Iron deficiency is one of the most common forms of nutrient deficiency around the world.
Severe iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, affects nearly 50% of women of reproductive age in regions like South Asia, Central Africa and West Africa (in contrast to 16% of women in high-income countries).
In New Zealand, 10.6% of women aged 15-18 and 12.1% of women aged 31-50 suffer from iron deficiency. The risk increases during the third trimester of pregnancy, and the iron status must be carefully monitored to ensure good health for both the mother and baby.
As more people consider switching to plant-based diets, the risk of iron deficiency will likely increase.
Our modelling of nutrient availability in current and future global food systems also suggests we can expect a gap in dietary iron by 2040 if global patterns of food production and supply remain unchanged.
This means we’ll have to address iron shortfalls in our diet, especially in populations with higher requirements such as adolescents and women. We argue that fortifying foods with iron could provide a one-stop solution to bridge nutrient gaps caused by inadequate dietary intake.
Many foods in supermarket shelves, including common staples such as bread and cereals, already have added nutrients.
Unlike mandatory iodine and folic acid fortification of bread, there is currently no government initiative to encourage or mandate iron fortification in New Zealand.
Since iron-fortification strategies have the potential to prevent deficiencies in many countries, including New Zealand, we argue that introducing iron to our foods may be a convenient and cost-effective way to provide a source of dietary iron.
New Zealand has seen a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets. Getty Images
Shift to plant-based diets
More consumers are opting for diets that include fewer animal-sourced foods in the hope of reducing environmental impacts and emissions. Recent statistics show a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets among New Zealanders from 2018 to 2021.
Considering these plant-based diets for a sustainable food system must involve conversations about nutrient availability. Plant foods often contain high amounts of fibre and phytates, which reduce the body’s capacity to absorb the iron.
Iron in plant foods such as whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and leafy greens is known as non-heme and is less readily absorbed than heme iron in animal-sourced foods. In a mixed diet, consisting of vegetables, grains and animal-sourced foods, the consumption of some red meat, fish or poultry facilitates non-heme iron absorption.
Fortification can be a potent strategy in helping people to shift towards plant-based diets by enriching these diets with nutrients that would otherwise be lacking.
A recent study investigating this potential revealed that fortifying foods with essential micronutrients, including iron, enables a more gradual dietary adjustment. Consumers wishing to adopt more plant-based diets without compromising nutrient adequacy may find this approach helpful.
However, there’s a caveat. These iron-fortified foods often contain wheat or cereal-based ingredients, which can act as iron absorption inhibitors. As these are common breakfast foods that may be consumed with a morning coffee or tea, the inhibition effect may be even stronger due to the presence of phenolic compounds in these beverages.
One solution could be to eat iron-rich plant foods with foods high in vitamin C, such as orange juice, which helps to convert iron to a more absorbable form.
Is NZ ready for iron-fortified foods?
Although fortified foods can offer great benefits in tackling iron deficiency, some consumers are hesitant to include these foods in their diets.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), a government entity responsible for developing food regulations for both nations, found many consumers had second thoughts about reaching for fortified foods, viewing them as unnatural, processed and less healthy.
This hesitancy was particularly evident when it came to non-mandatory fortifications. Added vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereals or, more recently, in plant-based milks and meat alternatives, are examples of non-mandatory or “voluntary fortification”. Consumers often perceive this as a marketing tactic rather than a health-promoting intervention.
Given the importance of adequate dietary iron intake and the projected shortage in dietary iron, it is crucial to evaluate the benefits of fortification. Educational interventions such as promoting awareness of iron deficiency and positive impacts of fortification may help improve consumers’ acceptance of these initiatives.
Mahya Tavan receives funding from the Global Dairy Platform for developing a dietary optimisation model called The iOTA Model.
Bi Xue Patricia Soh 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.
Iron deficiency is one of the most common forms of nutrient deficiency around the world.
Severe iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, affects nearly 50% of women of reproductive age in regions like South Asia, Central Africa and West Africa (in contrast to 16% of women in high-income countries).
In New Zealand, 10.6% of women aged 15-18 and 12.1% of women aged 31-50 suffer from iron deficiency. The risk increases during the third trimester of pregnancy, and the iron status must be carefully monitored to ensure good health for both the mother and baby.
As more people consider switching to plant-based diets, the risk of iron deficiency will likely increase.
Our modelling of nutrient availability in current and future global food systems also suggests we can expect a gap in dietary iron by 2040 if global patterns of food production and supply remain unchanged.
This means we’ll have to address iron shortfalls in our diet, especially in populations with higher requirements such as adolescents and women. We argue that fortifying foods with iron could provide a one-stop solution to bridge nutrient gaps caused by inadequate dietary intake.
Many foods in supermarket shelves, including common staples such as bread and cereals, already have added nutrients.
Unlike mandatory iodine and folic acid fortification of bread, there is currently no government initiative to encourage or mandate iron fortification in New Zealand.
Since iron-fortification strategies have the potential to prevent deficiencies in many countries, including New Zealand, we argue that introducing iron to our foods may be a convenient and cost-effective way to provide a source of dietary iron.
New Zealand has seen a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets. Getty Images
Shift to plant-based diets
More consumers are opting for diets that include fewer animal-sourced foods in the hope of reducing environmental impacts and emissions. Recent statistics show a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets among New Zealanders from 2018 to 2021.
Considering these plant-based diets for a sustainable food system must involve conversations about nutrient availability. Plant foods often contain high amounts of fibre and phytates, which reduce the body’s capacity to absorb the iron.
Iron in plant foods such as whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and leafy greens is known as non-heme and is less readily absorbed than heme iron in animal-sourced foods. In a mixed diet, consisting of vegetables, grains and animal-sourced foods, the consumption of some red meat, fish or poultry facilitates non-heme iron absorption.
Fortification can be a potent strategy in helping people to shift towards plant-based diets by enriching these diets with nutrients that would otherwise be lacking.
A recent study investigating this potential revealed that fortifying foods with essential micronutrients, including iron, enables a more gradual dietary adjustment. Consumers wishing to adopt more plant-based diets without compromising nutrient adequacy may find this approach helpful.
However, there’s a caveat. These iron-fortified foods often contain wheat or cereal-based ingredients, which can act as iron absorption inhibitors. As these are common breakfast foods that may be consumed with a morning coffee or tea, the inhibition effect may be even stronger due to the presence of phenolic compounds in these beverages.
One solution could be to eat iron-rich plant foods with foods high in vitamin C, such as orange juice, which helps to convert iron to a more absorbable form.
Is NZ ready for iron-fortified foods?
Although fortified foods can offer great benefits in tackling iron deficiency, some consumers are hesitant to include these foods in their diets.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), a government entity responsible for developing food regulations for both nations, found many consumers had second thoughts about reaching for fortified foods, viewing them as unnatural, processed and less healthy.
This hesitancy was particularly evident when it came to non-mandatory fortifications. Added vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereals or, more recently, in plant-based milks and meat alternatives, are examples of non-mandatory or “voluntary fortification”. Consumers often perceive this as a marketing tactic rather than a health-promoting intervention.
Given the importance of adequate dietary iron intake and the projected shortage in dietary iron, it is crucial to evaluate the benefits of fortification. Educational interventions such as promoting awareness of iron deficiency and positive impacts of fortification may help improve consumers’ acceptance of these initiatives.
Mahya Tavan receives funding from the Global Dairy Platform for developing a dietary optimisation model called The iOTA Model.
Bi Xue Patricia Soh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne
Shutterstock
Most of us find it very difficult to identify different species of eucalypt. You often hear people say they all look the same.
Of course, they don’t. There are over 700 species of the iconic tree genus, and they can be very different in form, height, flowers and colours.
With all this variety, it’s nice to have a few species we can identify from metres away, just from looking at the colours and patterns of the bark on the trunk. The spotted gum is one of these instantly recognisable eucalypts.
You may well have seen a spotted gum growing happily on an urban street. These smooth-barked eucalypts have been planted up and down many suburban streets.
In fact, if the spotted gum has a secret superpower, it would be the ability to fit into our cities with a minimum of fuss. They’re big trees, and produce vast quantities of blossoms, attracting nectar-eaters like rainbow lorikeets in droves. They grow easily, grow straight and grow tall.
Why are spotted gums special?
Spotted gum used to be called Eucalyptus maculata. Now it’s officially Corymbia maculata after a name change about 25 years ago. Some people still debate this.
It was probably the trunk and bark of these trees which first caught your eye. These trees replace their bark seasonally, but not all at once. Instead, bits of the bark are shed and new bark grows at different rates. That leaves the famous spots on their trunks (maculatus is Latin for spotted).
Early in the growing season some of these spots can be a bright green before fading to tans and greys over the coming months. Many patterns can be stunningly beautiful.
These trees are loved by many. But there are sceptics. Some feel the trees can be a nuisance, and even dangerous because of the bark and branches they shed. There is some truth to it, as they can drop branches during droughts. Interestingly, these hardwood trees are actually considered fire resistant.
But there are very good reasons our city planners and councils turn to the spotted gum. Their wonderfully straight, light coloured and spotted trunks are impressive whether trees are planted singly, in avenues (meaning two rows of trees) or in boulevards (four rows of trees).
They often get to an impressive 30–45 metres in height. Old trees can get over 60m.
During profuse flowering, anthers (the pollen-bearing part of the stamen) shed from a single tree can cover the ground, paths, homes, roads and vehicles in a white snow-like frosting.
In nature, the spotted gum and close relatives, the lemon scented gum (C. citriodora) and large leafed spotted gum (C. henryii) grow along the east coast of Australia, from far eastern Victoria to southern Queensland. In New South Wales forests, you might be lucky enough to spot the pairing of spotted gums and native cycads (Macrozamia), ancient plants resembling palms.
Every few years, spotted gums flower profusely. Shutterstock
Spotted gums are quick growing and hardy, if a little frost-sensitive when young. They can tolerate periods of waterlogged soil. These traits make the species well suited to urban use, where disturbed and low-oxygen soils are common due to paving, compaction and waterlogging.
Urban trees have to be able to establish quickly and with relatively little care. They need to cope with environmental stresses and very poor quality urban soils. They need tall straight trunks so people and vehicles can pass under them, and so our cities keep their clear sight lines.
But we also want street trees to have broad, spreading canopies with a dense green foliage, to give shade, privacy and beauty.
As you can see, it’s a tough set of requirements. The spotted gum meets all of these. In fact, it has the potential to be one of the great urban tree species, not just in Australia but internationally.
Spotted gums are tough. On urban streets in many parts of Australia, they will endure as the climate changes – possibly for decades or even centuries. They possess both lignotubers, the protective swelling at the base of the trunk, and epicormic buds, which lie dormant under the bark in readiness for fire and other stresses. These let the trees cope well with the abuses urban life can throw at them.
You might notice the mottled bark first. Shutterstock
Horticulturalists have been working to make the tree even better suited to urban use. Careful selection has created spotted gum varieties geared towards dense, spreading canopies and with reduced risk of dropping branches.
But not all spotted gums you see are like this. These varieties were uncommon or didn’t exist 50 years ago, which means old urban trees might be more likely to shed limbs or have less attractive forms.
These trees are survivors. Near Batemans Bay in New South Wales lives Old Blotchy, the oldest known spotted gum. It’s estimated to be 500 years old.
Some urban trees are already 150 years old and in fine condition. Planting good quality spotted gums in a good position is a way to leave a lasting legacy.
As climate change intensifies, city planners are looking for resilient street trees able to provide cooling shade in a hotter climate. They could do a lot worse than choosing C. maculata.
Gregory Moore 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.
Bomana jail, the main prison near Papua New Guinea’s capital city of Port Moresby, is not accepting new prisoners due to overcrowding.
The jail currently holds more than 800 inmates. It can no longer accept new prisoners.
Last Friday, an unreported incident involved several remanded inmates taken to Bomana jail being sent back to Port Moresby for police to ‘take care of the problem”.
Chief jailer Stephen Pokanis confirmed yesterday, that the management had requested police and courts to use their discretion to grant bail to offenders classified as low risk and attending court hearings.
“That is the avenue we are looking at now because Bomana is just like other jails — experiencing overcrowding — and that is the best option we can use for police and court to help us,” Pokanis said.
Bomana management will have classified low risk prisoners out of the high maximum-security unit in order for them to be transferred out to a low minimum-security unit, creating space for incoming remanded prisoners.
Correctional Service Employee Association president Daniel Mollen said yesterday it was sad that while financial constraints were hitting the country and the Correctional Service, a frontline department mandated for correcting and reforming prisoners, no adequate budgetary funding had been made to increase manpower capacity, update the aged jail facilities, and mitigate any risk of the breakout.
He said government must take note that all prisons in the country were overcrowded and police could not keep prisoners in their cells so they transferred them to prison while waiting for court hearings, adding responsibility in terms of cost and risk.
What would Goldilocks do if given the chance to pick the “just right” density for our cities? Depends who you ask.
Debates over densities in our cities divide between advocates of low-rise detached housing and supporters of higher-density towers. Both offer little diversity. In Australian cities, but also in North America, we see a clear contrast between ground-scraping suburbs and clusters of CBD skyscrapers.
The combination of these two patterns of development has produced largely car-dependent cities. Commute times are long and carbon emissions high. Options are limited for those who wish to live in a neighbourhood with corner shops, short walking distances to a local centre, communal green space and public parks.
Neighbourhoods like this are enabled by mid-rise (three to seven storeys), mid-density housing. This form of building has been dubbed the “missing middle”. Decades of planning for urban consolidation has made little difference – medium density is still missing in many of our cities.
In debates about urban density, there’s often a confused mix of different conceptions and measures of density. For example, the widely used measure of dwellings per hectare conflates building and population densities, capturing neither with precision. Often such debates don’t consider basic distinctions such as those between building and population densities, residential and job densities, internal and external densities (inside and outside buildings), measured and perceived densities.
A census can easily capture residential night-time population densities. However, fluctuating daytime densities cannot be measured accurately. Building densities can be accurately measured as floor area ratio (FAR, the total floor area of buildings divided by the total site area) but this is rarely applied.
Metrics are often heavily biased by inconsistent reference areas. What spatial scales matter for which desired outcome is seldom questioned.
For example, a reference area of about 1 square kilometre is relevant for a walkable neighbourhood. Our perceptions of densities depend on the spatial reach of our senses, mostly up to 100 metres. These include the visual sense of enclosure, the diversity and quality of the public-private interfaces, street layouts, trees and other vegetation.
Gross residential densities (people per hectare) in Melbourne at 1x1km walkable neighbourhood scale and 100x100m experiential scale. Pafka 2022
If experts are unable to accurately measure urban densities, how can we expect everyone else to understand?
With confusions persisting, the stigmatisation of urban density, meaning for many “too dense”, persists. This tendency has been often countered through linguistic attempts to reframe the term.
For example, in Vancouver, Canada, the urbanist Brent Toderian has been calling for “density done well”. This term has been adopted in Melbourne too. Other terms include “Goldilocks density” – “not too high, not too low, but just right” – “optimal-quality density” and “EcoDenCity”.
But these are vaguely defined terms that can mean many things to different people. Our research shows that planning professionals in Melbourne associate “density done well” with neighbourhoods as different as North Perth, Western Australia, and Friedrichshain in Berlin. Their gross floor area ratios range from 0.7 to 4.3.
Put simply, “good” density is not limited to ratio of buildings to space. And it’s prone to change over time.
Three neighbourhood examples of ‘density done well’ provided by planning professionals in Melbourne. By Merrick Morley, based on GoogleEarth and StreetView
The “missing middle” is sometimes exemplified by the three-to-seven-storey perimeter block. The block is formed by attached buildings aligned with the streets with a large communal courtyard in the middle. It’s common and well understood in Europe (Friedrichshain is an example above), but less so in Australia and North America.
David Sim describes this building type in detail in his book Soft City. He links it to nine quality criteria, including the diversity of buildings and open spaces.
Research testing these criteria for Melbourne shows only five larger pockets come close to meeting them, with floor area ratios of 0.6-0.7. These are inner-city suburbs built along tram lines and with diverse building types. Their buildings include two-storey terrace housing, three-storey walk-ups and occasionally taller apartments. None of these are perimeter blocks, which are largely absent in Australia.
Examples of larger pockets of ‘soft density’ in Melbourne. By Ben Thorp and Merrick Morley, based on GoogleEarth and StreetView
We argue that well-meaning discourses about “good” densities risk masking divergent desires through linguistic tactics. Rather, we need a better understanding of the different conceptions and metrics of densities and how they relate to people’s everyday experiences. This will require increased urban density literacy, through formal and informal education, as well as public deliberation, so we can build cities as diverse as our societies.
Goldilocks confronted very simple challenges with very simple means. But cities are made of diverse people with different tastebuds. None would have to burn their tongue if they were more aware of the knowledge and tools we have at hand.
We thank Ben Thorp for his contributions to this article. Elek Pafka 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 his academic appointment.
Merrick Morley receives a stipend from the City of Melbourne for his PhD candidature
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
Parliament has ended for another term, shutting down ahead of the Aotearoa New Zealand election campaign with a debate where many focused on attacking their political opponents.
Labour Party leader and Prime Minister Chris Hipkins warned New Zealanders: “We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history.”
Parliament typically rises at the end of a term with an adjournment debate, and Thursday’s seemed to confirm the coming election on October 14 would be full of negative campaigning.
Here is a brief summary of the political leaders’ speeches:
Chris Hipkins (Labour):
Labour Party leader and PM Chris Hipkins . . . “Ours is a government that has been forged through fire. Every challenge that has been thrown our way, we have risen to that.” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
Labour’s leader and incumbent Prime Minister Chris Hipkins launched into the closing adjournment debate reflecting on the eventful past six years. He said his own tenure in the role had not broken that mould, with the Auckland floods sweeping in just two days after he was sworn in, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle.
“Ours is a government that has been forged through fire. Every challenge that has been thrown our way, we have risen to that,” he said.
He said Labour had achieved a lot, but there was more to do — and much at stake in the coming election.
“We can continue to move forward under Labour, or we can face a coalition of cuts, chaos, and fear: A National/ACT/New Zealand First government that would be one of the most inexperienced and untested in our history, a government who want to wind the clock back on all of the progress that we are making.”
He praised Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s handling of the economy, highlighting a 6 percent larger economy than before the covid-19 pandemic, record low unemployment, and wages “growing faster under our government than inflation”.
He soon returned to attacking political opponents, however.
