After a year-long push to raise money via private capital, Cricket Australia (CA) has announced it will not sell some or all of its Big Bash League (BBL) franchises.

The news comes after Queensland Cricket told CA it would join Cricket NSW in rejecting the private ownership idea first presented by CA in mid-2025.

So, why was CA looking at private equity, why did the two powerful states reject the idea, and are there any alternatives?

Why did CA pursue private equity?

The BBL was established in 2011 and consists of eight city-based franchises: two each in Melbourne and Sydney, plus teams in Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart. CA owns the league and its franchises, while the state associations manage the teams.

In its early years, the competition was a breath of fresh air for cricket fans, with games regularly attracting healthy attendances and prime-time television audiences.

Despite the BBL’s success, CA has struggled financially: it has made annual losses in five of the past ten years and reached what CA described as a low point with the loss of A$31.9 million in 2023–24, before recovering to a smaller loss of $11.3 million in 2024–25.

The governing body has had to cut significant costs in areas such as administration, pathways and community cricket.

There is obvious appeal in a massive cash injection that would boost the bottom line.

As rumours of a possible selloff swirled, CA engaged the Boston Consulting Group to develop a two-tier privatisation model:

• a 49% partial sale of six BBL clubs, and

• a full sale of one club in each of Sydney and Melbourne.

CA forecast these options would inject between A$600 million and $800 million into its coffers.

The consultants were able to draw on the experience of existing privatised cricket competitions, including the Indian Premier League, Caribbean Premier League and SA20 (South Africa).

Why did the idea fall flat?

CA needed five of the states to agree to the proposals if it was to move forward with its plans.

South Australia was in favour of a “hybrid” model (with heavy caveats on investment), while Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia were keen to pursue private investment. NSW had been the most vocal opponent, with Queensland also against the idea.

CA was hoping private investors would be in place for the 2027–28 season.

On Thursday, CA chief executive Todd Greenberg predicted private equity would eventually be brought in:

I do think at some point in our lifetimes that private capital will come in. If we’re going to compete with the rest of the world it is inevitable. Our whole project has been about balancing the risks that come with that and making sure the controls are in place for Australian cricket to bring private capital in but continue to operate the way the game has been governed and should be governed.

Is private investment a panacea?

Many professional sports leagues have turned towards private finance. A recent case in point is Rugby Australia (RA).

RA’s financial issues were not dissimilar to those facing the BBL: RA finished the 2024–25 year with a $38.5 million deficit, on top of a $13 million deficit for 2023–24 and a $13 million negative equity position.

However, RA was successful in raising private capital, but not in the normal manner of selling equity.

Rather it secured an $80 million private credit facility from Pacific Equity Partners, which it later repaid ahead of schedule thanks to the receipts from the British and Irish Lions tour.

The advantages of RA choosing debt over private equity include:

• it retained 100% of commercial revenues

• it maintained full control of the sport’s direction

• it kept the door open for future private equity deals.

Upsides and downsides

It is difficult to find a report from management consultants that does not recommend privatisation. It is a convenient strategy because professional sports can solidify their finances without serious structural reforms.

Private equity investment would have likely led to higher salaries for players, which would in turn attract more elite talent. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine a better on-field product would attract more broadcast dollars, sponsors and fans.

Yet among the rosy predictions of financial gain, there is often an under-quantification of the downsides. These include:

• a possible loss of competitive balance. Currently, CA attempts to ensure rough equality among teams. Privatisation will likely favour the big, fully privatised franchises

• likely alienation of fan bases if new owners rename or rebrand teams, which is what happened recently in England’s Hundred competition after ownership stakes were sold to IPL teams and US investors

• intangible assets such as the league’s image, reputation and fan appreciation, which are often underestimated, may be impacted by dramatic changes such as private ownership models.

This is not to argue against private investment but rather to point out there are considerable disadvantages to consider.

There are other options

CA does need money but privatisation of BBL franchises would have been risky and premature.

RA, not normally seen as a model of financial efficiency, has shown the use of debt rather than private equity can be a means of establishing financial stability without rushing into privatisation.

– ref. Cricket Australia’s Big Bash cash grab is rejected – but there are better options on the table – https://theconversation.com/cricket-australias-big-bash-cash-grab-is-rejected-but-there-are-better-options-on-the-table-280028

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island.

We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about that particular time. Odysseus might have replied, “It was nothing. In fact, it was less than nothing. Negative five years I dwelt with Calypso. How else could I have arrived home after only ten years? If you don’t believe me, ask her.”

Quantum particles, it turns out, are just as wily as Odysseus, as we have shown in an experiment published in Physical Review Letters. Not only can their arrival time suggest that they dwelt with other particles for a negative amount of time, but if one asks those other particles, they will corroborate the story.

Photons dwelling with atoms

Our experiment used photons – quantum particles of light – and the against-the-odds journey they must undertake to pass straight through a cloud of rubidium atoms.

These atoms have a “resonance” with the photons, meaning the energy of the photon can be transferred temporarily to the atoms as an atomic excitation. This allows the photon to “dwell” in the atomic cloud for a time before being released.

For this resonance to be effective, the photon must have a well-defined energy, matching the amount of energy required to put a rubidium atom into an excited state.

But, by a form of Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle, if the energy of the photon is well defined then its timing must be uncertain: the pulse of light the photon occupies must have a long duration. This means we can’t know exactly when the photon enters the cloud, but we can know on average when it enters.

If a photon like this is fired into the cloud, the most likely outcome is that its energy will be transferred to the atoms, and then re-emitted as a photon travelling in a random direction. In such cases, the photon is scattered, and fails to arrive at its Ithaca.

Photon arrival times

But if the photon does make it straight through, a strange thing happens. Based on the average time when the photon enters the cloud, one can calculate the expected average time it would arrive at the far side of the cloud, assuming it travels at the speed of light (as photons usually do).

What one finds is that the photon actually arrives far earlier than that. In fact, it arrives so early it appears to have spent a negative amount of time inside the cloud – to exit, on average, before it enters.

This effect has been known for decades and was observed in a 1993 experiment. But physicists had mostly decided not to take this negative time seriously.

That’s because it can be explained by saying that only the very front of the long-duration pulse makes it straight through the atomic cloud, while the rest is scattered. This leads to a successful (non-scattered) photon arriving earlier than would be naively expected.

Asking the atoms

However, Aephraim Steinberg, one of the authors of that 1993 paper, was not so quick to accept this dismissal of the negative time as an artefact. In his laboratory at the University of Toronto, he wanted to find out what happened if one queried the rubidium atoms in the cloud to find out how long the photon had spent dwelling among them as an excitation. After an initial experiment with inconclusive results, he asked me, as a quantum theorist, for help in working out what to expect.

When we talk of querying the atoms, what this means in practice is continuously making a measurement on the atoms while the photon is passing through the cloud, to probe whether the photon’s energy is currently dwelling there. But there is a subtlety here: measurements in quantum physics inevitably disturb the system being measured.

If we were to make a precise measurement of whether the photon is dwelling in the atoms, at each instant of time, we would prevent the atoms from interacting with the photon. It is as if, merely by watching Calypso closely, we would stop her getting her hands on Odysseus (or vice versa). This is the well known quantum Zeno effect, which would destroy the very phenomenon we want to study.

Our experiment

The solution is to make, instead, a very imprecise (but still very accurately calibrated) measurement. That is the price paid to keep the disturbance negligible. Specifically, we fired a weak laser beam – unrelated to the single photon pulse – through the cloud of atoms, and measured small changes in the phase of the beam’s light to probe whether the atoms were excited.

Any single run of the experiment gives only a very rough indication of whether the photon dwelt in the atoms, but averaging millions of runs yields an accurate dwell time.

Amazingly, the result of this weak measurement of dwell time, when the photon goes straight through the cloud, exactly equals the negative time suggested by the photons’ average arrival time. Prior to our work, no-one suspected that these two times, measured in entirely different ways, would be equal.

Crucially, the negative value of the weakly measured dwell time cannot be explained by imagining that only the front of the photon’s pulse gets through, unlike the time inferred from the arrival time.

So what does this all mean? Is a time machine just around the corner?

