By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/lets-rally-behind-them-png-commits-to-help-tuvalu-at-pre-cop-climate-meet/

ABC Media Watch has accused Michael West of “perpetuating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories” online. We say the failure of journalism by ABC and other legacy media makes them culpable in the Gaza genocide. Michael West Media.

EDITORIAL: By Michael West, publisher of Michael West Media

On Friday, Mario Christodoulou, executive producer of ABC Media Watch, quoted two posts we had made on X regarding last Wednesday’s FlyDubai “terror hijacking” incident and asked two questions:

Do you believe this incident was an Israeli Government “false flag” event? If so, on what basis? If not, how do you explain your posts above?

Perpetuating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like this, especially from an established journalist such as yourself, can help spread misinformation. Your post likely contributed to this. What is your response?

(Full email and X posts below.)

• WATCH MORE: Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post – Netanyahu’s fight for political survival: PR stunts and press control

Our response

Hi Mario,

Excellent questions. You are barking up the wrong tree, however. My take on both flydubai and RAF Fairford is clearly — and the word was used in one of the tweets — “probably” false flags, or at the least “beat-ups” concocted for political advantage.

This view is borne out by evidence of multiple false flag attacks in Australia, as belatedly admitted by police, and around the world.

The bigger story, the real public interest in media coverage of these incidents, is how they are leveraged by our politicians and a compliant mainstream media. The minute they occur, whether actual false flags or just suspicious incidents, they are branded as “terror plots”, “Islamist attacks … jihadis” etc.

This media branding of these events, *before* the circumstances are known and the evidence is established, has given licence to political actions such as the ramping up of hate speech laws in Australia and justification for passing the private data of Australian citizens to foreign parties as per the arrangements with Cellebrite and Palantir.

As a pilot for 20 years I have questions:

– where are the cabin crew here?
– where are the oxygen masks that automatically drop during a rapid emergency descent?
– how did the Capt manage to open the door while being stabbed?
– Omani pilots were not allowed to fly to Israel, why was he allowed?
– how did the offending pilot get a weapon onboard?
– why has this happened so close to elections?
– how are passengers walking around while apparently in a nosedive?
– who else was injured? Nose dives cause significant g force incidents
– why is there two perfectly positioned people recording the incident and not helping?
– why did a plumber take control and not the 2 pilots onboard who would certainly know when an aircraft was in a nosedive?
– why was the plumber speaking in English to Bibi after the flight
– why was he still in his blood soaked clothes 8 hours after the incident

False Flags have been a very effective mechanism to influence public opinion

Hitler burnt down the Reichstag just before his parliament elections and he won the election…changing the course of history.

A full and independent investigation should be carried out here.

Hopefully independent journalist will be allowed to view this too.

— The Long Investor (@TheLongInvest) October 1, 2026

flydubai X post retweeted by MW

Let’s say flydubai is not a false flag in a technical sense; that is, a ploy cooked up by the Netanyahu regime in Israel just a few weeks before the election. Let’s just say it was actually a fight between the pilots and a happy ending. The fact that the initial coverage branded the event as a terrorist hijacking demonstrates that the incident was used for political gain.

The Fairford incident was also branded as a terrorist plot in its initial coverage, egged on by Trump and Rubio and the usual people on social media. Why did they not wait until it became evident that it was 5 lads pilfering diesel before reporting it as terror?

Here in “evidence-land” we try to ignore the noise and report the truth. And the truth is that the mainstream media has blood on its hands, a lot of blood. Its failure to address the exaggerated claims of the October 7 Hamas attacks — 40 babies beheaded, mass gang rapes, babies in ovens, babies on clotheslines — has given licence to genocide, to the worst human atrocities of this century.

Lies have dragged us into war against Iran which is hurting every citizen via higher petrol and food prices.

The effect on humanity has been drastic, and much of that can be foisted home to a failure by a craven media to report responsibly. The media is culpable and the rise of new media such as MWM is due to plunging public confidence in the institutions of power such as the ABC and traditional corporate media.

We haven’t grown from scratch to millions in audience a month by making stuff up.

To be fair, the ABC has done better than corporate media but it is still culpable. Where is the Four Corners on the hasbara movement, the litany of false flag attacks in Australia such as the Dural caravan hoax and the other 12 or so “terror” acts which turned out to be no-hopers with no political ideology apparently paid for by foreign interests?

This is the real story, the culpability of media in genocide, not some guy on X raising credible doubts about the official narrative because the evidence for terror claims does not stack up and the historical evidence of false flags is so compelling it should not be ignored.

As we approach the three-year anniversary of October 7, it would be apposite for traditional media to contemplate its own epic failures, its complicity in the genocide in Gaza. You could start by analysing the lies which have already been debunked.

Here are some questions: how many Israelis were slaughtered by IDF Apache gunships on October 7? Why did Netanyahu ignore warnings of the Hamas attacks from Egyptian and Qatari leaders? What is the evidence for mass rapes and babies beheaded? How and why were the Nova Festival arrangements changed prior to the attacks? Why has there been no official inquiry by Israeli authorities?

And what role did the mainstream media play to give licence to genocide?

Cui bono?

Media Watch email
Thanks for your time on the phone just now. Here’s what I sent via your website portal. 

We’re writing an item examining the FlyDubai incident, which has been widely reported this week, where passengers managed to seize control of a 737 en route to Tel Aviv from Dubai. As part of that story, we are examining the conspiracy theories that have cropped up online, and we noticed you have been posting about this being a “false flag” operation.

There was this repost in particular: 

But also this:

We may mention this in the segment. To my knowledge, there is no evidence this was an Israeli “false flag”, and theories like this are unsubstantiated.

Questions below:

• Do you believe this incident was an Israeli Government “false flag” event? If so, on what basis? If not, how do you explain your posts above?
• Perpetuating unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like this, especially from an established journalist such as yourself, can help spread misinformation. Your post likely contributed to this. What is your response?

Deadline is 5pm today.  Let me know if you are having trouble reaching this.

 ‘Cheap 20 second opinions’
When the show aired last night, host Linton Besser didn’t hold back on the accusations of peddling conspiracy theories and “cheap 20 second opinions”.

We concede that in the absence of ABC’s $1.23 billion budget — even a dedicated team of researchers and others working for an entire week to produce 15 minutes of television for just 42 weeks of the year — that we may be cheap, at least in budget terms, by necessity.

Yet with our humble budget and the goodwill of the community we have managed to break a lot more stories than the ABC in relation to the crime of the century. Where is the ABC’s coverage of Australian charities funnelling money to the IDF and illegal West Bank settlements?

Nowhere, despite it being raised in Parliament.

Where is the coverage of Australians serving with the IDF, a story we broke with FOIs? Where is the coverage of the money trail of public grants to the Israel lobby?

We even beat this billion-dollar corporation on the story of Australian UN commissioner, Chris Sidoti, releasing an independent report for the UN on the systematic slaughter of Palestinian children by the IDF. We were literally first media in the world.

The ABC trundled along timidly a day late with its billion-dollar budget and, typically, buried the story anyway. This — an investigation about a rogue state engaged in genocide which Australia furnishes with weapons parts, to be found by the highest body in the world, to be deliberately murdering children.

Shamelessly buried.

And here they are with the gall, to sermonise about an independent journalist saying on social media that flydubai was “probably” a false flag or at least had been leveraged for political advantage. This, after three years of spinelessly tip-toeing around every single story which mentions the word Israel.

As Media Watch host, my former SMH colleague, and a first-rate journalist, Linton Besser did note in his piece, Benjamin Netanyahu was very quick out of the blocks when the story broke to get on the phone to Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to kick off his media campaign.

With zero evidence Israel’s PM pointed the bone at Iran. Was Iran directly behind the plot, asked career misinformation-spreader Sean Hannity? “Too early to say,” said Netanyahu. Job done, as with the RAF Fairford “terror plot”, Iran named. The rest of the corporate media followed.

This is the way it works and ABC is a part of it. “Israel says”. Frothing forth with every false claim uttered by a war lobby whose lies are established and far too prolific to list here. They are daily.

Is flydubai a false flag?
Is the flydubai incident a false flag? It’s too early to tell but the narrative has changed a lot, the evidence suggests the official story is not credible, even CNN had a pilot demonstrate why it did not stack up. Many questions remain.

