New Caledonia’s capital was on Saturday flooded by two simultaneous waves of French and Kanaky flags with two rival demonstrations in downtown Nouméa, only two streets away from each other and under heavy security surveillance.
The French High Commission in Nouméa provided an official count of the magnitude of the demonstrations.
It said the number of participants to the two marches was about 40,000 — 15 percent of New Caledonia’s population of 270,000.
The total was about equally divided between pro-France and pro-independence marchers.
This was described as the largest crowd since the quasi-civil war that erupted in New Caledonia in the 1980s.
Organisers of the marches claim as many as 58,000 (pro-independence) and 35,000 (pro-France).
One of the marches was organised by a pro-independence field action coordination committee (CCAT) close to Union Calédonienne (UC), one of the components of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella.
The other was called by two pro-France parties, the Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes, who urged their supporters to make their voices heard.
Controversial constitutional amendment Both marches were over a French proposed constitutional amendment which aims at changing the rules of voters eligibility for New Caledonia and to allow citizens who have been residing the for at least 10 uninterrupted years to cast their votes at local elections — for the three provincial assemblies and for the local Congress.
An estimated 20,000 wave of anti-independence supporters with French flags gathered on Nouméa’s Baie de la Moselle on Saturday. Image: RRB
It is estimated the new system would open the door to about 25,000 more voters.
Until now, and since 1998 as prescribed by the 1998 Nouméa Accord, New Caledonia’s electoral roll for local elections was more restricted, as it only allowed citizens born or who had resided there before 1998 to vote in local elections.
The controversial text was endorsed, with amendments, by the French Senate (Upper House) on April 2.
As part of its legislative process, it is scheduled to be debated in the Lower House (National Assembly) on May 13 and then should again be put to the vote at the French Congress (a special gathering of both Upper and Lower Houses) sometime in June, with a required majority of three fifths.
The constitutional amendment, however, is designed to be interrupted if, at any time, New Caledonia’s leaders can produce an agreement on the French entity’s political future resulting from inclusive bipartisan talks.
But over the past months, those talks have stalled, even though French Home Affairs and Overseas Minister Gérald Darmanin — who initiated the Constitutional process — travelled to New Caledonia half a dozen times over the past 12 months.
The current legislative process also caused the postponement of New Caledonia’s provincial elections from May to mid-December “at the latest”.
‘Paris, hear our voice!’ In a tit-for-tat communications war, organisers on both sides also intended to send a strong message to sway Paris MPs from all sides of the political spectrum ahead of their debates.
New Caledonia’s pro-France parties were marching on Saturday in support of the constitutional amendment project, brandishing French tricolour flags, singing the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” and claiming “one man, one vote” on their banners.
Other banners read “This is our home!”, “No freedom without democracy!”, “Unfreeze is democracy” or “proud to be Caledonians, proud to be French”.
Les Loyalistes pro-France party leader Sonia Backès, in a brief speech, declared :”Paris, hear our voice”.
Nicolas Metzdorf, New Caledonia’s representative MP at the National Assembly, told local media: “It’s probably the largest demonstration that ever took place in New Caledonia . . . this gives us strength to pursue in our efforts to implement this electoral roll unfreezing. And the message I want to send to FLNKS is, ‘Don’t be afraid of us. We want to work with you, we want to build with you, but please stop the threats and the insults, it doesn’t help.”
‘Peace is at threat’ – Wamytan The pro-independence march waved Kanaky flags in opposition to the constitutional amendment, saying this could make indigenous Kanaks a minority on their own land.
They are denouncing the whole process as being “forced” upon them by France and are asking for the constitutional amendment to be scrapped altogether.
Instead, they want a French high-level “dialogue mission” be sent to New Caledonia. It is suggested that speakers of both the National Assembly and the Senate should lead the mission.
“Peace is at threat because the (French) state is no longer impartial. It has touched a taboo and we must resist,” charismatic pro-independence eader and local Congress chair Roch Wamytan told the crowd, referring to the future of the indigenous Kanak people.
“Unfreezing this electoral roll is leading us to death.”
Wamytan is a prominent member of Union Calédonienne, which is one of the components of the multiparty pro-independence umbrella FLNKS.
Other members of the FLNKS group, PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party) and UPM (Melanesian Progressive Union) parties have often expressed reservations about the UC-led confrontational approach and have consistently taken part in talks with Darmanin and other local parties.
Similarly, on the pro-French side (which did not associate itself with Saturday’s march), leader Philippe Gomès said they were concerned with the current confrontational and escalating atmosphere.
“Where is this going to lead us? Nowhere”, he told a press conference on Friday.
Gomès said the marches were a de facto admission that talks have failed.
He also called on Paris to send a dialogue mission to mediate between New Caledonia’s parties.
Security reinforcements had been sent from Paris to ensure that the two crowds did not come into contact at any stage.
No incident was reported and the two marches took place peacefully.
Darmanin at UN Decolonisation Committee Meanwhile, on Friday, French minister Darmanin was to appear before the United Nations’ Special Decolonisation Committee as part of the regular monitoring of New Caledonia’s situation.
Before heading to New York UN headquarters, his entourage indicated that he wanted to underline France’s commitment for “respect of international law in New Caledonia” where a “legislative and constitutional process is currently underway to organise local elections under a new system”.
Darmanin maintains that New Caledonia’s electoral roll present restrictions, which were temporarily put in place as part of implementation of the 1998 Nouméa Accord, were no longer tenable under France’s democracy.
The proposed changes, still restrictive, are an attempt to restore “a minimum of democracy” in New Caledonia, he says.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
We used three-dimensional imaging of ocean waves to capture freakish seas that produce a notorious phenomenon known as rogue waves. Our results are now published in Physical Review Letters*.
Rogue waves are giant colossi of the sea – twice as high as neighbouring waves – that appear seemingly out of nowhere. Stories of unimaginable mountains of water as tall as ten-storey buildings have populated maritime folklore and literature for centuries.
Recent technology has allowed scientists to spot rogue waves out at sea, making legend become reality. The first and most famous measurement was of the Draupner wave, a 25.6-metre monster recorded in the North Sea on January 1 1995.
Despite observations, we still don’t know how often rogue waves occur, or if we can predict them. A record of a rogue wave doesn’t include specific features that distinguish the sea around it, so we can’t make comparisons or predict the conditions needed.
Ocean surface during a storm somewhere in the Southern Ocean. Alessandro Toffoli
What creates rogue waves?
In the random environment of ocean waves, several mechanisms give rise to rogue ones. One primary source involves the overlap of multiple waves at the same location and time. This results in concentrated energy, leading to tall waves.
Under consistent ocean conditions, rogue waves generated this way may occur once every two days at a set location. But the ocean is dynamic, so conditions are rarely consistent for long – making it less likely for rogue waves to occur. The overlap of waves may be minimal or non-existent even during prolonged and intense storms.
Numerical and laboratory studies suggest strong winds also contribute to the development of rogue waves, because they push harder on some already tall wave forms. But wind has seldom been considered in rogue wave analysis.
Wind prompts ocean waves to grow progressively higher, longer and faster. During this stage, waves are “young” and hungry for wind input. When waves go faster than wind, they stop being accelerated by it and reach a “mature” stage of full development.
Through this process, the wind creates a chaotic situation where waves of different dimensions and directions coexist.
Our recent observations show that unique sea conditions with rogue waves can arise during the “young” stage – when waves are particularly responsive to the wind. This suggests wind parameters could be the missing link. However, there’s even more to consider.
Powerful waves amplify each other
Ocean waves are one of the most powerful natural forces on Earth and could become even more powerful in the future due to climate change. If the wave field possesses an extreme amount of energy – when waves are steep and most of them have a similar amplitude, length and direction – another mechanism can trigger the formation of rogue waves.
This mechanism involves an exchange of energy between waves that produces a “self-amplification”, where one wave grows disproportionately at the expense of its neighbours. Theoretically, studies show this could increase the likelihood of rogue waves ten-fold.
Recent experiments suggest wind can make extreme events like rogue waves more common. But this aspect has not been thoroughly explored.
What did we find in the Southern Ocean?
We used a new three-dimensional imaging method for scanning the ocean surface throughout the expedition. It mimics human vision: closely located sensors record sequences of simultaneous images. Computer algorithms then match pairs of them to reconstruct the three-dimensional depths – the wavy surface.
As our ship passed through several storms, the sensors captured data during various phases of wave growth – from the early stages of young waves fuelled by the wind, to mature waves that aren’t influenced by it.
Our results show young waves display signs of self-amplification and an increased likelihood of rogue waves. We recorded waves twice as high as their neighbours once every six hours.
This mirrors what lab models have reported: sea conditions theoretically more prone to self-amplification would produce more rogue waves.
In contrast, mature seas don’t show an increased probability of rogue waves. We detected none under those conditions.
Our findings challenge previous thinking: that self-amplification doesn’t change the likelihood of rogue waves in the ocean. We have also shown that when developing tools for predicting rogue waves, we need to take wind into thorough consideration. After all, it’s a natural feature of the open sea.
Alessandro Toffoli receives funding from the Australia Research Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Gore, Laureate Professor of Education, Director Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle
Australian schools are facing unsustainable pressures. There are almost daily reports of too many students falling behind and not enough teachers to teach them. Meanwhile, the teachers we do have are stressed, overworked and lack adequate support in the classroom.
Governments are well aware of these challenges and there is no shortage of efforts to tackle them. We have tutoring schemes for students who are struggling, wellbeing programs for burnt-out teachers, and leadership programs to develop senior teachers.
But this approach is uneven: some measures improve, others don’t, some schools see success, others don’t.
Over more than two decades we have refined a process to help teachers improve their teaching. Over the past five years we have been rigorously testing its impact on Australian students and schools.
Our findings suggest it will not only improve teaching but boost teachers’ morale and lift student outcomes at the same time.
More than 20 years ago, we developed a framework called the Quality Teaching Model. This is based on decades of research on what kinds of teaching make a difference to student learning. The model is centred on three big ideas:
intellectual quality: students develop a deep understanding of important knowledge
quality learning environment: classrooms are positive and boost learning
significance: learning is connected to students’ lives and the wider world.
Each of these three ideas contains six elements, which are explained in detail in an accompanying guide.
How teachers learn the approach
We then developed “Quality Teaching Rounds”. This is a professional development program in which teachers learn to embed the Quality Teaching Model in the way they teach.
It bring any four teachers together face-to-face or online, within or across schools. They observe and analyse each other’s lessons based on our model. Then they discuss ways to improve their teaching and teaching and learning throughout their school.
It requires at least two teachers per school to attend a two-day workshop followed by four teachers participating in four days of rounds, with no further external input.
The Quality Teaching Rounds program treats teachers as professionals, building on what they already know and do, and honouring the complexity of teaching. It aims to create a non-threatening environment for their development.
It does not dictate particular teaching methods but focuses attention on teachers’ core business: ensuring high-quality student learning experiences.
As a teacher in a regional primary school explains:
It’s increased our [student] engagement because suddenly every component of the lesson is differentiated properly. It’s focused on [students’] own knowledge and building up their knowledge to the next part.
Our approach enables teachers to work with each other in a non-threatening environment. Tim Gouw/Unsplash, CC BY
Testing our approach
After a 2014–15 study, we knew Quality Teaching Rounds improved teaching quality and morale. It improved their understanding of good teaching and their professional relationships with colleagues.
But we didn’t yet know if it improved student outcomes.
So, between 2019 and 2023, we have been extensively testing Quality Teaching Rounds. We have tested it using the “gold standard” for research: randomised controlled trials.
This sees participants randomly allocated to either the new or standard (“control”) situation. This allows us to compare whether the new approach makes a difference.
Randomised controlled trials are common in medicine. But they are much rarer in education and require very large samples and are very expensive to run (they are not possible without major government or philanthropic support*).
Our trials involved 1,400 teachers and 14,500 students from 430 schools across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.
Our trials measured student achievement in maths and reading in years 3, 4, 5 and 6. We compared results between students whose teachers had been randomly allocated to do Quality Teaching Rounds and control groups of students whose teachers did whatever other professional development was happening in their school.
As well as randomised controlled trials, our research also included case studies, longitudinal research (where we tracked teachers over several years) and evaluation of whole-school approaches embedding Quality Teaching Rounds. This helped understand not only if the approach worked, but how and why.
Across the entire five-year research program, we conducted more than 65,000 student achievement tests, almost 1,500 lesson observations, and more than 27,000 surveys and 400 interviews with students, teachers and school leaders.
We believe no other intervention has been so thoroughly tested in Australian schools or amassed such a comprehensive body of evidence.
Our trials measured student achievement in maths and reading in years 3, 4, 5 and 6. Greg Rosenke/ Unsplash, CC BY
Our findings
Backing up the 2014–15 trial, we found participation in Quality Teaching Rounds significantly improved teaching quality, teacher morale, teacher efficacy and school culture.
Most importantly, three of the four trials also produced robust evidence of positive effects on student achievement.
This amounted to 2–3 months of additional growth in maths and reading compared with the control groups. Across the studies, such effects were found for students from Year 3 to Year 6, and in both NSW and Queensland. These results were slightly stronger in disadvantaged schools, signalling the potential of Quality Teaching Rounds to contribute to greater equity in education.
As a teacher in a metropolitan primary school told us:
For my students, I’ve already seen so many improvements in their confidence and in the quality of the work that they’re producing.
Our broader research found this is because the model gives teachers a shared language for understanding good teaching. The rounds then provide sustained time to work on improving teaching, while respecting and empowering teachers.
Because it focuses on the quality of teaching, it works for teachers across different subjects, faculties and school types. In our study, it has been implemented in public and private schools, primary and secondary schools and even universities.
So far, the federal government has funded 1,600 early-career teachers to do Quality Teaching Rounds between 2023 and 2026, as part of its response to teacher shortages. This is providing access for schools right around the country.
We are also now focusing on a new project designed to support 25 disadvantaged NSW public schools.
Australian governments and education experts know major changes are needed to improve schooling.
Our research shows the Quality Teaching approach has clear potential to address the most pressing concerns – supporting the teaching workforce and achieving excellence and equity for Australian students.
It would cost A$242 million over three years for every teacher in NSW to participate in Quality Teaching Rounds. For comparison, the NSW government invested about $900 million over three years for the catch-up tutoring program for students post-COVID. A December 2023 evaluation found so far, this has had “minimal effect” on student learning.
Schools would still need to make time for teachers to engage in the program. In the middle of a teacher shortage that’s not always simple.
But our research shows the payoffs are worth it. Teachers in our study have already embraced the Quality Teaching Rounds approach: it helps them feel more confident and connected. Perhaps even more importantly, it enhances their work and improves outcomes for their students.
*Our Quality Teaching research has been supported by a philanthropic donation from the Paul Ramsay Foundation and the NSW Department of Education.
Jenny Gore receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, NSW Department of Education, Australian Research Council and the Australian Government.
Andrew Miller receives funding from the Paul Ramsay Foundation, NSW Department of Education, Australian Research Council and the Australian Government.
There was plenty of fanfare and goodwill across the Australian Rules football community when the AFL’s 19th team, the Tasmania Devils, officially launched in mid-March.
Tasmania’s debut season has been pencilled in for 2028, but nothing is set in stone until the team’s controversial new stadium has been locked in after the state’s recent election, which resulted in a hung parliament.
That is all still to play out, but assuming Tasmania does become the league’s 19th team, where will the 20th be based?
In May 2023, when announcing Tasmania had finally won its bid, then AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said it was “most likely” the competition would eventually return to an even number of teams.
This means either an expansion to 20, or a reduction to 18 through a merger or relocation, which has historically been painful and political for players, administrators and fans.
Let us put mergers and relocations aside for the moment and look at expansion.
In Australian Rules folklore, the “Barassi line” traces the divide between Australian Rules and rugby (league and union) on the Australian continent.
Named after the great VFL champion Ron Barassi, the line is based on the River Murray border separating NSW and Victoria, up to the Gulf of Carpentaria where Queensland meets the NT.
Historically, anyone south or west of the Barassi line played Aussie rules, and anyone north and east, rugby league or rugby union.
So, will the AFL look to add a new team in “footy heartland” – perhaps the Northern Territory (NT) or a third club in South Australia (SANFL powerhouse Norwood has already made a bold bid), or Western Australia?
Or will the AFL look to further expand into areas where rugby league is strong, such as in New South Wales (NSW), Queensland or the Australian Capital Territory (ACT)? Coaching legend Kevin Sheedy has talked up Newcastle as a possibility, while other suggestions have included Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Central Coast in NSW and Cairns in Far North Queensland.
Darwin and Canberra: the logical options?
The NT government has already set up a taskforce – co-chaired by NT Sports Minister Kate Worden and experienced football administrator Peter Jackson, formerly of Essendon and Melbourne – to develop a business case to push for the 20th license.
Darwin is seen by many as a sentimental favourite, as a team in the NT would make the AFL a truly national competition. The NT has produced so many great players and the side could be based in Darwin, with a few games played in Alice Springs (and even potentially Cairns if the team encompassed Northern Australia).
However, any club in the NT would have to overcome the hurdles of a low population, the economics of a new or renovated TIO Stadium, which holds just 12,500 spectators, and an unsuitable climate. Darwin is exceptionally humid in wet season, making the ball slippery and games often unattractive.
One solution may be to play early-season games in Alice until the dry season arrives in Darwin in May.
The Northern Territory is hoping to join the AFL as its 20th team.
What about Canberra, which first put its hand up to join the VFL in 1981?
Canberra was originally more of an Aussie Rules town before the Canberra Raiders (NRL) and ACT Brumbies (Super Rugby) took a foothold. This is because when Canberra was founded, many public servants were from Melbourne who took their favourite footy code with them when Australia’s capital was moved from Melbourne to Canberra in 1913.
The main obstacle to a new team in Canberra is the fact the AFL’s 18th team, the Greater Western Sydney Giants, have already put their flag down in the ACT, with three home games a year plus an academy and a growing membership base.
It would be tough for the AFL to take the ACT off the Giants after all the work they have done.
The power of population and participation
When former VFL boss Ross Oakley kick-started football’s forays outside of Victoria in the 1980s, he set a rule of thumb for expansion: for locations south-west of the Barassi line, a population of 500,000+ was required, while for the north-east, a population of 1.5 to 2 million was needed.
Oakley also said a good 20-25 years of investment was required to make expansion work in traditional rugby league territory.
So the variables often cited are population and demographics, ‘footy-readiness’, alternatives in the market and infrastructure.
In terms of population and demographics, James Coventry’s book “Footballistics” details Australia’s population by football codes:
Even adjusting for population increase, NT is still a small market. But it often comes top in terms of participation rates – more than 13% of Territorians participate in AFL programs compared to 8% in WA, 6% in SA and 2% in Victoria and 1.9% for NSW/ACT combined.
The NT is also top in terms of adult participation and top four in terms of children’s participation.
By contrast ACT is 6th, but still ahead of Queensland and NSW in terms of the kids participation rates.
At AFL level, the NT produces 56 elite AFL players per million people with only Victoria and SA ahead. ACT produces 17 ahead of Queensland, NSW and Ireland (the only major source of AFL talent beyond our shores).
What about infrastructure?
In terms of infrastructure, both Perth and Adelaide have ready-made stadiums. In SA, the likely third team Norwood already has Norwood Oval that hosts AFL matches during Gather Round. They could also play at Adelaide Oval.
In Perth, Optus Stadium is world class. Darwin and Canberra, though, would need significant upgrades to current grounds, if not the development of new stadiums.
And the winner is…
The decision of where the 20th team should be based is not as clear-cut as Tasmania claiming the 19th license.
The NT is a feel-good story but a small population, difficult climate and financial considerations are hurdles.
Canberra is perhaps second favourite, but a sticking point is GWS’ foothold there, which is an important element for a recent expansion club still needing as much support as it can get.
Third teams in WA and SA are viable but do not add much to the competition in terms of new frontiers.
It’s an intriguing landscape, but there is no hurry. As the AFL has said, they need time to bed down Tasmania first as the 19th club before contemplating the 20th.
Tim Harcourt 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 a groundbreaking declaration earlier this month, Indigenous leaders of New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a treaty, He Whakaputanga Moana, to recognise whales as legal persons.
Aotearoa New Zealand has already granted legal personhood to a river (Te Awa Tupua Whanganui River), land (Te Urewera) and a mountain (Taranaki maunga), but He Whakaputanga Moana differs from these earlier processes. It is based in customary law, or tikanga Māori, rather than Crown law.
The declaration seeks to protect the rights of whales (tohorā) to migrate freely and to use mātauranga Māori alongside science for better protections. It also aims to set up a dedicated fund for whale conservation.