“Now is not the time to turn back. Now is not the time to stoke the inflationary fires with unfunded tax cuts as the members opposite promised, and it is not a time to turn our backs on talent by introducing a talent tax,” he said, referring to National’s plan to increase levies on visas.
“National wants to turn the clock backwards; we want to keep moving forward.”
He finished by saying Labour had a positive vision for New Zealand, before his final parting words: “and I wave goodbye to Michael Woodhouse, too, because he’s guaranteed not to be here after the election”.
Christopher Luxon (National):
National Party leader Christopher Luxon . . . “[The Labour government] turned out it was all words and no action, because, as we expected, [Hipkins] just carried on doing more of the same: Excessive, addicted government spending.” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
The National leader said Hipkins’ speech should be one of apology, “to the parents and the kids who actually have been let down by an education system …to all the people who have waited for endless times and hours in hospital emergency departments … to all the victims of ram raids in dairies and superettes … to all the people that are lying awake at night worried about how they’re going to make their payments and keep their house.”
He continued with the requisite thanks such speeches so often sprinkle on officials, staff, supporters and workers before thanking the man he had been criticising.
“I do want to thank, in particular, the Prime Minister Chris Hipkins for his services to the National Party, because he rode in very triumphantly in February, and he announced that he was sweeping away everything that Jacinda Ardern stood for-especially kindness. But I have to say it turned out it was all words and no action, because, as we expected, he just carried on doing more of the same: Excessive, addicted government spending.
He turned to the slew of Labour personnel problems of the past year and more, likening the government to a car with the wheels falling off; the Greens were “in this rally too, they’re on their e-bikes, and they’re pedalling along the Wellington cycle lanes,” while Te Pāti Māori were “in their waka, but, sadly, they’re not the party of collaboration that they once were”.
“Then there are the ACT folk. They’re off in their pink van, and it’s been wonderful. They’re travelling the countryside, and David’s reading Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, which is a good read, as you well know, Mr Speaker.”
He lavished praise on his own team, singling out deputy Nicola Willis, then closed by promising National was “ready to govern, we are sorted, we are united, we have the talent, we have the energy, we have the ideas, we have the diversity to take this country forward”.
David Seymour (ACT):
ACT party leader David Seymour . . . “Half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is.” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
ACT’s leader also honed in on his political opponents, targeting Labour’s polling.
“It’s been a long three years in this Chamber and it has been characterised by one fact that lays bare what has happened, and that is the fact that the Labour Party, in Roy Morgan, polled 26 percent. That means that half the people who voted for Labour at the last election have abandoned voting for Labour in three years. The question that they must be asking themselves is why that is.”
“I think the reason that we have so much change and support-Labour have lost half of their supporters in the last three years because, frankly, never has so much been promised to so many and yet so little actually delivered … New Zealanders overwhelmingly say this country is going in the wrong direction, and they also will tell you that their number one concern is the cost of living. That is Grant Robertson’s epitaph.”
He targeted housing, debt, inflation, victimisation, and child poverty before targeting the government for taking “a divisive approach to almost every single issue”.
“If you take the example of vaccination. Now, I’m a person who says that vaccination was safe and effective, yet by using ostracism as a tool to try and increase vaccination levels this government has eroded social cohesion and divided New Zealanders when they didn’t need to,” he said.
“New Zealand have had enough of that style of politics. They’ve had enough of Chris Hipkins going negative. They’ve had enough of the misinformation.”
He finished by saying the choice for New Zealanders now was not between swapping “Chris for Chris and red for blue”, but “we’ll actually deliver what we promise, we’ll cut waste, we’ll end racial division, and we’ll get the politics out of the classroom. Those aren’t just policies, those are values that we all share.”
James Shaw (Greens):
Green Party co-leader James Shaw . . . “Our greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa are falling, and that is because — and it is only because — with the Green Party in government with Labour, we have prioritised that work every single day.” Image: RNZ/Angus Dreaver
The Green co-leader took his own opening shot at Seymour, as “the leader of ‘New New Zealand First’”.
“Mr Seymour must be feeling quite grumpy right now, because last term he worked so hard to get rid of Winston Peters so that this term he could become Winston Peters, and now Winston Peters is calling and he wants his Horcrux back because that blackened shard of a soul can only animate the body of one populist authoritarian at once.”
He turned the hose on both major parties in one statement, saying it was odd National was proposing more new taxes than Labour while the Greens were promising bigger tax cuts than National. He criticised National over its plan to spend the funds from the Emissions Trading Scheme, before turning to climate change overall as — unusually — a source of positivity.
“Our greenhouse gas emissions in Aotearoa are falling, and that is because — and it is only because — with the Green Party in government with Labour, we have prioritised that work every single day.”
But positivity did not last long.
“Under the last National government, one in 100 new cars sold in this country was an electric vehicle. Last June, it was one in two … and National want to cancel all of that so that they can have an election year bribe.”
Rawiri Waititi (Te Pāti Māori):
Te Pati Māori MPs Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi (speaking) . . . “Te Pāti Māori is a movement that leaves no one behind, whether you are tangata whenua or a tangata Tiriti, tangata hauā, takatāpui, wāhine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna — you are whānau.” Image: Johnny Blades
The Pāti Māori leader Rawiri Waititi began with a fairy tale.
“It seems like this side of the House can find a grain of salt in a sugar factory. I just wanted to say, as I heard the story about Goldilocks — Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Baby Bear — I tell you, it’s been very difficult to sit next to a polar bear and a gummy bear, and it’s been quite hard to contain the grizzly bear in me.”
He spoke in te reo Māori before giving a speech which — unlike the other leaders — focused exclusively on his own party’s promises.
“We are the only movement that will fight for our people,” he said.
“What does an Aotearoa hou look like? It looks like how we would treat you on the marae. We will welcome you. We will feed you. We will house you. We will protect you. We will educate you. We will care you. We will love you.”
“Te Pāti Māori is a movement that leaves no one behind, whether you are tangata whenua or a tangata Tiriti, tangata hauā, takatāpui, wāhine, tāne, rangatahi, mokopuna — you are whānau.”
He spoke of the need to reduce poverty and homelessness, before making the second of two references to his suspension from Parliament this week, then said it was time to “believe in ourselves to be proud, to be magic, and to believe in your mana”.
“I am proud of you all, I am proud of our movement, and I’m proud to head into this campaign, doing what we said we would do.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Museum August Kestner, Hannover. Photo: Christian Tepper.
In 1900 – some 22 years before he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen – British archaeologist Howard Carter opened another tomb in the Valley of the Kings. In tomb KV42, Carter found the remains of a noblewoman called Senetnay, who died around 1450 BCE.
More than a century later, a French perfumer has recreated one of the scents used in Senetnay’s mummification. And the link between these two events is our research, published today in Scientific Reports, which delves into the ingredients of this ancient Egyptian balm recipe.
Recreating the smells of a disappeared world
Our team drew upon cutting-edge technologies in chemistry to reconstruct ancient scents from jars of Senetnay found in the tomb.
We used three variations of chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques, which work by breaking samples down into individual molecules. Specific substances have different assemblages of molecules. Based on these characteristic compounds and through comparison to known reference materials, we identified the different ingredients.
After the excavation by Carter, two of Senetnay’s jars recovered from the tomb made their way to Germany. So, in 2020, we approached the Museum August Kestner in Hannover about the possibility of analysing the jars with these new methods.
These jars are known as canopic jars. They are made of limestone and were used to store the mummified organs of the ancient Egyptian elite.
Somewhere along the way, however, Senetnay’s jars lost their contents. All that remained of the mummified organs were faint residues on the bottom of the jars.
Remarkably, chemical analyses allow scientists to take such trace remains and reconstruct the original contents.
Our analysis revealed the balms used to coat and preserve Senetnay’s organs contained a blend of beeswax, plant oil, fats, bitumen, an unidentified balsamic substance, and resins from trees of the pine family (most likely larch).
One other substance was narrowed down to either a resin called dammar – found in coniferous and hardwood trees in South-East and East Asia – or Pistacia tree resin.
The results were exciting; these were the richest and most complex balms ever identified for this early time period.
It was clear a lot of effort had gone into making the balms. This suggests Senetnay, who was the wet nurse of the future Pharaoh Amenhotep II, had been an important figure in her day.
The findings also contribute to growing chemical evidence that the ancient Egyptians went far and wide to source ingredients for mummification balms, drawing on extensive trade networks that stretched into areas beyond their realm.
Since trees of the pine family are not endemic to Egypt, the possible larch resin must have come from somewhere further afield, most likely Central Europe.
This map shows the distribution of potential conifer resin sources in relation to the Valley of the Kings. You can see larches (which belong to the genus Larix, of the family Pinaceae) aren’t found anywhere near Egypt. B. Huber et al., 2023, CC BY-SA
The most puzzling ingredient was the one identified as either Pistacia or dammar resin. If the ingredient was Pistacia – which is derived from the resin of pistachio trees – it likely came from some coastal region of the Mediterranean. But if it was dammar, it would have derived from much farther away in South-East Asia.
Recent analysis of balms from the site of Saqqara identified dammar in a later balm dating to the first millennium BCE. If the presence of dammar resin is confirmed in Senetnay’s case, this would suggest ancient Egyptians had access to this South-East Asian resin via long-distance trade, almost a millennium earlier than previously thought.
A perfume for the ages
Senetnay’s balm would not only have scented her remains, but also the workshop in which it was made and the proceedings of her burial rites – perfuming the air with pine, balsam, vanilla and other exotic notes. The vanilla scent comes from a compound called coumarin, and from vanillic acid, and in this case likely reflects the degradation of woody tissue.
Due to the volatile nature of scents, however, Senetnay’s unique scents gradually vanished once her remains were deposited in the Valley of the Kings.
Earlier this year, we began a collaboration with perfumer Carole Calvez and sensory museologist Sofia Collette Ehrich to bring Senetnay’s lost scent back to life.
The results of this effort will go on display at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark in October, as part of its new exhibition: Egypt – Obsessed with Life.
This new olfactory display will be like a time machine for the nose. It will provide a unique and unparalleled window into the smells of ancient Egypt and the scents used to perfume and preserve elite individuals such as Senetnay.
Such immersive experiences provide new ways of engaging with the past and help broaden participation, particularly for visually impaired people.
Barbara Huber receives funding from the Max Planck Society and the Joachim Herz Foundation.
Nicole Boivin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Shutterstock
The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.
For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.
The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.
Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.
But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.
On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.
A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.
$1 billion per year in economic damage
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.
My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.
Turkish Airlines is also finding it hard to get approval from Australia. Shutterstock
Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.
The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.
And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.
The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.
When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.
Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.
By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.
Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.
The weak case for offering Qantas protection
There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.
There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.
But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.
Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”
But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.
Is there something we don’t know about?
Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.
It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.
As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.
Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.
More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.
Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.
Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Shutterstock
The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.
For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.
The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.
Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.
But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.
On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.
A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.
$1 billion per year in economic damage
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.
My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.
Turkish Airlines is also finding it hard to get approval from Australia. Shutterstock
Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.
The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.
And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.
The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.
When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.
Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.
By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.
Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.
The weak case for offering Qantas protection
There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.
There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.
But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.
Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”
But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.
Is there something we don’t know about?
Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.
It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.
As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.
Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.
More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.
Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.
Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.
From today, there are significant changes to how some common medicines are prescribed and dispensed in Australia. This means you could walk away from the pharmacy with 60-days’ worth of your usual medicine from a single prescription.
Until now, most long-term medicines were only available for 30 days at a time. So the price of these medicines for some patients may effectively halve.
You would also need fewer trips to the GP for a prescription and fewer visits to the pharmacy to have your medicine dispensed.
But not all medicines are yet eligible for 60-day scripts and not everyone is prescribed 60-days’ worth of medicine at a time. Here’s what the changes mean for you.
If you have a current prescription, you need to use this prescription first before you get a new one. To be eligible for a prescription that provides medicine for 60 days your medication needs to be on the approved list.
Your doctor also needs to assess if you are stable on it. This is to avoid wastage. We know new treatments can result in frequent changes to medication regimens, which would result in wasted medicines if they don’t end up being used.
Your doctor may also give you “repeat” prescriptions for 60-days’ worth of medicines at a time. Under the new rules, this could mean up to 12 months’ supply of medicine (the initial script plus five “repeats”). You would have to pay for each of these repeat scripts when your medicine is dispensed every 60 days.
The roll-out of 60-day scripts will be in three stages. The first stage, which begins today, includes medicines for cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease and stroke), heart failure, high cholesterol, gout, osteoporosis, and the gut conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
This includes some of the most common medicines prescribed in Australia, such as atorvastatin for lowering cholesterol, and perindopril for lowering blood pressure.
The following stages, set to be rolled out over the coming 12 months, include medicines for diabetes, epilepsy, glaucoma, asthma and Parkinson’s disease.
When fully implemented, these changes will affect more than 300 prescription medicines available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
These medicines have been chosen because they are appropriate treatments for people living with stable, chronic health conditions, they meet clinical safety criteria, and are considered cost-effective.
Medicines not available for 60-day dispensing are those only for short-term use and medicines known to be at risk of overuse. These include pain medicines and some medicines for mental health conditions.
The government has brought in these changes mainly to try to make medicines more affordable. We know people do not seek medical care or fill prescriptions due to cost.
The maximum price you pay at the pharmacy for a PBS script (known as the co-payment) is not changing. It’s still A$7.30 for concession card holders and $30 for non-concession card holders. But by having 60-day dispensing, you’ll only be charged this every two months instead of every month.
But not everyone will save money from a 60-day prescription because in some cases your pharmacy may already be discounting your medicine. If the price for 60-days’ supply would not take the price over $30, you may not be getting two scripts for the price of one.
For example, a commonly discounted medicine is atorvastatin. In Australia, a non-concession patient generally pays between $8 and $22 for 30-days’ supply. But it’s likely that a 60-day supply would cost between $15 and $30.
The amount you or your family need to pay to reach the PBS safety net is also not changing. This is the threshold you need to reach before medicines become free (for concession card holders) or discounted (non-concession card holders) for the rest of the calendar year. In some instances, 60-day dispensing may result in you or your family reaching the safety net threshold later, or not at all.
The changes are meant to make medicines more affordable. Shutterstock
If you don’t store your medicines correctly at home they can become degraded and not work so well. With a 60-day supply, correct storage is even more important.
As a general rule of thumb, never store your medicines in hot rooms or your car (even in winter) and don’t store them in direct sunlight. If your medicine needs to be stored in the fridge, your pharmacist will let you know.
One example is latanoprost, which are drops for the eye condition glaucoma. You can keep the bottle you are using in the cupboard but you need to store the unopened, second bottle in the fridge.
Remember, 60-day dispensing is only available for new prescriptions. When you next see your doctor, if your condition is stable and your medicine is suitable, you will be provided a 60-day script. Your pharmacist will then dispense a 60-day supply.
Andrew Bartlett is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, a previous director of Blooms the Chemist management services and remains a shareholder.
Associate Professor Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd a medical device company, and a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design, and testing.
Whatever fate awaits Annastacia Palaszczuk over the coming weeks, Queensland’s 39th – and only the second woman – premier will never lose her standing in the Australian Labor pantheon.
Palaszczuk, the state Labor leader since 2012 and premier since 2015, is already Australia’s most successful female political leader. She was the first woman to lead a party into government from opposition anywhere in Australia, the first woman to attain three successive election victories in Australia, and the first head of a majority-female cabinet.
If Palaszczuk can survive the building pressure on her to resign, she could next year become Queensland’s fourth longest-serving – and Labor’s second longest-serving – premier since 1860. But that prospect is becoming increasingly unlikely.
In July, a Freshwater Strategy poll for the Australian Financial Review found just 39% of Queenslanders now approve of Palaszczuk’s leadership, with 47% disapproving – a net negative of eight points.
And an August Resolve Strategic Poll showed 37% of respondents preferring Liberal-National Party Opposition leader David Crisafulli as premier, compared to 36% who preferred Palaszczuk. This was the first time in almost a decade an LNP leader has taken the lead.
What a far cry from the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, Newspoll found 64% of Queenslanders approving of Palaszczuk’s leadership, with 81% approving of her management of the pandemic and subsequent hard border closures. Just 29% disapproved of her leadership – a net positive of 35 points.
Worse for Labor, Resolve now pegs LNP first-preference support at 38% (up three points since the 2020 election), with Labor at just 32% (down seven). The LNP also has an after-preference lead of 53–47% over Labor.
If this lead is held, it would likely be enough to allow the LNP to win the 14 seats needed for majority government in next October’s election.
To outsiders it might appear Palaszczuk – who has dominated Queensland politics like no other since Peter Beattie more than a decade ago – has suffered a rapid fall from grace. But Palaszczuk’s decline has been a slow burn.
A year after securing her third term as premier in the 2020 election, Palaszczuk was wholly untroubled by a virtually unknown opposition leader.
But, by early 2022, Palaszczuk had found herself enmeshed in several integrity crises, including accusations the Crime and Corruption Commission had not been impartial in its investigation of alleged local government corruption, and that senior public servants had allegedly suffered political interference from ministerial staff.
Worse, Palaszczuk appeared slow to respond to the allegations before appointing three separate inquiries. One inquiry, under Professor Peter Coaldrake, published unfavourable findings.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk issues surprise apology after integrity questions.
The effect was rapid and seismic: the hitherto Teflon Palaszczuk now looked flawed, and opinion polls soon reflected Labor’s vulnerability. By June 2022, YouGov had revealed a five-point collapse in Labor’s primary vote, with the LNP, now on 38%, leading Labor for the first time.
But as the dust settled on Labor’s integrity issues, the LNP and a conservative news media cleverly switched narratives. Palaszczuk was then framed as a “checked-out”, “red carpet” premier more interested in mixing with celebrities and attending glitzy gala events with her new partner.
That narrative appeared to gain public traction when, in August last year, the media accused Palaszczuk of cancelling a cabinet meeting to spend time on a luxury yacht. The coincidental circumstance of Palaszczuk last week leaving for a holiday in Italy, just as the media storm broke over her leadership troubles, can only deepen perceptions of a “part-time” premier.
As public policy crises have continued to dominate the media over the past year, the accusation that Palaszczuk has taken her eye off the policy ball has only gained further traction. With a soaring cost of living, deepening housing crisis, overcrowded hospitals and budget blowouts in infrastructure projects, it’s little wonder voters have started to turn on her government.
But, more than any other, it’s the issue of youth crime that has most profoundly brought Palaszczuk’s leadership into question. Her government has been roundly criticised for the hastily passed legislation last week that could see children held “indefinitely” in Queensland watch houses – a move that was resisted by Labor’s majority Left faction.
