A woman who was part of a group kidnapped in Papua New Guinea in February has spoken out after the kidnapping and reported rape of 17 schoolgirls in the same area of Southern Highlands earlier this month.
Cathy Alex, the New Zealand-born Australian academic Bryce Barker and two female researchers, were taken in the Mt Bosavi region and held for ransom.
They were all released when the Papua New Guinea government paid a ransom of US$28,000 to the kidnappers to secure their release.
Alex, who heads the Advancing Women’s Leaders’ Network, said that what the 17 abducted girls had gone through prompted her to speak out, after the country, she believed, had done nothing.
A local said family members of the girls negotiated with the captors and were eventually able to secure their release.
The villagers reportedly paid an undisclosed amount of cash and a few pigs as the ransom.
Alex said she and the other women in her group had feared they would be raped when they were kidnapped.
Professor Bryce Barker and an unnamed woman after being released by kidnappers in February. Image: PM James Marape/FB
‘My life preserved’ “My life was preserved even though there was a time where the three of us were pushed to go into the jungle so they could do this to us.
“We chose death over being raped. Maybe the men will not understand, but for a woman or a girl rape is far worse than death.”
Alex said they had had received a commitment that they would not be touched, so the revelations about what happened to the teenage girls was horrifying.
She said her experience gave her some insight into the age and temperament of the kidnappers.
“Young boys, 16 and up, a few others. No Tok Pisin, no English. It’s a generation that’s been out there that has had no opportunities. What is happening in Bosavi is a glimpse, a dark glimpse of where our country is heading to.”
The teenage girls from the most recent kidnapping are now safe and being cared for but they cannot return to their village because it is too dangerous.
Need for focus Cathy Alex said there was a need for a focus on providing services to the rural areas as soon as possible.
She said people were resilient and could change, as long as the right leadership was provided.
Bosavi is one of the remotest areas in PNG, with no roads and few services
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel Strauss, Psychiatrist and Clinical Associate at The Centre of Mental Health, Swinburne University of Technology
Many people in Australia, including psychiatrists, were surprised when earlier this year the medicines regulator down-scheduled MDMA, known colloquially as ecstasy, and psilocybin, from magic mushrooms.
This means that under certain circumstances from July 1, authorised psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin to treat depression that has not responded to other treatments. Patients must also undergo psychotherapy (talking therapy).
The Therapeutic Goods Administration decision has left a lot of questions unanswered about how the new scheme will be implemented and operated, both effectively and safely.
There are a small number of countries where psychedelic-assisted therapies are used outside clinical trials – in a very limited manner. However, this is the first time a national government has altered the way these substances are formally classified.
So the world is watching closely how “psychedelic-assisted therapy”, as it’s officially called, is rolled out in Australia.
It’s a hot topic, with much public interest. But for researchers, there are concerns the hype is getting way ahead of the research.
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists this week released guidance to their members about how this would work in practice.
As researchers in this field, we helped develop these guidelines. They cover topics such as patients’ suitability for this therapy, and how to administer and monitor it.
The guidelines also stress the importance of patient safety and appropriate training for prescribers, and advocates for continued research.
What does this mean for patients?
This has several implications for potential patients:
their existing psychiatrist may not be authorised to prescribe these psychedelics. So patients will have to ask their psychiatrist or GP for a referral to one who is
the psychiatrist authorised to prescribe these psychedelics will need to assess whether the therapy is suitable for each individual patient. This involves a detailed and comprehensive assessment. If the treatment is suitable, several sessions of further assessment and therapy are required before the actual dosing session
patients will be informed of what to expect before, during and after treatment, and need to give consent to proceed. We also recommend psychiatrists tell patients this therapy is not guaranteed to work, and provide patients with a clear account of the risks and possible negative side effects of psychedelic medications.
Expectations are high, but clear evidence is lacking
Despite a growing body of evidence, psychedelic-assisted therapies are in their infancy.
In a time when demand for mental health services far outstrips supply, exaggerated promises about the effectiveness of these drugs, before the research results are in, has many researchers worried. Patient expectations remain high but good clear evidence is still lacking.
Australian research is just getting under way and so far most psychedelic research has been done overseas. Yes, early findings have been quite promising, but numbers are small, long-term follow-ups sparse, and potential risks and dangers still need to be explored.
Destigmatising these drugs has allowed us to begin our research, but sensationalising their effectiveness has the potential to disappoint and even harm patients because we really don’t know enough about how they work and who is suitable for this treatment.
We still don’t know who is suitable for this treatment. Shutterstock
Psychedelic-assisted therapy is no miracle cure. Espousing the benefits without a thorough examination of the risks and limitations is not only a misrepresentation of the science, it is arguably unethical.
Very few psychiatrists have had much experience in this fascinating but challenging field. We still have a lot to learn about the use of psychedelic medicines to treat psychiatric illness.
Undue haste in translating psychedelic-assisted therapy conducted in clinical trials to community clinics could affect how well these treatments work and their safety. Outside clinical trials, patients will also need to shoulder the cost of this therapy, raising equity issues.
Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not simply “doing shrooms with your shrink”.
There is potential for psychedelic substances to cause fear, panic or cause psychological damage if given to susceptible and vulnerable people who have been inadequately screened or assessed.
So we need ongoing monitoring of outcomes, including adverse events.
We also know psychedelic substances render patients particularly vulnerable. Boundary issues and safeguards are vital considerations for patient safety, particularly when patients are under the influence of the psychedelic drug. For instance, it is important to discuss and agree with patients beforehand about the nature and timing of any touch during treatment sessions, so any touch is appropriate and done with full informed consent.
An exciting prospect
Despite the potential harms, we remain excited at the prospect of psychedelic-assisted therapy becoming an established treatment to help a select group of patients.
But we want to do this in a safe, controlled and sustainable manner.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Nigel Strauss is a psychiatrist and senior consultant with St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, an investigator on several psychedelic clinical trials, is on the scientific advisory board of the European Mind Foundation, and is the medical director of the Millswyn Clinic in Melbourne, a private psychiatric clinic. He has made his own philanthropic donation to Monash University for a trial of MDMA assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. The trials he’s involved in have not personally received any funding.
Colleen Loo receives research grant funding from the Australian NHMRC and MRFF.
David Jonathan Castle has received grant monies for research from Servier, Boehringer Ingelheim; travel support and honoraria for talks and consultancy from Servier, Seqirus, Lundbeck, Mindcafe, Psychscene, Inside Practice. He is a founder of the Optimal Health Program (OHP) and holds 50% of the IP for OHP; and is part owner (5%) of Clarity Healthcare. He is an unpaid Chair of an Advisory Board of Psychae, an Australian not-for-profit institute specialising in psychedelic medicines research. He is a member of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Working Group. He does not knowingly have stocks or shares in any pharmaceutical company.
Steve Kisely was the first author of the report commissioned by the Therapeutic Goods Administration on the possible clinical benefits of MDMA and psilocybin.
When an anti-corruption agency issues a 688-page report with findings a former premier engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” and breached the public’s trust, it puts all public officials on notice.
In an extraordinary report released today, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) found former New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian had taken steps to award government grants in a “desire on her part to maintain or advance” her relationship with former state MP Daryl Maguire.
The commission also faulted her for not disclosing her relationship with Maguire and for failing to report any suspicions she had about Maguire’s activities to the ICAC, calling this “grave misconduct”.
Compared with most of the world, Australia is not a highly corrupt country. Yet, its ranking on the global Corruption Perceptions Index slipped significantly between 2012 and 2021, before stabilising this year.
The ICAC report on Berejiklian’s conduct will further diminish Australia’s standing, but does it mean we necessarily have more corruption?
We always need to distinguish between situations in which corruption is the norm – such as in Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria who are at the bottom of the Corruption Perceptions Index – or the exception, as in Australia.
In countries like Australia, citizens can go about their daily lives without the fear of being shaken down by a public official or being asked for a bribe to receive a public service, as they are in countries at the bottom of the standings.
However, in countries like ours, there is much more fury when corruption is uncovered because, above all, it is a betrayal of trust. We trust our politicians and public servants to act in the public interest, and when it is found they have not, we are rightfully outraged.
As cases like this demonstrate, corruption in richer countries often involves conflicts of interest, the misuse of information and the purchase of government access. This is why investigatory bodies like the ICAC are so vital to maintaining government integrity.
On the federal level, the government has finally established a National Anti-Corruption Commission, which commences operation on July 1.
This came into being after a long discussion about whether we really needed such an agency. When the allegations against Berejiklian first came to light, then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison disparaged the idea of an anti-corruption body, likening it to a “kangaroo court”.
He also accused the ICAC in NSW of making “shameful attacks” on Berejiklian and tarnishing the reputation of public figures.
However, the whole point of anti-corruption agencies is they ensure the integrity of our public system is not compromised. This work does take time and careful consideration.
Anti-corruption agencies bark, but they do not bite. If they make findings of corrupt conduct, they leave prosecution to the discretion of the director of public prosecutions. If there are findings of misconduct or maladministration, it is up to government departments and public service commissioners to address them.
Not only do we now have a National Anti-Corruption Commission, but at the top of the Australian public service, there is now a huge focus on integrity and better behaviour and better processes.
This is no longer politics as usual
Most politicians and public servants in Australia operate with great integrity, but we have had significant shocks to our system in recent years.
The list includes the Robodebt fiasco, the sports and car park rorts scandals, an Australian National Audit Office report on community health centre funding breaches and allegations of a plan to funnel kickbacks to a minister for steering contracts to a favoured company.
Then, of course, there is the ongoing PwC saga, where allegations of conflicts of interest have been raised, alongside a confidentiality breach.
This catalogue of alleged activities stains our public sector (though PwC did not involve public officials) and must be investigated. They raise questions not just of behaviour, but go to the root of what is the public interest.
In the case of the former NSW premier, it seems a personal relationship ended up compromising her judgement. In the other cases, there was political advantage to be gained by breaching standards and acting inappropriately. Generally speaking, these are not things that make politicians or public servants rich. But it may make some of their mates rich.
The response from politicians typically has been “that’s politics” or “if you don’t like it, vote me out at the next election”.
These are not adequate responses to integrity breaches. We have started on an integrity-building process in the Australian public service and around the country. More action needs to be taken on areas like pork-barrelling (about which the NSW ICAC has written an extensive separate report) and election funding.
These findings by the NSW ICAC signal that holding public office is a matter of great trust, with standards that are expected are high. Excuses do not wash anymore.
A recent survey suggests that 58% of workers in New Zealand are exposed to at least one cancer-causing agent at work. Almost one in three are exposed at a high level, at or above the standards set by WorkSafe New Zealand, and almost one in four are exposed to five or more carcinogens at any level.
The New Zealand Carcinogens Survey (NZCS), commissioned by WorkSafe New Zealand, was the first to examine the prevalence of occupational carcinogens in the working population.
It identified the ten most common cancer-causing substances and exposures across all industries as benzene (30%), solar UV (27%), UV exposure to the eye (26%), diesel engine exhaust (24%), second-hand tobacco smoke (15%), styrene (12%), crystalline silica (10%), shift work (9%), wood dust (8%) and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (8%).
The main tasks associated with benzene exposure are fuelling vehicles and equipment with petrol, using petrol or other solvents to clean hands and using solvent-based paints. The industries with the highest exposure to at least one carcinogen are mining, electricity and gas, water and waste services, construction, transport, postal and warehousing, and primary industries (agriculture, forestry, fishing).
Workers in primary industries are exposed to the highest number of carcinogens at any level. Specific occupations with the highest exposures include construction workers, farmers and emergency responders.
The distribution of carcinogen exposure differs by gender and ethnicity. Māori and Pacific workers and men are the most likely to be exposed to at least one carcinogen.
Workers in primary industries such as forestry are exposed to the highest number of carcinogens. Shutterstock/Lakeview Images
Work-related exposures
Work-related disease is estimated to account for 750-900 deaths a year in New Zealand. Cancer contributes to about half of these deaths and at least a third of work-related hospitalisations. These figures are largely based on overseas estimates applied to Aotearoa New Zealand health data.
Establishing the number of workplace injuries is relatively straightforward but investigation of work-related cancers is much more difficult because:
there is often a long latency period between work exposure and the onset of disease
it is difficult to attribute a particular cancer to a specific exposure
very few cancers are the result of a single occupational exposure (asbestosis in asbestos-exposed workers is an exception)
hazardous exposures often cluster in work environments
lifestyle factors (e.g. smoking) also contribute to cancer risk.
Therefore, understanding the prevalence, frequency and distribution of exposure to work-related carcinogens is crucial.
How do we know which workplace exposures contribute to cancer risk?
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) regularly undertakes expert reviews of the relevant scientific literature to identify cancer-causing substances and practices. They classify exposures on the basis of the quality of evidence as:
Group 1: sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans
Group 2A: probably carcinogenic to humans
Group 2B: possibly carcinogenic to humans
Group 3: not classifiable.
Until the NZCS report, New Zealand-specific data on work exposures to carcinogens have been lacking.
The survey did not measure exposure directly. It used a web-based exposure-assessment programme to estimate the likelihood of exposures and probable level based on questions to workers about substances, jobs and specific tasks.
Māori and Pasifika are under-represented in the survey compared to their population numbers. It seems likely the sample does not reflect the occupational distribution of Māori and therefore we must be cautious when extrapolating to the wider population for these groups.
What is to be done?
There are some limitations to the NZCS report. This means we cannot easily generalise its findings to the wider working population. However, it is important to concentrate on the unmistakable evidence that a large number of people are exposed to high levels of workplace carcinogens.
The NZCS is an important step in improving data collection. But data alone are not sufficient; they need to inform action. There are too many examples of Aotearoa being slower than other countries to act when sufficient evidence exists.
New Zealand was the last country in the world to halt the production of the toxic dioxin-contaminated herbicide 2,4,5-T, in 1987. As late as 1986, it was still being declared harmless.
New Zealand was slow to ban imports of asbestos-containing products. Shutterstock/ChameleonsEye
Protective efforts should start with the most common carcinogens and high-risk industries and occupations. Others have recommended an integrated system for exposure surveillance in the past.
Ideally, this would be combined with surveillance of health outcomes and actual exposure measurements. These recommendations are not new; indeed, they have been ignored for decades.
The NZCS report reinforces findings from previous studies that occupational exposures are not distributed equally across men and women and Māori and non-Māori. It is increasingly clear that high-exposure work is more commonly done by Māori.
Kia manawaroa (a call to action) is key to improving prevention and protection. As an immediate step, we suggest the Māori Health Authority Te Aka Whai Ora is brought into the conversation about Māori-led solutions to reducing risk.
A lack of dedicated health services for occupational health hampers progress in addressing work-related diseases in New Zealand. We strongly recommend setting up an occupational health service to improve access to screening and healthcare for those at high risk of exposure over their whole lifetime, not just while they are in employment.
We acknowledge the contribution of Jim McLeod, an independent occupational health physician who was employed by WorkSafe New Zealand and was involved in discussions about the NZCS. An earlier commentary was published by the Public Health Communication Centre.
Prof. John D. Potter is Professor, Research Centre for Hauora & Health, Massey University, Wellington; Professor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle; Professor Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle; and was formerly US Representative (2001-06) to, and Chair (2005-06) of, the Science Council, International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Lyon, France.
Dr. Amanda Eng is a Senior Research Officer at the Research Centre for Hauora & Health at Massey University who also works on research contracts funded by WorkSafe. Dr Eng was involved in an initial discussion about the questionnaire content of the NZCS.
The yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) ranks among the world’s 100 worst animal pests because of its impacts on agriculture and biodiversity. The red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) poses similar threats, and is also one of the world’s most dangerous ants. Its intensely painful stings, which give the ant its name, can kill people.
The prospects of total eradication of these ants in Australia are poor. Both species are highly adaptable and colonies need to be detected and eradicated early to contain them. Eradication efforts face other several challenges, including:
The origin of yellow crazy ants is disputed but is likely in South-East Asia or Africa. Workers are yellowish orange, medium-sized (around 4-5mm) and have long legs and antennae. They run rapidly in a seemingly random fashion, hence their name.
Workers and queens have a small funnel on their gasters (the bulbous end of their bodies) from which they can spray formic acid. It can burn human skin and is lethal for other ants and many native arthropods. Small animals such as lizards and bird chicks are at risk of being blinded or eaten.
These ants have spread to much of South-East Asia, parts of central America and the United States. They can be found indoors in the United Kingdom and a handful of European nations.
Since reaching the Australian territory of Christmas Island, yellow crazy ants have devastated the native wildlife. They killed up to 20 million of the famous red land crabs, causing major changes in the rainforest.
On the mainland, this species has reached the Northern Territory and Queensland, where it is most entrenched, having been discovered in Cairns in 2001. As well as spreading to Hervey Bay, Townsville and other coastal sites, the ant is now in Brisbane.
Brisbane City launched an eradication plan in 2022. Control measures include baiting using a fishmeal-based ant attractant combined with an insecticide. However, recently reported infestations in the Whitsundays and elsewhere suggest eradication will be difficult.
Northern Territory authorities have had more success. Some 26 locations covering nearly 300 hectares of Indigenous land have been freed of the pest.
The prospects of total eradication of yellow crazy ants in Australia are not promising. Like other serious ant pests, this species can form “super-colonies” with multiple queens, eats a wide variety of foods and readily colonises both exotic and native environments.
Such species are often only eradicated if their presence is detected before they become established. For eradication programs to succeed, local councils need landholders’ full support, plus adequate federal and state funding. Late last year the federal government provided another A$24.8 million, so there is some hope.
The red imported fire ant differs from the yellow crazy ant in having two waist segments (instead of one) and a powerful sting. The workers also come in different sizes, around 2.5mm and 6mm. They are reddish or yellowish with a darker gaster.
The fire ants are less distinctive than the crazy ants. They look like some small native ants in the genera Monomorium and Chelaner. However, their antennae have two segments, while these native ants have three segments.
Another introduced Solenopsis species, S. geminata, looks even more similar. They are distinguished by the teeth on the mandible, or jaws: the red imported fire ant has four teeth and the other species has three. The nest mound of S. invicta is distinctive without any obvious nest entrance.
Native to South America, red imported fire ants have spread to the southern US, the South American tropics, the Caribbean, China and some Pacific Islands. Indoor infestations have been reported in Finland and Canada.
In Australia this species has become established in south-east Queensland. Small incursions have been eradicated in Port Botany, New South Wales, and, more recently, Fremantle, Western Australia.
In the US, fire ant stings have caused scores of human deaths due to anaphylaxis, or allergic shock. The stings cause small pustules on the skin, which can lead to infection or tissue death.
Fire ant stings also kill or injure domestic animals and livestock, and can cause serious economic loss. Like the yellow crazy ant, this species will protect disease-carrying plant bugs that produce honeydew. The ants will attack anything that threatens their food source and so help the bug population grow.
The ants also damage many crops themselves and destroy honey bees in their hives. They may nest in electrical utility boxes, causing outages.
Spreading corn bait laced with insecticide is the main means of control. Insecticide or steam can also be injected into nests.
Unfortunately, red imported fire ants were only identified in Brisbane in 2001, some years after the estimated date of the first arrivals. These ants likely came from the US. Despite successful eradications at sites including the Port of Brisbane and a separate incursion in central Queensland, the Brisbane outbreak has not been controlled.