“This is Hollywood on steroids … ordinary civilians became superheroes,” Netanyahu told Fox News. “If you’re next hijacked, make sure an Israeli is sitting next to you.”

Is not the story — the story for Media Watch — why are so many sceptical about Israel’s claims? The answer is clear: they lie and twist facts relentlessly. The suspicion is warranted. The propaganda is documented. Why does ABC not cover that, bigger, story?

Our personal favourite was the still glass of water after the 14,300 ft nosedive (no, not the heroic plumber who watched aviation rescue shows or the pilot, Hamam al Hamami, whose name has been translated by scallywags as Bathroom King of Bathrooms).

Why does the ABC continue to trot out the Israel lobby’s propaganda when it has been proven time and time again to be false? The mainstream media has literally, deliberately missed the story of the century.

They avoid the G-word like the plague.

And this cowardice, this complicity by our institutions of power, has degraded all humanity. Our leaders and our institutions, in not standing up to genocide, in perpetuating lies, even rewarding them, have let us all down.

At least we said “probably” a false flag. They can’t even bring themselves — with all their sanctimonious tut-tutting about journalistic integrity to say “probably a genocide”, let alone admit they’ve been captured to the point of even sacking at least one journalist for raising the question.

Just look at the pictures. Gaza razed by US bombs, a population starved and tortured, homeless, 70,000 to 700,000 dead, concentration camps, the largest population of child amputees in history.

You allowed this to happen.

Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker. This article was first published by Michael West Media on 6 October 2026 and is republished with permission.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/flying-high-dubai-michael-west-media-responds-to-abc-media-watch/

The Cornell 7 case has brought renewed scrutiny to how universities respond to sexual assault. In Australia, National survey results suggest about one in six students have experienced sexual harassment since starting university, while one in 20 have experienced sexual assault.

But we know the overwhelming majority of students who experience sexual harm never go through the formal university reporting system or access supports.

Only about 5.6% of students who were sexually assaulted made a formal report to their institution. At the same time, less than a third of those who did were satisfied with how their case was handled.

Our new research suggests students may be open to alternative pathways, such as restorative justice, but they can sometimes be hard to access.

What is restorative justice?

Restorative justice is a victim-led process that focuses on accountability and repairing harm, rather than on criminal penalties.

It can occur in many different ways. But it often involves bringing the person who was harmed and the person who has acknowledged causing harm (and any support people) together to talk in a structured, facilitated way. It’s carried out by professionals trained in trauma-informed practice and restorative justice.

Restorative justice does not require a formal complaint to begin. And it’s not a substitute process for determining a contested allegation. Participation for all parties is voluntary. There must be sufficient acknowledgement by the person who caused harm of their conduct for it to be appropriate.

Restorative justice can also be used by those who have been impacted by sexual harm but are not direct victim-survivors, such as friendship groups or residential communities such as uni colleges.

Growing support

There is evidence restorative justice can be delivered safely and support victim-survivors. The European Forum for Restorative Justice highlights that facilitation involves a complex set of skills, and when these processes are not carried out properly, there is a risk of re-victimisation of the victim-survivor.

There has been growing support for restorative justice approaches in the legal community. In 2025, the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended governments make restorative justice for sexual violence widely available, including for people who have not gone to the police.

Our research

Our peer-reviewed research, published by the Australian Institute of Criminology last month, looked into the needs of people who have experienced sexual harm.

As part of this research, we interviewed 11 professionals working in student support in universities in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

What we found

Participants told us some students they supported wanted to hold their perpetrator accountable without having to go through police and courts, or through a formal disciplinary process at their uni.

These participants told us students often wanted the perpetrator to acknowledge the harm caused. This could involve an opportunity for the person responsible to understand the impact of their actions and especially to learn about consent. It sometimes involved an apology, but certainly not always.

One interviewee described a pattern they encountered regularly:

I had this constant stream of people going, ‘I’m harmed and I don’t think the person who did it knows.’

This same person also said students might choose restorative pathways over formal ones due to victim-survivors having more control in how their case is handled:

when you think about sexual violence or interpersonal violence, it’s one person taking power and control of another and doing something to them. And then we replicate that when we do criminal justice processes because actually they are no longer a party to the crime, they become a witness.

Of course, some students do want an official investigation, disciplinary action or to make a police report. And they should be able to choose the pathway they want. Restorative justice is one additional pathway.

A positive long-term impact

It’s important to note restorative justice is not for everyone and will not be appropriate in every case. But when carried out with skilled facilitation, it can have a positive long-term impact for victim-survivors. As one uni practitioner we interviewed noted:

The four [people] that really stick in my head all finished their study. All participated in campus in a way that they wanted to […] their life trajectory didn’t get diverted. They were still able to be supported to stay on their path.

This is consistent with the small body of research in this area. The Australian Institute of Criminology’s evaluation of the ACT scheme found participants gained a sense of being heard and of regaining control over their lives that conventional processes had not delivered.

Access is limited

Restorative justice is already happening in some universities, but this is due to individual practitioners facilitating sessions, not institutional policy.

Our research suggests access to restorative justice was limited for university students. It often rested on an individual practitioner’s expertise and willingness to facilitate.

Gaps remain

Since January this year, every public university in Australia is legally required to respond to gender-based violence under a new federal government code. Under the code, unis face regulatory action, such as financial penalties, if they fail to comply.

The code requires unis to provide person-centred support when a student makes a disclosure. This means focusing on the needs of the individual rather than the institution. The accompanying regulatory guidance advises this should include clear response pathways with options for informal or alternative resolution, including restorative justice. This is alongside formal disciplinary responses. If a student makes a formal report, standard investigatory processes apply.

However, recognition of an alternative pathway for students who make a disclosure is not the same as resourcing universities to offer this kind of response safely and well. Our research suggests this is where an important gap remains.

What now?

The university professionals we interviewed repeatedly said institutions usually hesitate to facilitate restorative justice processes. This is due to fear of legal and professional exposure. This includes uncertainty about reporting obligations to the state and an aversion to being seen to deal with a sexual violence matter informally.

This suggests a risk-averse institution may still gravitate towards the formal investigatory pathway it regards as easiest to defend. It may do this instead of developing the resources and skills needed to offer other restorative responses for those who want them.

To make these responses more accessible to students, unis need facilitators trained in restorative justice who sit outside the complaints team. This means a student asking for help would not automatically trigger an investigation.

Unis also need a clearer institutional authority, more explicit legal guidance on reporting and confidentiality, and a willingness to bring in outside expertise where their own is thin.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.

Meredith Rossner received funding from The Australian Institute of Criminology and the ACT, Queensland, and NSW Governments. She is co-director of the Australian National University (ANU) Centre for Restorative Justice, and a member of the Canberra Restorative Community and the Oceanian Network of Restorative Justice and Sexual Harm.

Janet Hope received funding from The Australian Institute of Criminology. She is an ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal member, and a member of Canberra Restorative Community and Australian Association for Restorative Justice.

Lorana Bartels has received funding from the Australian Research Council and ACT, Commonwealth, Queensland, Tasmanian and Victorian governments. She is a non-executive director of ConFit Pathways and the Justice Reform Initiative. She is a member of the ANU Centre for Restorative Justice, Canberra Restorative Community, and Australian Association for Restorative Justice.

Miranda Forsyth receives funding from the Australian Research Council and The Australian Institute of Criminology. She is co-director of the Australian National University (ANU) Centre for Restorative Justice, and a member of the Canberra Restorative Community, and the Oceanian Network of Restorative Justice and Sexual Harm and the Director of the International Network Against Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Attacks.

Sally Eales is a member of the Canberra Restorative Community, and the Oceanian Network of Restorative Justice and Sexual Harm.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/im-harmed-and-i-dont-think-the-person-who-did-it-knows-we-looked-at-different-responses-to-uni-sexual-assault/

Thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse and queer (LGBTQ+) veterans have served in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) with honour and dignity. Yet, for the majority of Australia’s military history, their service was officially banned. Many LGBTQ+ personnel experienced persecution, witch-hunts and forcible discharge on the grounds of sexuality or gender identity.