Sadly, no. Our experiment is fully explained by standard physics.

But it does show that negative dwell time is not an artefact. However paradoxical it may seem, it has a directly measurable effect on the atomic cloud that the photon traverses. And it reminds us that there are still lands to discover on the odyssey that is quantum research.

– ref. Physicists have measured ‘negative time’ in the lab – https://theconversation.com/physicists-have-measured-negative-time-in-the-lab-278996

With the release this week of the government’s News Bargaining Incentive, it’s worth reconsidering the origins and achievements of its predecessor, the News Media Bargaining Code.

Both have the same aim: to gain payment from the search and social media companies that profit from the use of media content, but do not effectively pay for this necessary input to their business.

So what did we learn from the first laws, and how can that be applied to this new attempt to make tech companies pay for news?

A case of market failure

The bargaining code had its origins in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC’s) Digital Platform Inquiry from December 2017 to June 2019. The inquiry was tasked with examining competition, consumer, advertising and news issues.

There were 23 recommendations, one of which was for a news media bargaining code.

The logic for the code was that search and social media companies needed news, but they could choose any media outlet. But the media had no choice but to align with the major platforms.

There was thus a market power imbalance, a classic market failure. While not all market failures need a response, this one did, given the critical role that news media plays in our democracy.

The logic for the design of the code came from access regimes which the ACCC regulated in other areas. For example, many companies export their produce, but only having one port from which to do so gives the port huge market power.

In that situation, “regulated access regimes” can be used that require the parties to negotiate on the access fees and, failing agreement, they would be set by arbitration. The fees would be set via a negotiate/arbitrate process, not the use of significant market power.

A contentious start

The news media bargaining code required designated platform companies to negotiate with media companies and, failing agreement, an arbitrator would decide the payment for media content by search and social media companies.

Naturally, there were some enhancements. Perhaps the key one was that the code required the platforms to negotiate will all eligible media companies, which were to be those primarily devoted to public interest news.

Both Google and Meta objected to the legislation. Google threatened to leave Australia, while Meta removed all news and much more from Facebook.

Both eventually backed down, but they obtained one compromise from the government: platform companies would not be designated under the code if they did a sufficient number of deals with media companies.

This actually turned out well for the media companies as the platforms did numerous deals within around six months – much faster than had they been designated.

They were not designated under the code but this was never the objective; deals were.

More than $1 billion in deals

As public policy initiatives go, the News Media Bargaining Code was a success and a world first.

Deals worth around $250 million per year to Australian media companies were done, meeting the expectations of the ACCC.

Google did deals with virtually all relevant media companies, while Meta did deals with most. Importantly, some small media companies achieved deals better that the larger companies on a per-journalist basis.

While more than $1 billion was paid to media companies over five years, a problem emerged. When Meta’s three-year deals expired, it said it would not do any further deals. Google’s largely five-year deals continued.

Meta said it did not need news on its platform and, in response to legislation in Canada that largely copied the Australian code, but under which Meta was automatically designated, Meta took all news off its Canadian platforms.

While many called for Meta to be designated under the code here, it had to be assumed that if it was, Meta would also take news off its platforms in Australia.

Read more: Facebook won’t keep paying Australian media outlets for their content. Are we about to get another news ban?

How is the new initiative different?

More than 18 months ago, the Australian government said that to address this “flaw” in the News Media Bargaining Code it would proceed with a new approach. A News Bargaining Incentive would be introduced, which would cover the platforms whether or not they carried news.

What has never been explained, in any way, is why this provision could not have been inserted into the original code. That is, the News Media Bargaining Code would apply to Google, Meta and say TikTok whether or not they carried news.

This would have provided continuity, as Google was continuing to work under the code and was providing 70% of the total payments.

Of course, Meta would have objected, but no more than it will under the News Bargaining Incentive.

Because there is no arbitration mechanism under the incentive, the government has said the platforms do not have to do deals with all media companies. Indeed, four can be enough. To require deals with everyone would mean the media companies could extract high payments knowing the platform has to do a deal with no resort to arbitration to settle a dispute.

The incentive sets financial parameters on what the deals will be worth using the News Media Bargaining Code payment as a guide. If the deals are not done, the covered platforms will need to pay a “charge” set at 50% higher than the value of the envisaged deals. This is a very different approach with some complexity and potential inequity.

That said, the government is to be congratulated for pushing on with the noble cause of protecting journalism. Consultation is occurring on the News Bargaining Incentive, and it may well be legislated by mid-year.

Australia is again leading the world by taking such action. Let us hope some amendments are made and that the incentive works well.

– ref. Making tech giants pay for news was a success the first time around. It can be done again – https://theconversation.com/making-tech-giants-pay-for-news-was-a-success-the-first-time-around-it-can-be-done-again-281865

The media made Pauline Hanson and One Nation, but now the party holds all the power.

For 30 years, journalists have ridden a merry-go-round reporting on its stunts and inflammatory rhetoric, while grappling with how to interrogate its policies and hold the party to account.

In Episode 5 of The Making of One Nation, far-right communication researcher Kurt Sengul says the party’s used the media.

The media have a lot of power to grant outsider fringe parties with legitimacy and momentum and exposure.

Professional political parties go out of their way to avoid scandal, to avoid controversy, where far-right parties lean into it. One Nation has gone out of its way to generate media coverage.

But he says it’s been a cosy partnership.

It’s been described as a symbiotic relationship. They have something that the media wants, right? Which is the ability to attract headlines, views.

But now? One Nation isn’t so reliant on the media anymore.

It was the first political party in Australia to launch a website, an early adopter of social media, and now the first with its own animated satirical series on YouTube as well as a feature-length film.

Its YouTube channel has nearly 33 million views.

“It’s almost a perfect storm for the far-right”, Sengul says.

Algorithms favour their style of communication, that controversial polarised content. Social media now, if you can believe it, is even more conducive to the far right given that figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have really wound back policies around content moderation.

So the digital environment really favours the far-right, the traditional media environment still really favours them. And you have the far-right employing hybrid media strategies that really effectively sort of target both elements.

Listen to the interview with Sengul at The Making of One Nation podcast, available at Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode was written by Ashlynne McGhee and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski. Sound design by Michelle Macklem.

– ref. One Nation: built by the media, supercharged by the algorithms – https://theconversation.com/one-nation-built-by-the-media-supercharged-by-the-algorithms-280358

Most people know about “good” and “bad” cholesterol. But few realise there is another type called lipoprotein(a). It can raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes, even in people who do everything right.

This lesser-known cholesterol particle, often written as Lp(a), is gaining increasing attention from researchers and drug companies.

Lp(a) isn’t included in routine cholesterol tests and there’s currently little we can do about it. That may now be changing.

What is lipoprotein(a)?

Lipoprotein(a) is a cholesterol that carries lipoprotein – particles made of fats and proteins – in your blood. It’s structurally similar to LDL (low-density lipoprotein, or “bad” cholesterol), but with an additional protein attached called apolipoprotein(a).

This extra protein component seems to make Lp(a) more likely to contribute to the build-up of fatty deposits in arteries. It may also promote blood clotting. Together, these processes increase the likelihood of cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke).

Large-scale studies and international guidelines now recognise Lp(a) as a risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

What determines your Lp(a) levels?

Unlike most other cholesterol measures, Lp(a) is largely determined by genetics.

Around 70-90% of variation in Lp(a) levels is inherited. This is driven mainly by differences in the LPA gene, which controls the structure of apolipoprotein(a).

Because of this strong genetic control, Lp(a) levels are usually set early in life and remain relatively stable over time, with little influence from diet, exercise or body weight.

There are some smaller influences. Levels can vary by sex, ethnicity and hormonal changes, and may be slightly affected by factors such as menopause or kidney disease.

How does it affect your risk?

A growing body of research shows higher Lp(a) levels are associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and aortic valve disease.

Importantly, the relationship appears continuous. In long-term studies, cardiovascular risk rises step by step as Lp(a) levels increase.

Lp(a) also adds to overall risk. For example, someone with high LDL cholesterol and high Lp(a) is likely to be at higher risk than someone with elevated LDL cholesterol alone.

For people with higher Lp(a) levels, cardiovascular risk rises mainly when inflammation is elevated.