The prognosis for controlling this pest is grim. It has super-colonies like the crazy ant and is equally adaptable in terms of food, nest sites and multiple queens (in some, but not all colonies). On top of that, identification and detection are more difficult.
Brian Heterick ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
This week, a new report revealed First Nations people, as well as people of African or Middle Eastern appearance, were disproportionately targeted by police in issuing COVID-19 fines.
Despite the Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton acknowledging structural racism when appearing before the Yoorrook Justice Commission in Victoria, Victoria Police have denied racial profiling in response to this report.
The Yoorrook Justice Commission, established in May 2021, is Victoria’s (and Australia’s) first truth-telling commission into past and ongoing injustices experienced by First Peoples in Victoria. The Commission will run until 2025 and is due to release an interim report in August 2023.
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, where I work as a police accountability lawyer, provided evidence to the commission of our clients’ daily experiences of police racism and violence, and the lack of accountability for this.
When appearing before the commission, Commissioner Shane Patton apologised to First Peoples for past and ongoing trauma caused by police and accepted there was a lack of accountability for misconduct. Police Minister Anthony Carbines accepted the current police accountability system was “not fit for purpose”.
Currently, in Victoria, police investigate over 99% of complaints about police misconduct, and most complaints are “not substantiated” by investigators. This lack of accountability has affected community trust in Victoria Police.
This is why our submission, and many others, outlined the need for an independent, robust and culturally appropriate police complaints body, instead of relying on police investigating police.
The commission heard evidence from many First Nations peoples of their experiences of police misconduct. Aboriginal man Eathan Cruse spoke of brutal police raids on his family’s home, despite not being charged with an offence. Gunditjmara woman Aunty Doreen Lovett spoke of her teenage son being assaulted by police after being arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.
First Nations people in Victoria are more likely than non-Indigenous people to be arrested by police, and report higher rates of police assault.
Police are also more likely to arrest and detain First Nations children. I have represented Aboriginal children who have been violently arrested, including being placed in choke-holds, and injured to the point of hospitalisation.
In May this year, an audit by the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission found predatory behaviour exists within Victoria Police. This included predatory behaviour against Indigenous and non-Indigenous women experiencing domestic violence. Several women have also come forward to expose police misusing police databases to stalk and harass them.
When Aboriginal women do call for help, their calls are often ignored or they may even be arrested instead of supported.
Deaths in police custody and at the hands of police, such as those of Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, Walpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker, and 95-year-old Clare Nowland, are reminders of the power held by police over our lives.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission is the only body outside of police that can investigate police complaints in Victoria. But it only investigates less than 1% of these, with the rest investigated by police themselves.
In most cases police find no wrongdoing by their colleagues, with the substantiation rate of complaints against police in Victoria being somewhere between 2% and 9%.
Aunty Doreen Lovett told Yoorrook that her family withdrew the police complaint about her son’s assault after finding out it was being investigated by officers from the same station as his abuser.
Eathan Cruse told Yoorrook that despite receiving compensation in court for the abuse he suffered, police maintained “officers had not acted unlawfully”.
Experiences like this are common. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission found high rates of bias and conflicts of interest where police investigate complaints made by Aboriginal people. It also found that police did not substantiate any complaints about uses of force against Aboriginal people.
Information from lawsuits such as Eathan’s are not recorded on police personnel files nor considered in promotions. This can lead to the situation where officers who are the subject of legal proceedings for misconduct are promoted instead of disciplined.
Independent and culturally appropriate police accountability
Those who have suffered from Victoria’s lack of police accountability, including Aunty Doreen Lovett and Eathan Cruse, and a coalition of community groups, have called for the establishment of a fully independent body to investigate police complaints.
It’s important this body is victim-centred. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission and Victoria Police do not prioritise and support the needs of complainants or protect them from police retribution. Many of my clients at the Victorian Aboriginal Service are never even informed about the outcome of their complaint.
This body must be responsive to the needs of Aboriginal complainants. This includes adequate investigations into individual and systemic racism.
It also needs to achieve timely outcomes. In the current system, extreme delays can mean that by the time a complaint is resolved the time limit for bringing criminal charges against police has expired.
To be effective, this body needs powers to compel evidence and to discipline officers and refer them for criminal prosecution. At present, the Anti-corruption Commission is often limited to making recommendations, which police are not bound to implement.
Finally, this body should be able to monitor systemic issues such as racism, as well as collect data on police powers, such as how often they are using force.
In a letter to Yoorrook, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews lauded truth-telling as an “opportunity to heal, and to change”. One change needed is the end of police investigating police.
Sarah Schwartz is the Principal Lawyer of the Wirraway Police and Prison Accountability Practice at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) and contributed to VALS’ submission to the Yoorrook Justice Commission.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daniel Reardon, Postdoctoral researcher in pulsar timing and gravitational waves, Swinburne University of Technology
OzGrav / Swinburne / Carl Knox
When black holes and other enormously massive, dense objects whirl around one another, they send out ripples in space and time called gravitational waves. These waves are one of the few ways we have to study the enigmatic cosmic giants that create them.
Astronomers have observed the high-frequency “chirps” of colliding black holes, but the ultra-low-frequency rumble of supermassive black holes orbiting one another has proven harder to detect. For decades, we have been observing pulsars, a type of star that pulses like a lighthouse, in search of the faint rippling of these waves.
In 1915, German-born physicist Albert Einstein presented a breakthrough insight into the nature of gravity: the general theory of relativity.
The theory describes the Universe as a four-dimensional “fabric” called spacetime that can stretch, squeeze, bend and twist. Massive objects distort this fabric to give rise to gravity.
A curious consequence of the theory is that the motion of massive objects should produce ripples in this fabric, called gravitational waves, which spread at the speed of light.
It takes an enormous amount of energy to create the tiniest of these ripples. For this reason, Einstein was convinced gravitational waves would never be directly observed.
A century later, researchers from the LIGO and Virgo collaborations witnessed the collision of two black holes, which sent a burst of gravitational waves chirping throughout the Universe.
Now, seven years after this discovery, radio astronomers from Australia, China, Europe, India, and North America have found evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves.
A slow rumbling of gravitational waves
Unlike the sudden burst of gravitational waves reported in 2016, these ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves take years or even decades to oscillate.
They are expected to be produced by pairs of supermassive black holes, orbiting at the cores of distant galaxies throughout the Universe. To find these gravitational waves, scientists would need to construct a detector the size of a galaxy.
As gravitational waves warp spacetime around Earth, they distort the arrival times of radio waves from distant pulsars. OzGrav / Swinburne / Carl Knox
Or we can use pulsars, which are already spread across the galaxy, and whose pulses arrive at our telescopes with the regularity of precise clocks.
CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, Murriyang, has been observing an array of these pulsars for almost two decades. Our Parkes Pulsar Timing Array team is one of several collaborations around the world that have today announced hints of gravitational waves in their latest data sets.
Other collaborations in China (CPTA), Europe and India (EPTA and InPTA), and North America (NANOGrav) see similar signals.
The signal we are searching for is a random “ocean” of gravitational waves produced by all the pairs of supermassive black holes in the Universe.
Observing these waves is not only another triumph of Einstein’s theory, but has important consequences for our understanding of the history of galaxies in the Universe. Supermassive black holes are the engines at the heart of galaxies that feed on gas and regulate star formation.
The signal appears as a low-frequency rumble, common to all pulsars in the array. As the gravitational waves wash over Earth, they affect the apparent rotation rates of the pulsars.
The stretching and squeezing of our galaxy by these waves ultimately changes the distances to the pulsars by just tens of metres. That’s not much when the pulsars are typically about 1,000 light-years away (that’s about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres).
Remarkably, we can observe these shifts in spacetime as nanosecond delays to the pulses, which radio astronomers can track with relative ease because pulsars are such stable natural clocks.
What has been announced?
Because the ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves take years to oscillate, the signal is expected to emerge slowly.
First, radio astronomers observed a common rumble in the pulsars, but its origin was unknown.
Now, the unique fingerprint of gravitational waves is beginning to appear as an attribute of this signal, observed by each of the pulsar timing array collaborations around the world.
This fingerprint describes a particular relationship between the similarity of pulse delays and the separation angle between pulsar pairs on the sky.
The relationship arises because spacetime at Earth is stretched, changing the distances to pulsars in a way that depends on their direction. Pulsars close together in the sky show a more similar signal than pulsars separated at right angles, for example.
CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope, Murriyang. CSIRO / A. Cherney
The breakthrough has been enabled by improved technology at our observatories. The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array has the longest high-quality data set, thanks to the advanced receiver and signal processing technology installed on Murriyang. This technology has enabled the telescope to discover many of the best pulsars used by collaborations around the globe for the gravitational wave searches.
Now, we seem to be seeing the signal with relative clarity. By segmenting our long data set into shorter “time-slices”, we show the signal appears to be growing with time. The underlying cause of this observation is unknown, but it may be that the gravitational waves are behaving unexpectedly.
The new evidence for ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves is exciting for astronomers. To confirm these signatures, the global collaborations will need to combine their data sets, which increases their sensitivity to gravitational waves many-fold.
Efforts to produce this combined data set are now in progress under the International Pulsar Timing Array project, whose members met in Port Douglas in Far North Queensland last week. Future observatories, like the Square Kilometre Array under construction in Australia and South Africa, will turn these studies into a rich source of knowledge about the history of our Universe.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Fifty years ago 242 men left New Zealand on a mission to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.
The crew of HMNZS Otago, and later the frigate Canterbury, were sent there to protest against French nuclear testing.
Little did they know that the fallout from the mission would continue decades later, with health problems and worries about the effects on their children and future generations.
Prime Minister Norman Kirk farewelled the Otago on 28 June 1973.
Cabinet Minister Fraser Colman has his daily tot of rum aboard the HMNZS Otago. Tony Cox is standing next to him, on the left. Image: RNZ News
Twenty-year-old sailor Tony Cox was on board.
“I was standing on the deck along with a lot of other guys, and Norman Kirk was with the skipper, talking to various members of the crew.
“He said to me, ‘Don’t worry about anything, son. Nothing’s going to happen, but if it does, we will look after you’.”
Witnessed atmospheric test
A month later the Otago witnessed an atmospheric test just over 20 miles away.
The crew initially sheltered below deck.
“As soon as the flash had gone they said we could go up and have a look, so [we went] up the ladder and opened the door and out we went,” Cox said.
“It was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t like the movies. It was almost a straight line to start with, then it started to form into a mushroom. It had a pinky, grey colour to it.”
Fellow Otago crewman Ant Kennedy turned 20 at Moruroa.
“I got married at Honolulu. I didn’t know I was going to be married then. We were on the way to southeast Asia to be part of New Zealand’s deployment there.
“Then we were called back and it was jokingly called Norm’s Mystery Tour.”
Labour government opposed
France started nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1960s and Kirk’s Labour government was staunchly opposed.
Cabinet Minister Fraser Colman travelled there on the Otago, and transferred to the HMNZS Canterbury when it took over protest duties.
Gavin Smith says the crews of the Otago and Canterbury drank and washed in contaminated seawater. Image: Jimmy Ellingham/RNZ
Aboard the Canterbury, Gavin Smith also witnessed a test.
“We were inside a gas-tight citadel for the explosion. We never thought about the consequences of it until much later, and then people started dying and getting crook.
“We realised that the seawater around there was contaminated. The seawater was used on board for washing vegetables. We washed in it, bathed in it.”
The water was desalinated, but that didn’t remove radiation, as Cox recalls.
“The water around us was contaminated. We didn’t know that,” he said.
‘No fish, no seabirds’
“There were no fish there, so that was a waste of time. There were no sea birds anywhere. They were well dead, gone. It was totally different to all the different oceans I’ve been through over the years.”
Kennedy said his health was okay, but he knew he was one of the lucky ones.
He remembers one fellow sailor needing surgery.
“He had this bad cancerous stuff on his face. And a guy called Cloggs. He was a signalman on Canterbury. He was at one of our reunions, and basically he came to that and that was that.
“He was younger than me.
“I thought, holy hell. This seems to be a bit out of the ordinary. You’d expect fit, young sailors to live into their 80s.”
About 20 years ago Cox’s oncologist told him he had a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Excessive doses of radiation
“[He said], ‘The only time you get this type of cancer is from excessive doses of radiation. Where would you have got that from?’
“I said, ‘I did go to a nuclear bomb test,’ and he said, ‘That’ll do it’.”
Crew from on board the Otago caught up for a reunion in 2003. Image: RNZ
Veterans’ costs are covered for sickness arising from service.
But as Smith, the president of the Moruroa Nuclear Veterans group, said, there was concern about subsequent generations.
The group, formed in 2013, is active in trying to get recognition for possible effects on their families.
“Our children and grandchildren have oddball illnesses and we would like to know if that was a result of our service at Moruroa,” Smith said.
“Are we passing on bad genes or are we not?
Asking for DNA testing
“All we ask is for DNA testing to be done and when science can prove that fact one way or another we have an answer.
“If science does prove we have passed on bad genes we would simply like our children and grandchildren and the next generations to be looked after if they have an illness that’s related to our service.”
So far, that has not happened, despite regular lobbying of officials and ministers.
For Donna Weir, whose father Allan Hamilton was aboard the Canterbury, that concern was real.
Hamilton died in 2021 from aggressive cancer.
“I have had fertility problems, multiple miscarriages and things like that. We have kids who have problems that nobody can explain, if that makes sense.”
That included stomach and vision problems.
So much trouble
Weir said one older sister, who was conceived before 1973, had no such trouble.
The nuclear test veterans deserved greater recognition for their service, she said.
“They’re some of New Zealand’s most forgotten heroes, I think.
“I asked Dad if he knew then what we now know, would you have gone. His answer was quite simply, ‘I signed up to serve my country and that’s what I did.’”
Opioids are the one of the most prescribed pain-relief for people with low back and neck pain. In Australia, around 40% of people with low back and neck pain who present to their GP and 70% of people with low back pain who visit a hospital emergency department are prescribed opioids such as oxycodone.
But our new study, published today in the Lancet medical journal, found opioids do not relieve “acute” low back or neck pain (lasting up to 12 weeks) and can result in worse pain.
Prescribing opioids for low back and neck pain can also cause harms ranging from common side effects – such as nausea, constipation and dizziness – to misuse, dependency, poisoning and death.
Our findings show opioids should not be recommended for acute low back pain or neck pain. A change in prescribing for low back pain and neck pain is urgently needed in Australia and globally to reduce opioid-related harms.
In our trial, we randomly allocated 347 people with acute low back pain and neck pain to take either an opioid (oxycodone plus naloxone) or placebo (a tablet that looked the same but had no active ingredients).
Oxycodone is an opioid pain medicine which can be given orally. Naloxone, an opioid-reversal drug, reduces the severity of constipation while not disrupting the pain relieving effects of oxycodone.
Participants took the opioid or placebo for a maximum of six weeks.
People in the both groups also received education and advice from their treating doctor. This could be, for example, advice on returning to their normal activities and avoiding bed rest.
We assessed their outcomes over a one-year period.
What did we find?
After six weeks of treatment, taking opioids did not result in better pain relief compared to the placebo.
Nor were there benefits to other outcomes such as physical function, quality of life, recovery time or work absenteeism.
More people in the group treated with opioids experienced nausea, constipation and dizziness than in the placebo group.
Results at one year highlight the potential long-term harm of opioids even with short-term use. Compared to the placebo group, people in the opioid group experienced slightly worse pain, and reported a higher risk of opioid misuse (problems with their thinking, mood or behaviour, or using opioids differently from how the medicines were prescribed).
More people in the opioid group reported pain at one year: 66 people compared to 50 in the placebo group.
In recent years, international low back pain guidelines have shifted the focus of treatment from drug to non-drug treatment due to evidence of limited treatment benefits and concern of medication-related harm.
For acute low back pain, guidelines recommend patient education and advice, and if required, anti-inflammatory pain medicines such as ibuprofen. Opioids are recommended only when other treatments haven’t worked or aren’t appropriate.
Guidelines for neck pain similarly discourage the use of opioids.
Guidelines discourage opioids for neck and low back pain. Shutterstock
Our latest research clearly demonstrates the benefits of opioids do not outweigh possible harms in people with acute low back pain and neck pain.
Instead of advising opioid use for these conditions in selected circumstances, opioids should be discouraged without qualification.
Change is possible
Complex problems such as opioid use need smart solutions, and another study we recently conducted provides convincing data opioid prescribing can be successfully reduced.
The study involved four hospital emergency departments, 269 clinicians and 4,625 patients with low back pain. The intervention comprised of:
Key to this successful approach is that we worked with clinicians to develop suitable pain-management treatments without opioids that were feasible in their setting.
More work is needed to evaluate this and other interventions aimed at reducing opioid prescribing in other settings including GP clinics.
A nuanced approach is often necessary to avoid causing unintended consequences in reducing opioid use.
If people with low back pain or neck pain are using opioids, especially at higher doses over an extended period of time, it’s important they seek advice from their doctor or pharmacist before stopping these medicines to avoid unwanted effects when the medicines are abruptly stopped.
Our research provides compelling evidence opioids have a limited role in the management of acute low back and neck pain. The challenge is getting this new information to clinicians and the general public, and to implement this evidence into practice.
Christine Lin receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. She is affiliated with the Australia and New Zealand Musculoskeletal (ANZMUSC) Clinical Trials Network and the Australia and New Zealand Low Back Pain (ANZBACK) Centre of Research Excellence. She is a registered physiotherapist and serves on the editorial board of Journal of Physiotherapy and British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Andrew McLachlan receives research funding from the NHMRC and the Sydney Pharmacy School receives research scholarship funding from GSK for a PhD student under his supervision. Andrew has served as a paid consultant on Australian government committees related to medicines regulation.
Christopher Maher received funding for the OPAL trial from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council; University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health; and SafeWork SA.
Caitlin Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The search for planets outside our Solar System – exoplanets – is one of the most rapidly growing fields in astronomy. Over the past few decades, more than 5,000 exoplanets have been detected and astronomers now estimate that on average there is at least one planet per star in our galaxy.
Many current research efforts aim at detecting Earth-like planets suitable for life. These endeavours focus on so-called “main sequence” stars like our Sun – stars which are powered by fusing hydrogen atoms into helium in their cores, and remain stable for billions of years. More than 90% of all known exoplanets so far have been detected around main-sequence stars.
As part of an international team of astronomers, we studied a star that looks much like our Sun will in billions of years’ time, and found it has a planet which by all rights it should have devoured. In research published today in Nature, we lay out the puzzle of this planet’s existence – and propose some possible solutions.
A glimpse into our future: red giant stars
Just like humans, stars undergo changes as they age. Once a star has used up all its hydrogen in the core, the core of the star shrinks and the outer envelope expands as the star cools.
In this “red giant” phase of evolution, stars can grow to more than 100 times their original size. When this happens to our Sun, in about 5 billion years, we expect it will grow so large it will engulf Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth.
Eventually, the core becomes hot enough for the star to begin fusing helium. At this stage the star shrinks back to about 10 times its original size, and continues stable burning for tens of millions of years.