(In this piece we are using the acronym LGBTQ+ because the ADF policies being discussed were not about intersex and asexual personnel. We use the broader acronym LGBTIQA+ when discussing the community.)

The journey to official acknowledgement and some form of justice has been long and is ongoing. Until 1992, lesbian, gay and bisexual Defence personnel were banned from serving. It was not until 2010 that the ADF lifted the ban on transgender service.

This week, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs announced that current or former Defence personnel may “apply to have historical homosexual convictions extinguished from their service records”.

This sits alongside a commitment to issue a formal apology later this year for the harms LGBTQ+ personnel and veterans experienced because of historical discriminatory policies.

An apology will have real meaning to many veterans. It has been hard won and owes everything to the courage of LGBTQ+ veterans who have spoken about serving under the bans.

A number of LGBTQ+ veterans told their stories at The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. Their accounts of sacrifice, duty and persecution, alongside the lifelong impact on their mental health and wellbeing, are harrowing.

We heard many similar, courageous accounts from the 140 LGBTIQ+ service members we interviewed between 2014–18.

Different ways of discriminating

This week’s announcement is significant but requires important context.

Under Australia’s military justice system, rooted in the Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 and before that, British laws, service members can face disciplinary or administrative action for committing specific offences.

Disciplinary offences go through tribunals (courts-martial or Defence Force Magistrates, for example), which are quasi-judicial proceedings that can result in a conviction.

Administrative offences are handled at lower levels, have different evidence rules and do not have the same judicial-like processes or burdens of proof. They also do not result in convictions, but the outcome can still be a discharge.

This distinction is important because historically, the ADF dealt with the vast majority of homosexual-related offences administratively. From 1974, the policy on homosexuality stated that unless there was an aggravated offence (sexual assault, for example), cases of homosexuality should be dealt with through administrative action.

This means that from the mid-1970s onward, there were almost no convictions for homosexual-related offences. Even before the 1970s, the vast majority of such offences were treated as administrative matters.

A history of administrative action

This accords with the experiences of many of the veterans we interviewed.

Yvonne Sillett joined the Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps (WRAAC) in 1979. By 1985, she was one of the first women instructors at Kapooka, the Army’s main base for recruit training. Her promising military career ended in 1989 after service police discovered she was homosexual. Following interrogation by the Special Investigation Branch, her security clearance was downgraded. This effectively forced her to leave the Army and a career she loved.

Sillett has been moved by the prospect of the forthcoming apology. “I did not think it would happen in my lifetime,” she told us.

Similarly, Jennifer Jefferies joined the WRAAC in 1979. On the day she should have graduated from driver training, military police instead interrogated her about her sexuality. The level of detail provided made it clear she had been surveilled for weeks, alongside three other women who faced interrogations.

Jefferies was discharged from the WRAAC. Two of the other women who were also interrogated are no longer alive. These stories remind us to reflect on those who did not survive to see an apology.

The experiences of Sillett and Jefferies reveal how military police consistently applied administrative action against LGBTQ+ service members. The government’s new scheme includes a process for those who faced administrative action. It is not as visible on the Defence website as extinguishing convictions, but it is an important recognition of harm caused by discrimination.

That process also includes people who faced administrative action because of their gender identity.

Bridget Clinch, a former infantry officer, was the first transgender soldier in the Army to affirm their gender. In early 2010, after 11 years of service, she was told she would no longer be considered suitable for service if she lived openly as a woman.

She challenged this and blazed a path that made open service for transgender Australians possible.

Yet, she still lives with the toll. Clinch told us:

I feel like I had the ability to do another 10 or so years and that was cut short by hostility. Now I’m looked after, but I’m still messed up by that traumatic process. And then, in the following years, all the injuries and chronic conditions started to pop up. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with how it went down.

An important step

An apology cannot change the past.

Yet, it can and should include prompt, concrete actions to address the needs of LGBTQ+ veterans, including mental health and wellbeing support and an acknowledgement of lost careers.

It should also foster much wider recognition of the courage all LGBTIQA+ veterans displayed at great personal cost. This change has only occurred because of their bravery, in both serving and speaking up.

Shirleene Robinson received funding for “Serving in Silence? Australian LGBTI Military Service since 1945”, an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded project (Grant DP160103548).

Noah Riseman received funding for “Serving in Silence? Australian LGBTI Military Service since 1945”, an Australian Research Council (ARC)-funded project (Grant DP160103548).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/what-the-australian-governments-apology-to-lgbtq-defence-personnel-and-veterans-means/

By Christina Persico of RNZ Pacific

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/french-polynesia-proposes-pathway-to-independence-process-at-un/

The Middle East has seen many explosions of violence in recent years. But while the US-Iran war has grabbed the headlines this year, the rapidly escalating conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognised government and Saudi Arabia risks becoming just as consequential for the region.

The complexity of Yemen’s internal conflict cannot be underestimated. The violence is linked to two major regional powers – Iran and Saudi Arabia – as well as the ongoing US-Israel confrontation with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran backs the Houthis (also known as Ansar Allah or Partisans of God), while Saudi Arabia supports the Yemeni government (known as the Presidential Leadership Council or PLC). The United States is also standing beside its de facto ally, the Saudis, while Russia and China are aligned with Iran.

And Riyadh’s other regional allies, Turkey and Pakistan, have just agreed to activate their newly signed mutual defence pact and deploy troops to help defend Saudi Arabia if it’s attacked again.

Given how many actors are involved, the conflict could quickly spiral out of control and engulf the entire region, further destabilising global fuel supplies.

Houthis gaining ground

The US-Iran war has reached a stalemate in recent months. Tehran remains adamant that it controls the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for 20% of the world’s daily supply of oil and liquefied natural gas before the war. And US President Donald Trump has been running hot and cold about how to end the conflict. Neither America’s military might, nor its maximum economic pressure, has worked so far.

Tehran’s Houthi allies, who control one-third of Yemen (including the capital Sanaa), entered the fray to support Iran earlier this year. They have tightened their control of the vital Bab al-Mandab Strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

And they have made territorial gains in Yemen since July, with the aim of taking over the whole country, while also attacking Saudi oil facilities, tankers and its main airport in Riyadh. An attack in recent days again halted the pumping of oil through the East-West Pipeline, which Riyadh has been using to export oil via Bab al Mandab since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Yemeni and Saudi forces have launched a counteroffensive in recent days in an attempt to retake all the territory held by the Houthis, raising the spectre of a return to a major civil war and a potentially dire humanitarian crisis for Yemenis.

Riyadh has asked Washington to carry out airstrikes on the Houthis, but Trump has declined the request to get actively involved, instead offering support from US intelligence and military analysts in the country.

Trump has been disinclined to expand the US-Iran war and get the US embroiled in another conflict while the potential for a restart of the war with Iran remains very real.

In addition, despite his denials that he is concerned, Trump will no doubt be aware of the impact of the Iran war on American consumers, with higher petroleum prices and cost of living pressures. His Republican Party is urgently trying to shore up its voter base with the midterm elections now just a month away.

Without direct US involvement, Riyadh has looked for support from its new security partners, Pakistan and Turkey. Before committing to deploy military forces to Saudi Arabia this week, the two had appeared cautious about getting involved – caught between the need to support Saudi Arabia and not to offend Iran and its strategic partners, Russia and China.

The renewed conflict has already taken a very heavy toll on the Yemeni people, with more than 800 killed, 3,000 injured and 158,000 displaced. This comes on the top of the hundreds of thousands of people who have died since the civil war and Saudi-led intervention began in 2014–15. These deaths were due to fighting, as well as indirect impacts such as hunger, disease, and lack of health services and infrastructure.

Where is this going?

The worse the fighting becomes in Yemen, the greater the impact on the world economy.

While the Strait of Hormuz remains partially inoperable due to the fear of ships being attacked, some tankers have managed to sail through after making deals with Iran’s new Persian Gulf Strait Authority, or with US escort protection.

The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, recently claimed 13 million barrels of crude oil were getting through the strait daily. This has been disputed by Iran.

On October 4, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said the strait will not reopen fully until the US meets Iranian demands. These include a ceasefire on all fronts, the lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports and the unfreezing of Iran’s assets.

