Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stella Huangfu, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

The Reserve Bank of Australia lowered the official interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.60% at its meeting today, marking the third cut this year. The move follows reductions in February and May, and comes after a pause in July that surprised analysts and upset mortgage holders.

The Reserve Bank cut its outlook for economic growth, and said inflation was back within its target band. In a post-meeting press conference, Governor Michele Bullock said:

The forecasts imply that the cash rate might need to be a bit lower than it is today to keep inflation low and stable, and employment growing, but there is still a lot of uncertainty. So the board will continue to focus on the data to guide its policy response.

Markets had widely anticipated the decision. Futures pricing put the odds of a cut at nearly 100%, and all four major banks had forecast at least one more reduction before the end of the year. A Reuters poll last week found all 40 economists surveyed expected the Reserve Bank to lower rates this week.

Bullock told reporters the bank did not discuss a larger rate cut. The Commonwealth Bank was the first to pass on the rate cut to mortgage rates. The other major banks followed suit.

The economy is cooling

The Reserve Bank is encouraged by the sharp fall in inflation. This is the second straight quarter with its preferred measure of core inflation, the trimmed mean, below 3% — a marked turnaround from 2023, when inflation was well above target. Headline inflation has slowed to 2.1%, comfortably inside the 2–3% target range, while the trimmed mean sits at 2.7%.

As the Reserve Bank noted, “inflation has fallen substantially since the peak in 2022, as higher interest rates have been working to bring aggregate demand and potential supply closer towards balance.”

At the same time, the economy is clearly cooling. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew just 0.2% in the March quarter and 1.3% over the year, well below the bank’s earlier forecasts.

The unemployment rate has climbed to 4.3% and job ads are trending lower. Household spending remains subdued, with retail sales flat and consumer sentiment still negative.

In its quarterly policy statement, the bank trimmed its GDP forecast for December 2025 to 1.7% from 2.1%, based on slower consumer spending and business investment. The reduction suggests further rate cuts will be needed to support growth.

Minutes from last month’s policy meeting showed the decision then was finely balanced. Three members favoured cutting in July, while six preferred to wait for more inflation data.

Today, all nine board members voted unanimously for a cut — signalling the Reserve Bank is now more convinced about acting early, choosing to provide extra support now rather than risk a sharper slowdown later.

A cautious outlook

The Reserve Bank’s statement kept the door open to further cuts, noting that rates could fall again if inflation remains contained and economic activity softens further.

The Board nevertheless remains cautious about the outlook, particularly given the heightened level of uncertainty about both aggregate demand and potential supply.

Markets are still betting on additional cuts this year. Traders now see a high probability of another 25 basis point cut in November, with markets suggesting the cash rate could fall to around 3.35% by year-end.

Major bank forecasts point to lower rates ahead: NAB expects a cash rate of 3.10% by February 2026, while Westpac sees 2.85% by mid-2026. While the pace and scale differ, the consensus is that today’s cut is unlikely to be the last in this cycle.

Global uncertainty

The decision comes as the slowdown becomes more evident across key indicators. The economy is barely growing, the job market is weakening, and inflation has returned to the central bank’s target range. Wage growth is still above inflation but is no longer accelerating, easing fears of a wage–price spiral.

Australia’s move mirrors a global trend toward lower rates.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve cut official interest rates three times in the second half of 2024 and has since held steady.

In Europe, the European Central Bank paused at its July meeting, after eight straight 25 basis point cuts since June 2024, balancing weak growth in economies like Germany and France with stubbornly high inflation in other parts of the euro area.

Bullock noted at the press conference that Australia had not raised rates as aggressively as other central banks to tame inflation, and therefore would be more modest in the cuts:

Because we didn’t take rates as high as some other countries, it may be that we don’t need to reduce rates as much either.

By lowering the cash rate to 3.60% today, the Reserve Bank is showing it’s ready to act more quickly to help the economy as prices slow and growth weakens.

Markets expect more cuts ahead, but the pace will depend on whether inflation stays in check and the slowdown deepens. The interest rate cut cycle is clearly still in motion — and today’s decision suggests it may have further to run.

Stella Huangfu 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.

– ref. The RBA has cut rates for the third time this year. More relief may be on the way – https://theconversation.com/the-rba-has-cut-rates-for-the-third-time-this-year-more-relief-may-be-on-the-way-263031

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Paterson, Teaching Associate in International Relations , Monash University

In June 2024, Ukraine shocked Russian forces with the surprise Operation Spiderweb, an unprecedented, coordinated drone strike deep inside Russian territory.

