Paul G Buchanan and Selwyn Manning delivery episode 12 of season 4 of A View from Afar. December 23, 2023.
A View from Afar
PODCAST: Buchanan and Manning Assess 2023 Global Trends and Conflicts
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The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast was produced at midday Thurs December 21, 2023 (NZST) and Wednesday December 20, 8pm (USEDST).
In this the twelfth episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning note and discuss some of the big world events that have occurred and are occurring in 2023.
And in particular, Paul and Selwyn discuss the rise of the Global South; evaluate the the wars that continue to rage in Ukraine and Gaza; and tensions in the South China Sea.
Plus they note, with particular reference the trends that will become prominent in 2024, including the decline of Western democracies and a rightward turn in many places (including in Argentina and New Zealand in their respective 2023 elections).
INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:
Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.
RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.
You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
As record-breaking floods in North Queensland ease and water levels recede, the focus now turns to the mop-up and recovery. Residents have been supporting each other through the flood crisis, such as processing donated goods, conducting welfare checks on neighbours and helping each other clean up homes.
Such community resilience in disasters is vital. Successiveinquiries have shown we can’t rely solely on emergency services in large disasters. Crews can’t get to every community straight away, or provide support to every household that needs assistance.
Our research shows how communities can be supported to respond in a crisis – during the event, in the immediate aftermath and beyond.
As climate change worsens, extreme weather events are the new norm. Local community building and preparedness is now more important than ever.
Building disaster resilience
Volunteer numbers are declining nationally. However, when disaster strikes, people show a willingness to step forward and help their communities.
We have researched community-led responses to disasters in three locations in New South Wales – the Northern Rivers, Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury regions. We examined how community networks organised themselves during the response and recovery phases of the Black Summer bushfires (2019-20) and major floods (2020-22).
We found people leapt into action and helped one another: relaying early warning messages, distributing food when roads were cut and then cleaning up afterwards. They also provided emotional support when the going got tough. This included listening to and supporting flood-affected people who wanted to tell their story and start processing what had happened. Community members also supported elderly people when their at-home support services were cut off for extended periods.
In separate research in rural communities affected by drought, fire and flood, we found community-led collective action and planning can foster feelings of belonging and social connection. It can also help communities prepare for the broader consequences of climate change.
Examples of the activities flowing from these initiatives include:
homegrown produce swaps
community gatherings (such as festivals, barbeques and bushfire awareness talks)
creating or joining formal local community groups
creating community resilience plans
bush regeneration projects
improving emergency communications
creating animal welfare plans for disasters.
One community program in Northern NSW was run by community organisation Plan C. The lead author of this article, Rebecca McNaught, is a board member and former consultant to the organisation and co-author Jean Renouf is the founder and chief executive. The program trained and supported more than 270 Northern Rivers residents across six local government areas. Most (80%) of these people were affected by floods in 2022 through loss of property or incomes, and 30% were directly threatened by bushfires in 2019-20.
The program covered the technical aspects of preparing for disasters, such as learning about the roles of fire, police and state emergency services. It also trained participants in disaster risks associated with bushfire, flood, tsunami and landslips.
Disasters can take a toll on mental health. Training people in how to look after themselves and each other in challenging times is important. The program teaches participants about the benefit of sharing stories about individual experiences, and guides participants in how to provide emotional support to someone who has experienced trauma. The program also covers concepts such as active listening, compassionate communication skills and self-care for both the helper and the person receiving support.
Participants are also mentored and connected to a network of community carers and responders who support each other and their communities to both recover from recent floods and fires and build resilience to future disasters.
The connection of community leaders across the Northern Rivers is essential. Through Whatsapp groups, leaders can express solidarity, share skills and resources, and support each other to work through the governance issues involving community organisations.
Communities are important actors in preparing for and recovering from disaster, and should be supported to do this job well. And more robust research into community resilience programs is needed, to better understand what is working, who benefits and why.
Support for this work must come now, before the next disaster, so communities can pull together to withstand the challenges ahead.
The authors wish to acknowledge Emma Pittaway and Dr Johanna Nalau for their contributions to this article.
Rebecca McNaught is a Research Fellow at the University Centre for Rural Health (University of Sydney) in Lismore. She has received scholarship funding from the Australian Government’s Research Training Program Stipend. She is affiliated with the South Golden Beach, New Brighton and Ocean Shores Community Resilience Team. She has also conducted paid and voluntary work for the Northern Rivers not-for-profit registered charity Plan C.
Amanda Howard has received funding from Resilience NSW and the new NSW Reconstruction Authority, Infrastructure NSW.
Jean S. Renouf is a lecturer at Southern Cross University and the CEO of the Northern Rivers not-for-profit registered charity Plan C, which builds community resilience in the Northern Rivers of NSW. Plan C receives funding from Commonwealth and NSW government grants.
Jo Longman has received funding from the NSW Dept of Planning, Industry and Environment and the NSW Reconstruction Authority.
Australian cities are grappling with ways to increase housing supply and make it more affordable. One suggested solution is “pattern book” development. The idea made headlines when proposed recently by Housing Now, an alliance of businesses and lobby groups in New South Wales.
The problem, they argue, is that housing projects take years to process, due to overly lengthy processes of design, planning and public consultation. The group aims to fast-track development by commissioning “a modern pattern book with a suite of approved designs by recognised architects developed in partnership with local neighbourhoods”.
These ready-made, pre-approved designs for townhouses, terraces and low-rise apartments could then be rolled out at a much faster pace. This, Housing Now claims, would clear the backlog and cut the time it takes to make housing happen. In the past, the alliance argues, “many of the world’s greatest cities were designed using pattern books”.
What then is pattern book development? Could it help ease the housing crisis?
The term “pattern book” originally referred to books with design templates for textiles, wallpapers, sewing or knitting. For housing, the term is applied to books illustrating a range of architectural designs that could be copied or used as inspiration.
Since the early Renaissance, pattern books allowed architects, builders and clients to share and advertise designs to a wider audience. An example in Victorian Britain was The Builder’s Practical Director (1855), which contains a range of house designs with plans and facades. Architect and surveyor E.L. Tarbuck wrote this book as a reference guide for anyone wanting to build a house.
House design from a popular 19th-century pattern book. E.L. Tarbuck, The Builder’s Practical Director (London: J. Hagger, 1855), p. 58
Were cities designed with pattern books?
Certainly, there are houses resembling designs from pattern books across the Western world, including cities such as London and Dublin.
However, the idea that most houses were simply direct copies of designs from such books is unlikely to be historically correct. Until the mid-20th century at least, pattern books were more often used as inspiration for designers, rather than being merely copied without any deviations.
The growth of many cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries was certainly based on formulaic housing patterns. The rapid urbanisation that came with the Industrial Revolution produced a wide range of terraced, detached and semi-detached houses or apartment blocks with similarities and repetition in their layout and planning.
These repeating patterns were the result of a combination of drivers.
In Britain and Ireland, the leasehold development system played an important role, as small land parcels were laid out in repetitive patterns (often by estate surveyors) and then leased to different builders. These “masterplans” created a kind of template with approved housing types on which builders could base their designs.
Houses on the Minet Estate in Lambeth, South London, constructed by different builders under the leasehold system. David Kroll
The designs were often based on tried and tested precedents, which had evolved slowly over time. For example, the first houses to emerge in Dublin’s early 19th-century suburbs were based on the terraced house, a familiar housing typology since medieval times.
In London, another driver was that houses were codified into so-called classes or “rates” in the Building Act of 1774. This seems to have further reinforced patterns of similar housing types.
Terraced houses in Pembroke Road North, Dublin, from 1816. Susan Galavan
Could pattern books ease the housing crisis?
Housing Now’s proposal of pre-approved design templates and development patterns could indeed help speed up planning approvals for new housing and support planned increases in urban densities. We would still need to consider carefully how this could work in detail, of course.
This housing would need to align with urban design and planning strategies, such as the regional and district plans in NSW. The proposed typologies would also need to suit the context of their specific settings such as established suburbs, former industrial areas or alongside major highways.
A risk is that these pattern book templates will be too monotonous and too prescriptive for people’s needs. Some flexibility in the design and choice would seem sensible.
Pre-approved pattern book templates could set the overall building form and type while still allowing for different designs. Such an approach has historical precedents.
One example is the 19th-century Hobrecht Plan for Berlin, which determined the building heights and their outline.
A more recent example (from 1993-2000) of an area developed within an overall master plan of housing types and forms is Borneo-Sporenburg in Amsterdam. Within their set terrace-house typology and massing, this development achieved fairly high densities while allowing each house to be custom-designed.
A similar approach could be used to plan increases in density of established neighbourhoods through pre-approved, pattern book housing forms.
Proactive and innovative proposals that help speed up planning approvals and construction of housing are very welcome and urgently needed. One question that remains, however, is how to ensure this new housing will be affordable to those in need.
You’re inside on a scorching 40°C day, running your air conditioner on full for extended hours. Normally, you might worry about cost – or even the impact on the grid or the environment. But you’ve got solar on your roof, so you should be producing plenty of power to offset your aircon.
This line of thinking is common. Is it correct? Not quite. While it’s true that solar on your roof usually performs well over summer, there is an issue here for you and the grid.
Your solar performs at its best when the sun is high. But the hottest part of the day is actually in the late afternoon. As heat builds up and up, you often need cooling late into the evening even as output from your solar array starts to drop.
That’s not to say solar isn’t worth it – it will cut your cooling bill substantially. Here’s what this phenomenon means for you – and for the grid.
Solar and aircon can work well together – but it’s not a silver bullet to avoid energy bills. HDC Creative/Shutterstock
Hot and hotter
Australia has heated up by 1.47°C since 1910. Globally, this year is breaking all records, with temperatures briefly passing 2°C above the pre-industrial period.
Heatwaves have already started and we’re likely to see many more in Australia this summer. A heatwave is three or more days when daytime and night-time temperatures are unusually high. They’re often worse in cities, where black surfaces such as roads and roofs trap heat, and as air conditioners dump heat out to the outside air. This, in turn, means more demand for electricity to cool houses. Australia’s energy market operator forecasts electricity demand will hit a one in ten-year high this summer.
As electricity prices rise, many of us have responded by going solar. One in three Australian households – 3.6 million homes – now generate electricity domestically. In South Australia the proportion is nearly 50%.
As Australia gets hotter, aircon use will drive more electricity demand in all mainland cities. We estimate the extra demand for cooling will drive up demand in Sydney and Brisbane 20% and 49% respectively by 2050.
Heat – especially sustained heat – is dangerous. During the last northern summer, North America, Europe and China experienced record heatwaves. Deaths linked to this year’s heatwaves reached 62,000 in Europe.
Staying cool is a health issue. We do not want to advise people to turn off their aircon when they need it most – especially for people with health concerns or older people.
Staying cool matters for your health. Shutterstock
Solar and heatwaves
During hot periods, residential demand accounts for 50% or more of the peak demand in many parts of Australia. Before the age of solar, peak power demand in South Australia more than doubled during a heatwave and the peak demand on the grid occurred close to midday.
Now that solar is common, this midday peak has been cancelled out. But we now must cope with a smaller late-evening peak during heat events, as the sun sets but the air is still hot.
When we drill down to individual homes, we can clearly see domestic air conditioning is the major driver behind peak power demand.
Our research in homes shows air conditioning accounts for 72% (Adelaide) and 90% (Brisbane) of household electricity usage during peak times. This is true even of low-energy use houses. When we monitored 60 low energy homes in Adelaide’s Lochiel Park Green Village over a year, we found that while these homes used considerably less electricity overall, aircon was still a major draw.
The longer the heatwave, the higher the peak electricity demand. This is likely due to buildings struggling to shed excess heat overnight and households becoming less tolerant of the conditions. As heatwaves go on, the demand for power overnight gradually increases.
Most Australian homes have lower energy-efficiency ratings than these homes, and will need more electricity for cooling. But the average rooftop solar array in Australia is around 6 kilowatts, while the average for new solar is now almost 10kW. These larger arrays will cope with higher air conditioning demand during the day, but will not tackle the night peak.
Choosing the right size air conditioner for your space with a high energy efficiency (6 star rating) is essential at the outset. If your aircon is more than ten years old, replacing it by a more efficient one will save money.
If you already have aircon, you can reduce its thirst for power. We know well-insulated houses with light-coloured roofs are more resistant to heatwaves, are more thermally comfortable to live in, and need less air conditioning.
If you’re renting, you have limited ability to control these factors. One option to weather heatwaves without huge energy bills is to create a “cool retreat” – cooling one room rather than the whole house.
You can also cut energy bills and emissions by:
turning the air conditioner on earlier in the day while the sun is shining
setting it to a slightly higher temperature
using external blinds or shutters to reduce direct sun heat from windows
reducing other electricity use in late afternoon and evenings.
Looking to the future
At grid scale, the ever-growing number of residential arrays and grid-scale solar farms with batteries will help reduce the risk of blackouts this summer.
Home batteries can store excess electricity from solar for use in the evening peak. Thermal batteries are an emerging technology which store heat or cold for later use. When vehicle-to-grid technology gets cheaper and more widely used, you will be able to use your electric car as a much larger home battery and use your own stored solar when the sun is not shining, rather than paying top dollar for grid power.
Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank many colleagues, particularly Stephen Berry and David Whaley for contributing to the research behind this article.
Wasim Saman has received multiple federal and state research grants from the Australian Research Council, government departments, the CRC for Low Carbon Living and several industry partners for research into low carbon housing. He is a director of Isothermix Pty Ltd.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yasmine Probst, Associate Professor, School of Medical, Indigenous and Health Sciences, University of Wollongong
Does it seem like most vegetables you serve your children end up left on the plate, or worse, strewn across the floor? But mention dessert, and your fruit skewers are polished off in an instant.
Or maybe the carrot and cucumber sticks keep coming home in your child’s lunchbox untouched, yet the orange slices are nowhere to be seen.
If you’re facing these struggles with your child, you’re not alone. Many children prefer fruit to vegetables.
So if your child eats lots of fruit but minimal or no vegetables, is that OK? And how can you get them to eat more veggies?
Consumption among Australian children falls well below recommendations. Around 62.6% of children aged over two meet the recommended daily fruit intake, but only 9% meet the recommended vegetable intake.
This is not surprising given children have a natural preference for fruit. At least in part, this is due to its sweetness and texture, whether crispy, crunchy or juicy. The texture of fruit has been linked to a positive sensory experience among children.
Vegetables, on the other hand, are more of an acquired taste, and certain types, such as cruciferous vegetables, can be perceived by children as bitter.
The reason children often prefer fruit over vegetables could also be related to the parents’ preferences. Some research has even suggested we develop food preferences before birth based on what our mother consumes during pregnancy.
Balance is key
So, a preference for fruit is common. But is it OK if your child eats lots of fruit but little to no vegetables? This is a question we, as dietitians, get asked regularly.
You might be thinking, at least my child is eating fruit. They could be eating no veggies and no fruit. This is true. But while it’s great your child loves fruit, vegetables are just as important as part of a balanced eating pattern.
Vegetables provide us with energy, essential vitamins and minerals, as well as water and fibre, which help keep our bowels regular. They also support a strong immune system.
If your child is only eating fruit, they are missing some essential nutrients. But the same is true if they are eating only veggies.
Evidence shows healthy consumption of fruit and vegetables protects against chronic diseases including high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Consumed together, fruit and vegetables in a variety of colours provide different nutrients we need, some of which we can’t get from other foods. We should encourage kids to eat a “rainbow” of fruit and vegetables each day to support their growth and development.
If your child is eating slightly more fruit than what’s recommended each day, it’s not usually a problem.
Fruit contains natural sugar which is good for you. But too much of a good thing, even if it’s natural, can create problems. Fruit also contains virtually no fat and very little to no protein, both essential for a growing child.
When overindulging in fruit starts to displace other food groups such as vegetables, dairy products and meat, that’s when things can get tricky.
6 tips to get your kids to love vegetables
1. Get them involved
Take your child with you when you go shopping. Let them choose new vegetables. See if you can find vegetables even you haven’t tried, so you’re both having a new experience. Then ask them to help you with preparing or cooking the vegetables using a recipe you have chosen together. This will expose your child to veggies in a positive way and encourage them to eat more.
2. Sensory learning
Try to expose your child to vegetables rather than hiding them. Kids are more likely to eat veggies when they see, smell and feel them. This is called sensory learning.
3. Have fun with food
Use colourful vegetables of different sizes and textures. Make them fun by creating scenes or faces on your child’s plate. Add edible flowers or mint for decoration. You can even serve this with a side of veggie-based dip such as hummus or guacamole for some bonus healthy fats.
4. Teach them to grow their own
Teach your child how to grow their own vegetables. Evidence shows kids are more inclined to try the food they have helped and watched grow. You don’t need to have a big backyard to do this. A windowsill with a pot plant is a perfect start.
5. Lead by example
Your child learns from you, and your eating habits will influence theirs. Ensure they see you eating and enjoying veggies, whether in meals or as snacks.
6. Practise persistence
If your child refuses a particular vegetable once, don’t give up. It can take many attempts to encourage children to try a new food.
Yasmine Probst receives funding from Multiple Sclerosis Australia and has previously received funding from various industry groups that are not affiliated with the topic of this article. She is affiliated with the National Health and Medical Research Council, Multiple Sclerosis Plus and Multiple Sclerosis Limited.
Olivia Wills receives funding from Multiple Sclerosis Australia.
Shoroog Allogmanny receives funding from the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the form of a PhD scholarship. She is affiliated with Clinical Nutrition Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, Taibah University, Madinah 42353, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brander, Professor, UNSW Beach Safety Research Group, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney
This summer, millions of people will flock to Australia’s beaches – and tragically, not all will survive. Last summer, 54 people drowned along the Australian coast. This included 28 people in New South Wales – the highest number in the state’s recorded history.
About 80% of the drownings occurred at beaches and almost half were due to people caught in offshore flowing rip currents.
Crucially, all of these drownings occurred in locations not patrolled by professional lifeguards or volunteer surf lifesavers. That is a stark statistic.
The core safety message promoted to beachgoers is to always “swim between the flags” on patrolled beaches. But clearly, unpatrolled beaches represent the major beach safety challenge in Australia – and this must be addressed.
All drownings are preventable
A recent study showed coastal drowning rates in Australia did not change between 2004 and 2021. This was despite significant financial investment into coastal safety by all levels of government during this time.
And in 2023, the NSW government announced the biggest ever funding commitment to Surf Life Saving NSW (SLSNSW) – A$23 million over four years.
This raises important questions for both beach safety providers and their funding bodies. Are we doing enough to address the issue of drowning on unpatrolled beaches? Why aren’t we seeing a decrease in the number and rate of beach drowning? Is the current approach working? Are we doing enough evaluation?
These questions need to be answered because beach drowning, like all types of drowning, is preventable.
The ‘swim between the flags’ message is not enough
The safest place to swim on Australian beaches is between the red and yellow flags, under the supervision of trained lifeguards and surf lifesavers. This is the core safety message promoted to beachgoers, and should always take precedent.
But it’s unrealistic to assume beachgoers will always adhere to the message – in part, because the flags and lifeguards aren’t everywhere at all times.
Less than 5% of Australia’s 11,000 beaches are patrolled, and most of those are patrolled only seasonally. Patrols rarely cover early mornings and evenings when many people choose to swim, and the supervised flagged area may only cover a tiny percentage of the length of the beach.
A recent study documented why beachgoers swim at unpatrolled beaches. The reasons included proximity to their holiday accommodation and because the location is quieter and less crowded than patrolled beaches.
So while most Australians know they should swim between the flags, many choose not to, or simply don’t have the option. This can have fatal consequences. Surf Life Saving Australia’s latest National Coastal Safety Report report reported that 75% of the 902 coastal drowning deaths over the previous decade occurred more than 1km from a surf lifesaving service.
There’s an obvious need in Australia for a beach safety campaign that directly addresses safety on unpatrolled beaches. But we have to get it right – and taking an evidence-based approach is crucial.
For example, it seems logical to teach beachgoers how to identify dangerous rip currents. But research has shown that people armed with this knowledge might become emboldened to swim at unpatrolled beaches.