And after the Houthis announced a blockade of Saudi ports and started attacking Saudi-linked ships in the Red Sea in July, disruptions in the global oil supply are expected to worsen.

At the root of this expanding and multi-dimensional crisis is the US war of choice against Iran. If Trump does escalate that conflict with more lethal force, Tehran is prepared to retaliate. It has warned the US’ Arab allies in the Gulf they could be targeted more severely than before.

The overall situation remains very explosive, unless Washington and Tehran pull back from the brink and opt for a negotiated deal. This seems like a distant goal, but it is still possible.

Amin Saikal 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/yemen-is-spiralling-into-another-civil-war-that-could-swiftly-engulf-in-the-entire-region/

By Kelvin Anthony of RNZ Pacific

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/respect-the-people-fiji-coalition-clash-over-rabukas-fast-tracked-constitutional-referendum/

The Greens’ official research think tank has proposed forcing Woolworths and Coles to sell 200 supermarkets, as a first step to creating a national chain of 624 publicly owned supermarkets.

The Green Institute’s proposal aims to cut household bills by 22%, or about A$60 a week for an average four-person household. The institute claims Fair Go Grocers could become self-funding within six years.

The projected cost would be A$25.1 billion over five years – which is more than the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme currently costs the federal government each year.

The proposal follows a recent announcement by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani to establish a small network of affordable, publicly owned supermarkets.

But how similar are these two proposals? And, more importantly, do the economics in this new Australian proposal stack up?

What is the ‘Fair Go Grocers’ proposal?

The Green Institute’s eight-page proposal is to create “Fair Go Grocers”: a federal government-owned supermarket chain, intended to challenge the Coles–Woolworths duopoly and reduce grocery prices.

The proposal has not been formally endorsed by the Australian Greens, but new Greens leader David Shoebridge says publicly owned supermarkets should be considered. Deputy leader Steph Hodgkins-May shared the proposal on social media, declaring “let’s get on with it!”

Proposed new divestiture powers would force Coles and Woolworths to sell 200 stores and three distribution centres to Fair Go Grocers. The government would build a further 424 stores and ten distribution centres.

The chain would operate without a profit margin, with the government funding the capital costs, and store revenues covering ongoing operating expenses.

The proposal aims for prices 30% below Coles and Woolworths for essential foods, and 22% lower on an average shop.

A statutory authority would set prices monthly, on a state-by-state basis. It would also guarantee fair prices for farmers, and purchase edible produce rejected by private supermarkets.

New York’s plan for 5 public grocers

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has announced plans to establish five public grocery stores: one for each of New York City’s five boroughs. The first is expected to open in the Bronx next year, with the remainder by 2029.

New York City has committed US$70 million (A$100 million) in capital funding to the “NYC Groceries” scheme.

In contrast, the Green Institute proposes an investment of A$25.1 billion over five years in more than 600 Australian sites, to end up with a 20% national supermarket share as a government-owned and operated business.

Could Fair Go Grocers outsell Aldi?

Woolworths and Coles are Australia’s dominant supermarkets, accounting for about 38% and 29%, respectively, of national supermarket grocery sales.

Their largest challenger, Aldi, entered Australia in 2001. It operates with a different model, stocking only around 1,800–2,000 products, compared with 15,000–25,000 in a standard Coles or Woolworths.

Aldi still accounts for only around 9% of supermarket grocery sales. There are clear economic reasons for this, which Fair Go Grocers would also face.

An Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) 2025 supermarket inquiry found competing at scale requires substantial capital, access to suitable sites, a large supplier network, and scale in procurement, distribution and logistics.

That inquiry found Coles and Woolworths held more than 150 undeveloped sites, intended for future supermarket use. Planning and zoning restrictions further constrain suitable sites. This raises questions about where Fair Go’s 400 new supermarkets would be built.

There are also practical constraints of construction worker shortages and rising construction costs – neither of which is accounted for in this proposal’s costings.

An unprecedented move

Then there is the proposal’s reliance on compulsory acquisition.

Woolworths and Coles are both Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) listed public companies. They are each owned by hundreds of thousands of individual and institutional shareholders.

Forcing them to sell 200 stores and three distribution centres to a government competitor would be an extraordinary intervention. There is no obvious modern Australian precedent.

Do the economics stack up?

There are significant gaps in this proposal’s economic reasoning. Here are just three.

1. Gaps in funding discounts

It’s unclear how discounts of 22–30% at the checkout would be sustainably funded.

Eliminating profits cannot generate price reductions of the magnitude claimed. Supermarket net profits after tax are more like 3.6%.

Other areas Fair Go Grocers would cut, such as marketing and executive pay, are also small relative to total sales.

2. Scaling up faster than Aldi

Fair Go Grocers is assumed to scale up very quickly to compete with Coles and Woolworths, at a bigger scale than Aldi has achieved in 25 years.

Yet it’s unclear how a government-owned and operated chain would develop the same scale of supplier relationships, procurement capability, logistics expertise, IT systems and management capability needed to compete nationally.

Read more:
Why Woolworths and Coles are now selling thousands more ‘own brand’ products

3. How do you charge less while paying more?

Finally, the proposal simultaneously assumes lower consumer prices and favourable prices for suppliers. Both may be desirable, but they pull in opposite directions in a retailer’s accounts.

So what should government do?

The Green Institute raises legitimate concerns about Woolworths and Coles’ dominance and the need to improve competition.

The ACCC came to similar conclusions in its 2025 inquiry – but its final report prescribed very different remedies.

It focused on reducing barriers to entry and expansion, improving price transparency and strengthening protections for suppliers. The federal government agreed in principle with all 20 recommendations and has implemented, or begun implementing, a number of them.

Before committing $25.1 billion of public money to building a government supermarket chain, there is a strong case for seeing how far at least some of these reforms can take us.

Read more:
The new price gouging law starts on July 1. Can it rein in Coles and Woolworths?

Flavio Menezes is a member of the Australian Competition Tribunal, a national body set up to review key regulatory or ministerial decisions on competition, company mergers and acquisitions. He was Chair of the Queensland Competition Authority from June 2018 to September 2025, having served as Deputy Chair from 2016. He has previously provided advice on competition and regulatory matters to numerous public and private organisations, including Gilbert + Tobin in a matter in which the firm was acting for Woolworths. The views expressed in this article are his own.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/07/why-a-greens-plan-for-624-public-supermarkets-to-take-on-woolies-and-coles-just-doesnt-add-up/

Four weeks before the November 3 US midterm elections, Republicans trail Democrats by 9.6 points on the generic ballot in analyst Nate Silver’s midterm forecast model.

Democrats led by 9.1 points in my September 25 article. They remain clear favourites to gain control of the Senate and overwhelming favourites in the House of Representatives.

However, Donald Trump’s net approval has recovered from a low of -23.5 last Friday to -22.5.

If disruption caused by the Iran war continues until the midterm elections, with increased petrol prices and inflation, Republicans are likely to lose control of both the House and the Senate, perhaps with huge losses.

However, if the disruption eases again and petrol prices fall back before the midterms, I believe Republicans will do better than they are polling now, and may retain control of the Senate.

I say this because Trump’s net approval and the generic ballot were better for Republicans in early September, soon after a low in petrol prices.

Trump’s ratings

In Silver’s aggregate of US national polls, Trump’s net approval is -22.5. Currently, 59.9% disapprove of his performance and 37.5% approve.

Trump’s net approval was -23.0 in my September 25 article. It had improved to -18.7 on September 4 before falling back.

Trump’s net approval is below what any past president since Harry Truman had at this point in their term, with Trump’s first term the closest at -10.5.

On four issues tracked by Silver, Trump’s net approval is -12.7 on immigration, -28.1 on trade, -32.8 on the economy and -48.5 on inflation. Since my September 25 article, Trump’s net approval on inflation has dropped two points.

Silver also has an aggregate of US support for the Iran war. Currently, 60.0% are opposed to the Iran war while 32.1% support it, for a net support of -27.9, down from -24.4 in my September 25 article. That’s the worst net support since the war began.

Midterm elections on November 3

All 435 federal House of Representatives seats and 35 of the 100 senators will be up for election at November 3 midterm elections.