We know of hundreds of planets orbiting red giant stars. One of these is called 8 Ursae Minoris b, a planet with around the mass of Jupiter in an orbit that keeps it only about half as far from its star as Earth is from the Sun.
The planet was discovered in 2015 by a team of Korean astronomers using the “Doppler wobble” technique, which measures the gravitational pull of the planet on the star. In 2019, the International Astronomical Union dubbed the star Baekdu and the planet Halla, after the tallest mountains on the Korean peninsula.
A planet that should not be there
Analysis of new data about Baekdu collected by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) space telescope has yielded a surprising discovery. Unlike other red giants we have found hosting exoplanets on close-in orbits, Baekdu has already started fusing helium in its core.
Using the techniques of asteroseismology, which studies waves inside stars, we can determine what material a star is burning. For Baekdu, the frequencies of the waves unambiguously showed it has commenced burning helium in its core.
Sound waves inside a star can be used to determine whether it is burning helium. Gabriel Perez Diaz / Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
The discovery was puzzling: if Baekdu is burning helium, it should have been much bigger in the past – so big it should have engulfed the planet Halla. How is it possible Halla survived?
As is often the case in scientific research, the first course of action was to rule out the most trivial explanation: that Halla never really existed.
However, follow-up observations ruled out such a false-positive scenario for Halla. The Doppler signal from Baekdu has remained stable over the last 13 years, and close study of other indicators showed no other possible explanation for the signal. Halla is real – which returns us to the question of how it survived engulfment.
Two stars become one: a possible survival scenario
Having confirmed the existence of the planet, we arrived at two scenarios which could explain the situation we see with Baekdu and Halla.
At least half of all stars in our galaxy did not form in isolation like our Sun, but are part of binary systems. If Baekdu once was a binary star, Halla may have never faced the danger of engulfment.
If the star Baekdu used to be a binary, there are two scenarios which can explain the survival of the planet Halla. Brooks G. Bays, Jr, SOEST/University of Hawai’i
A merger of these two stars may have prevented the expansion of either star to a size large enough to engulf planet Halla. If one star became a red giant on its own, it would have engulfed Halla – however, if it merged with a companion star it would jump straight to the helium-burning phase without getting big enough to reach the planet.
Alternatively, Halla may be a relatively newborn planet. The violent collision between the two stars may have produced a cloud of gas and dust from which the planet could have formed. In other words, the planet Halla may be a recently born “second generation” planet.
Whichever explanation is correct, the discovery of a close-in planet orbiting a helium-burning red giant star demonstrates that nature finds ways for exoplanets to appear in places where we might least expect them.
The planet Halla may have formed from debris created by the merger of two stars. W. M. Keck Observatory / Adam Makarenko
Daniel Huber receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Sloan Foundation. He is also affiliated with the University of Hawaiʻi.
At the same time as it has attracted support and understanding, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has invoked passionate debate in recent years. One hot topic is whether ADHD is being over-diagnosed.
This concern dovetails with calls from GPs to be able to help provide wider access to diagnosis and for the condition to be added to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
Public hearings for the Australian Senate’s inquiry into “consistent, timely and best practice assessment” of ADHD and support services begin today.
Reflecting on the unique features of ADHD, as well as how the idea of overdiagnosis came about, shows this misplaced concern should not distract us from helping people impacted by the condition.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition that involves a person’s ability to regulate their behaviour, attention, and/or activity levels. Worldwide, around 5% of children and 2.5% of adults meet the full diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
Importantly, just having hyperactive, impulsive and inattentive symptoms is not sufficient to qualify for a diagnosis of ADHD. To meet current diagnostic criteria, these symptoms must have a negative effect on a person’s “social, school, or work functioning”.
This makes ADHD (and other mental health conditions) different from most physical health problems like cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. You can have cancer without it affecting your family, work, or social life. Some people might have cancer but not show any symptoms and still be doing well.
But by definition, you can’t have ADHD without both showing its symptoms and feeling their impact.
Overdiagnosis is a concept first developed in cancer screening to highlight situations where “the diagnosis of disease that would never cause symptoms or death during a given patient’s lifetime”. This definition has since been employed in many other areas of medicine, as well as analyses of health systems.
When defined in this way, overdiagnosis is distinct from the concept of misdiagnosis, which is where an incorrect diagnosis has been made. Misdiagnosis is when someone is diagnosed with a condition when they do not meet diagnostic criteria.
Overdiagnosis is something we should avoid. If a condition is not going to cause a person harm, we should not waste medical resources identifying it, or use invasive procedures to treat it. But when we reflect on the fact it’s impossible to have ADHD and not experience negative effects, we can see ADHD is not a condition that can be over-diagnosed in the way a disease such as cancer can.
Of course, there are other ways we could define overdiagnosis, so that it could apply to ADHD.
One 2021 article on ADHD and overdiagnosis defined it as occurring when the “net effect of the diagnosis is unfavourable”. But the implications of this definition of overdiagnosis are difficult to unpack.
There are many reasons an ADHD diagnosis may be “unfavourable”, for some individuals. It could be a misdiagnosis. A person might not have access to any needed treatments and/or social supports. Some people experience negative side effects from ADHD treatments, or experience stigma as a result of ADHD diagnosis.
One finding sometimes quoted as evidence for overdiagnosis of ADHD is that children who are youngest in their class are the ones most likely to be diagnosed.
But when you think about ADHD as not just having certain symptoms, but as having harmful outcomes, this might be expected. Trouble staying focused during class is more likely to be harmful if you are already behind your classmates – so harms are compounded.
In contrast to over-diagnosed physical diseases, it will still be important to identify such children, to reduce the negative impact of their inattentiveness. This need not involve medications but could involve environmental interventions – including perhaps repeating a year of school.
Some concerns about ADHD overdiagnosis appear to be based on a belief ADHD should not be considered as a medical condition. From this perspective, the concerns would again be more accurately and transparently phrased in terms of misdiagnosis.
It is true some children who currently have an ADHD diagnosis might in fact be hyperactive, impulsive, or inattentive, but these traits may have neutral or positive effects on their lives. Again, this would not be an overdiagnosis, but an incorrect diagnosis.
Even in the United States where rates of ADHD diagnosis exceed 5%, they still fall short of the estimated epidemiological prevalence. That means even though there have been significant increases in the rates of diagnosis of ADHD over recent years, there are still many more children, adolescents and adults who likely meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD. They may never have had these problems recognised, do not have a diagnosis and do not get any support.
There would clearly need to be extensive training and support and also changes in the way assessments are funded. A good assessment takes time and at the moment funding preferences shorter appointments.
As things stand, we are a long way from “overdiagnosis”. In fact, we are still a long way from adequately supporting those who need it.
Christopher Gyngell via his affiliation with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute received funding from the Victorian State Government via the Operational Infrastructure Support Program. He also receives funding from the Medical Research Future Fund
David Coghill receives funding from The National Health & Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund. He consults to Takeda, Medice, Novartis & Servier. He is a board member and director of the Australian ADHD Professionals Association.
Jonathan Payne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rusty Langdon, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney
We are seeing the biggest changes in our energy and transport systems since industrialisation. By 2026, global renewable energy generation is expected to match total fossil fuel and nuclear output. Building the wind and solar farms, batteries and electricity networks we need to run our system on renewables will use a huge array of mined minerals, known as “transition minerals”.
The numbers are staggering. The International Energy Agency estimates a sixfold increase in demand for these minerals by 2040 to meet climate targets of well below 2℃ of warming. We could need 21.5 million tonnes for electric vehicles and battery storage alone.
Transitional minerals include metals such as lithium, cobalt, copper, graphite, magnesium and nickel. They also include rare earths like neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
Currently, mining provides almost our entire supply. The scale of demand for these minerals could result in almost 400 new mines by 2035.
To put this in perspective, Australia has around 350 operating mines. More than 50% of the world’s lithium and much of its copper, cobalt, nickel and rare earths come from our mines.
Australia is hosting the World Mining Congress this week. A key issue for the industry is how we can ensure the minerals needed for the energy transition are sourced responsibly.
We can design energy and transport systems to minimise mineral demand. Strategies include:
reducing our dependence on cars and using smaller vehicles
improving energy efficiency
moving to a circular economy that makes reuse and recycling a priority.
All these changes can reduce the need for new mines.
Recycling, for example, could reduce demand for mined materials. For lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, estimated reductions are 25% for lithium, 35% for cobalt and nickel, and 55% for copper by 2040.
This recycled content will mainly come from waste batteries. However, large volumes of lithium-ion batteries won’t start reaching the end of their lives for at least a decade. Recycling will only have a significant impact from 2035.
Mining is unavoidable, so we must limit its impacts
If we are destined to continue mining for the minerals needed for the energy transition, how can this be done responsibly? And what exactly do we mean by responsible sourcing?
Responsible sourcing minimises the environmental, social and governance impacts and risks of mining. Key concerns include the use of child labour and forced labour, damage to the environment, impacts on Indigenous rights and cultural heritage, and corruption.
In 2011, the Australian government released guidance on sustainable mining. Historical and recent harmful impacts highlight the need for a fresh look at mining practices. In 2020, for example, Rio Tinto destroyed a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site in Juukan Gorge.
First Nations people worldwide are calling for free, prior and informed consent when mining and renewable energy developments are proposed for their land. This approach recognises the right to be consulted early in the process, informed of the impacts, and supported to take part in negotiation and making agreements. Most importantly, it includes the right to say no.
In many parts of Australia, Indigenous communities have been locked out of economic opportunities, despite mining generating enormous wealth on their Country.
How do we do things more responsibly? We need to ensure activities comply with a range of sustainability criteria. An agreed standard will mean we have information that enables us to compare the good and bad apples.
The problem is there isn’t a common approach to measuring, managing and reporting environmental, social and governance performance. Our recent research analysed the plethora of voluntary standards and certifications available to battery materials producers. No common global or Australian standard has been adopted.
Smaller mining companies also struggle with the administrative complexities of sustainability reporting and management criteria. An agreed common language for reporting and management is needed. Only then can traceability solutions, such as the Global Battery Alliance’s blockchain-enabled “battery passport”, produce trustworthy and comparable results.
Our research identified the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) as one of the more rigorous standards. Its credibility is built on how it is governed. This involves six stakeholder groups: mining companies, purchasers, NGOs, affected communities, labour organisations and the finance sector.
There are still questions to be answered. How do practices in Australia measure up to the standard? And how can regulatory reform help to steer mining operations in the right direction?
A focus on environmental, social and governance practices in the Australian Critical Minerals Strategy, released last week, is a welcome first step.
Issues that must be front and centre include:
mining impacts on water supply
free, prior and informed consent from First Nations communities
integrated planning for climate change impacts such as extreme weather that may affect management of mine tailings
biodiversity protection
mine closure planning that integrates progressive rehabilitation of ecosystems
circular business practices to make the most of what we have.
As a leading mining nation, Australia is in a position to leverage its historical environmental leadership, show renewed responsibility and integrity, and lead by example. We can then help leave the planet in a shape that future generations will be proud to inherit.
Rusty Langdon receives funding from a range of government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this included the BSC and the FBI CRC.
Elsa Dominish receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this includes DFAT, Earthworks, WWF-Australia and UNESCAP.
School holidays become a very different challenge when kids leave primary school. The holiday program arrangements that once enabled parents to juggle work commitments may no longer be suitable or even available.
You may find your child is at home largely unattended for two or three weeks. This can put you at direct loggerheads with your child over what you both see as a productive use of their time. They may see this as a golden opportunity to establish their position as a world leader in the online video game Fortnite, or to plan a shopping spree with funds they don’t actually have.
Success lies in planning together and keeping the lines of communication open. Remember, not every day needs to be packed with activities, but it’s important for everyone to have a clear sense of structure and purpose.
As a parent, education researcher and former high school teacher, here are some suggestions for managing this time. And for encouraging responsibility, productivity, independence, wellbeing and a bond with your child.
1. Set ground rules and assign jobs
Establish clear ground rules early on and try to structure each day. Agree on three tasks to complete per day and write them down. A simple sticky note on the fridge is fine. This way, there is no room for error.
These tasks can vary from mundane household chores (like decluttering the plastic cupboard and finding those lost Tupperware lids) to more academically-focused activities. If your child has a part-time job, then this can be open to negotiation depending on the shifts they may have worked that day.
Or if you have a senior school student and there is room to improve on their school report, you could enrol your child in revision courses. Going with friends also makes this a much more palatable endeavour and lots of universities run free programs.
School holidays offer a great opportunity for your teenage child to unwind from what may have been a stressful term, recharge and rediscover their passions.
Remember when your teen was little and the fortune you spent on loom bands? Encourage them to get creative again, whether it is through painting or drawing or taking a trip down memory lane to get some craft based materials.
Also encourage your teenager to spend time outdoors, such as heading to the beach or park for a BBQ with their friends.
Many teens today are acutely aware of mental health. Encourage your child to establish a daily meditation and mindfulness routine during the holidays that can continue when term begins.
Chances are your child will want to sleep in. But watch out for the other end of the day. Research clearly shows screens just before bed mean children sleep less and their quality of sleep is poorer. So you may need to navigate boundaries about when phones get put on charge or laptops are switched off.
Research shows screens before bed are bad for young people’s sleep. John-Mark Smith/Pexels
3. Ensure they see their friends IRL
For teens in the lower years of high school, talk to other parents in similar situations and negotiate catch-ups for your kids. Creating opportunities for social interaction in real life and not just over phones or computers is vital during the holidays so students maintain healthy human interactions
Consider getting your child to arrange meetups at public locations like local sporting facilities, allowing the children to navigate their way to and from these places.
This fosters independence, builds trust among friends and promotes healthy social development.
4. Encourage physical activity
It is crucial for secondary school kids to be physically active every day.
Numerous studies reinforce the positive impact of regular physical activity on adolescent wellbeing. Research has shown exercise not only improves physical health but also contributes to mental and emotional wellbeing.
Participating in a sport they currently play, such as basketball, rowing, or tennis, can provide both physical exercise and opportunities for social interaction and skill development.
For those who may not have a preferred sport, it is important to emphasise other options for getting active. This might be a free online yoga class, a swim, a bushwalk or just a jog around the neighbourhood.
We all know the saying, “kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do”. So if your child errs more towards staying indoors, it’s a good idea to head out for a walk with them. Even if it is just a 15-minute walk around the block, it’s a small but significant way to spend time together.
Encourage your child to get outside and do something they enjoy. Cottonbro Studio/Pexels
Whenever possible, invite your child into your world. While it’s not about having a “bring your child to work” day, you can encourage them to use public transport to meet you for lunch at your workplace or somewhere else important to you.
This experience offers them insight into your daily life and helps them understand the world beyond their school environment. By sharing your experiences and providing exposure to different professional settings, you broaden their horizons and nurture their understanding of the wider world.
As a parent and educator, I understand the challenges of navigating school holidays with secondary school kids. However it is possible to transform these breaks into opportunities for growth, rest and shared experiences.
Sarah Jefferson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Desire, anticipation, frustration and disappointment – any time tickets for a Taylor Swift tour go on sale there is Bad Blood.
The release of tickets for the Australian leg of Swift’s Eras world tour has been far smoother than the debacle in the United States, which led to calls for greater regulation of the US ticketing industry. Even so, hundreds of thousands – possibly millions – of Australian “Swifties” will miss out, or resort to paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra to secure a ticket.
It’s a function of the idiosyncrasies of the concert-ticketing industry, amplified by the cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift.
More than 1 million people reportedly registered for a presale code within 12 hours of the Australian concert dates being announced. When tickets went on sale on Wednesday morning, more than 4 million users reportedly queued.
But no more than 450,000 tickets are available for Taylor’s five Australian shows (three at Sydney’s Accor Stadium and two at the Melbourne Cricket Ground). The maths are simple. Most people wanting tickets will miss out.
The economics of this scenario, however, are a bit more complicated.
Supply and demand
Typically when demand outstrips supply, suppliers will – in the interest of maximising profit – look to do one of two things: increase supply, or increase the price.
Compared with most other markets, however, suppliers of concerts have less capacity to respond to demand signals.
For Swift’s US tour, 17 concerts were added to the originally planned 35. But the juggernaut of her world tour, playing more than 100 shows in 18 countries, makes adding shows more logistically complex.
Taylor Swift performs in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Friday June 16, 2023. Benjamin B. Braun/AP
This is apparently the reason Brisbane missed out on a Swift concert. Though the management of Brisbane’s Lang Park stadium (capacity 52,500) reportedly held open dates, organisers considered it impractical with the Australian tour “being sandwiched” between dates in Japan and Singapore.
Even without these logistical issues, and with venues and other infrastructure being available, matching supply to demand is an inexact science, and organisers will prefer sold-out shows and to avoid the risk of a half-empty auditoriumum.
Pricing tickets
When demand outstrips supply, economics says the way to reduce demand and achieve market equilibrium is to increase the price.
Concert organisers do this to some extent by offering tickets at a range of price points.
For the vast bulk of tickets for Sydney and Melbourne, there are seven price points, ranging from A$79.90 (for “back row” seats) to A$379.90 for “A Reserve” seats in front of the stage. There are also VIP packages, ranging from $349.90 (for a ticket in a section otherwise costing A$159.90, plus merchandise) to $1,250 for the “It’s Been A Long Time Coming” package (for which you get an “A Reserve” seat plus merch).
Organisers could feasibly increase all these prices and still sell out (according to a survey US consulting firm, 45% of Swift fans are millennials and just 11% Gen Z, that is aged less than 24).
Taylor Swift’s American fan demographics
Results comes from a representative sample of 356 self-identified avid Taylor Swift fans in the US, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-5 percentage points. Figures may not add up to 100% due to rounding. Morning Consult, CC BY
Typically, however, artists are reluctant to be seen to be ripping off their fans, and their most loyal and enthusiastic fans are not necessarily the ones that can afford to pay the most for tickets.
Dynamic pricing
Ticket sellers such as Ticketmaster have also been experimenting with maximising allocative efficiency (and profits) through “dynamic pricing” – charging higher prices when demand is high. This is similar to the way the cost of airline tickets or Uber rides fluctuate according to demand.
But Ticketmaster says it only uses dynamic pricing if the artist agrees – and for good reason.
Rocker Bruce Springsteen allowed about 11% of tickets for his 2023 tour to be sold this way. Reports of “platinum seat” tickets costing as much as US$4,000 outraged fans (though Ticketmaster says the average ticket price was US$262). Fanzine Backstreets announced it would close after 43 years, citing disillusionment over the ticket prices. Publisher Christopher Phillips declared
These are concerts that we can hardly afford; that many of our readers cannot afford; and that a good portion of our readership has lost interest in as a result.
Swift’s fans may be more tolerant. She has been allowing dynamic pricing since at least 2018. But no tickets for the Australian concerts are being sold using dynamic pricing.
Enter the scalpers
With demand outstripping supply and the reticence of artists to charge as much as they possibly can, a perfect opportunity is created for reselling tickets at a higher prices.
Economists call this a “secondary market”, and see it as sign a product or service has been undersupplied or underpriced (or both). It’s more commonly called “ticket scalping” or “ticket touting”, and condemned as opportunistic and unethical.
After reports that tickets offered exclusively to American Express customers were being resold for up to A$3,000, the Victorian government declared Swift’s two Melbourne shows “major events” to trigger a law prohibiting resale at more than 110% of the resale price. (NSW has had a law applying to all tickets since 2018.)