This helps explain why some people develop cardiovascular disease despite otherwise favourable risk profiles.

Can you lower lipoprotein(a)?

There are currently few options to lower Lp(a).

Lifestyle changes that improve heart health, such as eating well, being physically active and not smoking, remain essential. But they have minimal effect on Lp(a) itself.

Most commonly used cholesterol-lowering medications, including statins, do not reduce Lp(a). In some cases, statins may even increase Lp(a) slightly. Despite this, statins still reduce overall cardiovascular risk and remain a cornerstone of treatment.

Some newer drugs, such as PCSK9 inhibitors, can lower Lp(a), but typically only by a modest amount of around 15–30%.

Several drug companies, including Novartis, Amgen and Eli Lilly, are racing to develop treatments that specifically lower Lp(a). These new medicines work very differently from statins. Instead of helping the body clear cholesterol from the blood, they use a “gene silencing” approach that reduces how much Lp(a) the liver makes in the first place.

This means it switches off production of cholesterol rather than trying to remove what is already there.

In early clinical trials, these drugs have lowered Lp(a) levels by 80–90%, far more than existing treatments. This is why Lp(a) is suddenly getting attention.

If upcoming trials show these large reductions also lead to fewer heart attacks and strokes, it could change how cardiovascular risk is assessed and treated, especially for people whose risk is driven largely by genetics rather than lifestyle.

Should you get tested?

Lp(a) is not included in standard cholesterol tests. A specific blood test is required.

Medicare doesn’t cover these blood tests, so if your doctor orders one you’ll have to pay out of pocket – around A$25 to $80 – plus any costs associated with the consultation.

International guidelines now recommend measuring Lp(a) at least once in adulthood, particularly for people with a family history of early heart disease or unexplained cardiovascular risk.

Because levels are largely genetically determined and stable, a single measurement is often considered sufficient for most people.

What should you focus on?

Learning you have high Lp(a) can feel frustrating, especially given the limited options to lower it directly.

But it’s important to see Lp(a) as one part of your overall cardiovascular risk.

There are still many factors you can influence to lower your overall risk, and particularly your LDL cholesterol. These include:

• LDL (bad) cholesterol
• blood pressure
• smoking
• physical activity
• diet quality
• managing conditions such as diabetes

For people with elevated Lp(a), managing these factors may be even more important.

What happens next?

Research into Lp(a) is moving quickly. If current clinical trials show targeted therapies reduce cardiovascular events, testing and treatment may become more common.

For now, awareness is an important first step.

If you are concerned about your cardiovascular risk, it may be worth discussing Lp(a) testing with your doctor, especially if you have a strong family history of heart disease.

At the same time, the broader message to maximise heart health through healthy behaviours remains unchanged. Even as new risk factors emerge, the foundations of good heart health are still the things we can control.

– ref. What is lipoprotein(a) cholesterol, or Lp(a)? And can you lower yours? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-lipoprotein-a-cholesterol-or-lp-a-and-can-you-lower-yours-281629

Arsenal is still on the top of the English Premier League ladder, but as in previous years, the Gunners might be crumbling just when a first title since 2003–04 is within touching distance.

In early April, Arsenal had a commanding grip on the title – nine points ahead of nearest rivals Manchester City. Now it’s just three (and City has played one less game).

This isn’t the first time Arsenal has lapsed at late stages in recent years: last season they finished second behind Liverpool. In 2023–4 they finished runners-up behind Manchester City. They were second again the year before.

Arsenal fans are no doubt expecting another dose of late-season heartbreak – it’s likely players and club staff are feeling similarly jittery. However, there are psychological strategies that could help them keep fighting until the final whistle.

Oh no, not again

The team led by Mikel Arteta recently eked out a 1-0 win against Newcastle United but before that had suffered two consecutive defeats: first against Bournemouth at home and then to Manchester City.

Looking closely at these two matches, they had a similar dynamic: Arsenal conceded the first goal in the first half, scored the equaliser a few minutes later, and suffered defeat in the second half.

This looks like a symptom. If you concede a goal earlier in a match, you need to put extra energy in to find an equaliser. At halftime, players should reset but the emotional cost of chasing an equaliser may impair their shift into a winning mindset.

This is choking under pressure: when fear of losing is bigger than the willingness to win.

Arsenal’s players have a team of sport psychologists and mindset coaches at their disposal.

Here are the four key psychological tools they will probably use to improve consistency in these final rounds of the season.

1. Work out your routines

Consistency is crucial for athletes, and predictability creates the space for players to become consistent.

The basic assumption behind the concept is: if you keep doing the same things, you can expect the same results. Regardless of the level of competitive pressure, sport performance tends to become more stable when pre-performance routines are applied.

These routines can take many forms: some athletes might prefer to take a shower, or pray, visualise or meditate before a match.

During games, many prefer to take a deep breath before a penalty (such as Cristiano Ronaldo) whereas others might fix their gaze on a single spot on the ball before shooting.

The key is, sport psychologists should help athletes tailor their pre-game or pre-shot routines to enhance performance.

2. Practise mindfulness

Mental distress can have a crushing impact on athletes.

When an athlete is emotionally stressed, the body tends to increase its levels of cortisol (the stress hormone), which leads to muscle rigidness. This can impact performance.

To counter this, leading stress education expert Jon Kabat-Zinn developed mindfulness-based stress reduction – a set of techniques that includes breathing meditation, deliberate focus on the present moment, and yoga-like body movements to improve emotional regulation.

When empirically tested in athletes, mindfulness meditation showed significant effectiveness to improve attentional control (the ability to focus attention on a task while avoiding distractions).

Applying mindfulness techniques alone or in combination can boost performance and may help Arsenal achieve the consistency needed in these final rounds.

3. Be positive with self-talk

Self-confidence and fear of mistakes can freeze athletes in high-stakes moments. This impacts decision-making and slows down execution.

For example, a full-back gets the ball on the defensive flank and scans for options. He can either play a penetrating pass to break the opposition’s defensive lines or pass backwards to his centre-back.

This a split-second decision – if he hesitates, the forward pass can be intercepted and the backward pass may come under pressure, leading to a costly mistake.

To tackle self-doubt, sport psychologists teach athletes to reframe their thoughts and create more effective task-oriented inner dialogues.

Research shows instructional self-talk can help athletes improve their performance.

So in the example above, what our full-back needs to do is, instead of thinking about the potential consequences of his actions, just tell himself to execute the pass.

If done properly, instructional self-talk can help Arsenal’s players choose the best options and execute them.

4. Get used to dealing with pressure

Matches are high-stakes, but training sessions tend to be focused on technical and tactical skills under lower pressure.

However, research shows embedding mild anxiety into training sessions helps athletes cope better under pressure.

Athletes who train under pressure often perform better than those who do not.

So Arsenal’s coaches should be looking to ramp up pressure in training sessions while ensuring the players can work with sport psychologists and mindset coaches.

A race in two

After the recent win against Newcastle, Arteta said:

I don’t expect after 22 years not winning it that it is going to be a path of roses and beautiful music around it. It is going to be like this and we are ready for it.

Whether they are ready for it remains to be seen. But if the Gunners are to finally taste the ultimate success in this season’s Premier League, a combination of these techniques might help them cope under pressure, avoid choking, and finally lift the trophy.

Assuming, of course, Manchester City allows it.

– ref. Arsenal might be choking again in England’s Premier League. Here are 4 psychological fixes – https://theconversation.com/arsenal-might-be-choking-again-in-englands-premier-league-here-are-4-psychological-fixes-281224

Amid major reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), unveiled last week, NDIS minister Mark Butler announced the government’s plans to commission supported independent living services for people with disability, “rather than relying on a market that isn’t working”.

Supported independent living is NDIS funding for support workers who can assist people with disability who need some level of help at home all the time.

This announcement indicates a shift away from a market-based model – in which NDIS participants choose who provide services to them, and what kinds – to a more regulated, government-vetted system.

For people with the most significant and permanent disabilities, these changes – together with cuts to social and community participation funding – may be significant. Here’s how it might work.

What is supported independent living?

Supported independent living pays for support workers to help with day-to-day activities such as showering, preparing meals and doing laundry.