In short, Palaszczuk has been Labor’s best asset in Queensland since 2012; now she appears a liability.
Despite unconvincing reassurances from senior government ministers that Palaszczuk will lead Labor to the October 2024 election, the momentum of leadership change now appears beyond the point of no return. It’s almost certain Queensland will have a new Labor premier, possibly by the end of this month.
There appear to be only three candidates:
Steven Miles, the deputy premier and leader of the Left faction of the party
Shannon Fentiman, the health minister and a member of the Left faction
Cameron Dick, the treasurer and head of Labor Forum, a right Labor faction
Dick has long been touted as a future premier but, given the Left has controlled the Labor caucus since 2015, either a Miles or Fentiman premiership is the more likely outcome.
Because Queensland Labor rules around leadership spills are so complicated – a ballot must be held in caucus, among grassroots members and among the unions – it’s likely Palaszczuk will be urged to resign when she returns from her holiday, with a single candidate emerging as her successor.
Either way, the next Labor leader would have very large shoes to fill. Labor had suffered a rout in the 2012 election, with the LNP capturing 78 seats in the 89-seat parliament – the then-largest majority in Australian history. When Palaszczuk put her hand up to lead the seven remaining Labor MPs, nobody would believe she’d topple the once-popular premier, Campbell Newman, just three years later.
But, by 2015, Queenslanders had been angered by Newman’s proposal to privatise state-owned assets. They also appeared tired of big personalities like Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Peter Beattie and Newman. Even those in regional Queensland warmed to a Labor leader who looked and sounded like a friendly next-door neighbour.
Will a leadership change be too little, too late to reverse the fortunes of a Labor Party looking for a fourth term? Probably. But it’s foolish to completely write off the party that has dominated Queensland politics for 28 of the past 33 years.
Paul Williams is an associate with Queensland’s T. J. Ryan Foundation.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of deceased people. All images featured in this article have been published with respective permissions.
Father’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate men who have shaped and inspired us.
For many Indigenous peoples, this includes our biological father, adopted fathers, as well as our grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, friends, and more.
Yet Indigenous fatherhood is a contentious topic in white Australia. Even today, mainstream perceptions often frame Indigenous men as dangerous, vagrant and neglectful.
These false representations can be deeply damaging to the psyche of Indigenous men, and potentially erode the fabric of our communities.
Indigenous fathering has emerged as a key priority in my research examining Indigenous men and masculinity. It is a topic of immense personal importance to me as a Euahlayi (Yuwaalaraay) man, a son, brother, uncle, husband and father.
Indigenous traditions of fathering
Stories of fathers are as old as Indigenous societies. Many First Nations in southeastern Australia continue to hold and transmit stories of the Creator, or All-Father, known in different places as Bhiamie, Bunjil or Dharamulan.
Fathering traditions are also evident in some Indigenous languages and kin structures. It is common for some Indigenous children to have not one father but many. This was particularly the case for a child’s patrilineal uncle, who is also known to the child as father.
In the late 1700s, some European explorers observed and recorded the centrality of fathering in Indigenous societies. For example, New South Wales Judge-Advocate David Collins observed Bennelong, a senior Eora man, returning from an outing with his sister’s child on his shoulders before cooking fish while his sisters and their children slept and ate oysters in the sun.
In 1793, Bruny D’Entrecasteaux “witnessed the tokens of tenderness that these simple and kind men displayed towards their children” in Port du Nord, Tasmania.
The evidence of Indigenous fathering in historical accounts can be hard to uncover because it appeared to be so everyday and unremarkable to Europeans and anthropologists. Yet casting an eye over these various recordings of history, from both Indigenous and European records, reveals the existence of strong, consistent and widespread traditions of care, nurture and love between Indigenous fathers and their children.
Breaking the bonds of fatherhood
Colonisation significantly impacted all Indigenous societies. The introduction of foreign diseases, violent frontier conflict, removal of people from Country, and removal of children are well established historical truths.
There were also colonial impacts on Indigenous families. Colonisation caused disruptions to Indigenous fathering in many ways.
Economic conditions meant many Indigenous men were forced to be away from their children for extended periods, such as when working in pastoral or pearling industries.
Legally, Indigenous fathers were replaced as agents of care and responsibility through various protection acts in Australia’s colonies. Discourses of “protection” broke apart Indigenous families, which affected mothers, fathers and extended family and their roles caring for their children.
Introducing rations removed important roles as hunters and providers. Notwithstanding some men who did continue to hunt, these traditional sources of food were supplementary to the rations provided by colonial and religious authorities.
Social and political assaults on Indigenous men as fathers
Last week, references to Indigenous men as “violent black men” and ‘woman bashers” were heard at the CPAC conference.
The racist cartoon by the late Bill Leake showed that even as recently as 2016, a mainstream media outlet such as The Australian considered it acceptable to ridicule and denigrate Indigenous fathers.
The 2007 Northern Territory Intervention demonstrates how demonising Indigenous men can be used as a political weapon. This was done by portraying Indigenous men as neglectful, violent, unsafe, and in need of heavy-handed government responses. “You’ve got to instil responsiblity,” said the then prime minister John Howard.
Positive representations of Indigenous Dads matter
In response to Leake’s cartoon, #IndigenousDads trended on social media platforms. These intensely personal homages of Indigenous fathers presented an antidote to the tsunami of negativity towards Indigenous fathers.
Other important representation of Indigenous men have been through the publication of the book Dear Son by Thomas Mayo, as well as a range of children’s books by men including Adam Goodes, Meyne Wyatt and Briggs. Indigenous performers such as Luke Carroll and Hunter Page-Lochard now feature regularly on the ABC’s Play School.
It is clear Indigenous fathering carries its own meaning and interpretation. Features such as sharing of fathering roles, transmission of culture, the making of young boys into men, and the public affection and displays of love fathers share with children.
I draw from the gendered patterns of Emus to describe these deep constitutions of fathering. Emus are unique in their gendered patterns. During nesting season female emus lay the eggs, but it is the male emus that sit on the nests to warm the eggs and keep them safe. After the eggs hatch, the male emu rears the chicks, raising them into adulthood.
Emus are especially important to some Indigenous groups across Australia. For many, they are creation beings and an important totem. They offer food and resources such as feathers, eggs, and ointments made from fat.
I suggest a new term – “Emu Man” – as an apt description of these deeply embedded Indigenous male roles. This unique and deeply Indigenous masculinity is highly valued and integral to healthy communities.
This Father’s Day, let’s all acknowledge and honour the unique place of Indigenous fathers, and celebrate their place in our families, and contributions to healthy communities.
Let the land blossom with Emu Men once more.
Bhiamie Williamson 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 Father’s Day you may be rolling out your best “dad jokes” and watching your children laugh (or groan). Maybe you’ll hear your own father, partner or friend crack a dad joke or two. You know the ones:
What is the most condescending animal? A pan-DUH!
Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!
Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.
Dad jokes are a distinct style of humour consisting of puns that are simple, wholesome and often involve a cheesy delivery.
These jokes usually feature obvious wordplay and a straightforward punchline that leaves listeners either chuckling or emitting an exaggerated groan.
This corny brand of humour is popular. There are hundreds of websites, YouTube videos and TikToks dedicated to them. You can even play around with dad joke generators if you need some inspiration.
People seem to love dad jokes, partly because of the puns.
A study published earlier this year found people enjoy puns more than most other types of jokes. The authors also suggested that if you groan in response to a pun, this can be a sign you enjoy the joke, rather than find it displeasing.
Other research shows dad jokes work on at least three levels:
1. As tame puns
Humour typically violates a kind of boundary. At the most basic level, dad jokes only violate a language norm. They require specific knowledge of the language to “get” them, in a way a fart joke does not.
The fact that dad jokes are wholesome and inoffensive means dads can tell them around their children. But this also potentially makes them tame, which other people might call unfunny.
2. As anti-humour
Telling someone a pun that’s too tame to deserve being told out loud is itself a violation of the norms of joke-telling. That violation can in turn make a dad joke funny. In other words, a dad joke can be so unfunny this makes it funny – a type of anti-humour.
3. As weaponised anti-humour
Sometimes, the purpose of a dad joke is not to make people laugh but to make them groan and roll their eyes. When people tell dad jokes to teasingly annoy someone else for fun, dad jokes work as a kind of weaponised anti-humour.
The stereotypical scenario associated with dad jokes is exactly this: a dad telling a pun and then his kids rolling their eyes out of annoyance or cringing from embarrassment.
Dad jokes are part of a father’s toolkit for engaging with his loved ones, a way to connect through laughter. But as children grow older, the way they receive puns change.
Children at around six years old enjoy hearing and telling puns. These are generally innocent ones such as:
Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine!
As children age and their language and reasoning abilities develop, their understanding of humour becomes more complex.
In adolescence, they may start to view puns as unfunny. This, however, doesn’t stop their fathers from telling them.
Instead, fathers can revel in the embarrassment their dad jokes can produce around their image-conscious and sensitive adolescent children.
In fact, in a study, one of us (Marc) suggests the playful teasing that comes with dad jokes may be partly why they are such a widespread cultural phenomenon.
This playful and safe teasing serves a dual role in father-child bonding in adolescence. Not only is it playful and fun, it can also be used to help educate the young person how to handle feeling embarrassed.
Helping children learn how to deal with embarrassment is no laughing matter. Getting better at this is a very important part of learning how to regulate emotions and develop resilience.
So, the next time you hear your father unleash a cringe-worthy dad joke, remember it’s not just about the punchline. It’s about creating connections and lightening the mood.
So go ahead, let out that groan, and share a smile with the one who proudly delivers the dad jokes. It’s all part of the fun.
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.
Rates of cycling are falling in Australia, a national report released today shows. More people started riding bikes early in the pandemic, but that hasn’t lasted. The percentages of people who cycle are lower now than in 2011.
Less than one in six Australians report riding a bicycle weekly. Just over one in three have ridden in the past year.
During the time of pandemic restrictions, when there was less other traffic on the road, people perhaps felt safer to ride. Creating streets that are less busy, noisy and easier to ride on and cross safely encourages more people to cycle and walk.
Most people want to walk and ride more. Two-thirds of people want more transport funding to go into walking, cycling and public transport.
Even if you’re not interested in riding a bike, you should be worried about this decline. Walking and cycling are part of the solution to several of the most pressing issues facing our cities.
The decline isn’t surprising
The decline in cycling probably shouldn’t surprise us. In the past 40 years, the percentage of children who walk or ride to school has dropped from 75% to 25%.
Furthermore, cycling receives only about 2% of transport budgets. The United Nations Environment Program recommends 20% of transport funding should go to “non-motorised transport”.
Most of our transport funding goes into building wider and longer roads, embedding car dependency. However, making it easier to drive leads to more driving and ultimately more congestion, an effect known as induced demand. The problem even featured in an episode of the TV show Utopia.
These short car trips – such as the school drop-off, the short drive to the shops or the local park – are bad for public health, emissions and climate change, road safety and congestion. Walking and cycling can help solve all these problems.
How cycling and walking intersect with the issues of road safety, congestion, emissions and public health. Author supplied (data from: 1. DCEEW, 2. AIHW, 3&4. Infrastructure Australia, 5. ISPAH).
Urban sprawl and car use have a high cost
Urban sprawl makes it less appealing to walk and cycle to our destination, further entrenching car dependency.
Urban sprawl costs governments too. Last week, the New South Wales Productivity Commission reported building homes closer to the city centre, rather than in outer suburbs, can save up to A$75,000 in infrastructure costs.
The extra costs of building farther away include providing schools, roads, parks, water and wastewater infrastructure.
Most students live within 3km of their school. That’s less than a 10-minute bike ride or a 30-minute walk.
However, to boost walking and cycling to school, parents need to feel it’s safe for their children to do so. The solution is to create safe walking and cycling routes with pedestrian priority crossings within 500–1,500m of schools. Streets along these routes are easy to cross and not too busy or noisy.
3. E-bike subsidies
Cutting carbon emissions to limit climate change and air pollution requires us to reduce private car use. Focusing purchase incentives solely on electric cars in Australia is slowing down the race to zero emissions. Indeed, research shows cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for achieving net-zero cities.
E-bikes assist the rider with pedalling, which makes them slightly faster than a regular bike. Typically e-bike users ride greater distances than regular push-bike users.
However, the upfront price of e-bikes is one of the main barriers to buying one.
Providing incentives for people to buy an e-bike would increase their uptake. Research shows a return on investment of $2–$3 for every $1 spent on these incentives.
What else can we do?
As well as the three transport priorities, we can of course take many more actions that would help increase walking and cycling. These measures include: boosting housing density, beautifying our neighbourhoods, programs to build people’s confidence and skills to walk and cycle, such as beginners bike tours, and more frequent public transport.
Matthew ‘Tepi’ Mclaughlin receives research funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and The Government of Western Australia’s Healthway. He also receives salary support through the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. He is a member of the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity and a member of the Active Transport Advisory Group of Westcycle.
Peter McCue receives an Australian Postgraduate Research Award to study a PhD. He is a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Advocacy Committee of the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity.
The federal government has struck a new deal with most of the states in the nation’s largest river system. The agreement, announced last week, extends the $13 billion 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan to rebalance water allocated to the environment, irrigators and other uses.
Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government has:
negotiated a way to ensure there is secure and reliable water for communities, agriculture, industry, First Nations and the environment.
But there is no mention of water for First Nations in the agreement. This follows a history of Indigenous peoples being shortchanged by Murray-Darling Basin planning. Yet again, this latest deal ignores First Nations’ interests, despite millennia of custodianship.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was agreed in 2012 to try and improve the health of the largest and most complex river system in Australia.
It was a historic compromise that sought to address the often conflicting demands of states, irrigators and the environment. But the plan overlooked First Nations rights to own, manage and control water on Country. The plan’s current provisions include only weak requirements for governments to “have regard to” First Nations values and uses.
In 2018 the Turnbull government put $40 million on the table for First Nations. This deal offered a glimmer of hope as it saw the then water minister David Littleproud and Labor water spokesperson Tony Burke commit the funds to support Basin First Nations’ investment in cultural and economic water entitlements.
But despite Labor renewing the commitment as part of its 2022 election platform, the money remains with government and has not been spent. Last week, Plibersek said that when Labor came into government there was “very little work done about how this might happen”, and that “it is proceeding”.
A commitment of $40 million is also a paltry amount in the context of the wider river basin. Water research firm Aither’s 2023 Water Market Report estimates the total value of water entitlements in the southern basin as $32.3 billion, so the government commitment of $40 million is only 0.1% of the total.
The heritage-listed stone Brewarrina fish traps on the Barwon River, which feeds into the Darling River. John Carnemolla, Shutterstock
First Nations organisations have maintained pressure on the federal government and attempted to hold successive ministers to account for unnecessary delays in delivering the funding.
These delays mean the committed funds are decreasing in value.
When Littleproud initially committed the $40 million, the money was equally split between the northern and southern regions of the basin. Aither analysis conducted for the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations shows at today’s prices, the $20 million for Nations in the southern basin can only buy two-thirds of the water that could have been acquired in 2018. In 2023, buying the same volume of water that could have been purchased in 2018 will cost almost $11 million more.
Limited government investment from other sources has supported some Basin First Nations to developplans that could guide water use, to nourish their Country, maintain culture, and generate sustainable livelihoods.
However, realising these opportunities means they need water. In an overallocated river system, amid water scarcity and rising prices, this requires genuine political will coupled with necessary reforms and adequate funding.
As another drought looms, and water entitlement prices remain high, more than 40 Basin Nations must share very limited funding that can only acquire a tiny – and diminishing – fraction of their water needs. These deals demonstrate sustained and systemic bipartisan political indifference to First Nations’ inherent rights.
If Plibersek is sincere about delivering “secure and reliable water” for First Nations, she must listen to First Nations people, and actually deliver tangible outcomes. Governments must urgently commit adequate funding for First Nations in the basin to secure water that meets our needs, before future generations are priced out of the market forever.
Funding for cultural flows must be coupled with reform to transform the foundations of water governance and implement the Echuca Declaration. This declaration establishes cultural flows as the “inherent rights” of all First Nations in the Basin.
As a start, the Water Act 2007 needs to be strengthened to enshrine Basin Nations’ authority and ensure their voices are heard.
As the terms of the basin plan implementation are being reassessed and renegotiated, governments have an opportunity not only to listen, but also to deal First Nations in.
Grant Rigney is a citizen of the Ngarrindjeri Nation and Chair of the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). He is also a member of the Committee on Aboriginal Water Interests and Chair of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority. Grant is a member of the Greens Party. MLDRIN receives funding from the Australian, Victorian and NSW governments.
Dr Erin O’Donnell is a settler who lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. She is a member of the Birrarung Council, appointed by the Victorian Minister for Water. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE230100622). She has received funding in the past from the state government of Victoria, the Murray Lower Darling Rivers (MLDRIN), the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations, the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organizations.
Fred Hooper is a Murrawarri man from the Murrawarri Nation. Fred is the Chair of the Murrawarri Peoples Council and former Chair of the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN). He is also a member of the Blak Sovereign Movement. NBAN has previously received funding from the federal and state governments.
Dr Lana D. Hartwig is a settler who lives and works on unceded Yugambeh Country. She is employed by Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). She has received funding in the past from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organizations.
The federal government has been asking for “bold ideas” to “reimagine” the future of Australian higher education for decades to come.
An interim report for the Universities Accord was released in July. Feedback on this draft is due today.
While there have been many ideas floated by commentators and the review panel (such as a new national university for regional students and a levy on international student fees), there has been less discussion about what our university education system is for.
We think there is an urgent need to talk about how higher education can fuel a “knowledge economy” – an economy based on technical and scientific advances. This is crucial if we are going to move past our economic reliance on carbon.
We are not the only ones calling for a shift. On Thursday, Australian Academy of Science president Chennupati Jagadish told ABC’s Radio National “we need to move towards a knowledge-based economy […] do we really want to be so vulnerable as an economy and as a country?”
A knowledge economy is focused on activities that accelerate the pace of technical and scientific advances. Research and development generate products and services which lead to the formation of new companies, new industries and new economic opportunities.
This requires both the discovery of new technologies and the application of these technologies to new and existing industries, in both domestic and international markets.
The Atlas of Economic Complexity is produced at Harvard University. It is better for countries to be ranked as more complex. The assumption is the more complex a country’s exports are, the less exposed they will be to cheap substitutes from rival nations.