More recently, as part of Operation Rising Lion, Israel used drones to destroy Iranian air defences in a highly coordinated opening attack.

These operations were tactically successful, yet strikingly simple and inexpensive. They demonstrate the significant role drones have come to play on the battlefield.

But the same low-cost, easily assembled drone technology could be repurposed by extremists.

Policymakers need to act quickly by making it harder to purchase drone equipment, investing in methods to destroy drones in the air and investing in research into how drones might be used in the future.

How are drones used as weapons?

The use of drones by non-state actors is not new.

In 2020, Houthi militants launched a combined missile and drone strike on a Yemeni military training camp, killing 79 and injuring 150.

In January 2024, a drone attack by Kataib Hezbollah killed United States soldiers at a military outpost in Jordan, the first such American fatalities attributed to enemy drones.

Yet, the evolution in drone use as part of the conflict in Ukraine reveals the potential to amplify the threat.

During the past two years, improvements in accessibility, affordability, range and speed have transformed commercial drones into precision strike platforms capable of inflicting mass casualties at low cost.

Drones having been credited with causing as much as 70% of frontline casualties on both sides in the war in Ukraine.

These innovations are unlikely to remain confined to state actors for long.

Historically, insurgent and terrorist groups have borrowed, adapted and repurposed military innovations to suit their needs.

How could terrorists use drones?

Drones in the hands of non-state actors pose the greatest danger on the battlefield but the domestic landscape is far from immune.

One especially vulnerable area is critical infrastructure. Several incidents in recent years highlight this.

Between 2015 and 2019, the United States experienced at least 57 drone incursions at two dozen of its nuclear sites.

In 2018 and 2019, drone sightings shut down major airports in London.

Sydney Airport has reported increasing levels of drone activity in its no-fly zone.

In the US in December 2023, drones repeatedly breached restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base. The US government had no meaningful response to these incursions.

Even more concerning is the potential convergence of extremist ideology and drone capability.

“Accelerationism” – the belief that societal collapse should be hastened – has gained traction among far-right and fringe extremist groups. Critical infrastructure is a prime target: damaging it can both sow public panic while serving the movement’s broader strategic goal of engineering a systemic collapse by destroying key institutions.

So far, most drone-related incidents have not had a malicious intent. However, Ukraine has shown how easily drones can transition from nuisance to lethal weapon.

It is not inconceivable that non-state actors will realise the strategic value of affordable, small and commercially available drones that can be used to execute bomb-drop missions and kamikaze-style attacks with relative ease.

However, the operational complexity of Ukraine’s high-end drone tactics should not be understated. Achieving this level of drone innovation requires financial resources, technical skill, infrastructure and bespoke software.

While more established, state-like entities might possess such capabilities, it is less clear whether more fragmented or ideologically disorganised groups, or “lone wolf” actors, can replicate them at scale.

Nevertheless, resource and technological hurdles alone should not be relied on as the only safeguard.

What can be done?

Local and national law enforcement agencies must be equipped with counter-drone tools such as:

• signal-disrupting “drone guns”
• jammers, which cut the signal between a drone and its pilot
• net-based interceptors which capture the drone itself.

But these technologies are expensive, and too few are available to cover all potential targets.

Improving the regulation of over-the-counter drone products is also key.

Many drones sold in the US do not include in-built “geofencing” features, which block access to restricted airspaces. There is also no mandate requiring manufacturers to include them.

Australia has a similar regulatory framework, with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority largely relying on user compliance rather than requiring the embedding of safety features. The European Union, though, has developed a regulatory framework that requires geo-awareness and geofencing capabilities.

A more urgent challenge is the unregulated DIY drone market. Components can be sourced online and assembled with ease, sometimes using 3D-printed parts.

Malicious actors can tailor drones to bypass geofencing and other safety protocols, while also improving performance capabilities.

Just as 3D-printed firearm components are becoming subject to regulation, policymakers should consider establishing oversight mechanisms for drone parts and manufacturing tools.

One of the most effective ways to curb the misuse of DIY drone technology is to close the anonymity gap in how parts are made and shared. Requiring commercial 3D-printing providers to keep verifiable records of all jobs and to embed serial numbers or digital watermarks (a printer’s fingerprint) into critical printed components would make it far harder to produce and circulate untraceable parts.