Supported independent living payments are often used to fund support provided in group homes. This is where a number of NDIS participants live together and one worker provides shared support to them. Some group homes may also receive another kind of NDIS payment, called specialist disability accommodation funding, which pays for purpose-built accessible housing for people with very high needs.

More than 17,000 people with disability live in group homes in Australia. Around 30% have intellectual disability. Residents frequently have high and complex support needs, and very few other people in their lives beyond support workers.

How did we get here?

Group homes are largely a result of the de-institutionalisation movement in the late 20th century, and grandfathering of supported accommodation from state disability services to the NDIS. People with disability often didn’t have a choice of where they moved to or who they lived with.

New kinds of specialist disability accommodation, such as apartment living or independent units, have been developed in recent years through the NDIS. But data shows many people are still sharing with co-residents they don’t choose, in group living they haven’t chosen.

Stories of abuse, violence and neglect in group homes, shared by residents, are harrowing.

The Disability Royal Commission recommended group homes should be phased out by 2038. But federal, state and territory governments have not yet commenced working together on this recommendation.

A 2023 inquiry also identified many issues in how supported accommodation – meaning the combination of funding for support workers and purpose-built accommodation – currently works in the NDIS.

The inquiry found a greater need for choice and control for people living in group homes (for example, about where they live), better education of the workforce, and more regulation of these living arrangements.

So, how might commissioning providers work?

We still don’t have a lot of detail. But the goal will be to create greater oversight and control over who provides services, and curb safety issues such as neglect and abuse while improving quality.

It could mean the government will purchase more low-cost accommodation where several people share a support worker. And we can expect a more restricted list of registered providers, meaning the companies the government allows to employ the support workers.

Commissioning could also mean the government introduces new rules, such as caps on the number of people with disability who live in one place. Such restrictions are currently in place for specialist disability accommodation, but not supported independent living.

In practice, this might look similar to the current makeup of group homes – mostly small-scale group living – but there will be more regulation. There is also a question about whether commissioning will improve residents’s choice about where they live, or who they live with – a basic right.

The government has also begun trials in ten rural, remote and First Nations communities where they have identified service demand for people with disability far outstrips what is available, including supported accommodation. In these cases, commissioning services will focus on understanding what specific barriers there are to accessing support, considering cultural needs and what local services are available.

Living independently is about more than accommodation

Amid last week’s reforms, the government also announced it will reduce NDIS payments to individuals for social and community participation – from around A$31,000 to $26,000 a year.

These payments fund a person’s needs to travel outside their home, so they are an important part of what it means to live independently. They may cover the cost of attending appointments, shopping or paying bills, taking part in social activities and developing life skills.

The government has instead unveiled a new $200 million Inclusive Communities Fund. This will fund community groups to “host genuine participation activities” for those with disability.

This is part of the government’s broader push to provide foundational and mainstream supports – such as community or school programs, activities, skills-building and information – for people outside of the NDIS.

In some cases, it could mean better inclusion of people with disability in the broader community, such as through local sporting clubs.

But if the NDIS funding that allows people to take part in their community and build independence is cut before these other supports are properly established, there is a risk of further isolation. This could particularly affect people with disability in group homes with the highest needs who rely on this kind of funding to leave home.

And there continue to be concerns about the potential role of algorithms in determining who will receive NDIS funding and who doesn’t.

People with disability want – and have a right – to live a life connected to people and community. This right must remain at the heart of plans to reform how and where they live.

– ref. What do the proposed NDIS changes mean for people with disability living in supported accommodation? – https://theconversation.com/what-do-the-proposed-ndis-changes-mean-for-people-with-disability-living-in-supported-accommodation-281326

You’ve probably seen it on social media before: a paragraph of scrambled text that looks like nonsense at first glance, yet somehow you can read it with surprising ease.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This effect, often playfully referred to as typoglycemia, is frequently shared online as a quirky insight into how our brains work.

But this viral claim is only part of the story. To understand why it works, we need to look at how the brain actually processes written language.

There is no magical ‘rule’

The claim that usually accompanies this snippet is that as long as the first and last letters of a word are in the right place, the order of the middle letters doesn’t matter.

At first glance, the claim seems plausible.

But while there is a kernel of truth here, the explanation is misleading.

Reading scrambled words has much less to do with a magical “rule” about first and last letters, and much more to do with how our brains use context, pattern recognition and prediction.

We don’t read letter by letter

When we read, we typically don’t painstakingly process each letter in sequence. Instead, skilled readers recognise words rapidly by drawing on multiple cues at once. Psycholinguistic research shows that we process words as patterns rather than as sequences of individual sounds.

These include familiar letter patterns, the overall shape of the word and, crucially, the context of the sentence. Our brains are constantly predicting what is likely to come next, then checking those predictions against the visual input.

This is why we often miss typos in our own writing. We don’t see what’s actually on the page, we see what we expect to be there.

The same principle helps us make sense of jumbled words. Even when letters are out of order, enough of the structure remains for the brain to make an educated guess.

Word shape and structure matter

The viral meme suggests that only the first and last letters matter.

But this oversimplifies what’s really going on. We are sensitive to how letters relate to each other within a word. Common spelling patterns and familiar combinations make words easier to recognise, even when slightly distorted.

This is also why certain visual disruptions make reading harder. Text in alternating caps, such as “AlTeRnAtInG CaPs”, is difficult to process because it disrupts the usual visual contour of words. The same goes for “ransom note” lettering made from mismatched fonts, which interferes with pattern recognition.

In other words, readability depends on preserving enough of a word’s internal structure, not just its outer letters.

Not all scrambled text is readable

If the meme were true, any sentence with intact first and last letters should be easy to read. But that’s not what we find.

Take this example:

Salhal I cmorape tehe to a srmmeus day

It follows the supposed “rules”, yet it is much harder to decipher. In fact, this is the opening of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

So why is the viral paragraph so much easier to read? Because it has been carefully (if unconsciously) engineered to be readable.

The hidden tricks behind the meme

Several factors make the famous example easier to process than it appears.

First, many of the words are short, which limits how many possible combinations the letters could form. Words like “you” and “can” are often left unchanged.

Second, function words such as “the”, “and” and “is” are usually intact. These small, common words provide the grammatical scaffolding of the sentence, making it easier to predict what comes next.

Third, when longer words are scrambled, the changes are often minimal. Adjacent letters are swapped (“wrod” for “word”), which is much easier to process than more extreme rearrangements.

Finally, the passage itself is highly predictable. Once you recognise the topic and rhythm, your brain fills in the gaps automatically, much as it does when listening to speech in a noisy environment.

The key to understanding this phenomenon is context. Words are not processed in isolation. Each word is interpreted in relation to the others around it, and within a broader framework of meaning.

This allows us to compensate for missing or distorted information.

But there are limits. As scrambling becomes more extreme, or as words become less predictable, comprehension quickly breaks down. Reading speed also slows noticeably, even when we can still make sense of the text.

Humans and machines

Interestingly, computers can now unscramble jumbled words with remarkable accuracy. By analysing probabilities and patterns across large datasets, algorithms can determine the most likely original form of a word or sentence.

In this sense, machines and humans rely on similar principles. Not rigid rules about letter position, but flexible systems that weigh patterns and probabilities. This highlights why the “typoglycemia” claim is an oversimplification, rather than a scientific rule.

The idea persists because it captures a genuine insight in a catchy way. It reveals that reading is not a simple, letter-by-letter process, but a dynamic interaction between perception and expectation.

At the same time, it’s a reminder of how easily scientific ideas can be distorted as they spread online.

So yes, we can often read scrambled words. But not because the order of letters doesn’t matter. It’s because our brains are remarkably good at making sense of imperfect information. So good, in fact, that they can turn a mess into meaning.

– ref. Sramcbled wrods: the real reason you can still read jumbled text – https://theconversation.com/sramcbled-wrods-the-real-reason-you-can-still-read-jumbled-text-280457

Australians are familiar with the disturbing statistics of intimate partner homicide: one Australian woman is killed every 11 days, on average, by a current or former intimate partner.

While these deaths are increasingly reported on, suicide represents a largely hidden and potentially far greater part of the intimate partner violence death toll.