In 2024 elections, Republicans won the House by 220–215 over Democrats and the Senate by 53–47. Owing to Vice President JD Vance’s potential tie-breaking vote, Democrats need at least a four-seat gain to win Senate control.

As I previously wrote, owing to Republican gerrymandering, Democrats need at least a four-point margin in the generic ballot to have a good chance to win the House majority. The Senate is more skewed to Republicans as every state has two senators. Democrats need a double-digit margin in the generic ballot to win the Senate on a uniform swing.

In Silver’s midterm election forecast model, the generic ballot gives Democrats a 51.3–41.6 lead over Republicans, a 9.6-point margin (9.1 points in my September 25 article). Democrats’ lead had dropped to 7.4 points on September 4.

Polls that screen for likely voters usually give Democrats larger leads than polls that ask registered voters. Democrats are more likely to vote at lower turnout elections like the midterms than Republicans, when Trump is not on the ballot.

Silver’s model gives Democrats a 74% chance to win the Senate and a 93% chance to win the House, respectively 69% and 91% on September 14. Democratic chances to win the Senate had fallen to a low of 50% on September 7, and their chances of winning the House had dropped to 81% on September 3.

While uniform swing indicates that Democrats need a double-digit margin in the generic ballot to win control of the Senate, Silver’s model has Democrats as the favourites to win with a 6–7 point margin in the generic ballot. In the House, Democrats are favourites if they win by 3–4 points.

Democrats lead Republicans by one to five points in Senate contests for five states Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024: Ohio, Texas, Alaska, Iowa and Kansas. This is why Democrats are the favourites to gain control of the Senate.

The two key items that could go wrong for Democrats are a markedly improved economy by November for most Americans – not just the stock market – and a systematic error in which Republicans overperform the polls.

Economic data

Americans are currently paying an average of US$4.36 a gallon for regular petrol (gasoline in the US), down from US$4.48 a gallon in my September 25 article. Owing to profits and taxes, the retail price of petrol will be higher than the commodity price.

The commodity price of petrol had surged from a low of US$2.99 a gallon on August 27 to US$3.59 on September 23, then fell to $3.13 on September 29 before rising again to its current US$3.32.

In Silver’s models, Trump and Republicans were at a high in early September, shortly after the August 27 low point in petrol prices.

The September jobs report (released last Friday) will be the last before the midterms. In the establishment survey, 29,000 jobs were added, but there were downward revisions for July and August that subtracted 60,000 jobs, causing July to be revised from 21,000 gains to 10,000 losses.

In the household survey, the unemployment rate rose 0.1% since August to 4.2%. However, this was because of an increase in participation. The employment population ratio (the percentage of eligible Americans who are employed) rose 0.1% to 59.2%, and is up 0.3% since a July low. In Australia, the employment population ratio was 63.9% in August.

In the last four trading sessions, the benchmark US S&P stock market index has surged 2.2% to be at a new record high. It’s up 12.6% from its peak in the week before the Iran war began in late February and up 18.6% from its worst point in the Iran war in late March.

In August, disposable personal income increased 0,3%, while expenditure increased 0.9%. Since February, expenditure has exceeded income except in July. The personal savings rate has fallen 1.5 points since January to 4.1%, its lowest since November 2022.

The savings rate has been upwardly revised. In my September 14 article, I reported the savings rate was 3.0% in July, but this is now 4.6%.

Flávio Bolsonaro likely to win Brazilian presidency

I covered Sunday’s first round of the Brazilian presidential election for The Poll Bludger. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, defeated Workers’ Party incumbent Lula by 47.0–45.2. Bolsonaro is likely to win the October 25 runoff election.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/republicans-continue-to-slide-in-us-polls-four-weeks-before-midterm-elections/

Australia’s new Digital Duty of Care bill proposes a significant shift in online safety. Rather than simply responding to harmful content after it appears, platforms would be required to identify “all reasonably foreseeable risks” of harm in their services and take “effective measures” to tackle them.

The draft also brings a range of welcome legal protections and clauses to enable independent scrutiny of big tech platforms.

Among these, approved researchers and the eSafety Commissioner would be expressly permitted to use “sock puppet identities” to observe and test how platforms operate.

Critics have seized upon this provision to warn of government-sanctioned fake accounts, government surveillance, or to suggest ordinary Australians would need permission to remain anonymous online.

This is not what the draft bill states. Let’s unpack what the “sock puppets” provision actually entails.

What does the bill mean by a ‘sock puppet’?

Part of the concern may stem from the term itself. Online, a “sock puppet” often means a false identity deployed deceptively – to manipulate a discussion, make one person appear to be many, harass others, or disguise the source of a message.

The draft bill, however, separates the identity from how it’s used. It defines a sock puppet simply as a “false or fictitious identity” assumed while using, or doing anything in relation to, an online service.

It then sets out distinct purposes and limits for researchers and the eSafety Commissioner. Approved researchers must work at an Australian university and have ethics approval for their online safety research. They may create controlled accounts, observe and record what those accounts encounter, test platform features, and test how a service responds to particular actions.

For approved researchers, these accounts are not a licence to manipulate other users. They’re only allowed to engage with other users as much as it’s necessary to prevent the account from being closed, such as for inactivity.

Their main purpose is to observe and test the platform itself – a well-established research technique often called a “sock puppet audit” or “algorithmic audit”.

What is a ‘sock puppet’ audit?

Let’s say we want to know whether watching conspiracy videos leads a video platform to recommend more of them: the often discussed rabbit hole effect. Using a sock puppet audit, we can test whether particular behaviours lead a platform to steer users towards different content.

We create a set of otherwise identical accounts. Half watch the videos; half do not. We can then compare what the platform recommends to each group.

Researchers have used variations of this technique to study recommendation pathways on platforms including Twitter, YouTube and TikTok.

Sock puppet audits can also help us answer another important question: does the platform treat different kinds of users differently?

Researchers can create otherwise identical accounts that differ only in an assumed characteristic – such as age, gender, cultural identity, location, or interests – and compare their experiences. Do they receive different advertisements or recommendations? Are some directed towards different content or features? Do the platform’s safety systems intervene differently?

Pulling aside the curtain

In both types of audit, the fictitious identity is not there to fool the public. It’s allowing researchers to observe otherwise hidden differences in how platforms operate.

And those differences are difficult to study from the outside. Feeds, recommendations, advertising and safety systems respond dynamically to individual users. Platforms can see how these systems work across millions of users. Researchers, regulators and the public see only fragments.

Why does this type of research need legal protection? Because platforms ban fake accounts at their own discretion. And their terms of service, which typically require identifying personal information, have been used against researchers.

In 2023, X sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate for allegedly breaching X’s terms by scraping data to study hateful speech on the platform. While X was ultimately unsuccessful, Australia’s draft digital duty of care directly addresses this – platform rules wouldn’t be able to override researchers’ permission to use these identities. Researchers who use them in good faith would be protected from being sued under Australian law.

The duty of care doesn’t ban anonymous accounts

The proposed law also doesn’t ban anonymous or pseudonymous accounts for ordinary Australians. The word “anonymous” doesn’t even appear in the draft.

While the draft bill creates legal protections for limited use of sock puppets by approved researchers and the eSafety Commissioner, it doesn’t require everyone else to reveal their identity.

However, the eSafety Commissioner is given broader powers to perform its regulatory functions. This includes generating (legally permissible) material with or without AI, which can help the regulator to test a platform’s safeguards directly – for example, prompting an AI service to see whether it generates harmful material it otherwise claims to prevent.

Currently the list of permitted uses is “without limitation” and nothing in the draft requires eSafety to specifically report on how it uses these powers. The government should constrain the commissioner’s powers to generate material to clearly defined testing, and require regular public reporting.

But, as drafted, these provisions don’t give eSafety unrestricted power to covertly manipulate public debate. Instead they allow the regulator to test platforms and their claims, rather than simply take their word for it.

“Sock puppet” may be an unfortunate name for a research method. The term carries baggage associated with deception and manipulation. But used for carefully controlled research, its purpose is almost precisely the opposite: to expose critical public interest information about platforms that would otherwise remain hidden.

Daniel Angus receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society, and QUT Node Lead for the Australian Internet Observatory.