But the rise of ticket bots, which can flood ticketing websites with millions of requests, and online markets that allow sellers to be anonymous, makes stopping scalpers increasingly difficult. (Ticketmaster blamed scalping bots for its US site crashing in November).
Ticket company efforts to combat scalping include limiting the number of tickets that can be bought at one time, and requiring customers to verify their identity when buying the ticket and attending the show. They have also set up “fan to fan” platforms for secondary sales, recognising there can be legitimate reasons to sell tickets.
Swifties who want to resell their Australian tour ticket will be able to do so using a platform provided by Ticketek – but for no more than 110% of the purchase price.
Rock band Rage Against the Machine has sought to combat scalping with its own form of dynamic pricing. This involves holding back 10% of show tickets, which are then sold at a higher price but undercutting scalpers, with the the extra profit going to “charities and/or activist organizations”. The band reckons this has reduced scalping by 85% and raised millions for charity.
US singer Maggie Rogers has gone altogether more analogue by skipping online presale and selling tickets at box offices.
But these strategies will not help overcome the iron laws of supply and demand for Taylor Swift fans. They can only hope Karma is on their side.
Paul Crosby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With dual men’s and women’s Ashes series under way, the performance of elite Test cricketers is in the spotlight. For psychologically minded researchers like us, one aspect of play is attracting particular interest: the performance of batters progressing through the famed “nervous nineties”.
Popularised by commentators, this terminology captures the idea that batters with 90 or more runs become anxious about reaching (or not reaching) a century (100 runs).
Commentators and journalists (and Wikipedia) often portray the nervous nineties as a problematic moment for batters. This anxiety, the story goes, leads to lost ability, slow run-scoring and timid play.
These ideas are intuitive – but are they correct?
In fact our new research, published today in PLOS ONE, shows batters approaching 100 runs typically increased their scoring rate (more runs per ball) and became more likely to score a boundary (a four or a six), without being any more likely to get out than at any other point between 70 and 130 runs.
100 is not an arbitrary number
While cricket is a team sport, the individual accumulation of 100 runs is universally hailed as a major batting achievement.
Notably, 99 runs is an impressive individual total; yet in cricket culture, 99 is a world away from 100.
Watching a batter reach 100 runs reveals its significance. Jubilation and relief flood out, teammates stand and applaud, and crowds respond. Even nearby opponents offer congratulations.
Scoring centuries builds a batter’s reputation, while enhancing their legacy, their chance of team selection and, let’s not forget, their team’s chances of winning.
In stark contrast, getting out just short of a century is a bitter experience.
Beyond the disappointment, being dismissed in the 90s can attract stigma of mental weakness (especially if repeated) and is widely considered “a failure to convert”.
Many people can think of a time when a desired achievement slipped through their fingers just when success seemed assured.
Humans have imperfect thought control and can experience unhelpful thoughts at inconvenient times, like pondering the consequences of failing when success is in sight.
The possibility of gaining or losing reputation is also a common source of performance anxiety.
For athletes, performance anxiety places extra demands on the ability to execute precise actions.
To counteract this, performers need to apply coping strategies to maintain performance, such as the acceptance of negative thoughts or directing their thoughts to a single focus, like the ball in cricket.
According to the mythology of the nervous nineties, these strategies could include more cautious behaviour to try to avoid getting out.
What does the data say?
In our new research, we examined data about every ball bowled in 712 men’s and women’s Test matches played between 2004 and 2022 (over 1.4 million deliveries).
In stark contrast to the colloquial phenomenon of the nervous nineties, we found batters in their 90s generally scored faster without increasing their chances of dismissal.
Importantly, accelerated scoring – that is, a progressive increase in the average runs per ball and the probability of a boundary – was uniquely large throughout the 90s when compared to the 70s, 80s and immediately after 100.
Some key examples from this year’s Ashes series bear out this finding. When Usman Khawaja brought up his century in the first men’s Ashes Test of 2023, it was with a boundary.
When Ellyse Perry was caught out on 99 runs in the women’s Test match, she was dismissed playing an aggressive shot destined for the fence – not exactly the timid play expected of the “nervous nineties” phenomenon.
In fact, Perry’s forceful batting is precisely the kind of playing our analysis predicts for those nearing a century.
And throughout the 90s, we estimated the probability of a batter getting out on any given score to be about 1.3% – much the same as throughout the 70s, 80s and just after 100.
Managing the nerves
We have come up with several explanations for the productive batting observed in the 90s.
Possibly, batters rush to escape their nervous discomfort by batting aggressively or with more urgency (such as running faster between the wickets).
The bowling team could also play a role. Bowling sides often try to limit run-scoring as batters near 100 by bringing fielders closer to the pitch, hoping to build pressure and encourage a mistake.
Ironically, a field packed tightly around the batter may offer a faster path to a century by leaving the boundary unprotected from any shot that passes through or over the infield.
While we can’t judge a batter’s emotional state from historical cricket data, we suspect many players are actually nervous when progressing from 90 to 100 runs. But we find no evidence the “nervous nineties” leads to widespread poor functioning or timid play.
International cricketers appear to typically manage any nerves and capitalise on the situation. It’s a fine example of coping among an elite population in a career-defining situation.
Daniel R. Little receives funding from ARC Discovery Project DP160102360.
Leo Roberts, Matthew J. Spittal, and Mervyn Jackson do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Our ideas about the Universe are based on a century-old simplification known as the cosmological principle. It suggests that when averaged on large scales, the Cosmos is homogeneous and matter is distributed evenly throughout.
This allows a mathematical description of space-time that simplifies the application of Einstein’s general theory of relativity to the Universe as a whole.
Our cosmological models are based on this assumption. But as new telescopes, both on Earth and in space, deliver ever more precise images, and astronomers discover massive objects such as the giant arc of quasars, this foundation is increasingly challenged.
In our recent review, we discuss how these new discoveries force us to radically re-examine our assumptions and change our understanding of the Universe.
Einstein’s legacy
Albert Einstein faced huge dilemmas 106 years ago when he first applied his equations for gravity to the Universe as a whole. No physicist had ever attempted something so bold, but it was a natural consequence of his key idea. As a 50-year-old textbook reminds us:
Matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move.
Data were almost completely lacking in 1917 and the idea that galaxies were objects at vast distances was a minority view among astronomers.
The conventional viewpoint, accepted by Einstein, was that the whole Universe looked like the inside of our galaxy. This suggested stars should be treated as pressure-less fluids, distributed randomly but with a well defined average density – the same, or homogeneous, anywhere in space.
Based on the idea that the Universe is the same everywhere, Einstein introduced his cosmological constant Λ, now known as “dark energy”.
On small scales, Einstein’s equations tell us that space never stands still. But forcing this on the Universe on a large scale was unnatural. Einstein was therefore relieved by the discovery of the expanding universe in the late 1920s. He even described Λ as his biggest blunder.
We now have amazingly detailed models of the physics of stars and galaxies embedded in the evolving Universe. We can trace the astrophysics of “stuff” from tiny seed ripples in the primordial fireball all the way to complex structures today.
Our telescopes are wonderful time machines. They look back all the way to when the first atoms formed, and the Universe first became transparent.
Beyond is the primordial plasma, opaque like the interior and surface of the Sun. The light that left the Universe’s “surface of last scattering” was very hot back then, about 2,700℃.
We receive that same light today, but cooled to minus 270℃ and diluted by the expansion of the Universe. This is the cosmic microwave background and it is remarkably uniform in all directions.
This is strong evidence the Universe was very close to spatially uniform when it was a fireball. But there is no direct evidence for such uniformity today.
A ‘lumpy’ Universe
Far back in time, our telescopes reveal small merging galaxies, growing into ever larger structures until the present day.
The expansion of the Universe has been halted entirely within the largest matter concentrations known as galaxy clusters. Where space is expanding, the clusters are stretched in filaments and sheets that thread and surround vast empty voids, all growing with time but at different rates. Rather than being smooth, matter forms a “cosmic web”.
The Universe was uniform long ago, but develops a cosmic web as structures grow. Computer models using simple geometry, as shown, will now be tested against more complex ones. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND
But the idea that the Universe is spatially homogeneous endures.
There would be a gross inconsistency between the observed cosmic web and an average curved geometry of space if all we see is all there is. Evidence for missing matter has been around since the first observations of galaxy clusters in 1933.
Our first observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and its ripples in the decade from 1965 changed that idea.
Our models of nuclear physics are wonderfully predictive. But they are only consistent with observations if the missing mass in galaxy clusters is something like neutrinos that cannot emit light. Thus we invented cold dark matter, which makes gravity stronger within galaxy clusters.
Billions have been spent trying to directly detect dark matter, but decades of such efforts have yielded no definitive detection of what makes up 80% of all matter and 20% of all the energy in the Universe today.
An anomalous sky
The cosmic microwave background radiation is not perfectly uniform. Superimposed on it are fluctuations, one of which is abnormally large and has the shape of a dipole: a yin-yang diagram covering the whole sky.
We can interpret this as an effect due to relative motion, provided we define the cosmic microwave background radiation as the rest frame of the Universe. If we didn’t do this, we would need a physical explanation for the large dipole.
Much of the puzzle boils down to a power asymmetry – a lopsided Universe. The temperatures of the hemispheres above and below the plane of the Milky Way are slightly different to expectation.
These anomalies have long been explained as a result of unaccounted physical processes in modelling microwave emissions from the Milky Way.
The European Space Agency will launch the Euclid satellite on July 1 2023 to look far and wide, answering some of the most fundamental questions about our Universe. ESA/ATG, CC BY-SA
Matter within the sky
The cosmic microwave background radiation is not the only all-sky observation to show a dipole. Last year, researchers used observations of 1.36 million distant quasars and 1.7 million radio sources to test the cosmological principle. They found that matter, too, is unevenly distributed.
Another even more widely discussed mystery is the “Hubble tension”. Conventionally, we assume that an all-sky average of the Universe’s present expansion rate gives one well defined value: the Hubble constant. But the measured value differs from expectation, given a standard expansion history based on the cosmic microwave background radiation. If we allowed for inhomogeneous cosmologies, this problem may simply disappear.
Using cosmic microwave background data from individual opposing hemispheres, a standard expansion history implies different Hubble “constants” on each side of the sky today.
If matter is much more varied and interesting than expected, then maybe the geometry is too.
Models which abandon the cosmological principle do exist and make predictions. They are simply less studied than standard cosmology. The European Space Agency’s Euclid satellite will be launched this year. Will Euclid reveal that on average space is not Euclidean? If so, then a fundamental revolution in physics might be around the corner.
David Wiltshire received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand, most recently a Catalyst Seeding Grant. With previous Marsden funding, he developed the first detailed observational tests of the non-standard timescape cosmology. These will include tests by the Euclid satellite mission.
Eoin Ó Colgáin most recently received funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea (2020-2022) to conduct research into cosmological tensions.
Jenny Wagner received funding from the German Science Foundation to investigate the biasing model-dependencies and degeneracies of strong gravitational lensing as a cosmological probe, for instance to constrain the Hubble constant.
Shahin Sheikh-Jabbari receives funding from IPM, Tehran and ICTP, Trieste, Italy, which has been used to investigate cosmological tensions and non-standard alternatives such as the dipole cosmology.
With NAIDOC week coming up, there is already a surge in expectations for extra labour from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in workplaces.
Events like NAIDOC Week see employers across the country leaning on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff. They are expected to plan and organise cultural events and experiences, which is rarely reflected in their job description or pay packet.
The Make us Count report, which we co-authored, found this is not just limited to NAIDOC Week. This report reflects on the experiences of Aboriginal women in workplaces within the Victorian public sector, and reveals this additional labour is a burden on Aboriginal women. Regardless of their employment level or role in their respective workplace, this unpaid labour is often expected of them.
One participant stated,
The value [of Aboriginal cultural knowledge] is only when I organise NAIDOC or Reconciliation Week celebrations. The worst part is that it is up to me to drive recognition of these important events and for the rest of the year, culture and I are forgotten.
Many organisations publicly state they are committed to acknowledging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, which is often outlined in their Reconciliation Action Plans or other organisational strategy documents. They rarely, however, provide resources to meet this commitment.
Australia has a long history of capitalising on Aboriginal women’s unpaid work. Bidjara and Birri Gubba Juru author and academic Dr Jackie Huggins, has written about unpaid domestic service provided by Aboriginal women and girls.
This occurred in white settler homes and on missions and reserves into the 1970s. Many who were supposed to be paid had payments withheld, misappropriated or were underpaid and are still seeking compensation.
Huggins, in her foreword for Make Us Count, writes, “workplaces are a microcosm of Australia”, meaning what happens in workplaces is a small representation of what happens everywhere. Huggins goes on to say the report reveals little has changed and Aboriginal women are still expected to perform unpaid labour.
It’s not ‘cultural load’
The Healing Foundation, an organisation dedicated to healing trauma in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, describes “cultural load” as an accumulative trauma and stress experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are navigating systemic adversity in their lives while they are also trying to succeed in their careers.
Ngadjuri and Bundjalung academic Kelly Menzel has argued workplaces often misuse the term “cultural load”. This term is often used to describe the additional unpaid work expected of people because they are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander – like organising NAIDOC week events or educating non-Indigenous staff.
Overburdening Aboriginal women with unreasonable workloads not part of their job description is not reflective of cultural responsibilities or cultural load. It is gendered and racial exploitation.
Last week, a piece by Bundjalung Mununjali NITV digital journalist and producer Bronte Charles detailed the emotional and psychological toll of additional expectations and responsibilities imposed on Indigenous staff by non-Indigenous supervisors and colleagues.
Many of the participants in the Make it Count research participants also spoke about feeling tokenised and not seen as professionals with genuine skills and expertise.
What the ‘Make us Count’ research found
We interviewed 25 Aboriginal women working in the Victorian public sector and a further ten responded to an online survey. They reported multiple forms of racism and gendered violence in their workplaces. Many expressed they were undervalued compared to non-Indigenous colleagues and Aboriginal men.
One participant stated, in terms of recruitment and promotion opportunities, that “Aboriginal women are the bottom of the pecking order”.
The Make Us Count research found managers in the Victorian public sector failed to act on reports of bullying, harassment and racism.
One participant shared,
I spoke to my manager about what was going on and he agreed that we would come together with these two particular people. Then said to me that this must be a cultural thing as opposed to it being the bullying and harassment that it was. So, they failed to act.
Some Aboriginal women who reported receiving unwanted attention or harassment from Aboriginal men were told the issue was cultural. And for some, when the offender was a non-Indigenous colleague who bullied, harassed or were racist toward them, they were only referred to “cultural safety” training.
Some participants referred to harassment from Aboriginal men as lateral violence (meaning violence from within the same group). However, in most cases these men were in higher ranking positions, making this an abuse of power.
Overworking and undervaluing Aboriginal women in the workplace is discrimination and a systematic barrier to career progression. One participant stated, “It’s taken me 17 years to get from entry level to where I am now”.
Another commented “Unless you’re always performing at 150% or more, people don’t see you”.
Aboriginal transgender women and gender diverse people, as well as Aboriginal queer women, were invited to participate in this research. However, none of the participants chose to share this information about themselves, which may be telling in its own right.
As demonstrated by the Make Us Count report and other research, there is an urgent need for workplaces to take action to address racism and misogyny.
This includes unpaid labour, precarious working conditions like recurring short-term contracts and workplace harassment and violence. Aboriginal women want to be able to enjoy their work and have productive careers without being subjected to racism, discrimination, and exploitation.
As the following woman from our survey makes clear,
I just want to be able to be in a job where I can actually do the job and then still have the capacity to give back to the community.
Madi Day received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Round 2022- Victoria State Government.
Bronwyn Carlson received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Round 2022- Victoria State Government.
Debbie Bargallie received funding from the Commission for Gender Equity in the Public Sector’s Research Grants Rounds 2022 – Victoria State Government.
It seems our perception of dental health and beauty has changed over the last 20 years or so. Social media posts, TV shows and films depict a perfect smile as being dominated by a broad pearly white teeth.
The idea of this kind of “perfect” smile was born in early Hollywood and popularised by actors including Julia Roberts. Advertisements for toothpaste or other oral health products commonly use models with wide, bright smiles, creating an aesthetic ideal.
Now some dental practitioners are beginning to self-identify as “cosmetic dentists”. And new technologies and materials allow dentists to make significant changes to the shape and colour of teeth.
But are these changes purely for looks? And what do they do to people’s natural teeth.
What are veneers?
One way of changing your smile is using dental veneers.
Veneers are coverings (usually made of porcelain) constructed in a laboratory and then bonded with adhesive to teeth.
Dental veneers can be used to change the colour and shape of teeth. They are commonly used at the front of the mouth and most often on the top teeth as this is the area of the mouth of maximum visual impact.
Veneers can be applied to lower anterior (front) teeth however, but this is technically more difficult due to these teeth’s smaller size and reduced surface area for effective bonding. Veneers can be applied to single teeth or multiple teeth.
The shape of veneers is matched to the shape of adjacent teeth. They should be in proportion to the facial profile and in harmony with the lips. Veneers are technically demanding for the dentist and technician to construct, blend and fit. The cost of each veneer can vary with the level of complexity of each case, patients should ask for a written quote before starting care.
The idea of a perfect smile has changed over time. Shutterstock
What patients should know about dental veneers is that the dentist will most often have to shave down the front portion of the tooth to make room for the veneer.
And veneers do not last forever. They may need to be replaced if they chip, discolour or come unstuck. Each time a veneer is replaced the amount of the tooth left can reduce in size, making each round of care more difficult.
Eventually veneers may not be a viable choice. Then the patient may need need to move on to more extensive treatment choices such as crowns, which are thicker and more permanent.
To help patients make informed decisions dentists have the ability to provide trial digital or handcrafted mock-ups for patients to evaluate before committing to a treatment approach. This “try before you buy” step can be invaluable to ensure the patient’s expectations are likely to be achieved after the application of veneers. If this step is missed then the veneers may not meet the patient’s aesthetic needs requiring removal and replacement.
High levels of oral hygiene by the patient are a must to maximise the quality of fit of the bonded veneers as well as longevity within the mouth.
Recently the Medical Board of Australia has issued guidelines for medical practitioners who perform cosmetic surgery, with stronger regulation due to come into effect at the start of July this year.
They include patient screening for body dysmorphia – a mental health condition characterised by excessive concern about one’s appearance or specific physical features. This is intended to ensure each patient’s assessment of their own needs can be met in a biologically safe and predictable manner by their treating clinician.
Veneers can be the right choice for some people. But before embarking on this form of irreversible care there should be an informed risk-versus-benefit discussion between the patient and clinician. If the individual patient still wants aesthetic improvement but decides they don’t want veneers, there are other treatment choices available.
Alternatives
Bleaching and orthodontics can also change the colour and position of teeth.
Bleaching (or whitening) has been a standard clinical activity since the late 1980s and is normally undertaken using customised trays and prescription of a range of bleach treatments. Ideally this is done in consultation with a dental practitioner to understand the cause of tooth discolouration. This will determine whether bleaching is the appropriate choice and if it is likely to work.