But a core concept of legal personhood is the idea that the “person” (in this case, whales) can sue to protect their rights.
The declaration was signed by King Tuuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII of the Kiingitanga movement, Lisa Tumahai who chairs the Hinemoana Halo Ocean initiative, and the Cook Islands leader Kaumaiti Nui Travel Tou Ariki.
It recognises traditional Māori and Pasifika ideas about the importance of whales as ancestral beings. King Tuuheitia described it as “a woven cloak of protection for our taonga”, noting the presence of whales “reflects the strength of our own mana”.
While He Whakaputanga Moana is not a pan-Māori declaration, mana is a shared core concept of tikanga Māori, representing authority and power.
The declaration seeks to protect the rights of whales and give them better protection. Getty Images/Francois Gohier
What is legal personhood?
Over the past few hundred years, legal personhood has been developed for companies as a way for individual shareholders to avoid liability. This means a company can go to court, rather than its shareholders.
In the past decade, Aotearoa New Zealand has led the way in developing legal personhood for things in nature into a tool used as part of settlements under Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. It is important to note that these ideas have been recognised and implemented by the Crown in partnership with Māori.
As part of the signing of the Tūhoe settlement in 2014, the former national park Te Urewera was granted legal personhood. In 2017, legal personhood for the Whanganui river was also part of a settlement. And last year, this idea was extended to Mount Taranaki. The Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passed its first reading in parliament last week.
These natural features are now not owned by people or the Crown, but by themselves.
Legal personhood has been praised in New Zealand and overseas by people interested in using it to protect the environment.
There is currently a shift in the legal system to recognise tikanga as a key source of law alongside statute and common law (the kind of customary law New Zealand inherited from England).
In the recent case of Ellis v R, the Supreme Court recognised and applied ideas about mana. In deciding to overturn the conviction of Peter Ellis posthumously, the court held that Mr Ellis’ mana was affected by the convictions, even after his death.
He Whakaputanga Moana is based on customary concepts like mana rather than being a Crown-drafted piece of law. It is likely it could be recognised by the courts as part of the growing wave of tikanga jurisprudence.
Marine mammals in New Zealand’s territorial waters are protected absolutely by the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 (as has recently been highlighted when the Sail GP regatta was held in a marine sanctuary and races were delayed because dolphins were present).
But He Whakaputanga Moana recognises legal personhood above and beyond that legislation.
So what if whales went to court? What if whales sued for plastic pollution in their habitat, the dumping of waste in the oceans or climate change causing warmer waters and depleting their food stocks?
In this case, He Whakaputanga Moana could potentially give a human interest group, perhaps the Kiingitanga, the legal standing to sue on behalf of whales.
In addition to recognising tikanga as a source of law, the Supreme Court has also opened the door to climate change focused litigation, such as the case of Smith v Fonterra.
Here, activist Mike Smith has sued seven major New Zealand polluters for their greenhouse gas emissions. The defendants said the claim could not succeed and applied for a “strike out”, but the Supreme Court has allowed it go to trial.
Among other findings, the court found the litigation should proceed, as it might involve ideas of tikanga and tikanga-based loss that should be tested at trial. This suggests that if the courts were to recognise the validity of He Whakaputanga Moana in customary law, this case might allow those representing whales to run a claim against ocean polluters.
A ruling in favour of whales could have significant ramifications for the health and wellbeing of our oceans, and perhaps the very existence of their species.
Rachael Evans previously worked for Te Kura Taka Pini Ltd, of which the co-chair was Lisa Tumahai, the former Chair of Ngāi Tahu, mentioned in the article.
Perth has just had its driest six months on record, while Western Australia sweltered through its hottest summer on record. Those records are remarkable in their own right. But these records are having real consequences.
Unlike us, trees and shrubs can’t escape the heat and aridity. While we turn up the air conditioning, they bear the full brunt of the changing climate. Our previous research has shown plants are more vulnerable to heatwaves than we had thought.
Beginning in February 2024, large areas of vegetation started to turn brown and die off. With no real relief in sight, we unfortunately expect this mass plant death event to intensify and expand.
Just like a coral bleaching event, WA’s plants are responding to the cumulative stress of the unusually long, hot and dry summer. And just like bleaching, global heating is likely to cause more regular mass plant deaths. The last time this happened in 2010-11, almost 20% of trees and shrubs in affected areas died.
This is in line with climate change models, which pinpoint south-western Australia as a warming and drying hotspot.
Patches of forest have begun to die. Joe Fontaine, CC BY-NC-ND
Which trees and shrubs are dying and where?
We have received reports from community members, colleagues, and authorities of dead and dying shrubs and trees spanning approximately 1,000 km from the Zuytdorp Cliffs near Shark Bay down to Albany on the southern coast.
This year’s die-off is wide ranging, from Shark Bay to Albany (a) and across many types of plant, from jarrah forest (b,d), southern wet forests near granites (c), and shrublands and woodlands north of Perth (e) Joe Fontaine, CC BY-NC-ND
In areas along the west coast where it was hottest, dead or dying patches are larger while further south in the forests, the damage is so far limited to pockets of dead trees and shrinking tree canopies.
At present, the die-off seems to have affected plants on and around shallow soils, including trees near granite outcrops and coastal heath.
While February heatwaves directly killed some plants, it is likely the long, dry period finished the job. Despite some patchy rain last week, no substantial rain is forecast until May. It’s likely more areas will be hit, including our iconic wet forests in the south.
Coastal heath shrublands are dying. Joe Fontaine, CC BY-NC-ND
How hot has it been?
Perth once again smashed temperature records this summer with a record thirteen days over 40°C in 2024 to date. Even in April, we had a 37°C day.
This comes off the back of last year’s spring heatwaves, which broke monthly maximum and minimum temperature records in both September and November.
While much of Australia’s east coast had more than enough rain, the west largely missed out.
Rainfall has been below or very much below average over the past year, with the biggest rainfall deficits seen from Shark Bay’s Gascoyne region right down to the southwest corner at Cape Leeuwin.
Hot and dry: these decile maps show a. 12-month rainfall, b. maximum temperature, and c. minimum temperatures in Western Australia from April 2023 to March 2024. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, CC BY-NC-ND
The summer’s heatwaves came from baking desert air, as high pressure systems directed hot dry easterly winds from Australia’s arid interior over the region, just as we saw during the hot summer of 2021-2022,
Long hot and dry periods are expected to become more common as a result of our warming climate.
Declining rainfall will hit the historically wetter southwest hardest. This pocket of Australia is unique, cut off from the rest of the continent by desert. Here and only here live honey possums and numbats, towering karri and jarrah trees and red flowering gums. But it’s the southwest which has lost most rainfall so far, with annual levels already 20% lower than 50 years ago.
Over the summer of 2010-2011, we saw a similar event sweep south-western Australia. It came about when a winter drought gave way to widespread heatwaves over summer. The result: die-off of forests and vegetation throughout the southwest.
On land, the effects extended over a smaller area than we are seeing now.
How bad was it? Pretty bad. Averaging across the region’s affected areas, 19% of trees and shrubs died, while the forests of the south-west lost approximately 16,000 hectares of canopy, about 1.5% of the forest.
When forests die, the effects ripple through the ecosystem. The endangered Carnaby’s black cockatoo population crashed, declining by 60%, while the jarrah forest east of Perth was so hard hit it was categorised at “risk of collapse” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
This time, the summer has been longer and hotter, with impacts on plants more widespread. Climate change is steadily warming the world. Last year was the hottest on record, with temperatures shooting past predictions.
What can we do?
Our trees and shrubs will keep browning off and dying until we get substantial rain. That means there’s no way to tell when our extraordinary range of forest and shrubland species will have the opportunity to recover.
The longer term trend is not good. As with coral bleaching, the situation will worsen until we reverse climate change. Large-scale plant die-offs like this will become more likely.
What we do need are eyes on the ground to track what’s happening across this enormous state. Our ability to understand, model and respond is hampered by a lack of field data.
If you want to help, take photos of dead or dying trees and upload them to the Dead Tree Detectives citizen science project hosted on the Atlas of Living Australia.
Joe Fontaine receives funding from the Australian Research Council and WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions.
Jatin Kala receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (WA), and the Department of Primary Industries and Rural Development (WA)
Nate Anderson receives funding from the Australian Flora Foundation, and a PhD stipend from the Department of Education.
George Matusick and Kerryn Hawke 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.
See the word “musician” on a resume and you might not immediately think “stellar employee” or “exceptional leader”.
Perhaps the word evokes the image of a rock star, in trouble for chucking a television out of a hotel room window. Or else someone struggling along in life, who should have picked a “real job”.
But is there more to the profession than meets the stereotype?
It is well known many musicians work simultaneously in arts and non-arts roles, often to create some income security. Less understood is just how well the extensive skillset developed in music transfers to a non-arts, professional workplace.
My nationwide survey sought to find out. I began by conducting 15 in-depth interviews with musicians simultaneously working dual-careers – one in music, and one somewhere else.
The preliminary findings, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, showed dual-career musicians have a plethora of distinctive workplace skills that had been enabled by their musical education and experience. This was verified by their non-musician co-workers.
The discovery sparked an ongoing second stage of research, investigating the experience of a larger group. These include:
dual-careerists
musicians who have exited the profession
musically-educated individuals who never pursued a music career.
With 165 respondents so far, the emerging results are significant – music education and experience lays the foundation for high levels of future aptitude in a range of workplaces.
Practice makes perfect
One of the most powerful traits instilled by a music education is a deep sense of professionalism. 85% of survey participants identified the trait as the skill that most influenced expectations of themselves and others, and the quality of their work.
A common industry saying about rehearsal reflects this attitude of consistency and punctuality – “early is on time, on time is late, and late is left behind.”
Other notable skills included autonomy and self-direction, resilience and perseverance, and creativity.
Learning an instrument fosters disciplined, focused attention, a highly valuable skill in other contexts. ArtBitz/Shutterstock
Participants attributed the development of these strengths to the disciplined and focused attention required to learn music, and the intrinsic motivation needed to practise and perfect an instrument over a long period of time.
This is increasingly relevant in an age where screens and social media steal our concentration and cost employers’ productivity.
Interviews with non-musician colleagues showed that out-of-the-box thinking was particularly prevalent amongt jazz musicians, singer-songwriters and composers.
It takes a whole orchestra to play a symphony
Participants unanimously said ensemble work – playing in bands, chamber music, orchestras and so on – has contributed positively to their workplace team dynamics.
As one respondent put it:
It taught me how to be part of something bigger than myself.
Experiences in music translated to a greater appreciation of diversity and inclusivity, exceptional leadership and deep listening skills, and the ability to manage “difficult” conversations respectfully within a team.
Those who play in group ensembles develop excellent listening and teamwork skills. Samuel Sianipar/Unsplash
Respondents said an ongoing passion for music improved their mental health and workplace resilience. Unsurprisingly, their non-musician co-workers reported better workplace morale and an infectious positive energy from their musical colleagues.
Growth mindset
All respondents reported a healthy relationship with failure – experiences in music had taught them to remain curious, embrace learning and “fail forward” while owning errors.
This attitude directly enhances one’s ability to upskill in a non-music careers, something many respondents have had to do. 82% of the exited and dual-career musicians had re-accredited, and 71% admitted to “learning on the job”.
Their live performance experiences cemented their ability to work under pressure in a variety of situations – public presentations, deadlines, project management. To them it was a no-brainer: “the show must go on.”
Co-workers’ perceptions further verified the musicians’ transferable skills, suggesting they possessed high professional values, a strong work ethic, high intelligence, willingness to learn, and the ability to take the initiative.
Survey respondents work in a much greater variety of fields than you might expect, including:
health
science and academia
building and engineering
business and finance
law
technology
government
transportation
administration
and religion.
Many also hold leadership positions. Economically, these findings suggest having a musician on the books may be linked to increased productivity, innovation, and profitability.
Lessons for educators and policymakers
The skills of our country’s musically educated are relevant to far more than just the arts. Employers and recruiters need to respect and appreciate the professional contributions of the musically trained.
But the ongoing decline in school music programs and nominal music teacher training, as well as a shift in tertiary training focus to STEM at the expense of the arts, suggest we’re heading the wrong direction.
Music education training has reached an all time low in Australia. Yan Krukau/Pexels
Including a well-informed understanding of music skills in the proposed National Skills Passport would be a big step forward. So would ensuring all school children have access to proper music education, and that school leavers are not discouraged from pursuing further music training.
Who knows, when the next pandemic comes, it could be a musician who designs the next life-saving vaccine.
Blooper reels are very popular, with some videos on YouTube racking up tens of millions of views. It’s a curious thing: why are videos of mistakes sometimes getting as much attention (or more!) as clips from the actual TV and movie productions?
From a psychological standpoint, the concept of “benign violation theory” can be applied to understand why bloopers are often found funny. This theory suggests that, for something to be found funny, it must violate some kind of norm or expectation while also being perceived as non-threatening or benign.
Bloopers fit this description perfectly. They are unexpected and violate the norm of a flawless performance, yet they are benign. Another take can be done, or the news show can move on to the next topic.
Here are three key reasons you might find bloopers so funny – and why they can be so good for you to watch.
1. Making mistakes is relatable
Bloopers can evoke a sense of schadenfreude, a German term meaning pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. In the context of bloopers, this isn’t typically a malicious joy, but rather a light-hearted recognition of the shared human experience of making mistakes.
When viewers see actors or news presenters break character or mess up their lines, it’s a reminder they are fallible human beings just like you and me.
Bloopers can be particularly endearing when the response from the people involved is laughter or good-natured embarrassment, as it reflects a natural human response to error, showcasing their personalities.
The strong reaction to bloopers by the actors making the error might sometimes feel exaggerated. However, when we consider the mental effort required in acting, it is perhaps not so surprising that breaking character can produce a strong reaction.
Sometimes blooper reels contain footage of actors deliberately trying to make their co-workers break character or laugh. This can show off a playfulness to their real personality, endearing in its own way. This can be particularly fun to watch when a person breaks character when they are supposed to be playing a serious role, or keep a straight face during comedy, or putting on a serious face for news delivery.
This can further make media figures more relatable as in many workplaces colleagues can engage in some joking around. For example, office workers having a laugh together during a dull online meeting.
This aspect of bloopers is particularly interesting because it aligns with the concept of parasocial relationships, a term used in psychology to describe the kind of one-sided relationships we develop with media figures. Seeing actors in unguarded moments can enhance these parasocial bonds, making the figures more relatable and endearing.
Another reason it is no surprise the most popular blooper videos are where the people involved are laughing at themselves is we feel compelled to laugh along with them, which feels nice.
When we see other people laughing and having a good time, mirror neurons in our brain are activated, which are responsible for empathy and understanding others’ emotions. This neural mirroring can trigger a similar emotional response in us, leading to shared laughter.
This is why there is a long history of TV comedy shows including a canned laughter track in their production. Research has shown the use of such laughter tracks can influence the audience to find the show funnier. But observing real laughter, like in blooper reels, has a more powerful influence on us.
When we laugh, this is associated with the release of chemicals in our brain (serotonin, dopamine and endorphins). These chemicals are part of the underlying physiological mechanisms that create the psychological experience of feeling good. This is why, from a physiological and psychological standpoint, experiencing laughter is a good form of stress relief and is good for your mental health.
Some research suggests even the simple act of hearing others laugh can relieve stress.
3. They demystify the magic of television
Television, film, and news programs require a lot of effort to produce the polished productions we enjoy watching.
For us not in the entertainment industry, it is somewhat mysterious how entertainment shows are produced.
Many blooper reels include footage of equipment and people in the production team behind the scenes. This can provide some insights into how our favourite shows get made. Gaining knowledge of things we are curious about is an enjoyable experience and therefore is an additional pleasure people can gain from watching blooper reels.
A core part of television culture
In essence, blooper reels are popular because they can provide insights behind the curtain of television production, revealing the more authentic and human side of the people involved.
This glimpse into the real personalities enhances relatability and endears these figures to the audience.
Coupled with the inherent psychological benefits of laughter, it’s clear why bloopers hold a special place for many TV viewers.
Shane Rogers 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.
Like many, I watched the reports of the violent attack at Bondi Junction yesterday with shock, horror and disbelief. My heart goes out to the people involved, the courageous first responders and to those who have lost loved ones in this tragic event.
I also feel for those who witnessed the horror and will be working out how to get through the initial shock and, over time, put it behind them.
Distress and strong emotional reactions are common after these types of mass violent events.
But different people will have different emotional reactions – and some may experience a range of shifting emotions.
The first few days and weeks
In the days and weeks after traumatic events like these, people often experience a range of emotions: from fear and anxiety, anger, sadness and grief, disbelief and numbness, guilt and worry about safety. They may be jittery, more irritable or on edge, or it may affect their sleep.
For many, their sense of risk may be heightened, particularly as such random violence occurred during such an ordinary event – shopping on a Saturday afternoon. This can lead to a heightened awareness of danger and concern for safety.
For most people, as they begin to process and make sense of what happened, these feelings will gradually reduce in intensity and people will begin to recover. Research shows the majority of people recover from mass violent events within the initial few months.
However, for people with more direct exposure to the trauma, these events and reactions may be more difficult to process. Some people may go on to develop mental health difficulties, most commonly anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Understandably, those more at risk are people who were present during the trauma and experienced a direct threat, as well as those who witnessed the violence or aftermath, first responders (paramedics and police) and those who had loved ones injured or lost during the event.
People who had more intense emotional responses during the trauma, or previous psychological difficulties or traumatic experiences, may also be at greater risk.
What helps – and hinders – your recovery?
To help process these traumatic events and promote recovery, social support is particularly important.
Spending time with trusted family and friends can help people process the events and their emotional reactions. Talking about your feelings with supportive people can help you understand and accept them. But even if you don’t want to talk about your feelings, spending time with loved ones is helpful.
It is also fine to need some time to be alone, but try not to isolate yourself or withdraw.
If you can’t talk about your feelings, try not to bottle them up or deal with them by using alcohol or drugs. Find another way to express them – whether through writing, art or music, or exercise.
Give yourself permission and time to feel these emotions. Remind yourself you have just been through something extremely traumatic, take things day by day, and don’t expect too much of yourself. Try not to judge yourself for your actions or how you are coping.
Keep some structure in your day, setting small goals, and increase your self-care: eat well, rest (even if you can’t sleep well), try yoga or relaxation. When you’re ready, try to get back to your normal routine.
Seek out information from trusted sources, but try to avoid being saturated by images or stories about the trauma, particularly graphic footage or speculation common on social media.
What if children have witnessed it, too?
If your children have been impacted, reassure them that they are safe and loved. When they are ready, talk to them gently about the trauma, acknowledge it and answer their questions.
Encourage them to express their feelings and spend more time together doing family activities.
Importantly, try to limit their exposure to graphic footage and images of the events in the media, and on social media.
Reach out for professional mental health support if you experience ongoing difficulty with your emotional reactions, or if you’re having distressing memories of the trauma, difficulty sleeping or nightmares, or you want to avoid things that remind you of the traumatic event.
Not everyone requires professional mental health support, but if you are experiencing these types of post-traumatic stress reactions a few weeks after the trauma, it’s important to speak to your GP to seek out professional support from psychologists or counselling services.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Kim Felmingham receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Close to midnight on April 13, hundreds of military drones were launched from both Iran and Iraq toward Israel. Subsequently, several waves of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and rockets followed, originating from Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon – all directed at Israel.
This unprecedented multi-front attack on Israel constitutes a de facto declaration of war and marks the first direct assault against Israel from Iranian soil. However, despite the scale of the operation, it appears to be a tactical failure.
Only minor damage occurred at the Nevatim Airbase (near Be’er Sheva in the south). A 7-year-old girl was seriously injured by shrapnel, possibly from an intercepting unit.
Why Iran felt it had to act
The attack was a direct response to the killing of Iranian General Mohammad Reza Zahedi (also known as Hassan Mahdawi) in Israeli airstrikes on April 1.
Zahedi, a senior commander in the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, was allegedly responsible for terror attacks against Israel and the arming of Iranian proxies in the region. His death occurred while he was in a building adjacent to Iran’s consulate in Damascus – a location the Iranians claimed is protected by international law.
This incident represents a tipping point. The regime in Tehran, incensed by Zahedi’s death, vowed strong retaliation against Israel. In Tehran’s collective memory, Israel’s history of attacks includes numerous strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, assassinations of scientists within Iran, and actions against Iranian proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Despite these provocations, Iran’s counter-strikes against Israel have been so far minimal or insignificant. Iran’s response to the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in 2020, for instance, was feeble.