Timothy Graham receives funding from the Australian Research Council, from the Universities Australia-German Academic Exchange Service Joint Research Cooperation Scheme, and from Meta Platforms Technologies.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/its-true-australia-wont-ban-sock-puppet-accounts-on-social-media-heres-why/

A quarter-century ago, genetic modification stood as one of the most contentious political and environmental issues in New Zealand.

Debate around the technology produced a high-profile royal commission of inquiry, a 20,000-strong protest march through central Auckland and the politically explosive “Corngate” controversy, in which the government was accused of covering up the possible planting of GM corn.

Today, GM has advanced dramatically, but the arguments surrounding it remain remarkably familiar.

A bill introduced by the National-led government to modernise the regulation of genetic technologies drew more than 15,000 submissions last year.

Its progress stalled after coalition partner New Zealand First withdrew its support, citing inadequate safeguards and potential export risks, pushing any further action beyond the election.

With long-standing calls for reform unlikely to be answered anytime soon, we analysed more than 1,600 texts – mostly media articles – to trace how GM public debate has evolved over the past three decades.

We found some arguments have dominated the debate while others have been surprisingly absent, particularly cultural and ethical questions.

The rise, fall and return of economic arguments

At the height of the GM debate in the 1990s and early 2000s, supporters emphasised its potential economic benefits and the costs of “missing out”.

Critics, meanwhile, warned GM could threaten New Zealand’s “clean, green” image and harm trade. Those concerns remained prominent in subsequent decades, perhaps because economic arguments were among the few criticisms taken seriously by GM supporters.

But during the 2010s, we found supporters largely moved away from economic arguments. Where economics was mentioned at all, it tended to be one item towards the end of a longer list of potential benefits.

Instead, arguments in favour of GM increasingly focused on environmental benefits – particularly tackling climate change and controlling pests – as well as applications in medicine and poverty alleviation.

One reason may be that newer technologies such as CRISPR, which allows scientists to more precisely edit DNA, have opened up applications beyond agriculture. Another may be a desire to distance GM from concerns about corporate influence that dominated debate in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Then, from 2023, the debate came full circle. Economic arguments returned to the centre of the case for GM reform, in line with the government’s wider emphasis on economic growth.

Environmental and social benefits have remained prominent too. As the arguments for GM have expanded to cover an increasingly wide range of potential benefits, those against it have become narrower, concentrating heavily on economic risks.

Why a broader conversation is needed

Economics is not the only recurring feature of the GM debate. Over the past three decades, both sides have offered competing claims about what the science says and how much risk GM poses.

But other important questions have received far less attention, including Māori values and rights.

While these were occasionally raised by GM critics in earlier decades, we found Māori perspectives were rarely taken seriously by supporters. Our data suggests this may now be beginning to change.

The ethical and moral implications of GM have likewise received relatively little attention in recent years.

Supporters increasingly argue it would be “immoral” not to use GM because of its potential social and environmental benefits. But these arguments are generally made without much deeper discussion of the ethical questions involved.

Critics have been more likely to raise ethical concerns over the years, but even they rarely dwell on them. We found this even in cases where ethics might have been expected to take centre stage, such as the disbandment of the Bioethics Council in 2009.

Discussion of GM regulation has also tended to be narrow. Particularly since the late 2000s, existing rules have largely been presented as either adequate or too restrictive.

Framing regulation simply as a question of “more” or “less” leaves little room to consider why particular decisions should be made, how they should be made, and who should have a say.

Similarly, our analysis – and the current stalemate over National’s Gene Technology Bill – points to the problems with placing too much focus on economic considerations. The result can be a debate reduced to competing technical claims and polarised arguments about whether GM itself is simply good or bad.

Our research suggests New Zealand needs a much wider conversation – particularly one that gives greater attention to the cultural and ethical questions that have too often been missing.

Sylvia Nissen has received research funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, as part of Endeavour research investigating gene editing and invasive wasps, and is a Deputy Director of Bioprotection Aotearoa.

Alexandra Palmer has received research funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

Raven Cretney has received research funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Bioprotection Aotearoa Centre of Research Excellence.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/we-analysed-30-years-of-debate-on-genetic-modification-this-is-whats-been-missing/

With a month to go to the New Zealand election on November 7, a Reid Research poll for RNZ has given the left bloc its first lead over the right in any poll since June.

Later the same day, a Verian poll for TVNZ’s 1News had the right holding its three-point lead from the same poll last week.

Reid Research poll

Conducted from September 24 to October 1 from a sample of 1,000 eligible voters, the Reid poll gave:

• Labour 30.8% (down 1.8 points since the mid-August Reid poll)
• National 25.9% (down 3.2)
• Greens 14.8% (up 4.6)
• NZ First 10.6% (down 1.3)
• ACT 9.0% (up 1.3)
• Opportunity 5.5% (up 0.2)
• Te Pāti Māori 2.0% (down 1.0)

Combining the votes of the left parties (Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori) against the right parties (National, NZ First and ACT) gives the left a 2.1-point lead. (The right held a 3.3-point lead in the previous Reid poll).

This is the first lead for the left since a mid-June Verian poll gave it a one-point lead.

However, the non-aligned Opportunity is just over the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament without winning an electorate seat. If these poll results are reflected on election day, Opportunity would hold the balance of power between the left and right blocs.

National leader and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins have record low net favourability scores: Luxon is at –23.7 (53.3% say he’s performing poorly, 29.6% well) and Hipkins at –3.6 (38.7% poorly, 35.1% well).

Verian poll

Conducted from October 1 to 5 from a sample of 1,001, the Verian poll gave National 29% of the vote (up one since the September 23–27 Verian poll), Labour 28% (steady), the Greens 16% (steady), NZ First 10% (up one), ACT 9% (down two), Opportunity 7% (up one) and Te Pāti Māori 0.6% (down 0.6).

Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity over the party’s land tax policy. The Verian poll asked whether National should reconsider that position, as a land tax was not a coalition bottom line for Opportunity: 40% wanted National to reconsider, 33% did not.

Overall picture

The graph below shows the right bloc lead or deficit against the left bloc in all polls since July. Both the Verian and Reid Research polls are consistent with Opportunity holding the balance of power.

The Wikipedia polls table gives Te Pāti Māori’s vote share to one decimal in Verian polls, but not other parties. Owing to this, the right’s lead increased from 2.8 points to 3.4 points.

However, Te Pāti Māori is most interested in winning at least one of the seven electorates reserved for those on the Māori roll to guarantee its return to parliament, despite being well below the 5% threshold for the party vote.

If Te Pāti Māori wins five of the seven Māori seats on about 1% of the party vote, there would be a four-seat “overhang”. Parliament would expand from its nominal 120 seats to 124, and Te Pāti Māori would have five seats. This would help the left bloc.

The Greens have held on to the record 16% they recorded in last week’s Verian poll, and surged 4.6 points to a near-record 14.8% in the Reid Research poll (their best result in this poll since 14.9% in October 2023).

A Roy Morgan poll was also released on Tuesday this week, with the right bloc lead up 2.5 points since August to 10.5 points, the highest in any poll in the graph.

This poll was taken from August 31 to September 27, however, so the majority of the fieldwork was done before any of the most recent three polls from Verian and Reid.

Read more: Election Policy Tracker: your guide to what the parties are promising during the 2026 election campaign

Adrian Beaumont 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/nz-election-poll-watch-opportunity-holds-as-potential-kingmaker-in-tight-race/

In my youth, somewhere in the late 1990s, when I was a goth or a punk or something, I had a t-shirt proclaiming, “Ignorance should not reproduce”. Along with the text there was a provocative image, which included the Christian cross.

Back then, if you were an educated liberal type, who valued reasoning and evidence, the scientific method, free expression and broadly progressive social values – the kinds of values championed by civil rights movements – there was a decent chance that you felt yourself to be battling against a stuffy, illiberal Christian orthodoxy that, to a considerable extent, held the reins of power, especially in the United States.

In 1999, at a Republican primary debate, the presidential candidates were asked “what political philosopher or thinker do you most identify with?” Without missing a beat, George W. Bush said “Christ”. This was arguably the moment he became the frontrunner to become president.

Religion and power commingled. This was not only a concern in politics, but in education, where we often heard about intelligent design being taught alongside natural selection.