Orthodontics is the controlled movement of teeth using bonded attachments and activated orthodontic wires (braces). In recent times, dentists have been able to provide individualised clear aligners to move teeth in a controlled manner. The principle of tooth movement using incrementally modified aligners is available through many providers, but should always be carefully and regularly managed by the treating dentist or orthodontist.
A patient should understand the risks and benefits of each of these choices as they relate to their individual needs rather than a generic approach to planning.
Lots of people want a bright white smile. Shutterstock
Dentists are trained to provide lifelong care and should be keen to explain and tailor treatment choices for informed and considered patients.
Patient-centred care should drive treatment choices and advocate for the best interests of patients. As such, we must maintain a balanced approach towards the delivery of idealised look, keeping in mind the importance of teeth function for a healthy diet and wellbeing.
Roy Judge receives funding from various granting bodies supporting dental research, these include the University of Melbourne, Australian Dental Research Foundation, Australian Prosthodontic Society, Australian Osseointegration Society, Australian Society of Periodontology and the Biomedical Translation Bridge Program. Roy is an academic at the University of Melbourne, he also works in private practice as a specialist prosthodontist providing care for referred patients, including dental veneers.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Cripps, Director of Technology UTS Human Technology Institute, Professor of Mathematcis and Statistics, University of Technology Sydney
Ultimately, AI systems should help humans make better, more accurate decisions. Yet even the most impressive and flexible of today’s AI tools – such as the large language models behind the likes of ChatGPT – can have the opposite effect.
Why? They have two crucial weaknesses. They do not help decision-makers understand causation or uncertainty. And they create incentives to collect huge amounts of data and may encourage a lax attitude to privacy, legal and ethical questions and risks.
Cause, effect and confidence
ChatGPT and other “foundation models” use an approach called deep learning to trawl through enormous datasets and identify associations between factors contained in that data, such as the patterns of language or links between images and descriptions. Consequently, they are great at interpolating – that is, predicting or filling in the gaps between known values.
Interpolation is not the same as creation. It does not generate knowledge, nor the insights necessary for decision-makers operating in complex environments.
However, these approaches require huge amounts of data. As a result, they encourage organisations to assemble enormous repositories of data – or trawl through existing datasets collected for other purposes. Dealing with “big data” brings considerable risks around security, privacy, legality and ethics.
In low-stakes situations, predictions based on “what the data suggest will happen” can be incredibly useful. But when the stakes are higher, there are two more questions we need to answer.
The first is about how the world works: “what is driving this outcome?” The second is about our knowledge of the world: “how confident are we about this?”
From big data to useful information
Perhaps surprisingly, AI systems designed to infer causal relationships don’t need “big data”. Instead, they need useful information. The usefulness of the information depends on the question at hand, the decisions we face, and the value we attach to the consequences of those decisions.
To paraphrase the US statistician and writer Nate Silver, the amount of truth is approximately constant irrespective of the volume of data we collect.
So, what is the solution? The process starts with developing AI techniques that tell us what we genuinely don’t know, rather than producing variations of existing knowledge.
Why? Because this helps us identify and acquire the minimum amount of valuable information, in a sequence that will enable us to disentangle causes and effects.
A robot on the Moon
Such knowledge-building AI systems exist already.
As a simple example, consider a robot sent to the Moon to answer the question, “What does the Moon’s surface look like?”
The robot’s designers may give it a prior “belief” about what it will find, along with an indication of how much “confidence” it should have in that belief. The degree of confidence is as important as the belief, because it is a measure of what the robot doesn’t know.
The robot lands and faces a decision: which way should it go?
Since the robot’s goal is to learn as quickly as possible about the Moon’s surface, it should go in the direction that maximises its learning. This can be measured by which new knowledge will reduce the robot’s uncertainty about the landscape – or how much it will increase the robot’s confidence in its knowledge.
The robot goes to its new location, records observations using its sensors, and updates its belief and associated confidence. In doing so it learns about the Moon’s surface in the most efficient manner possible.
Robotic systems like this – known as “active SLAM” (Active Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping) – were first proposed more than 20 years ago, and they are still an active area of research. This approach of steadily gathering knowledge and updating understanding is based on a statistical technique called Bayesian optimisation.
Mapping unknown landscapes
A decision-maker in government or industry faces more complexity than the robot on the Moon, but the thinking is the same. Their jobs involve exploring and mapping unknown social or economic landscapes.
Suppose we wish to develop policies to encourage all children to thrive at school and finish high school. We need a conceptual map of which actions, at what time, and under what conditions, will help to achieve these goals.
Using the robot’s principles, we formulate an initial question: “Which intervention(s) will most help children?”
Next, we construct a draft conceptual map using existing knowledge. We also need a measure of our confidence in that knowledge.
Then we develop a model that incorporates different sources of information. These won’t be from robotic sensors, but from communities, lived experience, and any useful information from recorded data.
After this, based on the analysis informing the community and stakeholder preferences, we make a decision: “Which actions should be implemented and under which conditions?”
Finally, we discuss, learn, update beliefs and repeat the process.
Learning as we go
This is a “learning as we go” approach. As new information comes to hand, new actions are chosen to maximise some pre-specified criteria.
Where AI can be useful is in identifying what information is most valuable, via algorithms that quantify what we don’t know. Automated systems can also gather and store that information at a rate and in places where it may be difficult for humans.
AI systems like this apply what is called a Bayesian decision-theoretic framework. Their models are explainable and transparent, built on explicit assumptions. They are mathematically rigorous and can offer guarantees.
They are designed to estimate causal pathways, to help make the best intervention at the best time. And they incorporate human values by being co-designed and co-implemented by the communities that are impacted.
We do need to reform our laws and create new rules to guide the use of potentially dangerous AI systems. But it’s just as important to choose the right tool for the job in the first place.
Sally Cripps receives funding from Paul Ramsay Foundation, The Medical Research Futures Fund, the Australian Research Council and The National Health and Medical Research Council.
Edward Santow, through HTI, receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Nicholas Davis, through HTI, receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
Alex Fischer and Hadi Mohasel Afshar do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In all the debate about Australia’s housing crisis, the impact of transport has been largely overlooked.
When we talk about transport, it’s usually about time spent commuting and not the out-of-pocket costs. While housing is typically the biggest household cost, spending on transport is the second- or third-largest cost – and these costs are inextricably linked.
There is research to suggest the cost difference between the inner and outer suburbs largely vanishes when both housing and transport costs are taken into account.
In Australian cities, housing costs typically decrease with distance from the CBD. Thus, people looking for affordable housing tend to look in the outer suburbs.
The desire to own a home, and reap the benefits of increasing housing values, trumps all other considerations. Would-be buyers typically consider the house price and not the commuting costs. That’s because the home price is a single known figure, while transport costs add up over time.
But when housing and transport costs are combined, the “cheaper housing” in the outer suburbs becomes more expensive as their residents typically travel longer distances. These extra transport costs leave households facing mortgage stress in these outer suburbs in an even worse situation.
However, many households, particularly in the outer suburbs, have more than one car. Their costs could be twice as much, or more if they drive longer-than-average distances.
When combined with the national average monthly mortgage repayment of $3,425 to $3,535 as of April (before the last two interest rate rises), this means driving costs could increase the average cost of owning a suburban home by nearly a quarter (for one-car households) to a half (for two-car households).
Concerns about the transport impacts of housing decisions are not new. In 2006, urban policy researcher Jago Dodson and I developed the VAMPIRE (Vulnerability Assessment for Mortgage and Petroleum Inflation Risks and Expenditure) Index to examine household vulnerability to higher mortgage interest rates and fuel costs. It showed the outer suburbs of Australia’s capital cities were the most vulnerable because they depended on motor vehicles (not public transport) to get around.
One goal of our research was to help improve public transport in outer suburban areas. Residents would then be less reliant on car ownership and ultimately less vulnerable to interest rate and fuel price increases.
Policymakers showed considerable interest at the time. However, such concerns seem to have dissipated over the years – although urban transport researcher Abraham Leungupdated the VAMPIRE Index for southeast Queensland last year.
Related Australian research includes a 2020 analysis of the impacts of commuting costs on housing affordability for low-income renters.
Why not consider housing and transport costs together?
The idea of combining housing and transport costs is not widespread. Yet notable efforts have been made, particularly in North America, to provide a more accurate picture of the true costs of buying a house in particular areas.
The most impressive effort has been the work done by the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology. It created an H+T (housing plus transportation) Index in 2006. This index examines costs for all parts of the US and is regularly updated. It provides a better understanding of the affordability of each area by dividing housing and transport costs by income.
Another national-level example is the US Department of Transportation’s Housing and Transportation Affordability Indicator. It measures what the average US household spends on housing and transport combined as a percentage of income.
One of the most advanced efforts at a local and regional government level is the work of the metro Vancouver region in Canada.
This study found that when housing and transport costs are both taken into account, there is little cost difference between the inner and outer suburbs. Thus, prospective home owners would be better off looking for housing closer to the CBD. Vancouver includes housing and transport costs in its Metro 2040 Plan.
Another regional government example comes from Portland, Oregon. The city has created an equity atlas that shows the combined cost burden of housing and transport.
What does this mean for planning policy in Australia?
Housing strategies must consider transport when deciding land-use plans and where to develop new housing estates. This more holistic approach would produce better outcomes by reducing cost pressures on households.
Such an approach would likely result in higher housing densities closer to the CBD and other employment centres. It should also get decision-makers to focus more on providing better public transport for outer suburbs and other areas that lack good transport services.
One obstacle to an integrated approach by Australian policymakers is that they lack a way to easily assess the combined housing and transport costs. While the VAMPIRE index was a step in the right direction, Australia needs a regularly updated and more focused tool like the above-mentioned H+T Index and Housing and Transportation Affordability Indicator.
Neil G Sipe has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
In a move that has taken the business world by surprise, PwC Australia this week offloaded its government consultancy business to Allegro Funds for just $1.
Peppercorn transactions, which involve a minimal payment to fulfil the requirements of a legal contract, are not as unusual as they may seem.
They are used when companies seek to rid themselves of liabilities as well as opportunities.
PwC’s decision comes in the aftermath of a scandal triggered by a former PwC tax partner who, while advising the federal government on laws to prevent corporate tax avoidance, shared confidential information with colleagues.
You might wonder why the asking price was set at $1 and not $2, or $100. It’s because the $1 is a nominal price, which is all that is needed to make the sale legally binding.
Under contract law, sales are valid if they are in return for a “consideration”.
The actual value of the transaction is far greater than the price paid, including things such as the ability of the purchaser to operate the business successfully, meet operational commitments (including those to staff), and pay down outstanding debt.
The purchaser, Allegro Funds, will be shouldering not just the business (and whatever opportunities it brings) but also liabilities and ongoing contracts.
In the past, several football and Formula 1 teams have also been sold for a nominal price of $1, a price that takes into account the transfer of liabilities and obligations along with opportunities.
Caterham Sports, a UK company that designed and built cars for the Caterham Formula 1 team, was sold for just £1 (A$1.90) in 2014.
Football clubs Chelsea, Portsmouth and Swansea City were sold for £1 in 1982, 1997 and 2001 respectively, with the buyers taking on the debts and obligations as well as the opportunities.
While these transactions often occur when a company is struggling or wants to offload certain liabilities, they can also take place when things are better but not as good as they could be under a new owner, and for nominal prices that exceed $1.
Some of the most transformative offloadings have been sold for billions.
It’s not unusual for companies to be sold for a peppercorn payments. Shutterstock
The most notable was Facebook’s US$1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2012, in which Facebook not only gained the platform and its user base, but also took on any obligations or liabilities.
Amazon’s 2017 A$13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017 was similar.
All that’s different between these billion-dollar price tags and a price tag of $1 is the best guess of the old owner about the asset’s prospects under the new owner (and in PwC’s case, the imperative to find a new owner quickly).
When a business is dragged down with liabilities, and it becomes clear it has better (although uncertain) prospects under a new owner, the price needn’t seem to make sense.
PwC’s government consultancy business might well be worth much, much less than $1 to its existing owners if it stayed in their hands. They faced the prospect of having to continue to fund the business with few or no government contracts.
The UK football teams that were bleeding money until sold for £1 would also have been worth a lot less than £1 to their existing owners.
Instagram was also probably worth less than the US$1 billion it sold for, until it was bought by a new owner with the ability to integrate it with something bigger and make it far more valuable. A recent guess is US$100 billion.
My Nguyen 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 Nicola Gaston, Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, University of Auckland
The University of Otago: funding boost still won’t avert some cuts.Getty Images
Yesterday’s announcement of NZ$128 million in new funding for universities has naturally been welcomed as a badly-needed reprieve. But we have to ask, is this a bailout for struggling institutions, or is it just a Band-Aid on a tertiary sector with deeper structural wounds?
It’s clear the pandemic massively exacerbated the challenges caused by years of funding below inflation rates. All universities have seen previous redundancy rounds, some of which may have been inevitable.
But whatever academic fat there was to lose is gone. Recent cuts have bitten into flesh, and now the bone saws are out. The choices being made about which teaching programmes should go – teacher training, modern languages or geophysics – are no choice at all, other than which limb to amputate.
So the government’s simultaneous proposal to review the tertiary funding model offers a chance to take the system back to basics – to remind us why these institutions are publicly funded in the first place, and to give them a warrant of fitness for the 21st century.
The ‘per student’ funding problem
The proposal to spread the $128 million (over two years) across all tertiary institutes – universities, wānanga and Te Pukenga – looks fair and consistent. As such, it looks far less like a bailout of particular institutions than an admission that the current policy settings are not fit for purpose.
But that fairness also reveals the problem with our funding settings. Tertiary education subsidies are allocated “per student”, and this structurally advantages larger institutions.
There is a baseline cost of operating a teaching programme or department, on top of which additional students cost relatively little. We fund research in universities in this way, through baseline funding topped up by contestable grants, but not teaching.
The University of Auckland, for example, is currently in an enviable financial position, by local standards at least. Yet it will pick up more new funding than any other university by virtue of having the most students.
Furthermore, the new funding won’t avert all the proposed redundancies. The downside of “fairness” is that the funding holes at Victoria and Otago universities will not be covered. It will likely be the same story at AUT, Massey and Waikato.
So yes, the $128 million is perhaps just a Band-Aid. But it does buy time to rethink and re-strategise while the system is reviewed – which was the most important part of yesterday’s announcement.
University leadership accountability is now under the microscope – under many microscopes, even. Any redundancies with strategic implications for what a university can teach or research should now be delayed as much as possible.
Value and equity
First and foremost, the New Zealand public owns and operates tertiary education institutions because they deliver economic and social value: value for the student who learns and acquires a qualification; and value for those who don’t attend but will rely on those who do (such as doctors and nurses).
There is a question of equity, too. Some New Zealanders might be able to pay for their children to study overseas, but equal access to education at home should be a fundamental principle.
All this becomes important when we ask what our university system should look like. For example, do we need eight universities competing for both students and funding?
I don’t think there is an easy answer to that. The University of Auckland has long had a strategy of leveraging its size to claim the position (and reputational advantages) of being New Zealand’s “highest-ranked” university internationally.
The smaller universities, by contrast, have been strategic about facing their local communities more directly, and building reputations in specific fields. We should therefore not be cavalier about downsizing the sector in general. The benefits of a university to a community should be widely distributed.
Minister of Finance Grant Robertson touched on this at the funding announcement when he said universities had perhaps spent too much on marketing. And that may be true of their efforts to maximise international rankings to maximise international student revenue.
But the fact that each university has its own identity, developed over many years in collaboration with its local community, is also something to celebrate.
3 important questions
Overall, then, yesterday’s announcement offers hope because it recognises the need for coordination between universities on teaching – with a report to Cabinet in a month on the risks to specific programmes – and because it acknowledges the immediate threat to New Zealand’s national research capacity.
The two-year time frame for the review of funding structures is probably realistic, given the complexity of current funding models. The interdependence of research and teaching income streams needs to be examined carefully.
The different sizes of institutions, and different levels of research and teaching focus, mean seemingly simple models can have unanticipated biases, whether towards certain (larger or more research-intensive) institutions, or towards particular types of scholarship (such as science over the humanities).
The anticipated outcomes of any proposed new model will need to be measured against the Education Act’s definition of a university and its reasons to exist:
does it maintain a balance (and interdependence) of teaching and research?
does it maintain a diversity of scholarship, the sciences and the arts, the quantitative and the qualitative?
and does it deliver for its community, and thus justify its independent existence?
Academic freedom is enshrined in the law as meaning universities operate as the “critic and conscience” of society. But their responsibility to community is a useful way of thinking about what that means, in my opinion. Either way, these seem like the necessary questions to ask if we want to get back to basics.
Nicola Gaston receives funding from the Tertiary Education Commission as Co-Director of the MacDiarmid Institute, and from the Royal Society Te Aparangi as an Investigator on Marsden research grants.
Millions of men, women and children have converged on Mecca this week for the Hajj pilgrimage. The Saudi government says it will be the largest crowd ever for the pilgrimage.
The Hajj pilgrimage is, at its core, a pilgrimage towards God. This presents a paradox of sorts. If God is beyond time and space, then what is the purpose of travelling to a particular place? Is God not present now, everywhere?
Our sense of the divine Presence is blunted. We need to find it focused on a particular place and, for the Muslim, that place is the Ka’ba at Mecca, which he has faced every time he prayed and to which he now journeys in pilgrimage.
A transformative experience
Within the Islamic worldview then, the Ka’ba functions as the locus of hearts. I use the plural “hearts” here, for the pilgrimage is not only an individual religious obligation. It is a communal act that strengthens ties of kinship between Muslims in a way that resembles nothing else.
When the pilgrims prepare to don the Hajj attire, they discard more than their clothes. Nationality, race and socio-economic status are tossed to the wayside — prince and pauper unite as pilgrims. All distinctions are left behind.
The experience can be transformative, particularly for those embarking on the pilgrimage for the first time.
A Saudi policewoman throws flowers at Bangladeshi pilgrims as they arrive at the airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for the hajj this week. Amr Nabi/ AP
The renowned activist and minister Malcolm X was compelled to re-evaluate his views on race in the wake of his Hajj experience. In his Letter From Mecca, he wrote:
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colours, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.
Coupled with his societal reflections was an internal revolution, one that stirred his heart. In his autobiography, he writes:
In my thirty-nine years on this earth, the Holy City of Mecca had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of All and felt like a complete human being.
For Muslims then, the return of Hajj pilgrims to pre-pandemic numbers this year (or even surpassing them) represents another opportunity for this reorientation towards God.
Granted, globalisation has drawn the world closer, denting the impact of encountering people from completely different walks of life. Despite this, the Hajj pilgrimage remains unparalleled in its capacity to turn hearts, both individually and collectively.
All this is not to say that the experience is one of ease and comfort.
If the history of the Hajj pilgrimage has demonstrated anything, it is the road to Mecca is often fraught with challenges. The most recent challenges confronting potential pilgrims have been unforeseen, drastically altering the Hajj experience.
The COVID pandemic saw pilgrimage to the holy sites halted for two years, with only a limited number of Saudi residents permitted to perform the pilgrimage.
As the pandemic slowly subsided, many Muslims in other countries who had waited with eager anticipation booked their travel plans. But they were met with a new complication.