According to 2021 data, we ranked 93rd out of 133 countries, down from 60th in 2000. This is way behind countries such as Japan (first), Germany (fourth), the United Kingdom (eigth) and the United States (14th).
As the Atlas notes, “Australia is less complex than expected for its income level”.
Another huge ongoing area of weakness for Australia is our lack of investment in research. As the interim report notes with concern, Australia’s university research “has become too reliant on uncertain international student funding”.
Currently, Australia invests only 1.8% of its GDP in research and development. The OECD average is 2.7% and other countries invest significantly more. For example, Germany (3.1%), Japan (3.3%), the United States (3.5%), South Korea (4.9%) and Israel (5.6%).
As Professor Jagadish told Radio National on Thursday, Australian investment in research as a share of GDP has declined each year since 2008. “We cannot tolerate [this] if we want to stay as a smart country”.
Translating our research
In a report on innovation released earlier this year, the Productivity Commission noted Australia was a “small open economy with limited (business and public) research capacity [so] many ideas and technologies will come to Australia from overseas”.
This means our efforts should focus on how we apply and encourage the uptake of new knowledge or “knowledge diffusion”. This is about how we make the most of new technologies. An example could be the use of new accounting software to free up staff time, shorten the billing cycle or expand the analytical capacity of a business.
According to the 2022 Global Innovation Index, while Australia ranks 25th for its innovation capabilities, it is way back in 72nd for “knowledge diffusion”.
The best countries in the world for knowledge diffusion are Ireland, Finland, Israel and the Netherlands. Australia should spend more time studying the nature and performance of these small, open economies.
What is the role for universities?
Universities have a crucial role to play in securing this future for Australia. Their mission is already to discover new knowledge through research and disseminate this through teaching and learning.
Australia could learn more by studying US regions like Boston and San Francisco (where there are top-class research universities) and their impact on entrepreneurialism in their local economies. Geography matters when cutting-edge technology firms are looking to attract talented graduates, collaborate with experts and commercialise research innovation.
But it is not just STEM disciplines who will need to be involved. While science and technology are key when it comes to the discovery and development phases, the humanities and social sciences are needed to adapt and translate the research.
The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report notes how the most important skills for workers over the next five years will be analytical thinking and creative thinking and then technological literacy.
Analytical and creative thinking are key to disciplines that dominate the humanities, from history to political science and economics.
What should the Universities Accord do?
In its initial draft, the Universities Accord notes the need to promote “commercial use” of Australian research capability and to “encourage” universities to “move towards” research translation.
In its final report in December, we suggest there is far greater emphasis on the transformation needed to ensure Australia is sustainable and productive into the future.
This means adequate government funding of university research as well as a focus on the skills needed to come up with new ideas and products and then apply them in real-world contexts.
In doing so, the review panel and the government should not forget this will require a focus on humanities and social science skills, as well as the more obvious STEM skill sets.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney
Shutterstock
The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.
For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.
The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.
Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.
But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.
On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.
A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.
$1 billion per year in economic damage
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.
By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.
My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.
Turkish Airlines is also finding it hard to get approval from Australia. Shutterstock
Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.
The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.
And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.
The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.
When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.
Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.
By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.
Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.
The weak case for offering Qantas protection
There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.
There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.
But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.
Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”
But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.
Is there something we don’t know about?
Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.
It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.
As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.
Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.
More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.
Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.
Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.
When Arts Minister Tony Burke launched the bill introducing Creative Australia, the new organisation at the heart of the Revive Cultural Policy, he did so with a bold statement:
Creative Australia recognises that artists and creatives throughout our great landscape, from metropolitan cities to the red desert, are workers. In exchange for what they give us, they should have safe workplaces and be remunerated fairly.
In 2022, we surveyed 702 visual and craft artists and arts workers, making this the largest single scholarly survey of this cohort in Australia to date. We were interested to find out the ways artists combined income from various sources, within and beyond their art practice.
Our new research identifies three key areas that need to be addressed to ensure fair remuneration for all visual and craft artists. We need to acknowledge the likely under-counting of the number of artists in Australia, the gendered nature of this population, and the complex ways artists earn an income.
It is impossible to provide a single estimate of the number of visual and craft artists in Australia as different surveys use different definitions of “artist”.
But the criteria used to count being an artist as a profession in the census require art to be the “main job” of the respondent in the week before the census. This leads to an under-counting of artists, as most visual art and craft artists support themselves through other work – either related to their artwork, such as in academia or in arts management, or in an entirely different field. As such, they would not be identified in the census as visual or craft artists.
Many artists are excluded from the census, because art making is not their ‘main work’. ALAN DE LA CRUZ/Unsplash
A more accurate estimate is likely provided by the ABS Survey of Cultural Participation. In this survey, 106,000 Australians reported earning some income from a visual art activity, and 94,800 from a craft activity, in the 2021–22 financial year. These figures cannot be totalled as those engaged in both activities were counted separately. Nonetheless, at a minimum the survey identifies an additional 100,000 visual and craft artists not captured within the census definition.
If all artists are to be remunerated fairly, it is critical Creative Australia ensures support mechanisms extend to the around 100,000 visual and craft artists for whom art making is not their primary occupation.
The gendered nature of the industry
In our survey, we did not impose any requirements that respondents devote a certain amount of time to their art making, nor earn a particular level of income. Instead, we left it open to respondents to self-identify as an artist.
This inclusive definition produced a much higher proportion of female artists than the census, with 73% identifying as female. This aligns with other estimates of the gender breakdown of the industry. The ABS Cultural Participation Survey estimated 67% of people who earned income from visual art activity and 79% who derived income from craft activity were female.
In our survey, 3.1% of respondents identified as non-binary, and so we were not able to collect enough data for further analysis of this cohort.
We found a distinctive experience of female artists compared to their male counterparts, suggesting policy responses need to recognise the gendered nature of art making.
Female artists in our survey reported an average annual income of A$8,507 from their arts practice, compared to the annual income reported by male artists of $22,906.
While earning 37% of male artists’ earnings, women spent 76% of the time male artists spend on their practice (29 hours compared with 38 hours per week).
On average, male artists earn more than female artists. Antonio Francisco/Unsplash
So, male artists earn more from their art practice than female artists, and proportionately even more when accounting for the hours spent on their practice.
Our research suggests the shadow cohort of visual and craft artists who do not show up in census results are predominantly female. The gendered nature of the visual arts and craft sector must be front of mind in the design of remuneration policies for artists undertaken by Creative Australia.
For many artists, the practice of visual art and craft making does not readily align with traditional concepts of an employee and is not attached to a single workplace.
In our survey, only 30% of respondents spent 100% of their working time as an artist, with 60% receiving at least some income from non-artistic work within and outside the arts sector.
The life of an artist is more likely to look like a combination of multiple part-time, casual and contract jobs, with occasional grant income and artwork sales.
Many visual art and craft artists conduct their practice from their home and operate as a sole trader. For many, outside work is the only way they can support their art practice.
Most artists support themselves with a job other than art making. Arlington Research/Unsplash
Achieving the goal of remunerating artists fairly is not just about payment for art making. It is also about the other work these artists must undertake to make a living, much of which consists of part-time employment elsewhere in the arts and cultural sector.
Any policy interventions from Creative Australia to support visual and craft artists’ incomes will need to take a sector-wide approach.
Grace McQuilten receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’
Chloë Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’
Jenny Lye receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)”
Kate MacNeill receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)
Marnie Badham receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’ She is affiliated with Res Artis.
Thank goodness for Senate committees. This week, they’ve proved, yet again, to be worth their weight in accountability gold.
On Monday, at an inquiry into the cost of living, senators from both sides gave Qantas boss Alan Joyce a salutary roughing-up, over everything from yet-to-be-returned flight credits to the government’s blocking of extra Qatar Airways flights and Joyce’s contacts with Anthony Albanese. (Subsequently, Qantas has announced it is removing the expiry date on the COVID travel credits.)
On Tuesday, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References
Committee, which is probing the operation of the federal Freedom of Information laws, heard disturbing evidence from former FOI commissioner Leo Hardiman, who months ago resigned only a year into his five-year term.
Hardiman detailed a litany of obstacles in resourcing and culture in the administration of FOI, which he could not overcome.
The regular Senate estimates hearings, which grill bureaucrats, are welcomed and feared, depending where people sit in the political process.
It was Senate inquiries, it might be remembered, that did the deep diving into the PwC scandal and the entrails of other consultancy firms that receive huge amounts of taxpayer money. Labor backbencher Deb O’Neill and the Greens’ Barbara Pocock were forensic in their questioning.
Like most governments, this one arrived in office promising more accountability and transparency. Also like others, in practice it has a penchant for control and secrecy.
It did set up the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and for that it has been rightly praised.
Even there, however, there’s arguably too much secrecy – and that’s leaving aside the minimalist approach to public hearings specified in the NACC legislation.
Surely it will be a problem if we are not told what inquiries the NACC is pursuing.
Serious allegations demand investigation, but if it’s not known whether the NACC has taken the matter up (or passed it to another agency), what can a government do? It can hardly set up another inquiry, given this information vacuum.
Once the NACC has decided on an investigation, there’s a solid case for it to say so – which it has the discretion to do.
Whatever one thinks of secrecy around the NACC, there are plenty of other areas where it is clearly excessive.
Rex Patrick is a former senator who started with the Nick Xenophon Team and later became an independent. He lost his seat in 2022. While in parliament, Patrick fought the Coalition government’s secrecy; out of parliament he is in full pursuit of its Labor successor. He’s able to devote himself to poking numerous bears thanks, in part, to financial backing from business figure Ian Melrose.
Patrick defeated, in a legal judgment, the Morrison government’s attempt to keep secret all the documents of the National Cabinet. After the election, he was still given the runaround, but finally he’s nailed that one. National Cabinet documents are now treated according to ordinary freedom-of-information provisions.
Currently, Patrick is after Anthony Albanese’s official diary, Treasury’s briefing to Treasurer Jim Chalmers on the Stage 3 tax cuts, material on AUKUS and much else besides.
The PM’s diary is particularly interesting. In opposition, then shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus sought then Attorney-General George Brandis’ diary and finally, after some trouble, extracted it.
But Patrick’s attempt to peek more deeply into Albanese’s schedule was blocked, as was another application from the Australian Financial Review.
In a submission to the Senate FOI inquiry, Patrick noted the reason given was that processing “would unreasonably divert” staff resources and also unreasonably interfere with the PM’s work.
Patrick said this “flew in the face” of the Federal Court decision in the Dreyfus case, in which more days of the relevant diary were sought (causing more work for fewer staff). The matter has gone to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The reluctance to publish the PM’s diary is at odds with the release of those of most ministers (including Chalmers and Foreign Minister Penny Wong).
Why should we have leaders’ diaries? Among other reasons, because they show who has access to a government’s top decision-maker. In Albanese’s case, it might even yield the odd clue about his relationship with Alan Joyce – who, incidentally, has been asked by those pesky senators to supply dates of any Qantas contact with the PM over the Qatar matter.
Meanwhile, Greens Senator David Shoebridge is trying to get hold of a report on the national security threats global warming poses. Albanese before the election promised an inquiry into this, and later commissioned one from the Office of National Intelligence. Now, apparently even a redacted version is too sensitive to release – because of national security.
Other crossbench senators, including independent David Pocock, have been interested in this report too. But a move in the Senate to force the issue was stymied by a cosy alliance of government and Coalition. Interesting companionships can be formed in the name of confidentiality.
Separate efforts in the Senate by Shoebridge and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts to obtain documents relating to the March ditching of a Taipan helicopter at Jervis Bay failed. The government said there was an inquiry, which we haven’t seen. Subsequently, another Taipan crashed off the Queensland coast, with multiple fatalities.
Then there’s the politically delicate issue of the passenger manifests of VIP flights. Once, destinations and passenger lists of these flights were routinely made available by governments. That stopped under the Morrison government, and the suppression remains. A review, chaired by the Australian Federal Police and launched in 2022, recommended continued secrecy.
Again, national security is the excuse. But it’s not convincing, review or not. Knowing, well after the event, that a PM took a couple of mates, relatives or political contacts on a flight can give insights into a leader’s use of their privileges, or reveal who’s in a PM’s ear.
To some extent, this secrecy has been stymied. Passenger lists might not be available but destinations of VIP flights are, through tracking apps. At present Deputy PM Richard Marles is under criticism for taking VIP flights to Avalon, near his Geelong base, rather than catching a commercial flight to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.
At Tuesday’s Senate Committee hearing, Hardiman said: “FOI may not be considered a sexy subject matter or as being of life-changing importance. […] however, the FOI system is an important adjunct to the doctrine of responsible government inherent in our Westminster system of government.”
At the moment, the problem is not just the serious flaws of the FOI regime, but that the government is not living up to its own commitments to the people’s right to know.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In what has been called the most important legal case in the history of the Australian automotive industry, the Federal Court has rejected a $650 million compensation claim against Mercedes-Benz for replacing its traditional dealership model with a fixed-price, direct-to-customer agency model.
It’s a decision that could transform the way roughly a million Australians buy a new car each year – an experience that has been consistent for decades, with shopping around for value and haggling over the price part of the ritual.
Cracks began to appear in this sales model in 2014 with the arrival in Australia of electric car maker Tesla, which sells directly to customers at set prices and has only a handful of bricks-and-mortar shopfronts. Honda followed suit in 2021, switching to fixed prices at its dealerships.
But after Mercedes-Benz shifted to fixed-price sales in January 2022, 38 of its 49 Australian dealerships banded together to seek compensation for changes they argued decimated the value of their businesses.
The parties spent seven weeks in court in 2022. Federal Court judge Jonathan Beach had been expected to deliver his decision at the beginning of the year. It was finally handed down yesterday, after a nine-month delay that highlights the significance of the case.
Justice Beach’s verdict, which runs to 567 pages, is decisive. It dismisses all the dealers’ claims against Mercedes-Benz, describing the case as “forensically complex although legally straightforward”.
Why dealers took Mercedes-Benz to court
Dealerships are independent businesses. As official franchisees, Mercedes-Benz would sell them vehicles at wholesale prices. They would the resell the vehicles at a price negotiated with customers. This allowed them to set their own profit margins.
The basis for the dealers’ compensation claim was that Mercedes-Benz allegedly bullied them into signing “agency agreements” that upended this model.
The new agreements meant Mercedes-Benz took control of the sales process. It retained ownership of the vehicles and set the sales prices, paying dealers a fixed commission on sales. A buyer could buy a car online. Their only contact with a dealership might be to pick up their new vehicle.
The dealers argued this had stripped them of valuable “customer goodwill”.
Goodwill is an intangible asset that represents the value of a business over its book value (based on assets and liabilities). This value can come from brand, reputation, customer and employee relations, intellectual property, or a loyal customer base.
With dealer showroom traffic already declining, dealers contended that reducing their interaction with customers would dramatically affect their profitability.
Mercedes-Benz’s lawyers argued the manufacturer was entitled to make this change, which was not a breach of Australia’s franchise code, and that it acted in good faith, needing to respond to rivals changing their own sales models.
Claims dismissed
While Justice Beach said the dealers’ case was “successful on many issues of fact”, it failed on fundamental issues of law. He dismissed all claims against Mercedes-Benz.
His judgement upholds Mercedes-Benz’s right to cancel its existing franchisee contracts and replace them with agency agreements. He rejected the claim that dealers were forced to sign the new agreements under economic duress.
Just because a dealer was financially worse off under the agency model compared with the dealer model, he said, that did not mean Mercedes-Benz had acted unconscionably or failed to act in good faith.
He also rejected the goodwill claim, because there is no “right at law for a franchisee to be compensated for goodwill on non-renewal of a franchise agreement”.
The judgement ruled that Mercedes is legally entitled to move to fixed pricing. Shutterstock
This judgement has potentially far-reaching consequences for all franchise agreements. It seems to expand the boundaries around what franchisers can and cannot do under their agreements, and what “goodwill” means at the end of such agreements.
In a telling statement, Justice Beach suggested the case brought by the dealerships “although unsuccessful, concerns statutory unconscionable conduct”. He unambiguously stated that “further consideration needs to be given to the terms of the franchising code and possible modification”. This may have important implications for the federal government, which this month embarked on an independent review of the Australian Franchising Code of Conduct with a view to evaluating its current fitness for purpose.
What does this mean for customers?
While many buyers will welcome fixed prices, evidence of their widespread adoption and appeal remains mixed. Fixed-price sales do not appear to blunt Tesla’s momentum, with the Tesla Model Y zooming up the charts to become Australia’s third-best-selling car.
What’s more, some industry experts say squeezing dealerships out of the sales process could lead to higher prices, given the elimination of price competition between rival dealerships.
Our case study of Mercedes-Benz’s new sales strategy points to the fact that while Australians are growing more comfortable with buying big-ticket items without face-to-face interactions, it is too early to provide a verdict on whether the move to an agency model is good or bad overall for car buyers.
The court verdict makes one thing clear. All parties need to reset and refine their roles and responsibilities in a rapidly evolving consumer landscape. While we know that for the forseeable future there will always be plenty of people lining up to buy new cars, the judgement raises the question of whether their days of buying them from standalone dealerships are numbered.
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.
“To ensure Australian consumers continue to have access to reliable electricity supplies, it’s critical that planned investments in transmission, generation and storage projects are urgently delivered.”
This week, we heard one of the strongest warnings yet from Daniel Westerman, head of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
So far, media coverage has framed his comments as a warning about the anticipated angry El Niño summer, which is likely to drive energy-intensive aircon use even as our coal plants become less and less reliable.
But this isn’t what the warning is really about. It’s about transmission lines and our sluggish pace of change. Australia’s emissions are falling much more slowly than we’d like to think, if we omit the sometimes controversial land use sector. We’re down just 1.6% below 2005 levels.
Solar and wind farm investment has slowed markedly. This is because we don’t have the right grid – yet. Building the transmission infrastructure needed to slash emissions by 2030 means acting much faster than government is used to.
These aren’t ordinary times. We can’t act as if they are.
The grid will withstand summer – but bigger threats lie ahead
It’s quite likely the grid will withstand this summer, as long as maintenance is done to keep the old coal clunkers running and to ensure gas peaking plants are ready for times of highest demand. We also have the reserve system, whereby big energy users can be paid not to consume electricity during the hottest days.
