While we’re busy preparing for Christmas, many Australian native plants and animals are also busy – growing, flowering and raising their young. What better time to celebrate this explosion of life?
Let’s set aside the holly, snowmen and reindeer this Christmas and decorate our homes with some of Australia’s most remarkable species instead.
Drawing on themes from our research on wildlife, ecology and astronomy, we’ve prepared this handy guide to an Aussie festive season.
It’s not too late to get crafty and deck the halls with Christmas beetle baubles and paper parrots for a Christmas with a difference.
Christmas beetle baubles
As their name suggests, Christmas beetles would have to be our most notable Christmassy insect. These little beauties give our eucalyptus trees their own little baubles. The trees provide food for the beetles, which become most abundant at this time of year.
Have you heard about the Christmas Beetle Count? This project is tracking Christmas beetle populations across Australia through the power of citizen science. People have recorded nearly 15,000 observations of beetles, including some not seen in decades.
By gaining more knowledge of which species of beetles are around, we can learn how they are doing in the face of a changing climate and urbanisation. It can also help us understand what needs to be preserved in order for Christmas beetles to thrive in future ecosystems.
Put some spines among pines (or gum leaves)
The echidna is one of only two egg-laying mammals in Australia. The other is the egg-laying and venomous playtpus.
Fun fact: relative to body size, the short-beaked echidna is the mammal with the world’s largest prefrontal cortex. This area of the brain is crucial for decision-making. Perhaps these humble, bumbling balls of spikes make better choices than we humans do?
Clay models of this marvellous monotreme make wonderful additions to any table or tree. Make your own with some clay for the body, some sticks for the spines and a couple of small gumnuts for eyes.
Making a Christmas echidna will be a delightful way to introduce a bit of sensory play into your home. Shannon Drayton-Taylor
Swap the reindeer for tree kangaroos
For a local substitution for flying reindeer, why not consider kangaroos in the treetops?
In the far north, two species of tree kangaroos bound and crash through the treetops of our tropical rainforests.
The powerful Lumholtz and Bennett’s tree kangaroos are built for climbing. They can also jump up to 15 metres from the treetops to the ground, unharmed.
Create your own by cutting little kangaroo-shaped silhouettes out of cardboard, and draw on a face and put it on your Christmas tree.
A female tree kangaroo is best, because then you can tuck special treats like chocolates into their pouch. It’s the ultimate wildlife advent calendar.
Just don’t despair if these guys leap off the tree, as this is quite normal behaviour.
Elegant Yuletide Eclectus parrots
Better than matching knitted jumpers, Eclectus parrots make the ultimate Christmas couples. These parrots from Cape York come in vivid green (male) and stunning two-tone blue and red (female).
Males seek to impress females with their plumage and vocal repertoire. If successful, they’ll engage in acrobatic aerial displays by showing off their colourful feathers, prior to mating. Several males will bring food to a single female while she incubates eggs in a deep tree hollow.
The colours of eclectus parrots are festive. Males are green, females blue and red.
Make your own origami bird decorations using coloured paper. Once the bird is folded, add some ribbon so they can be placed on your tree. Consider creating a whole family of adults and chicks, just as they would in the wild.
You can even use recycled paper and colour it to suit other Christmas-coloured birds such as king parrots, rosellas or lorikeets.
If you’re into backyard or street cricket, you could even take advantage of time spent waiting around when you’re fielding to do a bird count using the citizen science app eBird. Download the app, count the birds you see and contribute to citizen science.
Making origami eclectus parrots can be a simple way to add some native birds to your Christmas tree. Shannon Drayton-Taylor
Look up to the sky for inspiration
The “Great Celestial Emu” is a beautiful feature of the night sky in the southern hemisphere.
Indigenous Australian stories about the Emu in the Sky come from all over the country.
Compared to constellations named by Babylonian and Ancient Greek astronomers, the emu is unique. In this case the name is not given to a group of stars forming a recognisable pattern. Instead, the emu shape is a silhouette made up of dark patches of gas and dust blocking light from the Milky Way. This is the Dark Emu in the title of Bruce Pascoe’s bestselling book.
The head is the dark Coalsack Nebula next to the Southern Cross and the neck extends through the middle of the “pointer stars” (Alpha and Beta Centauri). In December, the head of the emu is visible in the early morning before dawn.
We added the Great Celestial Emu to our Christmas tree by sprucing up a silver bauble with glitter.
The ‘Great Celestial Emu’ or ‘Emu in the Sky’. Left: an image of the night sky captured at the Elvina engraving site in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, near Sydney, annotated with an outline of the emu shape. Right: an the Emu in the Sky bauble made out of an old silver bauble, some glue, and some glitter. Barnaby Norris & Ray Norris (Emu in the Sky, left), Dr Laura Driessen (bauble, right)
Finish with some gardening and foraging
We can bring the outside in, or we can head out to enjoy nature in all its glory.
Many Australian plants will be flowering over summer, and they can be collected, dried, and placed in clear baubles to create simple, beautiful decorations for your tree.
Or you can get planting and grow your own Christmas tree, such as a cypress pine local to your area or even a Christmas bush.
To make a festive Australian bauble, you need some clear fillable baubles, and then collect whatever pieces of nature you like. Caitlyn Forster A foraged Christmas bauble is the ultimate way to sustainably change the look of your Christmas tree every year. Caitlyn Forster
Caitlyn Forster received funding from the Australian Research Council. She volunteers in the communication space for Invertebrates Australia
Euan Ritchie is a councillor within the Biodiversity Council, a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Australian Mammal Society, and President of the Australian Mammal Society
Laura Nicole Driessen is an ambassador for the Orbit Centre of Imagination at the Rise and Shine Kindergarten, in Sydney’s Inner West
This article is part of The Conversation’s “Retirement” series where experts examine issues including how much money we need to retire, retiring with debt, the psychological impact of retiring and the benefits of getting financial advice. Read the rest of the series here.
Many Australians, particularly those on lower incomes, are often characterised as lacking knowledge or interest in superannuation.
Research by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) confirms this.
It found only 51% have sought any sort of financial advice before retiring.
Financial advice plays a critical role in helping people maximise their super. But most of us don’t seek professional guidance.
To make matters worse, superannuation experts say those with small amounts of super are the least likely to seek it.
Financial literacy
The failure of households to approach super like experienced asset managers is often attributed to poor financial literacy.
Better knowledge, it is often reasoned, would help lower income households make financially savvy decisions. This would help give them a better chance of achieving a comfortable retirement.
Getting professional advice about managing retirement savings is a first step towards knowing what you don’t know. Learning to trust independent advice can optimise risk and returns, even if those decisions conflict with our instincts.
ASFA research found while trust in super funds was relatively high, only 12% sought information or advice from the funds.
Career interruptions
Some households might have little superannuation because their hourly wages are low and they have long breaks from the workforce. This might be due to raising children, personal illness or caring for others.
Taking breaks from the workforce to care for others can leave women with low super balances. picselstock/Shutterstock
Instead of being able to rely on public healthcare or pay others to provide this support, they are required to reduce or abandon paid work to do it themselves. This group consists overwhelmingly of women
They are also unlikely to have benefited from high employer contribution rates, such as those of federal public servants or university employees, who have long earned a standard 17%.
Tax and other benefits
Low balance households are also unlikely to have paid large sums into super to avoid income tax. One in every four dollars contributed to super is deposited as voluntary contributions, which attract a low tax rate.
But most of these low tax contributions are made by the 20% with the highest incomes.
Research shows those with the lowest balances believe superannuation is a largely a tool for high income earners to avoid tax.
And while financial advice will always be more useful to those who are able to use super as a tax minimisation strategy, even for low-balance households – getting financial advice is worthwhile.
Financial advice can help households choose investments that optimise the risk/return profile of superannuation at each stage of the life cycle.
It can help avoid unnecessary fees and taxes and help people make the best decisions about spending in retirement so they can get the most out of their super.
Financial advice can help people get the most out of their super and maximise retirement savings. SewCreamStudio
Potential sticking points
The 2017 royal commission into banking and finance misconduct revealed major conflicts of interest in the advice sector. This only made some people more wary about trusting a stranger with their life savings.
At between $4,000 and $12,000 for a personal financial plan, independent financial advice is not cheap. There is free counselling to manage debts but there is no free, independent advice for longer-term financial planning.
Recent regulatory efforts to better position superannuation funds to provide free financial advice to households will improve access for many.
But these efforts won’t resolve the conflict of interest issue, given there is little incentive for funds to suggest investment strategies using other providers. This is particularly important during the draw down phase.
This is where people start using their super which they receive as either a lump sum or income stream. The products offered by any single super fund to set this up are limited.
Superannuation balances can be seriously eroded by unnecessary fees, inappropriate investments and poorly planned draw down strategies. This is particularly damaging when low balances are involved.
Facing poverty in retirement
As a result, failure to seek financial advice can increase the risk of elderly poverty, especially if people retire without having bought or paid off a home.
Any savings that can be preserved can make a meaningful difference to the capacity of such households to have a dignified retirement.
For these reasons, access to free and independent advice is critically important for the superannuation system to better serve low-balance households. But free, independent advice is still not available in the superannuation system.
It is not surprising low-balance households are reticent to engage in super given the lack of accessible advice. But the peripheral role of low-balance households in a system dominated by Australia’s wealthiest households may play a role in that reticence as well.
Antonia Settle 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.
It’s no secret that many different drugs, whether illicit or regulated and legal, are often consumed together or share a similar group of users.
But the way people consume drugs together can vary, both with changes in their price and across different age groups.
Our recent research, published in the Journal of Population Economics, examined these dynamics between two of the most commonly used drugs in Australia – cannabis and tobacco.
We found younger people appear to use cannabis and tobacco together, meaning a rise in tobacco prices leads to a decrease in consumption of both tobacco and cannabis.
For those aged over 50, on the other hand, we see the opposite effect. Increasing the price of tobacco causes cannabis use to increase significantly.
These economic relationships are important to understand. Policies aimed at one drug can have unintended effects on the consumption of the other.
Drugs are often consumed in what’s called a “consumption bundle”, a combination of drugs a consumer chooses to purchase and consume. Tobacco and cannabis are one such bundle.
In 2023, 41% of Australians aged 14 and older reported having used cannabis at least once in their lifetime. About 2.5 million people reported consuming it in the past year.
Tobacco use has fallen significantly in Australia, but this has been offset somewhat by the rise of vaping. Natali Brillianata
Tobacco use has seen a significant decline in Australia in recent decades, but vape and e-cigarette use has risen sharply, particularly among young people.
Like any two products, two different drugs in a consumption bundle can be described as complements (meaning they’re used together) or substitutes (they’re used in place of each other).
If the price of the first drug goes up and the demand for it falls, and demand for the second drug falls as well, the two drugs are complements.
If, however, a price increase for the first causes an increase in demand for the second drug, then the two drugs are substitutes.
Mixed messages
Much of the existing research on the economic relationship between tobacco and cannabis has suggested they are complements.
But other studies have suggested these drugs may have no such economic relationship, or could even be substitutes. Given these mixed results, our research aimed to investigate this phenomenon.
Our research hypothesis was that consumption patterns for cannabis and tobacco are likely to change with age, which could possibly explain these disparate findings.
There’s conflicting evidence on whether cannabis and tobacco are economic complements or substitutes. nokturn/Shutterstock
Our research
Using data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) on just under 100,000 individuals, we modelled the relationship between cannabis consumption and tobacco price (along with numerous other factors).
Our model shows that when tobacco prices increase, cannabis consumption decreases for Australians under 40 years of age. For this age group, both drugs are complements.
For the age group 40 to 50, there is no evidence of any economic relationship between the two drugs.
However, for Australians aged 50 and over, increasing tobacco prices led to increased cannabis consumption. As such, both drugs are substitutes for this age group.
What might explain the difference?
Several factors may be contributing to the varying relationships between drugs across the age spectrum.
Younger users are less likely to be risk-averse, consuming drugs in bundles. They often roll cannabis and tobacco together in a joint “spliff” or “mulled cigarette”, using the two drugs as complements.
Older individuals, on the other hand, tend to be more risk-averse and consume a smaller drug bundle.
They may also self-impose some limits on the total amounts they consume, meaning an increase in the price of tobacco could increase cannabis consumption as a substitute.
Our modelling suggests cannabis and tobacco are more likely to be substitutes for older users. wernimages/Shutterstock
Lessons for policymakers
Our findings can be used by policymakers and public health experts to estimate how cannabis consumption may change in response to changes in tobacco prices – and the possible unintended effects.
The government’s main lever for changing tobacco prices is the excise tax rate on tobacco. Australia’s excise rates are higher than in the US and UK, but lower than those of France, Finland and New Zealand.
Using our model, we conducted a simulation to assess the impact on cannabis comsumption if the price of tobacco was increased. The results suggest that across the entire population, a 10% increase in the price of tobacco would lead to about 240,000 fewer people consuming cannabis.
But this net decrease is a result of a substantial decrease of 340,000 for the under-40 age group and a modest increase of 68,000 for the over-50 age group. The remainder represents those aged 40 to 50.
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.
A Dutton government would keep coal working hard for much longer under its nuclear policy, while renewables would provide only a little over half the electricity generated in 2050.
The opposition has finally put in place the last piece of its controversial nuclear policy, with modelling claiming its alternative would come in substantially cheaper than Labor’s transition path to net zero.
The Coalition policy ensures the issues of coal and climate change will be strongly contested at next year’s election.
The key breakdown in the opposition policy is that by 2050, renewables would provide 54% of electricity generation and nuclear 38%, with 8% a combination of storage and gas.
This compares with Labor’s transition plan for renewables to provide nearly all the generation by then (and 82% by 2030).
The modelling, done at no charge by Frontier Economics, costs the Coalition plan for the transition of the National Electricity Market (which covers the east coast and South Australia but excludes Western Australia) at $263 billion (about 44%) cheaper than its estimate for Labor’s transition. It includes nuclear construction costs.
The modelling, including a range of assumptions (the same assumptions as Australian Energy Market Operator except for inclusion of nuclear), puts the cost of Labor’s transition in the National Electricity Market at $594 billion and that of the Coalition’s at $331 billion.
A central feature of the plan is to keep existing coal-fired power stations going for longer. Then the first of them would be replaced by nuclear generation, in the mid-2030s. The Coalition policy is for seven publicly-owned nuclear plants spread around the country although the modelling is on the basis of units in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
The Coalition argues coal-fired power stations do not need to be, and should not be, phased out as soon as is now planned by AEMO. Prolonging their lives as compared to AEMO assumptions would save money, it says.
Another important saving, the Coalition says, is that its plan to have its nuclear plants located at or near existing power plant sites does away with the need for a huge new transmission grid.
Peter Dutton says: “Nuclear energy is at the heart of our plan, providing the ‘always-on’ power needed to back up renewables, stabilise the grid, and keep energy affordable”.
“The Coalition’s approach integrates zero-emissions nuclear energy alongside renewables and gas, delivering a total system cost significantly lower than Labor’s. This means reduced power bills for households, lower operating costs for small businesses, and a stronger, more resilient economy,” Dutton says.
The release of the costings unleashes a tsunami of claims and counterclaims about numbers. That debate will be eye-glazing for many voters.
Not to worry. We are talking the span of a generation. Numbers that stretch out to 2050 don’t mean a great deal. Hundreds of things – in technology and politics, for starters – can and will change as the years pass.
Moreover, numbers from modelling have an extra layer of complexity and uncertainty. They depend heavily on their assumptions that are, in many cases, necessarily arbitrary.
Anyone inclined to take modelling at face value should reflect on the Labor experience. Before the 2022 election it released modelling that gave it the basis to promise a $275 reduction in household power bills by next year. We all know what happened to that.
Regardless of the problems in attempting to be precise, the broad debate about nuclear’s cost will be intense.
The opposition’s plan is up against, for example, the recently released GenCost report, prepared by the CSIRO. This gave a thumbs down to the nuclear option in cost terms. The opposition attempted to cast doubt on the CSIRO’s expertise, but that is unlikely to fly.
The Coalition policy will go down differently according to which constituency is judging it.
Most obviously, given its reliance on extending the life of coal, it will be unpopular with those for whom climate change is a top-line issue. Teal MPs and candidates will hope to get mileage out of that. Under the Coalition plan emissions would remain higher for longer than under Labor’s transition.
On the other hand, in some regional communities where there has been a bad reaction to the planned new power grid and to wind farms, the policy is likely to be well received.
The question is how it will play in the outer suburban electorates that Dutton hopes will help him cut deeply into Labor’s majority.
For these voters, stressed by the cost of living, climate change is probably less of a priority than it once might have been. And nuclear is less scary than in bygone years.
But whether they will see the Coalition policy as more practical than Labor’s, or as a pie-in-the-sky nuclear dream – that’s too early to say.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was dismissive when the Coalition first promoted nuclear. But Labor would be unwise to be complacent, especially in what’s shaping as a difficult election for the Albanese government.
Labor’s strongest arguments will be on climate change – the evils of the extension of the use of coal – and cost (relying on GenCost findings and the like).
But it is vulnerable in its rejection of calls to lift the ban on nuclear. Bowen argues to do this would be a “distraction”, potentially harming investment in renewables.
That’s a weak argument. To suggest those looking to invest very large sums are likely to be distracted if there wasn’t a ban on the nuclear option is simplistic.
Firstly, this underestimates the financial nous of such investors.
On Labor’s own argument, they wouldn’t want to invest in nuclear because it wouldn’t be profitable to do so. Secondly, investors currently
know if there were a change of government, the Coalition would lift the ban (notwithstanding the present opposition of various states).
The strongest reason Labor won’t contemplate lifting the ban is politics. Any such move would outrage the left of the party, and also risk driving voters to the Greens. It would also require a change in the Labor’s party platform, which says Labor will “prohibit the establishment of nuclear power plants and all other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia”.
With households highly focused on their immediate power bills, the government has been tipped to extend more relief as it burnishes its cost-of-living credentials for the election. The Coalition would have to decide whether to match this. It would be hard not to do so.
The Coalition’s plan for nuclear power is a big idea, of which we don’t see that many in our current politics. It will test Dutton’s ability to cope with detail under the pressure of a campaign. There will be another test. If the Coalition remains in opposition, will it throw its grand plan into the policy dust bin, so the nuclear debate will be gone for another decade or two?
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against are Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.
The assembly passed a resolution yesterday demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.
Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were joined by Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czechia, Hungary and Paraguay.
Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.
#BREAKING UN General Assembly ADOPTS resolution A/ES-10/L.33 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza as well as the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages
In a separate vote, 159 UNGA members voted in favour of a resolution affirming the body’s “full support” for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
UNRWA has been the target of diplomatic and financial attacks by Israel and its backers — which have baselessly accused the lifesaving organisation of being a “terrorist group” — and literal attacks by Israeli forces, who have killed more than 250 of the agency’s personnel.
Nine UNGA members opposed the measure — including Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga — while 11 others abstained. Security Council resolutions are legally binding, while General Assembly resolutions are not, and are also not subject to vetoes.
#BREAKING UN General Assembly ADOPTS resolution A/ES-10/L.32 affirming its full support for the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency @UNRWA and deploring the legislation adopted by the Israeli Knesset on 28 October 2024
The US has six times vetoed Security Council resolutions in favour of a ceasefire in the past 14 months.
The UN votes yesterday took place amid sustained Israeli attacks on Gaza including a strike on a home sheltering forcibly displaced Palestinians in Deir al-Balah that killed at least 33 people, including children, local medical officials said.
This followed earlier Israeli attacks, including the Monday night bombing of the al-Kahlout family home in Beit Hanoun that killed or wounded dozens of Palestinians and reportedly wiped the family from the civil registry.
“We are witnessing a massive loss of life,” said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, reports Common Dreams.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with Syria and the aftermath of the historic collapse of the Assad regime. Israeli forces are continuing to attack key military sites, airports and army air bases in cities across Syria, including the capital Damascus.
In just the last 48 hours, Israel has carried out 340 airstrikes, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. A resident from Qamishli in northeastern Syria described the strikes that took place Monday night.
ABDEL RAHMAN MOHAMED: [translated] The strikes happened at night. We went out after hearing the sounds, and we saw a fire there. Then we realized that Israel struck these locations. We didn’t get a break from Turkey, and now Israel came. Israel has been striking the area for a while now.
AMY GOODMAN: Turkey and the United States have also continued to strike targets in Syria since the lightning offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
In a message posted to Telegram on Tuesday, the rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa vowed to hold senior officials in the Assad regime accountable for “torturing the Syrian people”.
As different factions of armed groups vie for power and their international backers defend their interests, Syrians are grappling with the enormity of what has happened to their country and what comes next.
In 13 years of war, more than 350,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations, more than 14 million displaced.
President Bashar al-Assad has fled to Russia, where he has been granted political asylum with his family. Syrians are adjusting to the new reality of life after 50 years of rule by the Assad family, Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar.
MAHMOUD HAYJAR: [translated] Today we don’t give our joy to anyone. We have been waiting for this day for 50 years. All the people were silenced and could not speak out because of this tyranny. Today we thank and ask God to reward everyone who contributed to this day, the day of liberation.
We were living in a big prison, a big prison that was Syria. It’s been 50 years during which we couldn’t speak, nor express ourselves, nor express our worries. Anyone who spoke out was detained in prisons, as you saw in Sednaya.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on the dramatic changes in Syria, we’re joined by Omar Dahi, Syrian American economics professor at Hampshire College, director of the Security in Context research network, where he focuses on political economy in Syria and the social and economic consequences of the war.