Due to the pressure the extremist leadership in Tehran is facing, it evidently felt it could no longer ignore such insults. The regime is increasingly concerned about its own stability, grappling with a failing economy battered by decades of sanctions.
Despite violent oppression and an increasing number of executions, internal dissent persists. This has been fuelled by years of popular protests (most recently following the 2022 death of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini) and ISIS-affiliated terror attacks within the country.
But this weekend’s attack appears to be a grave miscalculation by the leadership in Tehran. The US and other countries in the West swiftly rallied to support Israel. Although tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden are high due to the ongoing war in Gaza, Washington still strongly and unequivocally stands by Israel.
Most of the Iranian projectiles were intercepted through a coordinated effort by Israel and the US, UK and France militaries. Notably, Jordan also intercepted the Iranian drones despite threats from Tehran not to intervene after weeks of Iranian attempts to destabilise the country.
Both sides would rather avoid a war
Israeli officials were quick to promise a robust response to the attack. The government cannot tolerate another blatant infringement on Israel’s sovereignty, reminiscent of what Hamas tragically achieved in its October 7 attacks.
Israel has an array of retaliation options, including cyberattacks, long-range missile strikes on Iranian soil, aerial operations using jets and drones, and covert operations.
A strong action would be crucial to sending a powerful message to Iran and the broader region: “Don’t mess with us.” Despite Iranian officials’ desperate attempts to contain the situation, declaring the score with Israel is settled, Israel’s response is expected to be severe, as its Middle Eastern allies anticipate, and maybe even hope for.
The risk of escalation toward an all-out war remains real. However, both sides would prefer to avoid it. Israel’s military is already stretched thin with the war in Gaza and rocket attacks from Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah in the north.
Tehran would likely be worried about Israel striking its advanced nuclear program sites, which have been exposed as a cover for nuclear weapons development.
Meanwhile, the US is wary of being further entangled in the regional conflict, since it is already dealing with the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
In addition, Biden reportedly does not trust Netanyahu’s judgement. Washington does not believe Israel was fully transparent with the US on its operational plans in Gaza and the killing of the Iranian general this month.
Too many Palestinian civilian deaths are also creating a moral and political problem for Biden’s re-election campaign. Biden promptly contacted the Israeli PM when this weekend’s attack began, cautioning against an Israeli counterattack.
The upcoming days will be crucial – a test of the international community’s ability to stabilise the tormented Middle East. Unfortunately, the signs at the moment are not encouraging.
Ran Porat is a Research Associate at The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) and Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel. He is affiliated with Australian Centre for Jewish Civilization, Monash University,
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has flagged substantial public investment, likely tax breaks and other incentives in next month’s budget to encourage industry, while stressing there won’t be a “free-for-all” of public funds.
“We’re talking about incentivising private investment rather than replacing it,” he said, as debate rages about Anthony Albanese’s announcement last week of his new interventionist policy.
Chalmers also said he will soon unveil reforms to the government’s foreign investment guidelines. These will streamline processes for some bids but make the rules tougher for others.
The May 14 budget is still expected to have a surplus. But poor growth in the Chinese economy and a tumble in the iron ore price have produced headwinds.
Chalmers told the ABC the treasury had downgraded the forecast for China’s growth.
China’s growth was expected to have “a four in front of it, for three consecutive years,” Chalmers said. That would be the slowest period of growth in China since that country began opening in the late 1970s. More figures on the Chinese economy will be out on Tuesday.
The plunge in iron ore prices has delivered a hit to the budget’s bottom line. The price has gone from more than US$130 a tonne in January to the low US$90s. According to treasury, this fall has reduced the upgrade to the nominal economy by A$35 billion and cut the upgrade to tax receipts by nearly AU$9 billion over the forward estimates.
A major reason for the price plunge has been concern about demand for steel from China.
Chalmers sought to play down criticism of the government’s industry policy from the head of the Productivity Commission, Danielle Wood, whom he appointed. Wood last week warned of the danger of support becoming entrenched and urged there be an exit strategy.
“Danielle Wood made some important points but some obvious points about making sure we get value for money. We’ve got strict frameworks, we’ve got exit strategies and off-ramps and we’re taking into consideration the impact of these plans on the economy more broadly.”
Chalmers said the policy would align Australia’s national and economic security interests. “It’s how we deliver another generation of prosperity, by making ourselves an indispensable part of the global push to net zero.
“When it comes to public and private investment, it’s really important to remember that what we’re talking about here isn’t some kind of free‑for‑all of public funds, we’re talking about incentivising private investment rather than replacing it.
“The heavy lifting will still be overwhelmingly done by the private sector but there’s an important role to play by governments and by public investment as well.
“That will still only be a sliver of the hundreds of billions of dollars that we need to land this energy transformation, to make ourselves a renewable energy superpower and to secure our place in a future which will be dominated by the net zero economy.”
Chalmers said there would be “substantial” public investment in the budget.
“But it still won’t be the biggest piece of the story here and that’s why the budget will also have a very big focus on how we attract and deploy and absorb private sector investment as well in the service of these really important national economic objectives.”
Whatever is done on tax won’t include a cut in the company tax rate, the Treasurer said.
Chalmers will visit Washington this week for a round of economic meetings.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This week the two biggest TV broadcasters in Aotearoa New Zealand confirmed plans to cut news programmes by midyear – and the jobs of a significant proportion of this country’s journalists.
Many observers said this had been coming but few seemed to have a plan for it, including the government.
Mediawatch looks at what viewers will lose, efforts to resist the cuts and talks to the news chief at Newshub which is set to close completely. By Colin Peacock, RNZ Mediawatch presenter
On the AM show last Wednesday, newsreader Nicky Styris suffered a frog in the throat at the wrong time.
Host Melissa Chan Green took over her bulletin while Styris quickly recovered. Minutes later Styris had to take the place of no-show panel guest Paula Bennett.
Just before that, viewers saw co-host Lloyd Burr on his knees fixing the studio flat-pack furniture with a drill.
Three hours later they were at an all-staff meeting at which executives from offshore owner Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) confirmed the complete closure of Newshub by midyear.
On TVNZ’s Midday news soon after, reporter Kim Baker-Wilson was live from the scene of the announcement of Newshub’s demise.
The previous day the roles were reversed, with Newshub’s Simon Shepherd outside TVNZ’s building reporting TVNZ’s Midday had been scrapped, along with the late news Tonight and Fair Go.
On Wednesday TVNZ also confirmed flagship current affairs show Sunday will cease next month.
So as things stand, it’s the end of the line for all news bulletins on TVNZ other than 1 News at 6, though the news-like shows Breakfast and Seven Sharp survive because they accommodate lucrative sponsored content (“activations” in the ad business) as well as ads.
And TV channel Three will be entirely news-free for the first time in its 35-year history.
Senior journalists led by investigations editor Michael Morrah presented a proposal for a stripped-back and shortened news bulletin to keep the Newshub name alive (and some jobs) but while WBD took it seriously, it eventually turned the idea down.
Another media player to fill the Newshub void? There have been rumours and reports that other media companies were talking to WBD about filling the Newshub at 6 news void.
Initially light-on-detail reports of lifelines suggested a possible sale of Newshub to another media company. Then there were reports of other media companies pitching to make news for WBD on a much-reduced budget.
Among the names mentioned in media despatches was NZME, which has radio and video studios and journalists around the country, though most of them are north of Taupo.
NZME told Stuff “it was not currently part of the process”.
However when Stuff itself reported on Wednesday that Stuff was “understood to be a likely contender,” a spokesperson for Stuff declined to comment to Stuff’s reporter on whether Stuff had been in talks with WBD — or not.
RNZ said it wasn’t in the frame for this. (It recently killed off the video version of its only daily news show with pictures, Checkpoint).
Sky TV has production facilities galore and its free-to-air TV channel Sky Open currently runs a Newshub-made news bulletin at 5:30 each weekday. Sky has only said it was an “interesting idea” — or words to that effect.
“At this point there is no deal,” WBD local boss Glen Kyne told reporters after confirming the closure of Newshub on Wednesday.
Kyne also said the company’s “door has been open to all internal and external feedback and ideas, and we will continue to be”.
But anyone opening that door clearly isn’t willing to do it in daylight — or tell the rest of the media about it.
Lifelines likely?
Senior journalists led by investigations editor Michael Morrah presented a proposal for a stripped-back and shortened news bulletin to keep the Newshub name alive. Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
If there is to be any kind of “Newshub-lite” lifeline, a key question is: what is WBD prepared to pay for the programme?
Presumably not much, given that they said they had no choice but to carve the cost of Newshub — amounting to tens of millions a year — from its bottom line in line with its reducing revenue.
So is it worth any major media company’s while to commit to making news in video for another outlet? And it would have to be done in a hurry because the last Newshub bulletins screen on July 5.
When Newshub’s owners first announced they wanted to get rid of it in late February, its former chief editor Hal Crawford told Mediawatch the problem with finding a buyer was that minimum viable cost for a credible TV news operation was greater than anyone here was prepared to spend.
Longtime TV3 news boss Mark Jennings (now co-editor of Newsroom) said any substitute service on the fraction of the current budget would have another problem — TVNZ’s 1 News.
“You’re up against a sophisticated TVNZ product so viewers will have an immediate comparison. Probably that won’t be favorable for Warner Brothers,” he told RNZ.
TVNZ has its own news production problems after the cuts they confirmed this week.
“We’re proposing to establish a new long-form team within our news operation, which would continue to bring important current affairs and consumer affairs stories to Aotearoa in a different way on our digital platforms.”
TVNZ declined Mediawatch‘s request to speak to TVNZ’s news chief Phil O’Sullivan about that at this time.
Newshub’s news boss responds
Newshub news boss Richard Sutherland . . . “The so-called legacy news operations have almost done too good a job of keeping the lights on and papering over the cracks.” Image: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
One who did though is Newshub news boss Richard Sutherland — appointed as interim senior director of news at Newshub in January.
It was his second spell at Newshub, during a career in broadcast news spanning four decades at almost every significant national news outlet in the country, including RNZ, where he stepped down as head of news a year ago.
In that time he’s experienced many a financial crisis in the business — but did he see this one coming?
“The last couple of weeks has been coming for quite some time. I think that the so-called legacy news operations have almost done too good a job of keeping the lights on and papering over the cracks. And we just got to a point [the industry] couldn’t paper over the cracks any longer.
“But when you look at audience behaviour and the fall off and revenue, particularly in the advertising market, then that doesn’t surprise me that we’ve got to where we’ve got to.”
But if the audience was big, the ad revenue would be too?
“It’s certainly by no means as big as it once was simply because people have other options available to them. The cliche is that you’re not in a war with the other media, but in a war for people’s attention.”
“It’s not so much the audience has changed so much as the dynamics of the advertising market that has really changed over the last sort of 10 to 15 years. The digital advertising — and the big two main players in that space, Facebook and Google — are eating everybody’s lunch.”
TV ad income on the slide Annual advertising stats that came out this very week show media in 2023 attracted $3.36 billion across the whole of the media industry — about the same as in 2022.
But TV advertising revenue of $517 million in 2022 slumped to $443 million last year.
“That’s why what the TV industry has found is that can’t cut its costs fast enough to meet the falloff in the advertising income,” Sutherland told Mediawatch.
Digital-only ad revenue rose by $88 million in 2023 — but it’s Google and Facebook which secures the vast bulk of that.
But if this has been coming for a number of years, as Sutherland says, has there been enough planning for it?
After the closure of Newshub was mooted by its owner last month, seven of Sutherland’s colleagues led by investigations editor Michael Morrah put together a transition plan to keep Newshub on air in a few days.
Shouldn’t this sort of transition planning have been done at high levels over recent years right across the television business?
“Every media company that I’ve worked for or have observed over the last few years has been trying to innovate and get to a more sustainable level. The revenue was just collapsing far faster than anyone ever anticipated.”
“It annoys me when I hear people say older media haven’t innovated enough. We’ve done a lot of innovation. That’s pretty lazy politics to just say: ‘You need to innovate.’
“It’s also lazy politics to say, the government should just come in and bail everyone out. New Zealand Incorporated needs to have a big conversation about what it wants to do with the media and how it wants to fund it.
“For the past few years the industry has been like so many rats in a sack, fighting with each chasing a smaller and smaller amount of ad dollars. We need to get together and work out how we get ourselves collectively out of the sack,” Sutherland told Mediawatch.
Shortly before TVNZ and Newshub announced their cuts, there was a meeting of chief executives including Newshub’s owners Warner Bros Discovery to discuss a shared new service. TVNZ rejected the idea.
“But a lot has changed in the last couple of months. And I would like to think that eventually we’ll get to a point where we can actually have honest and productive conversations about what we can do to help each other as well as maintaining a degree of competition, but also realising that if we just keep fighting with each other, we’re not going to have a sustainable industry,” Sutherland said.
Would Sutherland want to work for a low-budget alternative to Newshub stave off the complete closure? And would Kiwis want such a service?
“There is a segment of the audience that appreciates a very highly produced, well-curated news bulletin every night. And there’s large numbers of people who no longer see that as part of their media diet.
“The trick is to provide options so that people can get what they want when they want it.
“It’s not really for me to say what a possible replacement for Newsub might look like. I’m well away from those negotiations.
“If we reach a stage where the media scene here withers away to nothing, there’ll be no-one to tell the stories. The media uncovers a lot of shady stuff in this country.
“And the fear of media coverage prevents people in positions of power and authority at all levels doing a lot of shady stuff. So it is important to document the ructions of the New Zealand media scene just like we do in other parts of the country.”
Minister in a corner
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The day the axe fell at Newshub and at TVNZ, New Zealand’s screen producers’ guild Spada said “while the newsroom cuts have dominated media coverage to date, it is actually the whole production sector being impacted”.
“While TVNZ and Three aren’t giving definitive numbers at this time, Spada has calculated that we are looking at around $50 million coming out of our sector,” said president Irene Gardiner.
Spada is also asking the government to exempt screen funding agencies from the percent public spending cuts and to force the international streaming platform to support local production.
Spada called for” swift and decisive action” from the government on this.
Should they be holding their breath?
When confronted by reporters for a response to the current TV news crisis, Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee said: “If only I was a magician, if I could actually just snap up a solution, that would be fantastic.
“But I’m not a magician, and I’m trying to find a solution to modernise the industry . . . there is a process happening.”
But the media are not expecting magic — just a plan rather than assertions of a process with no timeline.
She has repeatedly said she’s preparing policy in a paper to take to cabinet, but refused to give any details.
On RNZ’s Checkpoint, persistent and pointed questions from Lisa Owen yielded few further clues.
Newstalk ZB Drive host Heather du Plessis-Allan told Melissa Lee she was being “weird and shady” and the next morning ZB’s Mike Hosking told her she was using “buzzwords that don’t mean anything” and was doomed to fail.
Stuff’s Tova O’Brien reported that the need to consult coalition allies on policy means it can’t be progressed until after Winston Peters returns from overseas at the end of the month.
The under-wraps media policy is also not in the government’s recently-released quarterly action plan.
Meanwhile this week, our two biggest TV news broadcasters ran out of time.
Ex-minister leading resistance to cuts
E tū union negotiator Michael Wood . . . “There is a bit of a delicate dance which has to happen when media companies themselves are making these decisions. And media need to report on that.” Image: RNZ
After his unenlightening on-air interview with minister Melissa Lee on Thursday morning, Mike Hosking’s ZB listeners told him she reminded them of ministers in the last government.
Coincidentally, one of them was also one of few people who did speak out about the crisis while it was unfolding.
Michael Wood represented TVNZ journalists from the E tū union as its negotiations specialist.
E tū is now taking legal action against TVNZ, claiming it failed to abide by the conditions of their employment agreement.
Could that reverse or wind back any of the cuts TVNZ has announced?
“That does remain to be seen. The collective agreement has very clear processes around what should happen if TVNZ wants to move forward and make changes. It requires [staff members] to be involved throughout the process, and for the company to try and reach agreement with them. Our very strong view is that that hasn’t happened.”
“Staff have said: ‘Look, five years ago, we came to you and said we want to do these things with our shows to make sure they have a sustainable future to make sure that they have a strong online platform.’ And [TVNZ] frankly has not demonstrated strategy and leadership around those things.”
“These are still shows that are very, very popular. Canceling them will reduce costs, but based on TVNZ’s own information that they’ve provided, it will reduce revenue by more.”
It’s been difficult to get any media company executives or even journalists at the two companies affected by these cuts to talk about them, even off-the-record.
Wood is one of the few people who has spoken frankly to broadcasters’ executives, albeit confidentially behind closed doors.
“There is a bit of a delicate dance which has to happen when media companies themselves are making these decisions. And media need to report on that.
“So I have some sympathy, but these aren’t just individual employment issues. This is a public policy issue . . . about whether we have a functioning and vibrant Fourth Estate.”
Wood was until last year a minister in the Labour government which could have averted the TVNZ cuts.
It spent more than $16 million planning a new public media entity to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a not-for-profit public media entity — but then scrapped it weeks before it was due to begin.
“You’ve just identified one of the core things that we’ve got to deal with. TVNZ, in terms of its statutory form, is neither one thing nor the other. It has a commercial imperative and it also has some other obligations in terms of public good.
“News and current affairs should be at the heart of that — and that is something that we should be much clearer about.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
There are few scenes more shocking than random acts of extreme violence against people simply going about their daily lives. Yet this is what Australians are coming to terms with after a man went on a rampage through a Bondi shopping centre on Saturday afternoon, killing six people and injuring at least 12 others, including a baby. The attacker was also killed at the scene.
Police have named the attacker as 40-year-old Joel Cauchi, who was originally from Queensland and had a history of mental health issues.
There are many questions yet to be answered about the attack. But cases of mass murder are so shocking in part because they are relatively rare in Australia.
How common are such events in Australia?
To answer this, we first need to look at what we mean by the term “mass murder”, of which there are various definitions around the world. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for instance, describes mass murder as an incident in which four or more people are murdered, within one event, and in one or more locations in close geographical proximity.
These include the Bourke Street incident in Melbourne in 2017, when the driver of a stolen car drove into pedestrians, killing six people and injured many other. Another occurred in 2019, when a gunman shot and killed four people during a rampage across the Darwin CBD.
Perhaps the most notorious, though, was the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, when Martin Bryant shot and killed 35 people, and injured many others in the Tasmanian town. A 2017 study identified that Australia had 14 mass shootings incidents between 1964 and 2014.
In mass murders, most focus is on the use of firearms. However, the use of knives in homicide is significant. The latest national homicide report from the Austalian Institute of Criminology shows that in 2020-21, knives and other sharp instruments were used in 38% of murders, followed by firearms (11%) and hands and feet (9%).
The report notes that:
Knives and other sharp instruments have consistently been the primary homicide
weapon in Australia between 1989‒90 and 2020‒21, with 35 percent […] of all homicide incidents committed with this weapon type.
The 2023 United Nations Global Study on Homicide showed that around the world, sharp objects accounted for 22% of homicides, while firearms were the most commonly used murder weapon at 40%. Australia’s tight guns laws, introduced in the wake of the Port Arthur massacre, would most likely explain the prevalence of knives as weapons in Australia.
In recent years, we have seen increased efforts to fight knife crime. In Queensland, new laws and a media campaign were rolled out in 2023 to try to reduce the number of young people carrying knives.
In Victoria, gang members using knives as weapons has become increasingly problematic , with the chief commissioner giving evidence to a parliamentary committee and describing knife crime as being a significant issue for police.
In New South Wales, legislation was passed to double the penalties for people carrying knives in public, despite the executive director of the states Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar) stating that use of knives in crime was at historically low levels.
An Active Armed Offender is defined as an armed offender who is actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people, and who demonstrated their intention to continue to do so while having access to additional potential victims.
In 2014, NSW Police, in collaboration with academics, adopted new policy responses to active armed offenders, with more than 10,000 officers trained in the new procedures.
The characteristics of such attacks can involve groups or lone offenders, who may be armed with firearms, knives or other weapons.
The selection of a major shopping centre on a weekend is in line with the methodology of active armed offenders in that they will chose a crowded environment that gives them freedom of movement and ready access to victims in order to achieve maximum harm.
The heroic actions of shopkeepers taking people into their shops, shoppers confronting the offender and the lone police officer who confronted and shot the offender would all have contributed to reducing the ability of the offender to kill or harm more victims.
As the terrorism committee noted in their guidelines, time plus freedom of movement equals increased casualties. The offender was denied this at Bondi.
What happens now?
The tragic events at Bondi will now be subject of a coronial inquest. The entire shopping centre has been declared a crime scene, which will likely take days to process. The investigation will be ongoing for months as police interview hundreds of witnesses and collate CCTV and private video footage of the incident.