Each week in Australia, on average, an estimated 15 women die by suicide. Evidence from coronial reviews suggests intimate partner and family violence may be contributing factors in 28–56% of suicides among women – or four to eight per week.

But these estimates come from isolated coronial case reviews in only three states (Victoria, New South Wales, and Western Australia). We don’t have a clear picture of the incidence in each state, let alone nationally.

A federal parliamentary inquiry is currently investigating the links between domestic, family violence and sexual violence and suicide.

More than 200 written submissions and a series of public hearings have exposed deep frustration with systems that obscure violence, re-traumatise victim-survivors and allow preventable deaths to continue.

Here are early insights from the inquiry about preventing women’s suicide.

How partner violence increases women’s suicide risk

International research shows intimate partner violence is one of the strongest social determinants of suicidal thoughts in women. It increases women’s risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts two- to five-fold.

Women experiencing coercive control often face constant threats, stalking and intimidation. Hypervigilance and fearfulness create exhaustion, isolation, and a deep sense of being trapped.

Women have described the acute impacts of men’s physical violence used within coercive control:

[T]he results of physical violence are more like hyper-arousal, difficulty turning off flight and fight […] a physical attack sort of switches that on […].

This abuse often escalates after separation.

When women cannot access immediate safety from partners, family members, or even from systems that dismiss or disbelieve them, their distress compounds and suicide risk increases.

If a woman is being stalked, threatened, or attacked, therapy and crisis support aren’t going to stop her suicidal thoughts. She needs the violence to stop.

What themes are emerging from the inquiry?

The parliamentary inquiry asked how services identify and respond to suicide risk. The community answered by showing how systems themselves often produce risk, compound harm and shape the hopelessness that precedes suicide.

Women with experiences of intimate partner violence described being dismissed, blamed for the abuse, or redirected into mental health pathways during contact rather than having the violence recognised by health, policing and legal services.

This reflects a broader pattern in which women’s distress and suicidal thoughts and behaviours are treated as individual disorders rather than understood as responses to ongoing violence, coercive control and entrapment and systemic failures.

When the impacts of abuse are routinely misclassified as a mental health crisis, the danger posed by violent partners or family members disappears from view.

Opportunities for prevention can vanish with it.

Violence is common but hidden

In Australia, 27% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or family member since the age of 15.

Yet most women never seek formal help. Only around 20% of women who experience intimate partner violence report it to police. Fewer than 25% access health services.

When women access health services for suicidal thoughts or actions, violence often isn’t identified.

One study found nearly 60% of women presenting to emergency departments with suicidal thoughts or actions had experienced intimate partner violence at some point in their life. Yet hospital staff rarely ask about abuse.

The invisibility of violence becomes even more pronounced in the context of technology-facilitated and financial abuse. Abusive partners now use technology to track, control and harass women in ways that are difficult to detect and even harder for the justice system to address.

Perpetrators have used tax systems to lodge false returns, incur debts and withhold critical financial information, inflicting long-term economic harm.

Perpetrators have also weaponised the child support system to continue financial abuse after separation.

These tactics often fall outside traditional definitions of intimate partner violence and may not be recognised.

What can be done about it?

To prevent suicides, we must listen closely to the voices of victim-survivors and their advocates.

We need a national approach and improved collaboration between health, policing, justice, housing and specialist domestic and family violence services.

Emergency departments, police and front-line crisis services are vital. But they should not be women’s only entry points to support and safety pathways. Outreach models are also essential for reaching women who will never connect with a formal service.

Responses must also meet the needs of groups facing higher risks: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, migrant and refugee women, children and young people, victim-survivors of childhood sexual abuse, young people leaving out-of-home care and women with disability. Responses should be culturally safe, disability-inclusive and trauma-informed.

National death reviews show examining patterns of prior abuse and risk factors can guide prevention. We need a comparable national picture of suicides linked to intimate partner and family violence to understand the scale of the problem and prevent it.

Finally, preventing these deaths depends on directly addressing men’s violence. The government is progressing a A$4.7 billion national plan to end violence against women and children. It’s essential to hold offenders to account, through consistent legal consequences and interventions, to stop cycles of abuse and trauma.

Male violence is driving some women’s suicide, and our systems are compounding the risk. Until we confront both harms, these deaths will continue.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can also call 13YARN on 13 92 76.

For information and advice about family and intimate partner violence contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, contact 000.

– ref. Intimate partner violence is a hidden contributor to women’s suicide – https://theconversation.com/intimate-partner-violence-is-a-hidden-contributor-to-womens-suicide-281149

Along with a drop in temperatures, May brings plenty of new streaming options, whether you’re after some classic American political drama, or some local family TV you can enjoy with the kids.

We’ve also got Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar-nominated film Marty Supreme coming to Stan, as well as a new series from Richard Gadd (of Baby Reindeer fame) on HBO Max. Sit back, grab a blanket, and enjoy.

All The President’s Men

Prime Video and Apple TV

All the President’s Men, which has just turned 50, was based on the 1974 book by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who investigated the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post.

A masterpiece of political cinema, All The President’s Men remains one of the finest films about investigative journalism ever made. Steeped in a fog of paranoia and distrust – an atmosphere shaped in no small part by cinematographer Gordon Willis’ matchless treatment of light and shade – it is as relevant now as it was on first release.

Redford was the driving force behind the film. Convinced that the story demanded a restrained, quasi-documentary approach, he initially envisioned a black-and-white film shot in a pared-back style, with an emphasis on process rather than star power.

Warner Bros, with whom he had a production deal, thought otherwise. Having already agreed to finance the film, the studio insisted that Redford take a leading role – and marketed the as yet-unmade project as “the most devastating detective story” of the century.

The result is an endlessly watchable and quotable (“Follow the money”) film that generates narrative and dramatic tension through the sheer difficultly of knowing anything at all.

In age beset by disinformation, brazen political deceit, strategic obfuscation and collapsing trust in public institutions, that lesson feels less historically distant than it does disturbingly prescient.

– Alexander Howard

Read more: All The President’s Men at 50: one of the finest films about investigative journalism ever made

Caper Crew

ABC iView

The ABC’s new series Caper Crew follows 12-year-old Amelia Delaney (Isabella Zhang) and her 9-year-old brother Kai (Luka Sero), who live in Woodspring, “the most boring town on Earth”. That is, apart from one incident 27 years ago when the infamous Kangaroo Gang stole the town’s priceless golden meteorite. “The Nug” was never found, despite a $100,000 reward.

When their mysterious con-artist grandmother, Queenie, appears out of the blue and starts teaching them the art of the grift, Amelia and Kai can’t help but wonder: was Queenie part of the Kangaroo Gang? Does she know where The Nug is? The siblings join forces with their friends Penelope (Caitlin Niemotko) and Ophelbert (Tevita Hu) on a mission to find the lost object.

The young cast members are very endearing. The adults don’t disappoint, either; Tina Bursill is magnetic as Queenie, while Annie Maynard and ABC-favourite Michael Theo captivate as Mayor Katinkatonk and drama teacher Jojo Encore, respectively.

For parents and carers watching with kids, Caper Crew combines a Wes Anderson-esque visual quality with a nostalgic ode to millennial classics such as Matilda and Harriet the Spy. It may charm younger viewers into taking up magic, or planning their own heists. It also reminds us just how good Australian family TV can be, with a bit of resourcing.

– Alexa Scarlata

Read more: ABC’s Caper Crew delivers heists and heart – a bright spot in a struggling kids’ TV sector

Riot Women

SBS On Demand

“And you thought The Clash were angry!” retorts Beth (Joanna Scanlan), describing her newly-formed punk band of women largely 50 years and over.

Riot Women, a hilarious five-part BBC drama series, champions strong female characters whose dilemmas authentically reflect the female experience. The band’s tracks Hot Flush, I’m Not Done Yet, and Invisible No More counter society’s assumption that menopausal women have a use-by date.

Punk is used as a metaphor for female rampage, rather than the show’s subject – and despite some dark storylines (including suicide and violence against women), the show is a raucous celebration of women on their own terms. These women find joy and energy in mid-life, emerging as formidable because they no longer give a damn.