He was born and raised in Syria and involved in several peace-building initiatives since the conflict began. Professor Omar Dahi joins us now from Amherst, Massachusetts.
Professor, welcome to Democracy Now! First, your response to Assad’s departure, him fleeing with his family to Russia, and what this means for Syria?
In Syria, what’s next? Video: Democracy Now!
OMAR DAHI: Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, I’ve been watching, like many others from outside the country, in shock and disbelief in this past two weeks, and with mixed emotions in many ways. First, shock and disbelief at the collapse of the Syrian regime and the way it happened after 13 or more years of conflict, where there were frontlines that were frozen for the past several years, but suddenly they disappeared.
Of course, incredible joy at the personal level and also for millions of Syrians who were directly hurt by the regime, both through the violence of the war, the displacement, the killings and tortures that were taking place, as well as previously, before the war.
It’s been incredible watching the scenes of the liberation of prisoners from prisons like Sednaya, which have been referred to, I think correctly, as “human slaughterhouses.” It’s been incredibly moving to see people celebrating in the streets, people saying that they can finally go home, they can finally speak their mind.
So, all that has been really a joy to watch and witness as we kind of see the sequence of events unfold with the — you know, Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Russia.
Thankfully, this process, which we can talk more about, happened, finally, with as minimal bloodshed as possible, even though there was plenty of bloodshed over the past years. But in the way it had happened, it actually provided a possibility for positive change, at least at the moment.
But this joy is also tempered with lots of other feelings, as well, primarily the costs at which this happened. And I would say the costs are the human costs, that you outlined, which may be even more in terms of the people killed.
Entire generations have been destroyed. There is a generation of Syrians that grew up in displacement, in refugee camps, the destruction that happened to the country. All the human cost and the physical cost, I think, it’s hard to say that it was not too high. It’s impossible to say that it was OK that all this happened.
There are other costs, of course. The other cost is the loss of sovereignty of Syria, which has been a process ongoing for 10 years. Syria was occupied and invaded by the United States, by Turkey, on the opposition side. And on the Syrian government side, it drew on its allies to defend itself, Russia and Iran, which came to place the regime in a position of dependency.
So, there were multiple foreign types of occupations in the country, which we see what is happening now in the Israeli airstrikes as a continuation of that loss of sovereignty. And I think this is something that Syrians have to grapple with.
There are other costs of the war, as well. There are the empowerment of actors that are not acceptable to a wide variety of Syrian society. Not that there isn’t some backing for them, particularly because they have a certain legitimacy for many Syrians because they fought the government.
But the current government in power or the current, you know, HTS, is not acceptable to large parts of Syrian society, and there’s already warnings that it’s acting as a de facto power, and people are warning against that.
And, of course, there’s the final thing, which is that this is tempered by the regional context, which is the ongoing Israeli genocide in Palestine that is empowered by the US And we’ve seen over the past couple days a complete destruction of what was remaining of Syrian Army military assets by Israel, with complete impunity.
So, all of those, we’re trying to take all those contradictions together — joy for the people, joy for the moment that many millions had dreamed of, which is the departure of the Assad family from power, and the feeling that politics is finally possible in Syria.
Despite all these contradictions, there is a chance for political life to resume. There’s a chance for advocacy for a collectively better future. And this is something that we all have to try and hold and support.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Professor, I’m wondering if you could talk briefly about your own family’s history. In the 1990s, your father helped smuggle out names of political prisoners, many of them accused of belonging to the League of Communist Labor, yet the Ba’athist party and the government of your country often talked about being socialist.
OMAR DAHI: Yeah, this was a kind of a spur-of-the-moment post that I did on social media to share these documents that I received after my father passed away three or four years ago. And basically, my father was a lawyer and was among two or three or maybe four lawyers who stepped up in the 1990s to defend a large group of political prisoners, many of them communists, many of them who were accused of being members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
They were basically detained without a trial — or not even just a trial, but without a formal charge. They were accused of belonging to this outlawed party of Communist Labor, which was accused by the government of mounting an insurrection against it in the late 1970s and 1980s. So, most of those who were detained were detained in the 1980s. They had been “disappeared”.
Their families didn’t know anything about them. Most people didn’t know — like many of the people we’re discovering in Sednaya prison today, were not aware whether they were dead or alive or their whereabouts.
So, my father would basically meet with some of those prisoners, when allowed to do so. And really, it was the courage of the prisoners to assemble a lot of this data, to write down their names, their dates of birth, their professions, where they were — when they were arrested, what’s their charge, where they were being held — mostly, in this case, in Sednaya prison — and also if they were in — you know, they needed medical attention, they were traumatised or they were injured in some way.
And I asked my dad why he did this, actually, because, you know, there was no sense that these prisoners would be freed. So, most of them ended up being put on trial en masse and convicted. So, he told me that he had no expectation of justice at that time, but that he felt it was necessary to do it, to use any opening and any chance to expose the hypocrisy of the government, for the same reasons that you mentioned, that he didn’t expect them to actually be — you know, receive a fair trial, which they didn’t, but there has to be a chance to basically put the government’s declared principles against its actions and expose the government.
So, this was a historical document that I was kind of moved to share when the images of the prisoners who were being released from Sednaya. Most of those names in those documents have either, unfortunately, passed away or were released from the prison, so I didn’t expect that there would be some of those people actually there.
But, yeah, that’s why I shared that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask you also — you mentioned the foreign presence in Syria. Hasn’t the country, effectively, during this civil war been already partitioned, with Turkish troops creating a buffer zone in the north, the Israelis not only recently, in the past few days, entering Syrian territory, but conducting military operations in the territory previous to that, with the Kurds backed by the US, ISIS still controlling portions of territory, and the Russian bases in the country?
Do you have any sense of the integrity of the country being reconstituted anytime soon?
OMAR DAHI: I don’t think so. I think it’s going to be a long-term struggle, and partly because of the reasons you mention, because this is something that has been happening for a decade, and there are kind of entrenched interests that have developed, not just in terms of a foreign occupation, but in terms of the connection of various parts of Syrian society and their ties to those countries in ways that they’ve come to basically be affiliated or allied with them.
And this is reminiscent, for people who observe Syria, of the post-independence period in Syrian history, when Syria was a site of struggle by external powers because it was weak, it was politically divided, and various regional powers basically came to have significant influence in the country through Syrian political elites.
This was transformed by the Assad family and the Ba’ath Party in ways that actually flipped this around, where Syria consolidated its power and projected its power, at least regionally. But it came at a price, I think, that was high and unsustainable, particularly for Syrian society.
Now this is actually completely shattered. And I think there’s going to be an attempt to rewrite the history of the Syrian conflict in ways that pin the blame completely on the Assad regime, which I don’t think is the case. I think they are primarily at fault for this, not just because of their governance, which was brutal and tyrannical and maintained an exclusive monopoly on power for decades, without recognising any dissent, without recognising any political opposition; not just because of their reaction to the uprising when it first started, where they completely closed down any meaningful political transition; but also because even after they won the war, they spent many years refusing any political initiative to reconcile, after they had, with the help of Russia and Iran, won the war, basically.
So, the frontlines had been frozen for many years.
But all the other international actors also contributed to the destruction of the country. I think there were ways in which, you know, this fragmentation didn’t just imply an obvious loss of sovereignty in the abstract sense, but also destroyed the economy and fragmented the Syrian national economy.
It created kind of perverse war economies in the country. And as you said, Israel has been bombing Syria for the past decade. This bombing escalated after the collapse of the government. They further invaded Syrian territory, and we saw the incursions and the devastation that took place in the last couple days.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about who Mohammed al-Bashir is, the man who’s been appointed the temporary prime minister right now of Syria, and also HTS, its role, listed as a terrorist movement by the US, the EU, the UK and Turkey — the UN special envoy for Syria told The Financial Times that international powers seeking a peaceful transition in the country would have to consider lifting this designation — who Abu Mohammad al-Julani now is — his birth name is Ahmed al-Sharaa?
OMAR DAHI: Yes. Well, I mean, I’m not an expert on Ahmed al-Sharaa’s personal history. Some of that has come out in recent days about his birth in Syria. He claims he was radicalised by the Palestinian intifada, and he joined al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.
And Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is basically a splinter group from al-Qaeda that had basically come — it was based in Iraq and then came back to Syria after the uprising started. And there was a period of time, which maybe your audience will remember, when Syria fragmented into various militias.
And there was just as much infighting among those militias, among themselves, between the opposition groups, just as much as they were fighting the Syrian government. So, basically, groups similar to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham were fighting each other. And then there was a period of reconsolidation, particularly in the aftermath of the attack on ISIS, and the kind of permanent or the, you know, more or less, consolidation of Syria into various spheres of influence, with a US presence and Kurdish-led political and military groups in the northeast, Turkish control in the northwest.
Under the areas that were generally under Turkish influence, there were areas that were directly tied to Turkey and areas in which Turkey had influence, and this is the area that came to be consolidated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. So, they have a bloody history not just prior to the war, but actually during the war, with respect to even other opposition groups, and kind of, basically, you know, during the time of the rule in the province of Idlib.
Right now and during these past two weeks, there’s been a lot of positive signs in terms of the way they approached the collapse of the Syrian regime, the signs that were verbal, the signs that were actually in actions in terms of trying to protect all government institutions, all public institutions, despite the fact that there have been incidents of looting and sabotage in various ways, but at least they’ve been trying to speak of a national interest in some ways.
That, of course, has to be put to the test. There’s already critiques of their rule, because they unilaterally imposed a transitional government on Syria, which most Syrians would reject as something that they don’t have the authority to do.
It’s also happening in a context where, of course, Syria is still under economic sanctions, so you’ve had devastation from many years of the war, and you’ve had also devastation of Syrian society because of the crippling economic sanctions, primarily imposed by the U.S. and the European Union. So —
AMY GOODMAN: We just have 30 seconds.
OMAR DAHI: So, all of that is really going to be, basically, coming into play over the coming days, basically, and months. And we’ll see how the regional context basically influences what’s happening domestically.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us. Of course, we’re going to continue to follow what happens with Syria. Omar Dahi, Syrian American economics professor at Hampshire College and director of the Security in Context research network.
Coming up, we go to the West Bank to a new report by B’Tselem. As thousands of Syrians are being released from Syrian prisons, we’ll look at a new report on Palestinian prisoners in Hebron, in the occupied West Bank. It’s called “Unleashed: Abuse of Palestinians by Israeli Soldiers in the Center of Hebron.”
The federal government has revealed a new bargaining chip in the gamble to bring big tech back to the table with news publishers.
The “news media bargaining incentive” is essentially a new levy issued by the Australian Tax Office to digital platforms. Platforms that renew or initiate deals with news publishers to pay for news content will be able to offset the levy.
Platforms that refuse to come to the bargaining table will still have to pay – regardless of whether they host news content on their sites.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland suggested at a media conference on Thursday that this will leave organisations such as Meta and Google with a bill far larger than if they had simply entered into agreements.
‘Four-dimensional chess’
The incentive aims to bolster the Morrison government’s 2021 news media bargaining code. That scheme gave the federal treasurer the power to “designate” an eligible digital platform to enter into a commercial agreement with news publishers to pay for news content appearing online.
A review of the code in 2022 suggested the legislation was a success without ever having been enacted. The threat of designation prompted Meta and Google to make 34 deals amounting to more than A$200 million across the media sector.
Google has extended the deals it struck. But earlier this year, Meta announced it would not renew any of the 13 deals it made three years ago with Australian news media companies. Those deals were worth millions of dollars.
The federal government was left with a conundrum. Should it designate platforms and risk what has happened in Canada, where Meta responded to government pressure to pay for journalism by simply removing all Canadian news content from its platforms? Or should Australia take a different approach?
Jones has admitted to playing the equivalent of “four-dimensional chess” to figure out the government’s next move.
No doubt he and Rowland were playing with one eye on Canada, where the government played hardball – and lost.
The Australian code was criticised for not immediately designating digital platforms, which essentially allowed platforms to pick and choose which publishers they negotiated with – meaning small or niche publishers largely lost out of funding.
Instead, the Canadian government insisted its Online News act would be the first legislation to compel Meta and Google to pay for third-party news content on their sites.
But the strongarm tactics didn’t work.
The legislation was only hours old before Meta announced it would simply block Canadians from accessing and sharing news on all of its platforms.
While the Canadian government was able to bring Google back to negotiations, Meta has used Bill C-18 as a global example to other governments considering similar legislation. It has made good on its threat to pull news content from its sites.
The effects on the Canadian news industry have been widely felt.
Most Canadian news publishers have reported disastrous declines in online traffic, audience engagement and overall revenue, traced back to bans on news content on Facebook.
The Canadian Media Ecosystem Observatory reported that one year after Meta blocked news access on Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users, about one third of small, local news providers are now inactive online.
In the face of such dire consequences for public interest journalism, the Australian federal government chose a business incentive approach.
Will the incentive work?
Crucially, the incentive charge announced on Thursday applies to digital platforms regardless of whether they host news content.
That means digital platforms would pay more if they did not enter into agreements with news publishers – or they would have to consider the economic value of pulling their entire operations from Australia to avoid paying the levy.
The federal government is rolling the dice on a “designation-like” scheme, with the sweetener of ensuring big tech can offset their deals with Australian news publishers.
There are caveats. Jones said big tech companies would not be able to fulfil their obligations simply by doing one big deal. However, existing deals would be recognised under the new scheme.
While the incentive looks promising, questions remain.
Responding to a reporter’s question on Thursday, Jones appeared to suggest the number and value of any deals could be made public. However, this is unlikely.
Under the news media bargaining code, commercial-in-confidence provisions have meant publishers and platforms aren’t required to report the number or value of deals.
News publishers were not keen to announce how they invested the money they received or whether that investment aligned with the news media bargaining code’s policy aim of supporting public interest journalism.
This means previous research showing the news media bargaining code created “winners and losers” among news publishers will not change with the new incentive-based scheme. Smaller publishers will continue to lose out.
Platforms will continue to pick and choose who they negotiate with, how much money they contribute, and in some cases, even what content they want to see produced.
The elephant in the room
The federal government is yet to address the Meta-sized elephant in the room: what if digital platforms continue to withdraw from negotiations with news publishers?
While the federal government has yet to finalise the scheme, the announcement comes off the back of consultation with digital platforms, and a briefing for the incoming US government.
A public consultation paper detailing the structure of the incentive will be released in early 2025.
This will undoubtedly give Meta time to consider its next move.
Diana Bossio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Conversation received funding from Google under the previous news media bargaining code. The Conversation and SBS were two significant publishers that did not receive funding from Meta under the code.
It has been a busy year for defamation lawyers. There has been a mixed bag of outcomes, too.
The two highest profile cases delivered different results: a win for independent MP Alex Greenwich in his suit against fellow parliamentarian Mark Latham, but a loss for Bruce Lehrmann in his defamation action against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson.
The latest case (which began in the Federal Court in September this year) has seen a win for Moira Deeming, a former Liberal Legislative Council MP, who sued a fellow Liberal, Victoria’s Opposition Leader John Pesutto. She was seeking damages for comments he made in reference to her appearance at an anti-trans rights rally in March 2023.
The rally, under the banner “Let Women Speak”, featured international anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen.
As it happened, the rally was gate-crashed by neo-Nazis. Pesutto made remarks that the court today found conveyed the imputation that Deeming associates with Nazis.
He said shortly after the rally that he would move a motion to expel her as a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party.
Why did it end up in court?
Deeming denied any connection with Nazism. Pesutto’s words, she said, were damaging to her reputation and satisfied the legal requirements of defamation law in that right-minded Australians would now think less of her.
The hateful, private messages sent to Deeming that followed the comments of her leader were evidence of that, she argued.
Many of the spiteful ripostes that were posted on social media in the days and weeks following Pesutto’s critique of his colleague are found in Justice David O’Callaghan’s judgment. They make for appalling reading.
Ultimately, she was expelled from the parliamentary Liberal Party in May 2024 after she threatened legal action against Pesutto. She now sits in parliament on the crossbench.
Pesutto’s legal team rejected the claims, saying he had not called Deeming a neo-Nazi, nor a white supremacist or anything similar.
In matters such as this, Justice O’Callaghan (who had also presided over the Greenwich vs Latham case) had the task of determining whether the comments had caused, or were likely to cause, serious harm to her reputation.
In the end, he was satisfied Deeming had proved that defamatory imputations had been conveyed to the ordinary reasonable reader, listener or viewer.
He concluded:
The imputations that I have found to have been carried are very serious ones. In my view […] they were inherently likely, using mass media to communicate a message to the general public in Victoria, to cause serious harm to Mrs Deeming’s reputation. That is especially so in circumstances where the leader of her own Parliamentary party was moving for her expulsion from it.
Because he decided the comments did cause serious harm, Justice O’Callaghan then had to decide whether Pesutto could rely upon one of the defences found in the Victorian Defamation Act. In this case, the relevant defences were public interest and honest opinion. He determined that they had failed:
In the case of the media release, the 3AW and ABC interviews and the press conference, when bandying around words like “Nazi” and “Nazi sympathisers” and people who “associate” with them or “help” them and the like, it was incumbent on Mr Pesutto to be careful not to convey a meaning that he did not intend.
The judge said “the use of loose language provides greater opportunity for the ordinary reasonable reader to infer adverse meaning from the published matter than the use of precise and unambiguous language. And Mr Pesutto knew as much”.
He awarded Deeming A$300,000 in damages for non-economic loss and as “reparations for the harm done to Mrs Deeming’s reputation and the need for vindication of it”.
What is the lesson from this case?
There is always the potential for a defamatory imputation when imprecise language is used.
Free speech is an important part of our political and social landscape, evidenced by the defences in defamation law of honest opinion, public interest, qualified privilege and contextual truth.
But its dominance can easily be lost when that speech slips into maligning people who justifiably enjoy the confidence of their peers.
It is incumbent on all speakers in the public sphere to be very clear in their language about what they are and are not saying. If not, the law will provide a remedy.
Saying anything at all that conveys the imputation a person associates with Nazism is a dangerous game. Indeed, Victoria was the first Australian jurisdiction to criminalise the salute that is now a federal crime.
As this case has shown, one cannot play fast and loose with politically-loaded slurs.
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.
Big tech companies would have to either do deals with news organisations to help fund journalism or pay a charge to the Australian government, under a new plan announced by the Albanese government on Thursday.
The new plan follows the Morrison government-era system introduced in 2021 known as the news media bargaining code, which saw companies such as Google and Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp) pay news organisations to help fund journalism.
A press release issued on Thursday by Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones and Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the federal government is:
establishing a News Bargaining Incentive to encourage digital platforms to enter into or renew commercial deals with news publishers. Australia does not intend to raise revenue from this policy.
Platforms that choose not to enter or renew commercial agreements with news publishers will pay the charge. Platforms with these agreements will, however, be able to offset their liability.
The incentive will apply to large digital platforms operating significant social media or search services irrespective of whether or not they carry news.
The design of the scheme is yet to be finalised, and the government says a public consultation paper is expected to be released in early 2025.
So, how did we get here – and what might happen if Meta failed to comply?
How did we get here?
The news media bargaining code worked well for its first three years, but Meta has now taken the view it should not be paying for news. It announced earlier this year it would not renew the news media contracts it had in place.
In contrast, Google has contracts that have been renewed for at least a year. It has decided it is still worth paying for news; if you did a Google search and news didn’t come up at all, it would be a pretty poor search engine.
So we have Meta saying no, and this is consistent with Meta’s approach in Canada; Canadian news has been blocked from Meta platforms since August last year.
Only companies that are “designated” under the bargaining code have to comply with the provisions in the code. The Albanese government has taken the view that if it designates Meta under the news media bargaining code, it is likely Meta would cease offering news services in Australia in the same way it did for a few weeks in 2021, and the same way it has done in Canada.
So the federal government is thinking of a different approach.
A different approach: an ‘incentive charge’
The new approach is to say to big tech firms, basically, “If you have contracts with news media businesses, then just carry on. If you don’t, then you need to pay a charge.”
It’s a bit like the system with private health insurance in Australia; if you don’t have private health insurance, you pay a slightly higher Medicare levy. And if you do have it, you don’t have to pay the higher Medicare levy.
So today’s announcement would mean very large online platforms that don’t have deals in place for news would pay this new charge. The revenue would then be used for public interest journalism or in a way that pays the news media businesses that otherwise would have been paid if they did have deals with big platforms.
Either way, news media organisations will get some money out of the big platforms.
This new plan is taking the view that the news bargaining code from 2021 worked OK for a while and it worked OK for some businesses, but it didn’t work for Meta, so we need another approach.
This new approach is similar to an idea colleagues and I proposed in our submission to a parliamentary committee examining this and other online issues.
Regulating big platforms
Another part of the plan would be to create a new system that requires the big platforms to be subject to the new regime.
The government says that it will consult on this, and has set a threshold that means only platforms with Australian revenue above $250 million per year will be affected.
One option that may flow from the consultation is licensing, in the same way we license telcos.
There was no mention of licensing in today’s press release. But, in theory, the government could just say to Meta and Google, and other firms like it, that in order to operate the type of business you have in Australia you need to comply with the obligations.
It could say that one of the conditions of your licence in Australia is that you follow the rules about either paying news media organisations, or paying the charge.
Would Meta comply?
Under this new system Meta would have to ask itself: do we still want to do business in Australia or not?
The vast amount of advertising revenue they get in Australia suggests that failing to comply would be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Rather than pay the charge, they would exit and forgo all that ad revenue.
So my expectation is they would rather just pay the charge.