Most crucially, police will now need to look at the history of the deceased offender, to try to determine his motivation in carrying out such an attack.
At sometime in the future the bravery of the civilians and first responders will also have to be acknowledged and celebrated for the many lives that were saved.
Terry Goldsworthy 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.
Australia’s top economists overwhelmingly want Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to scrap a special deal with Western Australia that’s set to deliver it an extra A$40 billion in Commonwealth funding by the end of the decade.
Albanese pledged to maintain the special treatment for Western Australia in a visit to Perth in February. He even signed a promise on a newspaper front page and a reporter’s arm with a marker pen.
The deal was struck in 2018 by the then Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, and then federal treasurer, Scott Morrison. It gives Western Australia a much greater share of the centrally collected goods and services tax than it is entitled to under the formula administered by the Commonwealth Grants Commission.
In place in various forms since Federation, the formula distributes funds in such a way as to ensure each state and territory would be able to deliver comparable services if it made a similar effort to raise revenue from its own resources. It has been used to distribute GST collections since 2000.
For most of the past 100 years the formula has delivered more to the smaller states (including Western Australia) than would be expected on the basis of population, and less to the larger states of New South Wales and Victoria.
In the leadup to 2018, the mining boom changed that. The amount of GST delivered to Western Australia was pushed down to only 45% of what it would have got if the GST was split on the basis of population, in recognition of its much greater ability to raise revenue.
Morrison and McGowan’s deal phased in a floor under how much of the GST each state could get. In June it will climb to 75% of what the state would get on the basis of population, and from 2026 to no less than the strongest of Victoria and NSW get, no matter how strong the state’s economy.
Haul of $30 billion to $50 billion
The extra payments to Western Australia will initially be funded from general Commonwealth tax revenue, rather than by cutting GST payments to other states.
Estimates of the cost by 2030 range from $30 billion to $50 billion. Independent economist Saul Eslake puts the cost at $39.2 billion, assuming the iron ore price falls in line with budget assumptions.
Asked whether the long-standing method of distributing GST revenue in accordance with need and ability to pay is broadly the best one, 25 of the 38 top economists who responded to the Economic Society of Australia poll said yes.
Ten said no, five of them saying it would be better to move towards a system where revenue was distributed on the basis of population or gross state product.
Asked whether the 2018 changes that advantaged Western Australia should be kept or scrapped, 28 of the 38 wanted them scrapped.
Only four wanted them kept.
The 38 experts who took part are recognised by their peers as leaders in fields including tax and budget policy. Two are from Western Australia.
Several observed that the natural resources with which Western Australia is endowed are a matter of luck, “even acknowledging that it takes skill and effort to extract them”.
Sue Richardson from the University of Adelaide argued that minerals were a national rather than a local resource and it undermined the integrity of the nation to have the benefits from mining them concentrated in the part of the nation in which they sat.
Eslake said that even if Australia had no state governments and just one central government, as did Japan and New Zealand, it would still make sense to distribute resources to the parts of the nation with the greatest need in much the same way as the Grants Commission has traditionally done.
Consultant Rana Roy said that distributing resources away from the rich states in order to make the poorer states more liveable was actually in the rich states’ best interests.
“Paris would not benefit if an impoverished rest-of-France were to decamp to Paris,” he said. “And London would not benefit if an impoverished rest-of-Britain were to decamp to London.”
Tasmania’s Hugh Sibly added that Australians move between states and many retire in a different state to the one in which they paid taxes, giving the entire nation an interest in ensuring all parts of the nation were liveable.
Equalisation good, but complex
Others surveyed said the calculations used to deliver what was once known as “full equalisation” and since 2018 has been known as “reasonable equalisation” were complicated – “almost farcical” – and should be replaced by something simpler, even if it made the system less fair.
One suggestion was that GST revenue should be allocated on the basis of the size of each state’s economy. Another was that it be allocated on the size of each state’s population, with top-up grants used to meet particular needs.
Former OECD official Adrian Blundell-Wignall said the needs of Indigenous Australians in particular should be addressed directly rather than by GST distributions as the governments that got GST money on the basis of their high Indigenous populations did a very poor job of spending it on those populations.
Two of the economists surveyed suggested a Commonwealth resource tax of the kind promoted by former Treasury head Ken Henry who said earlier this month Australia should stop revering plunder and dumb luck, and abandon its “finders keepers” approach to minerals.
The Productivity Commission will review the Western Australian deal in 2026.
Individual responses. Click to open:
Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation and serves on the Central Council of the Economic Society of Australia.
Security forces reinforcements were sent from France ahead of two rival marches in the capital Nouméa today, at the same time and only two streets away one from the other.
One march, called by Union Calédonienne party (a component of the pro-independence FLNKS umbrella) and its CCAT (field action group), was protesting against planned changes to the French Constitution to “unfreeze” New Caledonia’s electoral roll by allowing any citizen who has resided in New Caledonia for at least 10 years to cast their vote at local elections — for the three Provincial assemblies and the Congress.
The other march was called by pro-France parties Rassemblement and Les Loyalistes who support the change and intend to make their voices heard by French MPs.
The constitutional bill was endorsed by the French Senate on April 2.
However, as part of the required process before it is fully endorsed, the constitutional bill must follow the same process before France’s lower House, the National Assembly.
Debates are scheduled on May 13.
Then both the Senate and the National Assembly will be gathered sometime in June to give the final approval.
Making voices heard Today, both marches also want to make their voices heard in an attempt to impress MPs before the Constitutional Bill goes further.
The pro-France march is scheduled to end at Rue de la Moselle in downtown Nouméa, two streets away from the other pro-independence march, which is planned to stop on the Place des Cocotiers (“Coconut square”).
The pro-independence rally in the heart of Nouméa today. Image: @knky987
At least 20,000 participants were estimated to take part.
Security forces reinforcements have been sent from France, with two additional squads (140) of gendarmes, French High Commissioner Louis Le Franc said yesterday.
While acknowledging the “right to demonstrate as a fundamental right”, Le Franc said it a statement it could only be exercised with “respect for public order and freedom of movement”.
“No outbreak will be tolerated” and if this was not to be the case, then “the reaction will be steadfast and those responsible will be arrested,” he warned.
Le Franc also strongly condemned recent “blockades and violence” and called for everyone’s “calm and responsibility” for a “Pacific dialogue in New Caledonia”.
CCAT spokesman Christian Téin, Arnaud Chollet-Leakava (MOI), Dominique Fochi (UC) and Sylvain Boiguivie (Dus) during a press conference on Thursday at the Union Calédonienne headquarters. Image: LNC
Tight security to avoid a clash New Caledonia’s Southern Province vice-president and member of the pro-France party Les Loyalistes, Philippe Blaise, told Radio Rythme Bleu he had been working with security forces to ensure the two opposing marches would not come close at any stage.
“It will not be a long march, because we are aware that there will be families and old people,” he said.
“But we are not disclosing the itinerary because we don’t want to give bad ideas to people who would like to come close to our march with banners and whatnot.
“There won’t be any speech either. But there will be an important security setup,” he reassured.
Earlier this week, security forces intervened to lift roadblocks set up by pro-independence militants near Nouméa, in the village of Saint-Louis, a historical pro-independence stronghold.
The clash involved about 50 security forces against militants.
Tear gas, and stones Teargas and stones were exchanged and firearm shots were also heard.
On March 28, the two opposing sides also held two marches in downtown Nouméa, with tens of thousands of participants.
No incident was reported.
The UC-revived CCAT (Field Actions Coordination Cell, cellule de coordination des actions de terrain), which is again organising today’s pro-independence march to oppose the French Constitutional change, earlier this month threatened to boycott this year’s planned provincial elections.
CCAT head Christian Tein said they were demanding that the French Constitutional amendment be withdrawn altogether, and that a “dialogue mission” be sent from Paris.
“We want to remind (France) we will be there, we’ll bother them until the end, peacefully”, he said.
“Those MPs have decided to kill the Kanak (Indigenous) people . . . this is a programmed extermination so that Kanaks become like (Australia’s) Aborigines,” he told local media.
“Anyone can cause unrest, but to stop it is another story . . . now we are on a slippery slope,” he added.
War of words, images over MPs Pro-France leader Sonia Backès, during a the March 28 demonstration, had also alluded to “causing unrest” from their side and its ability to “make noise” to ensure their voices are heard back in the French Parliament.
“The unrest, it will come from us if someone tries to step on us,” she lashed out at that rally.
“We have to make noise, because unfortunately, the key is the image,” she said.
“But this little message with the ballot box and Eloi Machoro’s picture, this is provocation.
“I am receiving death threats every day; my children too,” she told Radio Rythme Bleu.
The CCAT movement is placing a hatchet on a ballot box, recalling the Eloi Machoro protest. Image: 1ère TV screenshot APR
Hatchet and ballot box – the ghosts of 1984 During the CCAT’s press conference earlier this month, a ballot box with a hatchet embedded was on show, recalling the famous protest by pro-independence leader Eloi Machoro, who smashed a ballot box with a hatchet to signify the Kanak boycott of the elections on 18 November 1984.
The iconic act was one of the sparks that later plunged New Caledonia in a quasi civil war until the Matignon Accords in 1988. Both pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur and Lanak leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou shook hands to put an end to a stormy period since described as “the events”.
On 12 January 1985, Machoro was shot by French special forces.
The territorial elections day in New Caledonia on 18 November 1984 when Eloi Machoro smashed a ballot box in the small township of Canala. Image: RNZ/File
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
More videos appear to have been released by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) showing New Zealand hostage Phillip Mehrtens.
The New Zealander was taken hostage more than a year ago on February 7 in Paro in the highlands of the Indonesian-ruled region of West Papua while providing vital air links and supplies to remote communities.
In the recent videos he is seen surrounded by armed men and delivers a statement, saying his “life is at risk” because of air strikes conducted by the Indonesian military.
An appeal in February by Foreign Minister Winston Peters for the release of the New Zealand hostage pilot Phillip Mehrtens by his West Papuan rebel captors. Image: NZ govt
He asks Indonesia to cease airstrikes and for foreign governments to pressure Indonesia to not conduct any aerial bombardments.
RNZ has sought comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Peters said his continued detention served no-one’s interests.
In the last year, a wide range of New Zealand government agencies has been working extensively with Indonesian authorities and others towards securing Mehrtens release.
The response, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has also been supporting his family.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Facilitated by ABC International Development, and conducted by veteran journalist Scott Waide, the first-of-its-kind training in Papua New Guinea aims to plug the skills gaps identified in the last 10 years, especially with news journalists.
“While we have students graduating from the University of Technology, Divine Word, the Pacific Adventist University and the University of Papua New Guinea, training gaps still remain,” Waide told Lae media after the second day of the weeklong training on Tuesday.
“And some of those gaps are very basic and shouldn’t be that way.
“With the help of ABC, this template was developed and we had to go through the training ourselves.
“A trainer, Chris Kimball, tested it on us and we suggested changes — for local context — and then we took the training and tested it on Chris and all our participants to see if it worked.”
The training includes the definition of public interest journalism, what constitutes public interest, interviewing tips and tools, writing structures, characteristics of a good journalist and the difference between proactive and reactive journalism.
“It seems very basic but if you look at it, the content is very relevant,” said Waide.
“If a person is graduating from another course, another programme in university, and then goes into news journalism; we’ll take him or her through that course and give that person a broad understanding of what news is and what journalism is.
“Particularly in Papua New Guinea, it’s about public interest journalism.
“We can talk about the big things, like politics and economics, but if there’s no understanding of why we’re doing it and why people are important in public interest journalism then that journalism actually becomes useless and worthless.”
Seven Highlands-based NBC presenters and broadcasters are also part of the training, including members of Lae media.
On Friday, March 22, a video circulated of TNI (Indonesian military) soldiers torturing a civilian in Papua. In the video, the victim is submerged in a drum filled with water with his hands tied behind his back.
The victim was alternately beaten and kicked by the TNI members. The victim’s back was also slashed with a knife.
The video circulated quickly and was widely criticised.
Gustav Kawer from the Papua Association of Human Rights Advocates (PAHAM) condemned the incident and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
This was then followed by National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial), the Diocese, the church and students.
Meanwhile, Cenderawasih/XVII regional military commander (Pangdam) Major-General Izak Pangemanan tried to cover up the crime by saying it was a hoax and the video was a result of “editing”.
This argument was later refuted by the TNI itself and it was proven that TNI soldiers were the ones who had committed the crime. Thirteen soldiers were arrested and accused over the torture.
The torture occurred on 3 February 2024 in Puncak Regency, Papua.
Accused of being ‘spies’ The victim who was seen in the video was Defianus Kogoya, who had been arrested along with Warinus Murib and Alianus Murib. They were arrested and accused of being “spies” for the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM), a cheap accusation which the TNI and police were subsequently unable to prove.
Indonesia human rights: 13 soldiers arrested after torture video. Video: Al Jazeera
The three were arrested when the TNI was conducting a search in Amukia and Gome district. When Warinus was arrested, his legs were tied to a car and he was dragged for one kilometre, before finally being tortured.
Alianus, meanwhile ,was also taken to a TNI post and tortured. After several hours, they were finally handed over to a police post because there was not enough evidence to prove the TNI’s accusations.
Defianus finally fainted, while Warinus died of his injuries. Warinus’ body was cremated by the family the next day on February 4.
Defianus is still suffering and remains seriously ill. This is a TNI crime in Papua.
But that is not all. On 22 February 2022, the TNI also tortured seven children in Sinak district, Puncak. The seven children were Deson Murib, Makilon Tabuni, Pingki Wanimbo, Waiten Murib, Aton Murib, Elison Murib and Murtal Kurua.
Makilon Tabuni died as a result.
Civilians murdered, mutilated On August 22, the TNI murdered and mutilated four civilians in Timika. They were Arnold Lokbere, Irian Nirigi, Lemaniel Nirigi and Atis Tini.
The bodies of the four were dismembered: the head, body and legs were separated into several parts, put in sacks then thrown into a river.
Six days later, soldiers from the Infantry Raider Battalion 600/Modang tortured four civilians in Mappi regency, Papua. The four were Amsal P Yimsimem, Korbinus Yamin, Lodefius Tikamtahae and Saferius Yame.
They were tortured for three hours and suffered injuries all over their bodies.
Three days later, on August 30, the TNI again tortured two civilians named Bruno Amenim Kimko and Yohanis Kanggun in Edera district, Mappi regency. Bruno Amenim died while Yohanis Kanggun suffered serious injuries.
On October 27, three children under the age of 16 were tortured by the TNI in Keerom regency. They were Rahmat Paisel, Bastian Bate and Laurents Kaung. They were tortured using chains, coils of wire and water hoses.
The atrocity occurred in the Yamanai Village, Arso II, Arso district.
On 22 February 2023, TNI personnel from the Navy post in Lantamal X1 Ilwayap tortured two civilians named Albertus Kaize and Daniel Kaize. Albertus Kaize died of his injuries. This crime occurred in Merauke regency, Papua.
95 civilians tortured Between 2018 and 2021, Amnesty International recorded that more than 95 civilians had been tortured and killed by the TNI and the police. These crimes target indigenous Papuans, and the curve continues to rise year by year, ever since Indonesia occupied Papua in 1961.
These crimes were committed one after another without a break, and followed the same pattern. So it can be concluded that these were not the acts of rogue individuals or one or two people as the TNI argues to reduce their crimes to individual acts.
Rather, they are structural (systematic) crimes designed to subdue the Papuan nation, to stop all forms of Papuan resistance for the sake of the exploitation and theft of Papua’s natural resources.
The problems in Papua cannot be solved by increasing the number of police or soldiers. The problems in Papua must be resolved democratically.
This democratic solution must include establishing a human rights court for all perpetrators of crimes in Papua since the 1960s, and not just the perpetrators in the field, but also those responsible in the chain of command.
Only this will break the pattern of crimes that are occurring and provide justice for the Papuan people. A human rights court will also mean weakening the anti-democratic forces that exist in Indonesia and Papua — namely military(ism).
Garbage of history A prerequisite for achieving democratisation is to eliminate the old forces, the garbage of history.
The cleaner the process is carried out, the broader and deeper the democracy that can be achieved. This also includes the demands of the Papuan people to be given the right to determine their own destiny.
This is not a task for some later day, but is the task of the Papuan people today. Nor is the task of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) political elite or political activists alone, but it is the task of all Papuan people if they want to extract themselves from the crimes of the TNI and police or Indonesian colonialism.
Independence can only be gained by the struggle of the ordinary people themselves. The people must fight, the people must take to the streets, the people must build their own ranks, their own alternative political tool, and fight in an organised and guided manner.
Sharon Muller is a leading member of the Socialist Union (Perserikatan Sosialis, PS) and a member of the Socialist Study Circle (Lingkar Studi Sosialis, LSS). Arah Juang is the newspaper of the Socialist Union.
References Gemima Harvey’s report The Human Tragedy of West Papua, 15 January 2014. This reports states that more than 500,000 West Papua people have been slaughtered by Indonesia and its actors, the TNI and police since 1961.
Veronica Koman’s chronology of torture of civilians in Papua. Posted on the Veronica Koman Facebook wall, 24 March 2024.
Among the critics emerging to find fault with Anthony Albanese’s interventionist industry policy, the one who gave the most damaging prick to the Prime Ministerial balloon was Danielle Wood, the new head of the Productivity Commission,
Wood, former chief of the Grattan Institute, a policy think tank, made extensive comments to the Australian Financial Review and The Australian on Thursday, the day of the PM’s speech.
She said that while the government was responding to a changing world (a point stressed by Albanese), “we shouldn’t pretend … that this is going to be costless”.
“If we are supporting industries that don’t have a long-term competitive advantage, that can be an ongoing cost,” she said. It meant workers and capital were diverted from other parts of the economy.
“We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies, and that can be very effective in coming back for more.” An “exit strategy” was needed, where support was stepped back from or at least reviewed.
The Productivity Commission is well known for its free market approach. In that sense, the views of its current head were not just unexceptional but the sort of thing someone in the role would likely say. The commission, there to give advice to the government, is (up to a point) independent.
But two factors made Wood’s contribution both surprising and potent. She had been appointed by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. And she was being very forthright, immediately after its launch, about what is a major government economic and political initiative.
Where it can’t manage the messages the Albanese government likes to be able to anticipate where the counter-messages will come from.
It was blindsided by the Wood critique – not least because it was before the full detail of the policy, centred on a yet-to-be-released Future Made in Australia Act, are known.
While Wood going public might have been unexpected, the substance of what she said was not. Everything she’s argued in the past would have led you to think she wouldn’t be a fan of the Albanese policy.
By her strong comments, Wood has sent a clear signal that she is determined, on occasion, to have a public voice in the economic debate. That can only be a good thing.
Former treasurer and current ALP president Wayne Swan fired off a salvo, telling morning TV Wood was “completely out of touch with the international reality”. Swan said: “We need energy independence and to do that, we’ve got to make up for a lost decade”.
Chalmers held his tongue. He and Wood get on well personally. When he does publicly respond, you can be sure he’ll be a lot more diplomatic than his old boss Swan.
Chalmers, for all that he might be uncomfortable that Wood has spoken out, will know her remarks contain some significant warnings.
With the new interventionism the government is embarking on a risky (and expensive) strategy. It will be vital the policy, when fleshed out, contains whatever safeguards can be mustered to ensure if wrong decisions on support are made, they are spotted early and there is, indeed, an “exit strategy”. One of the prime dangers in interventionism is that it become a rort for the rent seekers.
Wood’s advice is important, even if it was delivered inconveniently for the government through a megaphone.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Among the critics emerging to find fault with Anthony Albanese’s interventionist industry policy, the one who gave the most damaging prick to the Prime Ministerial balloon was Danielle Wood, the new head of the Productivity Commission,
Wood, former chief of the Grattan Institute, a policy think tank, made extensive comments to the Australian Financial Review and The Australian on Thursday, the day of the PM’s speech.
She told the AFR that while the government was responding to a changing world (a point stressed by Albanese), “we shouldn’t pretend … that this is going to be costless”.
“If we are supporting industries that don’t have a long-term competitive advantage, that can be an ongoing cost,” she said. It meant workers and capital were diverted from other parts of the economy.
“We risk creating a class of businesses that is reliant on government subsidies, and that can be very effective in coming back for more.” An exit strategy was needed, where support was stepped back from or at least reviewed.
The Productivity Commission is well known for its free market approach. In that sense, the views of its current head were not just unexceptional but the sort of thing someone in the role would likely say. The commission, there to give advice to the government, is (up to a point) independent.
But two factors made Wood’s contribution both surprising and potent. She had been appointed by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. And she was being very forthright, immediately after its launch, about what is a major government economic and political initiative.
