, Heart Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nib foundation, Rijk Zwaan Australia, WA Department of Health, Meat and Livestock Australia, and Greater Charitable Foundation. She has consulted to Shine Australia, Novo Nordisk, Quality Bakers, the Sax Institute, Dietitians Australia and the ABC. She was a team member conducting systematic reviews to inform the 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines update, the Heart Foundation evidence reviews on meat and dietary patterns and current Co-Chair of the Guidelines Development Advisory Committee for Clinical Practice Guidelines for Treatment of Obesity.

Natasha Yates is affiliated with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Rachael Jefferson has no relevant affiliations.

Vivienne Lewis is affiliated with the Australian Psychological Society.

– ref. Should school nurses weigh students? We asked 5 experts – https://theconversation.com/should-school-nurses-weigh-students-we-asked-5-experts-238779

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Laurenceson, Director and Professor, Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI), University of Technology Sydney

When Treasurer Jim Chalmers travels to Beijing later this month, he and his counterpart at China’s peak economic agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, won’t be short on important topics to discuss.

Chalmers will be attending the Australia-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, one part of a tripartite agreement secured by the Gillard government in 2013.

The purpose was to hold annual talks at the highest level. The agreement also includes a Leaders’ Dialogue and a Foreign and Strategic Dialogue involving the two countries’ foreign ministers.

Troubled times

The dialogue was last held in September 2017 as the state of official ties began turning south.

It was then formally suspended by Beijing in May 2021 after the Morrison government cancelled the Victorian state government’s Memorandum of Understanding to participate in China’s “belt and road initiative”.

Its resurrection has been slow in coming. The stabilisation in the bilateral relationship under the Albanese government has already seen reciprocal visits involving leaders and foreign ministers. But it was not until June the two sides signed a new memorandum to bring back the dialogue.

The fact Chalmers was able to confirm the trip last Sunday is another sign Canberra and Beijing remain committed to talking. This is despite there being numerous issues over which they are at odds.

Chalmers’ concerns

For the Treasurer, the priority will be getting a first-hand read on China’s struggling economy and the risks this presents to Australia’s own outlook.

When announcing the visit he alluded to one scenario his department was tracking that could see Commonwealth budget revenue take a $4.5 billion hit due to falling prices for key commodity exports, including iron ore and lithium.

Slowing Chinese growth and falling commodity prices are clearly not positives for Australian income, but Chalmers is unlikely to return in a state of panic.

The latest trade figures show China continuing to import Australian iron ore and lithium at record or near record volumes.

This points to increasing supply and a lack of demand from other countries being at least as relevant in explaining recent price falls. And both are coming off extraordinary price spikes to now be approaching levels more in line with historical averages.

The impact of Chinese growth on its demand for Australian goods and services has also never been a simple, one-to-one relationship. That remains true today.

A complex relationship

Australian wine exports, for example, are booming after Beijing removed tariffs earlier this year.

China’s customs agencies put the value of imported Australian wine over the past three months at US$252 million, or around A$400 million. This topped the $A357 million sold over the past year to the US, Australia’s second largest customer.

Students from China are also commencing at Australian universities in record numbers, albeit this is likely to fall next year due to restrictions imposed by Canberra, not Beijing.

That China remains a stand-out market is reflected in the large numbers of businesses and politicians attending the Australia-China Business Council’s Canberra Networking Day on Thursday. Trade Minister Don Farrell, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Shadow Trade Minister Kevin Hogan and Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham are all slated to give speeches.

Chalmers will also be keen to raise the lingering import ban Beijing imposed in 2020 affecting Australian lobsters. Trade Minister Don Farrell said in June he was “very confident that in the near future” the ban would be lifted. Chalmers’ visit might provide the occasion to announce a final resolution.

China’s concerns

For China, top of the list of concerns will be Australia’s treatment of Chinese investors, particularly in sectors like critical minerals. In the past they have been welcomed but since 2020 there’s been an apparent de-facto ban on further involvement.

A recent survey of Chinese businesses in Australia pointed to generally positive sentiment. Almost 80% said they were optimistic about the outlook of the local business environment. Still, while 72.5% did not consider they had experienced discriminatory treatment, 42.4% felt the enforcement of Australia’s laws and regulations lacked transparency.

It’s not hard to see why. When Chalmers was asked in an interview last Sunday whether or not he wanted “China’s investment in critical minerals processing in Australia”, he did not reply with a “no”. Nor did he provide even a qualified “yes”.

China will likely also be seeking reassurance Canberra will not join Washington and some other capitals usually regarded as geopolitically “like-minded” in putting up tariff barriers on Chinese imports.

This reassurance shouldn’t be difficult for Chalmers to provide. Unlike the US, Australia’s economic relationship with China remains overwhelmingly complementary. Last year, Australia’s exports to China exceeded imports by $110.7 billion.

And low-cost, high-quality imports from China, such as electric vehicles, would be welcomed by the government amid a cost-of-living crisis and the net zero transition.

Late last month, Chris Bowen, Australia’s Minister for Climate and Energy, hosted his Chinese counterpart for the 8th Australia-China Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Change in Sydney.

A bipartisan approach

Trade with China also enjoys bipartisan support. In March, Minister Farrell touted the potential for two-way trade to increase from $300 billion to $400 billion.