It was interesting to note that the new “incentive charge” announced today will apply to large digital platforms operating significant social media or search services “irrespective of whether or not they carry news”.
In other words, even if it refused to have news media content on Facebook or Instagram or Whatsapp, Meta would still have to pay the charge (unless they did deals with news media organisations).
The government appears to be very keen to take on this fight. In the lead up to the election there are no votes to be lost in kicking supermarket bosses and Meta bosses.
Rob Nicholls also works for the Association for Data-driven Marketing. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council. The Conversation has received funding from Google negotiated under the Australian government’s News Media Bargaining Code. It has also previously received grant funding from Google.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Murray, Associate Professor of Cybersecurity, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne
A major outage is affecting users of popular social media and messaging services including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp around the globe. All these platforms are run by the social media giant Meta.
As news of the outage spread, we learned that it affected almost all of Meta’s products, including Messenger and Threads, as well as Meta’s business products, such as Facebook Ads Manager and the Messenger API for Instagram.
Most services are beginning to come back online. But what went wrong, and what can we learn from this massive outage?
The outage was first reported in the US on Wednesday (around 12.30pm in New York, 5.30pm in London, or 4.30am Thursday in Sydney).
Five hours later, Meta posted to X to say it was 99% of the way to resolving the outage.
What might have caused it?
At the moment, there has been no official word on the cause of the outage. However, we can make some educated guesses based on its scope.
From reporting so far, the outage covered not only Meta’s major social media platforms and messaging services, but also some of its business products. It also affected Meta’s Login with Facebook service, which allows users to log in to third-party sites using their Facebook username and password.
Meta’s business product status page showed outages in several services. Meta
In other words, there seem to be very few Meta products this outage did not impact.
That suggests that whatever went wrong was a single point of failure: something relied upon by all of Meta’s services, without which the services can’t function.
Design for reliability
These kinds of outages are rare. That’s because major internet platforms are designed to be highly reliable.
The main way reliability is achieved is through replication. When you visit Instagram, for example, your computer connects to a server that sends back your Instagram feed. In fact, Instagram content is not stored on just one computer but is replicated across a massive array of computers known as a content delivery network (or CDN).
Practically all major web platforms, including news sites such as The Conversation, large companies, and online services such as YouTube and Google, use content delivery networks to increase the reliability and efficiency of their websites.
The idea behind a content delivery network is that if one computer in the network has a problem, another can take over in its place. This is what makes the networks reliable.
Content delivery networks also help when websites are under heavy demand. If many people are trying to request the same content, those requests can be spread out between many computers in the network, allowing each to be handled efficiently.
The widespread nature of Meta’s outage suggests it might have happened in a part of Meta’s systems that wasn’t replicated. However, we’ll have to wait for word from Meta on the causes before we will know for sure.
Lessons to be learned
Meta’s outage comes in the wake of the major outage caused earlier this year by CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software. Falcon’s design meant it was deeply entangled with Microsoft Windows. That made Falcon a single point of failure so that, when it crashed, it brought down Windows as well – in spectacular fashion.
A key lesson from this outage was that invasive security software such as Falcon should be re-engineered to operate at arm’s length of Windows. This idea is known as fault isolation, which says that systems should be built as a collection of separate components so that if one component fails it cannot cause the entire system to fail.
This is the reason why modern ships are designed to have multiple internal compartments, with mechanisms to try to make each compartment watertight. That way, if the ship’s hull is breached, water cannot flood the entire ship.
Meta’s outage is a timely reminder of the need to engineer critical systems to maximise their reliability, including minimising central points of failure and employing engineering principles like fault isolation.
Looking ahead
In the meantime, the precise cause of Meta’s outage remains to be determined.
Many people all over the world rely on Meta’s services. These include businesses using Instagram as their primary platform for engaging customers online, or merchants using Facebook Marketplace as a key revenue stream. For many families, WhatsApp has become an indispensable way to keep in contact, especially during times of crisis.
We can only hope Meta will be forthcoming about the causes of this outage and the measures it will put in place to make sure it cannot happen again.
Toby Murray has previously received funding from Facebook. He is the director of the Defence Science Institute, which receives state and Commonwealth funding.
A prospective constitutional challenge to Victorian campaign finance laws may have flow-on consequences for Commonwealth campaign finance reforms, which have currently stalled in the Senate.
Four independent candidates, who were defeated at the last Victorian election, have banded together to threaten a challenge to aspects of campaign finance laws they regard as seriously disadvantaging independent candidates and new parties in state elections.
The Andrews Labor government introduced these reforms in 2018. They imposed a very low cap on political donations, but no cap on electoral expenditure. Instead, electoral expenditure is limited to money that comes out of a special campaign account, into which all the capped political donations are deposited.
This would seem fair, if electoral expenditure were limited to the amount of capped donations a party or candidate can raise. The broader the party’s or candidate’s support, and the greater the number of capped donations received, the more can be spent on the campaign. But this is not how it actually works, as the system has been manipulated to favour the major political parties.
The mysterious ‘nominated entity’
Parties can appoint a “nominated entity”, which can then transfer amounts, no matter how large, into the party’s campaign account. The Labor, Liberal and National parties have all appointed nominated entities, which hold extensive assets. These bodies transfer millions of dollars to the campaign accounts of the relevant party, to spend on political advertising.
Independents are denied this advantage, as they are not permitted to have a nominated entity.
While other parties theoretically could appoint a nominated entity, the law applies differently to them, because they did not appoint nominated entities under earlier, more lax requirements.
Any new nominated entity must be controlled by, and operate for, the sole benefit of a registered political party. This means any new entity could only receive capped donations and could not build up the type of wealth held by the nominated entities of the major parties. It also stops new parties from appointing bodies, such as Climate 200, as their nominated entity. Two or more parties cannot nominate the same entity.
How does this play out in practice?
The system significantly favours major parties and incumbent MPs over independents and new parties. An independent can only spend campaign funds that come from their own pocket or capped donations they have received. Each of their donors can donate no more than an aggregate amount of $4,670 over a four-year electoral cycle.
In contrast, political parties can also spend uncapped amounts transferred from their nominated entities as well as advance payments of public funding. The latter is calculated according to the number of first-preference votes won at the previous election. This advantages major parties, which receive large amounts from both advance funding and nominated entities, while new parties miss out.
The major parties also have the advantage that they can shift the bulk of their funds to spend on campaigns in marginal electorates, swamping the campaign of any independent or new party that relies on capped donations.
What is the constitutional argument?
The High Court, when it first identified an implied freedom of political communication in the Constitution in 1992, was dealing with a federal law that prohibited paid political advertising on the electronic media. The law provided for free political advertising time to be allocated among parties and candidates on the basis of their success at the previous election. Even though measures were included to secure 10% of the free advertising time for new and independent candidates, a majority of the High Court did not think that was sufficient.
The fact that 90% of free advertising time was to be allocated to parties already represented in parliament because of their proportion of first-preference votes at the previous election favoured incumbents. As Justice McHugh pointed out, one cannot seek to justify a law as levelling the playing field if it “favours the sitting members and their political parties at the expense of the views of those who do not hold political power”.
The High Court has previously accepted that limits imposed on political donations and campaign funding burden the implied freedom of political communication. This is because they restrict the funds that can be used on political communication during election campaigns. The court has also accepted that laws burdening the implied freedom can still be justified if they are for a legitimate purpose and proportionate in their operation.
The Andrews government claimed this law was enacted to ensure “a level playing field” and provide “equal participation in the electoral process”. While the High Court would regard these as legitimate purposes, it is hard to imagine that a law that so clearly and deliberately favours incumbents and major parties over independents and new parties could be accepted as being for such purposes, let alone proportionate in achieving them.
Even the body established to review the campaign finance reforms recommended, by majority, that the use of nominated entities be removed from the Electoral Act. It regarded the law as not treating all parties equally and significantly advantaging those parties that were able to establish a nominated entity under previous laws. It also pointed out that the rules allow parties with nominated entities to spend significantly more on their campaigns, with the risk they will drown out other voices.
What is the potentially wider impact of this challenge?
The idea of a nominated entity has also caught on elsewhere. South Australia introduced it with its reforms that ban political donations. However, nominated entities in SA can only support the administrative expenditure of parties – not their campaign spending. This reduces the risk of a successful constitutional challenge.
The Commonwealth’s proposed law also permits political parties to have nominated entities that can make unlimited transfers of funds into their campaign expenditure accounts.
While expenditure caps (albeit quite high ones) are proposed at the Commonwealth level, a political party could still shift large amounts of money into marginal electorates for campaign spending. It could do this by using money from nominated entities, as long as all expenditure above the electorate cap was used for ads about the party and its policies, which do not mention or show the candidate or the electorate, and it didn’t exceed a party expenditure cap of $90 million.
An independent, however, must stay under the electorate expenditure cap of $800,000, as he or she does not have a party to advertise, a higher party cap or the use of money from a nominated entity.
If the Commonwealth’s bill were passed, the playing field would slope heavily in favour of the major political parties. While it is not quite as biased as the Victorian law, it would still be vulnerable to constitutional challenge. Any success in the mooted Victorian challenge would likely have an impact on the validity of the proposed Commonwealth provisions too.
Anne Twomey has received funding from the ARC and sometimes does consultancy work for governments, Parliaments and inter-governmental bodies.
It has been a busy time in the Australian government’s sports diplomacy locker room.
Recently, Assistant Foreign Minister Tim Watts met with 22 national sporting organisations in Melbourne for the inaugural Sports Diplomacy Consultative Group meeting.
And today, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, his Papua New Guinea (PNG) counterpart James Marape and NRL boss Peter V’landys announced a long-awaited deal handing PNG its own NRL team.
A bright idea but not everyone’s happy
The project will establish a PNG-based rugby league team based in Port Moresby.
The deal also includes an assurance “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the pacific nation”. This has led some to argue that sport and security should not mix, and that rugby league should not be used “as leverage to guarantee our security.”
The Lowy Institute’s Hugh Piper recently asked what if it fails? Who owns the franchise? And could Australian public diplomacy be entering novel terrain: professional sports administration?
Critics have also highlighted other possible negatives: perceptions that this is just neocolonial Australia bullying, patronising, poaching talent, demonising China, militarising the Pacific (via AUKUS), and even sportswashing – that is, co-opting rugby league to deflect attention from other issues.
The doubters can rest assured, though: such a bold, expensive and untried sports diplomacy adventure is unlikely to be an own goal.
What will the benefits be?
Since launching the world’s first sports diplomacy strategy in 2015, Australian diplomats and sports administrators’ expertise in this niche but powerful area of diplomacy has only grown.
Moreover, the PNG NRL bid is part of a much broader, older, and similarly funded, PacificAus Sports strategy that has been running since 2019.
We have been here before, with the men’s and women’s Fijian Drua teams playing in the Super Rugby Union competition over the past few years.
Driven largely by lifelong South Sydney Rabbitohs “tragic” Albanese, the PNG venture seek outcomes on and off the field.
Rugby league is the country’s national sport and many Papua New Guineans – from players to fans to the prime minster – have long desired to play in the NRL.
Much of the funding will go towards team infrastructure, player welfare and development pathways for young male and female players.
Off the field, Marape sees the endeavour as more than sport. Rugby league can unify the country’s hundreds of diverse tribal groups, as well as providing opportunities for youth development, jobs, and other human security initiatives such as addressing PNG’s domestic and family violence problem.
Likening the potential impact of Nelson Mandela’s use of rugby union to unite South Africa, Marape said “nothing can be better” than both governments “working hand in hand to have a team in the NRL based in Port Moresby, with a footprint in Far North Queensland as well as in the South Pacific”.
In Papua New Guinea, rugby league is more than just a game – it’s a way of life.
How it can work
To borrow a baseball saying, how then does the government, the NRL and the Papuans “knock it out the park”?
Here are a few suggested plays:
There are lots of Australian government departments, embassies and government employees involved with sports diplomacy in the Pacific. To avoid confusion, maximise impact and generate economies of scale, these department programs, peoples and activities should be mapped, reviewed and coordinated.
You wouldn’t send a diplomat to Port Moresby with no training. Therefore, the sports diplomats – the players, administrators, fans and so on – must be trained in the basics of international relations, security, diplomacy and culture.
Measure, evaluate and publicise positive impacts via original sports diplomacy metrics. That is, prove “rugby league diplomacy” works through data, quantifying both on- and off-the-field outcomes.
Invest in a bit of “deadly” sports. That is, ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are integral to every aspect of the venture. In diplomacy, messengers matter as much as the messages.
Speaking of culture, sports diplomacy needs to be “done with” PNG and not “done to” it. This means allowing rugby league to serve as a channel for PNG to project its brand, unique culture, foreign policy and abject love of the sport to us.
As for that huge tax bill, the public not only deserve to know how every cent is spent, but they also need to be treated as members of the same team with a stake and investment in the venture. Deeds matter in whole-of-nation approaches such as this venture.
A positive outlook
For PNG, this team offers a multifaceted opportunity to enhance national unity, drive economic development and strengthen PNG’s strategic partnerships.
For Australia, the deal is a chance to combine our great passion (sport) with our great need (security), while helping out a friend and, subtly, bolstering our partnership, people-to-people links and sporting product. Sport will complement other, arguably more important strands in the old relationship: security (traditional and human), economics, trade and geopolitics.
Hopefully an initiative such as this, that promotes diplomacy over division, people-to-people links, and sport, fun and movement, is celebrated and supported.
As an active academic and practitioner, Stuart Murray receives funding from many organisations – including DFAT, The British Council, the Office of First Nations International Engagement.
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
This article is based on a presentation by the author to the Electoral Regulations Forum.
At the November 5 US presidential election, Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the Electoral College by 312 electoral votes to 226, winning the seven key states of Nevada (six electoral votes), Wisconsin (ten), Arizona (11), Michigan (15), Georgia (16), North Carolina (16) and Pennsylvania (19).
Trump also won the national popular vote by 49.8–48.3% over Harris, becoming the first Republican to win the popular vote since 2004. (Republicans won the presidency but not the popular vote in both 2000 and 2016.) In raw vote terms, Trump defeated Harris by 77.3 million votes to 75.0 million.
While this was a clear victory for Trump, a 1.5% win in the popular vote is not a landslide. The Electoral College system tends to produce large margins for the winner because states award their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. In 2008 and 2012, Democrat Barack Obama won more electoral votes than Trump in 2024 (365 in 2008, 332 in 2012).
If all states and their electoral votes are sorted from most Democratic to most Republican, the “tipping-point” state is the state that puts the winner over the 270 electoral votes needed for an Electoral College majority.
At this election, the tipping-point state was Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 1.7%. There was only a 0.2% difference between the national popular vote and Trump’s Pennsylvanian margin.
In 2020, Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump in the Electoral College by 306 to 232 electoral votes. Biden also won the popular vote by 51.3–46.8%, a 4.5% margin (81.3 million votes to 74.2 million).
However, at that election, the tipping-point state (Wisconsin) voted for Biden by just 0.6%, so there was a 3.9% difference between the popular vote and the tipping-point state. On a uniform swing, if Trump had lost the popular vote by less than 3.9% in 2020, he would have still won the presidency.
This is the main reason for optimism for Democrats: they only need a near-tie in the popular vote to win the Electoral College (and the presidency) in the next presidential election if there’s a uniform swing, not a four-point win.
The main cause for this narrowing in the Republicans’ Electoral College advantage is that Hispanics swung big to Trump. However, five of the seven key states have relatively few Hispanics as a share of overall population (Arizona and Nevada are the exceptions). Trump’s outsize gains with Hispanics meant the swings to him were lower in states with fewer Hispanics, which included most of the key states.
After the 2016 US election, I wrote that Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College by 306 electoral votes to 232, despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%. This happened because whites without a university education swung big to Trump from the 2012 election.
The swing to Trump with Hispanics at this election can be explained by decreasing racial polarisation but increasing educational polarisation in the US. Hispanics used to vote for Democratic candidates on the basis of race, but are now increasingly voting for Trump like whites without a university education.
A narrow Republican House majority
The US House of Representatives has 435 members elected in districts that are allocated on a population basis. All of the House is up for election every two years.
Republicans won the House by 220 seats to 215 for Democrats, a two-seat net gain for Democrats since the 2022 midterms. This narrow majority came despite Republicans winning the House popular vote by 2.7%, the same margin as in 2022.
Democrats appear to have a more efficiently distributed vote than in the past. For example, in 2016, Republicans won a 241–194 House majority on a 1.1% popular vote win.
This was the closest margin for either party in the House since 1930. Furthermore, in the US, people serving in the presidential administration cannot also be in Congress. Trump has selected two House Republicans for his administration, and they will need to resign if confirmed by the Senate.
In the US, “special elections” (the same thing as a byelection) will be needed to replace those House members (in addition to Republican Matt Gaetz, who resigned from his House seat when Trump nominated him to be attorney general, but has subsequently withdrawn from consideration). Until these three seats are filled in special elections, Republicans will have just a 217–215 majority.
During the 2023–24 term of the House, there was much chaos owing to the Republicans’ narrow majority. It took 15 rounds for Republican Kevin McCarthy to be elected speaker in January 2023. After his ouster in October 2023, it took 22 days for Republican Mike Johnson to become speaker. With Republicans’ margin even tighter in the incoming House, more chaos is probable.
There are two senators for each of the 50 states. Senators have six-year terms, with one-third up for election every two years. Prior to the 2024 election, Democrats and allied independents held a 51–49 Senate majority, but they were defending 23 of the 33 seats up for election, including three in states Trump won easily: Ohio, Montana and West Virginia.
Republicans gained in these three seats, and also one in Pennsylvania, to take a 53–47 Senate majority. But Democrats held their seats in four of the five presidential swing states that also held Senate elections. If Democrats had lost Senate contests in all the states Trump won, Republicans would have taken a 57–43 Senate majority.
The Senate alone is responsible for confirming presidential cabinet-level and judicial appointments, so Trump is unlikely to have trouble with these appointments for the next two years. However, the narrow Republican majority in the House could make passing partisan legislation difficult.
Democrats should do well in 2026
At the November 2026 midterm elections, all of the House and one-third of the Senate seats will be up for election again.
Trump was never popular during his first term, helping the Democrats gain control of the House at the 2018 midterm elections. With Republicans only having a slim House majority at this election, it should be easier for Democrats to win House control than it was in 2018.
Republicans will also be defending 21 of the 34 Senate seats up for election in 2026. The big problem for Democrats in the Senate is the two-senators-per-state rule favours Republicans, as they perform well in low-population, rural states.
Of the seats Republicans are defending in 2026, one is in Maine, which Harris won by 7%, and one is in North Carolina (Trump by 3%). The rest are in states Trump won by at least a ten-point margin.
Even if Democrats win the Maine and North Carolina Senate seats and don’t lose any seats they currently hold, Republicans would still hold a 51–49 Senate majority after 2026. To win control of the Senate, Democrats would need to gain states such as Alaska (Trump by 13), Iowa (Trump by 13), Ohio (Trump by 11) or Texas (Trump by 14).
Left-wing parties worldwide have been losing ground in the last ten years among voters without a university education, but gaining ground among those who do have a university education.
However, university-educated people are more likely to vote, particularly at lower-turnout elections like the midterm elections. During Obama’s presidency (2009-17), Democrats were routed at midterm elections in 2010 and 2014.
But they performed far better at the 2022 midterm elections, only losing the House narrowly and gaining a Senate seat. This performance occurred despite Biden’s ratings being worse than Obama’s. The main explanation was that Democratic-aligned voters were more likely to vote than Republican-aligned voters. The Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that reversed Roe v Wade was seen as a huge motivating factor for Democrats.
Trump is sure to anger Democrats with many of his decisions. And midterm elections have usually been poor for the sitting president’s party. If Democrats benefit from higher turnout among their voters and Trump is unpopular, they could heavily defeat Republicans in 2026. If this occurs, Republican Senate seats that appear safe may not be so safe.
Despite the six-point swing in the national popular vote margin between the 2020 and 2024 elections, Democrats outperformed Biden’s 2020 margins by an average of 3.5% in federal and state special elections held in 2023 and 2024. This was due to these elections having very low turnout and Democratic advantages with high-engagement voters.
The closest of the three House seats that will hold special elections in 2025 is New York’s 21st district, which Republicans won by 24%. It’s unlikely Democrats will gain any of these seats despite their advantages in special elections.
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.
Thanks to films and cartoons, you probably have a lot of vague ideas about what hypnosis involves.
What do you picture? Maybe a fob watch swinging back-and-forth, a therapist saying “you are getting verrrry sleepy”.
But clinical hypnotherapy isn’t a creepy magic trick – it’s an evidence-based therapeutic technique psychologists can use to induce deep focus and relaxation. In this state, people may be more open to changing how they think, feel and behave.
While it won’t work for everyone, research shows it can be highly effective for overcoming certain issues, including pain, addiction and phobias. And no – you won’t start walking around, clucking like a chicken.
What is hypnotherapy?
You’ve probably had the experience where you let your mind wander and you drift off. For example, when you’re driving and don’t notice going past a usual landmark, you may be in a state of “self-hypnosis”.
Hypnotherapy deliberately induces a similar state of heightened relaxation and focused attention, sometimes called a trance.
Its history dates back to the late 18th century when Franz Mesmer, a German physician, developed mesmerism. A Scottish surgeon, James Braid, gave us the term hypnosis.
The hypnotic state shares similarities with other deeply relaxed states, such as meditation, deep focus during creative activities and the “flow” state experienced by athletes.
In all these states, the mind becomes highly focused and less distracted by external stimuli. You’re not unconscious. But you’re more open to new suggestions and able to access your subconscious mind.