Rereading Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, which turned 20 this year, I’m reminded of this time. The God Delusion offers a sustained critique of religion, and Christianity, in particular. Its arguments are presented across ten chapters, the most significant being the fourth, titled “Why There Almost Certainly is No God”.

The book was a huge bestseller – it sold more than three million copies and was translated into more than 30 languages. It struck at the heart of the religious leviathan, at least for its educated, secular readership.

It was also immensely controversial, with many significant rebuttals being published. There were three main objections.

First, Dawkins was accused of engaging with a caricature of religious faith. Literary scholar Terry Eagleton famously accused Dawkins and others of producing “vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince.”

Second, he was criticised for his tone. Theologian Alister McGrath spoke of Dawkins’ “shrill, aggressive rhetoric”.

Third, Dawkins was accused of replacing one religion with another – science. The title of novelist Marilynne Robinson’s 2006 article about Dawkins’ book, Hysterical Scientism, very much conveys this. (I’ll return to this last objection at the end.)

Notably, opposition to The God Delusion took the form of intellectual debate. He wasn’t “de-platformed” – cancelled – in any significant way.

Still, Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, who made his name with The Selfish Gene (1976), became one of the “Four Horsemen of New Atheism”, along with the brilliant and polemical journalist Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great, 2007), cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett (Breaking the Spell, 2006), and philosopher Sam Harris (The End of Faith, 2004, and Letter to a Christian Nation, 2006).

Today, Dawkins remains a controversial figure, more for this statements around questions of trans identity than his criticisms of religion. But the enduring value of The God Delusion lies in its championing of liberal values: reasoning and evidence, free speech, thinking for oneself and putting regard for truth before one’s concerns about group membership.

Bristling at censorship

In his opening chapter, “A Deeply Religious Non-Believer”, Dawkins presents different incarnations of religiosity. He contrasts those who encounter the immensity of the universe and posit the existence of a God, with atheists, like himself, who feel awe but remain secular.

“A quasi-mystical response to nature and the universe,” he writes, “is common among scientists and rationalists.” He then quotes physicist Albert Einstein:

To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.

For Dawkins, this kind of religiosity deserves respect. What follows is a lengthy objection to the fact that, at the time, there was a broad taboo against criticising religion. “A widespread assumption,” Dawkins writes, “which nearly everybody in our society accepts – the non-religious included – is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect.”

Naturally, Dawkins affirms that he will not follow this assumption. When I think about The God Delusion now, it is Dawkins’ bristling at censorship that most stands out in my mind, not his criticism of religion.

The origins of complexity

In the following chapters, Dawkins defines what he means by God and presents several arguments for God’s existence, including those by noteworthy philosophers and theologians such as Thomas Aquinas.

The most significant argument, for Dawkins, for the existence of God, which he tackles in Chapter Four, is “intelligent design”, which claims that the complexity we observe in natural things, such as the human eye, could only have arisen through the will of some intelligent designer.

But an easy rational objection to intelligent design is that saying God is the intelligent designer of the universe doesn’t really help, because, by the same argument, something even more intelligent than God must have designed God.

The greatest strength of The God Delusion is Dawkins’ account of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. “Darwin and his successors,” he writes, “have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings.”

According to the theory of natural selection, complexity in life arises not from chance alone. Rather, random genetic variations (the chance part) are filtered by natural selection, so the genetic variants that provide survival and reproductive advantages in particular environments persist.

Also important, although less definitive, is the chapter in which Dawkins speculates about the roots of religion. While he hesitates to say how, exactly, religion arose in Darwinian terms, he argues that religion is a by-product – a “misfiring” – of other evolved capacities, such as the inclination to intuitively assign purposes to everything, or the necessity that children believe what stern adults tell them, lest they eat something poisonous or fall off a cliff.

In the remainder of the book, Dawkins discusses whether religion is necessary as a source of morality (the answer is “no”), the questionable morals of the Bible (the so-called “Good Book”), and the negative effects that religion can have on people.

The book’s final chapter is the most poignant. It brings us to the enduring relevance of The God Delusion. “It is often said that there is a God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled,” writes Dawkins. “We have a psychological need for God – imaginary friend, father, big brother, confessor, confidant – and the need has to be satisfied whether God really exists or not.”

He then writes that religion “has at one time or another been thought to fill four main roles in human life: explanation, exhortation, consolation and inspiration”.

In other words, religion tells us how the world works and how to be good, it makes us feel a little better about our fleeting existence, and it inspires us to do great things.

Dawkins acknowledges that religion may well console us, but makes the cutting point: “Religion’s power to console doesn’t make it true.”

Dawkins’ recent troubles

As I have noted, in The God Delusion Dawkins was not only battling against what he saw as the irrationality of religion, but the taboo, in many circles, against criticising religion; indeed, the success of the book indicates that many surely felt the same way.

However, times have changed since 2006. And this is demonstrated by Dawkins’ own recent troubles.

Dawkins ran afoul of the social justice world when he tweeted the following in 2021:

In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP [The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.

Dawkins was applying reason to the vexed issues of racial and trans identity and he was punished. Among other things, in 2021, the American Humanist Association withdrew his 1996 Humanist of the Year award.

In an open letter responding to this decision, philosopher Rebecca Goldstein and psychologist Steven Pinker, both of whom had received the award, argued that seeking to “punish, dishonor, or humiliate a writer rather than engage with his words is a betrayal of humanism”.

“It has not been lost on commentators,” they observed, “that an association of ‘freethinkers’ has deemed certain thoughts unthinkable, nor that it is enforcing dogmas and catechisms by excommunicating a heretic.”

As the language of Goldstein and Pinker indicates, parts of the “woke” left, even though secular, now exhibit some of the characteristics of religious zealots. There is much more that could be said here about the alleged “God-shaped gap” in the human psyche.

Dawkins has written several books since this decision, including The Genetic Book of the Dead: a Darwinian Reverie (2024). He continues to attract controversy.

Science works

I mention all this because the great value of The God Delusion lies not in its criticism of religion, but its embrace of liberal values: reasoning and evidence, free speech, thinking for oneself.

Honestly, coming up with arguments against religion isn’t that challenging if one is so inclined. And when one tussles with a religious person, often the conversation ends up on the point that religion is more about faith than it is about reason. Religious people themselves refer to their religions as “faiths”.

The liberal values in mention have been hard-won across the centuries and they are always under siege. Sometimes this is from religion, as was the case 20 years ago. But sometimes the threat comes from the secular world: communism, fascism and even what we might call “identity politics” or “wokism” today.

Why do we care about reasoning and evidence and truth? One simple point is that when we have a regard for such things, our world gets better. This is what distinguishes science from religion.

In my favourite Dawkins moment, he was challenged at a talk by some smarty-pants in the audience to justify the scientific method – the intimation being that science is indeed just one faith among many, and is thus indistinguishable from religion.

Dawkins replied:

It works. Planes fly, cars drive, computers compute. If you base medicine on science, you cure people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. If you base the design of rockets on science, they reach the moon. It works, bitches.

Jamie Q. Roberts 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/truth-evidence-and-controversy-richard-dawkins-the-god-delusion-at-20/

Renewables now contribute more than 40% of the electricity generated in Australia’s main grid. Twenty years ago, that figure was under 10%. Despite this growth, the federal target of 82% by 2030 is slipping out of reach.

This comes down to one reason: uneven investment. Australia is now the world’s third-largest market for grid-scale batteries, while solar farms are proceeding steadily.

But the real problem is wind. Supply chain shortages, financing issues, construction cost increases and political changes have made wind projects much more difficult to build. And that’s going to be a problem – Australia needs more wind projects to fill the gap as old coal plants retire.

It’s not all bad news. Last week, a large new wind farm in Western Australia secured the necessary financing to go ahead. But more needs to be done.

A transition well underway

Huge change has already come to Australia’s power grids.

But the clean energy rebuild isn’t done yet. An estimated A$106 billion of investment will be needed by 2050.

At present, these funds are thin on the ground. The 2026 survey by the Clean Energy Investor Group found the percentage of major investors rating Australia’s clean energy sector as “attractive” fell from 69% in 2025 to 58%, while the percentage regarding it as “somewhat unattractive” more than doubled from 8% to 19%.