The struggle for getting a spot
In 2022, the Saudi government announced that all those intending to perform the pilgrimage from several Western countries, including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and the European Union, must register through the Motawif website. Those who had already made bookings were advised to immediately cancel them and register through Motawif.
This would place the registrant into a lottery-type system, replacing the Hajj travel tours that had operated locally in these countries for many years.
The Saudi administration claimed it was trying to remove the middle man and make the Hajj travel package process smoother and more affordable. Many testimonies, however, appear to confirm the contrary.
Registrants criticised the persistent technical failures of Motawif, and those who were lucky enough to make it to Mecca bemoaned the disorganised mess that greeted them upon their arrival.
The Saudi claim of increased affordability was also contested. Prices for a Hajj package vary, depending on the level of luxury that the pilgrim desires during their stay in the holy cities. When factoring in all costs, however, the total price for the package hovered in the range of US$7,000 to $13,500 (A$10,000 to $20,000) per person.
Saudi authorities have put in place a large-scale security plan to ensure the safety of the pilgrims and smooth proceedings of the Hajj. Amr Nabil/ AAP
For many Muslims in the West, a more affordable Hajj package was viewed as desirable. In reality, though, prices remained high — the only difference being the Saudi government collected the profits.
This year, the Saudi authorities have ditched the short-lived Motawif system. Rather than operating on a lottery basis, it has now been replaced with a new first-come, first-serve system. Only time will tell whether this new system is feasible, or whether it will go the way of Motawif.
Despite these challenges, Muslims from around the world continue to flock to the Hajj. Through this ritual, they direct their hearts individually and collectively towards the Ka’ba. In doing so, they step out beyond time, linking the past and present in an unbroken covenant with God.
Ali Hammoud 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.
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.
Prime minister Chris Hipkins. Image; Wiki Commons.
Analysis by Geoffrey Miller
Warm and constructive.
Prime minister Chris Hipkins. Image; Wiki Commons.
That’s how Chris Hipkins wanted his meeting with Xi Jinping on Tuesday to be remembered.
The New Zealand Prime Minister deployed the ‘warm and constructive’ phrase at least eight times in a subsequent press conference with New Zealand media.
Hipkins was also keen to note that ‘the meeting was at no point adversarial’. This served to reinforce the impression of warmth.
It also matched with opening public comments by Xi, who said Hipkins’ visit was of ‘great significance’. Xi pointed to the ‘tangible benefits to the two peoples’ that had emerged since China entered into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with New Zealand in 2014.
Xi added ‘we will continue to see each other as partners instead of rivals’, according to a Reuters report that cited Chinese state media.
By emphasising the friendliness of the meeting, Hipkins was also drawing a contrast with claims that his foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, had received an ‘epic haranguing’ when she met her Chinese counterpart in Beijing in March.
The timing of the leaked description to ‘The Australian’ newspaper was strategic and threatened to derail Hipkins’ much sought-after appointment with Xi.
The reporting has not been denied, with Mahuta since confirming her meeting with Qin Gang was ‘very robust’.
Against this, Hipkins’ refusal to sign up to Joe Biden’s description of Xi as a ‘dictator’ would have been well received by Beijing.
Hipkins refused to say whether the ‘dictator’ issue had been brought up by Xi – but said he did not raise it himself.
China has yet to release its own account of the Xi-Hipkins meeting, leaving New Zealand’s version of the private section of the encounter largely to stand as the initial record.
But some intriguing insights into the thinking of the Chinese leadership in relation to New Zealand can be found in the semi-official Global Times newspaper.
In an article published late on Tuesday that focused on a range of diplomatic visits to China this week, New Zealand took centre-stage – even overshadowing analysis of Mongolia and Vietnam, China’s neighbours.
The newspaper depicted New Zealand as something of a role model for other Western countries, noting Wellington’s reputation for ‘independent policymaking’ and bipartisan consensus on ‘how to get along with China’. According to the paper, New Zealand showed how ‘Western countries can withstand the pressures of unilateralism, Cold War mentality and hegemony’.
The praise from the Global Times referenced approvingly Hipkins’ stance on the recent ‘dictator’ spat. The paper said the incident was an example of New Zealand’s ‘non-interference when dealing with China’ and contrasted sharply with the ‘arrogant and offensive attitude of Washington’.
After his meeting with Xi, Hipkins appeared somewhat nervous and at times uncharacteristically tongue-tied when answering questions from the New Zealand media – a sign that he was aware of the diplomatic stakes of the bilateral meeting.
Hipkins carefully declined to be drawn on what views Xi expressed during the private meeting, saying that ‘wouldn’t be diplomatic or appropriate’.
But the New Zealand PM did reveal that AUKUS ‘wasn’t specifically discussed’ during the meeting.
When asked, Hipkins also disclosed that New Zealand’s growing ties with NATO were not canvassed.
However, the meeting with Xi was a big picture one and it would not be unusual for these issues of detail to be addressed in a more indirect fashion.
Hipkins said the main focus of the meeting was on New Zealand’s economic ties with China.
But he added that issues such as the US-China relationship, the Pacific, the war in Ukraine and human rights were also covered in a ‘free-flowing dialogue’.
The official statement issued by the New Zealand PM’s office used softer language than the press conference.
For example, there is no direct mention of ‘human rights’ in the readout. Instead, it was noted that the pair ‘engaged on areas where our cultures and political systems differ’.
There was only one, relatively minor faux pas from Hipkins.
During the initial portion of the meeting that was open to media, Xi called New Zealand a ‘friend and partner’.
But when asked by media whether he would reciprocate this assessment, Hipkins initially dodged, responding ‘I would describe the relationship between New Zealand and China as an incredibly important one’.
Hipkins appeared to realise the ramifications of his answer as the questioning on the ‘friend and partner’ issue continued. He later added ‘it depends on the context, but yes, by and large’.
In length, Hipkins’ 40-minute meeting with Xi ran for ten minutes longer than scheduled.
Jacinda Ardern, Hipkins’ predecessor, received 50 minutes for her own meeting with Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Bangkok last November.
We should not read too much into this discrepancy.
After all, it is a busy week for China, which is also hosting its first summer meetings of the World Economic Forum since 2019.
On Tuesday, Xi also met with the prime ministers of Barbados, Mongolia and Vietnam.
Moreover, Hipkins’ counterparts from the other ‘Five Eyes’ countries – Australia, Canada, the UK and US – are not currently being hosted in Beijing at all.
Chris Hipkins has passed his first major diplomatic test.
His first meeting with Xi Jinping was a success.
It genuinely was warm and constructive.
Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.
During this year’s Reconciliation Week I asked the group of non-Indigenous students I was teaching “who is responsible for doing Reconciliation work?”.
They all quickly put their hands up and said “us”.
I then asked them “what does this work look like? What can you actually do?”
They all looked a bit blank and admitted they didn’t know what it really meant to “do the work” or what “the work” looks like.
Non-Indigenous people often don’t know how they should address racism and social inequity brought about by colonisation and white privilege. This may be why many Australians are expressing hope the Voice to Parliament is going to solve such problems.
For example, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs Linda Burney has said if the Voice to Parliament had been in place, the so-called crime crisis in Alice Springs would have been better addressed.
Indigenous leaders, scholars, activists and community members have spent decades suggesting solutions to inequities in this country, which still haven’t been implemented.
Indigenous People, our culture and our communities are not to blame for the inequities we live with. And expecting an Indigenous “Voice” to be a fix-all for inequities brought about by the colonial project is unrealistic and problematic.
Closing the Gap is a good example of the government putting all of its eggs in one basket, and expecting outcomes that have not been delivered.
As Indigenous academics have pointed out, often issues placed under Closing the Gap targets are lost in the list.
Data from the productivity commission shows only four of the 17 targets under the agreement are on track to be met. A recent report in Queensland found these targets will not be met by the 2031 deadline.
The clear recommendations in this work from Indigenous People continue to be largely ignored by mainstream Australia and rarely acted upon by those in power.
For more than 100 years our communities have called for appropriate representation in government. The Voice to Parliament could potentially represent the views of Indigenous communities and hopefully assist in informing policy and legal decisions that impact our lives.
But the Voice to Parliament cannot solve the deeply entrenched racism and bigotry in Australian society, media, and institutions.
And expecting it to do so is assigning the role and responsibility of addressing racism to the people experiencing it. This should be the ongoing work of everyone, all of the time, regardless of the upcoming referendum.
The effects of the societal imbalance caused by colonisation impacts everyone. The reason it continues is because people in power and the wider (whiter) community continue to benefit from it.
Even if we get the Voice, non-Indigenous people still need to ‘do the work’
After I asked my students who is responsible for reconciliation work we discussed the kind of work that needs to be done by all non-Indigenous peoples to address the ongoing damage of colonisation.
This (ongoing) work requires everyone to:
recognise your position in the world. Learn who you are and where you come from. This means recognising your privilege and being mindful of how this informs your attitude, beliefs, behaviour and how you communicate with others. And learn to remain silent while those with less privilege than you speak about their experiences, even if your instinct is to respond defensively
acknowledge oppressive histories and systems that enable you to occupy the land you now live on. Learn the sociopolitical history of Australia, and the Peoples whose land you are occupying
find out how you benefit from colonial structures and ways to utilise your privilege to dismantle the oppression of others. An example of this is to cede the space for Indigenous voices, Peoples and communities to determine what happens in our communities. Do not sit in an Indigenous identified position, or speak on issues that effect us or think you can swoop in and fix us. All people have the right to autonomy and to determine what is right for our own communities
remind your peers that addressing racism and the negative effects of colonisation is the work of everyone, all of the time.
It is not the work or responsibility of the Voice to Parliament, or Indigenous People, to do this work.
We cannot rely on one strategy to “solve” the racial divide in Australia. This is something that requires much work to be done from those with privilege and power.
The issues Indigenous People face need to be addressed now instead of passively waiting to see if we get the Voice to Parliament. This should be occurring with or without an established Voice.
If Australia is waiting for the Voice to be established to have complex and nuanced truth-telling, what will happen if the referendum vote is No?
Kelly Menzel 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.
Earlier this year, federal health minister Mark Butler announced a new national Lung Cancer Screening Program. The first of its kind for lung cancer, the screening program will open initially to current and former smokers aged 50 to 70 years by July 2025. It aims to save lives by detecting lung cancer earlier.
Since the 1980s, highly successful public health campaigns have raised awareness about the dangers of smoking and, in economically wealthy countries like Australia, the rate of smoking has dropped considerably.
Unfortunately, the success of anti-smoking campaigns has been accompanied by growing stigma around lung cancer. In fact, 28% of Australians admit they have less sympathy for lung cancer sufferers than those with other forms of cancer. And when it comes to an array of health issues, stigma negatively affects diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.
As well as the National Lung Cancer Screening Program, May saw the announcement of a nationwide ban on the sale of nicotine vapes in response to alarming increases in both vaping and smoking among young people. The vaping ban sparked a national conversation about the use of nicotine products, but little media attention has been paid to the lung cancer screening program.
Lung cancer is the fourth most diagnosed cancer in Australia and the leading cause of cancer-related death in Australia, followed by breast cancer.
While there is no disputing the link between lung cancer and smoking, nor the value of public health measures like the recent vaping ban, the proportion of people diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked – especially young women – is increasing. There is also growing recognition of other lung cancer risks such as environmental exposures and air pollution.
Despite this, lung cancer receives less funding (around 30% of what breast cancer receives) and is beset by poor screening, delayed diagnoses and low survival rates. The symptoms of lung cancer – including new cough, hoarse voice, coughing up blood, breathlessness, weightloss – can be missed and lead to diagnosis when the disease is already advanced.
Unfortunately, cancer as a disease is prone to various forms of moralising and many Australians think that ex-smokers “deserve” lung cancer as a consequence of their health behaviours.
But smoking and other so-called “lifestyle choices” are highly dependent on social status, family environment, wealth, and educational exposure over a lifetime.
Lung cancer disproportionately impacts people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage, those in regional and rural areas and those with lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
Smoking is not simply an individual choice, but rather is heavily influenced by one’s social context. Likewise, developing lung cancer, much like heart disease or diabetes, is not a personal or moral failing, despite having clear lifestyle links.
In our recent study, we interviewed 14 women and 3 men aged 30–72 and recruited from social media. They spoke about undergoing treatment for lung cancer. In addition to dealing with their illness and treatment, they faced significant stigma:
[…] it’s the first time I’ve really been aware of the sort of shame attached to an illness.
Some participants spoke about the lack of funding for lung cancer:
[…] people don’t donate to lung cancer because we’re not pretty. We’re stinky and tobacco-y.
And of how public health campaigns had contributed to stigma and needed to be updated:
They know young people are getting it out there and it’s just not hitting the press because it’s the ‘dirty disease’. There is so many young people. Who deserves to die, whether they’re smokers or not? I mean, it needs to be acknowledged.
There needs to be another campaign around: Why are so many people getting lung cancer when they’ve never smoked?
The national lung cancer screening program is a step in the right direction to improve survival rates of lung cancer in Australia. But it’s important we confront the idea of lung cancer as a “dirty” disease, “brought on one’s self”.
The nationwide conversation around vaping provides as a good opportunity to do away with simplistic – and stigmatising – narratives about nicotine use that characterise it as weak or shameful. It’s time to disrupt assumptions about lung cancer being solely attributable to a person’s decisions to smoke. And we need to recognise the importance of supporting and caring for people experiencing ill-health regardless of lifestyle “choices”.
Alex Broom receives funding from the Australian Research Council
Katherine Kenny receives funding from The University of Sydney and The Australian Research Council
Malinda Itchins has received honoraria payments from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Takeda, Roche, Novartis, BMS, MSD, Bayer, consultancy fees from Roche, Merck, has received funds to sit on an advisory board for Pfizer, Takeda, Bayer, MSD, Amgen, Merck, Roche, Beigene and research grant funding from Pfizer.
Malinda is a Board Member and Lung Cancer Chair on Council for the not-for-profit organisation, Clinical Oncology Society of Australia (COSA).
Jianni Tien 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.
Fossil fuel companies in Australia could ship their carbon dioxide (CO₂) waste overseas for disposal, under changes to the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 introduced to parliament late last week.
During her second reading speech, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said:
Companies would be able to better plan for transboundary projects for carbon capture and storage into sub-seabed geological formations within a clear regulatory framework. Until then, this export activity is not permitted under the sea dumping act.
The main difficulty with this plan is that offshore carbon capture and storage has not worked effectively in Australian waters.
If a permit is given for CO₂ waste to be exported to poorer countries, it’s unclear how these countries will acquire the capacity and knowledge to achieve successful carbon storage when wealthy fossil fuel companies operating in Australia could not.
support countries without storage capacity to reduce their atmospheric emissions by allowing the export of carbon dioxide streams to countries with available sub-seabed geological storage formations.
But Australia appears to have a great deal of storage capacity, with conservative estimates putting the total at 740 billion tonnes.
In 2021, five areas for Offshore Greenhouse Gas Storage in Commonwealth waters were identified off the coast of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
The real issue is not lack of storage capacity but rather, the fact offshore CO₂ injection is not working.
World’s biggest carbon capture and storage flop
In Australia the only operational offshore carbon capture and storage project is Chevron’s Gorgon Project on Barrow Island in Western Australia.
By 2024, the Moomba project in the Barossa gas field – located in Australian waters off the Northern Territory – will become operational. Like the Gorgon project, the Moomba project has made bold claims, stating it has capacity to store up to 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.
Chevron built the “world’s largest” system to extract CO₂ in gas from its offshore reservoirs and inject it deep under the island. The A$81 billion gas export plant was approved on the condition it could store CO₂ in offshore reservoirs and, at a minimum, inject 80% of the CO₂ from the gas produced.
But in the 12 months to June 2022 Chevron only injected 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ into the underground reservoir and vented 3.4 million tonnes to the atmosphere.
In the six years since export of LNG commenced from the Gorgon Project, 20.4 million tonnes of CO₂ has been extracted but only 6.5 million tonnes has been stored under the island. This significant shortfall adds to global warming and impedes Australia’s ability to reach our legislated 2030 emissions cuts.
Transferring CO₂ to poorer countries is also bonus for fossil fuel companies like Chevron because from July 1, the reformed safeguard mechanism will make carbon capture and storage failures very expensive.
That’s because the new safeguard mechanism does not allow emission baselines to be as readily adjusted as used to be the case.
Fossil fuel companies will have to begin paying a lot more for emissions that are above their allocated baselines. For example, a report estimates Woodside and its partners will be subject to an additional cumulative liability of up to A$63 billion up to 2050 at the Burrup Hub LNG export project under the new safeguard mechanism reforms. Exporting CO₂ from failed carbon capture and storage sites will allow fossil fuel companies to avoid these costs.
London calling
The existing anti-dumping legislation and the proposed change stem from international agreement.
Sea dumping refers to the deliberate disposal of wastes or other matter from vessels, aircraft, platforms or man-made structures into the sea. It does not include material released directly into the sea from a land source or operational discharges from ships.
The London Convention sets up a framework which prohibited sea dumping and which required parties to apply for a special permit for approved materials to be dumped.
The subsequent London Protocol of 2006 took a more restrictive approach. The Protocol prohibited all sea dumping except for identified wastes such as dredged material, sewage sludge, and fish waste. These listed wastes could be dumped if a permit was approved but approval could not be given if it was reasonably likely to cause harm.
Amendments adopted to the London Protocol in 2009 and 2013, yet to be ratified, allowed for the export of CO₂ streams to countries with suitable offshore storage sites, provided an agreement or arrangement has been entered into between the countries concerned.
Australia intends to ratify the 2009 and 2013 amendments, and the amendments to the Sea Dumping Act represent the first stage in this process. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEW) has indicated Australia will apply a “precautionary approach” in the assessment of these permits.
Shifting the problem elsewhere
It’s argued that exporting CO₂ to storage sites overseas will provide significant environmental benefits within a decarbonising economy. The Australian research and industry collaboration CO2CRC considers such transboundary exportation “safe, reliable, necessary and urgent”.
But this is all premised on the assumption carbon capture and storage is effective and operational. The Australian experience to-date shows it is not. So the only apparent benefit of exporting CO₂ overseas lies in the fact it shifts the problem of escalating emissions out of the country.
Samantha Hepburn 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.
As the school year hits the half-way mark, many Year 6 students and their families will be starting to think more about the move to high school next year.
Moving to secondary school is a big change for young people. In addition to hearing stories – good and bad – on the school grapevine, students today also see stories via platforms like YouTube and TikTok. These may or may not be helpful or reflect what their experience will be like.
To discover the actual challenges Australian students face, in 2021, the Australian Council for Educational Research conducted a series of student forums with 444 year 6 to 8 students at 15 schools around Australia in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.
Students do feel excited
In the forums, students talked about their experiences of moving to high school, their main challenges, as well as potential solutions. We also had conversations on what they felt they needed to know about the move to secondary school.
When asked about their feelings about high school, the responses were mixed. More than 30% said “happy”, “excited” or “confident”. But 25% replied “fear” and 13% said “uncertainty”.
But they are also worried
When asked to explain their fears and uncertainties, 44% of students said academic work. This included concerns around both the difficulty level and amount of academic work in secondary school, as well as increased expectations on students’ performance. As one student told us:
Everyone says that there is lots more homework in high school.