This means tapping into the memories, emotions and instincts that influence your thoughts and behaviours, often revealing patterns you weren’t consciously aware of.
How does it work?
The therapist guides you into this relaxed state and offers suggestions to help you think and feel differently about issues you’ve identified beforehand, such as overcoming a fear of public speaking or managing stress.
1. Induction: the therapist guides the person into a relaxed state. This may include visualising a calming image, similar to some meditation techniques.
2. Deepening: This means enhancing the relaxed state, for example by progressively relaxing different muscle groups, or using repetitive techniques like counting or gentle, rhythmic sounds.
3. Suggestion: The therapist introduces positive ideas (affirmations) or visualisations. These help reframe negative thought processes and promote healthier responses to stress, triggers or cravings.
4. Awakening: The therapist helps the person back to full awareness. For example, suggesting they pay attention to sensations in the body such as their hands resting in their lap.
It is important to note therapists guiding the process are only providing the suggestions. They don’t “control” what the person does while hypnotised – their client chooses whether to act on their suggestions.
What’s it used for?
Research suggests 10–20% of people cannot be easily hypnotised. About the same number are highly receptive. Everyone else falls in the middle – they can still benefit but may need more practice to relax and deepen relaxation.
Hypnotherapy is mainly used for conditions involving emotional or behavioural patterns that can be influenced by the subconscious mind, such as:
stress and anxiety reduction
pain management
overcoming phobias
quitting smoking
weight loss
improving sleep.
Psychological factors such as stress, fear and anxiety can amplify physical sensations including pain, while positive mental states can enhance healing and recovery.
How well does it work?
Studies show hypnotherapy can be highly effective for various conditions.
An analysis of more than 20 years of hypnotherapy research related to health conditions found nearly all studies (99.2%) reported positive outcomes, with the most significant effects observed in children and patients undergoing medical procedures.
For example, a number of studies have examined the impact of hypnosis on irritable bowel syndrome and found it helps reduce symptoms such as pain, diarrhoea and constipation – and benefits can still be seen five years later.
This can be particularly beneficial for patients undergoing medical procedures. Studies show hypnosis may reduce their pre-operation distress and anxiety, as well as pain after the operation, including for dental procedures.
Hypnotherapy can be effective for treating anxiety before an operation, and pain after surgery. Frame Stock Footage/Shutterstock
Hypnosis can also work as an alternative to medication for pain relief. For example, guidelines for managing chronic pain after cancer in the United States now recommend adults use both medical and non-medical techniques, including mind-body therapies such as hypnosis.
Some studies indicate hypnotherapy can help to improve sleep (and unlike medications, has no side effects).
Hypnotherapy has also been shown to help people quit smoking. In one study of smokers, 86% of participants reported not smoking six months after hypnosis. However it’s unclear whether benefits come from the therapy reducing physical cravings or from improving willpower and the way participants thought about smoking.
Are there any risks?
When performed by a trained professional, hypnotherapy is generally considered safe.
During clinical hypnotherapy, you remain aware and in control throughout the process. Most people remember the experience clearly, and you cannot be made to do anything against your will or values.
However, there can be risks if done improperly. In rare cases, suggestions might lead to the creation of false memories, and if not properly guided out of the hypnotic state a person may feel anxious.
As research continues to grow, hypnotherapy is gaining recognition as a valuable complementary approach in health care.
Peta Stapleton 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.
Social cohesion is a national responsibility, and everyone, including the media, should support government’s efforts, according to Dr Shailendra Singh, associate professor in Pacific Journalism at the University of the South Pacific.
While the news media are often accused of exacerbating conflict by amplifying ethnic tensions through biased narratives, media could also assist social cohesion and unite people by promoting dialogue and mutual understanding, said Dr Singh.
He was the lead trainer at a two-day conflict-sensitive reporting workshop for journalists, student journalists, and civil society on reporting in ethically tense environments.
The training, organised by Dialogue Fiji at the Suva Holiday Inn on November 12–13, included reporting techniques, understanding Fiji’s political and media landscape, and building trust with audiences.
Head of USP Journalism Associate Professor Shailendra Singh . . . media plays an important public interest role as “society’s watchdog”. Image: The Fiji Times/Wansolwara
Watchdog journalism Dr Singh said media played an important public interest role as ‘society’s watchdog’. The two main strengths of Watchdog Journalism are that it seeks to promote greater accountability and transparency from those in power.
However, he cautioned reporters not to get too caught up in covering negative issues all the time. He said ideally, media should strive for a healthy mix of positive and what might be termed “negative” news.
He discussed the concepts of “media hyper-adversarialism” and “attack dog journalism”, which denote an increasingly aggressive form of political journalism, usually underpinned by commercial motives.
This trend was a concern even in developed Western countries, including Australia, where former Labour Minister Lindsay Tanner wrote a book about it: Sideshow, Dumbing Down Democracy.
Dr Singh said it had been pointed out that media hyper-adversarialism was even more dangerous in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings, as it harms fledgling democracies by nurturing intolerance and diminishing faith in democratically-elected leaders.
“Excessive criticism and emphasis on failure and wrongdoings will foster an attitude of distrust towards institutions and leaders,” he said.
Conflict-sensitive reporting According to Dr Singh, examples around the world show that unrestrained reporting in conflict-prone zones could further escalate tensions and eventually result in violence.
The number one aim of conflict-sensitive reporting is to ensure that journalists, are aware of their national context, and shape their reporting accordingly, rather than apply the “watchdog” framework indiscriminately in all situations, because a “one-size-fits-all” approach could be risky and counterproductive.
Journalists who adopt the conflict-sensitive reporting approach in their coverage of national issues could become facilitators for peaceful solutions rather than a catalyst for conflict.
“The goal of a journalist within a conflict-prone environment should be to build an informed and engaged community by promoting understanding and reconciliation through contextualised coverage of complex issues,” he said.
A rethink was all the more necessary because of social media proliferation, and the spread of misinformation and hate speech on these platforms.
Participants of the workshop included Ashlyn Vilash (from left) and USP student journalists Nilufa Buksh and Riya Bhagwan. Image: The Fiji Times/Wansolwara
Challenges in maintaining transparency and accountability in journalism According to Dr Singh, in many Pacific newsrooms today journalists who are at the forefront of reporting breaking news and complex issues are mostly young and relatively inexperienced.
He said the Pacific media sector suffered from a high turnover rate, with many journalists moving to the private sector, regional and international organisations, and government ministries after a brief stint in the mainstream.
“There is a lot of focus on alleged media bias,” said Dr Singh.
“However, young, inexperienced, and under-trained journalists can unknowingly inflame grievances and promote stereotypes by how they report contentious issues, even though their intentions are not malicious,” he said.
Dr Singh emphasised that in such cases, journalists often become a danger unto themselves because they provide governments with the justification or excuse for the need for stronger legislation to maintain communal harmony.
“As was the case in 2010 when the Media Industry Development Act was imposed in the name of professionalising standards,” said Dr Singh.
“However, it only led to a decline in standards because of the practice of self-censorship, as well as the victimisation of journalists.”
Legislation alone not the answer Dr Singh added that legislation alone was not the answer since it did not address training and development, or the high rate of newsroom staff turnover.
He said the media were often attacked, but what was also needed was assistance, rather than criticism alone. This included training in specific areas, rather than assume that journalists are experts in every field.
Because Fiji is still a transitional democracy and given our ethnic diversity, Dr Singh believes that it makes for a strong case for conflict-sensitive reporting practices to mitigate against the risks of societal divisions.
“Because the media act as a bridge between people and institutions, it is essential that they work on building a relationship of trust by promoting peace and stability, while reporting critically when required.”
This article was first published by The Fiji Times on 24 November, 2024 and is being republished from USP Journalism’s Wansolwara and The Fiji Times under a collaborative agreement.
Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.
The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries in relation to climate change, and dozens of countries are making oral submissions.
Hearings started in The Hague with Vanuatu — the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to obtain a legal opinion — yesterday.
Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.
He outlined their argument as: “This conduct — to do emissions which cause harm to the climate system, which harms other countries — is in fact a breach of international law, is unlawful, and the countries who do that should face legal consequences.”
He said they were wanting a line in the sand, even though any ruling from the court will be non-binding.
“We’re hoping for a new benchmark in international law which basically says if you pollute with cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, you cause climate change, then you are in breach of international law,” he said.
“I think it will help clarify, for us, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) process negotiations for example.”
Regenvanu said COP29 in Baku was frustrating, with high-emitting states still doing fossil fuel production and the development of new oil and coal fields.
He said a ruling from the ICJ, though non-binding, will clearly say that “international law says you cannot do this”.
“So at least we’ll have something, sort of a line in the sand.”
Oral submissions to the court are expected to take two weeks.
Another Pacific climate change activist says at the moment there are no consequences for countries failing to meet their climate goals.
Pacific Community (SPC) director of climate change Coral Pasisi said a strong legal opinion from the ICJ might be able to hold polluting countries accountable for failing to reach their targets.
The court will decide on two questions:
What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions?
What are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to the climate and environment?
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The attack on the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne and another car torching in Sydney have dramatically heightened political tensions over antisemitism.
Amid criticism the government has been too slow to act in the past year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this week announced an Australian Federal Police taskforce to combat antisemitism, visited the Melbourne synagogue (though his critics said this was belated), and on Wednesday was at Sydney’s Jewish Museum.
For Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, a member of Melbourne’s Jewish community, antisemitism is personal. Dreyfus joins the podcast to talk about his family’s story of fleeing Nazi Germany, his own and his community’s experience with antisemitism, and his reaction to criticism of the government’s performance.
My grandmother, like many. Holocaust survivors, didn’t like to talk about what had happened. She didn’t like to talk about the loss of her parents, who were murdered in Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. But I have talked to my father, who we are blessed is still with us at the age of 96 and living alone, still in good form. He was sent by his parents, my grandparents, with his older brother, alone to Australia, while my grandparents remained in Germany until four months after the Second World War had started, to try to persuade their parents, my great grandparents, to leave.
Asked his father’s reactions to recent events, Dreyfus says,
It reminded him of Kristallnacht [the 1938 attack on Jews]. He said Kristallnacht was the prompt for his assimilated German parents […] to make preparations to leave and try to persuade their parents to leave and make preparations to send their children away.
Of the antisemitism recently directed at him personally,
Directed at me, I’ve seen directly antisemitic abuse in a form and with a frequency that I have certainly not experienced since I was elected to the Federal Parliament in 2007.
Asked if further federal laws are required to combat antisemitism Dreyfus sugggests the states could do more,
Street conduct, street behaviour is very much a state matter. I’ve seen that some state governments, particularly in New South Wales and in Victoria, have started to talk about the possibility of creating some regulation of demonstration-type behaviour [outside places of worship] similar to what’s been done to protect reproductive health clinics, where there’s a distance that’s been created by law within which people wishing to demonstrate against abortion are not permitted to do so.
I’d be encouraging state governments if they think that it’s appropriate to put that sort of control on demonstrations […] to do so.
On the accusations by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others that the government’s stance on Israel in the United Nations has led indirectly to the local attacks, Dreyfus says,
With the greatest of respect to Mr Netanyahu, he is wrong on two counts there. He’s wrong to say that our government is anything other than a close friend of Israel. And he’s wrong just to connect votes on resolutions at the United Nations with the occurrence of violent antisemitic attacks here in Australia.
Dreyfus criticises the politicisation of the antisemitism issue,
I am very sad to have seen the way in which Peter Dutton and senior Liberals have chosen to politicise and seek party political advantage from the atrocious event of the burning of a synagogue. But sadly, that is what they have done.
We heard [Liberal] senator Jane Hume offering up just this morning on radio that, somehow, our government had enabled terrorist acts. Now, that’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable that Peter Dutton should seek to politicise the appalling event of the burning of the synagogue. And it’s not acceptable that any of his colleagues should seek to do the same thing.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deane-Peter Baker, Associate Professor of Ethics, Director of UNSW Military Ethics Research Lab and Innovation Network (MERLIN), UNSW Sydney
Recently, the government responded to the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide. It adopted most of the recommendations designed to better support defence personnel.
It comes four years after other defence news hit the headlines. The Afghanistan Inquiry Report (most commonly known as the Brereton report) detailed credible evidence of 39 murders of Afghan civilians and prisoners by (or at the instigation of) Australian Special Forces members.
The inquiry’s findings rightly sent shockwaves through Australia’s military and Australian society as a whole. Such actions are clearly at odds with the expectations of the Australian Defence Force and the vast majority of Australians.
Understandably, most of the public focus since then has been on the question of accountability.
The report, however, also looked at how soldiers can be supported to make better decisions. One way the report proposed was to strengthen military ethics training and education.
This could not only lead to sound actions, but has the knock-on effect of contributing to protecting soldier’s mental health, the focus of the royal commission. This training has been improved in recent years, but we can do better.
Military ethics should be regarded as a core skill that requires regular updates and reinforcement to remain effective.
The Brereton report noted examining the training and education Australian Defence Force personnel receive was key to understanding how soldiers operate.
In the case of Special Forces units, they operate with a very flat structure. Life-and-death decisions in extreme and ambiguous situations are often made by the most junior people in the unit.
Despite this, ethics education aimed at dealing with complexity and ambiguity was focused almost exclusively on leaders with rank, known as officers. They were largely absent from the events focused on in the report.
For everyone else, including soldiers, training was largely limited to very specific legal guidance.
This training was roundly criticised by those on the receiving end in the Brereton report. They said it was confusing and didn’t reflect real operational experience.
The report recommended military ethics training should draw on the experiences of military personnel “from the same services and country as themselves” so they understand how and why the “good guys” can also do bad things.
But to make this effective, it needs to be taken outside of the traditional classroom environment to make it both realistic and relevant. Genuine educational opportunities must be available to everyone so they can explore situations that are not black and white or do not easily lend themselves to straightforward answers.
What improvements have been made?
As detailed in the recent report of the Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel, the Australian Defence Force has made important changes in response to the recommendations of the Brereton report.
There’s also been extensive development and implementation of a coherent and consistent ADF-wide ethics education and training curriculum, which reflects the content of the ethics doctrine.
Some of this learning takes place in small groups dealing with different scenarios. Other content is taught in modules, explaining ethics theory with case studies.
This replaces the earlier ad hoc measures that were in place.
In many respects, the ADF now reflects international best practice in this regard.
But this training can be made more practical. It can also be better incorporated so considering ethical implications becomes second nature. It can be, and should be, embedded into the very bloodstream of the ADF.
Ethics through simulation
The ADF is one of the largest users of simulation-based training in Australia.
This can be relatively simple, like simulators for infantry shooting training. It can also be highly sophisticated, including simulating operating advanced weapons systems, like the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.
There is potential to leverage this for ethics education and training in a way that avoids it becoming another form of “add-on” mandatory training.
For example, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can simulate high-stakes scenarios, allowing personnel to practice applying ethical principles in realistic, pressure-filled situations.
Research has shown the effectiveness of immersive simulation training in saving lives and reducing injury in the mining sector by a remarkable 65%. These techniques are now being employed for firefighter training.
It’s also been trialled in medicine with promising results.
Interactive decision-making tools can generate adaptive scenarios that change and evolve based on a trainee’s choices. This enhances personalised learning.
Gamified ethics training, through serious games, engages learners while providing real-time feedback and analytics to track decision-making patterns.
These technologies can simulate diverse locations and cultures. The cost of procuring them has also steadily declined in recent years, making them more accessible.
Of course it will be necessary to proceed in a responsible way and build a comprehensive evidence base. Considerations in the use of these tools, such as avoiding psychological harm, must be properly managed and be backed by careful and thorough research.
But this is an investment well worth making. The Brereton report made it uncomfortably clear just how painful military ethical failure can be.
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.
Fiji’s coalition government has come under scrutiny over allegations of human rights violations.
Speaking at the commemoration of International Human Rights Day in Suva on Tuesday, the chair of the Coalition of NGOs, Shamima Ali, claimed that — like the previous FijiFirst administration — the coalition government has demonstrated a “lack of commitment to human rights”.
Addressing more than 400 activists at the event, the Minister for Women, Children, and Social Protection Lynda Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised by civil society organisations, assuring them that Sitiveni Rabuka’s government was committed to listening and addressing these issues.
Ali criticises Fiji government over human rights Video: FBC News
The “Human rights for all” theme at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march in downtown Suva. Image: FBC News
Shamima Ali claimed that freedom of expression was still being suppressed and the coalition had failed to address this.
“We are also concerned that there continue to be government restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly through the arbitrary application of the Public Order Amendment Act, which should have been changed by now — two years into the new government that we all looked forward to,” she said.
A “Girls wanna have fundamental human rights” placard at the World Human Rights Day march in Suva. Image: FBC News
Ali alleged that serious decisions in government were made unfairly, and women in leadership continued to be “undermined”.
“Nepotism and cronyism remain rife with each successive government, with party supporters being given positions with no regard for merit, diversity, and representation,” she said.
“Misogyny against certain women leaders is rampant, with wild sexism and online bullying.”
An “Our rights, our future now” placard at Fiji’s Human Rights Day rally. Image: FBC News
Responding, Minister Tabuya acknowledged the concerns raised and called for dialogue to bring about the change needed.
“I can sit here and be told everything that we are doing wrong in government,” Tabuya said.
“I can take it, but I cannot assure that others in government will take it the same way as well. So I encourage you, with the kind of partnerships, to begin with dialogue and to build together because government cannot do it alone.”
A “Stop fossil fuel production, consumption and distribution” placard at Fiji’s World Human Rights Day march . . . climate crisis is a major human rights issue in the Pacific. Image: FBC News
The minister stressed that to address the many human rights violation concerns that had been raised, the government needed support from civil society organisations, traditional leaders, faith-based leaders, and a cross-sector approach to face these issues.
The recently released Royal Commission of Inquiry report about New Zealand’s COVID response highlights the harmful impact of misinformation and disinformation on public health.
While the report offers no solutions, it notes that disinformation campaigns fuelled division and loss of trust in government. It’s an age-old problem that has proved extremely difficult to counter.
Indeed, the practice of disinformation and propaganda has ancient roots, with some of the earliest recorded use of these techniques dating back to antiquity. The Greeks were among the first to study and formalise the art of rhetoric, a cornerstone of effective propaganda.
In 2010, colleagues and I published research that analysed vaccine narratives for the use of logical fallacies defined by Aristotle. We highlighted many common techniques of manipulation. It was a fun exercise in a more innocent time.
Understanding and analysing these manipulative tactics has evolved alongside their use in both political and military strategies. So have the tactics of mitigating the impact of such strategies.
Early approaches to counteract these effects typically involved promoting transparency, education and critical thinking. This still stands today, but the time for merely talking about the problem has passed.
What’s required now is decisive action and robust policy to address misinformation and disinformation as we navigate the ongoing impacts of the COVID pandemic.
How to recognise misinformation and disinformation
Misinformation refers to inaccurate information spread without harmful intent, often due to a misunderstanding or mistake. Disinformation, on the other hand, is deliberately deceptive and crafted to manipulate public sentiment or promote discord.
Identifying misinformation and disinformation involves a critical evaluation of content and its source. A first question is the source credibility. Is the information from a recognised authority or reputable news source?
The next bit, logical consistency, is harder to detect. Does the information contain contradictions or logically impossible claims? Many false narratives are internally inconsistent or implausible.
Often there will also be at least some level of emotional manipulation. Disinformation frequently exploits emotions such as fear or anger to enhance engagement and sharing.
Identifying disinformation involves checking the credibility of the source, logically impossible claims and emotional manipulation. Getty Images
The subtle art of rhetoric
Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument. For example, the ad hominem fallacy attacks the person making an argument rather than the argument itself. This is a common tactic to undermine credible sources.
Cherry picking is the practice of selecting data that support a particular argument while ignoring data that contradict it. This is harder to spot if you are unfamiliar with the topic.
Conspiracy theories are another major tool in the propaganda kit. During the pandemic, numerous conspiracy theories have misrepresented scientific evidence and the intentions of health authorities and experts. The claim of cover-ups is often the final go-to when there is no other convincing argument.
Studies have repeatedly shown how false claims spread across social media platforms and how this influences public perceptions and behaviours detrimental to health. From myths about vaccine ingredients causing harm to conspiracy theories about global surveillance, these untruths have a real impact.
Surveys have repeatedly highlighted a worrying trend: a segment of the public, including some health professionals, harbours scepticism about vaccines, fuelled by unmitigated misinformation.
How to counter disinformation
The consequences of disinformation campaigns are not abstract or random. It is crucial to recognise that such campaigns are meticulously designed and executed with specific goals in mind. One of the most insidious is the erosion of social cohesion.
This is achieved by injecting divisive and false narratives into public discourse. They exploit socio-political fissures, amplifying scepticism and opposition to public health measures such as vaccination.
These campaigns leverage sophisticated strategies and technologies to manipulate public perception. They exploit societal divisions and foster distrust in authoritative sources, particularly in science and medicine. Once consensus on basic facts is eroded, effective action becomes difficult.
Significant research efforts have aimed to understand how best to counter misinformation and sophisticated disinformation campaigns. These studies emphasise the importance of clear, consistent and credible communication from trusted sources.
Public health campaigns that engage directly with community leaders and employ tailored messaging have shown promise in increasing trust and positive health behaviours. “Pre-bunking”, which involves educating people on how to spot misinformation before they encounter it, is gaining traction.
Authorities and public health leaders must prioritise transparency to rebuild and maintain public trust. Being open about the uncertainties and evolving nature of science can help mitigate the impact of disinformation that exploits gaps in public knowledge.