That’s a problem. Wind projects have to be financed years before they earn any revenue. On average, wind projects take over a year longer to be built than solar. These longer build times mean, with higher interest rates, these projects have higher upfront costs.

Investors warn that the Coalition’s retreat from net zero threatens a recovery in confidence. The National and Liberal parties have ended their commitment to net zero.

Projects that began under one set of policy assumptions can run into trouble if these change.

Renewables aren’t collapsing – just wind

Australia’s renewable slowdown isn’t uniform. Solar and batteries are going strong, while wind farms are struggling. This year, few new wind farms have reached the stage where construction could actually begin.

Wind is crucial. The Australian Energy Market Operator is counting on wind to generate 47% of the total power from renewables in the main power grid by 2030.

Once wind power is built, it becomes one of the most efficient and reliable sources of energy available. In windy areas, turbines can turn day and night.

But trade data shows Australia’s imports of battery storage roughly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025, while imports of wind turbines and equipment have fallen sharply.

This matches investment figures: in 2025, investment in batteries rose almost 70% to $4.8 billion, while wind investment fell almost 60% to $2.6 billion. Solar farm investment dropped a little, falling 5% to $1.9 billion.

Why is wind tricky?

Solar farms are typically smaller and faster to build. They’re also easier to finance in stages. Wind farms tend to be larger, take longer to plan and build and are harder to finance in stages.

Economics pose another challenge. To be viable, wind farms need electricity prices above $100 per megawatt-hour. But the market is currently offering around $60.

Then there are construction costs, which have risen sharply in recent years. Turbine prices rose almost 40% between 2020 and 2022. Other challenges include the cost of new transmission lines, and a shortage of skilled workers.

Then there’s politics. In February last year, the Queensland government began requiring wind farm backers to do significantly more in terms of full impact assessments and public consultation. It also gave third parties more rights to appeal. In May, the state government axed the large, conditionally approved, Moonlight Ridge wind farm.

Unsurprisingly, no new wind farm applications have been lodged in Queensland since.

Wind has to be ready for coal to exit

It’s common for wind projects to take about five years to become reality. If investors are reconsidering, Australia may not have enough clean energy in the pipeline to replace increasingly unreliable coal plants slated for retirement.

Victoria’s Yallourn power station will close in 2028, while Australia’s largest coal plant, Eraring will close in 2029, after a two-year extension. Queensland’s Gladstone plant may be retired in 2029, six years early.

These three large plants produce about 30 terawatt-hours a year between them – roughly twice South Australia’s total annual power generation.

If the present wind drought isn’t resolved soon, it will leave a large gap that won’t show up in energy statistics until it’s too late to fix.

Wind is key

If these worrying investment trends continue, wind will produce less power than authorities expected. Solar and batteries could take up some of the slack, but not all.

Overcoming these doldrums won’t be easy. But it has to be done. To do this, investors need certainty. That will mean giving clearer commitments to long-term climate policy at a national level.

More predictable state planning rules would help, as would allowing contracts to better reflect real construction costs.

Australia has come a long way down the path to a renewable energy future. But it’s not yet job done. To complete the transition, we will need wind.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/why-are-new-wind-farms-stuck-in-the-doldrums-in-australia/

Going by recent opinion polls, the combined votes of National and Labour in the coming election may be the lowest ever – below 60%.

This might be a temporary dip, and the familiar National-Labour pendulum may swing back in future elections. Or it could signal a long-term trend. Results below 30%, or even 25%, will become normal for both.

Political fragmentation will see the “legacy” parties that dominated the postwar era shrink while others grow in size and number. Government formation will be more complicated.

This phenomenon is well advanced in many countries with proportional representation systems. The old left-right axis is intersected by environmental, economic and social concerns – from immigration and house prices to climate change and war in Palestine and Ukraine – that disrupt the old order.

For example, the Social Democrats won the most seats in Denmark’s 2026 election, but with only 21.8% of the vote. The Green Left party came second with 11.6%. The centre-right Venstre party fell to 10.1%.

Twelve parties in all won seats. A four-party minority coalition government, led by Mette Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, was sworn in ten weeks later.

In Germany, which uses a similar mixed member proportional (MMP) system to New Zealand, the conservative CDU/CSU coalition is now polling below 20%, and the Social Democratic Party below 15%. The populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) leads in the high 20s.

New Zealand’s 2026 election may represent a historic watershed in the evolution of a similar process.

The Waitangi divide

If there is one issue unique to Aotearoa New Zealand that serves to illustrate the relative collapse of the centre, it’s the fate of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Te Pāti Māori and the Green Party want the tribunal’s recommendations to be “binding” on governments as part of a “constitutional transformation”. The ACT and NZ First parties propose winding up or abolishing the tribunal once historical claims are settled.

Meanwhile, in the middle, a consensus has evolved that the tribunal, the courts and the public service – and hence schools and other public institutions – should continue on a journey of bicultural recognition and partnership.

But public support for that centrist consensus – gradually shifting constitutional practice without rocking the boat – is not as solid as many had assumed or hoped. This has been challenging for Labour and National, both wanting to appeal to broader constituencies than may exist.

In a 1News Verian poll in late 2024, 39% of respondents said they didn’t know enough about the ACT Party’s divisive Treaty Principles Bill to either support or oppose it. Only a minority (36%) actually opposed it.

In another poll from earlier that year, 52% said they didn’t really understand the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in the first place.

Does “not knowing enough” signify ignorance or just a reluctance to say out loud what they really think? It could be both. People may reserve their opinions for fear of being called misinformed, uneducated or racist.

Read more: Election Policy Tracker: your guide to what the parties are promising during the 2026 election campaign

Those who openly oppose Treaty-based co-governance can be dismissed as “grumpy old white men” who – like the dinosaurs – will soon be extinct. Demography is destiny, it’s often thought, as better-educated younger generations continue down the bicultural path.

But this kind of optimism about progressive opinion has been known to fail politically. International examples of polarisation and fragmentation show resistance to an established consensus may regenerate rather than die out.

For example, an Australian poll earlier this year found a boost in support for the populist One Nation Party among millennials aged between 30 and 45, not only among older voters.

In the United States, those born in the 1980s, 1990s or 2000s “became more likely” to favour Donald Trump between 2020 and 2024, according to Pew Research (although his job approval rating has dropped significantly since 2024).

Because people’s values and preferences change over time, we can’t assume conservative ideas are dying out and progressive opinion represents the future.

Despite reasonable accusations of stoking racism, populist parties such as Germany’s AfD have risen because those sentiments existed already, albeit previously muted.

Such parties give license to believe things many people had felt couldn’t be talked about. An established political consensus about the economic and social benefits of immigration and diversity is now openly challenged.

Change and adaptation

In New Zealand, then, polarised opinion about the future of the Waitangi Tribunal may be a key political battle that continues to challenge the legacy parties’ consensus and helps smaller parties grow on either side.

Right-wing parties upset the centrist orthodoxy, boosted by anger over changes people have neither understood nor approved. Left-wing alternatives draw from an opposing constituency angry about colonisation and racism and demanding “equity”.

The legacy parties have largely failed to deal with this erosion of political consensus and trust. Their “big tents” aren’t big enough to accommodate today’s disputes.

Adaptation to this new normal will require change from voters and the media, as well as the political parties themselves.

National and Labour will need to hear and understand dissenting views without simply caving in. That will mean getting better at multi-constituency coalition building, and moving away from “ruling out” working with other parties before an election is even held.

Political journalists will have to get away from “horse race” punditry and grilling leaders on whether they’ll resign if their polling falls below a certain level.

Voters will need to accept the next government may well be built from four parties. Internationally, this is normal, but it takes time – and some compromises. There needn’t be any anxious talk of a “hung parliament”.

If we are witnessing a process of political fragmentation in New Zealand, the real challenge will be to make the system respond constructively. Good leadership will be essential.

From the cost of living to how best to tackle climate change, the coming election involves some big choices.

This article is part of The Conversation’s Election 2026 series: expert analysis of the major policy debates and the big challenges New Zealand’s next government will face.

Grant Duncan 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/10/06/nzs-next-government-could-be-a-four-party-coalition-get-used-to-the-new-normal/