Riot Women is written by Sally Wainwright and co-directed by Wainwright and the late Amanda Brotchie, an enormously talented Australian director.

The outstanding ensemble cast is drawn from the crème de la crème of British talent, with Joanna Scanlan as Beth, Rosalie Craig as Kitty, Lorraine Ashbourne as Jess, Tamsin Greig as Holly, and Amelia Bullmore as Yvonne.

It’s an original, emotionally resonant and high-quality drama that, like much of Wainwright’s work, doesn’t disappoint.

– Lisa French

Marty Supreme

Stan, from May 15

Marty Supreme is a frenetic tale inspired by Marty Reisman, the charismatic American table tennis champion of the 1950s.

Charged by Timothée Chalamet’s electric lead performance – alongside a stellar supporting cast (including Gwyneth Paltrow), and director Josh Safdie’s signature, anxiety-inducing aesthetic – the film captures a young man’s all-or-nothing quest for greatness.

Marty Mauser is a morally ambiguous protagonist engaged in a sociopathic, self-obsessed pursuit of glory. But Safdie invites the audience to champion his quest. In this, Marty emerges as a particularly compelling entry into Hollywood’s longstanding tradition of unlikable heroes.

How does Safdie succeed in creating a protagonist who – despite lying that his mother died during childbirth and neglecting his pregnant girlfriend – nonetheless wins the audience’s support?

Marty’s championing is undoubtedly in part due to Chalamet’s star image and onscreen charisma. And his quest for greatness depicts the triumphant tale of a figure who, against all odds, continues to pursue his dreams with obsessive belief.

While his extreme measures may be unsympathetic – and perhaps unforgivable – Marty’s fundamental desire to transcend his circumstances remains relatable. His unrelenting commitment to his dream catalyses his moral failing. But he is nonetheless a figure capable of tenderness.

While Marty Supreme dramatises the egotistical pursuit of its flawed protagonist, it ultimately explores the universal ambition to dream big – and questions what is worth sacrificing in order to achieve success.

–Oscar Bloomfield

Read more: Antihero Marty Supreme is sociopathic in his pursuit of glory. Why do we want him to win?

Lizard

Mubi

Lizard (2020) is a Sundance-winning short film by British-Nigerian filmmaker and writer, Akinola Davies Jr. Currently streaming on Mubi, alongside Davies’ BAFTA-winning debut feature My Father’s Shadow (2025), it’s a magical and gritty portrait of religion, hypocrisy and violence.

Co-written with his brother, Wale Davies, Lizard is based on Davies Jr’s own childhood experiences. The thematically nuanced 18-minute narrative follows the inquisitive eight-year-old Juwon who, following some misbehaviour and removal from her Sunday school service, confronts the criminal underbelly of her Lagos church.

The fluidity between the real and surreal is central to Davies Jr’s cinematic imagination. Juwon is gifted with the ability to sense danger. Her mystic-like intuition materialises in the presence of the eponymous agama lizard: a figure who leads the young girl through her milieu.

The film masterfully blends elements of the fantastical with realist stylisation. It’s a portrayal of sociopolitical corruption and exploitation, but also extends beyond this. Through Juwon’s child-like imagination, it confronts the processes of understanding trauma and memory – with the film’s sensibilities questioning reality’s supposed superiority over fantasy.

Davies Jr is cementing himself as an exciting, distinctive voice in international cinema. I’m looking forward to watching My Father’s Shadow.

– Oscar Bloomfield

Half Man

HBO Max

Richard Gadd is perhaps best known for his hugely successful series, Baby Reindeer. Part of the unsettling thrill of that Emmy-award winning series was watching a dramatisation of Gadd’s own experience of being stalked. We saw a vulnerable protagonist, played by Gadd, drawn into considerably uncomfortable situations.

Now Gadd has returned to our screens with a new series called Half Man. A similar viewing experience to Baby Reindeer is established in the opening episode, where we witness a vulnerable, isolated young man get drawn into a toxic relationship. Gadd is a master at building tension and discomfort.

Niall (Jamie Bell) is visited by his estranged step-brother Ruben (Gadd) on his wedding day. After a violent confrontation, we jump back 30 years to when they were two schoolboys. Ruben has just gotten out of youth detention and, since his mother is dating and living with Niall’s mother, he has no choice but to move in and share Niall’s room.

As boys, a young Ruben (Stuart Campbell) is prone to violent outbursts at any moment, and young Niall (Mitchell Robinson) is shy and bullied by his classmates for being perceived as gay. The early dynamics between the two boys make for incredibly unsettling viewing. But knowing how good the emotional pay-off of Baby Reindeer was, I can’t wait to see where the series goes.

– Stuart Richards

– ref. Marty Supreme, Watergate, and menopausal punk-rock rage: what to stream in May – https://theconversation.com/marty-supreme-watergate-and-menopausal-punk-rock-rage-what-to-stream-in-may-281346

Since 2025, the radical-right One Nation party has experienced a polling surge – regularly polling ahead of the Coalition.

In the midst of this surge, and wider voter fragmentation, the Coalition is facing a by-election contest in the rural NSW electorate of Farrer on May 9.

Farrer is centred around the regional city of Albury and surrounding agricultural areas. This by-election was caused by the resignation of former Liberal Leader Sussan Ley from parliament.

A decision by the Liberals and Nationals to direct preferences to One Nation could prove decisive – and deliver the seat to the One Nation candidate, David Farley.

Wait, remind me how preferences work?

Australian elections have voters order each candidate on their House of Representatives ballot paper according to their preferences.

Preference deals are commonly made between political parties at elections.

However, it is important to note parties do not have actual control over where voter preferences go.

Instead, a “preference deal” merely refers to the recommendations they publish on digital and physical how-to-vote cards, which voters are not bound to follow.

Read more: Explainer: what are preference deals and how do they work?

The 2025 federal election continued a long-term downward trend in first-preference votes for the major parties.

More recently, strong flows of Greens preferences have tended to help elect Labor candidates from second place on the primary vote.

But on May 9, preferences may help elect One Nation to Ley’s old seat.

Liberals and Nationals to preference One Nation in Farrer

Ley had held the seat since 2001, after winning it in an extremely close contest with the Nationals.

In the 2025 federal election, Ley won on the two-candidate count 56.19% to 43.81% against independent candidate Michelle Milthorpe.

Milthorpe is recontesting the by-election, with seat and national polling suggesting the contest is between her and Farley. (Labor has chosen not to contest the by-election.)

Both the Liberals and Nationals – who are each running candidates due to their being no Coalition incumbent – have recommended preferences to Farley over Milthorpe.

This recommendation could decide the outcome, as it is likely neither Coalition candidate will make the final count.

Preference deals and One Nation

Historically, preference deals with One Nation have been fraught for the centre-right.

In dealing with One Nation’s first iteration in the late 1990s, the Coalition refused to recommend preferences to One Nation. It labelled them a fringe party with extreme beliefs.

Since the election of One Nation leader and founder, Pauline Hanson, to the Senate in 2016, the Coalition’s stance has gradually softened towards preferencing One Nation.

In the 2017 Western Australian state election, the Liberal Party entered into a preference recommendation deal with One Nation. This was the first of any such deal nationwide.

This deal backfired. Both the Liberals and Hanson claimed it damaged their respective support.

Despite this, more preference deals between One Nation and the Liberals followed.

In the March 2026 South Australian state election, the Liberals recommended preferences to One Nation ahead of Labor in every seat across the state.

Interestingly, One Nation elected to run what’s known as an “open ticket”. This means not recommending preferences to either major party. That said, there were some accusations of individual volunteers filling in how-to-vote recommendation cards to favour the Liberals, which is fineable under SA election regulations.

This SA election represented a high watermark for One Nation, which won four House of Assembly and three Legislative Council seats.

Additionally, the party won 22.9% of first-preference votes, eclipsing the Liberal Party (which got just 18.9%).

This was sufficient for One Nation to come second to Labor in 25 out of 47 lower house seats, compared with the Liberals’ 13.

This provides a good idea of what happens when Coalition preferences are distributed.