Increasing media literacy is also important. By understanding the common tactics used in disinformation campaigns, people can become less susceptible to their influences.
Collaboration between governments, international organisations and tech companies is essential. These stakeholders must work together to detect and limit the spread of harmful content and promote accurate information appropriate to the audience (right message, right messenger, right platform).
Time to act
Despite these insights, a coordinated, large-scale and multi-pronged strategy to combat misinformation remains elusive. Governments and health organisations often react to misinformation rather than being proactive, or worse, leave a vacuum.
The challenge of misinformation is not insurmountable, but it requires more than ad-hoc responses. We need a strategic, well-resourced commitment from the highest levels of government and health leadership.
It takes courage and the ability to walk a tightrope between freedom of speech and protecting public health. Both are human rights.
As we continue to navigate the repercussions of the COVID pandemic, let us prioritise the integrity of our public health communications and bring all the facets we need to do this together. This includes media, tech companies, academics and community leaders.
Only through a united front can we hope to restore and maintain the public trust essential for overcoming this crisis and future public health challenges.
Helen Petousis-Harris has received research funding for vaccine effectiveness and safety studies from Health NZ and the US CDC. She has served on expert advisory boards for industry and provided expert testimony on legal cases involving misinformation and disinformation. She has been on COVID advisory groups and currently serves on the National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group.
The Australian government’s recent decision to ban under 16s from social media has focused attention on the harms it can cause – especially for young people.
But young people are just one segment of the population who use social media. According to the Digital 2024 report, 78.3% of Australians regularly use platforms such as Facebook and Instagram – mainly for keeping in touch with friends and family.
Perhaps surprisingly, a large proportion of these users are older people. For example, the Digital 2024 report also shows that 21.3% of Meta’s ad audience in Australia (on Messenger, Facebook and Instagram) are 55 years or older. This makes it the second largest age group after 25–34 year olds (25.4%).
So what does research say about how social media affects older people’s social lives and wellbeing?
The growing presence of older adults on social media
Facebook remains the most popular among this demographic, serving as a gateway to reconnect with family and long-lost friends. Beyond reconnecting, our research indicates older adults often use these platforms to share memories, participate in community groups and access news.
This growing trend is driven by both internal and external factors. Research shows many older users are motivated by the desire to stay connected with their families, particularly grandchildren, who often share their lives through social media.
A recent study found positive associations between internet use and mental health among older adults in 23 countries.
Social media, in particular, works by:
1. Maintaining family ties. Social media provides older adults with a virtual seat at the family table. By viewing photos, videos and updates, they can remain engaged with their loved ones’ lives, no matter the physical distance. Platforms such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are particularly popular for private family group chats, enabling older adults to exchange messages and share moments in real time.
2. Rekindling old friendships. Platforms such as Facebook have proven effective in reconnecting older adults with long-lost friends. For many, revisiting old relationships provides a sense of nostalgia and belonging. Studies have shown such interactions can bolster feelings of inclusion and reduce loneliness, a significant concern for ageing populations.
3. Building new communities. Social media groups dedicated to specific interests such as gardening, photography or travel offer older adults opportunities to form new connections. These virtual communities are inclusive spaces where members exchange advice, share experiences and foster friendships based on shared hobbies.
A recent study found positive associations between internet use and mental health amond older adults in 23 countries. CarlosBarquero/Shutterstock
Regular online interactions can reduce feelings of loneliness and depression, providing a sense of purpose and belonging.
Research shows active participation, such as posting photos, is associated with a feeling of competence in older users, which is related to well-being. For some, becoming “grandfluencers” on platforms like Instagram or TikTok introduces an unexpected avenue for creative expression and social influence.
Online forums are also gaining traction as a tool for health information and advocacy. Older adults participate in support groups for chronic conditions, share wellness tips and even engage in civic discussions. This demonstrates social media platforms’ broader potential beyond social interaction.
Online challenges
Despite its benefits, social media is not without challenges for older adults.
For some, navigating the complex interface of platforms can be intimidating. Our research shows half of older adults feel anxious about using communication technologies, with older women experiencing more anxiety than older men.
Our research shows those with higher digital literacy are more likely to experience the positive effects of social media because of ongoing “self-socialisation” without having to interact with others, which might undermine learning and confidence. For others, initiatives aimed at improving digital skills among older adults – such as digital mentoring programs – can significantly enhance their confidence and ability to engage safely online.
While social media facilitates connection, it cannot replace the depth of face-to-face interactions. TunedIn by Westend61/Shutterstock
For many, it serves as a vital link to family, friends and new communities, enriching their social lives and reducing isolation. However, to unlock its full potential, addressing barriers such as digital literacy and online safety are crucial.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, empowering older adults to engage meaningfully with social media will ensure they remain not only connected but also active participants in a rapidly evolving social landscape.
Bernardo Figueiredo receives funding from Australian Communications Consumer Action Network
Torgeir Aleti receives funding from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).
Four million Australian households and businesses have rooftop solar installed, making us the world leader in the technology. Much of the electricity generated is used to power our homes, and any leftover is fed back into the grid.
Sometimes, the grid operator may need to turn down or switch off our solar systems, as they do other electricity generators. This is called “spilling” or “curtailing” excess generation. It can happen for various reasons, including when our solar panels produce more electricity than we use. Left unchecked, this might overwhelm the grid and cause blackouts.
You might have seen the issue in the news last week, when the Australian Energy Market Operator announced electricity distribution networks must develop a way to curtail rooftop solar as a last resort in emergency situations.
Curtailment is not a sign the grid isn’t working properly. It’s an expected and efficient feature of a system powered by renewable energy. And the market operator already has curtailment powers in some states.
But most households and businesses are paid for the electricity they feed back into the grid. So if rooftop solar were to be regularly curtailed, it would reduce this return on investment.
So, here we outline three simple, effective ways to stop your solar electricity going to waste.
Four million Australian households and businesses have rooftop solar installed. Shutterstock
1. Get the right-sized system
If you don’t yet have rooftop solar installed, or you are replacing your system, make sure it’s the right size for your needs.
A system that is too large means you’ll produce more electricity than your home will use. But also consider your future needs, and whether you may need more electricity to power more electric appliances.
The SunSPOT calculator can help you identify which size solar system suits you best. It was built by photovoltaic engineers and data analysts from UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering and not-for-profit solar research organisation the Australian PV Institute.
The calculations are based on your electricity use and rooftop size. They also account for factors such as local sun and weather patterns, shading from nearby structures and features of your roof. It can also estimate the potential savings from adding various batteries to store your excess solar electricity.
2. Use appliances when the sun is out
Households can use more solar electricity by running or charging electric appliances when the sun is shining. This becomes even more relevant as consumers increasingly replace fossil-fuel technologies, such as gas water heaters or petrol-fuelled cars, with electric versions, and as appliances become easier to control.
Electric hot water systems, which heat and store hot water, can consume up to 30% of a household’s energy. A recent trial of 18,000 households showed half this energy could be used to heat water during the day rather than at night, with no noticeable change for households.
The same principle applies to other electric-powered technology such as pool-pumps and electric vehicles.
Even those without rooftop solar can benefit from this practice. Some electricity retailers now offer “solar sponge” plans whereby electricity is cheaper – or even free – in the middle of the day to make use of all the low-cost solar feeding into the system.
But not all electricity retailers currently offer these plans.
Charging electric vehicles during the day, if possible, can soak up solar electricity. Shutterstock
These resources can either feed in electricity to, or draw electricity from, the grid as needed. Participating households are paid if they respond to signals from the virtual power plant.
Both demonstrated that, if orchestrated well, virtual power plants can lead to lower electricity costs for everyone. That’s because they avoid the need to build expensive infrastructure to generate or distribute electricity from elsewhere – a cost usually passed onto consumers.
But such initiatives also face challenges. Research shows some households are reluctant to participate. Their reasons include concerns about losing control of (or harm coming to) their appliances, less secure electricity supply, or being exploited financially.
These concerns must be addressed before virtual power plants can deliver on their promise.
We can all help save our solar
Soaking up more of our solar electricity is good for both households with rooftop systems and other electricity consumers. Even small actions, such as choosing the right rooftop solar set-up or changing when we use electricity, can make a big difference.
With just a few shifts to our energy habits, we can contribute to a low-emissions future and help spread economic benefits to all.
Dani Alexander receives funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Reliable Affordable Clean Energy (RACE) for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre. She is the current Chair of the Energy Research Institutes Council of Australia (ERICA) and is a Board Member of the Energy Efficiency Council.
Baran Yildiz receives funding from Reliable Affordable Clean Energy (RACE) for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).
Michelle Vaqueiro-Contreras receives funding from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP).
Mike Roberts receives research project funding from the Reliable Affordable Clean Energy (RACE) for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre, the NSW Decarbonisation Innovation Hub and the Australian Government. He was formerly a Director of the Australian PV Institute.
Wen Li, a graduate student living in Brisbane, ran for the seat of Mansfield as a Greens candidate in the recent Queensland election. Li promoted his policies on Xiaohongshu, one of the most popular Chinese social media platforms. When he lost, he posted a message on the platform announcing his desire to run in the next federal election.
Responses were mixed. Some were supportive, others downright hostile.
Someone said, “Greens are monsters”, to which Li replied, “I disagree but I respect your opinion”. Another user said, “You represent Greens? Well, I’m out of here”, to which Li replied, “No worries, 3,000 people voted for me”. All of the conversations were in Chinese.
Politicians across the political spectrum are now using Xiaohongshu to connect with Chinese-Australian voters. In fact, it’s replacing WeChat as the preferred Chinese platform for some. So, what exactly is it?
Red’s Chinese business model
Xiaohongshu means “little red book” in Mandarin (it’s often referred to as Red for short). Some users also call it “small sweet potato”, which is pronounced the same in Mandarin but with different tones.
Red was started in 2013 by two young entrepreneurs in Shanghai who wanted to create a shopping guide platform catering mainly to young women. The platform quickly gained a phenomenal user base – it currently has 218 million monthly active users, including around 700,000 in Australia. It mostly features posts about cooking, fashion, shopping, travelling, health and everyday daily life.
There are now even some suggestions that Red is replacing Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google.
Like WeChat, the other popular Chinese messaging app, Red is wholly Chinese-owned. Tech giants Tencent (WeChat’s owner) and Alibaba (AliPay’s owner) are both shareholders.
WeChat has adopted a “one app, two systems” policy, which means it directs its censorship efforts only to domestically registered users on Weixin (the China-focused version of WeChat).
Unlike WeChat, Red is subject to one overarching censorship mechanism. Acutely aware of this, political candidates in Australia mostly focus on issues that are of interest to Chinese-Australian communities and avoid posting material that would be deemed “undesirable information” by the platform.
WeChat has long been used by politicians in Australia. Shutterstock
Who’s on it?
Keen to win back Chinese-Australian voters, Liberal MPs are taking to Red with enthusiasm. Keith Wolahan, the incumbent MP for Menzies in Victoria, has a huge following on Red. Around 27% of his electorate are people of Chinese origin. Jess Wilson (Kew) and Michael Sukkar (Deakin) are also on the platform.
Interestingly, Liberal MP Jason Wood (La Trobe, Victoria), who was accused of fear-mongering with his comments about Asian food during the COVID-19 pandemic, makes a point of saying in his Red bio that he’s married to a woman from Hong Kong.
Labor MPs such as Sam Lim (Tangney, WA), Sally Sitou (Reid, NSW), Carina Garland (Chisholm, Victoria), Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, NSW) were also early adopters of Red. All four displaced Liberals at the last election, in part due to the Liberals’ more hawkish stand on China.
Scott Yung, a Chinese-Australian Liberal candidate for Bennelong, has been vying for voters’ attention on Red in an attempt to wrestle the seat back from Labor at the next election.
Teal MPs such as Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Victoria) are also actively posting videos on Red. As the federal election draws closer, we can expect to see more candidates doing likewise.
How Red works
Red functions similarly to Instagram – users can post photos or videos and comment on other people’s posts. Politicians regularly upload short videos of themselves speaking directly to Chinese voters on issues that might concern them. When asked why he chooses Red instead of WeChat as a platform for campaigning, Wen Li’s answer is simple: “More open discussion. More influence.”
Non-Chinese-speaking politicians seem to find it much easier to navigate than WeChat. While any Australian candidate can create a WeChat account, their capacity to directly target Chinese voters is somewhat limited. To attract followers, you need to send a request and be accepted as someone’s “friend”.
And to become a member of a WeChat group, you need to be invited. How diverse and vigorous the discussions are depends on the membership of the group. The semi-private nature of WeChat groups means they often become echo chambers.
This is not to say Red is as easy to navigate as Instagram, though. Growing a support base on Red can take time and require language proficiency, cultural knowledge and technical know-how. Most English-speaking politicians employ Chinese-speaking assistants who are familiar with the platform functions and user practices and can translate English content into Chinese.
These obstacles are less of an issue for Chinese-speaking candidates who already have substantial followers.
Engagement outweighs any downsides
There is evidence of misinformation and disinformation on both WeChat and Red.
Commentators have also pointed out the risk of politicians “narrow-casting” to Chinese-Australian voters when they speak to Chinese voters on Chinese platforms in order to avoid the attention of the broader electorate, who may see them as too pro-China.
Despite these concerns, both platforms are useful spaces for Chinese-speaking voters to engage with politics. They can use the platforms to find out where to register as voters, when to vote, and how to ensure their vote is valid – an important question for non-English-speaking voters.
Wen Li gained quite a lot of new followers by posting a message on Red explaining how preferential voting works.
Encouraging political participation is not just about informing voters. It’s also about dialogue and persuasion, exchanging ideas and opinions. Red offers a more open space than WeChat for competing ideas to be heard. This means voters are more likely to be exposed to different opinions, which is healthy for democracy.
Wanning Sun 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.
You’re at a doctor’s appointment where you are told you might have a serious illness. You will have to undergo several different tests to get a firm diagnosis. The treatment regime is complicated.
When you leave the appointment, you are worried and you feel overwhelmed with information. You realise you’re already starting to forget most of what the doctor said.
This experience is very common. Research shows people often forget, or mis-remember, what they are told during medical appointments.
One approach to addressing this problem is recording a medical appointment to play back later or share with others. Our recent research looked at how common this is in Australia, and how people use the recordings they’ve made.
How recording might help
Research exploring what happens when patients are given recordings of medical appointments has shown significant benefits. The practice helps patients recall and understand their consultation and gives them greater satisfaction in their care.
What we haven’t known so clearly is whether patients are actually making recordings in real life. And if so, why? Are they doing it openly or in secret? And what do they think about sharing these recordings with other people?
What we learned
We ran an online survey of Australian adults in mid-2022, asking them these sorts of questions.
Of 236 people who completed the survey, 71% said they would consider recording a doctor’s visit. Some 26% had openly done so (that is, they’d recorded a medical consultation with permission from the clinician).
Their reasons included wanting to keep track of important medical information, and listen again to improve their understanding. As one person told us:
With a cancer diagnosis there is a lot of information to take onboard and process. You can feel rushed and not have time to take notes.
Another recorded to help manage living with disability:
I have an acquired brain injury which impacts memory and was not able to take anyone with me. I am also hearing-impaired so use a transcription app to ‘read’ what is being said when the other person is wearing a mask and I am unable to lip read.
People might record a consultation with a nurse, a GP, or other kinds of medical specialists. Halfpoint/Shutterstock
Covert recording (recording without asking or telling the doctor) was also quite common – 22% of people in our survey had done this, or knew someone who had.
Mostly, people recorded in secret because they worried their doctor might say no if they asked permission (we know this does happen).
While some people felt uncomfortable about asking, others recorded covertly because they had concerns about the advice and care they were receiving, and wanted a second opinion.
Whether people recorded with or without permission, they generally valued being able to record a consultation, especially when they were vulnerable (for example, when they were attending appointments alone or receiving difficult news).
Sharing recordings
Patients described sharing their recordings only with trusted others, such as family or friends involved in their care, or other members of their health-care team such as their GP, disability support worker, or therapist.
Previous research has shown that while many health professionals support recording, others may feel uncomfortable about being recorded because they worry about the recording being posted on social media, or used in other potentially harmful ways beyond their control.
However, our study found patients are strongly opposed to sharing recordings more widely, such as on social media. It was seen as a significant breach of trust in the health professional-patient relationship. One person said:
To do so would be very unethical […] What is shared can very easily be misconstrued, misrepresented.
Patients equally did not want to share their own personal health information on the internet.
Is recording actually allowed?
Making a recording of a private conversation, whether audio or video, is governed by the law. In Australia, the law varies between different states and territories.
Our survey was only available in English, so it didn’t capture the experiences of people in diverse communities. But previous research has found this group can particularly benefit from recording medical consultations.
We also think recording may not happen as often as our results suggest. We recruited participants through social media and health consumer networks, and people who answered the survey probably already had an interest in the topic.
Still, the results are a useful indication that people in Australia do sometimes record their visits to the doctor, and would like their health services to support them to be able to.
What we found also reflects the picture elsewhere. One study in the United Kingdom found 15% of participants had recorded a doctor covertly. A study in the United States found almost 19% of people had recorded a consultation (3% covertly and 16% with permission).
Our study supports the idea that being able to record medical consultations improves patients’ recollection and understanding of what the clinician has told them. Policies and practices that prevent recording, without good reason, should be amended to support recording, with clear guardrails around consent and disclosure.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Heard, Research Fellow, Educational Monitoring and Research Division, Australian Council for Educational Research
As school wraps up, families around Australia will be receiving their children’s school reports for the second half of 2024.
This is the key way schools communicate with parents about how students are going. But parents can find them difficult to understand.
Why is this? And what are some questions you could ask your child’s teacher before the end of the year to understand how they are really going?
Why are reports important?
School reports are important because they help parents stay engaged in their child’s schooling.
They help parents to set and maintain high expectations, talk to their child about school and support and encourage their learning. All of these strategies have been shown to help students do better academically.
So the quality and accessibility of information in reports is very important for students’ education.
School reports in Australia
In Australia, education experts have argued school reports are difficult for parents to understand. In 2019 research, colleagues and I also found parents are confused by grades and rating scales in reports that do not clearly explain the “standard” or reference that underpins them.
So parents can be left with an inaccurate or unreliable account of how their child is performing, and inadequate information with which to take action if their child is struggling.
We can do better
The Australian Council for Educational Research has designed a prototype “digital student report” to communicate students’ learning in more satisfying ways for parents (without adding to teacher’s workloads).
It assumes a lot of content could be auto-populated from assessment data already collected and stored on a school’s learning management system. This would enable parents to access information at varying levels of detail (according to their need or interest) and monitor learning growth over time.
We have run focus-groups on the prototype with 47 parents, students, teachers and school leaders across three schools. The results of this small-scale research project will be published early next year.
How can you follow up with school?
In the meantime, if parents have read the explanatory detail in their child’s report and still have questions, they should feel confident to talk to their child’s teacher before the end of the year.
Here are some questions you could ask, based on what kind of report you school might use.
If grades are used
how are grades arrived at? Are they an average of performance across a set of tasks? If so, which tasks are used in this calculation, and how were they weighted?
are grades based on how well children meet curriculum outcomes (these are also called “criterion-referenced”) or how they compare to their peers (“norm-referenced”)
should grades be interpreted as indicating whether your child is working at, above or below the curriculum-expected standard? In most states, grades reflect overall performance on learning tasks aligned with the curriculum standard for the child’s age group. This assumes – perhaps incorrectly – all children are working at the year-level standard to varying levels of proficiency, represented by letter grades A to E.
If performance labels are used
ask what constitutes “developing” or “above expectations” or “satisfactory” or whichever terms are used, (if the school has not defined these terms already in the report)
can worded performance descriptors be “translated back” into the A to E scale, and if not, why not? While legislation requires schools use a five-point scale such as the A to E scale “or equivalent” to report student achievement up to Year 10, not all performance labels used in reports are intended to meet this purpose.
If descriptive comments are used
what does it mean if your child “has” done this or “can” demonstrate that – does this mean they are operating at, above or below the curriculum-expected level?
how well have they done these things? What haven’t they demonstrated, and is this because they were unable to, or was it because those skills and knowledge were not assessed during the reporting period?
do the comments that indicate areas for improvement constitute general advice, or are they specifically targeted to reflect your child’s next steps for learning?
Ask about progress
Regardless of how well your child is performing, ask the teacher if – in their view – your child is making an expected or acceptable level of progress, and what evidence tells them this.
Progress is different to performance – it indicates the growth your child is making in their learning over time, regardless of their starting point and regardless of their grades. It is the difference in knowledge, skill, sophistication or proficiency a child could previously demonstrate versus what they can demonstrate now.
While performance has traditionally been the focus of student reports, it is important to understand if your child is making progress in their learning. This ensures they are developing in their skills and knowledge and being appropriately challenged to meet their potential.
Jonathan Heard 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.
This article is part of The Conversation’s Retirement series where experts examine issues including how much money we need to retire, retiring with debt, the psychological impact of retiring and the benefits of getting financial advice.
The age at which Australians can receive the pension has risen to 67, meaning many of us are working longer. But the length of time we are expected to spend retired has also risen, because we are living longer.
It’s not unreasonable to expect the retirement phase will last about 20 years, perhaps longer. How should people approach it?
Are retirees satisfied?
In 2018 a colleague and I surveyed nearly 1,000 Australians aged 55 and over who described themselves as fully or substantially retired from the workforce.
Most were very satisfied (51%) or satisfied (35%) with their retirement, and the majority rated their post-retirement life satisfaction as better (47%) or the same (39%) as it had been when they were working.