Where it can’t manage the messages the Albanese government likes to be able to anticipate where the counter-messages will come from.
It was blindsided by the Wood critique – not least because it was before the full detail of the policy, centred on a yet-to-be-released Future Made in Australia Act, are known.
While Wood going public might have been unexpected, the substance of what she said was not. Everything she’s argued in the past would have led you to think she wouldn’t be a fan of the Albanese policy.
By her strong comments, Wood has sent a clear signal that she is determined, on occasion, to have a public voice in the economic debate. That can only be a good thing.
Former treasurer and current ALP president Wayne Swan fired off a salvo, telling morning TV Wood was “completely out of touch with the international reality”. Swan said: “We need energy independence and to do that, we’ve got to make up for a lost decade”.
Chalmers held his tongue. He and Wood get on well personally. When he does publicly respond, you can be sure he’ll be a lot more diplomatic than his old boss Swan.
Chalmers, for all that he might be uncomfortable that Wood has spoken out, will know her remarks contain some significant warnings.
With the new interventionism the government is embarking on a risky (and expensive) strategy. It will be vital the policy, when fleshed out, contains whatever safeguards can be mustered to ensure if wrong decisions on support are made, they are spotted early and there is, indeed, an “exit strategy”. One of the prime dangers in interventionism is that it become a rort for the rent seekers.
Wood’s advice is important, even if it was delivered inconveniently for the government through a megaphone.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
We all know about the carbon in Earth’s atmosphere, and probably about the carbon contained in plants and the bodies of animals. But a substantial fraction of the carbon in the planet’s land-based ecosystems is held in something so obvious we might overlook it: soil.
Even if we do think about carbon in soil, we are usually thinking of carbon in organic matter in the soil, such as plant litter, bacteria or animal waste. However, the inorganic, mineral component of soil also contains carbon.
In a new study just published in Science, we show there is much more soil inorganic carbon than anybody realised – and that it may be a surprisingly big player in Earth’s carbon cycle.
We analysed more than 200,000 soil measurements from around the world to calculate that the top two metres of soil globally holds about 2.3 trillion tonnes of inorganic carbon. We estimate some 23 billion tonnes of this carbon may be released over the next 30 years, with poorly understood effects on Earth’s lands, waters and atmosphere.
What is soil inorganic carbon?
Inorganic carbon exists in soils in various forms. It can be trapped carbon dioxide gas, dissolved in water or other liquids, or it can be in solid form as carbonate minerals.
Most of the inorganic carbon by weight is solid carbonates, often calcium carbonate (a common substance found in materials such as limestone, marble and chalk). They give soil a whitish look, while organic carbon makes it dark.
Soil carbonates can come either from weathering of rocks or from the reaction of soil minerals with atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Inorganic carbon tends to build up more in soil in arid and semi-arid environments such as Australia. That’s because when water runs through soil it tends to carry away some of the carbonates with it.
Our estimates show the top two metres of Australia’s soil harbours some 160 billion tonnes of inorganic carbon. This makes Australia home to the fifth-largest pool of soil inorganic carbon in the world.
In wetter regions, soil carbonates may also be found along rivers and around lakes and coastal areas, in the form of calcium-rich alluvial deposits or calcareous rocks. Soils in karst regions – areas rich in rocks like limestone, and often characterised by caves and sinkholes – typically contain carbonate in rocks. In areas such as central Asia large deposits of wind-blown sediments (loess) contribute to the accumulation of carbonate minerals.
Why should we care?
This huge pool of carbon is affected by changes in the environment, especially soil acidification. Acids dissolve calcium carbonate, meaning the carbon dissolves in water or is released as carbon dioxide gas.
Soil in many regions of the globe (such as China and India) is becoming more acidic due to acid rain and other pollution from industrial activities and intense farming.
Scientists have viewed carbonates in soil as a relatively stable pool of carbon that changes only slowly over time. However, human activities have made soil inorganic carbon more mobile.
Irrigation and fertilisation of farmland speed up the rate at which soil inorganic carbon is dissolved and leaches out of the soil.
Inorganic carbon has accumulated in soil over vast periods of Earth’s history. Disturbances to this carbon will have a profound impact on soil health.
Disruption to this carbon compromises soil’s ability to neutralise acidity, regulate nutrient levels, foster plant growth, and stabilise organic carbon. Not only does soil inorganic carbon act as a store of carbon, it also supports soil’s many crucial functions in ecosystems.
In our research, we found that 1.13 billion tonnes of inorganic carbon are lost from soils each year to inland waters. This loss has profound yet often overlooked effects on carbon transport between the land, freshwater bodies, the atmosphere and the oceans.
What to do?
There is a growing recognition of the importance of soil carbon as a fundamental part of nature-based solutions to combat climate change. However, much of the focus so far has been on organic carbon. Our research shows inorganic carbon warrants equal attention.
Improved land practices can reduce disturbance to the global pool of soil inorganic carbon, and may even be able to make it bigger. In agriculture, making irrigation and fertilisation better adjusted to plant growth needs can reduce impact on inorganic carbon. In some soils, organic amendments such as compost and manure can protect against acidification, improve calcium levels and increase soil inorganic carbon.
Our research shows efforts to mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon in soil must incorporate inorganic carbon as well as organic.
Inorganic carbon in soil is linked to global changes such as climate change, industrial pollution and soil overuse in different ways from those of organic carbon. However, some strategies to lock up more carbon in soil – such as enhanced rock weathering, afforestation, and trapping organic carbon in soil minerals – might also serve to increase levels of inorganic carbon.
There are already international soil carbon programs like the 4 per mille initiative, which aims to increase soil carbon storage by 0.4% annually across the globe. These efforts could further increase their ambition by considering the critical role of inorganic carbon in achieving sustainable soil management and reaching climate targets.
Pep Canadell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program – Climate Systems Hub
Yingping Wang receives funding from a GHG project from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, and Water.
Yuanyuan Huang 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.
Cooler temperatures are fading our memories of summer and reducing numbers of mosquitoes in southern parts of Australia. But up north, warmer temperatures and plenty of rain will keep mosquitoes active.
While their bites are annoying, more concerning is the diseases mosquitoes carry. Health authorities have recently warned local communities and travellers heading to the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of Western Australia to be vigilant to the risk of one particular mosquito-borne infection – Murray Valley encephalitis.
Which mosquito-borne diseases are a risk?
Australia is fortunate to be generally free of many of the world’s most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases.
Each year globally, malaria can cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and dengue infects hundreds of millions of people. While these two diseases aren’t a high risk in Australia, we do have a number of viruses spread by mosquitoes that can cause severe and potentially fatal illness.
Thousands of Australians are infected with Ross River or Barmah Forest virus each year, and while these diseases aren’t fatal, they can be debilitating. Symptoms can include fever, rash, joint pain and fatigue.
In recent years, we’ve seen increased activity of the Murray Valley encephalitis virus and the closely related Kunjin virus. This is due to explosions in mosquito numbers as a result of persistent flooding.
New mosquito-borne viruses have emerged in Australia, with widespread activity of Japanese encephalitis virus in southern regions of Australia recorded for the first time in 2021–22. This had significant impacts on human health, as well as economic consequences for the pork industry due to the reproductive losses resulting from infected pigs. The Australian government declared a communicable disease incident of national significance.
Mosquitoes carry a variety of diseases. Cameron Webb (NSW Health Pathology)
Why is Murray Valley encephalitis so dangerous?
Murray Valley encephalitis virus is one of the most dangerous pathogens spread by mosquitoes in Australia. The virus belongs to the flavivirus family alongside Japanese encephalitis, dengue, yellow fever and West Nile viruses; the most important mosquito-borne viruses on the planet.
The virus is only spread by mosquito bite (it doesn’t spread from person to person). Mosquitoes, most notably a common Australian species Culex annulirostris, transmit the virus to humans. This species is found in freshwater habitats and acquires the virus from biting a waterbird.
Most people infected don’t get sick – perhaps as few as one in 1,000 develop symptoms. For those who do, these can range from fever and headache to paralysis and encephalitis (swelling of the brain).
Symptoms are variable but fatality rates for people with symptomatic disease can be up to 30%, with up to 50% of people experiencing permanent neurological complications requiring life-long medical care.
From Australian X disease to Murray Valley encephalitis
While Murray Valley encephalitis virus can be found in many parts of Australia, outbreaks in south-eastern Australia have caused the most concern, especially throughout the Murray Darling Basin region, due to the high human population. That said, activity in other regions is still a worry.
The virus is thought to have been causing an illness known as “Australian X disease” since at least the early 1900s. The most significant outbreak was in 1974, resulting in 58 cases.
During the summer of 2022–23, the virus was detected in mosquito and sentinel chicken surveillance programs in NSW, Victoria and South Australia. A total of 26 human cases were reported across Australia in 2023 after only a handful of cases since 2011, which saw 16 cases.
There’s been no evidence that Murray Valley encephalitis virus is present along the east coast of Australia. Activity of the virus is generally limited to regions west of the Great Dividing Range.
Health authorities across Australia use mosquito traps to help monitor viruses such as Murray Valley encephalitis. Cameron Webb (NSW Health Pathology)
What about northern Australia?
Murray Valley encephalitis is considered endemic in northern Australia. It’s detected almost every year in health surveillance programs in WA and the Northern Territory.
Human cases occur too. Although fewer people live in these regions, northern Australia (including tourists visiting the area) has accounted for most cases of Murray Valley encephalitis over the past 30 years.
Surveillance is critical to provide an early warning of elevated outbreak risk. In the north of WA, health authorities have detected Murray Valley encephalitis virus in local mosquito populations and their sentinel chicken surveillance program. This prompted the recent warnings for the Kimberley and Pilbara regions.
However, no cases of human infection have been reported this year.
How can the community and travellers protect themselves?
While activity of Murray Valley encephalitis virus across northern Australia should be expected every year, the recent warnings are a reminder of the potential health risk associated with mosquitoes.
With no vaccination available for Murray Valley encephalitis – and no cure – the only way to prevent becoming infected is to avoid mosquito bites. Wearing light, loose-fitting clothing, avoiding peak mosquito activity times around dawn or dusk, and using a suitable insect repellent containing DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus are effective ways to help prevent bites.
Andrew Jardine and Jay Nicholson from the Department of Health, Western Australia, contributed expert advice to this article.
Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management.
It has been a big few weeks in the Australian live music scene. The cancellations of major festivals Groovin’ the Moo and Splendour in the Grass have ushered in a stream of news reports about the challenges affecting live music, and how current economies are making the sector unsustainable.
So far the focus has largely been on the big festival market. But I contend that without a healthy and sustainable grassroots economy, we can’t make a quality live music industry in Australia. The first step towards achieving this is bringing confidence back.
Presumably, the federal inquiry into Australia’s live music industry, announced just two days before Splendour in the Grass was cancelled, will aim for better governance of the sector, including at the grassroots.
According to John Wardle of the Live Music Office, local industries “have faced a range of continuing challenges for decades”. Wardle says local arts and cultural planning, urban renewal and government funding aren’t keeping pace with each other:
There are some good planning instruments available, such as zoning special entertainment precincts, but they aren’t being deployed to the degree in which they might.
A report by Creative Australia, based on a 2022 survey, indicates something shifted in Australia’s arts sector when COVID hit. For instance, while 97% of Australians said they engaged with the arts, and more than half (68%) attended live events, this attendance was less frequent than in pre-COVID times.
Another report released this week by the arts body found just 56% of Australian music festivals in the last financial year made a profit, citing impact from factors such as rising costs of insurance and policing.
We have reached a breaking point in the music industry and there needs to be a concerted effort to reorganise it.
Some argue what we’re seeing is a “market failure” – too many festivals, poor programming, high costs and low confidence – and is therefore a problem for businesses to repair. But the overwhelming public interest in this issue demonstrates just how important live music is to the fabric of our culture.
A collapse in market confidence
The live music sector has become increasingly disconnected from its customers. Audiences have evolved in what they want and expect from live music, while also discovering less complicated ways to be entertained. The industry must evolve with them if it wants to thrive.
Emerging and mid-tier artists all over Australia currently work in venues whose core business is “live music”, yet it’s common for musicians to be booked to play with no guaranteed income.
Araminta, 22, is an independent artist from Naarm (Melbourne) who regularly performs at venues across the city. She told me venues expected her to organise 100% of event promotion and ticket sales:
The venues almost act as hire-spaces rather than working together with artists to ensure a good turnout. We are all working two to three jobs to make ends meet and on top of that we treat our artistry like a full-time job.
Araminta is a folk-pop fusion singer and songwriter. Facebook/Araminta
If the confidence returns, so will the gigs
In 2024, it’s unethical for a three-piece band working in a professional live music venue to only be offered a percentage of the bar takings as payment, yet this happens.
One outcome from the inquiry could be a pilot program that financially and organisationally supports quality, ethical and sustainable live music business models. And this would ideally be done with an eye to creating self-sustaining venues and music models that can be replicated across cities and towns.
The sector should work with governments to develop artists, champion their value and pay them accordingly. There should also be incentives offered for venues that don’t exploit music creators’ work, or rely solely on gambling and alcohol sales to be sustainable.
Araminta says setting a standard minimum rate for venues to pay musicians would make a notable difference:
The main reason artists are hesitant to gig recently is the amount of profit uncertainty – especially artists that are independent without any financial assistance.
Making the most of the inquiry
The terms of reference for the federal inquiry indicate a thorough and holistic approach to improving the sector. This means addressing issues at every level, from local artist development and economic benefit, to sustainability and growth internationally.
In covering this much ground, it will be a challenge to not spread the outcomes too thinly, or focus on short-term fixes rather than meaningful long-term reform.
Wardle cautions that unless we see an increase in jobs for musicians offering fair pay and conditions, more big announcements simply won’t stack up:
Ensuring the voices across the sector are listened to is critical to guide priorities and investment. I’d like to see more artists’ voices and representative opportunities, and structures that ensure that people aren’t excluded because of their cultural background or the type of music they play.
The industry must guarantee the quality of its product and provide safe, accessible and valuable experiences for both customers and musicians. Once audiences and musicians come running, word of mouth will do much of the heavy lifting, and investors will follow suit.
Rod Davies is affiliated with the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
Australia is a trading nation. Its economy relies on a strong and open global trade environment.
Australian governments have historically rejected protectionist industrial policies that undermine fair competition, and Canberra has long been a staunch advocate of the World Trade Organization, whose rules help “promote and protect the open global trading system”.
Yet Labor has just announced a major new industrial policy – the Future Made in Australia Act – that will break with Canberra’s historical aversion to large-scale economic intervention. It will also cost taxpayers billions to fund.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s rationale for doing so is as succinct as it is paradoxical:
This is not old-fashioned protectionism or isolationism – it is the new competition … we must recognise that the partners we seek are moving to the beat of a new economic reality.
What is this “new reality”, and what does it mean for Australia’s economic future?
Australia joins the “geoeconomic game”
With this announcement, Australia has joined the great “geoeconomic game” currently transforming the world economy.
In a geoeconomic world economy, nations use economic relations as tools to achieve their strategic goals.
This could include coercing a country to change its policies by blocking their imports, as China has done to Australia. Or using export controls to prevent advanced technology reaching a strategic geopolitical rival, as the United States has applied to China to limit the flow of advanced semiconductors.
Under these conditions, relations between countries shift from win-win to zero-sum. The resulting risks and vulnerabilities can be leveraged by geopolitical foes. Growing concern over this shift is driving economic “ghettoisation” – countries that were already on friendly terms are trading more between themselves, and with those on less friendly terms, trading less.
Australia has already been participating in “friend-shoring” – the relocation of crucial supply chains to diplomatically friendlier countries.
New policies for a new business reality
Some countries have already established policies in recognition of the new realities of international business, speeding up the formation of these blocs.
Two major recent policies by the US – the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act – aim to boost US electric vehicle and semiconductor manufacturing, respectively, with hundreds of billions of dollars in new government spending.
Japan is also spending big to bring more semiconductor production onshore.
These policies have also attracted vast sums of new private investment in relevant “strategic sectors” – totalling more than half a trillion dollars in the US alone.
Levelling the playing field or distorting the market?
This new economic approach by Washington and Tokyo almost certainly breaches the World Trade Organization’s rules, because it discriminates in determining who can access funds and where things have to be made.
China has already launched a dispute against the US Inflation Reduction Act on these very grounds. But China itself is also the biggest user of industrial policy by far.
On one hand, the new US and Japanese industrial policies will distort global markets, but – returning to Albanese’s “new competition” paradox – level the playing field on the other.
Jakarta applied an export ban – illegal under World Trade Organization rules – on unprocessed nickel in 2020, while attracting investment from China, where state-owned enterprises can access subsidised financing.
Combined with poor environmental and labour standards during production, the effect was extremely low-cost Indonesian nickel, which undercut global prices. As a result, some Australian mines could face closure.
This situation was not the product of free markets, but rather of state intervention. Canberra needs its own plan to counter such policies.
How should business leaders respond?
We still don’t know the full details of Labor’s strategy. But if the act is anything like Washington’s policies, it will aim to boost Australian firms with protectionist and discriminatory provisions. Awkwardly, this could well be in breach of the international trade rules Canberra has staunchly defended for so long.
Levelling the playing field implies sweeping changes in the dynamics of international commerce, with implications for Australian businesses, consumers and government.
In formulating strategy, Australian business leaders will increasingly need to think geopolitically. The world is no longer one big open economy.
Australian industries will certainly get a shot in the arm from Labor’s new policy.
There will be more downstream value-add processing in areas of existing strength, such as critical minerals.
Major investments in solar manufacturing will benefit regional Australia. These and other strategic sectors will enjoy higher levels of government support. But many non-strategic sectors could be left behind, facing new geoeconomic costs without extra funding.
For consumers, the era of getting the most competitively priced goods on the global market is coming to a close.
As the global economy fragments, Australians will have to pay more for the duplication of global supply chains, and additional costs of subsidised production.
However, they may also see better supply chain security, and a domestic jobs boom in advanced manufacturing. Governments and businesses can work to reduce the risk of any economic coercion effects.
Much like the Old Testament principle of an “eye for an eye”, the principle of a “tariff for a tariff” is foundational in international trade. As Australia joins the geoeconomic game, pressure will mount on countries not yet playing to join in, simply to stay competitive. Trade and industry measures will continue to proliferate globally, reinforcing the new dynamics of geoeconomic competition.
The Albanese government faces great risks in implementing its new industrial strategy. Yet in taking action, it may have avoided a much greater risk – doing nothing at all in the face of a historic global economic change.
Naoise McDonagh 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.
Around the world, the human rights of transgender people are under attack. Media reports of trans women being vilified, excluded and discriminated against are frequent, and the consequences of this rise in hatred towards trans people can be deadly.
In the United States, animosity towards trans people is reaching fever pitch with 42 of the 50 states introducing laws that seek to limit trans people’s access to healthcare, participation in sport, use of bathrooms and serving in the military, as well as censoring education about gender identity.
There is increasing concern that a US-style anti-trans campaign is underway in Australia. This week, a spotlight was shone on these issues in the Federal Court, where a trans woman, Roxanne Tickle, has taken a women-only social media platform to court for discrimination.
This case is providing the court with a rare opportunity to determine the extent to which the Sex Discrimination Act protects a trans woman from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity. Although the act was amended more than a decade ago to prohibit discrimination on such a basis, this is the first time these laws are being tested in court.
it is unlawful for a person who, whether for payment or not, provides goods or services, or makes facilities available, to discriminate against another person on the ground of the other person’s sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, or breastfeeding […]
Tickle is asking the Federal Court to find that excluding her from the social networking app, Giggle for Girls, breached this section and another in the Sex Discrimination Act.
Tickle, whose birth certificate designates her sex as female, following her transition from male to female, downloaded the app, which is marketed as a platform exclusively for women to share experiences and speak freely in a “safe space”.
To access the app, Tickle had to upload a selfie. Artificial intelligence (AI) assessed the photo as being of a woman and Tickle was given access to the app.
However, seven months later, the chief executive of Giggle for Girls, Sally Grover, blocked Tickle from using the app on the basis that she was male. She stated:
I looked at the onboarding selfie and I saw a man. The Al software had let them through, thereby making a mistake that I rectified.
What legal issues are up for debate?
The case highlights the distinction between sex discrimination and gender identity discrimination.
“Sex” is not defined in the Sex Discrimination Act. It is a term that is used to refer to whether a person is male, female or another non-binary status. It is assigned at birth according to biological attributes that are primarily associated with physical and physiological features.