In 2018, Surf Life Saving Australia launched the “Think Line” campaign, which encourages beachgoers to spend a few minutes thinking about beach safety when they arrive at the beach. It’s a simple concept that could become generational over time. But it requires more promotion, more collaboration between beach safety providers, and more research into whether the message is changing beachgoer behaviour in a positive way.
Other efforts to improve safety on unpatrolled beaches include investment in technology such as emergency response beacons. However, to date there’s been little to no evidence-based evaluation of their effectiveness.
Research into beach safety is a powerful tool. It provides evidence that can identify which educational approaches are working and which are not. Yet, funding of beach safety research pales in comparison to the amounts invested in untested safety interventions, or upgrades to existing surf club facilities and equipment.
It’s globally accepted that lifeguards are the best beach safety intervention. So why aren’t we directing more funding into increasing the presence of local government lifeguard services?
This expansion should involve extending lifeguard patrol hours during the summer on patrolled beaches and adding seasonal lifeguards on popular but hazardous unpatrolled beaches.
Staying safe this summer
Preventing drownings on our beaches requires a new approach – and some serious questions about where funding should be best directed. Otherwise, the terrible drowning death toll will continue.
In the meantime, you might find yourself wanting to swim at an unpatrolled beach this summer, or to swim early in the morning before lifeguards start duty. To help you understand the hazards and stay safe, UNSW Sydney has developed a new educational resource, including a video. They are both worth a look; in fact, they may just save a life.
Rob Brander receives funding from Surf Life Saving Australia, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Australian Research Council
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Treena Clark, Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Indigenous Research Fellow, Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, University of Technology Sydney
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, and links to old newspaper stories and research papers using outdated and potentially offensive terminology.
The ABC’s series The Way We Wore takes a look at stories of Australian fashion design and style.
First Nations people participated in the series and spoke about various periods and tales, looking at forced clothing policies during the Stolen Generation period, the contribution of Flinders Ranges/Adnyamathanha knowledge to the creation of the RM Williams iconic boot, and the emergence of First Nations fashion design from the 1970s and at Parisian fashion shows in the 1980s.
Yet, left out from the show was the rich backstory of our First Nations fashion design industry.
Prior to Parisian fashion shows, First Nations people showcased handmade clothing and accessories at 1800s international and national exhibitions, often as unpaid labour.
Earlier still, the making and crafting of animal and plant cloaks, skirts, belts, shoes and accessories were the original fashion designs.
Today, we are seeing a resurgence around the country of these adornments and the role they play in healing, wellbeing and cultural practice.
Showcasing at trades and exhibitions
First Nations women and girls who lived on reserves, missions and schools were forced to learn sewing and many produced goods including hats, bags, baskets, jewellery and rugs.
These items were crafted from cultural or Western methods, using both traditional or introduced materials.
From the mid-1800s, their work was often produced for various tourist trades and national and international exhibitions.
One Melbourne CBD shop stocked woven baskets and bags from Victoria’s Coranderrk Reserve.
Sydney’s La Perouse Mission sold shell baskets in the city and later exhibited them at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and in London.
At the 1888 Melbourne Exhibition, the Queensland section presented pearl jewellery from Thursday Island and the Torres Strait.
While some of the women and girls from these institutions received pay for their work, many did not.
Emergence of fashion within the craft industry
From the 1930s, non-Indigenous textile artists and fashion designers started producing First Nations-inspired designs using motifs such as boomerangs, shields and “hunting stick figures”, without the permission or input from First Nations artists.
Partly in response to this popularity, craft centres within the missions and reserves established their own industry and several hired First Nations people to design cultural textiles and fashions.
As the newspaper The Sun reported from the Mount Margaret Mission in 1941:
One of the most interesting exhibits in the exhibition of Aboriginal handicrafts and school children’s work at the Y.W.C.A. to-day is a bag woven from wool in a native stitch. It has been adapted from old aboriginal work which is usually seen only in tribal grass weaving.
Children’s work from these institutions were often exhibited in Australia and internationally. There was particular overseas interest in turning art from the Carrolup Native settlement onto textiles for fashion garments.
The business of First Nations textiles and fashion
Economic and cultural autonomy became more attainable for First Nations people from the 1950s.
Bill Onus produced cultural furnishing fabrics with non-Indigenous artist Paula Kerry for his Melbourne Aboriginal Enterprises store.
Bronwyn Bancroft, the owner of the Sydney store Designer Aboriginals, and Euphemia Bostock and Mini Heath presented their garments at the Parisian Au Printemps Department Store in 1987.
Two decades later at Australian Fashion Week 2023, Denni Francisco’s brand Ngali was the first Indigenous label to present a standalone collection.
Today, many First Nations labels promote their designs internationally in Paris, Milan, London, and New York. There are now several First Nations fashion bodies to support them in the industry.
These bodies connect with national and international fashion weeks and art fairs, and have insight into cultural appropriation and Intellectual Property Rights.
For First Nations people, fashion and style are significant channels through which culture, identity, healing and social change can be communicated and practised.
Learning about the foundation of First Nations fashion design is vital to understanding Australian history and advocating connection, wellbeing, expression and sustainability.
For much of the 65,000 years of Australia’s human history, the now-submerged northwest continental shelf connected the Kimberley and western Arnhem Land. This vast, habitable realm covered nearly 390,000 square kilometres, an area one-and-a-half times larger than New Zealand is today.
It was likely a single cultural zone, with similarities in ground stone-axe technology, styles of rock art, and languages found by archaeologists in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.
There is plenty of archaeological evidence humans once lived on continental shelves – areas that are now submerged – all around the world. Such hard evidence has been retrieved from underwater sites in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Mediterranean Sea, and along the coasts of North and South America, South Africa and Australia.
In a newly published study in Quaternary Science Reviews, we reveal details of the complex landscape that existed on the Northwest Shelf of Australia. It was unlike any landscape found on our continent today.
A continental split
Around 18,000 years ago, the last ice age ended. Subsequent warming caused sea levels to rise and drown huge areas of the world’s continents. This process split the supercontinent of Sahul into New Guinea and Australia, and cut Tasmania off from the mainland.
Unlike in the rest of the world, the now-drowned continental shelves of Australia were thought to be environmentally unproductive and little used by First Nations peoples.
But mounting archaeological evidence shows this assumption is incorrect. Many large islands off Australia’s coast – islands that once formed part of the continental shelves – show signs of occupation before sea levels rose.
Left: Satellite image of the submerged northwest shelf region. Right: Drowned landscape map of the study area. US Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia
Stone tools have also recently been found on the sea floor off the coast of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
However, archaeologists have only been able to speculate about the nature of the drowned landscapes people roamed before the end of the last ice age, and the size of their populations.
Our new research on the Northwest Shelf fills in some of those details. This area contained archipelagos, lakes, rivers and a large inland sea.
During lower sea levels, a vast archipelago formed on the Australian northwest continental shelf (top). A modern day example of an archipelago on a submerged continental shelf is the Åland Islands near Finland (bottom). US Geological Survey, Geoscience Australia
Mapping an ancient landscape
To characterise how the Northwest Shelf landscapes changed through the last 65,000 years of human history, we projected past sea levels onto high-resolution maps of the ocean floor.
We found low sea levels exposed a vast archipelago of islands on the Northwest Shelf of Sahul, extending 500km towards the Indonesian island of Timor. The archipelago appeared between 70,000 and 61,000 years ago, and remained stable for around 9,000 years.
Thanks to the rich ecosystems of these islands, people may have migrated in stages from Indonesia to Australia, using the archipelago as stepping stones.
With descent into the last ice age, polar ice caps grew and sea levels dropped by up to 120 metres. This fully exposed the shelf for the first time in 100,000 years.
The region contained a mosaic of habitable fresh and saltwater environments. The most salient of these features was the Malita inland sea.
Our projections show it existed for 10,000 years (27,000 to 17,000 years ago), with a surface area greater than 18,000 square kilometres. The closest example in the world today is the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.
We found the Northwest Shelf also contained a large lake during the last ice age, only 30km north of the modern day Kimberley coastline. At its maximum extent it would have been half the size of Kati Thandi (Lake Eyre). Many ancient river channels are still visible on the ocean floor maps. These would have flowed into Malita sea and the lake.
A thriving population
A previous study suggested the population of Sahul could have grown to millions of people.
Our ecological modelling reveals the now-drowned Northwest Shelf could have supported between 50,000 and 500,000 people at various times over the last 65,000 years. The population would have peaked at the height of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago, when the entire shelf was dry land.
This finding is supported by new genetic research indicating large populations at this time, based on data from people living in the Tiwi Islands just to the east of the Northwest Shelf.
At the end of the last ice age, rising sea levels drowned the shelf, compelling people to fall back as waters encroached on once-productive landscapes.
Retreating populations would have been forced together as available land shrank. New rock art styles appeared at this time in both the Kimberley and Arnhem Land.
Rising sea levels and the drowning of the landscape is also recorded in the oral histories of First Nations people from all around the coastal margin, thought to have been passed down for over 10,000 years.
This latest revelation of the complex and intricate dynamics of First Nations people responding to rapidly changing climates lends growing weight to the call for more Indigenous-led environmental management in this country and elsewhere.
As we face an uncertain future together, deep-time Indigenous knowledge and experience will be essential for successful adaptation.
Kasih Norman received funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Award and the Australian Research Council.
Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Frédérik Saltré receives funding from Australian Research Council
Tristen Anne Norrie Jones receives funding from Australian Research Council.
Chris Clarkson 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.
Maybe you feel worn out. Perhaps you’re also having trouble losing weight. Generally, you just don’t feel 100%.
Could it be Hashimoto’s disease? This common autoimmune thyroid disorder is when your immune system (which fights off viruses and bacteria), mistakenly attacks a part of your body. In this case, it’s your thyroid – a gland located at the base of your neck – and can cause low thyroid hormones levels (hypothyroidism).
Your thyroid gland is a butterfly-shaped gland in the neck. It is essential in regulating things like muscle function, digestion, metabolism, the heart and lungs. In children, thyroid hormones are also needed for normal growth and development.
Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, named after the Japanese doctor who discovered it in 1912, is also known as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis. The disease can cause the immune system to mistakenly produce proteins called antibodies (thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin). These can cause inflammation and long-term damage to the thyroid gland. Over time, as thyroid tissue is inflamed and/or destroyed, there can be a decrease in the production of thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism).
Hashimoto’s can present subtly at first. If you only have antibodies with no change in thyroid levels, it is likely you won’t have any symptoms.
However, as the disease progresses, you may experience fatigue, weight gain (or difficulty losing weight), increased sensitivity to the cold, constipation, dry skin, muscle aches, irregular or heavy menstrual cycles, enlarged thyroid (goitre) and occasionally hair loss, including at the ends of your eyebrows.
The doctor might request an ultrasound of your thyroid gland. Shutterstock
In pregnancy, Hashimoto’s has a higher risk of pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure affecting several organs), premature birth, placental abruption (when the placenta separates from the inner wall of the uterus before birth) and, in severe cases, pregnancy loss.
The disease has also been linked with an increased risk (but low incidence) of the lymphocytes of the thyroid turning into cancer cells to cause thyroid lymphoma.
How is Hashimoto’s diagnosed?
Diagnosis can be confirmed with a blood test to check thyroid levels and antibodies.
Thyroid peroxidase antibodies are commonly present but about 5% of patients test antibody-negative. In those people, diagnosis depends on the thyroid levels, clinical presentation and ultrasound appearance of general inflammation. An ultrasound may not be required though, especially if the diagnosis is obvious.
Three hormone levels are tested to determine if you have Hashimoto’s.
Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) is produced by the brain to speak to the thyroid, telling it to produce two types of thyroid hormones – T3 and T4.
If you have either relative or absolute thyroid hormone deficiency, a test will show the stimulating hormones as high because the brain is trying to get the thyroid to work harder.
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis under the microscope. Antibodies against thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin were elevated. Patho/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Can it be treated?
The management of Hashimoto’s depends on the severity of the thyroid levels. Up to 20% of the population can have antibodies but normal thyroid levels. This is still Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, but it is very mild and does not require treatment. There is no current treatment to reduce antibody levels alone.
Because thyroid peroxidase antibodies increase the risk of abnormal thyroid levels in the future, regular thyroid testing is recommended.
When the thyroid stimulating hormone is high with normal thyroid hormone levels it is termed “subclinical hypothyroidism”. When it is paired with low hormone levels it is called “overt hypothyroidism”. The first is a mild form of the disease and treatment depends on the degree of stimulating hormone elevation.
Overt hypothyroidism warrants treatment. The main form of this is thyroid hormone replacement therapy (levothyroxine) with the dose of the drug adjusted until thyroid levels are within the normal range. This is usually a lifelong treatment but, once the dose is optimised, hormone levels usually remain relatively stable.
In some people with very enlarged thyroid glands causing compressive symptoms (such as difficulty swallowing or breathing), thyroidectomy (surgical removal of the thyroid) is considered.
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is a common condition caused by your body’s immune system incorrectly damaging to your thyroid and can go undetected. Long-term, untreated, it can cause issues with your heart, cognition, and fertility. It can be diagnosed with a simple blood test. Speak to your doctor if you have any concerns as early diagnosis and treatment can help prevent complications.
Aakansha Zala 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.
Do your attitudes about women and men influence how you parent your children?
Perhaps you think women are warmer and more supportive and so naturally better caregivers. Perhaps you see men as stronger, more independent, and better able to protect and provide for families.
But thinking women and men are different can do a lot of harm.Nowhere is this more obvious than in how some people view the roles of parents.
In this traditionalist world view, men should be physically strong, seek resources and status, and provide for their family. On the flip side, women should serve their partners and nurture their children.
And people who break with these gendered norms can face criticism from those who hold these views – also known as “hostile sexism”.
The term refers to overtly negative or misogynistic attitudes toward women. People inclined to hostile sexism more strongly agree with statements such as:
most women fail to appreciate fully all that men do for them
women seek to gain power by getting control over men
women exaggerate problems they have at work
once a woman gets a man to commit to her she usually tries to put him on a tight leash
women are too easily offended.
But how do parents with these hostile attitudes fare in the job of parenting? Our new research has found that hostile sexism can harm parenting. And it’s not just dads with more sexist attitudes. Mothers with sexist attitudes can cause problems as well.
But while there is a growing understanding of how hostile sexism might harm women, the way it might affect behaviour toward children has been largely ignored. This is starting to change.
For example, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in New Zealand, men with higher levels of hostile sexism reported more aggressive parenting when they were isolated at home with their families.
But self-reports measure what parents think they do, which is only weakly associated with how they actually interact with their children.
“Gold standard” behaviour assessments involve video recording parents interacting with their child. Trained observers then rate how warm, engaged and responsive parents are to their child.
In two studies, we used these behavioural methods to examine how hostile sexism influenced parenting.
We recruited 376 families with heterosexual parents and a five-year-old child from the Auckland community. Each child’s father and mother first completed scales assessing hostile sexism that included the statements listed above.
We then recorded parents undertaking family tasks, such as playing games or building a cardboard tower with their child. A team of trained coders independently rated how much fathers and mothers were warm, engaged and responsive to their child.
Both parents’ hostile sexism is harmful
Fathers who reported higher hostile sexism exhibited less responsive parenting towards both daughters and sons. They expressed less warmth, were less engaged with their child, were less sensitive to their child’s needs, and were more intrusive or controlling.
But mothers who held hostile sexist views also demonstrated less responsive parenting, showing less warmth, engagement, and sensitivity toward their children.
We propose two potential reasons for the unexpected effects of mother’s hostile sexism.
Mothers with higher levels of hostile sexism believe they should follow the father’s authority. Following the father’s lead during family interactions may detract from mothers attending to their children’s needs.
Another possibility is that mothers higher in hostile sexism believe they should be the primary caregiver and so limit fathers’ involvement in family interactions. Known as maternal gatekeeping, this could involve mothers controlling or criticising how the father is engaging with their child.
Enforcing their caregiving role may interfere with mothers being responsive to their children.
These findings have important consequences for children. Responsive parenting is pivotal to healthy child development. Less responsive parenting predicts greater behavioural problems, emotional difficulties, and lower health and wellbeing in children.
Our findings indicate that reducing beliefs about rigid gender roles, and whether fathers or mothers should have power, could allow parents to be more responsive to their children.
Changing gender roles and beliefs is challenging. Interventions designed to reduce hostile sexism typically involve showing that gender stereotypes are untrue or that gender inequality is harmful. But these intervention studies are ineffective.
However, parents generally do love and care about their children. So understanding what sexist attitudes mean for parenting and children’s wellbeing may offer motivation for parents to rethink their sexist attitudes.
Nickola Overall has received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.
“Gravy Day” is a relatively new date in the Australian calendar. Paul Kelly’s song How to Make Gravy tells the story of a prisoner (Joe) writing to his brother on December 21. Joe laments missing the family Christmas celebrations and asks who will make gravy for the roast lunch in his absence.
While a roast may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect Christmas feast, “Gravy Day” does give the opportunity to discuss the chemistry involved in making gravy – a thickened sauce made from drippings collected from roasted meats.
Roasting meat sets off a cascade of chemical reactions, producing myriad new flavour chemicals. More than 1,000 flavour compounds have been identified in roasted meats.
Each chemical gives its unique characteristics to the taste and smell of the finished roast. The chemical 12-methyltridecanal helps give roast beef its “beefy” flavour, while the sulfur-containing compound 2-methyl-3-furanthiol is more often found in roast chicken.
There are three main types of chemical reactions taking place when roasting meats that produce flavour chemicals.
The Maillard reaction is responsible for both colour and flavour. This broad reaction type takes place between amino acids from the protein and sugars and simple carbohydrates found in the meat.
The Maillard reaction is also the chemistry responsible for many favourite flavours, including roasted coffee, chocolate, steak, toast and more.
The sulfur-containing compound 2-methyl-3-furanthiol is often found in roast chicken. AS Foodstudio/Shutterstock
A hundred degrees, even more maybe
The other main type of reaction occurring in a hot oven is the breakdown of fats by “lipid degradation”. This can form hundreds of different chemical compounds. Many of these chemicals are described as “fatty”, “tallowy”, or smell like fried foods.
The unique fat profiles found in different animals translate to the profile of flavour chemicals that form from lipid degradation when roasted. Further flavour compounds can arise through the third type of reactions combining products of Maillard reactions and lipid degradation.
One specific flavour compound identified as having a “gravy aroma” is known as 3-mercapto-2-methylpentan-1-ol. This compound comes from roasted vegetables, so including some veggies in your roasting pan will give you more depth of gravy flavour. Also, “cutting onions” is a useful excuse if listening to How to Make Gravy gets you feeling emotional.
The treasure and the trash
Roasting meats causes the fats to “render” and separate from the meat as a liquid. The fat pools in the tray with flavour-rich meat juices.
While the fat and the water both carry flavour compounds, too much fat can give the finished gravy an unpleasant mouth feel, or can separate into layers when served.
It’s worth pouring off the pan juices into a jug to allow the fat to separate from the liquid so you can control how much fat you’re adding. Be sure to dispose of the excess fat responsibly – don’t pour it down the drain.
Flour (or, more specifically, starch) is the secret ingredient of a good gravy. Starches are large complex chemicals that are made up of lots of sugars joined together.
Starch granules are tightly packed and swell greatly when they absorb water. The swollen starch molecules forms a gel-like network that traps water and oil to give a thickened gravy.
Wheat flour is most often used as the starch source. Corn and arrowroot starch can also be used. They have a higher percentage of starch than flour and a more neutral flavour.
Wheat starch typically requires a larger quantity to be added and longer cooking to form a paste. Whichever starch you use, don’t add it too quickly or without mixing as you’ll form lumps.
…salt, red wine, and a dollop of tomato sauce
Salt is a common ingredient when preparing roast meats, both on the surface of the meat to draw out moisture and as a flavouring agent. The pan juices are typically concentrated as part of the gravy making process.
Make sure you taste the gravy before seasoning, as salt will be concentrated by heating.
Additional flavour components can be introduced by adding red wine, sherry, stock, or tomato sauce. These ingredients will broaden the flavour profile through sweetness (sugar), acidity (vinegar, citric and malic acids), and umami in the case of tomato sauce (natural glutamates, such as those found in MSG). Some folk even add Vegemite to their gravy for an extra umami boost.