What do retirees like most?
Retirees in our survey talked about freedom. Freedom to sleep in, travel, catch up with friends and family, renovate, garden, get fit, try art classes, learn Italian and if they can afford it, spend up big.
But even freedom can have a downside. One woman from the survey? said after four months she got sick of it, asking “Is this all there is?”
So what did retirees miss most? Money was a big issue for nearly 20%, and about one-third felt their financial position had worsened, even though the group had mainly worked in professional and white-collar jobs.
But the things they missed most were social – the opportunity to make new friends, to engage in new activities, and to feel useful. They said things like:
I miss the companionship of working in a team. Miss some of the social connections that I once enjoyed.
Work not only provides income and social contact, it also has the capacity to engender a sense of meaning and purpose. Some retirees commented specifically on this
I miss the sense of purpose. While it was hugely stressful, I felt useful. Now I keep feeling at a bit of a loss as if I should be doing something.
Identity loss
There’s also the issue of identity loss. Work provides us with status; it enhances our sense of self. Achievement of work goals can build confidence and self-esteem.
When we meet a new person, often the first question they ask is “what do you do for a living?” It can feel as though your work defines you as a person, rather than your many-faceted self.
Not surprisingly, our study respondents frequently commented on retirement as challenging their sense of identity.
The retirement journey
So it is important to remember retirement is not just an event, it’s a process.
In any major life transition, it’s necessary to adapt our roles and expectations. Even the most exciting life changes, such as becoming a parent or winning a lottery, involve psychological work.
We are likely to experience strong emotions, both positive and negative, as we experiment, fail, lose heart, try something else and eventually adjust to a new reality.
These adjustments might be greater for retirees who go from full-time work to full-time leisure, than for those who move gradually through part-time or casual work or who quickly take up new activities they’ve been planning for years.
Having a hobby to take up after leaving the workforce can ease the transition to retirement. SeventyFour/Shutterstock
Mark Cussen, a financial planner specialising in retirement, argues the retirement journey takes us through several psychological stages, including a honeymoon phase in which new retirees feel relieved as the constraints of working life are removed.
However, the initial sense of freedom loses its novelty value. Some retirees then go through a phase of disenchantment. Life can feel boring, lacking in purpose or weighed down by domestic duties and activities that do not challenge or bring joy.
The ‘best years of our lives’
The final phase is adaptation, involving a re-orientation of identity from worker to someone who finds meaning and purpose in a different set of activities.
This change usually involves renegotiating relationships with family and friends as well as experimenting with new activities, interests and friendship groups.
Over time, most retirees develop a new, non-work identity. New routines, different social worlds and re-imagined goals are established. Many describe these years as the best of their lives.
What makes a successful retirement?
Research assessing the strongest predictors of adjustment to and satisfaction with retirement is complex because there are so many potential variables to be measured and controlled.
But these are often distilled down to several key factors including physical health, finances, psychological health, leisure activities, and social integration.
Women tend to have stronger non-work networks, are more integrated into their communities and have a more multifaceted sense of identity than those men who define themselves largely in terms of their work.
However, the average woman is less financially prepared for retirement than a man as a result of taking time off work for children or other caring responsibilities. Women also dominate many of the lower paid jobs.
But for both sexes, studies indicate pre-retirement planning helps ensure a secure retirement.
Work out what’s important
Money isn’t everything. Lifestyle planning including post-retirement activities, new roles and interests,prioritising mental and physical health and maintaining your social contacts are also vital aspects of a workforce exit strategy.
How are you planning to stay mentally stimulated? What strategies do you have in place to manage stress and maintain good physical health? And what about friendships? Loneliness is being described as an “epidemic” among the elderly, especially those without a partner.
How will you build a new social life that may include but does not rely on former work colleagues? How will you negotiate a family life that keeps you connected without becoming a domestic slave?
A well-planned retirement
Retirement has the potential to be a wonderful phase of life in which it is possible to strengthen relationships and achieve goals that you didn’t have time for in your middle years when you were consolidating your career and home life.
It’s a time to live out some of your dreams, work through a bucket list perhaps, and have some fun as well as planning what sort of legacy you will leave for future generations.
What’s the secret? In short, plan your finances, maintain a healthy lifestyle, stay socially integrated, challenge yourself mentally, stay positive and be flexible.
Susan Moore has received funding from Swinburne University in the past.
In the mid 1970s, Hoyts Cinema Centre in Bourke Street Melbourne (the first multi-screened cinema in Victoria) was my go-to place for new release movies.
In addition to three different screens, there was McClure’s Restaurant where on each table sat a black telephone with a direct line through to some “off-screen” waiter who took your order. The height of sophistication.
I would also pick up the latest copy of the Hoyts movie magazine filled with full page movie posters. A whole wall of my bedroom was devoted to these miniature movie-daybills, one of which featured an image of the Frankenstein castle flanked by Gene Wilder, his wild-eyed, wild-haired face all hysterical madness and Peter Boyle, his comic-horror, reanimated-corpse-face sublimely tipping his top hat.
“A Mel Brooks Film” it said and beneath that, in large letters seemingly carved from stone, the words Young Frankenstein.
The genius of Gene Wilder
A new Mel Brooks film was an exciting prospect. My parents took me to Blazing Saddles at the Dendy Brighton where an organist played a Wurlitzer rising from deep in the cinema’s bowels.
Back then, that Western parody was the funniest film I’d ever seen. So, with much anticipation, my friends and I rushed to Cinema Centre to see Young Frankenstein. It did not disappoint. Even as the credits rolled, we were quoting funny lines and describing funny scenes to each other, like we hadn’t all just seen it. That was 50 years ago.
Revisiting old favourite films can be fraught. What the teenager found funny in the 70s mightn’t hold true for his grown-up self. Contemporary sensibilities differ quite markedly over time.
Blazing Saddles is a good example. I tried rewatching it a while ago and had to turn off after 20 minutes. There was still plenty to make me laugh but its casual racism and sexism undercut that. So, why isn’t that the case with Young Fronk-en-shteen (as Frederick would say)?
For me, the answer is Gene Wilder.
Wilder worked with Brooks on The Producers (1967) and again on Blazing Saddles (1974), during which he started writing Young Frankenstein. Wilder wasn’t adapting Mary Shelley’s novel. This was an homage to James Whale’s cinema classics Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), retold through a parodic but ultimately respectful lens.
Wilder was new to screenwriting but Brooks already had a best original screenplay Oscar for The Producers, so Wilder asked Brooks to co-write and direct. Wilder’s one condition was that Brooks wouldn’t act in the film, ostensibly because he wanted him to focus on directing. I can’t help think Brooks’ broad, vulgar comedic acting would have changed the dynamic undercutting the genius of Wilder’s seemingly out-of-control performance that, in reality, is anything but.
Where I think Wilder’s sensibility differs from Brooks is exemplified by the Puttin’ on the Ritz song and dance scene. Brooks wanted to cut it for continuity reasons. Wilder insisted it stay. He knew what he was talking about. It’s arguably the funniest scene in the film.
A beautifully made film
Of course, some of it doesn’t stand up – breast and penis jokes, salacious double entendres – but they are far outweighed by its sharper, smarter humour delivered by a cast of comic actors at the top of their game: Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Peter Boyle, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars and a surprising first crack at comedy by Wilder’s tennis partner, Gene Hackman.
Plus, it’s beautifully made.
Wilder’s desire to honour Whale’s films whilst poking fun at them is borne out by Brooks’ direction. It’s as though the ghost of Whale was behind the camera. The recreation of 1930s style horror filmmaking is elevated by the shadows and light of Gerald Hirschfeld’s glorious black and white cinematography.
The film was originally to be produced by Columbia Pictures who called off the deal when Brooks mentioned it would be shot in black and white. Columbia suggested using colour but Brooks and Wilder stuck to their guns. Twentieth Century Fox quickly capitalised on Columbia’s short sightedness.
Then there is William Tuttle’s inventive make up (that zipper on the side of the monster’s skull was a workaround to avoid copyright on the classic bolts through the neck) and the use of the original Frankenstein laboratory equipment provided by Kenneth Strickfaden (who held onto it after creating it for the 1931 film).
Of course, Brooks and Wilder weren’t the first to parody Frankenstein. First there was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), but that and many other parody films like Airplane! (1980), The Naked Gun (1988) and Scary Movie (2000) are more about the gags than well-crafted narrative and character. That’s where Young Frankenstein excels, even if some gags are dated.
Brooks and Wilder were nominated for the best adapted screenplay Oscar but lost out to Godfather II. Nevertheless, it deserves its 50th birthday resurgence. Time Magazine counts it among its top 100 films in its list of the ten best films from each of the past ten decades – the only Brooks’ film to make the list!
But the proof of the pudding is in the rewatching. I did just that the other night, this time with my 19-year-old son. And just as it was 50 years ago, Young Frankenstein did not disappoint.
Chris Thompson 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.
Violence against children in Fiji is estimated to have cost the country F$460 million, or more than 4 percent of Fiji’s GDP a year, says new research highlighted on International Human Rights Day.
This research was carried out jointly by UNICEF and Fiji’s Ministry of Women, Children and Social Protection.
The study, Economic Costs of Violence Against Children in Fiji, has revealed that 81 percent of children aged between one and 14 years experience some form of violent discipline, 65 percent experience psychological aggression while 68 percent experience some form of physical punishment in their lifetime.
Endorsed by Minister for Women and Children Lynda Tabuya, the research explained how children in Fiji continued to experience abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence on a daily basis.
“This not only affects their physical and mental health but also leads to challenges in education, social services and their overall quality of life,” the study found.
“The long-term impacts are well documented. Children who suffer abuse are more likely to become violent adults, perpetuating a cycle that negatively impacts the economic wellbeing of families for generations.
“Through this study, the total economic cost of violence against children in Fiji is estimated at $459.82 million, equivalent to 4.23 percent of GDP annually.
“These costs include $19.33 million in direct medical costs, $14.96 million in direct non-medical costs, $140.41 million in indirect tangible costs and $285.12 million in indirect intangible costs.”
The study showed that while significant, this large economic burden could be averted through targeted investments in interventions that prevent and respond to violence against children.
In Parliament last week, Minister Tabuya had said the report provided a basis for their 2022 to 2027 Action Plan.
“It provides a comprehensive analysis of the importance of investing in child protection, the socioeconomic costs of under-investment and an evaluation of government spending on preventing and responding to violence against children.”
The Albanese government has pledged two major changes to early childhood education and care in the run up to next year’s federal election.
Labor plans to introduce a “3 day guarantee” (three days a week) of early childhood education and care to all children before they start school. And it will fund the building of 160 centres in regions were services are hard to find.
The new centres will be part of a A$1.03 billion investment over four years. The government is proposing these will be non-profit and ideally built on, or close to, school sites.
The guarantee would start in January 2026 and the building fund from mid-2025. What will these policies mean for families?
The guarantee means parents will no longer need to satisfy an “activity test” (by working, studying or volunteering) to qualify for the Child Care Subsidy.
The government says the guarantee is part of a “universal” early childhood education and care system, where access to subsidised care is available to all families, regardless of whether they work or not.
High-quality early learning can have a positive impact on child development, especially for children from more disadvantaged backgrounds. This is why researchers and advocates have long-criticised the activity test, saying it unfairly targets lower-socioeconomic families.
A 2022 Impact Economics report argued the activity test limited parent’s ability to respond to opportunities and pursue work, study and job search activities – especially those in casual jobs – because they have no or limited access to childcare.
The government estimates the guarantee will benefit around 66,700 families in its first full financial year, and more than 100,000 families will be eligible for additional hours of subsidised care.
New childcare centres
The government is also planning to build more early childhood centres centres.
This follows Mitchell Institute research into “childcare deserts” that showed how accessibility to early learning varies enormously across Australia. Our research found parts of regional and remote Australia had some of the worst access to early learning.
A fund to support building new early childhood centres was a recommendation of a September 2024 Productivity Commission report. The report highlighted how a lack of access to capital funds can cause barriers to the building and operation of new centres in areas of low provision.
Co-locating new centres in schools also fits with wider policy initiatives outside of the early childhood sector. A 2023 government-commissioned review recommended more support for “full-service schools”. This where schools become centres for different community services, such as allied health care and early learning.
But these newest policies leave some big questions unanswered. The rates for the Child Care Subsidy are not changing as a result. This means most families will still pay the same amount to access early childhood services as before.
The number of proposed new centres (160) is also relatively modest compared to the overall size of the sector. There are currently more than 9,000 registered long day-care centres in Australia. So the government’s proposed extra 12,000 places will be on top of about 700,000 licensed places already available.
We also don’t know where the new centres will be built.
What happens now?
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has linked these announcements to the creation of other “universal” systems, like Medicare, superannuation and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
But there are big challenges facing a universal early education and care system.
Our research has highlighted how Australia’s subsidies system can incentivise early childhood providers to operate in areas where they can charge more. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission made similar findings in its 2023 report.
So making sure there is equal access across Australia to high-quality early learning remains a challenge.
The guarantee will further increase demand for places by expanding the number of children who are eligible for a subsidised place. So, while more families in theory would have access to three days of subsidised care, they may not be able to get it.
In its recent report the Productivity Commission highlighted the need for a staged expansion. This is to ensure the system can cope with the extra demand.
The two major changes announced this week, along with the pay boost for the sector, suggests the government is following this staged approach.
Peter Hurley works for the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University that has received funding from Minderoo’s Thrive by Five initiative to undertake research into early childhood education and care.
Melissa Tham works for the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University that receives funding from Minderoo’s Thrive by Five initiative to undertake research into early childhood education and care.
Melinda Hildebrandt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
There are growing concerns about wealth inequality in Australia and what it means for people’s ability to get ahead.
For many, home ownership has become a pipe dream. Huge numbers of Australians now feel the cards are increasingly stacked against them.
Our recent working paper examined changes in absolute and relative wealth held by Australians, using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey.
We examined trends in holdings across different asset classes between 2002 and 2018, also breaking down this data by age.
In absolute terms, Australia’s wealth gaps are large and growing. Between 2002 and 2018, the absolute wealth gap between the top 10% and the bottom 10% of households increased – from A$1.33 million to $2.19 million.
But if we look beneath the surface at relative measures, some groups – including the poorest households – have actually improved their standing on certain metrics.
For young people and middle Australia, however, it’s a sobering picture – especially when it comes to property ownership.
Looking at this measure, Australia’s wealth inequality remained fairly stable over this period.
Between 2002 and 2018, Australia’s net wealth Gini increased only marginally, from 0.602 to 0.606, indicating that wealth inequality grew only slightly over this period.
But this overall picture masks trends that are visible if we zoom in on different parts of the wealth distribution.
The relative wealth gap between the richest and the poorest households in Australia – the net wealth of the top 10% divided by the net wealth of the bottom 10% – has actually fallen.
Between 2002 and 2018, the bottom 10% increased their wealth by 83%, albeit from a very low level.
This rate surpassed that of the top 10% of households, whose wealth grew by 65%. As a result, the relative share in total wealth of the poorest has increased.
Middle Australia losing ground
Why, then, do so many perceive wealth inequality to be much worse? The answer probably lies in what’s happening to middle Australia, and to the young relative to older generations.
Our analysis compared households in the middle of the wealth distribution – those with more assets than exactly half the population – to those at the top and the bottom.
We found the wealth of those in the middle grew more slowly than that of those in the top 10%, increasing the relative gap between them.
But this group has also become poorer relative to the bottom 10%, reducing the gap between the bottom and the middle.
Combined, this suggests a “disappearing”, or at least, a “shrinking” middle.
Traditionally, housing has been an important store of wealth for Australians. doublelee/Shutterstock
More financial wealth
Our analysis unpacked wealth trends further by comparing changes in holdings of financial assets (cash, shares, superannuation and so on) to holdings of real property assets.
Looking solely at financial wealth, both young people and the bottom 10% of households actually saw their relative share increase between 2002 and 2018.
For the bottom 10% of households, average financial wealth increased by more than 200% over this period.
This improvement might seem impressive, but it’s important to note that it starts from a very low base.
The average financial wealth of the bottom 10% of households grew from about $2,800 to just over $9,000.
The main driver of this improvement is the Superannuation Guarantee – a mandated contribution made by employers to their employees’ superannuation funds for use in retirement.
Overall, the Gini coefficient for financial assets actually fell over this period, indicating greater equality in financial wealth.
Increasing polarisation in property ownership
Looking solely at property ownership, however, tells a story of increasing polarisation. The Gini coefficient for net property wealth worsened between 2002 and 2018, rising from 0.57 to 0.65.
At the bottom, more poor households owned no dwellings in 2018 than in 2002. In contrast, at the top, more property-rich households owned multiple properties.
The richest 10% enjoyed a 69% growth in their housing equity, while for the poorest households, housing wealth remained at zero.
The middle group increased their housing wealth by around 30% over this period. But middle households exhibited worse outcomes in housing wealth than the rich, in both absolute and relative terms.
The decline in ownership of real property has been dramatic among those aged 25 to 34. Many of this cohort may go on to become homeowners in the next stage of their lives, but a growing number will never own a home.
A retirement time bomb?
Housing and financial wealth are deeply intertwined. The financial wealth of most households is tied up in their superannuation.
Owning a home, on the other hand, has traditionally provided vital financial and living security for retirees, especially if they rely on the publicly funded age pension
This is why home ownership is sometimes described as the “fourth pillar” of Australia’s retirement system. Falling rates of home ownership should sound alarm bells.
Australia’s declining levels of home ownership date back to the 1980s. They mean a growing number of Australians are likely to reach their retirement years either as renters or highly mortgaged.
This presents a growing challenge for policymakers. There’s likely to be increasing demand for public support for those who have retired without owning a home, while an ageing population puts a strain on tax revenue.
Miranda Stewart receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Stephen Whelan receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
Gavin Wood and Melek Cigdem-Bayram do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In a highly anticipated session of the Tongan Parliament to debate and vote on the second vote of no confidence (VONC) scheduled for last Monday, December 9, in Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni Hu’akavameiliku and the Cabinet, Hu’akavameiliku surprised everyone by announcing his resignation — even before the actual debate had begun.
The session began with the Speaker, Lord Fakafanua, announcing the procedure for the day which was to have each of the seven grounds of the VONC read out, followed by the Cabinet’s responses, after which each member of Parliament would be allowed 10 minutes to make a statement for or against.
Before parliamentary staff started reading out the documents, Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Samiu Vaipulu moved that the VONC be declared null and void as it did not have the 10 valid signatures that the house rules stipulated.
He claimed that two of the 10 signatures were added on October 10, whereas an event included in VONC did not begin until October 21, thus making those signatures invalid. That event was the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting which was held in Samoa, October 21-26, and the VONC cited it in relation to alleged Cabinet overspending on overseas travel.
After an hour and half of debate on the DPM’s motion, the Speaker ruled that despite the technical shortcoming, he would proceed with the VONC at 2pm after the lunch break. Hu’akavameiliku immediately asked for a break, as only 10 minutes remained before the lunch break, but the Speaker sided with VONC supporters and ruled that the debate begin straight away.
That is when Hu’akavameiliku asked for the floor and proceeded to thank everyone from the King to the nobles and his Cabinet members and the movers of the VONC before announcing his resignation.
The second VONC had been tabled on November 25. The Speaker instructed the parliamentary committee responsible to scrutinise it for compliance with parliamentary rules and determine whether additional information was needed before making it available to the Prime Minister and Cabinet by November 29.
More time request granted Hu’akavameiliku was initially required to submit his response by December 3 for debate and ballot. But on November 28 the Speaker granted his request for more time, rescheduling the debate to December 9. The movers of the VONC were not happy, particularly given that the first one submitted in August 2023 had contained 46 grounds (compared with seven in the second), to which the Prime Minister and Cabinet had responded to in detail within five days.
There is reason to suspect that there was more to the request for extension than meets the eye. The inaugural graduation ceremony for the Tonga National University, which opened in January 2023, was held over three days beginning December 4, with the University’s Chancellor, King Tupou VI, officiating. Hu’akavameiliku, as Pro-Chancellor and chair of the University Council and Minister for Education and Training, facilitated the first day’s ceremony.
That date, December 4, marked the 1845 coronation of King Siaosi Tupou I, the founder of modern Tonga. Notably, King Tupou VI was absent on the second and third days, with Lord Fakafanua and Hu’akavameiliku stepping in to play the Chancellor’s role.
In a media conference on November 25 after the VONC was tabled, Hu’akavameiliku defended the VONC movers’ constitutional right to introduce it, but also said that since he only had a year left of his four-year term, he would have preferred a dialogue about their concerns.
He gave the impression to the media that he had the numbers to defeat this second VONC. However, his numbers were tight.
As of November 10, his Cabinet had nine members, reduced from 10 after his Minister for Lands and Survey, Lord Tu’i’afitu, resigned after receiving a letter from the Palace Office saying King Tupou VI had withdrawn his confidence and trust in him as minister.
Of the nine remaining members, four were People’s Representatives (PRs), including the Prime Minister, two were Nobles’ Representatives (NRs) and three were Non-Elected Representatives who could not vote on the VONC.
Question mark over allegiance o, with six votes in hand, Hu’akavameiliku needed eight more to beat the VONC. He could usually count on five PRs — Tevita Puloka, Dulcie Tei, Sione Taione, Veivosa Taka and Mo’ale ‘Otunuku — and possibly three NRs that could have sided with him, Lord Tuiha’angana, Lord Fakafanua and Prince Kalaniuvalu.