Preference data compiled by electoral analyst Ben Raue shows that approximately two thirds of Liberal preferences flowed to One Nation in Labor vs One Nation contests. This helped One Nation win the seats of Hammond and Ngadjuri in the SA election.

The Liberal Party has also recommended preferences to One Nation over independent candidate Tracee Hutchinson in the May 2 Nepean by-election in the Victorian lower house.

One Nation has reciprocated this recommendation, with reports suggesting the Liberals are preparing to recommend preferences to One Nation in the November 2026 Victorian state election.

One Nation mainstreamed?

The willingness of the Liberals to countenance preference deals with One Nation suggests the far-right party has been mainstreamed.

Historically, One Nation was regarded as a racist and extremist party by both Labor and the Coalition.

By recommending preferences to One Nation ahead of Labor, the Coalition further legitimates One Nation as a mainstream political actor.

The Coalition’s policy and personnel changes also reflect a deep strategic unease about One Nation’s popular support.

The recent Coalition announcement of a “values based” immigration policy legitimates One Nation’s exclusionary stance on immigration through emulation.

By preferencing and emulating One Nation, the Coalition is likely enhancing, rather than limiting, Hanson’s political influence.

– ref. Coalition preferences could deliver a One Nation victory in Farrer by-election – https://theconversation.com/coalition-preferences-could-deliver-a-one-nation-victory-in-farrer-by-election-281529

I hope this article finds you well.

Did that make you cringe, ever so slightly? In the decades since the very first email was sent in 1971, the technology has become the quiet infrastructure of white-collar work.

Email came with the promise of efficiency, clarity and less friction in organisational communication. Instead, for many, it has morphed into something else: always there, near impossible to escape and sometimes simply overwhelming.

Right now, something is shifting again. The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, is increasingly allowing people to offload the repetitive routines of tending one’s inbox – drafting, summarising and replying.

My colleagues in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society found 45.6% of Australians have recently used a generative AI tool, 82.6% of those using it for text generation. A healthy chunk of that use likely includes email.

So, what happens if we end up fully automating one of the staples of the white-collar daily grind? Will AI technologies reduce some of the friction, or generate new forms of it? Dare I ask – are we actually about to get more email?

Why the printer isn’t dead yet

Soon after the advent of email, some voices in the business world heralded the coming end of paper use in the office. That didn’t happen. If you work in an office today, there’s a good chance you still have a printer.

In their 2001 book, The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper show how digital tools rarely eliminate older forms of work. Instead, they reshape them.

Sellen and Harper show how paper use didn’t disappear with the rise of email and other digital communication tools; in many cases, it intensified. The takeaway isn’t that offices failed to modernise, but rather that work reorganised around what these new tools could do.

In this case, paper persisted not only out of habit, but because of what it affords: it is easy to annotate, spread out, carry and view at a glance. This was all too clunky (or impossible) to perform via the digital alternatives.

At the same time, email and digitisation dramatically lowered the cost of producing and distributing communication. It was far easier to send more messages, to more people, more often.

Circling back to today

Will AI be different? If early signs are anything to go by, the answer is: not in the way we might hope.

Like earlier waves of workplace technology, AI is less likely to replace existing communication practices than to intensify them – but at least it might come with better grammar and a suspiciously upbeat tone.

Some new AI tools offer to manage your inbox entirely, feeding into broader privacy concerns about the technology.

At this moment, what a lot of these products seem to offer is not an escape from email, but a smoothing of its rough edges. Workers are using AI to soften otherwise blunt requests, modify their tone or expand what might otherwise be considered too brief a response.

Rather than removing the need to communicate, these tools offer pathways to make a delicate performance easier.

What email is actually for

Email, like many forms of communication, is as much about maintaining everyday relationships as it is about the transfer of information.

At work, it’s often about signalling competence, responsiveness, collegiality and authority. “Just looping someone in” or “circling back” are all part of our absurd office vocabulary, a shared dialect that helps us navigate hierarchy, soften demands and keep things moving – all without saying what we really think.

If AI lowers the effort required to produce these signals, it won’t necessarily reduce their importance, but it could unsettle things in rather odd ways.

If more people use AI to draft emails they don’t particularly want to write, we end up with a game of bureaucratic “mime”: everyone performing sincerity and quietly outsourcing it, and no one entirely sure how much of their inbox was actually written by a human.

The labour of email was never just about crafting sentences. It’s always been the scanning, the sorting and the deciding. AI doesn’t remove this burden. If anything, it amplifies it.

When everything arrives polished, everything looks important. That points to a deeper question for the future of work: if AI can perform responsiveness, why are we generating so many situations that still require it?

Looking forward

What would a workplace look like if email wasn’t the default solution to every coordination problem? Perhaps fewer performative check-ins, “just touching base”, “looping you in” or “following up on the below”. More clearer expectations about what actually requires a response, and what doesn’t.

Email, like paper, is likely to persist for good reasons. It is simple, flexible and universal. It allows things to be deferred, revisited, forwarded and quietly ignored.

But if AI is going to change any of this, my hope is that it makes visible how much of this is ritual, how much is habit, and how much has long been unnecessary.

And if the machines are happy to keep saying “hope this finds you well” to each other, we might finally have permission to stop.

– ref. ‘Just looping you in’: why letting AI write our emails might actually create more work – https://theconversation.com/just-looping-you-in-why-letting-ai-write-our-emails-might-actually-create-more-work-281225

Two months into the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz is still mostly shut. Vessel traffic is running at a fraction of pre-war levels, with the patchwork of ceasefires, blockades and re-closures since February 28 not restoring confidence on the bridge of any tanker.

Hormuz has long been understood as one of the world’s central trade chokepoints. It normally carries around 20 million barrels of crude and oil products each day, as well as roughly a fifth of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. A third of the world’s helium and a similar amount of the urea that ends up as fertiliser also pass through the strait.

Plans and projects to diversify away from Hormuz have been on drawing boards for decades, and those workarounds are now being stress-tested as never before. The bypass infrastructure is doing roughly what architects had hoped, providing around 3.5 million barrels to 5.5 million barrels a day of crude capacity.

But this is still nowhere near enough.

Hormuz workarounds

The most important pipeline on the planet right now runs across Saudi Arabia. The East-West Pipeline – also known as Petroline – was built in the 1980s during the original Tanker war, when Iran and Iraq attacked merchant vessels in the Gulf as part of their wider conflict.

The pipeline’s capacity was expanded to a 7 million barrel emergency ceiling in 2019. However, the loading terminals in the city of Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast were never designed to carry this much oil this fast, and analysts tracking tanker traffic estimate that less oil is currently flowing through the pipeline than its theoretical ceiling.

From Yanbu, oil bound for Europe still has to cross Egypt via the Sumed pipeline, which has a capacity of just 2.5 million barrels per day. Although oil flows through this pipeline have surged by 150% since the start of the war, its comparatively small capacity remains a binding constraint on European supply.

Iran noticed the geoeconomic importance of Petroline and has targeted it accordingly. An Iranian drone strike on a pumping station in April knocked 700,000 barrels a day offline. Saudi Aramco, the operator, had the line back at full capacity within three days. While the repair time is reassuring, the fact of the strike is not.

The other half of the Gulf bypass story runs through the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) goes from Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman side of the country. With a capacity of just under 2 million barrels per day, Adcop is the only major bypass that exits the Gulf directly into the Indian Ocean.

But as with Petroline, it has been targeted during the war. Iranian drone strikes on Fujairah on March 3, 14 and 16 set storage tanks on fire and suspended loadings. While Adcop offers some diversification for the UAE, it does not solve the targeting problem.

The situation is worse for the Gulf region’s other big oil producers. Iraq’s 3.4 million barrels per day of pre-war crude exports went almost entirely through the southern port city of Basra and the Strait of Hormuz.

There is one northern pipeline, connecting oil fields in Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey. This pipeline was reopened in September 2025 after a two-and-a-half-year halt, with flows ramped up to 250,000 barrels a day in March. But this volume pales in comparison to what Iraq has lost.

Kuwait has it worse still. Pre-war crude exports ran at around 2 million barrels per day, with every barrel exiting through Hormuz. Kuwait has no pipeline alternative. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation declared force majeure in March, temporarily allowing it to suspend its obligations to meet delivery contracts.