I bet it will taste the same
If you happen to have screwed up your gravy this time, or are after convenience, then you can turn to an instant gravy powder. The main ingredient is typically maltodextrin or another corn-derived (and possibly chemically modified) starch.
Shelf-stable powdered fats, salt, colours, and a range of flavour additives will be present in varying amounts depending on the style and price point of the product.
The advantages of the instant version are speed and uniformity due to the carefully controlled commercial production.
So unlike Joe’s concerns for his family’s gravy, an instant gravy will be more likely to taste the same, regardless of who ends up making it.
Nathan Kilah 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.
A View from Afar - S03 E25 with Paul G. Buchanan and Selwyn Manning. Hostage Taking, Prisoner Exchanges and Back-Channels.
The LIVE Recording of A View from Afar podcast will begin at midday Thurs December 21, 2023 (NZST) and Wednesday December 20, 8pm (USEDST).
Today, In this the twelfth episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning will note and discuss some of the big world events that have occurred and are occurring in 2023.
And in particular, Paul and I will discuss the rise of the Global South; evaluate the the wars that continue to rage in Ukraine and Gaza; and tensions in the South China Sea.
Plus we will note, with particular reference the trends that will become prominent in 2024, including the decline of Western democracies and witness a rightward turn in many places (including in Argentina and New Zealand in their respective 2023 elections).
INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:
Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.
RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.
You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
A veridical paradox with practical uses. Cottonbro Studio/PexelsCC BY-SA
Have you ever bumped into someone with the same birthday as you? What about someone sharing a birthday in your workplace? How common is a shared birthday, anyway?
The birthday problem, as it’s called by mathematicians, reveals problems with our understanding of number theory, probabilities and our assumptions of how the world works. It comes back to how counter-intuitive maths is for a lot of people.
In the birthday problem you are asked “what’s the minimum number of people in a room to get better than 50% chance of two people having the same birthday?” A simple question with a puzzling answer.
To get a more intuitive understanding of this problem we’ve created an interactive simulation, below. It arranges birthdays along a line, with January on the left and December on the right.
The intuitive answer is the wrong one
When the birthday problem is described to maths students for the first time, the majority of responses are that a group of 183 people is needed to have a better than even chance of two people having the same birthday.
The thinking here is: 183 is half of 365 (number of days in the year). Students assume they only need to compare others against a single person – themselves, and then try to match their birthday with other people.
If you use this assumption, you need to find 183 people to have an even chance of finding a person matching with you. However, when students understand that not every combination has to be with yourself – for example, person 2 and person 5 might be the right combination – it becomes clearer the number needed is lower than 183.
Combinations do not scale linearly
If you’ve been playing with the interactive above you may have come across the answer to the birthday problem: only about 23 people are needed for a greater than 50% chance of a shared birthday. But how can this be if there are 15 times more days in the year?
We’ve created another interactive below to visualise how the connections between people in a room do not scale linearly as you add more people. Play around with adding a node and see if you can guess how many connections should be added.
It should give you a better grasp of factorial growth through multiplication, which is the area of number theory that underpins the birthday problem.
Large numbers are hard to comprehend
The COVID-19 pandemic showed the world most of us have a limited understanding of exponential growth when presented with models of what could occur if the pandemic were left unchecked.
There are many great examples of the ill-understood power of exponential growth, but one I often use is asking this question: would you take $1 million on the first day of the month only, or one cent on the first day of the month, doubled each day until the end of the month (30 days)?
Nearly all people choose the $1 million lump sum. However, if you choose the one cent option, you end the month with approximately 10 times more money due to the effect of exponential growth.
In a similar tale, the supposed inventor of chess requested to sell their game to a king for some rice. They proposed placing a single grain on the first tile and doubling it each tile. The amount of rice on the final tile would be the sale price.
As you can see below, that number can very quickly become larger than the entire world’s rice supply.
Asking ‘what comes next’ is seldom simple
Another real world example of counter-intuitive mathematics was on the roulette wheels in Monte Carlo in 1913. There was a run of 26 straight black results, which is improbable but not impossible.
One striking aspect of the story is that gamblers increasingly bet on red as the run of blacks continued, thinking red was “due”. However, the mathematics says otherwise. Each spin of the roulette wheel has no memory of what happened before, so the chance of red appearing does not increase as time goes on. In short, lots of people lost money that night!
However, some situations do rely on the probabilities of what came before. For example, in the Monty Hall problem you are trying to win a car, which is hidden behind one of three doors (the others have goats). You are given the option to pick a door, then shown a different door with a goat.
The question is: should you stay with your first pick or switch doors? Try it out with the game below.
The assumption here is that after Monty shows you the goat then the odds of winning a car if you switch or stay are 50/50 – there are only two doors left and one of them has a car.
But that doesn’t take into account the likelihood that you originally picked a goat to begin with. Thus the chances of your next choice are informed by your previous choice.
Becoming numerate is important
These examples demonstrate the importance of being “numerate”, defined as being able to reason with numbers and being able to apply this reasoning in a range of contexts. The importance of developed numeracy skills cannot be understated, with correlations to better overall life outcomes such as employment, income, health and well being.
If people are highly numerate, they can understand how our world works at a deeper level, even if it doesn’t feel like it should work that way. Also, they are likely to have a better idea of what actions will yield the desired results in certain situations.
So, keep turning your mind to mathematical and numerical problems, they may just come in handy one day.
Benjamin Zunica 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.
China’s expanding naval presence in the Pacific Ocean and the South and East China seas has become a major focus for Australia, the US and its allies.
Australia’s latest strategic defence review, for instance, was prompted, in part, by the rapid modernisation of China’s military, as well as its increasing naval presence in the South China Sea.
According to the US Department of Defence’s most recent annual report to Congress, China’s navy has been strengthened with the addition of 30 new warships over the past 12 months. By 2030, the total number of ships is expected to increase to 435, up from the current 370.
But China is not the only potentially adversarial maritime power that is flexing its muscles in the Indo-Pacific region. Russia is becoming a cause for concern, too, even though the 2023 strategic review did not mention it.
My latest research project, Battle Reading the Russian Pacific Fleet 2023–2030, recently commissioned and published by the Royal Australian Navy, shows how deeply the Russian military is investing in replenishing its ageing, Soviet-era Pacific Fleet.
Between 2022 and October 2023, for instance, it commissioned eight new warships and auxiliaries, including four nuclear-powered and conventional submarines. On December 11, two new nuclear-powered submarines formally joined the fleet, in addition to the conventional RFS Mozhaisk submarine, which entered service last month.
These figures may not look as impressive as the new Chinese vessels mentioned above, but it’s important to recognise that the Russian Navy has the unique challenge of simultaneously addressing the needs of four fleets (in the Arctic and Pacific oceans and Black and Baltic seas), plus its Caspian Sea flotilla.
Furthermore, Russia’s war in Ukraine has not had a considerable impact on the Pacific Fleet’s ongoing modernisation or its various exercises and other activities. Between early 2022 and October 2023, for instance, the Pacific Fleet staged eight strategic-level naval exercises, in addition to numerous smaller-scale activities.
Rebuilding its powerful navy, partnering with China
In addition to rebuilding its once-powerful navy, the Russians are committing enormous resources to building up naval ties in the Indo-Pacific and strengthening their key maritime coalitions.
In recent months, for instance, a naval task group of the Pacific Fleet embarked on a tour across southeast and south Asia. This tour made international headlines, but was effectively overlooked by the Australian media.
The tour signals a widening of Russia’s scope in the region, though its most important naval partner remains China.
According to my findings, between 2005 and October 2023, the Russian and Chinese navies have taken part in at least 19 confirmed bilateral and trilateral (also involving friendly regional navies) exercises and three joint patrols. The most recent was carried out in mid-2023, when the Russian and Chinese joint task force was deployed to the north Pacific, not far from the Alaskan coast.
Implications for Australia and its allies
Canberra’s preoccupation with China should not make us blind to other potential adversaries that could threaten our national security in the medium to long term.
According to my estimates, by the time the Royal Australian Navy commissions its first Hunter class frigate and the first Virginia-class, nuclear-powered attack submarine begins operations in 2032, the replenished Russian Pacific Fleet would have a battle force of at least 45 core warships.
This is expected to include 19 nuclear-powered and conventional submarines, supported by minor combat and auxiliary elements. Most of these units would be newly designed and built.
This clearly shows that if war someday breaks out in the Pacific, the Russian Pacific Fleet could present a formidable challenge to Australian and allied naval fleets in the western and northwestern Pacific, as well as the Arctic.
Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear-powered platforms from the United States and United Kingdom suggests our intent to support and engage in long-range maritime operations with our allies, possibly as far as the northern Pacific and Arctic oceans.
And in times of crisis short of open war, Russia will also have more assets to support operations around Southeast Asia and in the Indian Ocean, extending its reach closer to the Royal Australian Navy’s areas of immediate concern.
Finally, the deepening naval cooperation between China and Russia could become a risk factor in its own right as the two countries seek to counter the AUKUS security pact. This is especially true with the possibility of expanded joint naval operations in the Pacific.
Despite the tyranny of distance between Australia and Russia, we are no longer irrelevant in Moscow’s strategic planning. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu made this clear in recent remarks blasting AUKUS as a threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
This means Australia’s navy and its maritime ambitions are increasingly being viewed as a risk factor to the Kremlin.
During the Cold War confrontation in the Asia-Pacific, the Soviet Union’s naval power in the region was a primary point of strategic concern for Australia, the US and its allies. This is once again proving to be true. Canberra can’t afford to ignore these developments any longer.
Alexey D Muraviev 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.
Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is more often diagnosed in children. That might make you wonder if people grow out it as they reach adulthood.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that involves difficulties focusing attention (for study or work) and/or sitting still or keeping impulsive actions in check. This means people with ADHD are different and the differences are there for life. But development is a dynamic process because people change, mature and develop their skills.
If people have ADHD, the way it affects them can change over time too.
As children’s skills develop, differences due to ADHD may become easier to spot.
So hyperactivity may not be noticed in a baby who waves their arms and legs around, but once the child develops new skills and starts to run and climb, the hyperactivity may be obvious.
As children develop their cognitive skills, like listening and understanding and learning to talk, they have to learn from other people. This requires the child’s attention. As a child progresses through school, the demands on their attention increase.
Finally a person has to function independently as an adult. This may involve a career, running a household and raising a family.
ADHD can’t be formally diagnosed until it affects a person’s functioning. This will depend on the balance of their natural abilities and the demands of life.
So a bright child may not have to try very hard while learning to read and write. But as the child progresses through school, lapses in concentration, particularly if prolonged, may mean that important information is missed.
If this is happening a lot, the person may struggle to keep up, particularly if catch-up studying at home requires a “super-human” level of effort due to their difficulty with concentration.
Other children may struggle with the more fundamental learning or tasks and may be diagnosed earlier.
Studies of people with ADHD show subtle differences in the overall size of the brain and the sizes of some of the structures such as the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, caudate and hippocampus (which help coordinate emotion, learning and behaviour).
The brain also matures more slowly. These changes are so small they cannot be used for diagnosing ADHD. But they do demonstrate ADHD is real.
So the key to diagnosing ADHD is in the answer to the question: is this person having difficulties in managing in life (functional impairment) due to their impulsiveness or difficulties with attention?
A person’s ability to manage will change over time. The formal diagnosis of ADHD is dependent on meeting the required number of diagnostic criteria as well as showing functional impairment.
A person’s ADHD may only be diagnosable at particular stages of their life when the demands on their abilities are greatest, particularly at transitions such as moving into a new educational stage or starting a new job.
Checklists may not be the best way to diagnose ADHD over time. Shutterstock
So if ADHD is stable, why is it hard to consistently diagnose?
As people mature they develop coping strategies, which can make their ADHD much less obvious. Some adults may not meet enough of the diagnostic criteria, because they have learned effective coping strategies.
For example, when asked whether they often lose things necessary for tasks or activities (such as keys, their glasses or phone) they may respond “No”. But this is because they always put their keys on the same hook as soon as they get home, and they keep their mobile phone or glasses on a lanyard around their neck.
Others might have learned to control some of their impulsive behaviour. But they may still show ADHD-related functional impairment.
ADHD used to be considered solely a condition of childhood and the diagnostic criteria are biased towards identifying hyperactive boys. The criteria are less applicable to adults and as a result, adults who were treated in childhood but no longer meet the full diagnostic criteria may be considered to have ADHD “in remission” even when they continue to experience ADHD-related difficulties.
The current diagnostic criteria are not sensitive enough to identify ADHD consistently.
In the future, instead of an over-reliance on symptom checklists for diagnosis, clinicians should seek to understand the person’s lived experience of the way their attentional difference affects their daily functioning – and how it might change over the years as demands shift and successful strategies develop.
Alison Poulton is a board member of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association. She has received personal fees and non-financial support from Shire/Takeda; and book royalties from Disruptive Publishing (ADHD Made Simple).
As the semi-arid Pilliga Scrub burns in New South Wales, many of us are thinking about fire once again. It’s an El Niño summer in the hottest year on record. And there’s a remarkable amount of grass drying out and ready to burn.
Over the past few years, more rain than usual has fallen over vast regions of Australia’s rangelands, the arid and semi-arid regions that account for most of our land mass.
These rains have triggered an enormous boom in native grasses. But it’s also boom time for introduced species such as buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) in the deserts, and Gamba grass (Andropogon Gayanus) in the savannas. These fast-growing grasses have outcompeted native grasses in many areas.
As they dry out, they become fuel for grass fires. Fuel loads have become extreme, especially in areas where invasive grasses are abundant. Already this fire season, enormous tracts of rangelands have burned, covering an area the size of Spain.
Our bushfire-mapping site has captured the rangeland fire season so far. Fast-moving grassfires recently hit South Australia. These grassfires can have fronts hundreds of kilometres wide. Yet this is only the beginning of the summer fire season.
Arid lands and buffel grass
When we think of fire in Australia, we often think of bushfires raging through a forest. But grassfires are very common once you leave the coast.
In Australia’s northern savannas, research has shown the direct link between fires, dried grass fuel at the end of the dry season in October, and how much rain fell over the year. Put simply, more rain leads to more grass, which usually leads to more fire.
These past few La Niña years have dumped enough rain to trigger major grass growth in the deserts – producing enough fuel to carry very widespread fire.
Buffel grass has made the problem far worse. This tussock grass native to parts of Africa and Asia was introduced for pasture, as it grows fast, roots deeply, spreads easily and needs less rain than other grasses. But these traits have now made it the biggest risk to biodiversity in arid Australia. Buffel has been a declared weed in South Australia since 2015, and the Northern Territory is considering whether to follow suit.
Management burns are needed to reduce the hazard but are increasingly difficult to implement. Buffel grass grows right up to trees and regrows quickly, promoting hotter and more frequent fires. Fire encourages buffel to regrow, which creates a grass-fire cycle. Native plants and fauna can’t adapt to this.
Buffel also grows more evenly across a landscape, rather than in patches like many natives. At a fine scale, this means fire damage is worse, with more trees and shrubs killed. At a broader scale, areas invaded by buffel grass create links between flammable native plant communities previously separated by open patches.
The result? Fires can spread across larger tracts of land from a single ignition point, as we saw in Tjoritja National Park (West MacDonnell) in 2019.
Because fires spread so easily, management burns become much more risky and also more damaging to native shrubs and trees – even in winter. That’s a problem, because we need these burns to reduce fuel loads. More intense and wide-ranging fires are likely to injure or kill more native animals, both directly and from the loss of shelter and food after the fire.
Fires can start from lightning – or from simply driving through long, dry grass. Historical weather and fire information indicates central Australia is in for a long hot summer.
How much fire might we see? In 2011, a year when we saw similar fuel loads, about 45% of arid and semi-arid lands had burned by the end of the summer.
Gamba grass on the savanna
In northern Australia’s tropical savannas, there’s a similar problem: fast-growing Gamba grass. This African tussock grass can grow up to four metres high. It’s invading new areas rapidly – government surveys show it increased from about 1,500 sites to more than 9,000 sites in six years in the Greater Darwin Region.
When Gamba dries out, the fuel loads it creates are many times greater than native grasses. Gamba is now widespread throughout the greater Darwin rural area, including large areas of Litchfield National Park.
When Gamba grass burns, the fire runs so hot it can kill tall trees and devastate biodiversity. It’s also more dangerous for firefighters. The high fuel loads produce very high greenhouse gas emissions and harmful pollutants such as particulate matter.
Unlike Buffel, Gamba is a declared weed in the NT. The territory government is putting in considerable effort to reduce the damage it does through prescribed burning and requiring property owners to control Gamba.
Unfortunately, these control efforts have a cost. Days with very high levels of air pollution in Darwin are increasing each year, caused by the burning of Gamba to reduce fuel load and the chance of big fires later in the dry season. Polluted air is damaging human health.
To combat this, we need to use weather forecasting to advise volunteer firefighters (who do most of the prescribed burns) of the best time to burn.
As the heat of summer continues, we can expect to see more extensive grassfires in central and northern Australia. Highly flammable invasive grasses will make them worse still. We cannot ignore the changes they are making to central and northern fire regimes.
Andrew Edwards receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Charles Darwin University.
Christine Schlesinger receives funding from the Australian Research Council
Ellen Ryan-Colton has received funding from the Ecological Society of Australia (Holsworth wildlife research endowment, and Jill Landsberg Trust), Ten Deserts Project and Alinytjara Wilurara Landscape Board.
Peter Jacklyn receives funding from the Clean Energy Regulator and National Emergency Management Agency.
Greg Barber 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 Penny Van Bergen, Head of School of Education and Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Wollongong
School is out and Santa is on his way, but there’s still a bit of a wait before he wriggles down that chimney. The days before Christmas are both exciting and challenging for children and families.
How can you manage kids’ excitement in this last build-up to Christmas? What should you do if emotions run over? And how might you respond if all the focus on Santa means some kids start asking if he is real?
Help kids manage outbursts
Parents and carers may notice children are adorably ridiculous at this time of year (or maybe just ridiculous).
Each day brings a swirling mix of tears, laughter, shouts and tired panda eyes. Sleep patterns can also be disturbed across the Christmas break, with late nights and early mornings leading to extra tiredness.
For younger (and even older) children, temper tantrums may be more common.
If your child does have an outburst, give them some time to cool off. Although it can be tempting, try not to enforce harsh punishments in the moment. An angry threat to cancel Christmas (“I’m going to tell Santa not to come!”) may be matched by an equally angry response by your child.
Instead, come back when you are both calm, acknowledge how they and others might be feeling and discuss how best to manage those emotions (“If you are feeling very excited, go outside and run around instead of hitting your brother”).
Also be conscious of your own emotions. Children often model the emotions and behaviours they see from others. So, despite all the things you have to do at the moment, try and pause, relax and seek out opportunities for joy in this festive season.
You may seem more tantrums before Christmas as kids navigate their excitement. Marta Wave/Pexels, CC BY
Of course, Christmas holds a range of deeper meanings for religion and family. But a key source of excitement in the lead up to Christmas is Santa. The magical world of Santa, reindeers and elves sparks particular joy for kids.
If your child is in early primary school, you might be worrying “what happens if Stella discovers the truth”?
Try not to let this become a family stressor.
Children begin making distinctions between fantasy and reality in preschool, although often continue to believe in Santa for longer: particularly if parents promote these beliefs.
In one study, children who no-longer believed were interviewed about how they had felt when they realised Santa was not real. Some felt momentarily bad or disappointed but more than half reported feeling happy or relieved to know the truth. They had been wondering anyway.
If children are questioning their beliefs already, consider exploring this with them by asking “what do you think?” Either way, negative emotions tend to be short-lived: indeed, many children continue to pretend to believe in Santa just for fun.
Help manage holiday expectations
For those at home before Christmas, complaints of boredom may already have set in. These are particularly challenging for parents who are still working.
Some children may be happy playing with siblings. For other children, it can help to create routines to manage their expectations. This might include times you will be available to play with them, excursions and free play. Include children in the negotiations and help them to manage excitement by creating a list of activities they would like to complete.
For families already away on holidays, the challenges are different but real. An expectation of relaxing bliss can sometime contrast with a reality that is more intense.
Interviews with Danish children and their parents about their trips away reveal both joy and tension, with closer living quarters and 24/7 activities bringing social overload and frayed tempers over time.