But there was a question mark over Prince Kalaniavalu’s allegiance as he had voted in favour of the first VONC in September 2023.
The movers of the second VONC were confident they had the numbers this time round. Lord Tu’ilakepa, who had voted against the VONC in 2023, was one of the signatories this time around. Previously, Lord Tu’ileakepa had almost always voted with the Prime Minister and was loathe to be associated with members of Parliament who had any pro-democracy inclinations.
The seven PR signatories were Dr Langi Fasi, Mateni Tapueleuelu, Dr ‘Aisake Eke, Piveni Piukala, Kapeli Lanumata, Mo’ale Finau and Vatau Hui. They were also guaranteed the vote of Dr Tanieta Fusmalohi, still making his way back from COP29.
So, they had 11 guaranteed votes, and 13 if the recently resigned Minister, Lord Tu’I’afitu, and Prince Kalaniuvalu sided with them. As with the first VONC, the NRs would play a crucial role, controlling nine of the 26 seats (more than 33 percent of the Parliament) despite representing less than 1 percent of the country’s population.
Since King Tupou VI withdrew his confidence and trust in Hu’akavameiliku as Minister for Defence and Fekita ‘Utoikamanu as Minister for Foreign Affairs early in 2024, the Prime Minister continued as Acting Minister in those two portfolios.
There was hope that substantive Ministers would have been appointed (from the Royal Family) by the time of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders Meeting in Nuku’alofa in August 24, but it was not to be.
Relations remained strained In spite of the hulouifi (traditional reconciliation ceremony) performed in February, relations between the King and Hu’akavameiliku remained strained. One cannot help but think that the Palace Office was at least supportive of the VONC, if not among the instigators.
As PIF chair until next year’s leaders’ summit in Solomon Islands, Hu’akavameiliku reportedly felt let down by King Tupou VI’s absence from the country during the Leaders’ Meeting — not least because his father, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, and his brother, Prince Tuipelehake, were instrumental in setting up the PIF (South Pacific Forum, at that time) in 1972.
Together with Fiji’s Ratu Kamisese Mara, Cook Islands’ Sir Albert Henry, Nauru’s Hammer De Roburt, Samoa’s Malietoa and Niue’s Robert Rex, they walked out of the then South Pacific Commission (SPC) when they could no longer stand being treated like children by the colonial powers (US, France, UK, the Netherlands, Australia, and NZ) at the annual SPC meetings and their refusal to include decolonisation and nuclear testing on SPC’s agenda.
The Speaker immediately recessed parliament after Hu’akavameiliku’s announcement. By the time it reconvened at 2pm he had a letter from the Palace Office saying they had received the PM’s resignation in writing.
In spite of vociferous opposition from some of the VONC movers, he announced that, under section 18 of the Government Act, DPM Samiu Vaipulu would be Acting Prime Minister (in an interim Cabinet of existing members) until December 24, when Parliament is scheduled to elect a new Prime Minister from its existing membership of the house.
Lopeti Senituli is a law practitioner in Tonga and is the immediate past president of the Tonga Law Society. He was Political and Media Adviser to Prime Ministers Dr Feleti Vaka’uta Sevele (2006-2010) and Samuela ‘Akilisi Pohiva (2018-2019).This article was first published by Devpolicy Blog and is republished with the author’s permission.
For many children, Christmas and other festivities are a time of excitement and joy. But for those dealing with separation – whether their parents have split up or a loved one has died – it can be tough.
We often focus on being together during the holiday season. Here are some ideas to help children cope with being apart.
Rituals are important in family life
Annual celebrations – such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Passover, Diwali, Eid and Lunar New Year – can be magic for children.
The shared joy of decorating a tree, lighting candles, unwrapping gifts or singing songs nurtures creativity and imagination. These moments can create lasting memories and reinforce a sense of belonging.
But research also suggests the true value of family rituals lies in who we share them with, not what they are.
So what does this mean for children who might not be able to celebrate with everyone they love?
Children might feel guilty about enjoying a holiday while missing their other parent. Simol1407/Shutterstock
Managing a range of feelings
Messaging around holiday celebrations often focuses on togetherness and close family time.
This can be painful or isolating for families coping with the loss of a loved one, physical distance, conflict between family members or separation between parents.
When our current circumstances don’t align with our expectations (or the idealised images shown in advertising) holidays might evoke feelings of loss or sadness.
For children, this time of year can be especially challenging. They may feel torn or guilty about splitting time between parents or anxious about missing out on moments with one side of the family.
These emotions can be hard for children to express. They may also worry about upsetting or disappointing their parents.
However, many separated families are able to create meaningful traditions that ensure children feel loved and supported, and which become treasured memories.
Here are five tips to help you and your child cope with separation during the holidays.
1. Plan ahead
If you’re separated, avoid any last-minute confusion by coordinating with the other parent and agreeing where the child will be spending time in the holidays well in advance.
Cooperative and supportive coparenting (where both parents are working together for the benefit of the child) leads to more positive outcomes for children.
It’s not always possible. But if you can, try to:
agree to prioritise what’s best for your child. Keep conflict away from them and avoid speaking negatively about the other parent
coordinate on gift-giving and avoid competing with each other
work out how to stay connected with your child when you’re apart. You could chat over a video call, record a message or story for them or allow them to take something that reminds them of you (such as a photo, keepsake or piece of your clothing). If you’re with your child, try to be generous in facilitating these connections for the other parent.
Sharing care arrangements with lots of advance warning means your child knows what to expect and has time to talk about any concerns.
Check in and allow them to express how they feel about any arrangements without judgement.
Try not to take the child’s preferences personally. Avoid adding pressure or inducing guilt (for example, “I miss you so much when you’re not with me” or “Your dad will be so disappointed if you don’t stay with him”).
3. Help them name emotions
If your child expresses they are missing one parent (or someone else they can’t be with), it’s important to validate those feelings. You can help them name their emotions, without making them feel like they have to choose between parents.
Instead, acknowledge feelings of worry, sadness or guilt. Let your child know it’s okay to miss one parent while still enjoying time with the other.
Reassure them that both parents love being with them and want them to have a wonderful time, no matter where they are.
4. Create new rituals
Rituals can be even more important for children in times of change or uncertainty – for example, if a child’s parents have recently split. They can provide a sense of predictability that fosters connection and stability.
If you can’t be together on the day, you could send a special gift along with a note. You may also be able to schedule a celebration on another day.
And if you are with your child, support them if they wish to write cards or create little gifts for other people they may be missing.
Many adults find Christmas or other holiday celebrations stressful.
If you’re not able to be with your child or children, it may also bring up feelings of loneliness, sadness and grief.
Acknowledge your emotions and find ways to process these feelings (for example, talking with a friend, going for walks or seeking counselling).
Make plans for yourself while your child or children are away. Scheduling enjoyable self-care activities – such as spending time with friends or family, volunteering, or exploring new places – can help to ensure you have a positive holiday too.
Remember, taking care of yourself will also have flow on benefits for your child.
Elizabeth Westrupp receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (GNT2019442). She is affiliated with the Parenting and Family Research Alliance, and is a registered clinical psychologist.
Christiane Kehoe is a co-author of the Tuning in to Kids and Tuning in to Teens parenting programs, and receives royalties from the sale of program manuals. Christiane works at Mindful, Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health (Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne), where she is the Research Manager for Tuning in to Kids and Senior Training Co-ordinator and Trainer of the Tuning in to Kids suite of programs.
Most of us have heard the phrase “correlation does not equal causation”. But understanding how scientists move beyond identifying correlations to establish causation remains a mystery to many.
Finding out what causes a particular outcome is often the primary goal of scientific research, especially in studies relating to our health.
We want to know if a certain factor – say, drinking wine or eating chocolate – will lead to better or worse health outcomes. That way, we can make more informed decisions about our health.
But how do scientists actually get those answers?
Correlation versus causation: the basics
It’s easy to find examples of correlations where two variables are linked, but there’s no causal relationship. For instance, there’s a correlation between chocolate consumption and the number of Nobel Prize winners per capita in a bunch of countries.
Does eating chocolate cause people to win Nobel Prizes? Of course not.
This correlation likely exists because chocolate consumption serves as a proxy for wealth. In turn, wealth relates to educational opportunities and funding for completing high-quality research that might lead to a Nobel Prize.
It’s not enough to just find a link between two things. Scientists need much more evidence before we can start to assume a causal relationship.
Building a case
In chemistry or physics, it’s often possible to conduct experiments under highly controlled conditions to understand how X affects Y. When it comes to human biology, it’s rarely so simple.
In most instances, to establish causality we use indirect evidence (more on that in a moment). It requires an approach called inductive reasoning – a process where scientists make generalisations based on the available evidence.
It’s a bit like how a prosecutor might build a criminal case based on circumstantial evidence. While a single piece of such evidence might not be persuasive on its own, as the pieces add up, they strengthen the case.
There’s one interesting contrast, however. In criminal cases, the stakes are incredibly high, and the threshold for proof is “beyond reasonable doubt”. In science, when we make the case for a causal relationship, it’s usually based “on the balance of probabilities”.
This lower threshold of proof reflects the fact scientists are happy to revise their beliefs if and when better evidence becomes available.
Inductive reasoning starts with observations. The Conversation
Types of indirect evidence of causation
The type of indirect evidence scientists use to infer causation can take different forms. These include:
1. Temporality
This is the only absolute requirement for a relationship to be causal. That is, an exposure must occur before the outcome for an exposure to cause an outcome.
As obvious as this appears, there can be situations where this isn’t clear cut. For example, there might be a long lag time between the two events. For example, 20–60 years can pass between exposure to asbestos fibres and development of mesothelioma, a type of cancer.
Or it might not be immediately obvious what is the exposure and what is the outcome: do sleep disorders lead to depression, or is disordered sleep a symptom of depression?
2. Strength of association
A strong association between two variables is generally considered suggestive of a causal relationship. That is, if one thing happening means another thing is likely to occur, we generally consider this good evidence for causality.
For example, studies showing that high consumption of alcohol is associated with liver damage demonstrate a strong effect. Therefore, they’re highly supportive of a causal relationship.
3. Consistency across studies
If various studies using different methods all yield the same or similar associations, this also supports the existence of a causal relationship.
We generally have more confidence in scientific findings when they can be replicated using different study approaches.
4. A plausible mechanism exists
Being able to demonstrate a mechanism that could explain the association between an exposure and outcome provides further support for a causal relationship.
For example, if lab or animal studies show how a substance damages cells, this would be supportive of a causal relationship between this substance and disease in people.
5. Dose-response relationship
Observing that higher exposures lead to stronger effects is considered highly supportive evidence for a causal relationship.
However, it’s important to note sometimes there’s a threshold effect when it comes to causation. That is, an exposure doesn’t cause disease until it reaches a particular level. This is generally true for infectious diseases, where a minimum infectious dose is required before a person is likely to get ill.
Indirect evidence usually plays an important role in inferring causality. But there’s one type of study that’s the gold standard for providing direct evidence of a causal relationship. It’s called a randomised controlled trial, or RCT.
In an RCT, participants are randomly assigned to either receive an intervention or to be a “control”. This ensures if you see a difference between the two groups, this can only be due to the effect of the intervention. It effectively proves there’s a causal relationship.
You can think of it as the equivalent of catching a criminal red-handed. Unfortunately, due to ethical and practical considerations, we don’t always have evidence from well-conducted RCTs.
For example, we don’t have RCT evidence that smoking causes lung cancer. The reason is that the strength of the indirect evidence supporting a causal relationship is so compelling, it would be unethical to do these studies.
Causality is complex – so beware of those promoting magic bullets
While it’s easy to assume causality works in a simple way – like flipping a switch to turn on a light – when it comes to our health it’s often complex, and involves multiple factors working together.
For instance, lifestyle, genes and environmental factors often all interact to determine whether a person develops a particular disease.
This complexity is another reason we need to be cautious when people offer a simple solution or magic bullet for improving your health. To achieve optimal health, you’ll need to do a variety of things. No single habit, superfood or supplement is the answer.
Hassan Vally 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.
These calls are made from shopping centre car parks, from the house of a trusted friend, from doctors’ offices and police stations. At the other end of the line, a family violence worker asks some questions to assess the risk, then a plan is made to support the victim to find a safe place to stay.
If they have supportive friends or family, or access to their own income, it can be easier to find safety. But for many victims of family violence, the control and isolation of the abuse means they have no such resources to draw on.
This is where victims might end up in crisis accommodation in a hotel. But while usually safer than their homes, these settings have flaws in meeting the needs of those fleeing violence.
Not enough specialist support
Nationally, women and children who are in physical danger will often spend several nights, if not weeks, in a funded hotel room.
There will be some vouchers for food and to buy the pyjamas, toothbrushes and other items that have usually been left behind. A case manager will phone, once a day, to check they have their basic needs met and to make a plan for their exit.
There are two problems with this system. The first is it’s an isolating and frightening experience – especially for people in a state of shock and trauma.
Hotel crisis accommodation can be isolating and unsuitable. Shutterstock
They can’t tell anyone where they are. They might have been told their phone is not safe and be waiting for a new one. There might be a full kitchen, but often it’s just a kitchenette – and they’re unable to cook the foods that might be familiar and comforting.
Women are often accompanied by children, sometimes babies and toddlers, who have no toys to console or occupy them.
There’s nowhere for kids to play. For adult victims, there’s no one to talk to. They’re fearful of the very real risk of danger, but what is going to happen next –or how long they’ll be waiting to find out – is unknown.
But being stuck in a small and unsuitable environment, fearful, isolated and without a clear pathway forward for themselves and their children, is a major factor.
Not enough safe and affordable housing
The second problem, if they do remain in the crisis hotel room, is there are very few places to go next.
Even if they can afford private rental, it can take weeks or months before they can move in.
Sometimes victims of family violence can be supported to return to the family home safely, if there’s an intervention order in place and the person using violence has been excluded from the property.
But it is not always a safe option. And even then, it’s only for those who can afford to take over the rent or mortgage on their own. This too can take time to sort out.
If they cannot afford rent or return home safely, they might be placed on a waiting list for long-term family violence refuge accommodation.
But these waitlists can still be long. The longer it takes, the more difficult the confined and isolated hotel room becomes.
A project underway in Victoria is working to solve this situation, with promising results.
Finding sanctuary from violence
Sanctuary is a supported crisis accommodation that provides safety, rest and wraparound support for victims of family violence.
It’s run by Victoria’s statewide 24/7 family violence service, Safe Steps, and has state and federal funding.
It is a purpose-designed building with individual, self-contained units as well as common spaces such as a children’s playroom, outdoor playground, prayer room, consult room and a large open lounge area.
But Sanctuary is more than a place. It is a new model for supporting the safety of victim survivors.
I’ve observed the Sanctuary model in action over the past few months. It is staffed 24/7, so there is always someone on site to talk to.
Family violence case managers and support workers meet in-person with residents every day – sometimes several times a day – to progress plans, and provide practical help and emotional support.
Specialist children’s workers provide tailored family violence responses as well as educational, play and wellbeing activities.
On-site services such as a nurse, visiting lawyer, Services Australia representative and wellbeing programs mean residents aren’t stuck on lengthy waitlists to access these crucial services.
Most often, it takes a few weeks of this intensive support for residents to be ready for their next steps.
It shows that our family violence crisis housing system cannot just be about a physically safe place to stay. If we want to reduce the trauma associated with escaping violence, and create more sustainable pathways to safety, the Sanctuary model offers a much-needed transitional option.
What will remain with me from my time observing Sanctuary is the change I’ve seen in women and children escaping family violence from when they arrive to the time they leave.
It’s hard to measure this difference in a report, but these changes will stay with me. To be surrounded by people who support you, listen to you, work collaboratively with you and your children is life-changing. Victims are shown every day that they matter and that they deserve to be safe and respected.
I’ve seen that difference from the tears, anxiety and fear – to the confidence, strength and smiles – of women and children leaving Sanctuary who now have something that seemed impossible before. Not just a safe place to stay, but support and hope for a safer and happier future.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
Anastasia Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Anastasia is also a director of Our Watch (Australia’s national organisation for the prevention of violence against women), and a member of the National Women’s Safety Alliance (NWSA). Anastasia teaches family violence specialist casework in the Graduate Certificate in Domestic & Family Violence at RMIT University.
Just as the legal noose tightens on the leader of Myanmar’s military junta, with a request for an arrest warrant from the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, the Chinese government seems to be extending a hand of support.
In August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Myanmar for his first meeting with Myanmar’s junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, since the February 2021 military coup plunged the country into civil war.
Then, last month, Min Aung Hlaing reciprocated with his first visit to China as head of the junta.
Reports in recent weeks have also indicated the Chinese government and Myanmar’s military junta are establishing a joint security company to protect Chinese projects and personnel from the civil war. This development is extremely concerning and does not bode well for any of the players involved.
The move comes after a string of significant military victories by the opposition, including the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s successful Operation 1027 over the past year. These rebel groups captured large swathes of territory near the China-Myanmar border, at least initially with China’s tacit support.
While much is still unclear about the deployment of these private Chinese security guards in Myanmar, one thing is certain: China has decided to unequivocally back the junta after years of hedging its bets.
China’s increasing use of private security corporations
Private security corporations and private military corporations are increasingly employed by a wide range of governments as a way of projecting influence and power in other countries without the diplomatic complexities that come with deploying traditional military forces.
Private security corporations provide basic security services for a country’s personnel or assets. Private military corporations, on the other hand, offer more in-depth military services for governments or other actors. This can include augmenting counterinsurgency or combat operations and military training.
China was rather late to the game of overseas private operators, but it has plenty of recent models to follow, such as Russia’s Wagner Group and the Blackwater company from the United States.
Legislative changes in China in 2009 resulted in an expansion of the private security industry, with thousands of domestic operators helping to protect private assets in China and dozens operating abroad from Central Asia to Africa.
Chinese private security corporations generally avoid combat roles and focus on safeguarding infrastructure projects, personnel and investments linked to the country’s Belt and Road Initiative.
There are reportedly already four Chinese private security corporations operating in Myanmar, but the new joint security company is likely to expand the scope and numbers of these operations.
What would they seek to protect? China’s key strategic project is the Myanmar-China Economic Corridor, which includes a proposed railway and twin oil and gas pipelines that connect Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province to Kyauk Phyu in Rakhine State on Myanmar’s western coast. China is also building a port there.
These pipelines run through territory controlled by a range of different armed groups in Shan State and Mandalay Region. The powerful Arakan Army, a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, also controls the area around Kyauk Phyu.
In addition, opposition groups have already seized a Chinese-owned nickel processing plant in Sagaing Region and a China-backed cement factory in Mandalay Region.
What are the possible implications?
While private security corporations are nominally separate from China’s People Liberation Army (PLA), there is little to stop the PLA from infiltrating these organisations and influencing their operations on the ground.
Having Chinese private security firms in Myanmar also creates a high likelihood of Chinese nationals being caught up in the fighting and possibly killed.
In addition, as the recent stunning fall of the Assad regime in Syria demonstrates, authoritarian regimes facing widespread militant opposition can sometimes fall quickly.
Russia and Iran are now discovering that backing a brutal regime against popular opposition can leave military and economic assets stranded when the tide turns unexpectedly. China should consider these ramifications carefully.
For Myanmar’s junta, the involvement of Chinese security forces would be an embarrassing recognition that it is unable to provide even rudimentary security for its chief ally’s economic and strategic interests.
It also makes the junta even more reliant on China than it already is. While Russia has been the main supplier of weapons since the coup, China remains a key source of military and economic engagement to the junta.
For the opposition forces, the Chinese security operations further complicate their attempts to secure control over key economic and population centres.
And it could mean China will now restrict its support for some of the ethnic armed groups fighting against the junta, such as the successors to the Communist Party of Burma, which have ethnic Chinese roots. This may force the opposition to consolidate its shift towards domestic production of small arms.
The opposition may also look to diversify its economic activity beyond smuggling or trading routes into China, potentially reducing China’s leverage over these groups in the long run.
Lastly, the Chinese security forces may further entrench anti-China sentiment throughout the country. In October, for example, the Chinese consulate in Mandalay was damaged in a bombing attack.
What are the regional implications?
India will no doubt be watching these developments with concern. If the plans go ahead, there will be increasing numbers of Chinese security forces stationed in Rakhine State, just down the road from India’s own massive investment projects in the country.
Two of Myanmar’s other neighbours – Bangladesh and Thailand – will no doubt be
concerned about having Chinese forces on their doorstep and potentially sitting in on meetings with Myanmar officials.
While China’s newfound support has provided a lifeline for the junta, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will also continue to insist on a more inclusive political resolution to the conflict. They are unlikely to view increased Chinese security operations in Myanmar favourably.
Adam Simpson 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.
In 2017, the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands deployed an artificial intelligence (AI) system to determine how likely welfare recipients were to commit fraud. After analysing the data, the system developed biases: it flagged as “high risk” people who identified as female, young, with kids, and of low proficiency in the Dutch language.
The Rotterdam system was suspended in 2021 after an external ethics review, but it demonstrates what can go wrong when governments adopt AI systems without proper oversight. As more local governments turn to AI in an effort to provide real-time and personalised services for residents, a “smarter” environment and better, safer systems, the risks are rising.
As part of our ongoing research, we studied 170 local governments around the world that use various AI systems.
We found AI is already touching nearly every aspect of public service delivery, and most of the governments didn’t even have a published policy about it.
AI in everyday governance
AI applications are affecting local governance in profound ways. Our international investigation uncovered 262 cases of AI adoption across 170 local councils, spanning a wide array of technologies and services.
We found these technologies are being deployed across five key domains.