About 30% of respondents also said the new school environment was a concern. This included familiarising themselves with a new campus, finding their way around and the culture of a new school. For example, learning “how things are done at this school” as well as the rules for each classroom. As another student said:
It makes me nervous, knowing that I might get lost.
And 21% said social aspects worried them. This included making new friends, keeping in touch with old friends, as well as the complexities of managing the usual ebb and flow of friendships and interactions at school. One respondent explained:
I feel nervous because there will be new people.
Students also discussed self-management. This included getting up on time, managing public transport, changing to and from sports uniforms, making sure they were prepared for class (having done the homework and brought the correct materials), as well as general time management to fit everything in. Another student told us:
In primary school I had heaps of time. I used to play hockey every weekend. Now I don’t.
Some students said they were worried about being prepared for classes. Mart Production/Pexels
What students want
The key message from students was that they wanted independence in their school transition. Students said they wanted some help with the move, because, of course, it was new territory. But they strongly felt that once they had guidance, they were old enough to take care of the challenges themselves.
As some students told us, “take deep breaths in and out when scared”, “the Year 8s have helped me a lot”, “make one friend at a time”, and “just be yourself”.
So, how can adults help, while allowing for plenty of independence? The starting point is simply to engage with your young person: ask questions about their move to high school, share your experiences and identify the details of what your young person wants and needs to know.
Here are some practical things parents and carers can do:
share helpful family stories about change (moving schools, new job, new lifestyle), particularly where there are examples of feeling nervous, making mistakes, and asking for help.
practice travelling to the new school together during the holidays, so students feel confident doing it on their own when the school year begins.
look at the high school’s website and social media pages together to see what sort of information you can find. Follow up with the school if you or your child have questions.
check in with your new school about what orientation activities might be planned. And talk to your existing school: do they have any transition activities?
importantly, talk with your young person about how they and their classmates are feeling about the move to secondary school. What are their challenges? What could help?
There are more examples of how to help in non-profit organisation Life Ed’s Guide to Thrive. Their examples and resources build directly from the research above.
The big picture
The bigger picture is change and uncertainty is a fact of life. Transitioning from primary to high school is an opportunity for young people to learn skills for managing change they can use again in their future.
The student forums research referred to in this article was funded via Life Ed, a not-for-profit organisation, from the Australian government’s ‘Being Healthy Being Active’ grant. This grant also funded the extension of the research into practical advice and resources for the classroom and home, from which the article draws examples.
Dating back to the 1930s – earlier, even – horror cinema has been socially and politically conscious, interrogating taboos around gender, sex, class and race along with the borders between states like pro- and anti-social.
But it’s only been in the last 10 years or so that horror films – a booming genre following the success of Midsommar (2019) and Get Out (2017) – have started privileging telling rather than showing, didactically explaining themselves to the viewer as though we haven’t always already gotten it.
Horror films once managed to seamlessly integrate cultural commentary into their visceral effect. We could watch films like Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left (1972) and be horrified yet intrigued by its critical commentary on American counterculture.
The most distinctive thing about the films of the current horror cycle is their lack of subtlety. It’s not enough that a film implies a kind of critical social position. A character now has to explicitly state this.
This kind of new sincerity has been sapping the genre of its fun.
Run Rabbit Run, following a mother and daughter as the past comes back to haunt them, is the latest Australian film to jump on the bandwagon of the new wave of horror.
The psychological terrain of the guilty mother is typical narrative fare, but, unlike Jennifer Kent’s brilliant The Babadook (2014), Run Rabbit Run doesn’t take any of this in surprising or invigorating directions.
The film fits into the kind of “self-help” horror mode, using the same cliches about trauma and psychology as self-help, presented in a neat package for the consumer.
Fertility doctor Sarah (Sarah Snook) and her young daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre) live alone.
When Mia begins showing an interest in her family’s secret history, the ghosts of the past – involving Sarah’s mysterious sister Alice (D’Arcy Carty) and mother, Joan (Greta Scacchi), now confined to some kind of institution (nursing home? asylum?) – begin to materialise in the present in classic gothic fashion.
The more the daughter reaches out to her mum in the hope of understanding her family, the more dysfunctional their relationship becomes. The scares become more frequent, and the whole thing culminates with a revelation so obvious (I had picked it at the 30-minute mark) one wonders if it was meant to be a revelation at all.
In trite fashion, the film’s closing moments show for Sarah, no matter how fast she runs, there’s no escaping her past.
Predictable cues and gothic cliches
This is TV director Daina Reid’s first feature film, so it makes sense it would be released by Netflix, whose films always feel more suited to the television than cinema screen.
Run Rabbit Run looks like a made-for-Netflix movie, with the usual lack of depth in the image and excessive sharpness that tend to define the films the company produces or distributes.
It follows some of the predictable visual cues of horror in the Instagram-era: muted, washed-out colours; a score favouring drone sounds; a plethora of slow-moving tracking shots and spooky silhouettes.
The narrative is replete with gothic cliches. Dream and reality start to mirror each other; there’s a weird kid; the ordinary and familiar become increasingly strange.
Run Rabbit Run very much functions as a kind of bourgeois horror film. We watch affluent people unable to cope with the realities of middle-class life, with the usual hangups.
It is most effective in its capacity to tap into some of the weirdness of being a parent, capturing the anarchic impulse of kids. This is the guiding theme of the film: the estrangement of the parent from the young child.
Your child, you inevitably discover, is not only not you, but also forever watching, critical, and in tension with you.
There’s nothing excessively bad about Run Rabbit Run. It’s a watchable psychological horror film with some genuinely arresting moments, but it suffers from the current earnestness running through so much contemporary popular culture.
It seems to approach its – let’s face it, totally ludicrous – ghost story with the seriousness of a Bergman film. The result is something that feels both lightweight and unpleasurable.
It uses silly cliches and caricatures from the tired annals of pop psychology, but the absolute seriousness of its tone saps these cliches of their potential to generate pleasure for the viewer (which, after all, is why we see genre films).
Film is a visceral medium; horror film more than most. The heavy-handed tone of Run Rabbit Run exhausts it of visceral impact. We are left with an object that simply does not move us very much.
Trauma from the past re-emerging in the present has always been an operative force underlying the Gothic, but in the best works it’s not literalised in the form of a petty individual trauma. It is integrated into the very substance of character and community, rather than reduced to the psychology of a single character.
The “trauma” in Run Rabbit Run – while significant for the characters – doesn’t connect to any more meaningful cultural or historical moment. With nothing left unsaid, any ambiguous complexity of character is absent.
The tendency of the new wave of horror is to have everything on the surface. In the social media age everything has become tell, tell, tell. I guess it’s no surprise horror films follow this path. Yawn.
Ari Mattes 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.
AAP/ Mark Mitchell/NZ Herald via AP and EPA/JADE GAO / POOL
Chris Hipkins anticipated a “diplomatic” meeting with Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader said he placed “great importance” on the relationship with New Zealand. Both businesslike, Hipkins made sure to stress his country was open for business too.
And there is certainly a good story to tell when it comes to China. Hipkins is building on decades of cooperation, understanding and ground-breaking economic agreements. Bilateral trade was worth NZ$40 billion in 2022 and could reach $50 billion by 2030.
There might even be scope for cooperation over China’s position on a political settlement of the war in Ukraine. Despite New Zealand and most Western nations being sceptical about the initiative, it’s fair to say Chinese authorities would value New Zealand’s input.
But it’s also fair to say Hipkins was wise to visit now, given what he has coming up in his calendar: the NATO summit in July, and a decision on whether New Zealand should join “pillar two” of the AUKUS security pact between the US, UK and Australia.
Both things will concern China. And despite Beijing’s appreciation of New Zealand’s diplomatic approach – including Hipkins’ reluctance to characterise Xi Jinping as a “dictator” – the timing of this red-carpet visit has been ideal.
Claim and counter-claim
So New Zealand walks a fine line with China, and beneath the diplomatic niceties there is a growing fault line. When Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta visited China earlier this year and expressed New Zealand’s “deep concerns” over human rights, Hong Kong and Taiwan, some media suggested she’d been “harangued” by her Chinese counterpart.
Mahuta has said the conversation was merely “robust”, but there’s no denying China’s combativeness over criticism or threat.
When British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said China posed “the greatest challenge of our age to global security and prosperity” at May’s G7 summit in Japan (which came on top of an official communiqué tacitly focused on China), Beijing hit back at what it called “smears” and “slander”.
This includes South Korea after it installed a US missile defence system, and Australia after it called for an independent investigation of the origins of COVID-19. More recently, China blocked Lithuanian exports after the tiny nation allowed Taiwan to establish a de-facto embassy there.
When New Zealand joined the US in speaking out over the security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, Chinese state media accused Wellington of smearing and demonising their country and yielding to the influence of Washington.
A few months later, New Zealand reiterated its position to uphold the rule of international law around China’s island-building in the South China Sea. While officially this amounted to not taking sides over competing claims to sovereignty, it effectively rejected China’s historic claims to the area.
And quite recently it was revealed a New Zealand frigate was confronted – professionally but visibly – by Chinese naval vessels while in international waters near the disputed Spratly Islands.
Security and circumspection
Closer to home, there have been intermittent skirmishes over cyber-security. In 2018, New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) stated it had “established links” between the Chinese Ministry of State Security and a global campaign of commercial intellectual property theft.
New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (SIS) has also recently noted agents from a “small number of foreign states” were becoming “increasingly aggressive”, but chose not to identify the culprits.
But when it was reported an analyst within the Public Service Commission had been suspended after being named an “insider threat risk” by the SIS, the Chinese embassy called the claims “ill-founded, and with an ulterior motive to smear and attack China, which we firmly oppose”.
The G7 countries have directly called on China not to interfere in their domestic affairs. New Zealand generally prefers to be circumspect. The SIS has identified foreign states monitoring alleged dissidents in New Zealand, but it doesn’t name those states.
How long the diplomatic tightrope can be walked is an open question, given the prime minister’s forthcoming attendance at the NATO summit in Lithuania in July, and the pending decision on AUKUS.
With its support for Ukraine against Russia, New Zealand has become much closer to NATO, which in 2021 also identified China as a security challenge, saying Beijing’s ambitions and its “coercive policies” challenge the Western bloc’s “interests, security and values”. China called it a “completely futile” warning.
At the same time, of course, New Zealand may be moving closer to involvement in the AUKUS alliance, which would mean access to cutting-edge, non-nuclear military technologies. And while it’s never explicit, AUKUS is a response to the perceived threat of China’s increasing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
Despite its own rapid militarisation, the Chinese government has condemned AUKUS as reflecting a “Cold War mentality” that involves a “path of error and danger”. However diplomatically it was hedged, the same message will almost certainly have been delivered to Chris Hipkins yesterday in Beijing.
Alexander Gillespie 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 surplus for the financial year that ends Friday will be larger than the $4.2 billion forecast in the budget, Treasurer Jim Chalmers will say on Wednesday.
In a speech to be delivered in Darwin, Chalmers says the government had been “deliberately cautious” in its estimate in the budget, “given the history”. This was a reference to former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s “back in black” prediction in 2019.
Now, “We’re in a significantly better position than we forecast,” Chalmers says. “We’re expecting the surplus will be bigger than forecast in May.”
The surplus upgrade has enabled the government to recently announce $2 billion for housing, distributed to the states and territories before the end of the financial year.
The good news on the surplus comes as Australian Bureau of Statistics figures on Wednesday will reveal how the fight against inflation is progressing. Next week the Reserve Bank will consider whether to raise interest rates yet again.
The cash rate is currently 4.1%, after the Reserve Bank has hiked rates a dozen times, most recently early this month.
Rating agency S&P Global said this week: “We expect the Reserve Bank of Australia to raise its policy rate further this year.”
Meanwhile, the government and opposition are gearing up for another byelection test, this time in the Liberal Gold Coast seat of Fadden, vacated by Stuart Robert, one of the ministers who oversaw Robodebt.
Opening Labor’s campaign on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese homed in on Robert.
“Stuart Robert is resigning from parliament having presided over one of the most shocking and cruel failures in the history of Australian politics – Robodebt,” Albanese said.
“Ripping the humanity out of human services. Stripping the social justice from social security. Targeting vulnerable people – and bragging about it.
“That’s the sort of person Peter Dutton thought was good enough for his shadow ministry. And that’s the sort of candidate the LNP thought was good enough for your community. Those are the policies and values they put forward to represent you, time and time again.”
Fadden is on a margin of 10.6%. Although both sides expect the Coalition to hold it on July 15, a swing against the Liberal National Party would be another blow for Dutton, after the disastrous loss of the Liberal seat of Aston in Victoria.
The LNP is putting considerable resources into its Fadden campaign. There were mixed views in Labor about whether to contest the seat, but the local party was anxious to do so, because it overlaps areas important in the state election in 2024.
A swing against Labor would be interpreted, in part, as having implications for the Voice referendum.
Dutton said on Tuesday the byelection was “an opportunity to send the government a message in relation to cost of living, that you’re not happy with the policies that they’ve presided over – and also on the Voice.
“I think there will be a lot of people in Fadden who want to send the Prime Minister a very clear message that they’re not happy with his Canberra Voice proposal, and they’re not happy that he’s continuing to keep details from Australians in relation to how the Voice will operate.”
Labor’s candidate in Fadden, Letitia Del Fabbro, who ran at the 2022 election, is a nurse educator. The LNP candidate is Cameron Caldwell, a Gold Coast councillor.
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.
There is little evidence to suggest Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream news media critically evaluate their own reporting on issues about or affecting Māori and te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi).
This is concerning, given the negative framing of so much coverage, past and present.
The one exception to this general ambivalence has been the groundbreaking apology in 2020 by digital and print news organisation Stuff for a long history of monocultural and Eurocentric bias.
Informed by our research on how news about Māori and te Tiriti is often constructed, Stuff looked back at its legacy mastheads and found stories that ranged from “blinkered to racist”. It pledged to change and improve to reflect a commitment to Māori audiences and the principles of te Tiriti.
To date, no other media organisation has attempted to evaluate its reporting in this way — or, in fact, acknowledge this might be necessary.
It is hoped the framework will help media organisations develop strategies that promote more accountable and equitable practices in their day-to-day reporting and commentary.
Colonial and settler narratives The initiative is important because news is not some objective truth waiting to be reported. It is constructed through the lenses of news teams — and particularly senior journalists and editors — who are predominantly Pākehā.
The types of stories that are told, and the way people and subjects are represented, involve deliberate choices. This frequently means few Māori stories are told. And when Māori are represented, they can be framed in limiting and negative ways.
Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono is a Stuff project investigating the history of racism. Part one, out today, focuses on Stuff & its newspapers, & how we have portrayed Māori.@ParahiCarmen & I did a cartoon together based on real headlines about Māori. @NZStuffpic.twitter.com/RfOCjtjBNj
Historically, this is common to news and media representations of Indigenous peoples everywhere. There is undoubtedly bias at work some of the time.
But as we have argued previously, these “negative ‘stories’ and representations of Indigenous peoples are strategic; tactical necessities rather than aberrations”.
In other words, they “play important roles in the ongoing colonial project, enhancing the legitimisation and naturalisation of the institutions, practices, and priorities of the colonising state”.
Early European colonists in the South Pacific founded newspapers and published material to serve their interests, institutionalising their preferred social order and norms. For example, an early handbook from the New Zealand Company in 1839 — “Information Relative to New Zealand, Compiled for the use of Colonists” — included some of the first representations of Māori as savage and lawless.
Settler newspapers recycled these themes from 1840 onwards. Variations of the same message persist to the present day. Recent research shows that in countries colonised by Britain, news consistently represents Indigenous peoples as violent, primitive and untrustworthy.
Fundamental questions Contemporary coverage of Māori activism still routinely misinforms and fails to capture nuance. Reporting of the 2020 Ihumātao occupation, for example, frequently reduced internal tensions to a clash between young and old.
On the other hand, there is evidence that both journalists and their audiences want to see change. This is where the new media framework can make a difference.
It provides detailed examples of more equitable news practices, and prompts news organisations to ask themselves several fundamental questions:
Commitment to te Tiriti: how do you enact responsibilities under He Whakaputanga and te Tiriti?
Societal accountabilities: how do you transform use of harmful, racist themes and narratives around Māori?
News media practices: who benefits from the kinds of stories you choose to tell?
Māori-controlled media: how do you represent diversity in Māori stories and in your own staffing?
Challenge and opportunity We’ve seen some positive responses to the framework, as well as accusations that the Tiriti requirements of New Zealand on Air’s Public Interest Journalism Fund amount to “propaganda” that muzzles mainstream media.
Either way, media organisations are now operating in an environment where profit models require innovation, with increasing competition from social media and changes in audience behaviours.
While this is challenging, it also offers an opportunity to transform journalism and improve newsroom practices. The Stuff and New Zealand on Air initiatives show how it’s possible to tackle harmful representations of Māori in mainstream news media.
Our framework could also be adapted to other sectors and settings where systemic bias and disadvantage are felt. For now, though, it is up to media organisations, funders and policymakers to decide how they will respond.
The authors acknowledge Dr Jenny Rankine and Dr Ray Nairn who were authors on Te Tiriti Framework For News Media and contributed to this article.
A honey bee’s life depends on it successfully harvesting nectar from flowers to make honey. Deciding which flower is most likely to offer nectar is incredibly difficult.
Getting it right demands correctly weighing up subtle cues on flower type, age and history – the best indicators a flower might contain a tiny drop of nectar. Getting it wrong is at best a waste of time, and at worst means exposure to a lethal predator hiding in the flowers.
In new research published today in eLife our team reports how bees make these complex decisions.
We challenged bees with a field of artificial flowers made from coloured disks of card, each of which offered a tiny drop of sugar syrup. Different-coloured “flowers” varied in their likelihood of offering sugar, and also differed in how well bees could judge whether or not the fake flower offered a reward.
We put tiny, harmless paint marks on the back of each bee, and filmed every visit a bee made to the flower array. We then used computer vision and machine learning to automatically extract the position and flight path of the bee. From this information, we could assess and precisely time every single decision the bees made.
We found bees very quickly learned to identify the most rewarding flowers. They quickly assessed whether to accept or reject a flower, but perplexingly their correct choices were on average faster (0.6 seconds) than their incorrect choices (1.2 seconds).
This is the opposite of what we expected.
Usually in animals – and even in artificial systems – an accurate decision takes longer than an inaccurate decision. This is called the speed-accuracy tradeoff.
This tradeoff happens because determining whether a decision is right or wrong usually depends on how much evidence we have to make that decision. More evidence means we can make a more accurate decision – but gathering evidence takes time. So accurate decisions are usually slow and inaccurate decisions are faster.
The speed-accuracy tradeoff occurs so often in engineering, psychology and biology, you could almost call it a “law of psychophysics”. And yet bees seemed to be breaking this law.
How then can a bee, with its tiny yet remarkable brain, be performing on a par with primates?
Bees surrounding a queen bee marked with a dot on its back. Shutterstock
Bees avoid risk
To take apart this question we turned to a computational model, asking what properties a system would need to have to beat the speed-accuracy tradeoff.
We built artificial neural networks capable of processing sensory input, learning and making decisions. We compared the performance of these artificial decision systems to the real bees. From this we could identify what a system had to have if it were to beat the tradeoff.