Although some people don’t agree, a person’s sex is not fixed and can be changed, as reflected in the language of section 32I of the NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act. It states:
a person the record of whose sex is altered under this Part is, for the purposes of, but subject to, any law of New South Wales, a person of the sex as so altered.
Grover evidently sees a person’s sex as immutable. Tickle’s barrister put it to Grover that “a transgender woman who had a female birth certificate, hormone therapy, breasts, gender affirmation surgery, wore makeup and women’s clothes, had a woman’s hairstyle and used women’s facilities, […] is a woman in our society.” Grover replied “I don’t agree”.
Gender refers to a person’s personal and social identity; how they feel, present and are recognised within the community. It is a social construct, and varies between cultures.
A person’s gender may be reflected in outward social markers, including their name, outward appearance, mannerisms and dress. A trans person’s gender identity does not correspond with the gender expected of them by society, given the sex assigned to them at birth.
Tickle’s claim is that she was discriminated against on the basis of her gender identity. She asserts that she was treated less favourably than cisgender women (women whose gender identity corresponds with their sex assigned at birth), because of her gender identity. That is, because she is a trans woman.
Giggle for Girls and Grover are defending the proceedings on the basis their refusal to allow Tickle to use the app constituted lawful sex discrimination.
They say the app counts as a “special measure” under a different section of the Sex Discrimination Act, because it helps advance equality between men and women, and therefore they are allowed to exclude men. Since Grover perceives Tickle to be a man, she submits that excluding Tickle from the app was lawful as a special measure.
These arguments are contrary to the submissions made to the court by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner Anna Cody, who, as a “friend of the court”, was permitted to make submissions about how the act should be interpreted.
the Court need only conclude that, for a person to be of the female “sex”, it is sufficient if that sex is recorded on the person’s birth certificate and/or they have undergone gender affirming surgery to affirm their status as female.
That is the case for Tickle.
Cody also noted the Sex Discrimination Act was amended to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, to provide “maximum protection for gender diverse people”.
The evidence, as reported, suggests Tickle, as a trans woman, was treated differently to how the respondents treated people with a different gender identity, namely cisgender women. This is contrary to purpose of the act.
We will await the court’s decision with interest. Depending on the outcome, we may see Australia going down a very different path to the anti-trans trajectory the US is currently on.
Paula Gerber is Chair of Kaleidoscope Human Rights Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation that advocates for the rights of LGBTIQA+ people in the Asia Pacific region.
What is the significance of the Australian government signalling this week that it may finally recognise Palestinian statehood?
Though not universally popular, Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s diplomatic gesture towards Palestinian statehood has been welcomed in some quarters as a departure from Australia’s longstanding bipartisan consensus on the Middle East.
Formerly reluctant to interfere in the affairs of other nations, many countries have become frustrated by the lack of progress on a resolution to the decades-old question of Palestine and are moving to unilateral recognition of its statehood.
Why has this issue been so contentious for so long in Australia, and what could
its recognition of Palestinian statehood mean?
Australia’s role in the creation of Israel
Australia played a key role in preparing the groundwork for Israeli statehood in the early 20th century.
As a loyal servant of the British empire, the Australian army actively participated in the destruction of the Ottoman empire during the first world war. Battles in which Australian troops played a decisive role – such as the 1917 Charge of the Light Horse Brigade in Beersheba and the Allied capturing of Damascus in 1918 – are remembered in Australian and Israeli history as milestones in the achievement of Israeli statehood.
“Self-determination” was a watchword coined by Leon Trotsky and popularised by US President Woodrow Wilson towards the end of the first world war. However, in the postwar settlement, self-determination was unequally applied.
Zionist claims to self-determination were endorsed by the British government’s Balfour Declaration of 1917. But under the terms of the mandate of Palestine administered by Britain under the new League of Nations charter, indigenous Palestinian Arabs were catalogued among the “peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world”.
Two decades later, Australia played a key role in the recognition of Israeli statehood at the United Nations. It is now well known that Australian Herbert Vere “Doc” Evatt, who presided over the UN Special Committee on Palestine, was instrumental in garnering international support for the proposed partition of Palestine. Australia was one of the first countries to recognise Israel in 1948.
Herbert Vere Evatt, president of the third regular session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
So, why has it been so difficult for Australia to recognise Palestinian aspirations for statehood?
The emergence of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the 1960s under the leadership of Yasser Arafat thrust the Palestine question back into the spotlight. For mainstream Australian politicians, the PLO was akin to the African National Congress in South Africa, seen at the time as an irredeemable terrorist organisation.
Yet, unlike the bipartisan position later adopted against South African apartheid in Australia during the 1980s, no such revision has come with regard to Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, which manyobservers in Israel and internationally also consider to be apartheid.
One South African observer, Andrew Feinstein, the son of a Holocaust survivor and former colleague of Nelson Mandela, has described Israeli apartheid as “far more brutal than anything we saw in South Africa”.
In recent years, Australian politicians on both sides have recommitted to their unwavering support of Israel. This is part of a broader phenomenon that US historian Ussama Makdisi has described as “philozionism” (or love of Zionism).
While the Rudd-Gillard government repositioned Australia’s relationship with Israel in a more critical light, the country’s politicians soon returned to the former bipartisan consensus around Israel. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was a cofounder of the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Palestine, though many have observed that his government has resiled from that affiliation. Prime ministers from both sides of the aisle have also had parks in Israel named in their honour.
The Palestine question has been a particularly tortured one for the Labor Party, as illustrated by Australia’s abstention in the 2012 vote at the United Nations to grant Palestinian observer status.
Though hubristic to imagine Australian diplomatic recognition will have any impact on Palestinian lives, the change in position of one of Israel’s historically staunch allies does coincide with a broader shift in the Western consensus.
Following Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the 2014 Operation Protective Edge, lawmakers in Sweden and the United Kingdom voted to recognise the state of Palestine. These moves had little material impact but carried symbolic value.
Australia’s belated recognition of Palestinian statehood would be a welcome first step. It is the result of decades of grassroots activism by Palestinians and their allies in Australia. However, much work remains to be done if Australia is to be a constructive partner in the meaningful achievement of Palestinian self-determination.
Micaela Sahhar has signed numerous public statements in support of Palestinian self-determination.
Stephen Pascoe has signed numerous public statements in support of Palestinian self-determination.
Australia is a trading nation. Its economy relies on a strong and open global trade environment.
Australian governments have historically rejected protectionist industrial policies that undermine fair competition, and Canberra has long been a staunch advocate of the World Trade Organization, whose rules help “promote and protect the open global trading system”.
Yet Labor has just announced a major new industrial policy – the Future Made in Australia Act – that will break with Canberra’s historical aversion to large-scale economic intervention. It will also cost taxpayers billions to fund.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s rationale for doing so is as succinct as it is paradoxical:
This is not old-fashioned protectionism or isolationism – it is the new competition … we must recognise that the partners we seek are moving to the beat of a new economic reality.
What is this “new reality”, and what does it mean for Australia’s economic future?
Australia joins the “geoeconomic game”
With this announcement, Australia has joined the great “geoeconomic game” currently transforming the world economy.
In a geoeconomic world economy, nations use economic relations as tools to achieve their strategic goals.
This could include coercing a country to change its policies by blocking their imports, as China has done to Australia. Or using export controls to prevent advanced technology reaching a strategic geopolitical rival, as the United States has applied to China to limit the flow of advanced semiconductors.
Under these conditions, relations between countries shift from win-win to zero-sum. The resulting risks and vulnerabilities can be leveraged by geopolitical foes. Growing concern over this shift is driving economic “ghettoisation” – countries that were already on friendly terms are trading more between themselves, and with those on less friendly terms, trading less.
Australia has already been participating in “friend-shoring” – the relocation of crucial supply chains to diplomatically friendlier countries.
New policies for a new business reality
Some countries have already established policies in recognition of the new realities of international business, speeding up the formation of these blocs.
Two major recent policies by the US – the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act – aim to boost US electric vehicle and semiconductor manufacturing, respectively, with hundreds of billions of dollars in new government spending.
Japan is also spending big to bring more semiconductor production onshore.
These policies have also attracted vast sums of new private investment in relevant “strategic sectors” – totalling more than half a trillion dollars in the US alone.
Levelling the playing field or distorting the market?
This new economic approach by Washington and Tokyo almost certainly breaches the World Trade Organization’s rules, because it discriminates in determining who can access funds and where things have to be made.
China has already launched a dispute against the US Inflation Reduction Act on these very grounds. But China itself is also the biggest user of industrial policy by far.
On one hand, the new US and Japanese industrial policies will distort global markets, but – returning to Albanese’s “new competition” paradox – level the playing field on the other.
Jakarta applied an export ban – illegal under World Trade Organization rules – on unprocessed nickel in 2020, while attracting investment from China, where state-owned enterprises can access subsidised financing.
Combined with poor environmental and labour standards during production, the effect was extremely low-cost Indonesian nickel, which undercut global prices. As a result, some Australian mines could face closure.
This situation was not the product of free markets, but rather of state intervention. Canberra needs its own plan to counter such policies.
How should business leaders respond?
We still don’t know the full details of Labor’s strategy. But if the act is anything like Washington’s policies, it will aim to boost Australian firms with protectionist and discriminatory provisions. Awkwardly, this could well be in breach of the international trade rules Canberra has staunchly defended for so long.
Levelling the playing field implies sweeping changes in the dynamics of international commerce, with implications for Australian businesses, consumers and government.
In formulating strategy, Australian business leaders will increasingly need to think geopolitically. The world is no longer one big open economy.
Australian industries will certainly get a shot in the arm from Labor’s new policy.
There will be more downstream value-add processing in areas of existing strength, such as critical minerals.
Major investments in solar manufacturing will benefit regional Australia. These and other strategic sectors will enjoy higher levels of government support. But many non-strategic sectors could be left behind, facing new geoeconomic costs without extra funding.
For consumers, the era of getting the most competitively priced goods on the global market is coming to a close.
As the global economy fragments, Australians will have to pay more for the duplication of global supply chains, and additional costs of subsidised production.
However, they may also see better supply chain security, and a domestic jobs boom in advanced manufacturing. Governments and businesses can work to reduce the risk of any economic coercion effects.
Much like the Old Testament principle of an “eye for an eye”, the principle of a “tariff for a tariff” is foundational in international trade. As Australia joins the geoeconomic game, pressure will mount on countries not yet playing to join in, simply to stay competitive. Trade and industry measures will continue to proliferate globally, reinforcing the new dynamics of geoeconomic competition.
The Albanese government faces great risks in implementing its new industrial strategy. Yet in taking action, it may have avoided a much greater risk – doing nothing at all in the face of a historic global economic change.
Naoise McDonagh 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 man on Saipan has burned the official CNMI flag in protest, saying that it does not truly represent Indigenous people of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI).
A public video of the flag-burning was posted by Raymond Quitugua that has stirred various negative reactions within the CNMI community.
Under the CNMI’s constitution, flag-burning is prohibited and those found to have breached the law can face up to one year in jail or fined up to US$500 (NZ$835).
The official CNMI flag . . . disputed by some Chamorro critics. Image: 123rf/RNZ
Quitugua said the true CNMI flag was the initial design presented back in the 1970s that featured a latte stone with a star in the front of it on a field of blue.
The current official flag of the US territory consists of a rectangular field of blue, a white star in the center, superimposed on a gray latte stone, surrounded by the traditional Carolinian mwáár.
But Quitugua claims the official flag does not accurately represent the Indigenous people of the CNMI, which he believes is the Chamorro community (not including the Carolinian community).
He added that he burned the flag as a form of protest and he intended to take the issue to court.
Disappointed, insulted Renowned elder in the CNMI community, Lino Olopai, as well as one of the many champions of the CNMI’s flag, expressed disappointment and insulted by Quitugua’s actions and said that warranted jail time.
Olopai said the basis of the current CNMI flag was indeed the Chamorro flag, but a group of Carolinians that included himself fought to have a mwáár on the flag as a representation of the Carolinian community as they believed they, too, were indigenous people of the CNMI.
He added that Quitugua’s flag-burning is a form of discrimination against the Carolinian community, which like the Chamorros, are the two recognised Indigenous people of the CNMI.
“Stop the racism. We are all part of the Pacific islands,” Olopai said.
“We should maintain peaceful attitude and spirit with one another. Not just between the Chamorro and Carolinian communities, but with other communities across the Pacific,” he said.
In a letter to the editor of the Saipan Tribune, former lawmaker Luis John Castro also criticised Quitugua’s flag-burning, saying there were other more constructive forms of protest.
“If something such as the flag does not jive with your beliefs, OK you don’t have to agree,” he said, adding “but there are many ways to resolve differences other than desecrating a cultural symbol”.
“Conduct an online poll, call into [a radio station] and make it a topic of discussion. Hold a town hall meeting with other concerned citizens, ask a legislator to draft bills or initiative to address its look, or file a certified question with the courts to get an answer to your concerns.
“Why do something like burn the flag? To seek attention? To get likes and shares on Facebook? To incite civil unrest?” he wrote.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Beetroot has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Supply issues in recent months have seen a shortage of tinned beetroot on Australian supermarket shelves. At one point, a tin was reportedly selling on eBay for more than A$65.
But as supplies increase, we turn our attention to beetroot’s apparent health benefits.
Is beetroot really vegetable Viagra, as UK TV doctor Michael Mosley suggests? What about beetroot’s other apparent health benefits – from reducing your blood pressure to improving your daily workout? Here’s what the science says.
Beetroot – alongside foods such as berries, nuts and leafy greens – is a
“superfood”. It contains above-average levels per gram of certain vitamins and minerals.
Beetroot is particularly rich in vitamin B and C, minerals, fibre and antioxidants.
Most cooking methods don’t significantly alter its antioxidant levels. Pressure cooking does, however, lower levels of carotenoid (a type of antioxidant) compared to raw beetroot.
Processing into capsules, powders, chips or juice may affect beetroot’s ability to act as an antioxidant. However, this can vary between products, including between different brands of beetroot juice.
The Romans are said to have used beetroot and its juice as an aphrodisiac.
But there’s limited scientific evidence to say beetroot improves your sex life. This does not mean it doesn’t. Rather, the vast number of scientific studies looking at the effect of beetroot have not measured libido or other aspects of sexual health.
When we eat beetroot, chemical reactions involving bacteria and enzymes transform the nitrate in beetroot into nitrite, then to nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps dilate (widen) blood vessels, potentially improving circulation.
The richest sources of dietary nitric oxide that have been tested in clinical studies are beetroot, rocket and spinach.
Nitric oxide is also thought to support testosterone in its role in controlling blood flow before and during sex in men.
Beetroot’s ability to improve blood flow can benefit the circulatory system of the heart and blood vessels. This may positively impact sexual function, theoretically in men and women.
Therefore, it is reasonable to suggest there could be a modest link between beetroot and preparedness for sex, but don’t expect it to transform your sex life.
Beetroot has received increasing attention over recent years due to its antioxidant and anti-tumour effect in humans.
Clinical trials have not verified all beetroot’s active ingredients and their effects. However, beetroot may be a potentially helpful treatment for various health issues related to oxidative stress and inflammation, such as cancer and diabetes. The idea is that you can take beetroot supplements or eat extra beetroot alongside your regular medicines (rather than replace them).
There is evidence beetroot juice can help lower systolic blood pressure (the first number in your blood pressure reading) by 2.73-4.81 mmHg (millimetres of mercury, the standard unit of measuring blood pressure) in people with high blood pressure. Some researchers say this reduction is comparable to the effects seen with certain medications and dietary interventions.
Other research finds even people without high blood pressure (but at risk of it) could benefit.
There is scientific evidence to support positive impacts of consuming beetroot in whole, juice and supplement forms. So even if you can’t get hold of tinned beetroot, there are plenty of other ways you can get more beetroot into your diet. You can try:
raw beetroot – grate raw beetroot and add it to salads or coleslaw, or slice beetroot to use as a crunchy topping for sandwiches or wraps
cooked beetroot – roast beetroot with olive oil, salt and pepper for a flavour packed side dish. Alternatively, steam beetroot and serve it as a standalone dish or mixed into other dishes
beetroot juice – make fresh beetroot juice using a juicer. You can combine it with other fruits and vegetables for added flavour. You can also blend raw or cooked beetroot with water and strain to make a juice
smoothies – add beetroot to your favourite smoothie. It pairs well with fruits such as berries, apples and oranges
soups – use beetroot in soups for both flavour and colour. Borscht is a classic beetroot soup, but you can also experiment with other recipes
pickled beetroot – make pickled beetroot at home, or buy it from the supermarket. This can be a tasty addition to salads or sandwiches
beetroot hummus – blend cooked beetroot into your homemade hummus for a vibrant and nutritious dip. You can also buy beetroot hummus from the supermarket
grilled beetroot – slice beetroot and grill it for a smoky flavour
beetroot chips – slice raw beetroot thinly, toss the slices with olive oil and your favourite seasonings, then bake or dehydrate them to make crispy beetroot chips
cakes and baked goods – add grated beetroot to muffins, cakes, or brownies for a moist and colourful twist.
Compared to the large number of studies on the beneficial effects of beetroot, there is very little evidence of negative side effects.
If you eat large amounts of beetroot, your urine may turn red or purple (called beeturia). But this is generally harmless.
There have been reports in some countries of beetroot-based dietary supplements contaminated with harmful substances, yet we have not seen this reported in Australia.
Beetroot may give some modest boost to sex for men and women, likely by helping your circulation. But it’s unlikely to transform your sex life or act as vegetable Viagra. We know there are many contributing factors to sexual wellbeing. Diet is only one.
Lauren Ball receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Queensland Health and Mater Misericordia. She is a Director of Dietitians Australia, a Director of the Darling Downs and West Moreton Primary Health Network and an Associate Member of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.
Next week, more than 100 green energy, technology, education and finance companies from Australia and Vietnam will gather in Ho Chi Minh City. The meeting is billed as the first “green economy summit” between the two nations.
So what’s on the agenda at this week’s meeting? And what are the prospects for success?
We are in Vietnam for the summit, drawing on our experience in economics, banking and finance to lead sessions on clean technology supply chains and green finance. This is the culmination of nine months of work with Australia’s National Centre for Asia Capability to increase regional prosperity while reducing emissions.
As Albanese has said, “Australia and Vietnam share an ambitious agenda across climate change and sustainability”. And there is “enormous potential to be realised through closer ties” between our two countries.
Both have net zero goals for 2050, both want to develop clean technology industries and minimise supply chain disruption. There are shared challenges around decarbonisation, as large agriculture and manufacturing sectors try to shift away from fossil fuels. And both know our broader Indo-Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to climate change.
Currently, global supply chains for clean energy technology and associated critical minerals are highly concentrated in China, especially for solar panels, wind and batteries. For electrolysers and heat pumps, the United States and the European Union play a larger role. But China still dominates the manufacturing and trade of these technologies.
This concentration of manufacturing in a limited number of countries highlights the need to diversify. As a global trade hub with progressive trade policies, Vietnam has an important role to play here. Vietnam is among the few countries outside China with existing significant solar PV manufacturing capabilities. This includes wafer production, cell manufacturing and module assembly.
Vietnam is well placed to support Australian companies in the green economy. It has policies for attracting green investment, along with an established regional supply chain and market for consumption. Then there’s the increasingly educated and skilled labour force. All will be useful in the commercialisation and scale-up of Australia’s latest solar research, as Australia begins to invest in manufacturing facilities in Vietnam.
Vietnam is also a strong export market for Australia, with the highest rate of solar uptake in Southeast Asia. Australia wants to export more solar panels to Vietnam and therefore compete with China for this export revenue.
Visitors from Vietnam and Indonesia toured the Latrobe Valley in Victoria as part of the Southeast Asia Just Energy Transition Fellowship program. Climateworks Centre
Tackling emissions across borders
Australian companies will soon need to account not only for their own direct greenhouse emissions and indirect emissions from electricity, but also indirect emissions from upstream and downstream activities (“scope 3 emissions”). These may come from materials sourced overseas or investments outside Australia.
This is part of Treasury’s proposed bill introduced to parliament in March. It will encourage large companies to invest in green technology and renewables, rather than polluting projects or products manufactured using fossil fuels.
Australia’s $2 billion investment includes plans to support companies to invest overseas, through regional “landing pads”.
The landing pads act as regional hubs to drive Australian technology exports and investment into the region. This is intended to help businesses scale up their technology and break into new markets. Ideally these companies will be able to use these opportunities to reduce their scope 3 emissions.
Lowering the cost of capital by reducing the perception of risks
So far, Australian companies have had limited involvement in clean energy projects in Vietnam. The most notable exception was Macquarie’s green investment group Corio Generation’s partnership with FECON, a Vietnamese company, to develop an offshore wind farm in the Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu province.