1. Administrative services. For example, the VisitMadridGPT tourism chatbot in Madrid, Spain delivers personalised recommendations, real-time support, and cultural insights for visitors.
2. Health care and wellbeing. For example, during the height of the COVID pandemic in 2021, Boston mayor’s office in the United States launched an AI-driven chatbot for contactless food delivery, simultaneously addressing hunger and safety concerns.
3. Transportation and urban planning. Logan City in Australia has implemented a real-time AI system that keeps drivers informed where parking is available, reducing congestion and frustration. Meanwhile, AI-driven route optimisation for public transport is being widely adopted to save time and emissions.
4. Environmental management. In Hangzhou, China, an AI system is being used to classify waste more efficiently, boosting recycling rates.
5. Public safety and law enforcement. Chicago in the US has used sensors and AI automation to shape law enforcement strategies. By pinpointing crime hotspots, the city reportedly reduced gun violence by 25% in 2018. However, this technology has also raised ethical concerns about racial profiling.
The double-edged sword of AI
Our study using AI found only 26 had published AI policies as of May 2023 – less than 16%. Most are deploying powerful AI systems with no publicly available framework for public oversight or accountability.
This raises serious concerns about ethical violations, systemic biases and unregulated data use.
Without robust policy, local governments risk deploying powerful AI systems without critical checks or external supervision. Algorithms could unintentionally discriminate against certain populations when allocating resources such as public housing or health services. The stakes may be incredibly high, as in Rotterdam’s welfare fraud risk scores.
Unlike many local governments, Barcelona City Council has a public AI policy setting out clear principles. Iryna Kalamurza/Shutterstock
Among the councils with AI policies, there was a clear emphasis on collaboration with stakeholders, raising awareness among employees and citizens, and ensuring transparency and regulation.
Among these, Barcelona City Council’s AI policy stands out. Its policy includes principles such as being transparent about AI, making sure AI decisions can be explained, and fair, and sets a benchmark for other municipalities.
Public in the dark
A recent survey our team conducted in Australia, Spain and the US shows a significant gap between public awareness and local government action about AI. More than 75% of respondents were aware of AI technologies and their growing presence in everyday life, but not when it came to local government initiatives.
On average, half of the respondents were unaware their local governments are actively using AI in public services. Even more concerning, 68% said they had no idea local governments have – or could have – policies governing AI use.
This striking lack of awareness raises pressing questions about the transparency and communication of local councils. As AI becomes increasingly embedded in urban management – from traffic monitoring to public safety and environmental sustainability – better informing the public is essential.
Without public understanding and engagement, efforts to build trust, accountability, and ethical oversight for AI in governance may face significant hurdles.
The future we face
There is no doubt AI systems have great potential to improve urban governance. But without policies that prioritise transparency, accountability and ethical use, cities risk unleashing a system that could harm more than it helps.
However, it’s not too late for local governments – and citizens – to avoid this grim future. Local governments can create robust AI policies that ensure fairness, transparency, and the ethical use of data. Citizens can be educated about AI’s role in local governance.
AI applications are reshaping and transforming our world. But how we choose to guide their integration into our communities will determine whether they’re a force for good or will simply implement biases and hidden agendas.
Our project is working with local governments in Australia, the US, Spain, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia to create guiding AI principles that we aim to finalise by the end of 2025.
The authors acknowledge the contribution of Kevin Desouza, Rashid Mehmood, Anne David, Sajani Senadheera and Raveena Marasinghe to the research described in this article.
Tan Yigitcanlar receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Karen Mossberger has received funding support from the Australian Research Council as Co-Principal Investigator.
Pauline Hope Cheong has received funding support from the Australian Research Council as Co-Principal Investigator.
Rita Yi Man Li has received funding support from the Australian Research Council as Co-Principal Investigator.
Juan Manuel Corchado Rodriguez 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.
At just 16 years of age, Gout Gout captured the world’s attention with his record-breaking performance at the Australian National All-Schools Championships.
He ran an extraordinary 20.04 seconds for the 200m, breaking a 56-year-old Australian record.
Equally impressive was his 10.04 seconds for the 100m – unfortunately it was wind-assisted and ineligible for records, but reinforced his incredible potential.
For a moment, let’s reflect on the significance of his performance:
Remarkably, he is uniquely positioned to compete concurrently at both the junior and senior World Championships.
These competitions alternate every two years, providing invaluable experience in learning to manage international travel, new environments and intense world-class competition.
Gout Gout has been compared to sprint king Usain Bolt.
Training approach: what does it take?
Elite sprinters typically peak at around 25-27, so Gout’s progression should lead perfectly into the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
His training revolves around sprint-specific drills, gym sessions for strength and power, and recovery.
Under coach Dianne Sheppard, his training will evolve with his age and maturity.
To an outsider, it may not seem so obvious, but what will change is the complexity and specificity of the training sessions.
As he grows stronger naturally, his gym work will help refine that strength to explode out of the blocks and hold his sprinting technique.
Sprint-specific exercises will become increasingly tailored to enhance his acceleration and top-end speed.
Recovery will also become more important as his body adjusts to greater physical demands.
This is where the role of his coach is crucial.
Not only does Sheppard provide the technical guidance in the gym and on the track, she will also need to navigate the multitude of internal and external factors necessary for Gout to perform on the world stage and harness his ability.
Athletes with high self-efficacy, a strong sense of control, and an approach-oriented mindset are more likely to experience a challenge state, where they view pressure as an opportunity to perform their best.
In the case of Gout, a key consideration is whether he has the cognitive maturity to cope with the pressures of his rapid rise to stardom and truly understand what it takes to be the best in the world.
You can’t get to the top with talent alone. You need work, you need sacrifice, you have to be dedicated. It took me time, but I learned […] when I was young, I didn’t understand the concept of “being great”.
Like many athletes, Gout will continue to develop his mental resilience and “athletic mindset”.
Techniques such as mindfulness, anchoring, and the “quiet eye” method are tools that sports psychologists use to help athletes enter a state of flow during competitions.
Managing the expectations placed on him will be essential for his long-term success.
Pressure ‘makes diamonds’
With the second fastest 200 metre under-18 time in history, Gout has drawn comparisons to the eight-time Olympic champion Bolt.
For some, the pressures of such comparisons would be overwhelming, however when asked about his performance, Gout responded confidently:
You know what they say – pressure makes diamonds and I guess I’m better than a diamond right now.
This statement should not be perceived as cockiness, but confidence and a display of his athletic mindset.
To infinity and beyond
Gout’s performance at the recent Australian all-schools event was out of this world.
With his technical, tactical, physical, and psychological skills on display for the world to see, he possesses all the tools to not only be Australia’s next sprint sensation but the world’s next sprint king.
And with the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games just seven years away, he has the ideal timeframe to reach his full athletic potential.
In the meantime, as a nation we must be patient and allow him to develop as a person and an athlete.
As part of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Legacy, the University of Southern Queensland has developed the Student-Athlete Empowerment Project “2 WIN” to enhance student-athlete health, wellbeing and performance.
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.
Australia has a successful adolescent immunisation program, routinely achieving high vaccine coverage for teenagers.
However, recent data shows the number of Australian teens receiving the recommended vaccines for their age group has fallen over three years during the COVID pandemic.
So how much have adolescent vaccination rates dropped, and why might this be? And how can we get back on track?
a booster vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (dTpa), usually offered in year 7
the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, also usually offered in year 7
a meningococcal ACWY vaccine, offered in year 10.
These vaccines are primarily delivered through school-based immunisation programs and health services such as general practices.
They protect teenagers themselves from diseases, but also help reduce the spread of these diseases in the community.
For example, 2024 has seen a surge in whooping cough (pertussis) cases nationally. Although adolescents won’t necessarily get very sick with whooping cough, they can spread the disease. So the dTpa vaccine helps to protect vulnerable populations, including young babies.
HPV is a leading cause of genital warts and cervical cancer. Giving the HPV shot to young teenagers, before they might be exposed to the virus through sexual activity, provides the best protection against cervical cancer.
And older teenagers and young adults are among those at highest risk of meningococcal disease, which can be fatal. They’re also most likely to carry meningococcal bacteria in their nose and throat, and to spread it to others.
A modest but concerning decline
The most recent Annual Immunisation Coverage Report from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) shows a drop in vaccination coverage among teenagers between 2022 and 2023, while the previous report shows a drop from 2021 to 2022.
For example, the proportion of teens who had received their adolescent dose of dTpa in the year they turned 15 decreased from 87.3% in 2021, to 86.9% in 2022, to 85.5% in 2023.
Meanwhile, the proportion who had received one dose of meningococcal ACWY vaccine by age 17 fell from 76.1% in 2021, to 75.9% in 2022, to 72.8% in 2023.
Vaccination coverage among Indigenous teenagers dropped by similar amounts. For example, the proportion of Indigenous teens who had received one dose of meningococcal ACWY vaccine by age 17 fell from 66.7% in 2021 to 65.6% in 2022 to 62.3% in 2023.
Overall, in 2023, around one in four 18-year-olds hadn’t received all three of the nationally recommended adolescent vaccines.
Adolescent vaccinations are primarily delivered through school-based programs. VH-studio/Shutterstock
These figures show a decline in vaccination coverage among teenagers over three years. This comes after several years of generally increasing coverage before the COVID pandemic.
While the decline has been modest, the downward trend is concerning. It leaves more teenagers – and members of the wider community – vulnerable to serious infectious diseases.
Why is vaccination coverage decreasing among teenagers?
There are likely to be many contributing factors.
Although extended school closures and consequent disruption to school vaccination programs at the height of the pandemic likely played a role, these occurred almost exclusively in Victoria and New South Wales. So they can’t fully explain the ongoing drop in adolescent vaccination coverage across the country.
We don’t have good published data on what influences vaccine acceptance among teenagers. But given parents or guardians need to complete a consent form for their child to get vaccinated at school, we may be able to extrapolate from some of the challenges relating to childhood vaccination uptake.
The trends among teenagers have been consistent with a fall in the rates of younger children who are fully vaccinated. In 2023, 92.8% of one-year-olds were fully vaccinated, down from 94.8% in 2020. At five years old, the coverage rate in 2023 was 93.3%, down also from 94.8% in 2020.
A recent survey into barriers to childhood vaccination in Australia indicates a high proportion of parents who choose not to vaccinate young children have concerns about vaccine safety (48%) and effectiveness (40%). It’s possible the COVID pandemic has hindered vaccine acceptance.
Practical access barriers may also be hampering adolescent immunisation coverage. These might include lack of knowledge among parents about vaccines or immunisation schedules, complicated parental consent processes, school absenteeism, and lack of awareness of immunisation services outside school-based programs.
The NCIRS report for 2023 showed low HPV coverage for adolescents living in socioeconomically disadvantaged and remote locations. This suggests logistics such as transport may also play a role, especially for teens who miss vaccination during the school-based program.
How can we improve things? And what can parents do?
We need research to better understand the factors influencing vaccine uptake among adolescents. This can help us design and implement strategies to improve vaccination coverage in this age group.
For example, understanding the factors influencing HPV vaccination uptake among Indigenous adolescents and ensuring equitable access to targeted and culturally appropriate HPV vaccine education strategies has significantly improved vaccination coverage for this group. HPV vaccine coverage for Indigenous women aged 17 to 25 is now higher than for the general population.
We need to better understand the barriers to vaccination among adolescents. SeventyFour/Shutterstock
Parents can support their teenagers by talking to them about the importance of immunisation, listening to their concerns and answering any questions they may have. Consent forms will generally include information about the vaccine and the disease it protects against.
If your child misses out on receiving their vaccinations at school or doesn’t attend school, families can access free National Immunisation Program vaccines from their GP, pharmacy, local council or other health services.
Specialist immunisation services are also available in most states and territories. These services are for children and adolescents who are in high-risk groups or for families who are concerned about vaccinating their children.
Teenagers are the next generation of parents, and their attitudes towards immunisation will influence coverage rates of their children in the future. This is yet another reason we need to successfully address any concerns or barriers for this group around vaccination.
Archana Koirala is the chair of Vaccination Special Interest Group of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases.
Bianca Middleton is a member of Vaccination Special Interest Group of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases. She is an investigator on several research studies funded by NHMRC, and also an investigator on an industry-sponsored clinical vaccine trial. She does not receive any direct funding from industry.
Fiona Russell receives funding from the NHMRC, WHO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and DFAT. She is a member of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases Vaccination Special Interest Group. She does not receive any funding from Industry.
Katrina Clark has previously worked for the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS).
Sophie Wen is the deputy chair of Vaccination Special Interest Group of the Australasian Society of Infectious Diseases. Sophie Wen receives funding from Queensland Government for an Advancing Clinical Research Fellowship and is a Mary McConnel career boost program recipient from Children’s Hospital Foundation. Sophie Wen is an investigator for several industry-sponsored clinical vaccine trials but does not receive any direct funding from industry.
What do you remember about maths at school? Did you whizz through the problems and enjoy getting the answers right? Or did you often feel lost and worried you weren’t keeping up? Perhaps you felt maths wasn’t for you and you stopped doing it altogether.
Maths can generate strong emotions in students. When these emotions are negative, it leads to poor mathematical wellbeing.
This means students do not feel good when doing maths and do not function well. They may experience feelings of hopelessness and despair, and view themselves as incapable of learning maths.
Poor mathematical wellbeing, if not addressed, can develop into maths anxiety). This can impact working memory (which we use for calculating and problem-solving) and produce physical symptoms such as increased heart and breathing rates. It can also lead to students avoiding maths subjects, courses and careers.
Research shows students often start primary school enjoying and feeling optimistic about maths. However, these emotions can decline rapidly as students progress through school and can continue into adulthood.
Our new, as-yet-unpublished, research shows how this can be an issue for those studying to become teachers.
Our research
We frequently see students enter our university courses lacking confidence in their maths knowledge and ability to teach the subject. Some students describe it as “maths trauma”.
To better understand this issue, we surveyed 300 students who are studying to be primary teachers. All were enrolled in their first maths education unit.
We asked them to recount a negative and positive experience with maths at school. Many described feelings of shame and hopelessness. These feelings were often attributed to unsupportive teachers and teaching practices when learning maths at school.
As teacher educators, we often see students who do not have confidence to teach maths. Ground Picture/ Shutterstock
The responses describing unpleasant experiences were highly emotional. The most common emotion experienced was shame (35%), followed by anxiety (27%), anger (18%), hopelessness (12%) and boredom (8%). Students also described feeling stupid, afraid, left behind, panicked, rushed and unsupported.
Being put on the spot in front of their peers and being afraid of providing wrong answers was a significant cause of anxiety:
The teacher had the whole class sitting in a circle and was asking students at random different times tables questions like ‘what is 4 x 8?’ I remember I felt so much anxiety sitting in that circle as I was not confident, especially with my six and eight times tables.
Students recalled how competition between students being publicly “right” or “wrong” featured in their maths lessons. Another student recalled how their teacher held back the whole class until a classmate could perfectly recite a certain times table.
Students also told us about feeling left behind and not being able to catch up.
In around Year 9, I remember doing algebra, and feeling like I didn’t ‘get’ it. I remember the feeling of falling behind. Not nice! The feeling of gentle panic, like you’re trying to hang on and the rope is pulled through your hands.
Students also described the stress of results being made public in front of their classmates. Another respondent told us how the teacher called out NAPLAN maths results from lowest to highest in front of the whole class.
Students often feel more negatively about maths as they progress through school. Juice Verve/Shutterstock
In our research, many of the students’ descriptions directly mentioned “the teacher”. This further shows how important the teacher/student relationship is and its impact on students’ feelings about maths. As one student told us, they were:
[…] belittled by the teacher and the class [was] asked to tell me the answer to the question that I didn’t know. I felt lost and embarrassed and upset.
Another student told us how they were asked to stay behind after class after others had left because they didn’t understand “wordy maths problems”.
[there were] sighs and huffs from the teacher as it was taking so long to learn. I was scared of maths and maths teachers.
But teachers were also mentioned extensively when students reflected on pleasant experiences. Approximately one third of student responses mentioned teachers who were understanding, kind and supportive:
In Year 8 my teacher for maths made it fun and engaging and made sure to help every student […] The teacher made me feel smart and that if I put my mind to it I could do it.
What can we do differently?
Our research suggests there are four things teachers can do differently when teaching maths to support students’ learning and feelings about maths.
1. Work with negative emotions: we can support students to tune into negative emotions and use them to their advantage. For example, we can show students how to embrace being confused – this is an opportunity to learn and with the right level of support, overcome the issue. In turn, this teaches students resilience
2. Normalise negative emotions: we can invite students to share their emotions with others in the class. Chances are, they will not be the only one feeling worried. This can help students feel supported and show them they are not alone
3. Treat mathematical wellbeing as seriously as maths learning: teachers can be patient and supportive and make sure maths lessons are engaging and relevant to students’ lives. When teachers focus on enjoying learning and supporting students’ psychological safety, this encourages risk-taking and makes it harder to develop negative emotions
4. Ditch the ‘scary’ methods: avoid teaching approaches that students find unpleasant – such as pitting students against each other or calling on students for an answer in front of their peers. In doing so, teachers can avoid creating more “maths scars” in the next generation of students.
Chrissy Monteleone, Matthew Sexton and Kerrie Petersen also contributed to the research study explained in this article.
Tracey Muir has received funding from the Australian Research Council for other projects not related to this article.
Julia Hill received funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, which was not related to this article.
Sharyn Livy has received funding from the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority, Department of Education Victorian, Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership, Australian Research Council, Catholic Diocese of Parramatta and Catholic Education Melbourne for other projects not related to this article.
This article is part of The Conversation’s “Retirement” series where experts examine issues including how much money we need to retire, retiring with debt, the psychological impact of retiring and the benefits of getting financial advice.
About 36% of homeowners still have a mortgage when they retire, up from 23% a decade ago.
This increase in mortgage debt is due to soaring property prices, changes in retirement ages and easy access to drawdown equity loans (where you use your home as security to get a loan, which can be used to fund travel, medical costs and other expenses).
So, what are the options for homeowners who carry debt into retirement?
Some retirees take out loans to fund travel, medical costs and other expenses. Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels
Option 1: keeping the home and the debt
If you keep the family home in retirement, you get to own a property and can still receive the age pension.
For example: Jackie has a home worth A$2 million with a $200,000 mortgage. She also has $800,000 in superannuation. She is 67 but is not eligible for the age pension because her assessable assets – her super – is above the $695,500 cut off.
If Jackie takes $200,000 from her super and repays the outstanding mortgage debt, she will save on interest and principal repayments for the next ten years. She will also reduce her assessable assets by $200,000. This makes her eligible for a part pension.
So while Jackie has less super, she gets to receive a pension and gets all the subsidies associated with being a pensioner.
Option 2: downsizing to clear the debt
Downsizing can extinguish any remaining debt, and can free up money for holidays, restaurants and the good life in retirement. It also enables a move to a more age-friendly home or apartment.
This allows homeowners over 55 who have lived in their home for more than ten years to make a one-off contribution of $300,000 (singles) and $600,000 (couples) to their super, using money from the sale of their home.
But when a person reaches pension age, currently 67, any money in super will be included in the government’s assessment of your financial assets and income. It could mean you don’t qualify for a pension or pensioner subsidies.
Of the approximately 2.6 million who receive a part or full the age pension, only 78,000 people have taken up this initiative. That begs the question if this option really does create a true financial downsizing incentive.
Think again of Jackie, the woman with the $2 million home and the $200,000 in mortgage debt. Say she decides to sell her home and move to a smaller house close to family and friends. This will incur about $40,000 in selling and marketing fees, and stamp duty of around $62,000 on her new $1.4 million apartment.
Downsizing leaves her with $1.1 million in financial assets (after transaction costs), which means that Jackie is not eligible for the pension.
While she’ll be able to fund a comfortable lifestyle, this decision to downsize may not be as attractive as keeping the house.
The decision to sell and move has cost her an extra $100,000 in transaction costs and her pension.
So, people need to think carefully about downsizing. It can allow people to move closer to children, grandchildren, and the services they need – but these must be balanced against the financial implications.
Downsizing can extinguish any remaining debt but can come with implications for pension eligibility. RDNE Stock project/Pexels
What about renters?
Paying market rent while on a fixed income can be very hard, so renting is a challenge for retirees.
According to the 2021 census, women aged 55-64 and those over 65 are among the fastest-growing groups experiencing homelessness.
The good news is many profit and not-for-profit retirement communities provide rental models and discounted entry contributions to residents with limited means (but there are often waiting lists).
Retirement village residents may also be eligible for rent assistance depending on their circumstances.
Rent assistance is an extra $5,751 per year in social security benefits and provides extra financial support to eligible age pension recipients.
Retirement communities provide vulnerable older Australians a unique opportunity to move into a community under a leasehold or licence agreement. More than 260,000 senior Australians live in about 2,500 retirement communities across the country.
While a retirement village may not be the first option for many retirees, they can provide affordable accommodation.
Making the best choice
Navigating housing decisions as you approach retirement means balancing financial, emotional, and lifestyle considerations.
Homeowners retiring with a mortgage face a choice: keep their home or downsize to alleviate debt.
Keeping the home and accessing super to pay the outstanding debt improves cash flow and allows you to keep your biggest asset.
Downsizing helps eliminate debt and boosts the super balance, but comes with extra transaction costs (and you may end up with less pension, or none at all).
Jemma Briscoe is director of Aged Care Gurus where she develops educational resources and software for professionals advising on retirement-related matters.
Kathleen Walsh 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.