The answer lay in giving “accept” and “reject” responses different time-bound evidence thresholds. Here’s what that means – bees only accepted a flower if, at a glance, they were sure it was rewarding. If they had any uncertainty, they rejected it.
This was a risk-averse strategy and meant bees might have missed some rewarding flowers, but it successfully focused their efforts only on the flowers with the best chance and best evidence of providing them with sugar.
Our computer model of how bees were making fast, accurate decisions mapped well to both their behaviour and the known pathways of the bee brain.
Our model is plausible for how bees are such effective and fast decision makers. What’s more, it gives us a template for how we might build systems – such as autonomous robots for exploration or mining – with these features.
Andrew Barron receives funding from the Australian Research Council grants FT140100452 and DP210100740 and Templeton World Charity foundation Grant TWCF-2020-20539.
Coauthors on the article James Marshall and HaDi MaBouDi currently work for UK robotics company Opteran Technologies.
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.
The United States Coast Guard is now leading the investigation into the Titan submersible, looking for answers about why it imploded, and what actions should be taken next.
A multinational search for the Titan came to a halt on Thursday, when a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) found five pieces of debris sprawled across the seabed, some 500 metres from the Titanic shipwreck. The vessel experienced a catastrophic implosion at some point during its journey, with all five passengers presumed dead.
For now, details elude us – and it could be days, or even weeks, before we receive meaningful updates on the investigation’s progress. Similar past events, such as the 2019 fire in the Russian submarine Losharik, have shown how sensitively the details of such investigations should be treated.
The Titan disaster happened in international waters, in a commercially operated vessel, and with victims of different nationalities. Officials will likely want to be certain about any details released – and some may not be disclosed at all.
What happens next?
The Titan, a research and exploration sub owned by US company OceanGate, lost contact with its surface vessel on Sunday morning, about one hour and 45 minutes after its departure.
Chief investigator Jason Neubauer said the US Coast Guard will receive help from Canada, France and the United Kingdom. He said authorities had already mapped the accident site, and the inquiry will aim to address several questions, including:
what may have happened to cause the implosion?
how can safety be improved for future submersible voyages?
what civil or criminal charges should be laid in relation to the events, if any?
Recovery operations in remote parts of the ocean are painstakingly complex, with myriad variables to consider. We can expect the Titan investigation will cost millions of dollars.
Harsh conditions
The investigation is being carried out at depths of about 1,800m, some 600km from the nearest coastline. The same vessel that identified the initial debris – a deep-sea ROV called Odysseus 6K – is reportedly also being used to look for the vessel’s remaining parts.
Manufacturer Pelagic Research Services told CNN the ROV’s lifting capabilities had “been utilised and continue to be utilised”, and that missions would continue for about a week. However, we don’t know whether any debris has been recovered yet.
ROVs can collect vast amounts of data for deep-sea operations, including video footage and sensor readings. Ideally, an ROV will be able to reliably and quickly transmit data back to a support vessel or onshore facility, since real-time data transfer is often needed to make important decisions on the fly.
That said, even if Odysseus 6K delivers on this, some parts of the Titan may never be found. They may have disintegrated during the implosion, drifted too far away from the search area, or be obscured by other debris.
Underwater hazards, harsh weather and strong currents all add to the challenge – especially by limiting visibility. In the deep ocean, turbidity (haziness) and the absence of natural light means visibility is close to zero. Here, only sonar technology (which uses sound waves) may be used for navigation, mapping and locating objects of interest.
Any debris recovered will undoubtedly be valuable. Debris is physical evidence of the implosion, so analysing it will provide information (such as damage patterns and fractures) that can be used to infer the source of the implosion and the forces involved.
Experts can also conduct chemical analyses of the residue on the wreckage. However, this is affected by seawater, so a prompt recovery will be important.
The Titan’s remote location means investigators won’t have the luxury of having the quick support offered by coastal rescue stations that can rapidly deploy search and rescue assets and diving teams.
They’ll have to rely on specialised resources, such as large vessels and aircraft with extended range capabilities. Aircraft can provide an elevated platform for visual observation and aerial mapping, as well as remote sensing technologies including radar systems and thermal imaging sensors.
Finding the remains
Chief investigator Neubauer has said searching for victims’ remains is on the agenda. But the chances of actually finding them will depend on various factors, including the cause of the implosion, the depth at which it happened, and the surrounding conditions.
A severe implosion may have resulted in extensive fragmentation and scattering of both the submersible’s structure and human remains. Remains can be swept away in currents, or tampered with by marine life.
The effort to locate remains may involve observation from long-range aircraft and patrol vessels, or may even rely on radar, sonar or satellite imagery. If remains are located deep underwater, recovering them may involve using a specialised hoisting system designed to handle the challenges of a deep-sea environment.
Sharing responsibility
The Titan investigation will involve coordination between multiple entities, including maritime authorities, coast guard services and search and rescue organisations.
It will be subject to international agreements such as the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, as well as international law such as
the duty to render assistance, which is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This requires that all vessels, regardless of their flag, have a legal obligation to render assistance to any person in distress at sea.
For now, we can only speculate on what the Titan investigation might produce. All we can do is wait, and hope that whatever answers do emerge will be put to good use to make sure something like this never happens again.
Paola A. Magni 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.
There’s trouble brewing in Heaven. This has implications for an average teenage boy Jin Wang (Ben Wang), the protagonist of the Disney+ series American Born Chinese (2023).
The series is an adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel of the same name. It features many actors from the Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All at Once, such as Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.
Viewers may have encountered variations of the Monkey King character from the 16th-century Chinese classic Journey to the West in TV shows, such as Monkey (1978).
American Born Chinese focuses on Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu), son of the Monkey King. He comes to earth in the form of a new student at Jin’s high school. Wei-Chen is determined to find the Fourth Scroll which will stop the Bull Demon from taking control of Heaven. Jin is reluctant to reciprocate the friendship extended by Wei-Chen. He just wants to fit into his predominantly white high school.
American Born Chinese is a recent addition to stories of young people who grapple with what it means to be successful.
Success, youth, and the model minority stereotype
For Jin, being popular and joining the soccer team is more important than excelling academically. He doesn’t fit into the model minority stereotype which essentialises Asian Americans as hardworking, docile and family-oriented high achievers.
In his attempts to gain popularity, Jin reveals he is a flawed character. He steals, lies, betrays his friends and remains silent when he is bullied by racist classmates.
As immigrants, Jin’s parents embarked on their own “journey to the West,” hoping to achieve the American Dream. However, they are unlike stereotypical Asian American “tiger” parents because they do not pressure him to do well at school. Neither do they insist on Jin learning Mandarin.
However, Jin’s mother Christine (Yeo Yann Yann) constantly nags her husband Simon (Chin Han) to ask for a promotion at work even though the family is financially comfortable. Hardworking Simon is silent, nonthreatening and quietly does his work without challenging his boss’s decisions. He finds it difficult to speak up for himself both at work and at home.
This character fits stereotypes of Asian American men as effeminate, emasculated and failing the standards of ideal white masculinity.
In Christine’s eyes, Simon has not achieved the American Dream. Unlike Simon, Christine has an entrepreneurial spirit. She takes out the family’s savings to invest in an herbal powder business without consulting her husband. This leads to a crisis in the family when Simon wants to quit his job. It is only when he stands up for his wife at the principal’s office that their relationship improves.
Michelle Yeoh in America Born Chinese. Disney
A hero without superpowers
Wei-Chen disrupts Jin’s life by challenging his narrow definition of success as popularity. Self-assured Wei-Chen does not care what others think of him. Likewise, their Japanese American classmate Suzy Nakamura is a confident leader of the Culture Club who rallies students to protest against racist behaviour. Her outspokenness challenges model minority stereotypes.
While Jin tries to distance himself from both Suzy and Wei-Chen, the latter believes in his friend and trusts that Jin will help him. Wei-Chen’s determination and faith in Jin is the catalyst for Jin’s self-transformation. Through this unlikely friendship, Jin comes to believe Wei-chen’s claim that the heavenly rebellion is real.
The Goddess of Mercy Guanyin (Michelle Yeoh) entrusts Jin with the mission to stop the Bull Demon. Jin refuses and Freddy Wong (Ke Huy Quan), a sitcom character, appears to him in a dream. Freddy tells him,
a hero doesn’t always have to have superpowers. A hero is someone who goes on a journey, shows courage, helps others.
American Born Chinese brings mythology into a modern setting. Disney
Redefining Success
Our research on conceptualisations of children and success in Asia has shown that media representations about young people have moved beyond narrow definitions of achievements as academically oriented. It encompasses the cultivation of positive personal qualities and good morals for the benefit of the community.
Jin exemplifies this shift beyond the Asian context. He transforms from an individual hyper-focused on personal desires into a brave friend who is willing to sacrifice himself to save his community.
In the season one finale, Jin embraces a new definition of success. Instead of taking part in his first soccer match in front of the school, he steps out of his comfort zone to help his unpopular friends.
For Jin, being popular is no longer his first priority. His refusal to be docile challenges the model minority stereotype. He has truly become a hero.
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.
This week, Australia announced its latest package of military and humanitarian support for Ukraine, totalling approximately A$110 million.
The package comprises 70 military vehicles, which include 28 M113 armoured personnel carriers and other support vehicles (trucks, trailers and “special operations vehicles”).
The package also includes a supply of 105mm artillery shells, which are desperately needed by Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian government says it will need one million rounds of ammunition this year.
While this support package was welcomed by the Ukrainian government, it has been criticised by some for being too small, tokenistic and not providing the level of equipment and support needed to counter Russia’s invasion.
Why has this latest package been criticised?
The primary issue with the package is the supply of the M113 armoured personnel carriers. Ukraine has previously requested Australian designed and built Hawkei armoured vehicles, going so far as to describe the Hawkei as “its new crush”.
However, Australia has so far declined to provide these. The M113 armoured personnel carriers that Australia is sending to Ukraine date back to the Vietnam War. Although the vehicles have undergone a variety of upgrades over the years, they are widely considered to be obsolete in modern warfare.
Australia is in the process of retiring them in favour of a new, modern design of armoured personnel carrier. The Defence Department itself has said the M113 carriers are obsolete:
[they] are no longer able to counter the current and emerging threats presented in our operating environment.
In an address to the Indian Ocean Defence and Security Conference in Perth last year, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, the new Australian Army chief, also said:
The combined arms fighting system that protects our soldiers today has at its core a 60-year-old armoured personnel carrier. […] We can and we must do better — and we have a plan to do so.
Why are we not giving the Ukrainians what they want
The government is currently unable (or perhaps unwilling) to supply the Hawkei vehicles that Ukraine has requested, on the advice of the Australian Defence Force. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this week:
On Hawkei, I know that has been raised, the advice is that would not be the best way to provide assistance to Ukraine.
Defence has reportedly rejected providing Hawkei vehicles to Ukraine due to an unresolved braking issue and a limited supply of spare parts, which it asserts would make the Hawkei currently unsupportable in combat.
However, Ukraine would be well aware of these issues. And its request (and enthusiasm) for this particular vehicle means the government likely sees a need for the Hawkei on the battlefield – one that is unlikely to be met by the M113s.
It is difficult to conclusively determine why Australia has chosen such a military hardware composition for its latest support package and why it is denying Ukraine the assistance it is requesting.
There is still a chance Albanese will offer more support over the coming months, for example, at the upcoming NATO conference he will attend in July.
Much has been made recently about the potential for Ukraine’s allies to supply F-16 fighter jets to Kiev. The F-16 would provide Ukraine with a formidable air combat and strike capability that is crucial for pushing back Russian forces.
Ukraine’s air force currently utilises old Soviet-era fighters, predominantly MiG-29s and Sukhoi Su-27s, which have been jerry-rigged to deploy Western munitions.
After dragging its feet for months, the US recently announced it will approve allied exports of F-16 jets to Ukraine. The move was welcomed by countries like Denmark, which maintains a fleet of 40 F-16s, of which about 30 are operational and could be supplied to Ukraine.
However, another option exists for Australia: its retired fleet of F/A-18 classic Hornets. Australia has 41 of these fighter jets in storage, which Ukraine has reportedly been looking into, although has not yet formally requested. Negotiations are reportedly underway on a deal.
The F/A-18 has some advantages over the F-16 for Ukraine’s purposes. First, it is a “navalised” fighter, meaning it has a strengthened undercarriage that would allow it to land and take off from rougher airfields (and potentially roads), unlike the F-16 which requires highly maintained airfields.
This would give the Ukrainian air force more flexibility and increase the chances the aircraft would survive longer in combat. In more remote locales, these jets would also be more difficult to detect when not flying.
Australia’s version of the F/A-18, the F/A-18A, has also been heavily upgraded, making its fleet roughly equivalent to the slightly more modern F/A-18C standard.
Further, given Australia’s jets have not been deployed in a naval context (on, say, aircraft carriers) and thus subjected to saltwater environments, they are in good condition.
There are, of course, some issues with Ukraine receiving F/A-18 jets.
First, it would require export approval from the US, which is required for all US military hardware to be resold or re-exported. This, however, would not likely be difficult to obtain.
Perhaps more significantly, it would also require Ukraine’s pilots to be trained on the F/A-18 platform. However, this will be an issue for the F-16, or any other Western fighter jet sent to Ukraine’s air force.
Why Australia should do more
Australia’s distance from the conflict means it isn’t as likely to provide as much support as other states in closer geographic proximity to Russia.
The European Union, for instance, just announced it will increase its military aid fund to Ukraine by a further €3.5 billion (A$5.7 billion).
But as Matthew Sussex, one of Australia’s leading Russia experts, has pointed out, Russia is a strategic competitor to Australia that will increasingly pivot its attention to the Indo-Pacific region.
As such, our geographic distance is no excuse for weak support to a state attempting to counter an illegal and devastating invasion by Russia. We can, and should, be doing considerably more.
James Dwyer 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.
If you’ve just decided to start using tampons and you’re finding it tricky, you’re not alone! Lots of young teens and first-time tampon users have told me they experience “tampon trauma” – meaning it hurts, won’t go in or gets stuck coming out. But with a little bit of practice, it’s super easy.
Tampons are safe and convenient, especially if you’re going to the beach, swimming or doing something physically active. You can’t feel a tampon once it’s inserted properly, which is why some people prefer tampons to pads or period undies. Tampons are used by millions of people around the world. They’re made from natural cotton, rayon fibre or both, and absorb fluid, including menstrual blood.
In Australia, tampons are classified as “medical devices” which means they have to meet certain safety standards. So even though there’s a confusing array of brands available in Australia it’s good to know they all pass the safety test.
Just like pads and period undies, tampons come with different absorbencies, such as “mini” or “light”, “regular” and “super”. As you get to know your own periods and cycle, you’ll also get to know which tampons suit you best over the course of your period. It’s common for the first couple of days of a period to be heavier, meaning you might need a tampon with higher absorbency.
A tampon is designed to sit inside the vagina, right up high against the cervix. The vagina is a stretchy muscular tube and has plenty of room to accommodate a tampon.
The vagina slopes upward and backward, towards the spine. A common difficulty first-time tampon users encounter is pushing the tampon straight up rather than slightly backwards, so it hits the front wall of the vagina and feels like it can’t go up any further. The same can happen in reverse when pulling a tampon out – it needs to be pulled slightly forward, not straight down, or it could hit the back wall of the vagina and feel stuck.
If you want to, you can practise using a tampon between your periods, or when your flow is light. Wash your hands first, then get a mini-sized tampon and make it slippery by putting some water-based lubricant on it. Some people might dab a tiny bit of Vaseline on the tip of the tampon instead. Vaseline shouldn’t be put on tampons during a period, as it reduces absorbency.
Pull the string so it reaches its full length before you insert it. Stand in front of a mirror and have a look at where the opening of your vagina is by pulling the vaginal lips apart. Then either squat, or put one leg up on a stool, shelf, or side of the bath, which gets you in a comfortable position to practise.
Gently put the tip of the tampon into the opening and then push it up and back with your finger. You can put your fingers inside your vagina first, to get a feel of the way your vagina slopes. (If you have long nails, take care not to scratch yourself!)
Some tampons come with an “applicator”. This is made of two cardboard or plastic tubes, one inside the other. The larger tube has the tampon inside it, and the smaller one sits just below the tampon. When inserting, you hold the smaller part and push the applicator inside your vagina rather than putting your fingers inside. When the applicator has gone all the way in, you push the tampon out by “plunging” the smaller tube up, pushing the tampon out.
It’s virtually impossible to put a tampon into the wrong hole! There are three holes in that part of the body – the vagina, the urethra (where wee comes out) and the anus, or bum hole, where poo comes out. Most people are familiar with where the bum hole is, because (hopefully) they wipe their bums a lot!
The urethra is very small, and you wouldn’t be able to fit a tampon into it. It sits high up towards the top of the vulva – where your inner vaginal lips meet in the middle, and just below the tip of the clitoris.
Tampons can be left in for up to six hours. If your period is heavier than anticipated and the tampon has become “soaked”, you might have to change it earlier. You’ll know when that happens because some menstrual fluid will leak onto your undies.
Don’t panic though – it’s something you’ll be able to feel and deal with before anyone else notices! If you know you have heavy flow days and want to take extra precautions, you can wear a light pad on your undies (or period undies) as well as using a tampon.
You might have heard about something called Toxic Shock Syndrome. This is caused by a bacterial infection that releases toxins into the blood and is a serious condition.
It can happen anywhere in the body but is known to be associated with the use of ultra super absorbency tampons. There are now guidelines and regulations worldwide for tampon manufacturing to reduce the risk of infections.
These days toxic shock syndrome is extremely rare (about 0.001% of people), and still only occurs if tampons are left in for several hours, allowing the bacteria to multiply.
Symptoms are high fever, vomiting, diarrhoea, muscle aches, headaches and a rash.
It’s important to NEVER flush a tampon down the toilet. If you’re in a public toilet, there should be bins inside toilet cubicles for all disposable period products. At home, you could wrap it in tissue and put it in a rubbish bin. You might also be aware people are now looking at environmentally friendly alternatives to disposable pads and tampons.
Never flush a tampon down the toilet, put it in a bin. Pexels/Karolina Grabowska, CC BY
Reusable pads and period undies were designed to help reduce waste from disposable pads. There’s now also an alternative to tampons, which is the modern “menstrual cup”. These are made of medical grade silicone that you fold over, push up inside your vagina using two fingers, and then pop! It springs open inside the vagina and catches any menstrual fluid.
Unlike a tampon, they sit a little lower down in the vagina, and just like tampons, they can take practice getting used to. These can be used for up to 12 hours which makes them super convenient. You can try a menstrual cup anytime – and some people might switch between tampons and a cup or pads or period undies, depending on what feels right on the day.
Managing periods is something almost half the population deals with. It can feel scary, but it might help to know that just about everyone who has periods goes through the same process of figuring it out! The more you arm yourself with information and know how much choice is out there, the more confident you’ll feel. And don’t forget there are always adults out there who are willing and able to give you advice and help.
Melissa Kang has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Councill, Australian Research Council and Medical Research Futures Fund. She is affiliated with the Australian Association for Adolescent Health and the International Association for Adolescent Health. She has co-authored Welcome to Your Period, Welcome to Consent, Welcome to Your Boobs and Welcome to Sex.