Not to be outdone, opposition leader Peter Dutton said in June he’d “love to see the trading relationship [with China] increase two-fold”.

Chalmers was on the money this week in stating Australia’s relationship with China is now “full of complexity and full of opportunity”. His upcoming trip can only help in managing the former and realising the latter.

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

– ref. Understanding risks for Australia of China’s slowing economy is Chalmers’ top priority at upcoming Beijing talks – https://theconversation.com/understanding-risks-for-australia-of-chinas-slowing-economy-is-chalmers-top-priority-at-upcoming-beijing-talks-238550

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gemma Blackwood, Lecturer, Media, University of Tasmania

Director Paul Goldman’s new Australian film Kid Snow is set in the gritty, male-dominated world of tent boxing in outback Western Australia.

The film presents itself as a reflection on the intergenerational violence caused by masculine value systems, as played out through the relationship between two Irish brothers, Kid Snow (Billy Howie) and Rory Quinn (Tom Bateman).

However, despite strong acting performances and stunning visuals, some of the plot and character elements end up feeling stereotypical and contrived – and Kid Snow fails to pack a punch.

A rivalry between brothers

It is 1971 and Kid Snow and Rory are dealing with simmering resentment and guilt linked to a past trauma.

Ten years earlier, the brothers survived a car accident at the hands of Snow that killed their father and left Rory with a crippling injury that curtailed his boxing career.

The accident also came just after Snow suffered a humiliating loss to a boxer called Hammer Morino (Tristan Gorey), who went on to become an international star.

Fast-forward to the present and Snow has become the main boxer in Rory’s tent boxing troupe: a small-time circus that tours regional Western Australia. While their lives in the outback allow small moments of beauty, there’s a sense the brothers are mired in their situation: washed up and without chance for escape.

This all changes as two new opportunities appear simultaneously. The first is a high-profile rematch between Kid Snow and Hammer Morino. The second is the arrival of Sunny (Phoebe Tonkin), a single mother escaping her own traumatic past in Sydney with her young son Darcy (Jack LaTorre) in tow.

Sunny joins Rory’s troupe as an exotic dancer. She and Darcy quickly connect with Snow, flaring up a jealous rivalry between the brothers. The budding relationship between Snow and Sunny – and the fallout between the brothers – form the main drama of the film.

A toned-down approach

While Kid Snow might initially seem like “Rocky, but in the outback”, boxing culture comes second to the interpersonal drama in the film. And unlike Rocky, the violence is downplayed.

This might disappoint fans of the sport, or of other fight-based films that deliver on visceral action (like Furiosa, for instance, which was also shot in the outback).

The boxing storyline eventually feels like a Hitchcockian “McGuffin”, falling away despite its initial, expository significance.

By removing the brutal realities of boxing, Kid Snow seems to romanticise the sport, and in doing so takes away from the exploration into hyper-masculinity (and its overlap with violence and brutality) in Australian culture.

A visually striking outback film

There is a pleasure in watching Kid Snow as an example of an outback film, with cinematographer Gary Phillips providing a beautiful lensing of the West Australian landscape and its attendant bright skies.

Tourism researcher Warwick Frost has studied the narratives of the outback film subgenre and finds that these films often feature an outsider’s perspective on the location, which itself is usually framed as a place for “life-changing” and profound experiences.

In Kid Snow, this outsider perspective comes from Sunny – and certainly the outback setting is a conduit for several of the main characters’ life-changing experiences.

However, many supporting characters, including the Indigenous characters Lovely (Mark Coles Smith) and Lizard (Hunter Page-Lochard), have limited impact on the broader story.

This seems like a missed opportunity for a more nuanced and inclusive gaze on this outback community, especially given the calibre of the actors involved.

Ultimately a letdown

It seems fitting that much of the film takes place in the year 1971. This was an important year for cinema set in the outback.

It’s the same year Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright was released. This film demonstrates the loneliness felt by men and women in a frontier town where forced and brutalising codes of mateship lead to spiritual disconnection and despair.

The film carefully examines the isolation and ugliness caused by colonial forms of masculinity – offering a strong critique of white machismo culture.

Kid Snow does share some similarities with Wake in Fright, such as in how the brothers seem trapped in their outback lives, with its endless skirmishes, injuries and drunken hangovers.

But unlike Wake in Fright, Kid Snow allows redemption for its eponymous main character. Snow gets a chance to move on, heal from the past and find a meaningful romantic connection with Sunny. This upbeat ending for the anti-hero feels unearned.

The film draws upon narrative cliches that seem to place the white, male experience above others. Kid Snow and Rory have the most agency in the film, while Sunny’s character arc seems predicated around the gaze of the brothers, as if she is a prize to be allocated to the most worthy.

One scene of an attempted sexual assault of Sunny by jealous Rory also isn’t addressed later by the brothers, reinforcing the film’s patriarchal focus.

Ultimately, Kid Snow feels like a missed opportunity for a deeper exploration into the politics of white Australian masculinity and its interconnection with gender, class and race.

Delivering this could have had a profound impact, as such generic conventions are ripe for challenge in Australian film.

Kid Snow is in cinemas from today.

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

– ref. Kid Snow takes a stab at exploring masculinity in the gritty outback, but fails to land – https://theconversation.com/kid-snow-takes-a-stab-at-exploring-masculinity-in-the-gritty-outback-but-fails-to-land-238212