The existing pool of investors in Vietnam’s renewable market is concentrated among Southeast Asian and East Asian companies, particularly from Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Japan.
It is unlikely this pool of investors will be sufficient to facilitate the significant volume of generation, transmission and storage infrastructure required to achieve Vietnam’s climate targets. This will provide opportunities for Australian investors.
Unfortunately many Australian investors are not yet familiar with overseas markets. This leads to higher costs of capital for renewables projects in many emerging markets.
The increase in cost due to perceived risks can stem from things such as:
a mismatch between clean energy project return profiles and investors return expectation
underdeveloped climate information architecture and market transparency measures
a lack of information or unclear policy signals related to renewable energy targets.
Increasing business-to-business connection and helping Australian investors understand this opportunity will help reduce perceived risks. This will in turn lower the cost of capital and help ignite green economy collaboration and investment into the future.
One of the authors, Trang Nguyen (far right), was part of a panel discussion on accelerating the clean energy transition at the recent ASEAN Special Summit in Melbourne. Penny Stephens/ASEAN
Governments play an important role
Having the right policy settings in place can help foster trade and investment around new technology. There is an opportunity here to nurture the emerging green economy in Southeast Asia.
Bringing businesses in green economy sectors together for the summit will provide a stronger case for both countries to decarbonise faster. This is crucial given Australia’s economy is still dependent on fossil fuel exports. Vietnam’s industrialised economy is grappling with growing energy demands.
As the world races towards net zero emissions, it’s clear Vietnam is poised to play a significant role in the region’s decarbonisation. Now is the time for Australia to strengthen its strategic relationship with Vietnam and the broader Southeast Asia region.
The article refers to research findings and activities that are part of the Australia Vietnam Green Economy Program, a joint initiative between Asialink and Climateworks Centre. The program is funded and supported by the Australian Government. Trang is the Southeast Asia Lead for Climateworks Centre, which receives funding from philanthropy and project-specific financial support from a range of private and public entities including federal, state and local government and private sector organisations and international and local non-profit organisations. Climateworks Centre works within Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute. Trang is also an independent Board Member for Asian Australian for Climate Solutions.
Anna Skarbek is on the board of the Centre for New Energy Technologies, the Green Building Council of Australia, and the Asia-Pacific Advisory Board of the Glasgow Financial Alliance on Net Zero. She is a member of the Net Zero Economy Agency Advisory Board, the Grattan Institute’s energy program reference panel and the Blueprint Institute’s strategic advisory council. Anna Skarbek is CEO of Climateworks Centre which receives funding from philanthropy and project-specific financial support from a range of private and public entities including federal, state and local government and private sector organisations and international and local non-profit organisations. Climateworks Centre works within Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute.
Infill development is an increasingly hot topic in Australian cities. It involves building on unused or underutilised land within existing urban areas.
City planners see infill development as essential. It’s a way to end urban sprawl and improve service delivery to a growing population at lower cost. Infill development has increased in popularity over several decades because it uses existing physical and social infrastructure, is close to amenities and enhances local economies.
Governments and planners have set infill development targets. However, these targets are not being met. Greenfield projects on undeveloped land continue to outpace infill development.
Infill targets aren’t being met for various reasons. These include:
opposition from some (but not all) local residents, because of increased noise and traffic disruptions
difficulty in assembling enough land to make the project feasibile
higher development costs due to land prices and higher densities
stronger market demand for greenfield housing
need to upgrade infrastructure for infill locations
complex and time-consuming planning approvals.
Greenfield development is popular with developers and consumers because it costs less up-front. However, such development may cost society more. These added costs include transport – both public transport and roads – as well as social, health and other government support services.
Governments have worked on increasing infill development for decades. One of the earliest attempts involved land development authorities. The idea originated with the Whitlam government in the early 1970s.
The Commonwealth Department of Urban and Regional Development encouraged states to establish these authorities in response to the “shortages of residential land and the accompanying rapid price rises that occurred in Sydney, as in the other major cities in Australia in the late 1960s and early 1970s”. Their purpose was “to acquire land for present and future urban development and other public uses to help moderate the housing market, stabilise land supply and support the development industry with homesite sales to be made at the lowest practicable price”.
Many states and territories have land development authorities or their equivalents. These bodies have undertaken a significant number of projects, but it’s small when considering population growth.
For example, LandCom in NSW has been involved with 220 projects and provided housing for 100,000 since it was set up. Sydney’s population has grown by more than 2 million people in this time.
While land development authorities have been around for almost 50 years they have not been as successful as hoped. One reason is that they have not focused solely on infill development. They also have tended to use land already owned by the government.
There are other issues too. Population growth has outpaced the authorities’ capacity to deliver housing. There are political sensitivities about the government taking away development opportunities from the private sector.
One reason for Australia’s housing problem is the length of time it takes to get a project approved. This is particularly true for infill development.
One attempt to overcome this obstacle was Queensland’s Priority Development Areas (PDAs), which took effect in 2012. According to Economic Development Queensland, “when a PDA is declared, Economic Development Queensland works closely with local government and other stakeholders to plan, assess and guide development within a PDA. This includes the preparation of a development scheme.” Many PDAs are urban infill projects.
Economic Development Queensland is developing Carseldine Village on a former QUT campus on Brisbane’s northside.
Another Queensland initiative announced last February is the A$350 million Incentivising Infill Fund. Its focus is to provide relief from infrastructure charges for “market-ready” private infill developments.
Governments at all levels are looking for ways to make more housing available and affordable. Infill development is a viable option, but it can be improved by making more use of mechanisms like land development authorities. They can provide co-ordinated planning and development at a scale that will improve our cities.
So, rather than looking for new solutions, we should make better use of existing ones that have proven effective.
Neil G Sipe has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
This year marks 70 years since Soviet diplomat Vladimir Petrov sensationally defected to Australia shortly before the 1954 election, beginning what came to be known as the “Petrov affair”. The defection itself is interesting – but what’s equally fascinating is how the Australian media covered the Petrov affair.
The story dominated press coverage for months. With little experience of international spying beyond the narratives of popular culture, the Australian media told the story of the Petrov affair using the familiar formulas of spy fiction and film. This coverage transformed Australia’s unsettling involvement in the world of international espionage into thrilling and sensational entertainment.
This framing – as an exciting but familiar drama – may have helped Australians manage their anxiety about the threat posed by Soviet espionage.
The key plot points of the Petrov affair are straightforward. After a carefully planned Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) operation, Vladimir Petrov – a KGB officer based in the Soviet embassy in Canberra – was convinced to defect to Australia in 1954, providing information in exchange for political asylum.
From the beginning, the Australian press portrayed the events of the Petrov affair as entertainment for their eager readers.
As the Bulletin put it at the time, Australians had long read of espionage in Europe and
felt a vicarious thrill of horror as they have read of hairbreadth escapes across borders and of spy rings.
Now their own country was a world in which Hollywood spy drama had come to life.
In media reports Australians were promised the Petrov affair contained
all the elements of a spy thriller – undercover agents, secret service men, a spy ring, secret hiding places and bribery.
And it featured an all-star cast. As one report put it:
the actors of the moment seem larger than life; their actions wilder than in any of the most lurid spy thrillers.
Vladimir Petrov and Evdokia Petrov inside the safe house in which they were held following their defection to Australia. Photograph presented as evidence to the Royal Commission on Espionage. National Archives Australia
Mrs Petrov defects
The undoubted “star of our biggest real life spy story”, as one report called her, was Evdokia Petrova, Vladimir’s glamorous wife.
From her first interview, given the day after her husband’s defection, Evdokia looked the part of a classic Hollywood damsel in distress.
This effect was only increased days later, when Evdokia appeared to be forcibly dragged on to a plane to the Soviet Union by two armed guards.
Pictures of Evdokia’s distressed face as she was led toward the plane, one shoe lost in the scuffle, were plastered across every newspaper in the country.
When Evdokia herself decided to defect a few hours later, Australia rejoiced.
sheer breathtaking drama, no thriller writer has beaten the true story of how Mrs Petrov escaped the grim clutches of Moscow’s goon squad.
The show begins
Petrov’s claims of a Soviet spy ring in Australia prompted a royal commission soon after his defection.
The first hearings of this inquiry were as heavily anticipated as the opening of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Journalists spoke of the “the blood-chilling revelations” on offer, and of “the shadow of Moscow” that seemed to linger over the inquiry.
Journalist Hal Richardson set the scene for readers of the Melbourne Argus:
There were figures so shadowy in Albert Hall this week that when you walked out into the open they seemed to disintegrate in the fragile reality of Canberra’s winter sunshine. But they were real […] And you wondered whether it was the cold outside or the shadows inside that sent shivers through you.
The leading man
Although Vladimir Petrov was undeniably a main character in the drama, his appearance at the Royal Commission was something of a let-down.
Rather than the dashing and handsome secret agent the Australian public had expected, “the leading man, Petrov himself” was instead “no matinee idol”.
Those who attended the inquiry “expecting a chapter, or anyway a page or two, out of an Eric Ambler spy novel,” came away disappointed.
“Petrov looked nothing like a spy to me,” admitted one journalist.
Instead, one reporter opined, Petrov was “just a podgy man in a dark-blue suit”.
Others observed “Petrov would not fit any fictional portrayal of an international spy”.
That these writers felt they knew what a spy should look like highlights the strong influence of popular culture on public perceptions of the Petrov affair.
The familiarity of formula fiction eases anxiety
The Australian media coverage of these events transformed the country’s brush with the clandestine events of the Cold War into something closer to entertainment.
The Petrov affair was “the spy thriller [that] outdoes fiction” and the Australian public was its audience.
As my research outlines, the Australian press and public leveraged their knowledge of popular culture to interpret events, using the common formulas of espionage fiction to understand the startling revelations stemming from Petrov’s defection.
To some extent, this dynamic continues today and many Australians still view the work of intelligence agencies and their staff through the lens of popular culture.
The secrecy that surrounds intelligence means the representations of intelligence found in popular culture are often the only way that hidden activities can be known and understood.
Melanie Brand 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 future of New Zealand’s media landscape is becoming clearer by the day, with confirmation that it will no longer feature one of the country’s big two TV news networks.
Warner Bros. Discovery has revealed that all of Newshub’s operations will be shut down, effective July 5. That includes the flagship 6pm bulletin, The AM Show, and the Newshub website.
294 staff are set to lose their jobs.
It’s also been confirmed that TVNZ’s programme Sunday will be cancelled, following yesterday’s announcement that Fair Go, as well as both 1News at Midday and 1News Tonight, are being canned in their current format.
“The day the news axe fell” – a huge blow to New Zealand’s democracy. Image: Stuff screenshot APR
New Zealand’s media industry has been rocked by the bleeding obvious which is that their failed ratings system for legacy media was always more art than science.
The NZ radio ratings system is a diary that you fill in every 15 minutes — which no one ever fills in properly.
The NZ newspaper ratings are opinion polls and the NZ TV ratings system is a magical 180 boxes that limits choice to whoever had the TV remote.
When the sales rep told the advertiser that 300,000 people would read, see, hear their advert, it was based on ratings systems that were flattering but not real.
With the ruthlessness of online audience measurement, advertisers could see exactly how many people were actually seeing their adverts, and the legacy media never adapted to this new reality.
What we see now is hollowed out journalism competing against social media hate algorithms designed to generate emotional responses rather than Fourth Estate accountability.
New Zealand has NEVER had the audience size to make advertising based broadcasting feasible, that’s why it’s always required a state broadcaster — with no Fourth Estate who will hold this hard right racist climate denying beneficiary bashing government to account?
Minister missing in action Broadcasting Minister Melissa Lee has refused to support the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill that Labour’s former minister Willie Jackson put forward that would at least force Google and Facebook to pay for the journalism they take for free.
Lee has been utterly hopeless and missing in action here — if “Democracy dies in darkness”, National are pulling the plug.
This government doesn’t want accountability, does it?
Instagram this year switched on a new filter to smother political debate and we know actual journalism has been smothered by the social media algorithms.
I don’t think that most people who get their information from their social media feeds understand they aren’t seeing the most important journalism but are in fact seeing the most inflammatory rhetoric to keep people outraged and addicted to doom scrolling.
When Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters does his big lie that the entire mainstream media were bribed because of a funding note by NZ on Air in regards to coverage of Māori issues for the Public Interest Journalism fund — which by the way was quickly clarified by NZ on Air as not an editorial demand — he conflates and maliciously spins and NZ’s democracy suffers.
Muddled TVNZ Television New Zealand has always come across like a muddle. It aspires to be BBC public broadcasting yet has the commercial imperatives of any Crown Owned Enterprise. If Labour had merged TVNZ and RNZ and made TVNZ 1 commercial free so that the advertising revenue could cross over to Newshub, it would have rebuilt the importance of public broadcasting while actually regulating the broken free market.
When will we get a Labour Party that actually gives a damn about public broadcasting rather than pay lip service to it?
Ultimately Newshub’s demise is a story of ruthless transnational interests and geopolitical cultural hegemony.
Corporate Hollywood soft power wants to continue its cultural dominance as the South Pacific friction continues between the United States and China.
New Zealand is an important plank for American hegemony in the South Pacific and as China and American competition heats up, Warners Bros Discovery suddenly buying a large stake in our media was always a geopolitical calculation over a commercial one.
Cultural dominance doesn’t require nor want an active journalism, so they will keep the channel open purely as a means of dominating domestic culture without any of the Fourth Estate obligations.
That bitter angry feeling you have watching Warner Bros Discovery destroy our Fourth Estate is righteous.
Social licence trashed They bought a media outlet that has had a 35-year history of being a structural part of our media environment and dumping it trashes their social licence in this country.
That feeling of rage you have watching a multibillion transnational vandalise our environment is going to be repeated the millisecond you see the American mining interests lining up to mine conservation land with all their promises to repair anything they break.
Remember — the transnational ain’t your friend regardless of its pronouns.
That person they rolled in with the soft-glazed CEO face to do the sad, sad crying is disingenuous and condescending.
Now Warner Bros has killed Newshub off, we have no option as Kiwis but to boycott whatever is left of TV3 and water down Warner Bros remaining interests altogether.
They’ve burnt their bridges with us in New Zealand by walking away from their social contract, we should have no troubles returning the favour!
The only winners here are rightwing politicians who don’t want their counterproductive and corrupt decisions to be scrutinised.
We are a poorer and weaker democracy after these news cuts.
Why bother having a Minister of Broadcasting if all they do is fiddle while the industry burns?
Welcome to your new media future in Aotearoa New Zealand . . .
The appointment of former Labour finance minister Grant Robertson as vice-chancellor is a first for Otago University, which has never had a non-academic in the role. But it’s not hard to see why the university’s governing body made the decision.
Universities are navigating a difficult funding environment. The current government has commissioned a sector-wide review, but its instincts for thrift mean the challenges will likely continue for some time.
Combine this national predicament with Otago’s own specific financial problems, and the choice of new vice-chancellor makes strategic sense. Robertson’s public profile and political networks may be useful assets at this critical moment. Cometh the hour, cometh the former finance minister.
However, the appointment also raises a larger question, barely mentioned in the ensuing public coverage: should former politicians lead universities at all?
For a sector that trades in independent opinion, analysis and debate, it’s surprising the announcement of a senior politician to lead New Zealand’s oldest university produced so little public discussion.
Was this akin to a collective sigh of relief? After all, Robertson has a sympathetic stance towards his old university and towards the potential of public institutions in general.
Let’s consider a parallel universe, though, where a politician of a different stripe was appointed to lead a university after their parliamentary career. Were a former National or ACT Party minister to be hired, for example, would there be so little debate?
This hypothetical suggests we need principles that transcend individual cases in order to better assess appointments to executive roles within universities.
Otago University: New Zealand’s oldest university appoints its first non-academic vice-chancellor. Getty Images
Competence and corporatisation
The first area of principle is competence. Universities were traditionally led by academics. This was a product of their historical guild-like training and collegial governance.
This openness to appointing non-academics to executive roles has proceeded in step with New Zealand’s “corporatisation” of universities and their governing bodies.
For example, in 2015, legislative provisions were changed to reduce staff representation and give ministerial appointees greater weight on the governing bodies of New Zealand universities.
In 2021, the University of Sydney hired Mark Scott as its first non-academic vice-chancellor. Scott is a former director-general of the New South Wales Department of Education and former managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Many universities around the world are breaking similar ground.
This is familiar territory in New Zealand. John Hood, for example, was a director of Fonterra and Fletcher Chellenge before starting his university leadership career in 1999. He served as vice-chancellor at the University of Auckland and later the University of Oxford.
Critics of non-academic appointments have pointed to a variety of potential problems, including a lack of knowledge about academic pursuits, academic work and the particularities of the university.
They also point to a growing separation between the careers of those “at the coalface” and those “in leadership”, and to a narrowing of the university’s civic mission by corporate and managerial mindsets.
History tells us, however, that non-academics can be at least as capable of leading universities as those trained as academics.
An academic vice-chancellor draws on deep experience within universities. They ought to know how these unusual institutions are run – and how they “tick” in a less formal sense.
But many of the skills required of a vice-chancellor — strategic thinking, diplomacy, stringent governance — have much in common with the role of a commercial CEO or director-general.
When it comes to competence, Grant Robertson clearly satisfied the University of Otago’s governing council. This might not be the case for every politician.
But the discussion should not be limited to issues of competence alone. It should also consider how the appointment of politicians to university leadership roles affects perceived and actual independence.
Universities began as elite institutions with a degree of separation from society. Shielded from commercial temptation, academics were able to pursue knowledge for its own sake. And shielded from political loyalties, they could ask questions of our social, political and economic systems, and those who create and benefit from them.
The university’s role as “critic and conscience of society” became seen as central to democracy. New Zealand went one step further than most countries by enshrining this in legislation.
Perceived independence
Robertson, of course, is not the first to move from politics to academic leadership. Former Labour education and social development minister Steve Maharey was vice-chancellor at Massey University from 2008 to 2016.
While that appointment was also met with little discussion at the time, Maharey had some claim to experience within universities, having previously taught at Massey.
Internationally, universities are increasingly hiring politicians and other non-academics for non-executive staff roles. There are legitimate concerns about these appointments, too.
But they are less acute than those associated with having politicians lead universities. Being seen as another state sector agency, or aligned to certain political parties, would seriously compromise the democratic function of the university.
In the United States, the university sector is extremely varied and there is a strong tradition of movement between careers in universities, business and government. Yet even there the appointment of politicians to lead universities is fairly rare.
Elsewhere, it’s rarer still. There is a recognition, at least implicitly, that the potential risk to the independence and distinctive societal role of universities requires frank discussion.
Tom Baker has received public research funding from the Marsden Fund.
The Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, John Feakes, has become the first foreign diplomat to visit the “valley of tears” in Wapenamanda, Enga, province.
Feakes braved fears of tribal warfare when he visited Australian government-funded projects at a tribal fighting zone on Wednesday.
The battlefields of Middle Lai, where more than 60 men lost their lives, fell silent after the signing of the landmark Hilton Peace Agreement last month in Port Moresby between the warring alliances.
The purpose of the Feakes tour was to visit Australian government-funded projects and one of those is the multimillion kina Huli Open Polytechnical Institute which is still under construction and is situated in the deserted fighting zone.
A few metres away from the perimeter fence, a pile of dead bodies had been loaded on police trucks that caught world news media headlines.
Feakes walked on the soil and chose Enga as his first to visit out of Port Moresby into the volatile Upper Highlands region.
His visit in this part of the region gives confidence to the international community and the general public that the Enga province still exists despite negative reports on tribal conflicts.
Education funding The Australian diplomat’s government has invested substantial funding in the province, essentially in education.
The Feakes tour to the project sites is to strengthen that Australian and Papua New Guinea relationship and to remain as a strong partner in promoting development aspirations in the country.
“My visit is to give confidence to the international community that the [Enga] province is not as bad as they may think when seeing reports in the media,” he said.
“Every community has its share of problems and Enga province is no different.”
Feakes and his first secretary, Tom Battams, visited more than five Australian government-funded projects after they were received by local traditional dancers, Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas, Provincial Administrator Sandis Tsaka, provincial assembly members, senior public servants and the general public at the Kumul Boomgate near the provincial border of Western Highlands and Enga provinces.
The projects visited were: Kumul Lodge, Mukuramanda Jail, Hela-Opena Technical College at Akom, Innovative University of Enga-Education Faculty Irelya campus and Wabag market.
A lot of bull exchanges and alleged killing of people took place recently near Hela Open-Technical College during the tribal conflict between Palinau and Yopo alliances but nothing happened on Wednesday as Feakes and the delegation drove through to visit the institution.