There’s no shortage of solar and wind resources in Australia. And there’s no shortage of solar and wind farm projects waiting to be built. But the great renewable build is stalling – not because there’s no demand for cheap power, but because regulatory approvals are too slow and there’s no way to get the power to the cities and heavy industries.
The real problem is we’re not moving fast enough to build the unsexy but vital infrastructure we need: new transmission lines. The old grid was built around big power stations, from hydro in the Snowy Mountains to coal plants near coal mines, with transmission lines connecting them to cities.
But renewable-rich zones are often in different places. What’s more, shifting to a grid full of renewables means building more interconnectors between states, so on a big day for Victoria’s mooted offshore wind farms, for instance, the surplus power can be sent to South Australia, New South Wales and Queensland too.
What’s the delay? After all, we were able to build transmission lines when the current grid was taking shape.
A big part of the issue is community pushback and process. Local farmers and communities are resisting many of the planned new transmission lines.
If we had the luxury of time, it might be possible to get strong community support. But we don’t. Our coal plants are on the way out and no one is going to build a new one. The barrier between us and a clean energy future is getting transmission and storage built, fast.
Westerman last year listed the five most urgent transmission links:
HumeLink to bring Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro power to the grid
the Sydney Ring, designed to improve connections between New South Wales’ four largest population centres, Sydney, the Central Coast, Newcastle and Wollongong
transmission links from the New England renewable energy zone
the Marinus link to better connect Tasmania’s wealth of hydro with the mainland
the KerangLink interconnector between Victoria and New South Wales.
Most of these projects have had their own issues, ranging from lengthy approval processes, to heated community calls to put lines underground, to cost blowouts.
One problem is the range of government agencies involved. There’s no single body responsible for making these nation-building projects happen as quickly and happily as possible.
Transmission lines are vital – but often unpopular. Shutterstock
How can we speed up these vital projects?
Here are a few ideas:
compensate affected landholders. Farmers who agree to host transmission towers get paid. To smooth the build, governments could bite the bullet and expand whom they compensate. Or, as with many other major infrastructure projects, as a last resort, they could compulsorily acquire the easements
give one agency the responsibility and authority for making these essential projects happen
ramp up regional training centres to produce the skilled electrical workers we’ll need.
We’ve come a fair way down the road in our efforts to wean ourselves off coal, and, eventually, gas-fired electricity. But it could all be for nought if we don’t get transmission sorted as soon as possible.
Tony Wood owns shares through his superannuation in companies that may have an interest in these issues. Tony Wood’s employer, Grattan Institute, has been supported in its work by government, corporates, and philanthropic gifts. A full list of supporting organisations is found at www.grattan.edu.au
The last decade has seen a widespread rise in the popularity of audio media. Podcasts began to emerge during the 2000s, aided first by technology like the iPod and the launch of dedicated podcast apps, and then the publication of the enormously popular serialised true crime podcast Serial in 2014.
Audiobooks similarly enjoyed a resurgence, abetted by new technology that allowed them to be downloaded to devices. They are now one of the fastest growing sectors of the publishing industry.
Is it any wonder that erotica and pornography have also found their way into the audio space?
Audio erotica apps
A typical piece of audio erotica tells the story of a sexual encounter between two or more protagonists. Some feature extensive narrative build-up, some jump right to the action – and some feature stories with narrative build-up which allow listeners to jump right to the action.
Stories range in length from 30 seconds to over an hour, and range across a broad narrative spectrum. Everything from cosy nights in between established couples to encounters between strangers in public places to erotic takes on Greek mythology.
While audio erotica has existed for some time in enclaves on platforms like Reddit, it is now predominantly associated with dedicated apps. Two of the most prominent are Dipsea (founded 2018 by Gina Gutierrez and Faye Keegan) and Quinn (founded 2019 by Caroline Spiegel).
Both apps were founded by women, centre women in their marketing, and focus on women as their core audience, although not their only audience: Dipsea’s FAQ states it was “designed with women in mind […] but the app is a safe space for all perspectives, preferences, and genders”, while Quinn is “made by women, for the world”.
Dipsea, Quinn and many other audio erotica apps are rooted in an assumption that mainstream visual porn is often misogynistic, exploitative and unfriendly – if not actively hostile – to women. They position their erotic audio content as an alternative rooted in self-knowledge and empowerment.
Dipsea imagines itself as “an empowering experience that leaves room for your imagination”, while Quinn describes their app as “a place to get to know yourself outside of conventional pornography”.
Both apps liberally use the language of wellness, and have beenframed as “Headspace, but make it horny”.
There are many different kinds of audio erotica stories. The apps have detailed tagging and metadata systems, so listeners can seek out the content they desire (at the time of writing, the top three most frequent tags on Quinn are “praise”, “boyfriend”, and “MDom”).
Broadly speaking, though, there are two main kinds of audio erotica: third person erotica, with two (or sometimes more) performers enacting a scene, and second person erotica, where one performer directly addresses the listener.
Intimacy in audio erotica
Audio erotica often creates a sense of closeness between speakers and listeners. Perhaps the most obvious reason for this is because it tells stories about intimate, emotionally-charged sexual encounters.
Another important reason for this is rooted in the technologies associated with audio. In particular, binaural recording techniques (where sound is recorded in three dimensions) and headphones bring the voice of a physically distant speaker into close contact with the listener, often producing the sensation of someone whispering in your ear.
Audios that feature a performer addressing the listener can produce a particularly intimate effect. In Dipsea’s Tender Worship, Patrick confesses to the listener “I feel so connected with you”. In Quinn’s Netflix and Chill, Anonyfun whispers: “I love taking care of you.”
Intimacy is created when performers speak to listeners in a casual familiar tone, tell jokes, chuckle, mumble, yawn, whisper, trip over their words and call listeners terms of endearment like “baby” and “sweetheart”.
These audios also often feature performers asking a question, followed by a few quiet beats, in which the listener is invited to imagine their own response. All of these elements create a fantasy scenario that invites listeners to imagine they are involved in an intimate encounter with the speaker.
Intimacy in ‘Boyfriend Experience’ audio erotica
One of the most popular genres of second-person audio erotica is the “Boyfriend Experience”. Audios in this genre further intensify intimacy, partly because they typically take place in a cosy, gentle and comfortable and care-filled domestic space.
Quinn refers to these audios as having “sweet, loving vibes”. Listeners hear sounds like fireplaces crackling, rain on window panes, bath taps running, bed linens ruffling and sock-clad feet padding across floorboards, which create a cocooning, warm soundscape.
Against this cosy backdrop, the boyfriend experience fantasy unfolds: the story is about a man taking care of a woman (the implied listener). These stories often open with the boyfriend character taking care of household work and readying the home for the woman’s return. In these stories, the boyfriend character is entirely focused on emotionally supporting and sexually satisfying his partner.
For example, Dipsea’s In the Bath features the gentle sounds of Killian preparing a warm bath and tenderly whispering: “lean back and just relax, let me pamper you now. Close your eyes, beautiful. You deserve this.”
In this fantasy domestic world, it’s the male speaker who takes on the bulk of the physical and emotional work of intimacy in order to prioritise the pleasure of his partner.
This notably contrasts with the well-documented reality where women often take on a “second shift” of unrecognised domestic and emotional labour in their partnerships with men. So this is a fantasy of intimacy as well as of being cared for, instead of being in the often maternal position of carer.
There are lots of reasons why people enjoy boyfriend experience audios and audio erotica more broadly. These kinds of intimacy – intimacies which, perhaps, many people do not find in mainstream visual porn – are central to its appeal.
It’s not just the content of the narratives which create this (although, in the case of the boyfriend experience, intimacy is very important to the story), but also the audio mode of delivery.
After all, is there anything more intimate than someone whispering a story into your ear?
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.
For most of us, the prospect of a long-haul flight is exciting, mixed with a few nerves. We’re off somewhere different – perhaps a holiday, maybe to catch up with friends or family. Even work can be more interesting when you’re in a new location.
Of course, you want to arrive fully rested and ready to go. But by its very definition, a long-haul flight involves travelling for a long period of time, often more than 12 hours. If you’re on a flight from New York to Singapore, it can be close to 19 hours.
All that time you’re confined in a seat that’s supposed to recline but feels like it hardly moves, while the seat in front seems to recline ten times lower than yours.
So, what can you do to get a a decent rest?
Accept the situation
The first tip for sleep in this setting is to relax your expectations a little.
Humans are just not well designed to sleep in an almost upright position. Unless you’re lucky to fly in a class with a lie-flat seat, you’re very unlikely to step off a long-haul flight having had a solid eight hours of sleep.
Research by colleagues and myself has shown pilots – who get a bunk to sleep in during their in-flight rest breaks – have light and fragmented sleep. Despite not having great quality sleep, you can be assured our researchalso shows pilots remain very good at their job throughout a long-haul flight. This, plus findings from many other lab-based studies, tells us that even a short amount of light sleep has benefits.
So, even if you can’t get your usual eight hours during the flight, any sleep you do get will help you feel and function better at your destination.
Also, we’re not great at judging how much sleep we’ve had, particularly if our sleep is light and broken. So you’re likely to have slept more than you think.
Time your sleep and drinks
The timing of your flight, and consumption of alcohol and caffeine will directly impact your ability to sleep on an aircraft.
Assuming you’re adjusted to the time zone the flight departs from, daytime flights will make sleep on board much harder, whereas nighttime flights make sleep easier.
All humans have a circadian (24-hour) time-keeping system, which programs us for sleep at night and wakefulness during the day. Sleeping (or waking) against this biological time-keeping system poses significant challenges.
We do have a natural decrease of alertness in the middle of the afternoon, which makes this a good time to try for sleep on a daytime flight. On nighttime flights it will be easier to sleep once the dinner service is finished, otherwise you will be battling noise, light and the movement of people around you.
As a stimulant, caffeine helps us stay alert. Even if you’re a regular coffee drinker and can fall asleep after drinking caffeine, your sleep will be lighter and you’ll be more easily woken.
On the other hand, alcohol makes us feel sleepy, but it interferes with our brains’ ability to have REM sleep (also known as dreaming sleep). Although you may fall asleep more easily after consuming alcohol, your sleep will be more disturbed once your body metabolises the alcohol and attempts to catch up on the REM sleep it’s missed out on.
What about taking melatonin or other drugs?
Some people find taking a sleeping tablet or melatonin can help on a plane. This is a very personal choice.
Importantly, melatonin is a hormone our brains use to tell us it’s nighttime. Melatonin can assist with sleep, but depending on when and how much you take, it can also shift your circadian clock. This could shift you further away from being aligned with the destination time zone.
Taking melatonin in your biological afternoon and evening will shift your circadian time-keeping system east (or earlier) and taking it toward the end of your biological night and in your biological morning will shift the circadian time-keeping system west (or later). It gets complicated very quickly!
Our muscles naturally relax when we’re asleep, making it difficult to keep the head supported. Shutterstock
Prepare your clothes and accessories
Be prepared so you can create the best possible sleep situation within the constraints of an aircraft seat.
Wear comfy layers, so you can take things off if you get too hot or put things on when you cool down, and hang on to that blanket instead of losing it under your seat.
Light and noise disturb sleep, so pack eye shades and earplugs (or a noise cancelling headset) to block these out. Practice with eye shades and earplugs at home, as it can take a few sleeps to get used to them.
A normal and necessary part of the falling asleep process is relaxation, including our neck muscles. When sitting up, this means our heavy heads will no longer be well supported, resulting in that horrible head-dropping experience most of us have had. Try supporting your head with a neck pillow or, if you have a window seat, against the aircraft wall. (Unless you know the person in the next seat well, they are probably not a good option to prop you up.)
Don’t try to force it
Finally, if you wake up and are struggling to go back to sleep, don’t fight it.
Take advantage of the in-flight entertainment. This is one of the few times sleep scientists will tell you it’s okay to turn on the technology – watch a movie, binge-watch a TV series, or if you prefer, listen to music or read a good book.
When you feel sleepy, you can try going back to sleep, but don’t get stressed or worried about getting enough sleep. Our brains are very good at sleeping – trust that your body will catch you up when it can.
Leigh Signal, or the research team she is a member of, have received funding from Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Royal Society of New Zealand, South African Airways, Air New Zealand, Delta Air Lines, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
British nurse Lucy Letby was last week sentenced to life in prison for murdering seven infants in her care, and attempting to murder a further six.
As a forensic criminologist, many people have asked me why a medical professional would murder their patients.
While they’re very rare, serial killer healthcare workers often share common traits, and they target a specific, and very vulnerable, victim pool.
While limited research has been conducted on serial killer medicos, there are some trends among serial killers that can help us understand the role of the profession in the act of serial murder.
‘Custodial’ killers
A serial killer is usually defined as someone who kills at least three people in a series, but not in a single event – there needs to be a cooling-off period between the killings. Although the public is generally fascinated by these predators, serial killings are a rare event, comprising fewer than 1% of all murders in any given year in the United States.
Serial killers come from many walks of life, and not all are dysfunctional loners – many are married or in a stable relationship.
A 2014 research paper found serial killers can be understood via several subtypes, including: those who kill for sexually sadistic pleasure; professional killers who are motivated by money and the power they derive from the kill; and, as relevant to Letby, “custodial killers”.
Custodial killers are often healthcare workers who murder helpless or dependent people in their care.
The paper’s author writes of custodial killers:
The most common examples include “angel of death” cases involving nurses in hospitals or nursing homes who surreptitiously murder ill or elderly patients, usually by asphyxiation or medication overdose. This group is likely to contain the highest number of female serial killers.
It’s likely the method of murder is linked to their profession. Healthcare workers have access to medications not available to others, as well as the knowledge to hide their crimes more effectively.
One research group studied 64 female serial killers in the US between 1821 and 2008, and found nearly 40% of them worked in healthcare.
But the question remains, why do they kill? If we look at women specifically, the 2014 research paper suggests that, unlike men who murder as a result of predatory lust and/or compulsive rage, women serial killers are typically driven by histrionic attention-seeking or financial gain.
Letby and healthcare killers
Another research paper specifically studied the characteristics of 16 convicted healthcare serial killers, which the authors defined as “nurses who have been convicted of at least two murders, which they have carried out within a hospital setting”.
While a small sample size, they found 56% were female, and the average age of those being charged was 36 years.
About 44% killed between five and nine victims before being caught, and 75% killed in only one location. Insulin was the most common method of murder, followed by muscle relaxant.
Letby fits several of these characteristics. She’s a woman, 33 years old, and murdered seven infants. She killed, as far as we currently know, in only one location, and she used insulin to murder some of her victims.
A 2007 book, Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers: Why They Kill, provides a checklist of 22 “red flags” for this group of killers, including:
secretive/difficult personal relationships
history of depression or mental instability
higher incidents of death when they are on shift
making colleagues anxious or suspicious
craving attention.
Letby certainly made her colleagues suspicious, and they reported her in the years preceding her arrest. There were more child deaths on her shifts than on those of any other staff member, which is how she was caught.
One criminal psychologist suggested part of the rationale behind the killings may have been to gain the attention of a male colleague, whom prosecutors claimed she had a “crush” on. This would fit with research suggesting attention-seeking is a motive for female serial killers more generally.
Other infamous healthcare killers
Harold Shipman was an English general practitioner who is considered one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history.
He was convicted of murdering 15 of his patients in 2000, but is suspected in the deaths of up to 250 people.
Most of his victims were older women in good health. He killed many by injecting them with lethal doses of diamorphine (medical-grade heroin), after which he falsified their death certificates to indicate they had died of poor health.
Suspicions were raised as the number of his patients dying was very high, as were the number of cremation orders his colleagues were being asked to countersign.
Given the patients he killed were largely in good health, misguided “altruism” cannot explain his crimes.
Niels Högel, a German nurse, is another example. In 2019, Högel was found guilty of using lethal injections to murder 85 of his patients, some of whom he attempted to resuscitate to show off to his colleagues.
Medics who murder are rare
The reason the Letby case (like Shipman’s before it) is causing such significant public interest and horror is because we see medics as trusted professionals.
We put our lives in their hands, and cases such as these cause significant fear when one is found to have breached that trust so fundamentally.
But it’s important to acknowledge they also cause such interest precisely because they are so rare.
While medics who turn serial killer are incredibly prolific, we should not fear unnecessarily for ourselves or our loved ones.
If you are concerned about a medical professional, you should report them to the appropriate authority. High-profile cases such as Letby’s have shown these individuals can be caught and their patterns of behaviour can be identified, and in that way we can protect the most vulnerable among us.
Xanthe Mallett ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
Imagine you, or someone you know, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. One drug is prescribed, but you have heard another drug is better. What are your next steps? Do you seek evidence? And if so, what type of evidence would you consider?
Around 2% of the adult population have a bipolar disorder. It can create high levels of suffering, carry suicide risks, and persist for decades. Management options vary, and if you search for information online, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the many different views and interpretations of “the evidence” obtained from clinical trials.
Some medications can be extremely helpful for stabilising mood, but they can often have side effects. Certain medications may be more beneficial for certain types of bipolar disorder, but how do you know which “type” you or a loved one has?
Clinical specialists, including psychiatrists, often rely on guidelines authored by professional organisations to evaluate the evidence for treatments. However, there is minimal agreement between many of the current guidelines. A new approach is needed that places emphasis on “real-world” effectiveness and respects the observations of people with bipolar disorder.
Two types of bipolar disorder
As far back as Hippocrates, bipolar disorder has been known to the medical community. Originally called “manic-depressive psychosis”, it is now known as bipolar I disorder. In the mid-1990s, bipolar II disorder was defined. Although this second “sibling” has always existed, it was previously viewed as more of a personality style, and frequently given the label of “cyclothymia”.
Both bipolar I and bipolar II are marked by pronounced mood swings. During “highs”, individuals feel energised and “wired”. They talk more, spend more, and require less sleep but don’t feel tired. They might experience a heightened sex drive, feel more creative, or so “bulletproof” they take more risks. Anxiety seems to melt away.
During “lows”, depression rolls in like a fog. Sufferers may lie in bed for days, lacking any energy. They can’t derive any pleasure in life. Cheerless and battling impaired cognitive capacity, they can be at greater risk of suicide.
The key distinguishing feature between the two bipolar conditions is the presence of psychotic features (delusions and/or hallucinations) in those with bipolar I.
Medication is the main way bipolar disorders are managed.
Melbourne psychiatrist John Cade discovered the effectiveness of lithium as a treatment for manic depression in 1949. This landmark research ushered in the era of condition-specific psychopharmacology.