Routines can help here too, even if they differ from those at home. Map out when you will be sharing fun activities together and build in quiet time to soothe frayed nerves.
For all children, Christmas Eve is likely to see a clash of excitement and emotion. Help children to plan out any family rituals beforehand, including what time they will go to bed.
For those with siblings, help them to plan who will complete what tasks. This might include chopping carrots for reindeer, pouring milk for Santa, or lighting special Christmas candles. Ensure the negotiations are fair and everyone is happy.
Above all, enjoy. Stories of stress and conflict related to Christmas abound, yet research shows an abundance of positive emotions across the period. ‘Tis a most wonderful time of the year.
Australia’s superannuation and retirement income system is complex and difficult to navigate.
Retirees need to make decisions on numerous issues where they have less than full information and understanding, both financial and non-financial. They also require access to retirement products to help them manage and balance income needs against longevity risk.
Recognising these issues, the government released a discussion paper this month seeking views on three key issues:
helping super fund members navigate the retirement income system
supporting superannuation funds to deliver better services
making retirement income products more accessible.
Australia has one of the largest and most sophisticated pension systems in the world. Valued at more than A$3.5 trillion as at September 2023, and is the 5th largest pension scheme in terms of asset size.
But while the super system ranks highly in terms of integrity and sustainability, the numbers are not as flattering when it comes to “adequacy”.
Adequacy is the level of income available to retirees depending on their different circumstances. According to a recent study, Australia is ranked 20th out of 47 worldwide on the adequacy index.
Reform in the pre-retirement phase of Australia’s retirement income scheme is ongoing and designed to support accumulating wealth for retirement.
Much emphasis has been placed on accumulating super with less attention being given to actually using it. iHumnoi/Shutterstock
These ongoing reforms have been designed to make superannuation easier to understand and to reduce much of the decision making required. They’ve been needed because of an apparent lack of skills, interest and financial literacy among Australians.
While the message that we need to save to be comfortable in retirement is getting through, the lack of information about how to manage these savings once we retire means many retirees are left to navigate the complex system as best they can.
Given the complexity and volatility of Australia’s financial system, it’s hardly surprising many of the decisions made by retirees don’t produce the best financial results. For example, more than 84% of retirement savings are held in account-based pensions which, if not properly managed, can run out. This is despite government and community awareness that outliving your savings is a real possibility.
About 50% of retirees currently withdraw at the minimum pension rate, which means many people experience a lower standard of living than what would normally be expected with the super they have accumulated. This can result in wealth not being used and instead being passed on to the next generation.
Help is needed now because the retiree sector is booming
Over the next decade there is going to be a big increase in the number of people retiring and transitioning from the accumulation phase of their super to the pension phase. It’s estimated 2.5 million Australians will move to the retirement phase in this period.
Following the 2014 Financial System Inquiry, the government introduced the Retirement Income Covenant in 2022 to force super fund trustees to develop a strategy that would provide better retirement outcomes for their members.
The strategy is based on retirees maximising their expected retirement income, managing expected risks to their retirement income and having flexible access to super funds during their retirement.
Several proposals have been put forward to improve the experiences and decision-making of retirees. These have included:
improved support from and education by superannuation fund trustees
changing how people view their super savings from an accumulation of wealth to a system that enables drawdown of retirement savings over time to fund expenses.
providing an automatic rollover of retirement savings into an income-stream instead of allowing a lump sum withdrawal on retirement
expanding existing income products (that are starting to be offered by several financial institutions) which combine providing investment choice with a pension for life
setting up a MyRetire product that would run parallel to MySuper and provide a simple and cost-effective retirement income system for less engaged members. MySuper only applies to the accumulation phase. Once a member starts an income stream in retirement, their MySuper account ceases
improving access to financial planning advice which is shown to play a significant role in preparing Australians for retirement.
The government, superannuation industry and the community all have a greater role to play in improving the financial outcomes and experiences of retirees.
With Australia’s ageing population, the need to better support retirees to achieve a dignified retirement is becoming more urgent.
All Australians expect and deserve a financially secure retirement.
Marc Olynyk is Chair of the Financial Planning Education Council (FPEC). FPEC has been accrediting higher education courses and supporting research in financial planning for more than 20 years. FPEC seeks to raise the standard of financial planning education, and promote financial planning as a distinct learning area, as a profession, and as a career of choice for new students and career changers. FPEC is comprised of representatives from the higher education sector, financial planning practice, and professional associations. Fpec receives administrative support from the Financial Advice Association Australia.
For some, December 25 is a solemn day, key on the Christian calendar, involving important traditions to be treated with reverence. But for many, Christmas is a time for unbridled fun: Santa, presents, and the random grump next door who suddenly decorates his house in an overwhelmingly delirious light display. For a month, we embrace with childlike delight things that for the rest of the year we would dismiss as kitsch, tacky, too bright, too shiny.
Christmas films reflect these differing approaches to the season. There are the solemn, wholesome type, the model for which is Frank Capra’s marvellous It’s a Wonderful Life. There are cynical big budget comedies, trying to skewer the consumerism with which the holiday is now associated while maintaining a sentimental “Christmas cheer for all” ending, like Surviving Christmas and Christmas with the Kranks. And there are sweet comedies, films such as Elf and The Santa Clause, that cloak their gags in a more or less touching sense of wonder.
And often the best Christmas films aren’t “Christmasy” at all. They either go against the cliches – Black Christmas by Canadian auteur Bob Clark, who also made possibly the greatest Christmas film of all time, A Christmas Story – or are positioned tangentially in relation to the holiday (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon).
The telemovie has dominated the genre for the past 50 years or so. Sometimes these are excellent. The House without a Christmas Tree, from 1972, is a fantastic film starring Jason Robards. But usually, like the Olivia Newton-John vehicle A Mom For Christmas, they offer, at best, pleasantly distracting images and sounds to have in the background while you wrap presents.
The reign of the Christmas telemovie (now the Christmas made-for-streaming movie) is partly the result of networks looking for cheap fodder to program in December. But there’s also something about the telemovie aesthetic – the plots ludicrous and maudlin, the low-budget design, the characters so cheerful you could scream – that fits the kitsch flavour of pop-Christmas.
Usually these films – with titles such as Trading Christmas, Christmas All Over Again, and The National Tree – feature hokey narratives, the endings mawkish to an extent unacceptable outside of the silly season, the aesthetic extremely low-rent.
Some deliberately play up their kitsch elements and explode into camp extravaganzas – like the inimitable (and limitlessly pleasurable) Santa with Muscles, in which Hulk Hogan dressed in a sleeveless Santa suit fights mad scientists in order to save an orphanage. Though Santa with Muscles was briefly released theatrically in the Unites States, it found its viewers through TV repeats.
Netflix has made several made-for-TV Christmas movies in recent years, many of them unwatchable. For the ones that work, their success usually hinges upon the charm of the leads. Vanessa Hudgens in The Princess Switch, for example, is so infectiously likeable that we forget (or forgive) the absolute absurdity of the material.
There has been a slew of recent Australian Christmas movies made for Stan, including Christmas Ransom, Christmas on the Farm, and A Sunburnt Christmas, each sparkling about as much as a lump of coal in a stocking. This year’s new offering from Stan, Jones Family Christmas, doesn’t fare much better.
From the opening ditty – Clive Smith’s extremely irritating “It’s Christmas in Australia and I am upside down” – Jones Family Christmas’ deliberate Australian dagginess is pretty hard to stomach.
We get it. This is Australian Christmas. There are “redbacks” and “mates rates”, people are “happier than a pig in shit.”
The narrative is predictable but unassuming. Matriarch Heather Jones (Heather Mitchell in a low-key, oddly touching performance) tries to hold her family together over Christmas in the midst of interpersonal turmoil and bushfires encroaching on their rural Victorian property.
The film plods through such a plethora of dumb cliches – rusty tractors, joeys, laconic parents suppressing family tensions and tragedies – that it all feels terribly laboured. But the cinematography is effective and the acting solid, and the whole thing has enough charm balancing its silly humour to make a watchable if forgettable film, its schmaltzy, sentimental narrative bow appropriately wrapping it up.
In any case, one of the major redeeming features of these made-for-Stan Christmas movies is that they don’t imagine they’re doing anything more than they’re doing: providing some entertaining and cheerful Christmas pap.
A Savage Christmas
This year Binge is following Stan’s lead, securing the first rate Christmess, fresh from its cinema release, and the truly terrible A Savage Christmas, which fails to work across almost every element.
Writer-director Madeleine Dyer’s feature film debut, A Savage Christmas follows the children of rich Australian parents Brenda (Helen Thomson) and James (David Roberts) as they return to their family house for Christmas – mainly to secure their expected $10,000 Christmas cheque.
Davina (Thea Raveneau), their trans daughter, hasn’t been home for three years. She drags her trans boyfriend Kane (Max Jahufer) in tow. Jimmy (Ryan Morgan), the Savage’s son, is an ex-cop-turned wannabe rapper who owes money to a gangster, and daughter Leia (Rekha Ryan) is an Instagram-style princess-mum whose life is secretly falling apart.
Past resentments predictably arise amid the simmering tension in occasionally funny but mainly uninteresting and off-putting ways.
Like Jones Family Christmas, the film fits firmly in the “families are messy, everyone has issues” Christmas sub-genre – think of The Family Stone or Christmas with the Coopers. But while those films were buoyed by excellent stars, solid writing and a style that big budgets can buy, A Savage Christmas is characterised by amateurish performances, uneven comedy, and a repellently smug tone.
Its point is so obvious – everyone is messed up in their own way and those who appear less messed up are often more so – it feels about as subtle as an axe to the face. It’s trying to be a mixture of fresh, cynical, wry and edgy, but feels empty and mean-spirited.
The comedy is mostly puerile – a major gag is a sweet potato carved like a phallus knocking the head off a Baby Jesus ornament – and there are no believable moments, no character touches, to sustain any emotion or sense of drama. It completely lacks the dramatic heft needed to make it feel like these characters are worth caring about in any capacity – and it seems to want you to care.
There are a handful of moments where the film allows you to breathe, where it ceases to feel like a heavy-handed discourse machine willing to suspend all verisimilitude in order to make its point, and Darren Gilshenan gives a beautifully unhinged performance as the deranged Uncle Dick.
The cinematography and production design are efficient – there’s nothing technically wrong with the film – but it fails hopelessly as both a comedy and as a feelgood film of a broken family beginning to heal. A Savage Christmas would give Crackers a run for its money as the worst Australian Christmas film to date.
If you feel like watching a new Australian Christmas film, Christmess is infinitely better than both A Savage Christmas and Jones Family Christmas, covering similar terrain with much more subtlety, intelligence, style and good humour. More evidence that a bigger budget does not necessarily equal a better film.
And if it’s simply Hallmark-style trash you’re after – true Christmas telemovies, warmly embracing the saccharine spirit of the holiday – there’s a plentiful supply of these across the major streaming services.
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.
If you really want to know how much Australia contributes to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, you have to study all the “sources” and “sinks”.
Sources release CO₂ into the atmosphere, while sinks take it out. There are sources from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, and there are natural sinks such as plants absorbing CO₂. You can tally it all up on a balance sheet to find the net result. Are we adding to CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, overall? And if so, by how much?
It’s an enormous undertaking, but not impossible. We have just published the most comprehensive assessment of Australian CO₂ sources and sinks. It covers the decade from 2010 to 2019, and it reveals some surprising features.
Astonishingly, we found the net annual carbon balance of the entire continent switches from year to year. Australia can be a large net source of CO₂ one year and a large net CO₂ sink the next, in response to our increasingly variable climate. That makes it harder to detect long-term trends and understand whether our natural carbon sinks are growing or decreasing.
Our research reveals what we call the “contemporary carbon budget” for Australia.
This budget is different from the “remaining carbon budget”, which refers to the CO₂ that can still be emitted before we exceed a certain level of warming.
We constructed the contemporary budget using a wide variety of data and modelling approaches. We needed to estimate the carbon “fluxes” (sources and sinks) of land-based ecosystems, freshwater bodies, and of human activities such as the combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land clearing and revegetation.
We also used global assessments, Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and trade statistics. And we used atmospheric and satellite CO₂ information to constrain the dynamics of the Australian carbon balance, as well as other satellite-based data to estimate Australia’s fire emissions.
We developed this carbon budget with the best available data and scientific tools. However, large uncertainties such as data gaps and model limitations remain for some of the estimates. We report all uncertainties in the research paper.
Carbon in, carbon out
The biggest CO₂ source from Australia’s human activities is fossil fuels, with an average of 403 million tonnes of CO₂ for the decade 2010-19. That can be broken down into coal (44%), oil (34%), gas (18%), gas flaring (3%) and cement (1%).
Emissions from wildfires (natural) and prescribed burning (human-caused) were 568 million tonnes of CO₂ a year which, unlike fossil fuels, are largely offset by subsequent vegetation regrowth. This led to a net CO₂ accumulation in the atmosphere of 36 million tonnes a year. CO₂ emissions from the Black Summer fires in 2019 were exceptionally high at 951 million tonnes, much of which has already returned to vegetation after three years of above-average rainfall.
Rivers, lakes and reservoirs – both natural and human-made – are also sources of CO₂, contributing 82 million tonnes.
Natural forests, savannas and the large expanses of rangelands all contributed to removing vast amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere at a rate of more than 388 million tonnes a year.
Coastal ecosystems “blue carbon” such as mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrasses soaked up 61 million tonnes of CO₂ a year, further adding to Australia’s CO₂ sinks. However, estuaries, including tidal systems, deltas and lagoons, released 27 million tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere.
The oceans surrounding Australia are also strong CO₂ sinks, removing about 183 million tonnes of CO₂ a year. This highlights the important role of the oceans, in addition to the land sink, in slowing the buildup of atmospheric CO₂ due to human emissions.
Exported carbon
Every year, about 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ are exported in the form of fossil fuels, primarily coal and natural gas.
A further 22 million tonnes of embedded CO₂ are exported every year in products such as wheat, wood pellets and livestock.
When these exported fossil fuels and products are consumed overseas, they release their carbon content into the atmosphere as CO₂.
However, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and rules supporting the Paris Agreement only require nations to report emissions released from their own territory. Emissions from exports are counted by the countries where the fossil fuels and products are eventually consumed.
The flip-flop carbon dynamics
We have long known about the “boom and bust” dynamics of Australia’s vegetation growth as it responds to periods of above-average rainfall and drought.
But we never imagined the entire nation could flip-flop so quickly from being a very strong and globally significant CO₂ sink, as in the La Niña of 2010-11, to being a major source of CO₂. But that’s precisely what happened as drought and fire changed the carbon accounts of Australia, during the southeast drought of 2018-19 and the following Black Summer fires in 2019.
When we put all of the land-based CO₂ sources and sinks together, overall Australia was a net source to the atmosphere of 200 million tonnes of CO₂ a year during 2010-19. This drops to 140 million tonnes of CO₂ a year if we count the sinks from coastal ecosystems.
This means CO₂ sinks are partially offsetting fossil fuel emissions. This is something we have also estimated at the global scale, where about one-third of global fossil fuel emissions are removed by terrestrial land-based CO₂ sinks.
While this highlights the important role natural CO₂ sinks play in slowing climate change, it does not imply we have less work to do to reach the net zero emissions target.
That is because natural CO₂ sinks are already accounted for in estimates of the remaining carbon budgets and decarbonisation pathways to stabilise the climate. Accordingly, the Paris Agreement calls for achieving a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases, the so-called net zero target.
The large year-to-year variability of Australia’s non-anthropogenic carbon dynamics also underscores the need for a comprehensive and long-term monitoring and modelling observatory system to track the evolution of sources and sinks. We need high quality data supplementing the National Greenhouse Accounts to support decisions around how to use Australia’s natural assets to mitigate climate change.
Yohanna Villalobos receives funding from the Australian National Environmental Science Program (NESP) and CSIRO Australia.
Benjamin Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Swedish Research Council, European Union and R&D funding programs of the New South Wales Government.
Pep Canadell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub.
Peter Briggs receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub and is a member of the ACT Greens.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra
Shutterstock
Suddenly the talk in global financial markets has spun from “when will interest rates next rise?” to “how soon before they fall?”.
Some commentators are flagging the shift as a “pivot party”.
This change has been most prominent in the United States. It was prompted by the Federal Reserve, the US equivalent of the Reserve Bank of Australia, releasing its latest “dot chart”. This shows most members of its policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee expect their interest rate would be lower by the end of 2024.
The recent review of the Reserve Bank in Australia wanted more transparency. But, after the whacking former Governor Phil Lowe got when he wrongly predicted rates would stay low until “at least” 2024, I doubt his successor Michele Bullock will be keen to publish a similar chart.
Even so, financial markets in Australia are also now implying interest rates will fall over the course of next year.
The latest indicators
The Australian economy has continued to slow according to the latest national accounts. Consumer spending did not increase at all in the September quarter, despite an increase in population. Exports contracted. Overall GDP grew by a mere 0.2%.
The news from the labour market was mixed. There was a solid rise in employment in November. The hours worked data, however, have been basically flat for the past six months.
The government maintained fiscal discipline in the mid-year budget update released last week. They saved rather than spent almost all the extra revenue from higher than expected commodity prices.
The minutes of the Reserve’s latest meeting on December 5 show the board noted “encouraging signs of progress” in returning inflation to the target.
Subsequent events have suggested inflation will likely continue on its downward trajectory, which means the Reserve has increased interest rates enough.
Another development since the Reserve last met is an update of the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the board. This sets out the common understanding between them about Australia’s monetary policy framework.
Much of this statement carries over the existing framework. The bank’s primary tool is its cash rate target and it is varied to achieve a medium-term inflation target of 2-3%. Employment considerations influence how quickly it is regained when shocks move inflation away from it.
The statement explicitly refers to the midpoint of the target, reflecting a suggestion in the recent Reserve Bank review. Some commentators have interpreted this as indicating the bank cannot cut rates as its forecast for inflation only has it reaching the top, not the middle, of the range by the end of 2025.
I disagree. The bank has always aimed at the midpoint of the target as the most likely way to ensure inflation averages within it. If the board was happy at its December meeting to have reached 3% by the end of 2025 on its way to achieving 2.5% later, there is no reason for it to change this view in February.
So what will the Reserve Bank do?
On balance, the economic news does not suggest the Reserve Bank will feel a need to raise rates in February. But with inflation still high, and plenty of uncertainty, they are unlikely to cut rates any time soon. The bank does not generally make sharp U-turns with the average gap between the last interest rate increase in a cycle and the first cut being ten months.
At its next meeting, on February 5-6, the Reserve board may have a new member, deputy governor Andrew Hauser, and a new adviser, chief economist Sarah Hunter. They share a British background so will be familiar with the Bank of England model, which influenced the Reserve Bank review.
The impact of (eventual) lower interest rates
The movements in the Reserve Bank’s interest rate matters most to the third of households with a mortgage. Most of these have variable rate loans where the interest rate closely follows that set by the Reserve. An interest rate cut would ease the cost-of-living pressures they have been facing.
A household with the average loan size of around A$600,000 would have seen their monthly repayments rise by almost $1,700 since early 2022. This would drop by $100 if rates were cut by 0.25%.
While the impact on mortgagees always gets the most attention, interest rates affect other members of the community too.
Lower interest rates mean a lower income to retirees dependent on interest on their savings. They tend to boost the prices of assets such as shares and houses. They encourage borrowing and spending and reduce incentives to save. They tend to lower the exchange rate, making imports more expensive for Australians but our exports cheaper to foreigners. The net impact is generally to lower unemployment.
A lot of people are therefore looking forward to an interest rate cut. But they should not be holding their breath.
Financial markets may be getting prematurely excited. The last thing the Reserve Bank would want is to find themselves having lowered rates too quickly and see inflation turn back up, necessitating the interest rate cut to be reversed. More likely, they will wait for inflation to drop much closer to their target before there is any easing of interest rates.
John Hawkins is a former senior economist at the Reserve Bank and has worked as an economic forecaster at the Bank for International Settlements and the Australian Treasury.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne
Joko Widodo, popularly known as “Jokowi”, has served as Indonesia’s president for almost a decade. He is hugely popular, garnering around 80% in some polls. But the constitution bars him from serving a third term in office.