Convoy waved Instead, villagers stood peacefully along the roadsides starting from Kuimanda to Akom (areas treated as trouble zones) waving at the convoy of vehicles escorting the high commissioner.
Such gestures was described by many, including Tsak Local Level Government Council President Thomas Lawai and Provincial Law and Order director Nelson Leia, as a sign that the people were preparing to restore lasting peace in the affected areas.
Feakes also had the opportunity to talk to students at IUE campus where he told them to study hard to become meaningful contributors to growth of the country
Feakes was also visiting the new Enga Provincial Hospital, Enga College of Nursing, Enga Cultural Centre, Wabag Amphitheatre and Ipatas centre yesterday before returning to Port Moresby.
Australia’s weather bureau copped harsh criticism after El Niño failed to deliver a much-vaunted dry summer in eastern Australia. Parts of northern Queensland in the path of Tropical Cyclone Jasper had a record wet December and areas of central Victoria had a record wet January. Overall, the summer was 19% wetter than average for Australia as a whole.
This led to debate in the media and during senate estimates around the Bureau of Meteorology’s ability to make accurate predictions as the climate changes. The value of seasonal forecasting in particular has been called into question.
Weather prediction has actually improved in recent years. And there are exciting developments on the horizon involving artificial intelligence. But the effect of future climate change on weather and seasonal prediction is not yet well understood.
As climate scientists, we know 7–14-day forecasts and seasonal predictions stack up pretty well when it comes to the crunch. That’s because agencies such as the Bureau check the success of their forecasts against reality and make this information public. While it’s possible climate change may pose challenges to weather and seasonal prediction in some regions, we believe improvements in forecasting far exceed any losses in accuracy.
Ever since the UK physicist Lewis Fry Richardson first envisaged the possibility in a 1922 book, weather forecasting has been growing more accurate and powerful.
The science of meteorology took a great leap forward with the boom in computing capability.
Now, highly detailed satellite data and weather observations feed into multiple computer simulations. This makes 7-day forecasts pretty accurate across the globe, although less so in poorer areas of the world.
Satellite data allows us to observe the weather far better than in the past. This image was captured by the Japanese Himawari-8 satellite on March 18, 2024. The Bureau of Meteorology
As we can never know the state of the atmosphere perfectly at any given time, it is beneficial to run many simulations with slightly different starting conditions. This gives an idea of how the weather may change and how much confidence we have in those changes.
The same principles that govern weather forecasting also support seasonal climate forecasting. Models representing the atmosphere and ocean are cast forward in time to give a three-month outlook.
Beyond about ten days we’re not able to say with certainty what the weather will be like for a precise location at a specific time. But we can give an indication of the chances the weather will be significantly hotter, cooler, drier or wetter than the seasonal average.
Our ability to predict conditions over the coming season has greatly advanced in just the past 20 years. We now better understand how the various climate drivers influence our weather, and we have more computational power to run models.
However model-based seasonal forecasting – providing location-specific guidance on likely rainfall and temperature compared to the long-term average for months at a time – is still relatively new. It has further to go to provide reliable, usable information to decision-makers.
How do we measure how good a forecast is?
Meteorologists know whether their forecasts were right or wrong after the fact, because agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology have entire teams dedicated to comparing their forecasts with what actually happened.
The table above shows a simple example of how scientists calculate how good a forecast is. From the number of hits, misses, false alarms and correct negatives we can calculate a range of scores.
This becomes more complex when we want to know not just whether the forecast correctly predicted it would rain, but also how much rain, and whether the quoted probability of rainfall was actually right.
Additionally, as models become more sophisticated and higher-resolution than they used to be, they can simulate more realistic-looking weather systems such as lines of thunderstorms. It’s like watching TV in high definition instead of grainy black and white. Assessing forecast capability gets more challenging at high resolutions because flaws we wouldn’t previously have seen are magnified too.
Overall, when we look at weather forecast skill over time, we see major improvements. These improvements are particularly large in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is less land for weather stations. In these remote areas, satellite data has vastly improved our knowledge of the state of the atmosphere – providing a better starting point for forecast simulations.
Seasonal forecasting capability is also improving, but there is less study of these changes. Skill of seasonal outlooks varies depending on the time of year and on whether major climate influences such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (the year-to-year swing between El Niño, neutral and La Niña phases) are active.
Seasonal forecasts are the best in spring when the El Niño-Southern Oscillation is at its peak and El Niño or La Niña is often providing a strong and predictable push to seasonal rainfall and temperatures. In contrast, seasonal forecasts are typically worse in autumn when the El Niño-Southern Oscillation transitions between phases and the drivers of wet or dry conditions are less predictable.
So is climate change affecting our ability to predict the weather?
Climate change is certainly changing our weather. But it’s not clear if that’s making weather harder to predict. There hasn’t been much research into this yet.
Some changes could affect predictability, particularly if more rain falls from isolated thunderstorms and less from larger-scale weather systems. This is the general expectation with climate change and already appears to be happening in parts of Australia. Such a change is not well understood but would likely make local rainfall totals harder to predict.
We already see lower seasonal prediction skill in summer when more rain falls in small-scale systems not strongly tied to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Changes in the strength of the relationship between climate influences, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and Australian climate could also make seasonal prediction easier or harder.
Given the rate of improvement in weather prediction has been so high, it’s unlikely anyone would notice any effect of climate change on weather forecast skill any time soon. As weather forecasting and seasonal prediction continue to improve due to scientific and technological advances this will likely drown out any climate change effect on prediction.
Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program and the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather.
Kimberley Reid receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
Michael Barnes receives funding from ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
Nick Earl-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun carried an exclusive story on Sunday headed “Half a million extra on welfare”. It was subheaded: NDIS blowing the budget.
The story said the number of Australians on welfare had leapt by 425,000 since 2018, with much of the increase coming from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
It quoted the Institute of Public Affairs, which published its data on Monday.
Those data are incomplete. Only four of Australia’s income support payments are included: the Disability Support Pension, JobSeeker, Youth Allowance (Other) and Youth Allowance (Student and Apprentice), as well as the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which is not an income support payment.
This means the quoted data cover only about three-quarters of the working-age Australians receiving income support payments and none of the older Australians receiving the age pension.
40,500 more on benefits, not 425,000 more
Department of Social Services figures show the total count of people receiving the four payments in mid-2018 was 1.765 million, climbing to 1.805 million by mid-2023. That’s an increase of around 40,500, or just over 2% in a period in which Australia’s population grew by more than 5%.
The institute presents only a grand total for its (incomplete) list of the number of Australians receiving welfare, rather than a figure for each payment, but it is apparent that all but 40,500 of the claimed increase of 425,000 on welfare must have been in the one extra scheme – the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
But the NDIS isn’t welfare. While it is a very significant spending program, it doesn’t pay cash to its participants or help with their ordinary living costs. It provides services related to their disability.
Including the NDIS leads to double counting
Many NDIS participants most certainly are on welfare. About 70% get the Disability Support Pension. Others may get payments like JobSeeker.
This means the Institute of Public Affairs has counted these people twice.
Rather than being “welfare”, many NDIS programs are specifically designed to get people off welfare and into jobs. The share of NDIS participants on the Disability Support Pension fell from 77% to around 70% between 2018 and 2022.
The NDIS is also able get carers of people with disabilities into employment.
Also, many of the NDIS participants are children. More than 278,000 NDIS participants are aged 14 and below, and another 58,000 are aged 15 to 18. It is simply not correct to add children to the number of adults on benefits.
And the growth in the NDIS doesn’t tell us much about growth in the provision of disability services.
When the scheme was rolled out nationally in 2017, about 70% of the recipients were moved from services previously provided by state governments or the Commonwealth government.
What’s really happening
The table below sets out the Department of Social Services count for the four payments identified by the institute alongside what the institute says is the total including participants in the NDIS.
The institute’s totals are less than the department’s figures in the years leading up to 2018, and much more than the department’s figures from 2019 on.
While much of this is due to the national rollout of the NDIS from 2017, an oddity is that the institute’s totals suggest the NDIS had negative 69,100 participants in 2018, which it obviously didn’t.
As mentioned earlier, if we simply look at the number of people receiving the payments the institute deems important and don’t double-count NDIS participants, the increase since 2018 is about 40,500 rather than 425,000.
But much of even this increase is an artefact.
JobSeeker messed with the figures
In March 2020 the Newstart unemployment payment was renamed JobSeeker and broadened to replace seven more-minor payments that ceased to exist.
In 2018, about 30,000 people received these minor payments. By excluding them from its count before 2020 and including them (as part of JobSeeker) afterward, the institute might have helped create about three-quarters of the apparent increase of 40,100 in the number of Australians “on welfare”.
More importantly, the Age Pension age climbed from 65 to 67 from 2017.
The age increase means recipients now continue to receive the Disability Support Pension and JobSeeker until they are 67.
My calculations suggest that had it not been for the increase in the age pension age, the number of Australians on the benefits the institute includes in its numbers would have fallen by more than 50,000 rather than increased by 40,500.
This means the institute’s decisions about what to count and what not to count have masked a decline in the number of Australians on payments.
Excluding the age pension (which the institute wants to do), the share of the population aged 16 to 64 on all other payments slipped from 15.2% to 14.4%.
Including all income support payments, the share of the total population on payments fell from 24.6% to 23.4% between 2018 and 2023.
Including the age pension and all payments, around five million Australians receive some sort of income support. It’s a substantial proportion of the population, but it isn’t increasing.
Peter Whiteford receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He was an independent member of the Sustainability Committee of the Board of the National Disability Insurance Agency between 2014 and 2016. He is a member of the Interim Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. The views expressed are his own.
I’ve been leafing through the catalogues from the first four decades of the 20th century (though Foy & Gibson printed catalogues for longer and plenty of other department stores distributed catalogues, too) to try to understand what attracted Australian customers to wearing wool – with goods so popular that Foy & Gibson spun an astonishing 8,100,000 miles of yarn by the end of the 1920s.
Foy & Gibson
Humans wore wool for thousands of years, driving a thriving wool trade before marketing emerged to help sell even more of the natural fibre.
As a major manufacturer of woollen cloths and clothes in Australia, Foy & Gibson’s “two miles of mills” dominated the inner-Melbourne suburb of Collingwood in the 20th century.
The wool spun in these mills was made into cloth and clothing for sale in Foy & Gibson’s flagship Smith Street store. Other stores opened in Melbourne’s city and suburbs, and further afield, including Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Country customers used Foy & Gibson’s mail-order catalogues to help make their selections. Clothing dominated the pages, although dinner sets and dolls, hair lotions and horse harnesses, medicines and manchester, perambulators, pumps and plenty more appeared.
Women’s coats, with descriptions ranging from “practical” to “fashionable”, could be purchased in tweeds, velours and more. “Handsome” frocks were fashioned on the “smartest styles from abroad”.
Men’s ready-made or made-to-measure suits – the second accessible at a distance through the careful completion of a self-measurement form – were readily available. So were boys’ knickerbocker suits.
These and many more of Foy & Gibson’s clothes were made of wool, though other natural fibres – cotton, linen and silk – appeared in the catalogues. Rayon, the first “man-made” fibre, did too.
Foy & Gibson proudly promoted Australian made, with some goods called “Australian throughout – from greasy wool to finished article”. This wool, Foy & Gibson assured, was the “purest and best” available. It was the “finest Australian wool”.
Purity and quality were important when many wore wool directly against their skin.
Wool drew perspiration away from the body, he emphasised, while other cloths clung wetly – and unhealthily – to the body. Jaeger believed wearing wool from underwear through to outer layers allowed “noxious exhalations” from the skin to pass through.
Jaeger’s system stemmed from a longer history of pure, natural fibres linked to good health. Linen underwear had been worn for hygiene reasons for centuries, as people grappled with cleanliness and how often to wash the body.
Pure fibres and health remained tightly entangled in the 20th century. Foy & Gibson leapt on this trend and assured its customers of “better health” in wool. It kept the body “at a natural comfortable warmth”, transmitted fresh air, absorbed perspiration and prevented chills.
Some donned wool as combinations: underwear joined at the waist that extended from neck to ankle. Others preferred to wear wool “singlets” with long or half sleeves and a single row of buttons at the neck or made with a double-breasted front. Foy & Gibson sold singlets in fine, medium, heavy or extra heavy weights for different seasons.
Comfortable in wool
This experience of wool against the skin – and its healthy qualities – extended to costumes worn to the beach.
A growing interest in physical culture in the 20th century’s first decades saw ideas around fitness, vitality and beauty intersect. Exercising programs gained momentum and beach bathing grew in popularity.
Bathing costumes dramatically transformed. Australia’s beaches provided fresh sea air, invigorating water and warm sun rays that encouraged stripped-down, woollen-clad beachgoers to bare their bodies.
Foy & Gibson made swimsuits in any club colourway for lifesavers, just as they became a national icon.
These woollen swimsuits might have sagged when wet, or clung uncomfortably and unflatteringly, but makers like Foy & Gibson sought to improve fit, elasticity and comfort each year.
New swimsuits were styled for leisure or for active use. Foy & Gibson’s streamlined “Siren” swimsuit, launched in 1930, could be bought in a “speed” or “suntan” cut. Both, customers were told, gave “the close-fitting effect so desirable” while “allowing perfect freedom of movement”.
These costumes were comfortable in and out of the water.
And not just that. As the Foy & Gibson catalogues remind us, wool can be made into cloths and clothes of different weights and textures: some thin and light, and others making the warmest winter woollies.
Many Australians with disability feel on the edge of a precipice right now. Recommendations from the disability royal commission and the NDIS review were released late last year. Now a draft NDIS reform bill has been tabled. In this series, experts examine what new proposals could mean for people with disability.
The government’s recently introduced bill aims to get the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) “back on track”. Against a backdrop of concerns over the scheme’s cost, it sets out changes that should substantially reform the NDIS over the next few years.
There is a promised transformation in terms of how NDIS support packages are calculated. The new approach will prioritise evidence-based supports and hopefully allow more flexibility to participants in how they spend their budgets.
But the bill also introduces a definition of what constitutes an NDIS support. Holidays, groceries, payment of utility bills, online gambling, perfume, cosmetics, standard household appliances and whitegoods will not be funded, the bill’s explanatory notes specify.
Such exclusions could prove shortsighted, creating more inefficiencies within the scheme and mean disabled people lose opportunities for independence.
This will be supported by the use of functional assessment tools, removing some need for people to collect evidence from medical professionals.
“Your needs assessment will look at your support needs as a whole,” NDIS minister Bill Shorten said on the day the bill was tabled. “And we won’t distinguish between primary and secondary disabilities any longer.”
At the moment plans are made up of a number of categories of funding and line items that set out how plans should be spent. The NDIS review noted this process is often confusing for people and limits how they can spend funds. So the changes offer more spending flexibility.
But the bill’s new definition of NDIS support, aims to:
narrow the scope of […] constitutionally valid supports to those that are appropriately funded by the NDIS.
Whitegoods are one of the exclusions listed to clarify guidance on what supports people with disability can access through the NDIS.
At the moment, what an NDIS support is isn’t defined. Provided something is deemed reasonable and necessary and related to disability, it can be funded.
At first glance, whitegoods might not seem like important disability supports – and therefore a category ripe for constraining costs. But banning these NDIS supports will likely increase costs and could reduce independence for NDIS participants.
People with disability have long been at the cutting edge of technology, seeking to use different products and applications to support them in everyday tasks that many of us take for granted.
In modern terms, an example could be a person with a physical impairment that means they find it difficult to lift heavy items. This may mean they struggle to lift wet washing out of a machine or to hang it on a washing line.
So, a combination washer-dryer appliance could mean they are able to independently do their laundry. The alternative option would be to have a support worker to take clothes from the washing machine, hang them on a line and bring them in again once dry.
Having such an appliance allows a person to independently achieve household tasks their disability could prevent or make more difficult or dangerous.
It is also likely to be more cost-effective over the long term. The hourly rate for a support worker employed on weekdays is typically between A$40–$50 per hour. It doesn’t take many hours of support-worker time before purchasing a whitegood becomes more cost-effective.
For some people who struggle to navigate a kitchen and cook safely, a device like a Thermomix multicooker (that can chop, mix and cook) can mean they are able to independently prepare meals.
These are expensive at around $2,000. But again, this expense can be justified when compared with the cost of hiring a support worker to prepare meals. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has previously overturned decisions by the National Disability Insurance Agency (which administers the NDIS) not to fund technologies like this on the basis these are disability related expenses.
The importance of early investment for independence
The NDIS was introduced in response to the deficiencies of the previous system. It is is meant to take a lifelong view of disability funding.
Unlike the previous crisis-driven system, the idea of the NDIS is to invest money in the short term to save money in the longer term. Investment in disability care improves social and economic participation and independence.
Narrowly defining disability supports could serve to reduce innovation within the scheme and result in poorer care outcomes. That would only add to cost pressures over the longer term.
Helen Dickinson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council and Children and Young People with Disability Australia.
It is very common in Australian schools to “stream” students for subjects such as English, science and maths. This means students are grouped into different classes based on their previous academic attainment, or in some cases, just a perception of their level of ability.
Students can also be streamed as early as primary school. Yet there are no national or state policies on this. This means school principals are free to decide what will happen in their schools.
Why are students streamed in Australians schools? And is this a good idea? Our research on streaming maths classes shows we need to think much more carefully about this very common practice.
Why do schools stream?
At a maths teacher conference in Sydney in late 2023, I did a live survey about school approaches to streaming.
This survey was done via interactive software while I was giving a presentation. There were 338 responses from head teachers in maths in either high schools or schools that go all the way from Kindergarten to Year 12. Most of the teachers were from public schools.
In a sign of how widespread streaming is, 95% of head teachers said they streamed maths classes in their schools.
Respondents said one of the main reasons is to help high-achieving students and make sure they are appropriately challenged. As one teacher said:
[We stream] to push the better students forward.
But almost half the respondents said they believed all students were benefiting from this system.
We also heard how streaming is seen as a way to cope with the teacher shortage and specific lack of qualified maths teachers. These qualifications include skills in both maths and maths teaching.
More than half (65%) of respondents said streaming can “aid differentiation [and] support targeted student learning interventions”. In other words, streaming is a way to cope with different levels of ability in the classrooms and make the job of teaching a class more straightforward. One respondent said:
[we stream because] it’s easier to differentiate with a class of students that have similar perceived ability.
But while many schools and teachers assume streaming is good for students, this is not what the research says.
Our 2020 study, on streaming was based on interviews with 85 students and 22 teachers from 11 government schools.
This found streaming creates a “glass ceiling effect” – in other words, students cannot progress out of the stream they are initially assigned to without significant remedial work to catch them up.
As one teacher told us, students in lower-ability classes were then placed at a “massive disadvantage”. This is because they can miss out on segments of the curriculum because the class may progress more slowly or is deliberately not taught certain sections deemed too complex.
Often students in our study were unaware of this missed content until Year 10 and thinking about their options for the final years of school and beyond. They may not be able to do higher-level maths in Year 11 and 12 because they are too far behind. As one teacher explained:
they didn’t have enough of that advanced background for them to be able to study it. It was too difficult for them to begin with.
This comes as fewer students are completing advanced (calculus-based) maths.
If students do not study senior maths, they do not have the background for studying for engineering and other STEM careers, which we know are in very high demand.
On top of this, students may also be stigmatised as “low ability” in maths. While classes are not labelled as such, students are well aware of who is in the top classes and who is not. This can have an impact on students’ confidence about maths.
International research has also found streaming students is inequitable.
As a 2018 UK study showed, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be put in lower streamed classes.
A 2009 review of research studies found that not streaming students was better for low-ability student achievement and had no effect on average and high-ability student achievement.
Streaming is also seen as a way to cope with teachers shortages, and teachers teaching out of their field of expertise. Vanessa Garcia/ Pexels, CC BY
Amid concerns about Australian students’ maths performance in national and international tests, schools need to stop assuming streaming is the best approach for students.
The research indicates it would be better if students were taught in mixed-ability classes – as long as teachers are supported and class sizes are small enough.
This means all students have the opportunity to be taught all of the curriculum, giving them the option of doing senior maths if they want to in Year 11 and Year 12.
It also means students are not stigmatised as “poor at maths” from a young age.
But to do so, teachers and schools must be given more teaching resources and support. And some of this support needs to begin in primary school, rather than waiting until high school to try and catch students up.
Students also need adequate career advice, so they are aware of how maths could help future careers and what they need to do to get there.
Elena Prieto-Rodriguez receives funding from the NSW Department of Education to work with out-of-field teachers in mathematics.