Psychiatry can proudly claim its status as an evidence-based discipline. Practitioners refer to research-based guidelines to determine the best medications to help stabilise a bipolar disorder. Options now include lithium, three anti-epileptic drugs, multiple antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants. While most guidelines rate lithium highly for both bipolar types, we personally favour lithium as the first choice medication only for bipolar I, and the anti-seizure drug lamotrigine for bipolar II.
In 2017, our research group examined 11 guidelines published by professional organisations. All were “evidence-based”, but we found minimal agreement between them, thus raising questions about their validity. New guidelines have been published since then but the trend for minimal agreement continues.
Assessing a psychiatric evidence base is difficult. For medical trials, the treatment being tested is compared against a treatment in common use, and/or against a placebo. Results from multiple trials are aggregated to compare their overall impact.
But the way study participants are selected to participate in trials presents a problem. Recruitment is generally limited to those with milder conditions, those without co-existing disorders, or those taking limited medications. Participants might also sign up to obtain medication at no cost, which may affect their motivation and reporting. Finally, the observations made by managing doctors commonly differ from those made by the patients about the benefits and side effect impact of the drugs given.
So there is a strong argument for the need for “real-world” studies prioritising the views of patients with a bipolar disorder, instead of judging drugs via clinical trials and external raters.
Accounting for side effects
In addition to evaluating the effectiveness of any drug, we need to assess the side-effects. For instance, lithium can be the right medication for some with a bipolar disorder and, as noted, it is the most frequently recommended medication across clinical guidelines. However, it has multiple side effects.
Our 2021 efficacy study compared lithium and lamotrigine in a small sample of patients with bipolar II. For the 28 patients who completed the study, the benefits were similar for the two medications. But 50% of the completers receiving lithium experienced distinctive cognitive impairment – side effects that affected their thinking and reasoning.
This is of particular concern because bipolar disorders are known to be over-represented in creative people and high achievers. We suspect, from clinical observation, that lithium is not the best option for bipolar II, and the first author has long observed it is more cognitively “toxic” for those individuals with a bipolar II condition.
Many of the antipsychotic drugs nominated in guidelines also have major side effects, including weight gain and diabetes. People who are stable while taking these medications without major side effects should not be alarmed. But these risks support a push for more tailored treatments based on real-life costs and benefits, informed by people’s experiences.
We want to hear from people with bipolar disorders
All these concerns highlight the need for research focused on “real-world” samples to determine the best treatments that consider each person’s responses to any medication. We are conducting such a study now, in collaboration with the Black Dog Institute. If you are interested, you can access the study here.
Gordon Parker receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council.
Michael Spoelma does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
More than 40 years ago, law-makers began listening to sexual violence victim-survivors, advocates and activists when they explained that the traditional criminal law and criminal trial were not serving them well.
In NSW, the Crimes (Sexual Assault) Amendment Act 1981 (NSW) was the first of many statutes introduced to address the gendered biases of the law. This included the unacceptable treatment of victim-survivors when giving evidence that was characteristic of rape trials.
In 2023, on paper, the laws governing offence definitions, evidence rules and trial procedure are very different from those that operated in the 1970s. But how different are things in practice?
We were recently commissioned by the New South Wales government to conduct a study of transcripts from sexual offence trials in the District Court of NSW, as part of a larger review of “the experiences of complainants of sexual offences in the NSW criminal justice system”.
In its 2020 report Consent in Relation to Sexual Offences, the NSW Law Reform Commission emphasised the importance of follow-up research that evaluates whether the intended benefits of legislative reforms are actually being achieved.
This was a rare and important opportunity – a study of this scale based on access to trial transcripts had not been completed since the landmark Heroines of Fortitude report by the then NSW Department for Women in 1996.
In sharing our main findings here, we want to acknowledge the complainants in the sexual offence trials examined in this report. Although we never met them, their stories were at the heart of this study and their voices were present in (anonymised) quotes from transcripts that feature in the full report that was recently published by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
We examined more than 30,000 pages of transcripts from 75 sexual offence trials finalised in the District Court of NSW between 2014 and 2020. Our primary aim was to assess the adequacy of existing arrangements for meeting the legitimate needs and expectations of complainants.
Our findings can roughly be divided into two categories: aspects of trials that have changed for the better, and those that have not (yet) been reformed.
Improvements
We found that procedural reforms designed to improve complainant experience in sexual offence trials were generally operating as intended. This included arrangements such as allowing complainants to give evidence via CCTV from a remote location. Not all complainants want to give evidence in this way (some choose to appear in person in the courtroom), but it is an important measure to reduce the distress of being a witness and ensure witnesses don’t have to be in the same room as the person whom they have accused of sexual violence.
We also saw that complainants regularly had access to a support person, and, with a few exceptions, judges ensured the court was closed to members of the public when the complainant was giving evidence.
In addition, most of the time, judges and lawyers adopted respectful modes of communication with the complainant, and were sensitive to the need for breaks when the complainant was distressed or tired.
“Rape shield” laws contained in the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW) – which are designed to prohibit questions about sexual “reputation” and regulate questions about sexual experience – were generally operating as intended.
Against the backdrop of criticism that these rules are too restrictive, we note that some form of sexual experience questioning was permitted in 50% of trials in this study.
Rape myths and stereotypes were still very prominent in the sexual offence trials we examined. Many of the trials in this study were conducted in a way that was framed by a set of unwritten (and problematic) rules about what a “real rape” looks like and how a “genuine” victim of sexual violence would behave.
Importantly, this wasn’t just a result of how defence lawyers cross-examined the complainant – the prosecution case was also often built on the foundation of one or more “real rape” attributes.
For example, the Crown case often emphasised that the complainant physically resisted the attack, or that the complainant reported the matter immediately –-despite the fact that these are no longer required to sustain an allegation.
The defence often played the other side of the “real rape” coin, highlighting the absence of features traditionally associated with a “genuine” allegation.
Questioning and closing submissions that accused the complainant of lying were common. In 73% of trials, the complainant was accused of fabricating the sexual offence allegation for an ulterior purpose (for example, in one case, to extract compensation to be used for cosmetic surgery).
Defence counsel were permitted to ask questions across a broad range of topics. These included distressing matters such as the complainant’s history of mental illness, substance use, criminal convictions or having had children removed from their care. Questions about prior “flirtatious” behaviour were common, as were questions that suggested the complainant had failed to behave after the event in the ways that a “true” victim would.
Further reforms
Much has changed in terms of how complainants are questioned in sexual offence trials, but there is more still to do.
Our report for the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research identified a number of further reforms that warrant consideration. These include:
A modified approach to framing the Crown case, with a greater focus on consent as “free and voluntary agreement”, reduced reliance on “real rape” attributes, and more space for the complainant’s voice.
A more robust and restrictive approach to the admissibility of evidence about the complainant and their actions, including what counts as “relevant”.
The introduction of pre-trial “ground rules” hearings for all sexual offence trials. These should include advance determinations not only on how questions are asked, but also what topics are covered.
These measures could contribute to the long overdue removal from sexual offence trials of rape myths and stereotypes and unfair scrutiny of complainants.
Julia Quilter receives funding from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and the Australian Research Council .
Julia Quilter receives funding from the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and the Australian Research Council.
An Australian advocacy group in support of West Papuan self-determination has criticised the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders for failing to grant West Papua full membership in the organisation at last week’s summit in Port Vila.
While praising Vanuatu Minister for Climate Change Adaptation Ralph Regenvanu for his public stance in support of the West Papuans, Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) spokesperson Joe Collins said that “every West Papuan and their supporters also feel let down by the MSG leaders”.
Collins, who was in Port Vila for the coinciding second West Papuan leaders summit, said in a statement: ”Over the last few months in West Papua, the grassroots have taken to the streets calling on the MSG to grant full membership to the ULMWP (United Liberation Movement for West Papua) at the MSG.
“Many were arrested, beaten, tortured and jailed as they rallied peaceful in calling on the MSG to support them.
“It is tragic that the MSG did not respond to their call. Do the MSG leaders not read the reports of the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua?”
Collins cited a video and human rights report about attacks on villages around Kiwirok in West Papua and the aftermath exposing Indonesian military brutality as recent examples.
“Surely with all the aid flowing to the Pacific countries it’s not simply a case of ‘follow the Money?’, Collins said.
Humanitarian aid He referred to an article in the Vanuatu Daily Post which reported: “A top Vanuatu government official allegedly travelled to Jakarta to negotiate a reported VT300 million to fund the VIP Lounge of Port Vila International Airport and fund humanitarian aid.
“The ground breaking ceremony happened recently.”
The ground-breaking ceremony for the Indonesian-funded ugrade of the VIP Lounge at Port Vila’s Bauerfield Airport last week. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post
Collins said that when the Indonesian delegation walked out of the MSG summit as ULMWP leader Benny Wenda prepared to speak, “it was not only an insult to West Papua but to the MSG leaders as well.”
“The leaders should have granted full membership to the ULMWP [in response to] that outrageous act alone,” Collins added.
“If the MSG leaders failed West Papua, the people of the Pacific, and Vanuatu in particular, do not.
“Just spending a few days in Port Vila, one can see the support for West Papua everywhere. The West Papuan flag flying free, and stickers, in taxis and on walls.”
The West Papuan representatives at their own summit also “showed a determined people committed to their freedom”.
The West Papuan summit was addressed by Regenvanu and a former Vanuatu prime minister, Barak Sope.
Despite countries pouring billions of dollars into “protecting” communities, flood-related disasters are becoming more frequent and are projected to become even more severe as the climate crisis worsens.
In fact, many areas that flooded during recent extreme weather events, from Auckland to Henan in China, were deemed to be relatively safe. This should raise an obvious question: to what extent is our existing approach fit for purpose in a changing climate?
Traditionally, managing flooding has relied heavily on building higher levees or increasing the capacity of drainage systems. But this can be a mixed blessing. While they contain water most of the time, when levees or drains exceed their original design capacity, we experience damaging floods.
These technical solutions have tended to operate on a flawed assumption that future flooding can be reliably predicted based on decades of historical flood data. They also create the “levee effect” – a false sense of security that encourages development in still risk-prone areas.
As climate change brings unpredictable rainfall patterns and higher intensities, these historic design assumptions are falling well short of the realities. And it means there remains a “residual risk”, even when infrastructure improvements have been made or planned for.
Red tape and risk
We can use the analogy of wearing a seat-belt to understand residual risk. The belt will reduce harm in case of an accident, but it does not mean you are entirely protected from injury.
Now imagine road conditions and weather are gradually worsening, and traffic volumes increasing. Some might look at the new risk and decide not to drive, but for those already on the road it is too late.
Most countries are still managing floods just like this: sometimes building higher levees or installing bigger pipes. But development often occurs incrementally, without the strategic investment needed or the room to safely store excess water volumes in urban areas when failure occurs.
Housing development is needed, but too often current (let alone future) flood risk is not adequately considered. Planning controls, or additional infrastructure costs, are routinely referred to as “red tape” that raises costs. As a result, recovery costs are ongoing and residual risk gradually rises.
Weather-related disasters in 2023, including Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand and wildfires in the northern hemisphere, have led to a new focus on understanding how residual risk is managed. But whether it is even acknowledged or incorporated in planning policy varies from country to country.
National strategy missing
Our research team from the University of Waikato recently undertook a survey with flood risk practitioners in New Zealand to shed some light on this.
New Zealand has little in the way of national-level guidance on managing flood risk. Despite this, survey responses suggest flood risk professionals are aware of the issue. They agree residual flood risk is increasing, mainly due to climate change and ongoing development in flood-prone areas currently designated as “protected”.
They also agree the current practice of flood risk management needs improving. But there are several barriers, with the lack of a clear national directive on managing flood risk being the most notable in our survey.
Several respondents noted that changing risk management practice is difficult, given the existing institutional framework. This includes the “build more levees” approach to flood planning.
Local governments also vary in their capacity and resources. Many small councils lack quality flood risk information, such as the likely impact of climate change, which is critical for making wise land-use decisions.
As a result, housing and other developments are continuing in risky places. And to keep development costs down, infrastructure is not being systematically upgraded.
We expect the New Zealand experience reflects similar trends elsewhere. Practitioners are aware of the growing threat of residual risk and would like more power to manage it. But there is a lack of urgency and resources to upgrade infrastructure. And there is political pressure to enable more housing and reduce red tape.
If these patterns persist, not only will the impacts from future floods become more frequent and expensive, but the insurance sector will retreat further from offering flood policies.
This will eventually leave central governments as de facto insurers-of-last-resort for flooding events. And they will be picking up an increasingly big bill, as already evidenced by the US$20.5 billion deficit faced by the United States National Flood Insurance Program.
Internationally and in New Zealand, attention is shifting to the need to build “sponge cities” or create more “room for water” in flood risk management. But we argue that acknowledging and managing the growing residual risk from climate change is missing from the debate.
A better-informed approach would see stronger guidelines against ill-advised development in flood-prone areas unless the infrastructure investment reduces that residual risk. Development on floodplains can still happen. But land use and investment must account for an uncertain future and lower the overall risk profile, rather than increase it.
The reality of more frequent flooding demands a multi-faceted response that makes cities, towns and rural areas more resilient – and prepared for inevitable infrastructure failure. Residual risk needs to be central to planning if we are to avoid an endless cycle of mopping up, rebuilding and compensating for financial loss.
Xinyu Fu receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund and the Toka Tū Ake Earthquake Commission to conduct research on issues related to flood risk management and future land use planning.
Iain White receives funding from the National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature’s Challenges – Kia manawaroa – Ngā Ākina o Te Ao Tūroa. He also receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund to research issues connected to flood risk mapping and better decision making, and from Toka Tū Ake Natural Hazards Commission to research how to better incorporate risk into future settlement planning.
Rob Bell receives funding from Toka Tū Ake Earthquake Commission, as an advisor to the University of Waikato team to research issues connected to flood risk mapping, management and future land use planning. Rob was also funded by the Ministry for the Environment to revise the 2023 national Coastal Hazards and Climate Change guidance for local government in NZ.
Silvia Serrao-Neumann receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s Endeavour Fund and the Toka Tū Ake Earthquake Commission to conduct research on issues related to flood risk management and land use planning.
The leaders of five Melanesian nations have agreed to write to French President Emmanuel Macron “expressing their strong opposition” to the results of the third New Caledonia referendum.
In December 2021, more than 96 percent of people voted against full sovereignty, but the pro-independence movement FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has refused to recognise the result because of a boycott by the Kanak population over the impact of the covid pandemic on the referendum campaign.
Since then, the FLNKS has been seeking international support for its view that the referendum result was not a legitimate outcome.
The Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders — Fiji, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and the FLNKS — met in Port Vila last week for the 22nd edition of the Leader’s Summit, where they said “the MSG does not recognise the results of the third referendum on the basis of the PIF’s Observer Report”.
FLNKS spokesperson Victor Tutugoro told RNZ Pacific the pro-independence group had continued to protest against the outcome of the December 2021 referendum.
“We contest the referendum because it was held during the circumstances that was not healthy for us. For example, we went through covid, we lost many members of our families [because of the pandemic],” Tutugoro said.
“We will continue to protest at the ICJ (International Court of Justice) level and at the national level. We expect the MSG to help us fight to get the United Nations to debate the cause of the Kanaks.”
The leaders have agreed that “New Caledonia’s inclusion on the UN List of decolonisation territories is protected and maintained”.
The MSG leaders have also directed the UN permanent representative to “examine and provide advice” so they can seek an opinion from the ICJ “on the results of the third referendum conducted in December 2021”.
FLNKS spokesperson Victor Tutugoro at the 22nd Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ Summit in Port Vila. . . . “We contest the referendum because it was held during the circumstances that was not healthy for us.” Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
They have also requested that the UN provide a report on the “credibility of the election process, and mandated the MSG UN permanent representatives, working with the MSG Secretariat and the FLNKS, “to pursue options on the legality of the 3rd referendum”.
Support for West Papua New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS movement also said it would continue to back the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to become a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
Tutugoro told the 22nd MSG Leader’s Summit in Port Vila that FLNKS had always supported West Papua’s move to join the MSG family.
He said by becoming a full member of the sub-regional group, FLNKS was able to benefit from international support to counterbalance the weight of France in its struggle for self-determination.
He said the FLNKS hoped the ULMWP would have the same opportunity and in time it could be included on the UN’s list of non-self-governing territories.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
United Liberation Movement for West Papua delegates at last week’s 22nd Melanesian Spearhead Group Leaders’ Summit in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Image: RNZ Pacific/Kelvin Anthony
New Zealand’s Exceptional Economic Policy Fingerprint
Chart by Keith Rankin.
The above chart shows New Zealand’s financial (im)balances from 1999. What is truly exceptional is the number of years in which Aotearoa New Zealand has green and red together on the ‘surplus’ side of the chart. (I have discussed this in May in Visualising Countries’ Deficits and Debts, where the charts go back to 1980.)
Reading the Chart
A country’s economy can be divided into sectors. One important three-way split for which just about all countries have adequate published data is the division between the government, private, and foreign sectors. By definition the sum of the sectoral imbalances equals zero, because total purchases must equal total sales. Deficit sectors buy more than they sell (spend more than their revenue); surplus sectors buy less than they sell (spend less than their revenue).
The bottom half of the chart shows financial deficits, meaning that it shows the sectors which have spent more than they have earned. (We note that for the government sector, the principal form of earnings is taxation.) In New Zealand, this bottom (deficit) half is dominated by the private sector. New Zealand households and businesses spend more than they earn; private sector debt is a very big thing in New Zealand. This is very unusual; in most countries most of the time, the private sector is a surplus sector.
The top half of the chart shows the surplus sector(s) for each year. For New Zealand, the dominant surplus sector is the foreign sector; meaning that – with respect to Aotearoa New Zealand – foreigners (people and organisations resident in foreign countries) spend less than they earn. The long term picture for New Zealand is one of foreign underspending and private overspending. (It must be noted that ‘overspending’ should be understood neither as a bad thing nor a good thing; rather, it’s a mathematical necessity that someone – or some sector – must overspend if someone else underspends. For each year, the sum of the balances must equal zero. Also, we note that the foreign balance is minus the published ‘current account balance’.)
This relationship between the foreign sector and the private sector in New Zealand means that New Zealand may correctly be classed as a ‘debtor country’. But New Zealand does not have ‘debtor government’. Journalistic confusion on the meaning of a ‘debtor country’ is compounded by the fact that, in much media analysis, countries are called debtor countries because they have debtor governments. In fact, debtor countries generate much government revenue as a result of their high private spending, meaning that debtor countries are less likely to have debtor governments.