Repeated proposals in recent years years to amend the constitution to allow Jokowi to run again have gained little public or political traction. This leaves him unable to contest the next presidential election in February.
Key powerbrokers, however, have been keen to make the most of the tens of millions of votes that Jokowi commands – and maintain his inner circle’s influence after he leaves the palace next year.
Perhaps their most conspicuous strategy to do this has been to install Jokowi’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as vice presidential running mate for Prabowo Subianto, now ahead in the polls with a huge lead of 20 points.
Getting Gibran into that position required the co-option of one of Indonesia’s most respected judicial institutions – the Constitutional Court.
The main roadblock for Gibran (and Jokowi) was that the election law imposed a minimum age of 40 for presidential and vice-presidential candidates.
In a case challenging that age limit, Chief Justice Anwar Usman, Jokowi’s brother-in-law and Gibran’s uncle, intervened to ensure a majority of judges would reverse the court’s position in three previous decisions.
As a result, the election law was altered to permit younger candidates to stand if they had previously held office as head of a sub-national government. Gibran, 36, just happens to have served as mayor of Solo in central Java, a job his father once held, and so the decision meant he could now run for vice president.
The decision has trashed of the reputation of the Constitutional Court, raising questions about its continuing credibility and future, with witty hackers changing its name on Google Maps to the “family court”.
However, not all judges agreed with the decision. Three judges dissented, with some raising questions about Anwar’s behaviour and his obvious conflict of interest. Public outrage over the decision led to the court’s ethics tribunal removing him from his position as chief justice last month.
Yet, Anwar remains one of the nine judges on the court, the decision he is accused of “fixing” stands, and Gibran’s nomination as a vice presidential candidate can probably not be reversed.
Worse, the national legislature has been debating amendments to the Constitutional Court statute that could enable the removal of the dissenting judges. Ironically, this might be through the imposition of a minimum age requirement on Constitutional Court judges. One of the court’s most respected judges, Saldi Isra, is under the proposed age, and appears to be a target.
Jokowi picks a side
From the outside, it may seem like Gibran and Prabowo are strange bedfellows. Prabowo is a former son-in-law of the dictatorial former president Soeharto. He is a cashiered former general who has long been accused of serious human rights abuses, including alleged killings in East Timor, Papua and even the capital, Jakarta.
Prabowo has never faced trial, although several of his men were tried and convicted. He has denied the allegations against him.
Ironically, he was also Jokowi’s bitter opponent in the past two elections, which polarised Indonesia. Prabowo’s refusal to accept his electoral defeats in 2014 and 2019 led to dramatic challenges in the Constitutional Court.
But the enmity between Jokowi and Prabowo seemed to evaporate almost immediately after the court challenges failed, with Prabowo pragmatically accepting the job of defence minister in Jokowi’s cabinet.
Now, Jokowi appears to have decided that Prabowo, of all people, offers the best chance to build a dynasty to keep some sort of hold on power. Certainly few see Gibran – largely silent or inarticulate in public appearances – as serious leadership material. He is widely assumed to be a proxy for Jokowi.
It has also involved reinventing Prabowo, a one-time special forces general, as a gemoy(cute) grandpa, with viral video clips showing him dancing and playing with kittens.
Jokowi’s alignment with Prabowo (through his son) is all the more surprising given Jokowi was a longtime member of PDI-P (Indonesian Democracy Party – Struggle). PDI-P is Indonesia’s largest political party. It twice successfully nominated Jokowi for the presidency, and it has its own candidate, Ganjar Pranowo, in February’s election. Party rules require Jokowi to support him.
By abandoning Ganjar for Prabowo (who has his own party, Gerindra), Jokowi will effectively be stealing votes from PDI-P and declaring war on its boss, the formidable – and vengeful – former president, Megawati Soekarnoputeri, the daughter of Indonesia’s first president. She will fight hard to maintain her party’s power and influence.
Is Indonesia’s democracy under threat?
Despite the political chaos these moves have sparked, Jokowi’s bet that his loyalists and the general public don’t really care about constitutional crises or claims of dynasty building seems to be paying off.
Of course, votes could still shift in the next month and a half. However, there is a sense the momentum created by Jokowi’s support for Prabowo may make his victory inevitable. Some former critics are already quietly changing sides to ensure a share of the spoils.
Jokowi has previously said “our democracy has gone too far”. And Prabowo has openly called for a return to the model of Suharto’s authoritarian New Order.
So, a Prabowo-Gibran victory may be good news for the elites now in power, but it will likely be bad news for Indonesian democracy. It will confirm – and probably accelerate – the regression that most observers, including Freedom House, agree is already advanced under Jokowi.
Many voters seem untroubled by this. Indonesia’s post-Soeharto “Reformasi” wave of democratisation is mere history for Indonesia’s Gen Z, who appear to have limited interest in all that was achieved two decades ago and no experience of living under authoritarianism.
But the activist legal NGOs that form Indonesia’s policy “brains trust” are depressed and anxious. Certainly, some are protesting, and a few are even challenging the court decision that allowed Gibran to run.
The baleen whale fossil at Museums Victoria Research Institute.Eugene Hyland, Museums Victoria
Baleen whales are the titans of the ocean, the largest animals to have ever lived. The record holder is the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), which can reach lengths of up to 30 metres. That’s longer than a basketball court.
However, throughout their evolutionary history, most baleen whales were relatively much smaller, around five metres in length. While still big compared to most animals, for a baleen whale that’s quite small.
However, new fossil discoveries from the Southern Hemisphere are beginning to disrupt this story. The latest is an unassuming fossil from the banks of the Murray River in South Australia.
Roughly 19 million years old, this fossil is the tip of the lower jaws (or “chin”) of a baleen whale estimated to be around nine metres in length, which makes it the new record holder from its time. This find has been published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
The roughly 19-million-year-old fossil ‘chin’ bone superimposed on a Murray River whale illustration. Art by Ruairidh Duncan
What are baleen whales?
Most mammals have teeth in their mouth. Baleen whales are a strange exception. While their ancestors had teeth, today’s baleen whales instead have baleen – a large rack of fine, hair-like keratin used to filter out small krill from the water.
This structure enabled baleen whales to feed efficiently on enormous shoals of tiny zooplankton in productive parts of the ocean, which facilitated the evolution of larger and larger body sizes.
The bristle-like baleen, as shown on a humpback whale. Art by Ruairidh Duncan
The ‘missing years’ of whale evolution
Various groups of toothed whales terrorised the ocean for millions of years, including some that were the ancestors of the toothless baleen whales. Yet at some time between 23 and 18 million years ago these ancient “toothed baleen whales” went extinct.
We aren’t exactly sure when, as fossil whales from this episode in Earth’s history are exceedingly rare. What we do know is immediately after this gap in the whale fossil record, only the relatively small, toothless ancestors of baleen whales remained.
The newly described extinct Murray River whale (9 metres) next to a fin whale (26 metres) and a human diver (2 metres). Art by Ruairidh Duncan, graphic by Rob French
Scientists previously thought baleen whales kept to relatively small proportions until the ice ages (which began from about 3–2.5 million years ago). But the majority of research on trends in the evolutionary history of whales is based on the reasonably well-explored fossil record from the Northern Hemisphere – a notable bias that likely shaped these theories.
Crucially, new fossil finds from the Southern Hemisphere are starting to show us that at least down south, whales got bigger much earlier than previous theories suggest.
An unexpected find
More than 100 years ago, palaeontologist Francis Cudmore found the very tips of a large pair of fossil whale jaws eroding out of the banks of the Murray River in South Australia. These 19-million-year-old fossils made their way to Museums Victoria and remained unrecognised in the collection until they were rediscovered in a drawer by one of the authors, Erich Fitzgerald.
Using equations derived from measurements of modern-day baleen whales, we predicted the whale this fossilised “chin” came from was approximately nine metres long. The previous record holder from this early period of whale evolution was only six metres long.
Together with other fossils from Peru in South America, this suggests larger baleen whales may have emerged much earlier in their evolutionary history and the large body size of whales evolved gradually over many more millions of years than previous research suggested.
The fossilised baleen whale ‘chin’ was found along the banks of the Murray River in South Australia. Art by Ruairidh Duncan, photo by Eugene Hyland
The Southern Hemisphere as the cradle of gigantic whale evolution
The large whale fossils from Australasia and South America seem to suggest that for most of the evolutionary history of baleen whales, whenever a large baleen whale shows up in the fossil record, it is in the Southern Hemisphere.
Strikingly, this pattern persists despite the fact the Southern Hemisphere contains less than 20% of the known fossil record of baleen whales. While this is an unexpectedly strong signal from our research, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise when we consider living baleen whales.
Today, the temperate seas of the Southern Hemisphere are connected by the chilly Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica and is extremely productive, supporting the greatest biomass of marine megafauna on Earth.
Fossils from the Southern Hemisphere, including the Murray River whale fossil, are demonstrating that whales may have evolved large body sizes first in the Southern Hemisphere. Art by Ruairidh Duncan
Around the time baleen whales started evolving from big to gigantic, the strength of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current was intensifying, eventually leading to the present day powerhouse Southern Ocean.
Today, baleen whales are ecosystem engineers, their huge bodies consuming tremendous amounts of energy. Upon death, these whales provide an abundance of nutrients to deep-sea ecosystems.
As we learn more about the evolutionary history of whales, such as when and where their large size evolved, we can begin to understand just how ancient their role in the ocean ecosystem may have been and how it could shift in tune with global climate change.
James Patrick Rule currently receives funding from an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council UKRI Fellowship, and previously received funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project.
Erich Fitzgerald received funding from an Australian Research Council Linkage Project that supported part of this research.
The vagina is an internal organ with a complex ecosystem, influenced by circulating hormone levels which change during the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause.
Around and after menopause, there are normal changes in the growth and function of vaginal cells, as well as the vagina’s microbiome (groups of bacteria living in the vagina). Many women won’t notice these changes. They don’t usually cause symptoms or concern, but if they do, symptoms can usually be managed.
Here’s what happens to your vagina as you age, whether you notice or not.
We’re focusing on the vagina, the muscular tube that goes from the external genitalia (the vulva), past the cervix, to the womb (uterus). Sometimes the word “vagina” is used to include the external genitalia. However, these are different organs and play different roles in women’s health.
Like many other organs in the body, the vagina is sensitive to female sex steroid hormones (hormones) that change around puberty, pregnancy and menopause.
Menopause is associated with a drop in circulating oestrogen concentrations and the hormone progesterone is no longer produced. The changes in hormones affect the vagina and its ecosystem. Effects may include:
less vaginal secretions, potentially leading to dryness
less growth of vagina surface cells resulting in a thinned lining
alteration to the support structure (connective tissue) around the vagina leading to less elasticity and more narrowing
fewer blood vessels around the vagina, which may explain less blood flow after menopause
a shift in the type and balance of bacteria, which can change vaginal acidity, from more acidic to more alkaline.
Many women do not notice any bothersome vaginal changes as they age. There’s also little evidence many of these changes cause vaginal symptoms. For example, there is no direct evidence these changes cause vaginal infection or bleeding in menopausal women.
Some women notice vaginal dryness after menopause, which may be linked to less vaginal secretions. This may lead to pain and discomfort during sex. But it’s not clear how much of this dryness is due to menopause, as younger women also commonly report it. In one study, 47% of sexually active postmenopausal women reported vaginal dryness, as did around 20% of premenopausal women.
Vaginal dryness is common but it can also affect younger women. ECOSY/Shutterstock
Other organs close to the vagina, such as the bladder and urethra, are also affected by the change in hormone levels after menopause. Some women experience recurrent urinary tract infections, which may cause pain (including pain to the side of the body) and irritation. So their symptoms are in fact not coming from the vagina itself but relate to changes in the urinary tract.
Women vary in whether they notice vaginal changes and whether they are bothered by these to the same extent. For example, women with vaginal dryness who are not sexually active may not notice the change in vaginal secretions after menopause. However, some women notice severe dryness that affects their daily function and activities.
In fact, researchers globally are taking more notice of women’s experiences of menopause to inform future research. This includes prioritising symptoms that matter to women the most, such as vaginal dryness, discomfort, irritation and pain during sex.
Symptoms such as dryness, irritation, or pain during sex can usually be effectively managed. Lubricants may reduce pain during sex. Vaginal moisturisers may reduce dryness. Both are available over-the-counter at your local pharmacy.
While there are many small clinical trials of individual products, these studies lack the power to demonstrate if they are really effective in improving vaginal symptoms.
In contrast, there is robust evidence that vaginal oestrogen is effective in treating vaginal dryness and reducing pain during sex. It also reduces your chance of recurrent urinary tract infections. You can talk to your doctor about a prescription.
Vaginal oestrogen is usually inserted using an applicator, two to three times a week. Very little is absorbed into the blood stream, it is generally safe but longer-term trials are required to confirm safety in long-term use beyond a year.
Women with a history of breast cancer should see their oncologist to discuss using oestrogen as it may not be suitable for them.
New treatments for vaginal dryness are under investigation. One avenue relates to our growing understanding of how the vaginal microbiome adapts and modifies around changes in circulating and local concentrations of hormones.
For example, a small number of reports show that combining vaginal probiotics with low-dose vaginal oestrogen can improve vaginal symptoms. But more evidence is needed before this is recommended.
The normal ageing process, as well as menopause, both affect the vagina as we age.
Most women do not have troublesome vaginal symptoms during and after menopause, but for some, these may cause discomfort or distress.
While hormonal treatments such as vaginal oestrogen are available, there is a pressing need for more non-hormonal treatments.
Dr Sianan Healy, from Women’s Health Victoria, contributed to this article.
Martha Hickey previously received research funding for a study of an ultrasound device for vaginal dryness (Madorra)
Louie Ye 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.
Who does which household chores – or who does the most – is a perennial source of tension for many couples. From cleaning the toilet to taking out the trash, it’s sometimes the little things that can cause the biggest trouble.
We also know same-sex couples often have a far more equitable division of labour than heterosexual couples. But it’s not clear how same-sex couples manage to achieve this fairer split of household chores.
Our recent research aimed to shed some light on this. We surveyed same-sex couples in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, and identified three key factors that enabled them to share the chores in ways they both feel is fair.
The couples in our study focused on achieving a sense of fairness and equality over time, rather than a strict 50-50 split. They all had different patterns of dividing tasks. However, they shared some common strategies that offer valuable lessons for any couple, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
1. Keep changing things up
We know that when couples negotiate roles based on their individual availability and what they like doing – or what they least despise – it contributes to a sense of fairness and satisfaction.
Same-sex couples we interviewed embraced flexibility when it comes to dividing housework. They negotiated chores based on their specific needs, preferences and availability. Flexibility is key – if the person who usually takes the children to swimming lessons has a lot on at work, the other partner would step in.
Beyond the day-to-day, same-sex couples often play the long game, balancing unpaid labour with each other’s career progression. Some couples in our study planned their working and family lives so both partners could progress at work by taking turns as the main caregiver when their children were born.
Others recognised that task specialisation – such as one person always doing the taxes, and the other always cooking – could lead to dependence and rigidity. So they consciously practised task sharing to avoid this.
Couples who engage in honest conversations about their labour responsibilities tend to view their household division as fair. On the flip side, negative communication – aggression, avoidance or criticism – fosters a sense of unfairness.
In our research, effective and open communication was key to achieving an equitable division of unpaid labour. But these conversations weren’t always easy.
Couples who felt guilty about not doing enough around the house, or frustration with their partner for not pulling their weight, found simple conversations could become emotionally intense.
We all have different standards of cleanliness, gender socialisation and family background that shape how we approach housework. And this can also make it difficult to understand a partner’s perspective or expectations.
Couples in our survey navigated disagreements through candid conversations, transforming conflict into opportunities for greater mutual understanding and agreement.
It’s not just about talking, but also about regular “check-ins” to see how each person is feeling about the labour load, and renegotiating things when household circumstances or feelings change.
3. Remember unpaid labour is valuable
Housework is often devalued when compared with paid work. Previous research has shown how undervaluing housework diminishes the quality of relationships.
Same-sex couples in our research sought to revalue unpaid labour by assigning it equal worth to paid labour. As one person said:
The domestic tasks, we might not enjoy them, but we both value them equally. We both think they are important.
Some couples actively acknowledged and appreciated difficult and time-consuming tasks, such as their partner cleaning the bathroom. Participants also found value in unpaid labour beyond the chores themselves, viewing them as acts of love, and found joy in small tasks.
One couple even turned household chores into a game, writing tasks on slips of paper and randomly selecting them from a bag – including enjoyable activities like walks or coffee breaks as rewards.
This not only lightens the mood but is also a strategy for involving children with less fuss.
We often fall into patterns of domestic labour without realising it. In our study, we found completing simple time-use surveys and discussing them can illuminate disparities in responsibilities.
Why not try it yourself? List down the household tasks done last week, including physical chores (like shopping or cleaning), emotional tasks (caring for children or pets), and mental tasks (planning meals, managing finances).
Estimate the time both you and your partner spent on each task. Then, have a heart-to-heart about who is doing what, how you both feel about it, and how it can be fairer.
Lessons for all couples
Adapting these strategies in heterosexual relationships isn’t easy. Deep-seated gender norms and societal expectations about the feminine “homemaker” and masculine “breadwinner” can be tough to shake.
But that’s the challenge – to redefine and negotiate labour in a way that works for your unique relationship. Start by tossing out the old gender scripts about who should do what. Next, open a dialogue about chores.
Flexibility, communication and revaluing unpaid labour are strategies available to everyone.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the United States, one of the men vying for the presidency faces 91 criminal charges in four concurrent criminal cases. He uses openly fascist language, and has mused about “terminating” the Constitution. Just last week, he said that should he win the election, he would be a “dictator” for day one of his presidency (but not after that).
He currently sits four percentage points ahead of the incumbent president.
Last week, a Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 US voters found that, in a hypothetical head-to-head, Democratic President Joe Biden would attract 43% of votes compared to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s 47%. When five independent candidates were added to the mix, Biden’s projected vote dropped to 31%, compared to Trump’s 37%. The same poll measured Biden’s current approval rating at 37%.
In a country that prides itself on being the “oldest democracy in the world,” how is it possible that an explicit anti-democrat is outpolling the democratically elected president? Why is Biden so unpopular?
There are some obvious, immediate answers to this question. While not many of the truisms of the 1990s retain their relevance, Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign dictum that “it’s the economy, stupid” retains a lot of explanatory power.
While the big indicators of economic recovery and success are tracking reasonably well in the United States – gross domestic product is up, inflation is down, and unemployment is at its lowest level since 1969 – these numbers just don’t line up with Americans’ material experiences.
That’s why the Biden administration is scrambling to sell the positive message of “Bidenomics”. They are struggling to sell that message at least in part because while those policies, such as Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, are having an impact, they haven’t been enough to reduce rampant inequality.
These perceptions – real and imagined – of an economy that doesn’t work for the majority of Americans are colliding with other crises in the United States that, sometimes fairly and sometimes not, are being laid at the feet of the president.
There is the ongoing trauma of a pandemic that killed over one million Americans; of gun violence; and of deaths of despair. And for young people especially, there is the sense of betrayal that a president who promised to be a generational bridge has not lifted young people up, has not done enough on climate, and proudly proclaims his Zionism in the face of unspeakable horror being perpetrated in Gaza by the right-wing Israeli government.
In what we might unsatisfactorily call a “normal” election cycle, this polycrisis would be enough of an explanation for recent polling.
But the possibility that an openly authoritarian candidate might win the highest office in the world’s most powerful democracy, even if it is an imperfect one, is not “normal”. Given the stakes of this election, there has to be more at play.
Polling consistently shows that Americans are deeply worried about the state of their democracy. At the end of 2022, for example, an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll found that a vast majority of Americans – eight in ten people – see American democracy as under threat.
Experts agree that they are right to understand the 2024 presidential election in these terms. American democracy has always been fragile, and it is now at as dangerous a point as at any other moment in its history.
It is these long threads of American history that connect to the present. For many, if not all, of his supporters, Trump’s seemingly untouchable popularity comes because, not in spite of, his particularly American brand of anti-democratic white supremacy.