This was extended on April 20, with the oil company saying it could not meet contractual obligations even if Hormuz reopened. Overcoming the damage that has been inflicted on Kuwait’s production base – and then ramping up production – will take months.

Qatar’s vulnerability is a different shape. Its pre-war crude exports were smaller than its Gulf neigbours, at around 0.6 million barrels per day. These exports all left Qatar via the strait. For Qatar, the story is gas. Its 77 million tonne LNG capacity at Ras Laffan is the largest in the world, supplying about 19% of global LNG trade. There is no alternative to shipping this gas through Hormuz.

Iran itself has built a Hormuz bypass: a 1,000-kilometre pipeline from Goreh at the head of the Gulf to a terminal at Jask on the Gulf of Oman. It is designed for 1 million barrels per day. But in practice, sanctions and unfinished terminal infrastructure have kept actual throughput at a fraction of design.

The US Energy Information Administration estimated that, in summer 2024, under 70,000 barrels per day were flowing through the pipeline. Loadings stopped altogether that September. According to Kpler, which provides real-time data on global shipping movements, only a single tanker – around two million barrels – has loaded at Jask in the war so far.

A call for more pipes in the Gulf, as there have been since the war began, is understandable. But it is no answer. Replicating Hormuz in pipelines would cost hundreds of billions of US dollars and a decade of construction. And at the end of it, new pipelines and terminals at Yanbu, Fujairah and wherever else would be no harder to reach with a drone than the old ones.

– ref. What alternatives do Gulf states have to the Strait of Hormuz? – https://theconversation.com/what-alternatives-do-gulf-states-have-to-the-strait-of-hormuz-281805

What’s the point of play? Is it simply a way to keep children occupied, or something more? For some, it’s about learning literacy and numeracy. For others, it’s how friendships form and relationships deepen. But it can be all of these at once, and more.

Most parents recognise that play matters. But there’s less agreement on what kind of play is best. Should children be guided towards activities designed to build specific skills, like sports for coordination, or construction for maths and engineering? Or should the child’s own interests lead the way, regardless of perceived educational value?

Our research focuses on a type of play often dismissed as “just for fun” – playing with dolls. Across a series of studies, we found that doll play can help children understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. This is a skill that underpins social interaction throughout life.

There is pressure on parents to create the “right” environment for development, often filled with toys that promise clear educational outcomes. STEM-focused toys (science, technology, engineering and maths), in particular, are widely seen as beneficial for learning. Doll play, on the other hand, can be viewed as having little educational benefit.

Our findings challenge that assumption.

More than make-believe

When playing with dolls, children often play out scenes between characters. These may seem simple on the surface but could present opportunities for the child to develop social and emotional skills.

As parents, it seems obvious that playmates are important for building and learning about relationships and other people, and recognising others’ emotions (empathy). But what if children can develop these skills even when playing alone?

Previous studies have found that children who engage more in pretend play tend to have stronger social understanding and empathy. Earlier studies, however, didn’t often use controlled methods to separate out the different factors linking pretend play and social understanding.

So, we set out to test this more directly. We worked with children aged four to eight, assessing their ability to understand that others can hold different beliefs and desires to their own. This is an important milestone in social development. If children recognise that their own mental states may vary from others, this should help them better understand other people and know how to interact with them.

After that initial assessment session, children were randomly assigned either a set of dolls or a tablet with open-ended creative games. They were asked to play several times a week, with parents logging how and when play occurred. We didn’t instruct children how to play because we wanted to understand their natural behaviour.

Read more: How realistic is Mattel’s new autistic Barbie?

After approximately six weeks, both sets of children came back and again completed the task about understanding others’ mental states. We found that the children who had been assigned dolls to play with, rather than tablets, showed a greater improvement in their understanding of others’ mental states during the intervening period.

The findings suggest that doll play can actively support the development of social understanding. This is consistent with prior research of ours showing that areas of the brain linked to social processing are activated during doll play, and that children use more language about thoughts and feelings when playing with dolls than when using tablets.

Why it matters beyond childhood

For parents, the message is reassuring – playing with dolls lets children practice skills that they can also use when playing with playmates, like understanding others, anticipating behaviour and responding appropriately.

These abilities matter far beyond childhood. They help us collaborate, resolve conflicts and navigate relationships. In a world that often feels increasingly divided, the capacity to see things from another person’s perspective is not just useful – it’s essential.

– ref. Dolls beat screens for building children’s social skills, study finds – https://theconversation.com/dolls-beat-screens-for-building-childrens-social-skills-study-finds-280330

Twenty years after the first instalment catapulted Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt onto Hollywood’s A-List, The Devil Wears Prada is back with a second incarnation. The sequel reunites the pair with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci for a fun, frothy – but not very devilish – time.

Set at Runway, a thinly veiled fictional version of Vogue magazine, much has changed in the world of journalism since the first film was released in 2006.

Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs has spent the intervening years becoming a “Serious Journalist”, with awards galore under her belt. In 2026’s precarious media landscape, though, her job is wiped out. She, somewhat miraculously, finds herself back at Runway as features editor, no longer a harried underling.

Delightfully, the gang is back together for part 2. The Devil Wears Prada’s mastery was always its actors, and the returning main cast are in fine form here. Andy (Hathaway) now has an assured confidence that was just budding in the first film.

The growth in her character is believable and realistic, and as an actor, Hathaway is edging towards greatness, one teary-eyed smile at a time. Andy’s elevated position at Runway allows the dynamic between her and her icy boss, Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep), to shift.

Miranda de-fanged

Fun is poked at Miranda’s behaviour, which is now subject to HR rules and regulations. Where once she struck fear into the hearts of all she encountered, delivering caustic lines in a low sardonic murmur, Streep’s performance, while fuller and more rounded, de-fangs Miranda.

With disappointingly fewer barbs, she is less “devil”, delivering a more complex portrait of a successful woman struggling to keep a dying industry afloat. Much of the villainy is handed instead to Emily (Emily Blunt). All eye rolls and sharp edges, Blunt has a ball reprising the role that made her a star.

She is given more screen time in this instalment, with a love interest and a life outside of work. She is magnetic in every frame she inhabits, bringing comedy and deliciously over-the-top cattiness.

Stanley Tucci’s Nigel, a relic of the bygone days of print fashion journalism, radiates a warmth that grounds the film. His endless patience with the nonsensical behaviour of those around him, delivered with Tucci’s characteristic panache, steadies the ship when all threatens to spiral into parody.

In 2026, the romantic comedy is a lesser spotted animal in Hollywood compared to when the first film was released. This sequel recalls familiar tropes of the early noughties rom-com: pop music blaring over street scenes of characters speaking on phones, quick cuts between fashion shows and urban life, big cities rendered in gloriously lit night scenes.

The “rom” part of rom-com, though, could have been left in the past for this sequel. Patrick Brammall is criminally underused as Peter, a love interest for Andy. Their dalliance adds little to her character or the story, and never meaningfully develops or resolves.

Journalism SOS

Story-wise, it feels as though the film-makers wanted to comment on the state of journalism. In today’s world awash with algorithms, misinformation and the relentless churn of online content, there was certainly potential to mine, but these themes are mentioned and then glossed over.

This would be forgivable, given the sugary tone of the film, but consequently the drama becomes a little convoluted and at times gets in the way of the relationship dynamics, which is really why we are all in the cinema in the first place. Minor characters played by B.J. Novak, Kenneth Branagh, Lucy Liu and Justin Theroux often lean too far into caricature and disrupt the tone of the film. Their inclusion is another unnecessary dilution of the core four’s chemistry.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a little long and Meryl Streep’s performance lacks the bite that made the first film so memorable. But getting to see Hathaway, Streep, Blunt and Tucci work together again is joyful and escapist.

This film won’t change your life. But it is not trying to. It tells you exactly what it is in the marketing: a celebratory reunion of the actors and a fun retreading of familiar ground. Go for the characters, stay for the nostalgia.

– ref. The Devil Wears Prada 2: lots of frothy fun, not so much devilry – https://theconversation.com/the-devil-wears-prada-2-lots-of-frothy-fun-not-so-much-devilry-281891