(Note that the plots for the years from 2023 are forecasts. Also, note, re 2019, that for New Zealand and Australia, which report their annual data for years ending June rather than December, the IMF – the source of my data – have averaged the 2018/19 and the 2019/20 balances; meaning that the 2019 data for New Zealand has been contaminated by the Covid19 government response in the months from March to June 2020.)
The exceptional opposite of New Zealand is Japan, which is a substantial creditor country with the world’s most indebted government. Japan, however, is an extreme example of a normal country. New Zealand on the other hand is truly an exceptional country. (The only other countries with financial fingerprints which come close to New Zealand’s fingerprint are Tonga, Lebanon, and Kazakhstan. Australia used to look like New Zealand, but not since the 2008/09 Global Financial Crisis. Australia has arguably gained financial maturity since then.)
Chart by Keith Rankin.Chart by Keith Rankin.
Advanced and Emerging/Developing Economies
Chart by Keith Rankin.Chart by Keith Rankin.
These two charts cover almost the entire world between them. The main absences, as far as I can tell, are the microstates which are linked to the United Kingdom, but not actually part of the United Kingdom (Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Virgin Islands, Gibraltar). These are tax havens, and therefore will have under-recorded and unusual financial imbalances. (Though not shown here, some other countries have unusual charts because of their exceptional financial roles in the global economy; notably Ireland, Switzerland, Cyprus, Panama.)
Both of these combined-country charts look much more like Japan’s chart than Aotearoa New Zealand’s.
The main point is that, for the world as a whole, the financial relationship that sustains global capitalism is one of annual government sector deficits, made necessary by global private sector surpluses. Indeed the financial signatures of advanced and emerging economies are converging to create an increasingly clear-cut normal, with government deficits becoming the principal driving force of capitalist economic growth. While New Zealand is very much out of step with this entrenching geo-capitalist normal, it doesn’t need to be. New Zealand’s unusual signature is a result of ultra-neoliberal domestic laws made in 1989 and 1994 – the Reserve Bank Act and the Fiscal Responsibility Act – ‘sacred cows’ which remain outside of the scope of Aotearoan political discourse.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne
Aged-care funding is again on the agenda, with the latest Intergenerational Report predicting Australia’s aged population will triple over the next 40 years. As a community, we will need to spend more on aged care than we do today, with aged-care spending expected to more than double its share of gross domestic product by 2063.
We cannot sleepwalk into this increased spending. It needs to be planned so access is protected and all older people, regardless of income, are able to get the aged care they need.
Aged-care funding should include taxpayer-funded care and resident co-payments. But we need to ensure funding changes don’t reduce access for those on low incomes.
Two distinct types of services
Most experts now accept the two main types of services older people receive in aged care facilities or in their home require different policy responses:
ordinary costs of living. These would have ordinarily been paid for by older people themselves earlier in their lives, for things like cleaning the house or food preparation. Housing and accommodation is sometimes a special subset of these costs
care and support. This includes nursing care, podiatry, physiotherapy and other health services, either in the home or in a residential aged care facility. These would generally not have been needed earlier in life.
Medicare is now almost 40 years old. Australians long ago made the choice that hospital and medical care should be publicly funded – and people should not be forced to forgo necessary care because of cost. The same arguments apply to the aspects of aged care which look more like health care.
There is usually some form of health assessment for these services and so consumers don’t initiate these services themselves. Because of this gatekeeping, the arguments for people to pay out-of-pocket for aged care (other than ordinary costs of living) are weak.
It’s also hard for consumers to assess the quality of these services, and so one of the preconditions of a functioning market – the ability for consumers to make informed choices – does not exist.
In these circumstances, funding should come from the public purse. Governments should pay the full costs of care (other than ordinary costs of living) for all aged-care residents and those who receive care in their home.
So how should ‘care’ costs be funded?
Future funding requirements for care should be met through economic growth, or a specific adjustment to taxation revenue, such as increasing company or income tax payable, or reducing inequitable tax loopholes.
An “aged-care levy”, effectively an increase in income tax modelled on the Medicare levy is an alternative option. An aged-care levy might be specifically allocated – or “hypothecated” – to aged care or, as with the Medicare levy, just go into the total pot of Commonwealth revenue.
The downsides of hypothecated taxes are they potentially reduce government flexibility and make it harder for government to set priorities across all areas of government. Direction setting is even harder if the hypothecated tax generates more or less than expected. A focus on a special hypothecated tax creates blinkers, which may mean the full range of potential revenue sources aren’t considered.
However, an aged-care levy may be a politically palatable source of additional revenue. It’s the most equitable and efficient way of increasing Commonwealth revenue to pay for aged care. Its major downside is that it continues the current policy approach that today’s taxpayers pay for the aged-care needs of yesterday’s taxpayers, and this raises issues of “intergenerational equity”.
Most people meet the full cost of their meals, accommodation, cleaning and so on during their working life, so the normal expectation is that they would meet them later in life too.
However, there are a few reasonable exceptions to the rule:
some people don’t earn enough to pay for their own accommodation and live in public housing during their middle years
most people’s income in retirement is lower than their income during their working life. Renters especially may not have enough income to pay for accommodation in later years
some people are unable to maintain their own homes and need to pay others to do so, at increased cost
some people might require special foods or different accommodation, and so their costs of living might be substantially higher than previously.
All of this means that ordinary costs of living may need to be subsidised when they weren’t previously.
Currently there is a mish-mash of policies for consumer co-payments for the ordinary costs of living. People in residential aged-care facilities face income and assets tests which determine co-payments, but residents can pay more for additional amenities. Consumers face a bewildering array of choices for contributions toward accommodation (capital) costs.
Contributions to home care are less structured and providers have more leeway about consumer co-payment policies.
Issues relating to accommodation costs for residential care are very complex, as much of a homeowner’s capital is tied up in the family home. This creates transition issues, especially if one member of a couple needs to move to a different type of accommodation. A complex web of payment arrangements for accommodation costs in residential care has evolved, and a shake up of these arrangements is overdue.
So how should ‘ordinary costs of living’ be paid for?
Some form of means- and asset-tested co-payment must be part of the mix, with means and assets including superannuation balances and income streams.
There should also be more consistency across providers in the co-payments consumers have to pay.
Although aged-care policy must balance equity and financial sustainability, the full cost of aged care – including care costs and ordinary costs of living – cannot be met by recipients themselves, so we must be wary of the calls for massive increases in out-of-pocket payments.
Increased contributions from the public purse will be required through income tax, with an aged-care levy one option, or reduced tax loopholes.
Animals have been used for medical research for thousands of years, dating back to ancient Greece where the first dissections were performed.
These days, one of the main uses of animals is to ensure the safety of medical products before they’re trialled in humans.
But in addition to the important ethical reasons for minimising animal use, the reality is sometimes animals just aren’t that good at predicting human responses. No animal model, for example, has captured all the human characteristics of complex illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (a neuromuscular disease). This makes is hard to develop effective treatments and cures.
Thankfully, researchers are making progress in developing a collection of alternative approaches, called “non-animal models”. A new report from our team at CSIRO Futures examines the potential of non-animal models and the actions Australia will need to take to pursue their use.
Non-animal models are an alternative set of models that use human cells, tissues and data.
These have the potential to better mimic human responses. In doing so, this can more accurately predict if a medical product is likely to fail, allowing reinvestment in products that are more likely to succeed.
Computer simulations or “in silico models” are one example. These can be used across the medical product development process to complement – and in time potentially replace – other model types. They can be used in drug studies to model a drug’s behaviour within the body, from cellular interactions to processes that involve multiple organs.
Complex three-dimensional biological models are also maturing quickly. Examples include:
organoids – organ “buds” that can be propagated from stem cells or taken from biopsies
organs-on-chips – cells cultured in a miniature engineered chip. These attempt to replicate the physical environment of human organs.
What can we use non-animal models for?
In theory, we can use non-animal models for everything we use animal models for – and more.
Simple non-animal models (human cells cultured over a flat surface) are already used to help identify drug targets due to their ability to test a large number of compounds and experimental conditions.
In the future, non-animal models will reduce – and eventually replace – animal use across a range of applications:
screening potential drugs to see how well they work
toxicology (safety) testing
helping to screen, select and stratify shortlisted participants for clinical trials. This might include an assessment of their unique response to a potential drug.
using patient cells to identify the treatment most likely to help that individual.
Outside of medical products designed for humans, non-animal models can also support innovation in veterinary and agricultural medicines, cosmetic testing and eco-toxicology.
Non-animal models can be used to test cosmetics. Shutterstock
An export opportunity for Australia
Non-animal models present an economic opportunity for Australia, where the models, their components, and surrounding services could be exported to the world.
Our novel economic analysis sized the potential Australian market for two non-animal models: organoids and organs-on-chips. Other models were unable to be sized due to a lack of global market data.
We estimate the Australian organoid market could be worth A$1.3 billion annually by 2040 and create 4,200 new jobs.
The organs-on-chips market could be worth A$300 million annually by 2040 and create 1,000 new jobs. This estimate is lower as this technology is currently less advanced but holds the potential to grow significantly beyond 2040.
Several Australian entities are already contributing to these opportunities. The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, for example, provides stem cell and modelling expertise as part of reNEW, a €300 million international collaboration.
Another example is from Schott Minifab, an international biotech and medical device company with Australian roots, which has successfully established scaled production of non-animal model components in Australia for domestic and export markets.
Making it a reality
Non-animal models have already begun to complement and replace animal use in some areas, such as identifying drug targets.
However, accelerating their development and adoption across a wider range of applications will require further technical advances to lower cost and validate their performance as superior models.
Australia has several research strengths in this field but we need a concentrated effort to help our research make it through to real world impact.
Our report makes ten recommendations for supporting Australia’s pursuit of these opportunities. Critical activities over the next five years include:
coordinating local capabilities
investing in upgraded infrastructure
creating and collating data that compares animal and non-animal model performance.
Governments, industry and research must collaborate to deliver against these actions. Success will only come from collective efforts.
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.
Much of the world’s natural coastline is protected by living habitats, most notably mangroves in warmer waters and tidal marshes closer to the poles. These ecosystems support fisheries and wildlife, absorb the impact of crashing waves and clean up pollutants. But these vital services are threatened by global warming and rising sea levels.
Recent research has shown wetlands can respond to sea level rise by building up their root systems, pulling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the process. Growing recognition of the potential for this “blue” carbon sequestration is driving mangrove and tidal marsh restoration projects.
While the resilience of these ecosystems is impressive, it is not without limits. Defining the upper limits to mangrove and marsh resilience under accelerating sea level rise is a topic of great interest and considerable debate.
Our new research, published today in the journal Nature, analyses the vulnerability and exposure of mangroves, marshes and coral islands to sea level rise. The results underscore the critical importance of keeping global warming within 2 degrees of the pre-industrial baseline.
Coral islands are contracting, causing habitat loss in the Solomon I re: photo, any other attribution?slands. Simon Albert
We pulled together all the available evidence on how mangroves, tidal marshes and coral islands respond to sea level rise. That included:
delving into the geological record to study how coastal systems responded to past sea level rise, following the last Ice Age
tapping into a global network of survey benchmarks in mangroves and tidal marshes
analysing satellite imagery for changes in the extent of wetlands and coral islands at varying rates of sea level rise.
Altogether, our international team assessed 190 mangroves, 477 tidal marshes and 872 coral reef islands around the world.
We then used computer modelling to work out how much these coastal ecosystems would be exposed to rapid sea level rise under projected warming scenarios.
Eroding wetland at Towra Point in Sydney. Neil Saintilan
What we found
Mangroves, tidal marshes and coral islands can cope with low rates of sea-level rise. They remain stable and healthy.
We found most tidal marshes and mangroves are keeping pace with current rates of sea level rise, around 2–4mm per year. Coral islands also appear stable under these conditions.
In some locations, land is sinking, so the relative rate of sea level rise is greater. It may be double this 2–4mm figure or more, comparable to rates expected under future climate change. In these situations, we found marshes failing to keep up with sea level rise. They are slowly drowning and in some cases, breaking up. What’s more, these are the same rates of sea level rise under which marshes and mangrove drown in the geological record.
These cases give us a glimpse of the future in a warming world.
So if the rate of sea level rise doubles to 7 or 8 millimetres a year, it becomes “very likely” (90% probability) mangroves and tidal marshes will no longer keep pace, and “likely” (about 67% probability) coral islands will undergo rapid changes. These rates will be reached when the 2.0℃ warming threshold is exceeded.
Even at the lower rates of sea level rise we would have between 1.5℃ and 2.0℃ of warming (4 or 5mm a year), extensive loss of mangrove and tidal marsh is likely.
Tidal marshes are less exposed to these rates of sea level rise than mangroves because they occur in regions where the land is rising, reducing the relative rate of sea level rise.
We know mangroves and tidal marshes have survived rapid sea level rise before, at rates even higher than those projected under extreme climate change.
They won’t have long enough to build up root systems or trap sediment in order to stay in place, so they will seek higher ground by shifting landward into newly flooded coastal lowlands.
But this time, they will be competing with other land uses and increasingly trapped behind coastal levees and hard barriers such as roads and buildings.
If the global temperature rise is limited to 2℃, coastal ecosystems have a fighting chance. But if this threshold is exceeded, they will need more help.
Intervention is needed to enable the retreat of mangroves and tidal marshes across our coastal landscapes. There is a role for governments in designating retreat pathways, controlling coastal development, and expanding coastal nature reserves into higher ground.
The future of the world’s living coastlines is in our hands. If we work to restore mangroves and tidal marshes to their former extent, they can help us tackle climate change.
Neil Saintilan receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Environmental Science Program, and the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation.
We have never been more spoilt for choice when it comes to what we can watch on (streaming) television. But the downside of this gluttony of riches is the sheer overwhelm that can come from having to choose your next show.
Have you found yourself reaching to rewatch an old favourite, just to make the choice easier? Us too.
But fear not, The Conversation’s writers are on the case. In this new series, our experts will be bringing you the best new shows, films and seasons to watch every month.
From comedy to reality television to crime drama, we hope you’ll find your next favourite here.
Glamorous
Netflix
Kim Cattrall showed considerable savvy when, rather than rejoin the cast of Sex and the City, she opted to play Madolyn Addison, the dynamic head of beauty brand Glamorous. The series revolves around a young gender-fluid assistant, Marco Mejia (Miss Benny), who inspires the company to break boundaries while exploring his own uncertainties around sexuality and gender.
On the surface this is even frothier than Sex and the City, and some critics have panned it. Angie Han in the Hollywood Reporter (a publication not known for its commitment to high art) saw it as:
A workplace comedy that has no grasp of how work works, a rom-com that fails to generate a single convincing spark, a Gen-Z coming-of-age saga with the cultural references of a geriatric Millennial.
These objections are like complaints that Midsomer Murders gives an unrealistic depiction of police procedure. I know little about the cosmetics industry, but I suspect it is more accurately portrayed here than the cringing improbabilities of the British royal court in Red, White and Royal Blue.
There is a taken-for-granted queerness of the program: here heterosexuals, led by Cattrall and her ever-faithful chauffeur, are in the minority. The series plays with stereotypes, from the A-list gay boys at Provincetown to the drag queens in Marco’s favourite club. And Han must have a heart of stone to have missed the ongoing heartbreak of Marco’s geeky workmate, Ben.
Glamorous is as camp as Barbie, but far cleverer and more subversive: without a spoiler, it’s worth comparing the way the two end.
ABC iView (Australia) from September 6 and TVNZ+ (New Zealand) from September 2
The delightful romantic-comedy Starstruck follows the successes, failures and absurdities of an unexpected romance.
The two charismatic, neurotic non-white leads make this a far-from-standard rom-com: Nikesh Patel’s Tom Kapoor is a world-famous British movie star; Rose Matafeo’s Jessie is far more intense, obnoxious and funny than your average rom-com heroine.
Starstruck’s creator and star Matafeo has crafted a world that feels real with inside jokes that invite you in, an ironic sincerity that is sweet but not saccharine, and neurotic characters written with endearing specificity, warmth and humour.
Last season ended with a moment that was equal parts romantic and absurd, as Jessie and Tom reconcile and make out in a pond. But the new season opens with a montage tracing the subsequent two years of moving in together and then drifting apart.
Starstruck understands what makes Jessie and Tom interesting to watch: not domestic bliss, but their awkward banter and difficulty overcoming their mismatched quirks, despite their obvious chemistry and attraction. For those who love a smart, sizzling rom-com in the tradition of Hepburn and Tracy this is a must-watch.
The new season continues the excellent form of the first two seasons, as Tom and Jessie attend a very awkward wedding and end up back in each other’s orbit. – Jessica Ford
Far North
ThreeNow (New Zealand) and Paramount+ (Australia)
The terrific new New Zealand dark comedy Far North dramatises a bizarre meth-smuggling case from 2016, in which a ridiculously inept gang nearly got half a ton of methamphetamine to market, only to be rumbled by the locals.
Veteran actors Temuera Morrison and Robyn Malcolm are excellent as decent Ahipara couple Ed and Heather, who become embroiled in the bungled plot when local criminals try to get their Chinese bosses out to sea off Ninety Mile Beach to intercept a stranded drug shipment.
If things can go wrong, they do – and events swiftly turn into a cascading comedy of errors.
Creator David White co-wrote a true crime book on the subject, and you can see his eye for detail throughout. The whole thing is run through with a mordant, deadpan sensibility that will have you spitting out your tea with laughter even as you are wincing at some of the more horrific elements of the case.
Impeccably shot, and featuring a wonderfully motley assortment of low-rent crims, desperate drug runners, cartel mobsters and salt-of-the-earth locals, Far North is easily one of the best (and funniest) New Zealand shows in years.
–Erin Harrington
Mother and Son
ABC iView
Mother and Son has long been regarded as one of Australia’s greatest sitcoms.
First airing in 1984, the tale of the ageing Maggie Beare and her hapless son, Arthur, was not only very funny, but revealed the pain, frustration and love that underpinned their relationship.
For anyone who has cared for an ageing parent – or faced the diminution of their autonomy as they have aged – Mother and Son still strikes a nerve.
Where the original series featured a baby boomer looking after his mother, in the revival, it’s a millennial looking after his boomer mum – a story being played out in homes across the nation.
In the 2023 Mother and Son, Maggie (Denise Scott) is a free-spirited eccentric who almost burned down the family home while cooking dinner for her grandchildren. Childless, unmarried Arthur (Matt Okine), meanwhile, is attempting to start a web business.