Understanding Trump’s popularity with these voters means confronting what Fintan O’Toole has described as the “unresolved contradictions of American history”. By that he means the legacy of slavery, the Civil War, the undoing of Reconstruction, and the unfinished business of the Civil Rights movement.
Trump is popular precisely because he sits at the intersection of American history – the mutually reinforcing trends of white supremacy, exceptionalism and conspiracy.
At his strongest, Biden understands and acknowledges this. Biden speaks clearly and consistently of the threat Trumpism poses to American democracy. Twice in recent history, in the 2020 presidential elections and the 2022 midterms, voters have agreed with him.
When it comes down to it, those voters may well agree with him once more. We can say with reasonable certainty that Biden’s “disaffected Democrats” won’t turn out for Trump. And we know from experience that polls are incomplete snapshots of intention and sometimes fail to capture other motivating factors.
The real risk is that this time around, Biden’s message of threat mitigation will not be enough. As the United States’ immediate polycrisis collides with its old one, Biden’s tendency to fall back into old tropes of American exceptionalism has started to ring hollow, and only reinforces existing perceptions that, at 81, he is too old to run again.
While those four percentage points might not seem like much, and will likely keep moving until November, they’re representative of a very big problem for the future of American democracy.
Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute.
Sun exposure can accelerate ageing, cause skin burns, erythema (a skin reaction), skin cancer, melasmas (or sun spots) and other forms of hyperpigmentation – all triggered by solar ultraviolet radiation.
Approximately 80% of skin cancer cases in people engaged in outdoor activities are preventable by decreasing sun exposure. This can be done in lots of ways including wearing protective clothing or sunscreens.
But not all sunscreens work in the same way. You might have heard of “physical” and “chemical” sunscreens. What’s the difference and which one is right for you?
Organic UV filters are known as chemical filters because the molecules in them change to stop UV radiation reaching the skin. Inorganic UV filters are known as physical filters, because they work through physical means, such as blocking, scattering and reflection of UV radiation to prevent skin damage.
The effectiveness of the filters in physical sunscreen depends on factors including the size of the particle, how it’s mixed into the cream or lotion, the amount used and the refraction index (the speed light travels through a substance) of each filter.
When the particle size in physical sunscreens is large, it causes the light to be scattered and reflected more. That means physical sunscreens can be more obvious on the skin, which can reduce their cosmetic appeal.
Nanoparticulate forms of physical sunscreens (with tiny particles smaller than 100 nanometers) can improve the cosmetic appearance of creams on the skin and UV protection, because the particles in this size range absorb more radiation than they reflect. These are sometimes labelled as “invisible” zinc or mineral formulations and are considered safe.
Physical sunscreens may be more obvious on the skin. Shutterstock
So how do chemical sunscreens work?
Chemical UV filters work by absorbing high-energy UV rays. This leads to the filter molecules interacting with sunlight and changing chemically.
When molecules return to their ground (or lower energy) state, they release energy as heat, distributed all over the skin. This may lead to uncomfortable reactions for people with skin sensitivity.
Generally, UV filters are meant to stay on the epidermis (the first skin layer) surface to protect it from UV radiation. When they enter into the dermis (the connective tissue layer) and bloodstream, this can lead to skin sensitivity and increase the risk of toxicity. The safety profile of chemical UV filters may depend on whether their small molecular size allows them to penetrate the skin.
Chemical sunscreens, compared to physical ones, cause more adverse reactions in the skin because of chemical changes in their molecules. In addition, some chemical filters, such as dibenzoylmethane tend to break down after UV exposure. These degraded products can no longer protect the skin against UV and, if they penetrate the skin, can cause cell damage.
Due to their stability – that is, how well they retain product integrity and effectiveness when exposed to sunlight – physical sunscreens may be more suitable for children and people with skin allergies.
Although sunscreen filter ingredients can rarely cause true allergic dermatitis, patients with photodermatoses (where the skin reacts to light) and eczema have higher risk and should take care and seek advice.
With lots of sunscreens on offer, it can be hard to decide which type is right for you. Shutterstock
What to look for
The best way to check if you’ll have a reaction to a physical or chemical sunscreen is to patch test it on a small area of skin.
And the best sunscreen to choose is one that provides broad-spectrum protection, is water and sweat-resistant, has a high sun protection factor (SPF), is easy to apply and has a low allergy risk.
Health authorities recommend sunscreen to prevent sun damage and cancer. Chemical sunscreens have the potential to penetrate the skin and may cause irritation for some people. Physical sunscreens are considered safe and effective and nanoparticulate formulations can increase their appeal and ease of use.
Yousuf Mohammed receives funding from U.S FDA grants. This article reflects the views of the author and should not be construed to represent views or policies.
Khanh Phan 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.
A striking development in recent years has been the increasing role of state governments in responding to global crises.
The announcement by newly installed Queensland Premier Steven Miles of an ambitious 75% by 2035 emissions cut target is a case in point.
The renewed centrality of state governments became dramatically evident as the COVID pandemic unfolded, where the states responded strongly while the Commonwealth often seemed paralysed.
But it is also true of the response to climate change, where successive national governments have been unable or unwilling to take serious action. The only notable exception – the 2012 carbon price under the Gillard minority government – was extracted by the Greens in return for their support.
Does it matter who does the work? Yes. State efforts can take us a long way towards cutting emissions. But we need federal policies on nationwide issues such as electrifying transport.
How did we get here?
Several decades of neoliberal reform and the mantra of new public management – bringing business-style competition to the public service – have hollowed out the capacity of the national government to do anything directly. Instead, they have to rely on contractors and consultants, limiting any real federal capacity for decisive policy action.
By contrast, hollowing out has been much more muted at state level, where the need to provide schools, hospitals, police and other services have kept governments closer to the actual business of policy delivery.
This pattern of Commonwealth inertia and state activism goes back as far as the 2008 Garnaut Review of Climate Change, commissioned by state governments in response to the Howard Coalition government’s unwillingness to act.
The Labor government took over support for the review after the 2007 election, but the Rudd Government was unable to secure bipartisan support for climate policies.
When the Coalition was back in office from 2013 to 2022, climate denialists in their ranks sought to do the minimum possible without openly rejecting global efforts to stabilise the climate.
By 2022 it was clear Australia would easily exceed our Paris Agreement commitment of a 26% reduction on 2005 emissions through land use change and the rise of renewables. Even so, the power of the denialists was such that the government’s backbench would not consent to an official increase in the target.
As a result, the new Albanese government could commit to a substantially higher target of 43% without any significant policy effort.
Instead of the carbon price Opposition Leader Bill Shorten had promised in 2019, Albanese offered an upgrade to the Safeguard Mechanism, introduced by the Coalition. Energy and Climate Minister Chris Bowen has ruled out modest steps such as ending the sale of internal-combustion engine cars by 2040.
Almost all states and territories now have 2030 emission cut goals more ambitious than the national 43% target:
New South Wales: 50%
Victoria: 50%
South Australia: at least 50%
Western Australia: 80% below 2020 levels
Australian Capital Territory: 65–75% below 1990 levels
Tasmania: achieved net zero in 2015.
Until last week, Queensland was the odd state out, with a 2030 target reduction of only 30% relative to 2005. The new goal – 75% by 2035 – moves Queensland from the back of the pack almost to the front.
The first step towards achieving this goal was largely symbolic: the knockback of a new coal-fired power station proposed by mining magnate Clive Palmer. The proposal was almost certainly unviable, as it assumed the use of economically questionable carbon capture and storage technology.
The easiest option is to accelerate the transition away from existing coal power plants. In Queensland, it’s made easier because coal generators are owned by the state.
To achieve a 75% reduction target, the government’s clean energy agency, CleanCo, will have to be expanded substantially, and coal power put out to pasture faster than already planned.
There are harder emissions to cut. It will need policies encouraging heavy industry to shift towards carbon-free energy sources such as electricity and hydrogen derived from wind and solar energy. The necessary technologies exist for industries such as steelmaking and cement, but have yet to be fully developed.
But the really hard challenge will be when new coal mines and gas fracking projects are proposed.
When buyers burn fossil fuels exported from Queensland, these emissions don’t count towards the state’s targets. But what does count are fugitive emissions of highly potent methane, which have been systematically underestimated. Using satellites, the International Energy Agency has estimated Australia’s methane emissions from coal mines to be 81% higher than official estimates, and 92% higher than official estimates of emissions from fracking and oil extraction.
Miles has promised new fossil fuel projects will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
What do we need the Commonwealth for?
State ambition will take us a fair distance, but not the whole way. On electrification of transport, states will need the Commonwealth government to lead since vehicle standards are set nationally.
Queensland’s fresh ambition puts us in the paradoxical situation where all of Australia’s states are committed to doing more than the Commonwealth. That is, in part, because states are able to do more.
But with the next federal election less than two years away, a slump in the polls and a very thin record of policy achievements, we may yet see the Albanese government leave behind its timidity and take braver action.
Food-focused celebrations like Christmas can be very stressful for parents with children who can’t eat just everything. Perhaps they are selective eaters or have allergies and intolerances.
On top of making sure their children get enough to eat and don’t eat anything they shouldn’t, family reactions and judgement can be overwhelming.
However, parents can navigate these situations and foster healthy eating habits with a few strategies.
1. Set expectations early
Gently discuss your child’s needs with the celebration host beforehand.
This helps friends and family understand what is helpful and unhelpful when supporting your child’s eating.
Setting boundaries around conversations about your child’s eating habits can be beneficial. For example, you can ask people not to comment on how much or little your child eats. Most people appreciate the heads up and are willing to accommodate.
If Christmas lunch is going to be overwhelming, or you can’t ensure the food served will be something your child can eat, it might be easier to feed your child beforehand.
This allows you to relax and join the celebrations without worrying about your child going hungry. Alternatively, you can bring along a selection of foods for your child to ensure they can participate in the mealtime, without the pressure of trying new foods or having limited options.
Including some familiar foods in the spread ensures that there’s something on the table your child is comfortable with.
You can bring you own food for your child, or discuss their needs with the host before the celebration. Nicole Michalou/ Pexels, CC BY
3. Minimise anxiety
Holidays can be a time of increased anxiety, especially for selective eaters. Kids may find it challenging to cope with changes in routine and the excitement of the day.
Try and minimise changes to normal routines where you can, and make sure you and your child get some down time between activities. When children are anxious, they are less likely to want to eat.
4. Focus on togetherness
Reduce the food focus by emphasising the importance of connection and togetherness during mealtimes. This helps creates a relaxed environment, which helps your child associate mealtimes with positive emotions rather than pressure to eat.
It might help to have some talking points such as Christmas cracker jokes, highlights of the of the year, or what we are most looking forward to in the new year (rather than just talking about the food).
The presence of other people can change a behaviour, this is what reseachers call “social facilitation”. We see this when children are more adventurous when eating with their peers at school or daycare compared to at home.
Festive events offer opportunities for children to observe others enjoying a variety of foods.
6. Lots of things to try
Despite concerns, festive occasions often provide incidental, low-pressure situations for children to explore new foods.
Use this time to encourage them to see, touch, smell and taste various treats. This can foster food acceptance at their own pace.
So ask your kids to help with simple food preparation, serving food, clearing away plates and mixing ingredients. This allows your child to have sensory exposure and be part of the experience, with no expectation they must eat the food.
Get your child involved in food preparations to help ease picky eating. Any Lane/Pexels, CC BY
8. Be vigilant about allergens
It’s okay to be vigilant about checking labels for any ingredients that might cause a reaction in your child. Ask family members to label foods that contain potential allergens, especially if you have older children serving themselves.
Remember to be careful with buffet-style meals as the risk of cross-contamination is higher as serving utensils could be moved between dishes.
Everyone deserves to enjoy the holidays, including parents and children. So don’t hesitate to do what you need to ensure your and your child’s wellbeing.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra
Suddenly the talk in global financial markets has spun from “when will interest rates next rise?” to “how soon before they fall?”.
Some commentators are flagging the shift as a “pivot party”.
This change has been most prominent in the United States. It was prompted by the Federal Reserve, the US equivalent of the Reserve Bank of Australia, releasing its latest “dot chart”. This shows most members of its policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee expect their interest rate would be lower by the end of 2024.
The recent review of the Reserve Bank in Australia wanted more transparency. But, after the whacking former Governor Phil Lowe got when he wrongly predicted rates would stay low until “at least” 2024, I doubt his successor Michele Bullock will be keen to publish a similar chart.
Even so, financial markets in Australia are also now implying interest rates will fall over the course of next year.
The latest indicators
The Australian economy has continued to slow according to the latest national accounts. Consumer spending did not increase at all in the September quarter, despite an increase in population. Exports contracted. Overall GDP grew by a mere 0.2%.
The news from the labour market was mixed. There was a solid rise in employment in November. The hours worked data, however, have been basically flat for the past six months.
The government maintained fiscal discipline in the mid-year budget update released last week. They saved rather than spent almost all the extra revenue from higher than expected commodity prices.
The minutes of the Reserve’s latest meeting on December 5 show the board noted “encouraging signs of progress” in returning inflation to the target.
Subsequent events have suggested inflation will likely continue on its downward trajectory, which means the Reserve has increased interest rates enough.
Another development since the Reserve last met is an update of the Statement on the Conduct of Monetary Policy between Treasurer Jim Chalmers and the board. This sets out the common understanding between them about Australia’s monetary policy framework.
Much of this statement carries over the existing framework. The bank’s primary tool is its cash rate target and it is varied to achieve a medium-term inflation target of 2-3%. Employment considerations influence how quickly it is regained when shocks move inflation away from it.
The statement explicitly refers to the midpoint of the target, reflecting a suggestion in the recent Reserve Bank review. Some commentators have interpreted this as indicating the bank cannot cut rates as its forecast for inflation only has it reaching the top, not the middle, of the range by the end of 2025.
I disagree. The bank has always aimed at the midpoint of the target as the most likely way to ensure inflation averages within it. If the board was happy at its December meeting to have reached 3% by the end of 2025 on its way to achieving 2.5% later, there is no reason for it to change this view in February.
So what will the Reserve Bank do?
On balance, the economic news does not suggest the Reserve Bank will feel a need to raise rates in February. But with inflation still high, and plenty of uncertainty, they are unlikely to cut rates any time soon. The bank does not generally make sharp U-turns with the average gap between the last interest rate increase in a cycle and the first cut being ten months.
At its next meeting, on February 5-6, the Reserve board may have a new member, deputy governor Andrew Hauser, and a new adviser, chief economist Sarah Hunter. They share a British background so will be familiar with the Bank of England model, which influenced the Reserve Bank review.
The impact of (eventual) lower interest rates
The movements in the Reserve Bank’s interest rate matters most to the third of households with a mortgage. Most of these have variable rate loans where the interest rate closely follows that set by the Reserve. An interest rate cut would ease the cost-of-living pressures they have been facing.
A household with the average loan size of around A$600,000 would have seen their monthly repayments rise by almost $1,700 since early 2022. This would drop by $100 if rates were cut by 0.25%.
While the impact on mortgagees always gets the most attention, interest rates affect other members of the community too.
Lower interest rates mean a lower income to retirees dependent on interest on their savings. They tend to boost the prices of assets such as shares and houses. They encourage borrowing and spending and reduce incentives to save. They tend to lower the exchange rate, making imports more expensive for Australians but our exports cheaper to foreigners. The net impact is generally to lower unemployment.
A lot of people are therefore looking forward to an interest rate cut. But they should not be holding their breath.
Financial markets may be getting prematurely excited. The last thing the Reserve Bank would want is to find themselves having lowered rates too quickly and see inflation turn back up, necessitating the interest rate cut to be reversed. More likely, they will wait for inflation to drop much closer to their target before there is any easing of interest rates.
John Hawkins is a former senior economist at the Reserve Bank and has worked as an economic forecaster at the Bank for International Settlements and the Australian Treasury.
At a recent electronic music performance, the English duo Rob Brown and Sean Booth, who perform as Autechre, plunged Sydney’s City Recital Hall into darkness.
Prior to the performance, I was made aware through the ticket information that the set would be played in the dark. This information made me eager to shut my eyes and completely immerse myself in a pure auditory experience.
However, I wasn’t prepared for the absence of the usual photographic opportunities that come with such events.
Capturing cultural events through smartphone snapshots has become almost instinctive. It’s a common sight to witness thousands of people with raised arms, recording performances for sharing on social media.
The phrase “pics or it didn’t happen” reflects the need to validate an experience by photographing it to share. Yet, in the context of the Autechre concert, this rule couldn’t be applied.
Like everyone else, I refrained from raising my phone to capture the performance, the stage or the light show simply because there were none. Not even the musicians were visible! Only the faint green glow of the emergency exit signs illuminated the recital hall.
Autechre offered not only an auditory feast but also respite from having yet another experience mediated through my phone. My need to photograph everything was thwarted for an hour of sonic bliss.
This departure from a vision-centric sensory experience was compelling. We are often absorbed in our screens and, if we aren’t, we are witnessing others engrossed in theirs.
This concert created a different communal presence. As I focused on my own auditory journey, I also attuned to the people around me. In the absence of smartphone distraction I wondered whether they felt a deep relief to have nothing to photograph.
The Autechre experience wasn’t like going to the movies, where phones are silenced and we swap the small screen of our smartphones with the big screen of cinema. There was no screen, no image – only sound.
I’m reminded of a period earlier this year when I decided to detox from photographing. The detox lasted two months. My aim was to get off my phone and be more present in my life.
Only the faint green glow of the emergency exit signs illuminated the recital hall. Kent Banes/Unsplash
A so-called photographer by profession, it was a challenging endeavour. But then again, we are all photographers today. I imagine it would be challenging for anyone, given how photographing as an act is deeply embedded in daily life and communication with others.
During the detox I observed how the absence of photographing affected me. It led me to quickly explore other forms of creative expression, such as writing lists and jotting down experiences in words. It was a valuable experience, replacing one artistic outlet with another.
The photography detox also shed light on the social aspects of photographing. As someone who actively shares photos on Instagram and sends daily pictures to my friends, I understood that not having new photos to share affected my sociability. I became quiet and withdrawn.
With my gregarious family humming with photo exchanges on WhatsApp, I found myself responding with emojis rather than photographic images. The detox revealed how I use photography to speak to others; how vital photographing is to expressing my personality.
It wasn’t just about photographing to remember; it was an impulse – a reflex triggered by excitement, anxiety, boredom or a need to connect.
I felt the same twitch to reach for my phone throughout the Autechre concert.
The late French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy explored how listening turns us inward, while sight directs us outward. In his 2007 essay Listening Nancy asks:
Why, in the case of the ear, is there withdrawal and turning inward, a making resonant, but, in the case of the eye, there is manifestation and display, making evident?
This question resonates deeply with the concert experience. Autechre provided a forced blackout and an hour to listen without the burden of having to “evidence” myself listening.
The lack of photo ops reminds me of Daniel Libeskind’s architectural provocation Voided Void, or Holocaust Tower, in Berlin’s Jewish Museum. Visitors enter the tower in small groups, and the irregularly shaped claustrophobic space is closed off by a heavy door. Once inside, we were left in complete darkness, with only a sliver of light filtering in from the ceiling.
In this concrete chamber, every sound was magnified, my heart beat louder and faster, the sound of my shoes on the floor echoed I was alive. My camera was useless.
The Autechre concert encapsulated what the controlled absence of photography and visual stimulus affords. I found myself immersed in complex sounds and literally feeling the physical vibrations of the bass.
With nothing to see with my eyes, I had nothing to photograph. The experience was akin to deep meditation. This made me realise that, despite the lack of sociability experienced during my photo detox, taking photos rarely takes me inward.
I also admit that I was among those who frantically photographed the previous act and the stage manager who stood under a photogenic light when instructing us to go to the bathroom before Autechre’s piece.
I also saw people photographing the concert poster near the box office. How else were they to evidence where they’d been and what they’d seen? In the arts, creating visual content that is photogenic and Instagrammable is the norm.
Autechre were radical in creating an artwork that was totally ephemeral and completely unphotographable.
Cherine Fahd 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.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Last week the new government effectively cancelled the plans of Kiwi Rail – in the form of ‘The Interislander’ – derailing its intended Picton rail and road expansion. The plans were judged to be too costly; in particular, the rate of cost escalation was deemed unacceptable.
The bigger picture is the need to balance acquisition costs and benefits against subsequent operational costs and benefits. Spending more upfront can mean much lower costs in the long run.