The new Mother and Son is likeable, gentle comedy. It has a diverse, multicultural cast and the writing is largely well-observed. Yet in remaking a much-loved classic comedy, the creators have set themselves an impossibly high bar: Scott and Okine, while charming, are no match for Ruth Cracknell and Garry McDonald.
– Michelle Arrow
Ai no Sato (Love Village)
Netflix
This year we have seen a new wave of interest in reality dating shows with older protagonists. In the US, Gerry Turner, aged 71, has just been announced as the first “Golden Bachelor”. In the UK, the upcoming show My Mum, Your Dad (an Australian version aired in 2022) is being billed as “middle-aged Love Island”.
Perhaps the best example, though, comes from Japan. Ai no Sato, or Love Village, is a take on the stalwart Japanese reality dating format Ainori (Love Wagon). In Ainori, contestants travel the world in a minibus and fall in love along the way. In Ai no Sato, by contrast, contestants (all aged over 35) renovate a house in rural Japan together … and fall in love along the way.
I love Ainori, but Ai no Sato takes things to a new level. Because its contestants are older, they have a deep well of life experience and relationship baggage, which makes for very compelling romance narratives – and, in particular, confessions of love that carry incredible emotional weight.
The vast majority of reality romance shows would treat a love triangle with a 60-year-old woman at its apex as jokey or gimmicky, but I defy anyone to watch this show and not be deeply hoping that Minane finds (in the show’s parlance) the last love of her life.
And if the romance aspect doesn’t interest you? There’s always the house renovation. This house is gorgeous.
There are a lot of British crime dramas out there. You only need to look at the back catalogue of BritBox to see just how extensive it is. There are a lot of excellent series out there (Broadchurch, Happy Valley and Karen Pirie are all exceptional). There is also a lot of chaff, where the premise is more formulaic. This is perhaps why it took me so long to give Unforgotten a go. I was, however, quickly hooked and proceeded to binge the series very quickly.
Each season begins with the discovery of a murder that the historical crimes unit must solve, led by DCI Cassie Stuart (the wonderful Nicola Walker) and DI Sunil Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar).
Initially, the subplots about miscellaneous suspects all seem unrelated and random. However, the investigation (very well plotted out) slowly pieces all these characters together. As the investigation develops, the suspects’ lives, and everyone close to them, are upended.
Season five sees the departure of Walker and new to the team is DCI Jessica James (Sinéad Keenan). The season’s central tension is around her gruffness and the resentment of her not being DCI Stuart, who everyone loved. DCI James must lead her team to investigate the human remains discovered up a chimney in a newly renovated London stately home, which leaves a diverse array of suspects somehow connected to the crime.
For those that love a gripping British crime drama, I highly recommend this series.
– Stuart Richards
Beautiful Disaster
Prime
If Beautiful Disaster, the new film from Cruel Intentions director Roger Kumble, had come out 20 years ago, no one would have paid it much attention. It’s an enjoyably formulaic girl-meets-boy rom-com, but it’s aesthetically drab, looking more like a telemovie (which it is) than a made-for-cinemas release.
However, streaming in 2023 – now the rom-com has disappeared as a mainstay of Hollywood cinema – there’s something refreshingly delightful about it.
Abby (Virginia Gardner) leaves her father, a hopeless gambler in Las Vegas, to set out for college in Sacramento. On her first night at an underground mixed martial arts fight, she bumps into – literally – beefy brawler Travis (Dylan Sprouse, better known as the teen star of Disney’s The Suite Life of Zack & Cody).
At first he comes off as an arrogant jerk – not to mention Abby is sprayed with blood when he knocks out his opponent – but, as their relationship develops, his sensitivity becomes evident.
After many expected shenanigans, sexual and otherwise, and following run-ins with gangsters back in Vegas (to which Abby has to return to help Daddy out of a bind), the pair finish up happily ever after.
There is nothing unexpected here, but the charming qualities of the leads and the film’s general good humour carry it, along with cameos from TV stars who had their heyday in teen fare in the 90s and 2000s, including Brian Austin Green and Michael Cudlitz from Beverly Hills 90210, Autumn Reeser from The O.C. and Rob Estes from Melrose Place.
At the same time, only sometimes effectively, Beautiful Disaster thinks through questions around erotic power dynamics in a post-#MeToo era, comically centring on the kind of guilt Abby feels regarding her attraction to Travis.
– Ari Mattes
Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Ari Mattes, Dennis Altman, Erin Harrington, Jessica Ford, Jodi McAlister, and Stuart Richards do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A suite of protections for gig workers will be contained in legislation to be introduced into parliament by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke next week.
The government argues the changes balance protections with work flexibility. The new regime will begin from July 1.
The legislation, called the Closing Loopholes Bill, will also include measures on rights for casual workers, stopping wage theft, and preventing companies with enterprise agreements using labour hire to undercut wages.
Business has been campaigning strongly against the new round of industrial relations legislation.
Under the changes, the Fair Work Commission will set minimum standards for “employee-like workers” in the gig economy. These are people who work through a digital labour platform, notably in food delivery, ride share and the care economy.
Businesses will be able to apply to the commission for minimum standards orders tailored to the work performed under them.
The terms the commission will be able to consider for an order include payment, record keeping and insurance. But it would not set minimum standards on overtime rates, rostering, or terms that would change how a worker is engaged.
These workers will also be protected from being unfairly removed from digital labour platforms, and they will be able to ask the commission to resolve disputes.
The government says the changes will allow the commission to respond flexibly to these new, quickly evolving business models.
It stresses they will not affect independent contractors, such as skilled tradespeople, who have a high-degree of autonomy over their work.
Rather, they are aimed at protecting workers who are neither “employees” nor small businesses.
Gig workers are estimated to number in the hundreds of thousands.
Burke said at least 13 gig workers have died on the roads in the last few years..
“We know there is a direct link between low rate of pay and safety: it leads to a situation where workers take risks so they can get more work because they’re struggling to make ends meet,” he said.
“We can’t continue to have a situation where the 21st century technology of the gig platforms comes with 19th century conditions.
“At the moment if you’re classed as an employee you have a whole lot of rights such as sick leave, annual leave and minimum rates of pay. If not, all those rights fall off a cliff. What we want to do is turn the cliff into a ramp.
“We’re not trying to turn people into employees when they don’t want to be employees. But just because someone is working in the gig economy shouldn’t mean that they end up being paid less than they would if they’d been an employee.”
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 stakes in the October referendum are high. For Anthony Albanese, who has made the Voice his great social cause of his first term. For Peter Dutton, who has defied those who say he is on the “wrong side of history”.
For those Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who look to the referendum for affirmation of their special place in our society, as well as giving them a chance for some tangible improvements in their lives and opportunities.
For Australia’s international reputation.
The latest polling has put the “no” side ahead, after a slide over the months in the initial substantial support for the constitutional amendment. History is on the “no” side. Only eight of 44 referendum questions have been carried since federation.
But the result remains open, at the start of this campaign. Both sides accept there is a substantial bloc of uncommitted voters, as well as others, presently nominally in the “yes” or “no” camps, who are “soft” and thus open to persuasion.
Many voters haven’t yet tuned in; this is unsurprising, especially when the cost of living is dominating so many people’s attention.
The strength of support from younger voters, a lot of them still unengaged, will be a crucial factor in the outcome.
Albanese will be prominent in the campaign, but it won’t fill his calendar, according to his office. This is not an election. Indeed in a few days the PM is off overseas, visiting Indonesia and the Philippines ahead of the G20 meeting in India. The government says it wants this campaign to be grassroots-led. Yes23 already has some 28,000 volunteers in the field door-knocking.
If the “no” side won, it would be a significant blow to Albanese. This might not translate into a longer problem for the Labor vote, because the caravan would move on: people would make their judgements on Labor versus the Coalition on other grounds. But the interesting thing would be whether Albanese’s authority among his colleagues would be diminished. Would cabinet ministers become more inclined to question his judgement?
Looking ahead, a re-elected Labor government would have to think twice, or thrice, about going ahead with a referendum for a republic if it couldn’t carry one for the Voice.
Conversely, a win would strengthen even further the PM’s authority. Dutton would take a hit, especially in current and potential “teal” seats – those seats the Liberals need to win back or prevent from falling at the next election. The Voice has already set Liberals against each other – whichever way the vote goes, Dutton will have to rebuild unity.
The government would try to heap as much blame as possible on the opposition in the event of a “no” victory, but the cost to Dutton would probably be overshadowed by the wider fallout. And blame-shifting would involve saying the electorate got it wrong, which is always tricky.
A loss would be devastating for Indigenous people, even accepting that not all of them support the “yes” case. It would invite despondency, unleash anger, strengthen the radical activists in the Indigenous community, and deeply harm reconciliation. It would be the end of what many saw as a new beginning.
On the other hand, a “yes” result would start another long journey. Most immediately, that would involve putting together the Voice itself, about which the government has only been willing to specify the barest bones. The task wouldn’t be easy, involving fresh consultations with Indigenous people and, almost certainly, a good deal of argument.
That would be followed by activity on treaty and truth telling, to which the government is committed under its pledge of support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart as a whole.
In future years, the worth of a successful referendum would be judged, in part, by whether the Voice did in fact contribute to noticeably better outcomes in closing the gap in health, education, housing, employment and other markers of equality, fairness and opportunity.
Would it turn out to be a cohesive, informed, influential body, or fall victim to politics, internal or external? In a decade, would it be seen as a failure or a facilitator?
Other countries mightn’t be hanging out for the referendum result, but it will be noticed internationally – or at least, its defeat would be.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop campaigned together in Perth for the “yes” case. A sparky pair, these two, in their very different ways.
Bishop, who is now Chancellor of the Australian National University, warned: “Australia’s international reputation can be affected by a ‘no’ vote.
“I have no doubt that it would be sending a very negative message about the openness, and the empathy, and the respect and responsibility that the Australian people have for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders,” she said.
The referendum campaign will, unfortunately but inevitably, sharply divide the country. For voters, a crucial question should be, what outcome will leave Australia most united afterwards?
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 Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has failed West Papua, says a Vanuatu government champion of West Papuan self-determination.
Minister for Climate Change Adaptation Ralph Regenvanu, a former foreign minister and who is also a pioneer spokesman for freedom for the Melanesian people of West Papua, said this when delivering his remarks at the closing of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) Second Summit in Port Vila last weekend.
“Today I feel very sad because the MSG has failed West Papua. When I found out the decision of the leaders, I was shocked and I was really sad,” he said.
“We have not gone forward, we have gone backward here in Vanuatu. And this should not have happened in Vanuatu as we are the chair of MSG.”
Today’s Vanuatu Daily Post front page featuring Minister Ralph Regenvanu’s condemnation of the MSG. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post screenshot APR
Speaking on behalf of the Vanuatu government, he described the failure to admit West Papua as the latest full member of MSG, as “a failure not only by the Vanuatu fovernment, but a failure by the Vanuatu Free West Papua Association (VFWPA), a failure by the ULMWP and we all have to pull up our socks”.
He continued: “If we had all been much better prepared in working together, I think we would have had a different result here in Vanuatu.
Why was ULMWP left out? “For example, the Vanuatu government gave an office here for ULMWP, but the ULMWP was not a participant of the senior officials’ meeting of MSG.
“What is the purpose of having a meeting to decide the agenda for the leaders if ULMWP was absent from the meeting?”
However, he assured the second ULMWP summit, “For me this meeting is more important than the MSG Summit.
“Because it is a meeting to represent the unity for the people of West Papua for the self-determination of the people of West Papua”.
Minister Regenvanu challenged ULMWP to learn from Vanuatu’s political history.
“Vanuatu became independent because we formed a political grouping called Vanua’aku Pati and everybody got behind it to become independent. In fact without it, we would not have become independent,” he said.
“I am pleading with you to refocus this organisation which was formed here in Port Vila (in 2014). Rebuild, reunite, restrategise and with a truly united movement representing all Melanesians of West Papua, and one which is responsive and strategic and smart, we can achieve what we all want to help the Vanuatu government to do better next time.
‘This is your struggle’ “The Vanuatu government is helping you but this is your struggle. We are your backup but we can’t set the direction for you. So please help us to help you.”
Vanuatu’s first former roving ambassador and a former prime minister, Barak Sope, was the second speaker.
Former Vanuatu prime minister Barak Sope . . . speaking at the West Papua leaders’ summit in Port Vila at the weekend. Image: Joe Collins/AWPA
“We struggled for our freedom from Britain (and France),” he said.
“Despite what happened now [failure to adopt West Papua as latest full member of MSG], the struggle must continue until victory is certain.
“We fully support the statement of Mr Regenvanu that ‘united we stand, divided we fall’. Vanuatu will continue to support the struggle of the people of West Papua.
“We’ve always taken the stand that West Papua should have been the first Melanesian country to become independent.
“The first Speaker of Parliament (of West Papua) Ayamiseba stayed with us here. He told us everything that happened.
People of West Papua ‘sold’ “How Holland, the colonial power, sold the people of West Papua, how the United States and Australia also sold the West Papuan people.
“And how the United Nations sold the people of West Papua.
“So we must never accept how Indonesia came in and stole your freedom.
“The reason for their presence is because of West Papua’s resources and not because of us the Melanesians.
“They are stealing (Melanesian resources). They are stealing our lands, they are stealing our trees, and they are stealing our gold so the struggle must continue for West Papua victory is certain!”
ULMWP president Benny Wenda with supporters in Port Vila, including a former Vanuatu prime minister, Barak Sope. Image: SBS World News screenshot APR
The ceremony was closed with a prayer from the Vanuatu Christian Council.
A Melanesian custom ceremony followed. It was coordinated by the chairman of the Council of Chiefs of West Papua, referred to as “Chief Tommy”.
Witnessed by the interim president of ULMWP, Benny Wenda, and his delegates and custom chiefs of Efate, the ceremony ended in the Melanesian way with the presentation of three live pigs, food, kava and mats to the government, Vaturisu [Council of Chiefs on Efate island] and VFWPA.
Len Garaeis a Vanuatu Daily Post journalist. Republished with permission.
TikTok can be a confusing place, with users going from extreme yassified glamour, to rotating through 20 eyebrow shapes, to turning into a crispy old man with a simple click. This is all thanks to the magic of filters.
Filters are an integral part of the TikTok experience – and they are coaxing life stories out of users. However, filters have a long history on social media platforms before TikTok. They are a massive part of social media culture and storytelling practices.
The history of filters
Photoshop, first released in 1990, enabled users to edit pictures. The first decade of the 2000s was filled with conversations about editing pictures in advertisements and commercials. Seemingly, people were shocked at the level of editing that professional photos went through.
The 2010s was the age of Facetune. Facetune is an app that allows users to retouch photos. Unlike Photoshop, which takes a certain level of skill to master, Facetune provided a quick, easy and cheap way for everyday people to edit their photos.
Instagram began adding face-altering filters in 2017. What began as bunny ears and exaggerated features (think Snapchat filters) quickly developed into filters that “perfected” facial features. These filters, often conforming to Western beauty standards, would slim the face, sharpen the jawline, enlarge the eyes and whiten teeth.
While early versions of these filters seemed unrealistic and “fake”, recent filters have mastered undetectable face alterations.
Of course, not all filters aim to seamlessly perfect facial features. TikTok’s massive range of filters not only include a wide variety of face alterations (everything from adding sun-kissed freckles to simulating lip injections), but can change anything imaginable: skin, eyes, hair, makeup and yes, even age.
Coaxed affordances
When you create a video on TikTok, you are prompted to an editing screen where you can add voice filters, sounds, visual filters and more. The presence of this editing screen encourages creators to make use of the platform’s features.
These are called platform “affordances” and they are the fundamental things that influence how something can be used. Affordances allow, and often compel, users to share and interact in specific ways online.
On TikTok, affordances dictate how users interact with the platform and with each other. They are the “For You” page, the ability to like and comment, the ability to watch live videos and send creators gifts. They make the platform what it is.
Aimée Morrison, associate professor of language and literature at the University of Waterloo, says we need to consider the “prompts that coax and restrict user actions”, as they shape life stories online just as much as the people who make them. When we watch a TikTok that utilises filters as part of the storytelling, the filter becomes an integral part of the video and is so much more than simply a storytelling device.
On TikTok, filters are coaxed affordances. Trending filters are suggested to users (along with trending audio) to use when they make videos. This is a prompting action from the platform itself that encourage users to create in specific kinds of ways.
Of course, these filters do not function in isolation, and trending formats and audios also play a large role in the types of stories that are created.
Filters as storytelling devices
Filters coax stories from creators, encourage them to talk about distinct topics, look a certain way or share specific stories.
For example, a filter will guess what someone’s “girl dinner” will be, and creators will react and reuse the filter until it predicts only foods the creator likes. While this seems incredibly simple on the surface, this filter is coaxing a life story from the creator. We, the audience, now know more about the person we are watching.
Creators often use make-up and hair filters to differentiate between characters in a story (all played by the same person), or as devices to highlight themselves at different points in time. People can tell stories quickly by using filters, utilising different hair colours or make-up looks to make note of who is speaking.
Popular creator Kendra Matthies is a make-up artist who tells stories about doing make-up for weddings. Using different make-up filters, Kendra plays the bride, bridesmaids, the future mother-in-law and herself (interestingly enough, without a filter).
The filters change your appearance enough that the audience can clearly differentiate between characters in a story. This way, a creator can tell a story with a full cast of characters (and costumes) but only need themselves and their phone.
One trending filter is called “Aged”. This filter shows what the creator would look like at a much older age. A popular dermatologist on the platform, Dr Joyce Dermatologist, or @teawithmd, made a video discussing how this filter was an accurate look into ageing. She breaks down the filter and talks about the process of skin ageing.
Many creators have jumped on this trend, with 20.9 million videos made using this filter. The filter has prompted countless stories to be told by users about their fears of ageing, usually will a comedic twist. TikTok creator @turquoiseprince, for instance, used the filter and spoke happily about how it made them look like their dad.
Like all things online, this filter has also been memed. Another popular filter, titled “old but crispy baby” shows a much less flattering look into ageing. Many creators are reacting to videos talking kindly about ageing by making their own videos using this different filter that presents an exaggerated, “creepy” look at ageing.
Filters and their applications are developing rapidly and are increasingly ingrained in social media culture. While some may decry the use of filters and unrealistic beauty standards, it is undeniable they have wonderful storytelling capabilities.
Edith Jennifer Hill 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.