We can look to the past for guidance. Before the 1960s, the principal shipping route between New Zealand’s North and South Islands was between Wellington and Christchurch; more specifically between Wellington and the port town of Lyttelton.
The development of the Wellington to Picton route for a rail ferry was made possible by the completion of the Christchurch to Picton rail line in 1945. That was a borderline rail decades-long project which might never have been completed at all. The second impetus towards the improvement of the Picton route was the diminishing state of the then-existing Union Steam Ship ferry service to Picton, and its inability to service the rapidly increasing demand for road vehicle carriage to Nelson, Marlborough, and Westland. Then, by the 1970s, people wanting quick access to Christchurch were flying, and renting cars. Further, with the loss of the Wahine in 1968, the convenience of the Lyttelton ferry service waned substantially. The Wahine’s replacement – the Rangatira – was a great ship but it had a backward-looking economic profile. And it was not owned by New Zealand Rail, as Kiwi Rail was then. New Zealand Rail in 1970 had too much sunk investment in Picton. It is now, in the 2020s, that that investment has substantially depreciated.
In November 2016 the Picton service was severely compromised by the Kaikoura Earthquake. Massive fixes were required to both the rail and road routes from Picton to Christchurch. 2017 was an obvious time to look at rekindling the Lyttelton ferry service, but for some inexplicable reason there was no discussion of that option. The Interisland rail service was curtailed, and the increased car and truck traffic had to take an alpine route, over Lewis Pass. Subsequently, in 2022, road access to Nelson – and to the Lewis Pass – was knocked out by severe flooding and road subsidence. ‘Fortunately’, the rebuilt coastal route to Christchurch had been opened in time. Despite this new emergency, the word ‘Lyttleton’ was still not mentioned.
New Zealand means New Sealand. Early in 2023 there was a brief swell of interest in coastal shipping, following the wave of floods most affecting the North Island’s Tairawhiti (‘Eastland’). But again, once the one precarious road was eventually fixed, that emergency shipping service between Gisborne and Napier was immediately discontinued. It was an election year, and the political class was too obsessed with exploring the main political parties’ alleged ‘fiscal holes’ to contemplate some forward-looking climate-savvy inter-regional transport infrastructure.
Yet, for the latest episode of New Sealand’s saga of threadbare-shipping, too much attention has gone onto the proposed new ships, which really are too big for the Picton ‘scenic route’, and too little attention to the main cost, the replacement of port infrastructure.
So, here’s what I think. Divert the proposed port infrastructure from touristic Picton to the commercial deepwater port of Lyttleton. Build the two modern rail-road ferries, as planned, in South Korea. Require KiwiSaver to switch its principal rail-ferry operations to Lyttleton; allowing Picton to be serviced by smaller roll-on roll-off ferries, with rail-free Nelson the main centre to be serviced through Picton. This is the perfect opportunity to revive the Wellington-Christchurch ferry service.
We particularly note that the 2020s is the critical decade to deal with the matter of climate change, in this century of COPs. (Actually, the 2010s was that critical decade; but it’s been and gone!) Although modern ships use a fossil fuel, oil, shipping remains the most resilient and sustainable form of long-distance freight transport; and especially when the alternative is road-rail transport along a rugged seismically active coast.
Other Shipping News
The COP28 narrative, this year, boiled down to whether there should be a ‘phase-down’ of (ie ‘transition away from’) fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) or a ‘phase-out’ of such fuels. For the distinction to be meaningful, a phase-out means the eventual complete disuse of these fuels. Yet I heard nothing in the reporting of COP28 about what a complete disuse of fossil fuels would mean for the shipping industry. I found this rhetorical gap especially bemusing, in the light of the dependence of the small island nations on sea-freight; indeed these were some of the nation states most vociferous at COP28 in favour of ‘phase-out’.
Traditionally, sea travel – indeed oceanic sea travel – was sustainable, in the sense that it was driven by wind power. Some sailing ships, windjammers carrying freight, were still plying the Southern Ocean as recently as the mid-twentieth century. The Pamir’s final voyage on the great circle route, via Cape Horn, sailing under the New Zealand red ensign, was in 1949.
While it seems unlikely that wind-only shipping will again play a role in world shipping this century, I see no reason why hybrid shipping cannot be developed for certain routes, with the ‘great circle route’ via the Capes of Good Hope and Horn being an obvious such route. High-tech wind power can be allowed to make a contribution to a more sustainable goods’ carriage model. Yet, if such practical solutions are being discussed in COP circles, such chatter is not being picked up by the mainstream media.
What other alternatives fossil fuels can be used by ships? The only one that comes to my mind is nuclear power. In the absence of narratives around ships utilising wind power, a phasing out of fossil fuels in shipping can only mean a phasing in of nuclear power; a means of propulsion principally confined at present to military shipping. I am not convinced that Aotearoans would be partial to such a phase out of fossil fuels. (And we note that nuclear power can hardly be applicable to air transport, another industry for which a phase out of fossil fuels will be difficult.)
The Militarisation of the Indian Ocean
While militarised for some time now, the 2021 ‘Indo-Pacific’ ‘rules-based’ rhetoric of Biden and Blinken and Ardern, was a hint that the Indian Ocean was an escalating military region. AUKUS took this a step further in 2022. Now, in 2023, we see that there will be a large United States’ nuclear submarine base (ABC News, 18 Dec 2023) just south of Fremantle, in Western Australia.
And now, with actual conflict in the Red Sea, related to Israel’s present war, we are heading for an effective closure of the Suez Canal; previously closed between 1967 and 1975 due to the second and third wars between Israel and Egypt. (The first Israel-Egypt War in modern times was in 1956, when the first massacre of Khan Younis took place.) Neither military expansion nor the closure of major shipping routes are conducive to the reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions which are substantially causing climate change. Indeed ‘defence’ is probably both the least-green and least-productive sector of the global economy. Oil-powered oil-tankers are already having to get from the Persian Gulf to the North Atlantic Ocean via South Africa. (I wonder if we will ever see the ultimate shipping irony: nuclear-powered oil tankers!?)
Climate Change feedback ‘Arms Race’
It’s not only the Suez Canal which is compromised at present. The Panama rainforest is experiencing a drought, meaning that the undercapacity (at the best of times) Panama Canal is unable to access anything like the amounts of water that it needs to operate its locks. It means evermore traffic having to go around Cape Horn, at the tip of South America; though these canal troubles may help to precipitate energy saving on the wind-friendly great-circle route.
The woes of the Panama Canal are reflected more generally in that climate change is creating more demand for energy intensive climate control; air-conditioning for the heat and heating for the cold, climate extremes that are creating extra demands right now for coal to burn to generate electricity. This ‘arms race’ phenomenon is known as a positive feedback loop; the kind of positive feedback that is very adverse for the sustenance of Planet Earth in its present human-friendly. Indeed increased demand means the transition away from fossil fuels may end up being that fossil fuel use continues to stay much the same, despite increases in renewable and nuclear energisation.
Geoplanetary feedback loops can be quirky though. Just as the Panama Canal route faces contraction of service – as does the Picton route – two new opportunities are opening up as a result of global warming. The Northwest Passage, north of Canada, may soon be available to take the pressure off the Panama Canal (at least for a few months each year). And, especially for trade between China and Russia – an important factor in global emissions – the Arctic Northeast Passage may become similarly viable.
A nuclear Arctic, anyone? Maybe Canada or Russia will ban non-nuclear ships, for the sake of Planet E.
*******
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
This article contains mentions of the Stolen Generations, and policies using outdated and potentially offensive terminology when referring to First Nations people.
Aunty Ruth Hegarty, or Ruthie, was four-and-a-half years old when she was forcibly removed from her mother, Ruby, under the auspices of Queensland’s Aboriginals Protection Act (1897).
The Act, as it was known, dispossessed thousands of Indigenous Australians of their heartlines and their homes by segregating them to government reserves that have been compared by past residents to concentration camps.
Is That You, Ruthie?, written and directed by Leah Purcell, one of Australia’s most important theatremakers, is an adaptation of Aunty Ruth’s memoir. It is a harrowing account of a mother and daughter’s attempt to repair their fractured relationship after being separated from their culture, their Country, and each other.
Purcell’s bold new play remembers the Stolen Generations of Indigenous women and children who were interned for more than 70 years at Barambah station, later known as Cherbourg, 250 kilometres northwest of Brisbane.
The story of the self-called dormitory girls, or “dormo girls”, is the story of the irreparable damage caused by the sanctioned removal and control of First Nations families and the dormitory system’s cruel legacy of the separation of children from their mothers.
The play opens in 1930, in the grip of the Great Depression, when a young Ruby (Chenoa Deemal) arrives with her six-month-old daughter Ruthie at the Barambah mission – “just for a little while” – on the advice of the local police sergeant, who is also the ironically titled “Protector of Aboriginals”.
When she is four-and-a-half, Ruthie (Melodie Reynolds-Diarra) is separated from Ruby, and they spend the next 30 years trapped in parallel lives.
Following their separation, mother and daughter are housed in separate dorms. They can see each other, but are forbidden to touch or talk.
Mother and daughter are interned in dormitories on their arrival at Cherbourg. Photo credit: Peter Wallis
In a narrative spiral that moves back and forward in time, the pair oscillate in and out of each other’s lives as their relationship becomes increasingly estranged.
Separately, they are trained and later hired as domestic servants to aid the expanding white settlement.
After years of exploitation as “domestics”, both are denied access to their wages in a form of multi-generational financial abuse that is now recognised as the Stolen Wages.
When mother and daughter finally reunite, they are forced to face the painful realisation that they are strangers. Their relationship, irreversibly severed, is never the same.
In the play’s final scene the actors step forward out of character to remind us this story is not a work of fiction – a necessary and important moment when Australia’s history is still often met with defensive denial and resistance.
In Ruthie, over the course of 90 minutes, she strips down Hegarty’s memoir to its powerful core: the story of two hearts breaking. But Purcell’s play, like its origin material, is also a story about the enduring and ineffable connections that bond women who share profound trauma and grief.
Building on the tradition of Ningali Lawford-Wolf’s Ningali (1994), Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman’s The Seven Stages of Grieving (1996), and Jane Harrison’s Stolen (1998), Purcell interjects genuine moments of humour in a work that highlights the fraught nature of forgiveness and the cultural significance of both resistance and resilience.
Purcell strips down Hegarty’s memoir to its powerful core. Photo credit: Peter Wallis
The work interweaves traditional song and dance in a testament to the courage and resilience of the young girls who lost their mothers and in turn became sisters who, in their own words, simply looked after each other.
As Aunty Ruth reflects in her memoir:
Our lives were governed by the same policies, and what happened to one, happened to all of us. We were treated identically, dressed identically, our hair cut identically. We were dormitory girls.
Purcell and Hegarty share the same creative agenda: both women blend the personal with the political through autobiographical storytelling and the power of witnessing.
A collaborative creation
Importantly, in her newest work, Purcell preserves the protocols of Indigenous storytelling by using collaborative theatre to combine oral history with documentary techniques. Aunty Ruth, now 94, collaborated on the script and contributed to the creative process.
The projection of archival material from Aunty Ruth’s government file – visitation requests, travel permits, letters from the Superintendent – bridge the theatrical and historical worlds of the play, and unite the emotion of the dramatic retelling with the authority and authenticity of the archive.
At a post show discussion with Aunty Ruth, Purcell invoked the audience’s obligation to bear witness. “You cannot deny this woman her story,” she said, “because she’s sitting right here.”
In this way, the play’s title, Is That You, Ruthie?, is an important recognition of the past as much as it is a haunting inquisition that demands we listen.
Is That You, Ruthie? by Oombarra Productions played at QPAC, Brisbane. Season closed.
Kate Cantrell 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.
When it was announced this afternoon that the Northern Territory’s Chief Minister Natasha Fyles had resigned, few could say it was unexpected.
She has been under increasing pressure on several fronts, chief among them the failure to disclose shares she held, prompting accusations of having a conflict of interest.
In the role for around 18 months, Fyles’ Labor government has been in the spotlight for everything from increased crime rates in Alice Springs to the controversial decision to approve fracking in the Beetaloo Basin.
So what’s behind Fyles quitting the territory’s top job, and what’s next for the government?
Fyles was sworn in as chief minister in May 2022, following the resignation of Michael Gunner.
She won the leadership against expectations, despite being Gunner’s protege. The left faction, which has a majority of two in the party caucus, had backed Nicole Manison. But two members defected and voted for Fyles instead, securing her victory in the leadership ballot.
Fyles has been the member for Nightcliff since 2012 and held a range of important portfolios before her promotion, including health and Attorney-General.
Her leadership style has been not unlike most of the new generation of politicians: speaking in short, sharp sentences with authoritative confidence.
But she’s overseen some odd and sometimes unpopular decisions.
The $11 million Nightcliff Police Station was built in her electorate, despite being just a seven-minute drive from Casuarina station. Allegations of pork-barrelling were quick to follow, especially after reports emerged of the facility having half the staff promised.
There was also the matter of the Palmerston Hospital, which opened in 2018, when Fyles was health minister. It’s since been plagued by understaffing and underfunding.
Two key undoings
Smaller controversies aside, there have been two main pressure points for Fyles’ leadership.
The first is crime in remote communities, especially the much-publicised plight of Alice Springs.
While the issue is hardly unique to the city, the national interest generated by the removal and reinstatement of the alcohol bans shone a large and often unflattering light on crime rates across the Northern Territory.
The fact the federal government intervened to create the role of the Regional Controller – a role the Commonwealth funds and manages – shows how little confidence they had in the territory government.
The second, more recent problem is the revelations around Fyles’ potential conflicts of interest.
It was revealed earlier this week the chief owns shares in South32, a company that owns a manganese mine on Groote Eylandt. She hadn’t disclosed this, despite appearing to have owned them since 2015.
Locals have been lobbying for years for the mine to be tested for its potential impact on human health, but to no avail.
It wasn’t even the first instance in the past month of undisclosed shares coming to light. In November, Fyles divested her minor stake in gas company Woodside Energy.
But the final nail in the coffin came last week, when matters swirling around Fyles were referred to the territory’s corruption watchdog.
One of her senior political advisors, Gerard Richardson, co-owns a company that lobbied on behalf of mining company Tamboran – a company that has large stakes in multiple projects in the NT.
While she dug her heels in, the news went down like a lead balloon in the electorate, and likely in the party room too.
A salvagable government?
Politics in the Top End is a strange beast. Fyles stepping down as leader doesn’t necessarily mean she takes the government down with her.
The way politics plays out in the territory has long been down to the happiness or unhappiness of key interest groups.
With some electorates containing just 5,000 people or so, the blessing (or lack thereof) of recreational fishers or the police association, for example, can have a disproportionate affect.
So in choosing its next leader, the Labor party will be considering who appeals most to the most important groups.
That’s why the current Minister for Recreational Fisheries (among many other things), Joel Bowden, might be in with a shot. The former Richmond footballer might have the right appeal with those who are most electorally influential.
But the government will have to contend with an increase in environment-focused politics in the lead-up to the next election in 2024.
Conservationist issues have gathered momentum in the past few years and their potential impact should not be underestimated. Greens and conservationists appear to be gaining increasing Indigenous support.
The next leader will need to be agile enough to deal with these newer forces, but compelling enough to win the party a third term in government.
Rolf Gerritsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In 2023, artificial intelligence (AI) truly entered our daily lives. The latest data shows four in five teenagers in the United Kingdom are using generative AI tools. About two-thirds of Australian employees report using generative AI for work.
At first, many people used these tools because they were curious about generative AI or wanted to be entertained. Now, people ask generative AI for help with studies, for advice, or use it to find or synthesise information. Other uses include getting help coding and making images, videos, or audio.
So-called “prompt whisperers” or prompt engineers offer guides on not just designing the best AI prompts, but even how to blend different AI services to achieve fantastical outputs.
AI uses and functions have also shifted over the past 12 months as technological development, regulation and social factors have shaped what’s possible. Here’s where we’re at, and what might come in 2024.
ChatGPT, the chatbot that’s become a household name, reached a user base of 100 million by February – about four times the size of Australia’s population.
Some musicians used AI voice cloning to create synthetic music that sounds like popular artists, such as Eminem. Google launched its chatbot, Bard. Microsoft integrated AI into Bing search. Snapchat launched MyAI, a ChatGPT-powered tool that allows users to ask questions and receive suggestions.
GPT-4, the latest iteration of the AI that powers ChatGPT, launched in March. This release brought new features, such as analysing documents or longer pieces of text.
Also in March, corporate giants like Coca-Cola began generating ads partly through AI, while Levi’s said it would use AI for creating virtual models. The now-infamous image of the Pope wearing a white Balenciaga puffer jacket went viral. A cohort of tech evangelists also called for an AI development pause.
Amazon began integrating generative AI tools into its products and services in April. Meanwhile, Japan ruled there would be no no copyright restrictions for training generative AI in the country.
In the United States, screenwriters went on strike in May, demanding a ban of AI-generated scripts. Another AI-generated image, allegedly of the Pentagon on fire, went viral.
In July, worshippers experienced some of the first religious services led by AI.
In August, two months after AI-generated summaries became available in Zoom, the company faced intense scrutiny for changes to its terms of service around consumer data and AI. The company later clarified its policy and pledged not to use customers’ data without consent to train AI.
In September, voice and image functionalities came to ChatGPT for paid users. Adobe began integrating generative AI into its applications like Illustrator and Photoshop.
By December, we saw an increased shift to “Edge AI”, where AI processes are handled locally, on devices themselves, rather than in the cloud, which has benefits in contexts when privacy and security are paramount. Meanwhile, the EU announced the world’s first “AI Law”.
Given the whirlwind of AI developments in the past 12 months, we’re likely to see more incremental changes in the next year and beyond.
In particular, we expect to see changes in these four areas.
Increased bundling of AI services and functions
ChatGTP was initially just a chatbot that could generate text. Now, it can generate text, images and audio. Google’s Bard can now interface among Gmail, Docs and Drive, and complete tasks across these services.
By bundling generative AI into existing services and combining functions, companies will try to maintain their market share and make AI services more intuitive, accessible and useful.
At the same time, bundled services make users more vulnerable when inevitable data breaches happen.
Higher quality, more realistic generations
Earlier this year, AI struggled with rendering human hands and limbs. By now, AI generators have markedly improved on these tasks.
At the same time, research has found how biased many AI generators can be.
Some developers have created models with diversity and inclusivity in mind. Companies will likely see a benefit in providing services that reflect the diversity of their customer bases.
Growing calls for transparency and media standards
Various news platforms have been slammed in 2023 for producing AI-generated content without transparently communicating this.
AI-generated images of world leaders and other newsworthy events abound on social media, with high potential to mislead and deceive.
Media industry standards that transparently and consistently denote when AI has been used to create or augment content will need to be developed to improve public trust.
Expansion of sovereign AI capacity
In these early days, many have been content playfully exploring AI’s possibilities. However, as these AI tools begin to unlock rapid advancements across all sectors of our society, more fine-grained control over who governs these foundational technologies will become increasingly important.
In 2024, we will likely see future-focused leaders incentivising the development of their sovereign capabilities through increased research and development funding, training programs and other investments.
For the rest of us, whether you’re using generative AI for fun, work, or school, understanding the strengths and limitations of the technology is essential for using it in responsible, respectful and productive ways.
Similarly, understanding how others – from governments to doctors – are increasingly using AI in ways that affect you, is equally important.
T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.
Daniel Angus receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society.
A recent investigation from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has revealed an extensive network of YouTube channels promoting pro-Chinese and anti-US public opinion in the English-speaking world.
The operation is well-coordinated, using generative AI to rapidly produce and publish content, while deftly exploiting YouTube’s algorithmic recommendation system.
How big is the network?
Operation “Shadow Play” involves a network of at least 30 YouTube channels with about 730,000 subscribers. At the time of writing this article the channels had some 4,500 videos between them, with about 120 million views.
According to ASPI, the channels gained audiences by using AI algorithms to cross-promote each other’s content, thereby boosting visibility. This is concerning as it allows state messaging to cross borders with plausible deniability.
The network of videos also featured an AI avatar created by British artificial intelligence company Synthesia, according to the report, as well as other AI-generated entities and voiceovers.
While it’s not clear who is behind the operation, investigators say the controller is likely Mandarin-speaking. After profiling the behaviour, they concluded it doesn’t match that of any known state actor in the business of online influence operations. Instead, they suggest it might be a commercial entity operating under some degree of state direction.
These findings double as the latest evidence that advanced influence operations are evolving faster than defensive measures.
Influencer conflicts of interest
One clear parallel between the Shadow Play operation and other influence campaigns is the use of coordinated networks of inauthentic social media accounts, and pages amplifying the messaging.
For example, in 2020 Facebook took down a network of more than 300 Facebook accounts, pages and Instagram accounts that were being run from China and posting content about the US election and COVID pandemic. As was the case with Shadow Play, these assets worked together to spread content and make it appear more popular than it was.
The current disclosure requirements around sponsored content have some glaring gaps when it comes to addressing cross-border influence campaigns. Most Australian consumer protection and advertising regulation focuses on commercial sponsorships rather than geopolitical conflicts of interest.
Platforms such as YouTube prohibit deceptive practices in their stated rules. However, identifying and enforcing violations is difficult with foreign state-affiliated accounts that conceal who is pulling their strings.
Determining what is propaganda, as opposed to free speech, raises difficult ethical questions around censorship and political opinions. Ideally, transparency measures shouldn’t unduly restrict protected speech. But viewers still deserve to understand an influencer’s incentives and potential biases.
Possible measures could include clear disclosures when content is affiliated directly or indirectly with a foreign government, as well as making affiliation and location data more visible on channels.
How to spot deceptive content?
As technologies become more sophisticated, it’s becoming harder to discern what agenda or conflict of interest may be shaping the content of a video.
Discerning viewers can gain some insight by looking into the creator(s) behind the content. Do they provide information on who they are, where they’re based and their background? A lack of clarity may signal an attempt to obscure their identity.
You can also assess the tone and goal of the content. Does it seem to be driven by a specific ideological argument? What is the poster’s ultimate aim: are they just trying to get clicks, or are they persuading you into believing their viewpoint?
Check for credibility signals, such as what other established sources say about this creator or their claims. When something seems dubious, rely on authoritative journalists and fact-checkers.
And make sure not to consume too much content from any single creator. Get your information from reliable sources across the political spectrum so you can take an informed stance.
The bigger picture
The advancement of AI could exponentially amplify the reach and precision of coordinated influence operations if ethical safeguards aren’t implemented. At its most extreme, the unrestricted spread of AI propaganda could undermine truth and manipulate real-world events.
Propaganda campaigns may not stop at trying to shape narratives and opinions. They could also be used to generatehyper-realistic text, audio and image content aimed at radicalising individuals. This could greatly destabilise our societies.
We’re already seeing the precursors of what could become AI psy-ops with the ability to spoof identities, surveil citizens en masse, and automate disinformation production.
Without applying an ethics or oversight framework to content moderation and recommendation algorithms, social platforms could effectively act as misinformation mega-amplifiers optimised for watch-time, regardless of the consequences.
Over time, this may erode social cohesion, upend elections, incite violence and even undermine our democratic institutions. And unless we move quickly, the pace of malicious innovation may outstrip any regulatory measures.
It’s more important than ever to establish external oversight to make sure social media platforms work for the greater good, and not just short-term profit.
David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The new coalition government has made its campaign promise to crack down on gangs a priority in its 100-day action plan. But whether the new “get tough” policy genuinely plugs gaps in existing legislation is very much open to question.
The policy was laid out in a letter of expectations to the police commissioner from new police minister Mark Mitchell in early December, including: banning gang patches in public, stopping public gang meetings, and preventing gang members communicating with each other.
The government also promises extra police powers to search for guns, and to make gang membership an aggravating feature at sentencing.
We all have a right to be safe from harm, including harm by gangs. But there are already many relevant offences in the law that exist to protect the general public.
No need for new law
First, it is already an offence to be in a criminal gang. Section 98A of the Crimes Act 1961 allows up to ten years’ imprisonment for participating in an “organised criminal group”. This involves three or more people who aim to commit serious violence, or who benefit from offending, liable for at least four years’ imprisonment.
As with most serious criminal offences, a guilty mind is required: you have to know it is a criminal group, realise your involvement might contribute to criminal activity, and also be aware the criminal activity might help the criminal group.
It is also a criminal conspiracy to agree to commit offences. And our “joint enterprise” law in section 66(2) of the Crimes Act means those who agree to commit one offence are also guilty of other foreseeable offences committed by the group.
There are also many offences against public order in the Summary Offences Act 1981, including disorderly or offensive behaviour, and associating with those convicted of theft, violence or drugs offending.
As well, there is the Prohibition of Gang Insignia in Government Premises Act 2013. This bans gang insignia in or on premises operated by central and local government, including schools, hospitals and swimming pools, but not Kāinga Ora housing.
Guns and gangs
The Arms Act 1983 makes the privilege of obtaining a firearms licence dependent on being a “fit and proper person”; gang membership and convictions already mean this test is not met.
Section 18 of the Search and Surveillance Act 2012 allows the police to search any person or place if they reasonably suspect a breach of the Arms Act.
And when it comes to sentencing, section 9(1) of the Sentencing Act 2002 already requires judges to consider an offence to be worse if committed as part of organised criminal activity.
In short, if arresting our way out of a problem works, there are already many criminal justice tools. We should also note that the apparent growth in gang membership has occurred despite these various offences and powers.
Rights and their limits
We also need to ask whether the new anti-gang measures breach fundamental principles such as human rights. These are part of New Zealand law, through the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the common law. They also reflect international standards that New Zealand has agreed to respect.
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes proclaiming gang affiliation. There is also the right to associate with others, and to assemble peacefully.
But all of these rights have to be balanced against other interests. The Bill of Rights Act sums this up by allowing “reasonable limits” that “can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”.
Essentially, legislation that restricts rights requires a legitimate purpose. This is usually easy to show. But it is also necessary to consider whether such restrictions work and do so in a way that is proportionate to the breach of rights.
We have an idea what the courts might say. For example, in Morse v Police, the Supreme Court decided burning the New Zealand flag during an Anzac Day parade to protest New Zealand involvement in Afghanistan was not offensive behaviour, because it did not go beyond what people should be expected to tolerate in a democracy.
And in Schubert v Wanganui District Council, the High Court decided the ban on gang patches in all public places in the district went too far; the evidence did not show that something more tailored would have been as effective.
Tackling membership is the challenge
The government might suggest its main aim is to extend the 2013 legislation banning gang patches in government premises to all public places. But that legislation is probably acceptable because it has limits.
The Bill of Rights Act also protects against discrimination. Here we have to recall that Māori are disproportionately imprisoned, and disproportionately affected by socioeconomic factors (including abuse in state care and incarceration) that seem linked to gang recruitment.
Since it is likely that action against gangs will affect Māori to a greater extent, a Waitangi Tribunal claim may be expected.
To abide by existing human rights provisions in the law, the government will need to craft various exceptions to the ban on gang patches, or to people meeting or communicating with each other.
Alternatively, if it is comfortable with breaches of human rights, it can make that clear. This is possible because the Bill of Rights Act can be sidestepped by parliament using legislative language that precludes consistency with such rights.
This would still leave the law in breach of New Zealand’s international obligations, with resulting reputational damage.
But we should also be mindful that criminal justice powers represent an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. People’s right to be safe is more likely to be secured by other steps that turn people away from gang membership in the first place.
Kris Gledhill is currently working on a project relating to the Sentencing Act 2002 the expenses for which are funded by the Borrin Foundation. He is also a co-opted member of the Criminal Bar Association’s Executive Committee. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Until the 1960s, railways dominated freight across every distance bar the shortest. Much freight went by sea, and some by truck.
But then trucking grew, and grew, and grew, while rail’s share of freight outside mined ore has shrunk and domestic shipping freight is diminished. By the mid-70s, trains carried only about 23% of domestic non-bulk freight (such as consumer goods) and trucks took 65.5%.
By 2021–22, trains took just 16.7% and trucks took almost 80%. Just 2% of freight between Melbourne and Sydney now goes by rail, while road freight is projected to keep growing.
That’s a problem, given heavy trucks are big emitters. Rail uses roughly a third of the diesel as a truck would to transport the same weight. Transport now accounts for 21% of Australia’s emissions. While electric cars and the long-awaited fuel efficiency standards are projected to cut this by seven million tonnes, trucking emissions are expected to keep growing.
It won’t be easy to change it. But if we improve sections of railway track on the east coast, we could at least make rail faster and more competitive.
How did road freight become dominant?
Since the 1970s, the volume of freight carried by Australia’s rail and road have both grown. But rail’s growth has largely been in bulk freight, such as the 895 million tonnes of iron ore and 338 million tonnes of coal exports in 2022–23.
Road freight has grown enormously due largely to non-bulk freight such as consumer goods. Freight carried by road has grown from about 29 billion tonne-kilometres in 1976–77 to 163 billion tonne-kilometres in 2021–22. (A tonne-kilometre measures the number of tonnes carried multiplied by distance). In that period, non-bulk freight carried by rail increased from about 10 to 34 billion tonne-kilometres.
Why? An official report gives key reasons such as expanding highway networks and higher capacity vehicles such as B-doubles.
From freight trains to road trains: trucks have taken the throne from trains. Shutterstock
Federal grants enabled the $20 billion reconstruction of the entire Hume Highway (Melbourne to Sydney), bringing it up to modern engineering standards. A similar sum was spent on reconstructing most of the Pacific Highway (Sydney to Brisbane).
What do our trains get? In 2021–22, the Australian Rail Track Corporation had a meagre $153 million to maintain its existing 7,500 kilometre interstate network.
This is separate from the 1,600km Inland Rail project which will link Melbourne to Brisbane via Parkes when complete. If the massive Inland Rail project is completed in the 2030s, it could potentially cut Australia’s freight emissions by 0.75 million tonnes a year by taking some freight off trucks. But this freight-only line is some way off – the first 770km between Beveridge in Victoria and Narromine in New South Wales is expected to be complete by 2027.
As a result, the authority maintaining Australia’s interstate rail tracks is “really struggling with maintenance, investment and building resilience”, according to federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine King.
This makes it harder for rail to compete, as Paul Scurrah, CEO of Pacific National, Australia’s largest private rail freight firm has said:
Each year, billions in funding is hardcoded in federal and state government budgets to upgrade roads and highways, which then spurs on greater access for bigger and heavier trucks […] Rail freight operators pay ‘full freight’ rates to run on tracks plagued by pinch points, speed restrictions, weight limits, sections susceptible to frequent flooding, and a lack of passing opportunities on networks shared with passenger services
What would it take to make rail more viable?
By 2030, road freight emissions are expected to increase from 37 to 42 million tonnes, while railway emissions stay steady at four million tonnes.
To date, much attention in Australia and overseas has centred on finding ways to lower trucking emissions.
There are other ways. One is to shift some freight back to rail, which forms part of Victoria’s recent green freight strategy. This will be assisted by new intermodal terminals allowing containers to be offloaded from long-distance trains to trucks for the last part of their journey.
The second way is to improve rail freight energy efficiency. Western Australia’s long, heavy iron ore freight trains are already very energy efficient, and the introduction of battery electric locomotives will improve efficiency further. Our interstate rail freight on the eastern seaboard is much less efficient.
While the Inland Rail project is being built, we urgently need to upgrade the existing Melbourne–Sydney–Brisbane rail corridor, which has severe restrictions on speed.
To make this vital corridor better, there are three main sections of new track needed on the New South Wales line to replace winding or slow steam-age track. They’re not new – my colleagues and I first identified them more than 20 years ago.
These new sections are:
Wentworth – about 40km of track stretching from near Macarthur to Mittagong
Centennial – about 70km of track from near Goulburn to Yass
Hoare – about 80km of track from near Yass to Cootamundra.
If we replaced 260km of steam-age track with these three sections and another 10km elsewhere, we would cut two hours off the Melbourne–Sydney freight transit time. Energy use would fall at least 10%. Better still, faster tilt trains could then run, potentially halving the Sydney–Melbourne passenger trip to 5.5 hours.
Track straightening on the Brisbane–Rockhampton line in the 1990s made it possible to run faster tilt trains and heavier, faster freight trains.
One challenge is who would build this. This year’s review of the Inland Rail project amid cost and time blowouts has raised questions over whether the ARTC is best placed to do so.
One thing is for sure: business as usual will mean more trucks carrying freight and more emissions. To actually tackle freight emissions will take policy reform on many fronts.
Philip Laird owns shares in some transport companies and has received funding from two rail-related CRCs as well as the ARC. He is affiliated, inter alia, with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, the Railway Technical Society of Australasia and the Rail Futures Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
With inflation driving up the cost of living, many are dreading not just the hassle of a big grocery shop, but also the bruising cost.
But while Australians struggle with their budget and spending, several major supermarkets made large profits in 2022–23. Coles and Woolworths, for example, made net profits of A$1.1 billion and A$1.62 billion, respectively.
Coles chief executive Leah Weckert has promised to appear at the inquiry, saying the company “works hard to keep prices affordable for Australian households […]” and is ready to “engage in an informed discussion on the factors that influence supermarket pricing.”
Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci, meanwhile, said he welcomes the chance to explain to the Senate “how we are working to balance the needs of our customers, our team and our suppliers in the context of economy-wide inflationary pressure”.
But why wait until a Senate inquiry to explain all that? There’s an opportunity now for the big supermarkets to be more transparent about how they decide what prices to put on products.
Australian farmers have also accused Coles and Woolworths of price gouging for fruits and vegetables, claiming supermarkets profit too much from their crops.
The National Farmers’ Federation has called for greater transparency from the supermarkets on how they decide prices.
A recent survey by AUSVEG (the peak industry body for the Australian vegetable and potato industries) found 34% of vegetable growers are considering leaving the industry in the next 12 months as they struggle to turn a profit.
When asked about calls for more transparent pricing, a Woolworths spokesperson told The Conversation:
We publish both our average gross margin and EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) margin transparently in our public financial reports.
Supply chain costs are different for every product and they are constantly fluctuating, as are our buying costs in the case of fresh food like fruit and vegetables.
Shoppers are very savvy. We operate in a highly competitive industry and we know our customers will – and do – shop around to find the best value.
As we start to see the rate of inflation ease, we will continue to focus on delivering savings to our customers.
Coles was also contacted for comment but did not reply before publication deadline.
Factoring in many costs
When a retailer buys products from their suppliers, it involves a supply chain that includes supply, manufacturing, transportation and distribution, warehouse and storage.
There are several costs – such as product costs, transportation fees, labour, rent, inventory and more – involved at every step of the process.
The supermarket must factor in all costs, as well as its profit margin, when it sets the selling price for a product.
Organisations usually have these cost breakdowns as part of their internal decision-making – but they don’t typically disclose these calculations to their customers.
Not disclosing the cost breakdowns
The problem for supermarkets is that when they don’t disclose details such as their buying price or supply chain costs, it can contribute to anger among customers and suppliers.
Apple and Pear Australia Limited – the national peak industry body for apple and pear growers – has called for retailers to demonstrate greater price transparency, saying, “frustration at the behaviour of the major retailers has again angered many growers”.
Of course, supermarkets use several pricing strategies to win customer support – such as locking in prices for a certain period of time, everyday low prices on key products, specials, price-matching and discounts.
Supermarkets spend millions of dollars on these price-related advertisements, but perhaps they would get more community support by simply disclosing cost breakdowns on their websites and in-store to show their commitment to transparent and fair pricing.
Transparent and fair pricing
Research shows price transparency helps businesses build trust with their customers.
Many major retailers already have this information for internal decision-making, so could display this online and in stores.
Yes, prices change constantly due to factors outside their control – such as fuel prices, shipping problems or even supply chain issues linked to global conflict. But being more open with customers about these issues could help repair relationships and their public image.
Perhaps there may even be a role for government, which could collaborate with supermarkets and retailers to develop policies for transparent and fair pricing.
Everyday Australians deserve to be treated fairly and given the information they need about how major supermarkets price their products, so they can make informed decisions at the checkout.
Sanjoy Paul does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In theory, pregnant women in Australia can choose the type of health provider they see during pregnancy, labour and after they give birth. But this is often dependent on where you live and how much you can afford in out-of-pocket costs.
While standard public hospital care is the most common in Australia, accounting for 40.9% of births, the other main options are:
GP shared care, where the woman sees her GP for some appointments (15% of births)
midwifery continuity of care in the public system, often called midwifery group practice or caseload care, where the woman sees the same midwife of team of midwives (14%)
private obstetrician care (10.6%)
private midwifery care (1.9%).
Given the choice, which model would women prefer?
Our new research, published BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, found women favoured seeing the same health provider throughout pregnancy, in labour and after they have their baby – whether that’s via midwifery group practice, a private midwife or a private obstetrician.
We surveyed 8,804 Australian women for the Birth Experience Study (BESt) and 2,909 provided additional comments about their model of maternity care. The respondents were representative of state and territory population breakdowns, however fewer respondents were First Nations or from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds.
We analysed these comments in six categories – standard maternity care, high-risk maternity care, GP shared care, midwifery group practice, private obstetric care and private midwifery care – based on the perceived strengths and limitations for each model of care.
Overall, we found models of care that were fragmented and didn’t provide continuity through the pregnancy, birth and postnatal period (standard care, high risk care and GP shared care) were more likely to be described negatively, with more comments about limitations than strengths.
What women thought of standard maternity care in hospitals
Women who experienced standard maternity care, where they saw many different health care providers, were disappointed about having to retell their story at every appointment and said they would have preferred continuity of midwifery care.
Positive comments about this model of care were often about a midwife or doctor who went above and beyond and gave extra care within the constraints of a fragmented system.
Sometimes midwives and doctors in the public system exceeded expectations. Inez Carter/Shutterstock
The model of care with the highest number of comments about limitations was high-risk maternity care. For women with pregnancy complications who have their baby in the public system, this means seeing different doctors on different days.
Some respondents received conflicting advice from different doctors, and said the focus was on their complications instead of their pregnancy journey. One woman in high-risk care noted:
The experience was very impersonal, their focus was my cervix, not preparing me for birth.
Overall, there were more positive comments about models of care that provided continuity of care: private midwifery care, private obstetric care and midwifery group practice in public hospitals.
Women recognised the benefits of continuity and how this included informed decision-making and supported their choices.
The model of care with the highest number of positive comments was care from a privately practising midwife. Women felt they received the “gold standard of maternity care” when they had this model. One woman described her care as:
Extremely personable! Home visits were like having tea with a friend but very professional. Her knowledge and empathy made me feel safe and protected. She respected all of my decisions. She reminded me often that I didn’t need her help when it came to birthing my child, but she was there if I wanted it (or did need it).
However, this is a private model of care and women need to pay for it. So there are barriers in accessing this model of care due to the cost and the small numbers working in Australia, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas, among other barriers.
Women who had private obstetricians were also positive about their care, especially among women with medical or pregnancy complications – this type of care had the second-highest number of positive comments.
This was followed by women who had continuity of care from midwives in the public system, which was described as respectful and supportive.
However, one of the limitations about continuity models of care is when the woman doesn’t feel connected to her midwife or doctor. Some women who experienced this wished they had the opportunity to choose a different midwife or doctor.
What about shared care with a GP?
While shared care between the GP and hospital model of care is widely promoted in the public maternity care system as providing continuity, it had a similar number of negative comments to those who had fragmented standard hospital care.
Considering there is strong evidence about the benefits of midwifery continuity of care, and this model of care appears to be most acceptable to women, it’s time to expand access so all Australian women can access continuity of care, regardless of their location or ability to pay.
Hazel Keedle is affiliated with the Australian College of Midwives. Funding for this study was from a School of Nursing and Midwifery Partnership Grant through Western Sydney University, The Qiara Vincent Thiang Memorial Award and Maridulu Budyari Gumal SPHERE Maternal, Newborn and Women’s Clinical Academic Group funding.
Hannah Dahlen has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Commission, the Australian Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund (funding and for this study and funding from a School of Nursing and Midwifery Partnership Grant through Western Sydney University), The Qiara Vincent Thiang Memorial Award and Maridulu Budyari Gumal SPHERE Maternal, Newborn and Women’s Clinical Academic Group funding.