In parallel, regulating the distribution of digital blueprints for high-capability drone components, as has been proposed in the United Kingdom for 3D-printed firearm schematics, would prevent the easy online spread of weaponisable designs.

Together, these measures would raise the cost, complexity and risk for extremists. They would also give authorities the tools to quickly trace and disrupt illicit drone manufacturing networks.

If extremist groups are allowed to adapt these technologies faster than governments can respond, we risk entering an era in which the skies are a vector for disruption and terror.

James Paterson 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.

– ref. High-tech drones are changing warfare – terrorists may soon follow the same playbook – https://theconversation.com/high-tech-drones-are-changing-warfare-terrorists-may-soon-follow-the-same-playbook-262626

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Saskia Gerhardy, PhD Candidate, School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide

In the vast, arid landscapes of South Australia’s northeast, on the lands of the Adnyamathanha and Wilyakali, a surprising discovery is changing our understanding of one of Australia’s most endangered birds.

The plains-wanderer (Pedionomus torquatus) has long hovered on the brink of extinction. Conservation efforts focus on protecting its known grassland habitats, mainly in Victoria and and New South Wales. But our new research shows more than 250 of these birds are thriving in habitats previously considered unsuitable, on the western edge of its range.

We used tracking devices – attached to a harness resembling a tiny backpack – to discover that this new population prefers open shrublands to grasslands. This could change how we conserve one of Australia’s most unique birds.

Studying the Goldilocks bird

Most people agree Australia is home to some pretty special birds, but the plains-wanderer often goes unnoticed. This small, mottled brown, ground-dwelling bird is the sole surviving member of an ancient lineage. It’s often called a “living fossil” because its closest relatives died out long ago.

It’s so unique that in 2018 the Zoological Society of London put the plains-wanderer on top of its “evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered” bird list. Fewer than 2,000 plains-wanderers remain in the wild.

Known as a habitat specialist, the plains-wanderer has been nicknamed the “Goldilocks bird” because its survival depends on conditions being just right.

Historically, this included well-managed native grasslands in Victoria and NSW, while habitat in SA was considered too degraded or unsuitable.

Our new research challenges this view, uncovering a population thriving in habitat nobody expected the species to use.

Strap on the birdie backpacks

Against all expectations we found 272 plains-wanderers living in Boolcoomatta Station Reserve, 100km west of Broken Hill in semi-arid rangeland.

To learn more about this new population, we used miniature GPS data loggers to track their movements for a month. Then we used VHF (very high frequency) devices to locate the birds, so we could retrieve and download the information.

Both devices are lightweight and designed to sit comfortably between the birds’ wings, like a tiny hiking pack. Researchers conducted extensive testing with captive birds to ensure the fit was safe and comfortable.

Once we had ethics approval in place, we fitted 29 plains-wanderers with these miniature backpacks. Then, like following breadcrumbs through the bush, we traced the steps of our tracked birds to find the habitats they selected.

Choosing shrublands over grasslands

We found this new population of plains-wanderers consistently selected open shrublands dominated by a low-growing woody herb, Sclerolaena.

This prickly, hardy, drought-tolerant plant does not seem like particularly hospitable habitat. It’s more often associated with grazed rangelands than endangered birds. But time and again, our GPS-tracked birds chose these sparse, open areas. Their preferred habitat featured about 55% plant cover with large patches of bare ground. The plants were an average 11cm tall.

Grassy places could also be found in the landscape. But these areas were particularly dense, providing the wrong kind of cover for plains-wanderers. The birds’ consistent avoidance of these denser grasslands suggests vegetation structure, rather than just plant species, is key.

This challenges decades of ecological thought. The plains-wanderer, long considered a “grassland specialist”, may actually be more selective about vegetation structure than species composition. In other words, habitat use is not solely about grass cover but the right mix of plant height, density and bare ground.

Unanswered questions

Our discovery of more than 250 so-called grassland specialists in shrubland raises important questions about the management of this threatened species.

For decades, conservation efforts have focused on protecting core habitat of the plains-wanderer in NSW and Victoria. While these areas remain crucial, our findings suggest the species lives in a broader range of habitats than previously thought. Interestingly, the habitat we found is widespread in SA’s arid interior, opening up new possibilities for conservation in areas often dismissed as unsuitable.

Peripheral populations of threatened species are often overlooked, but they remain vital for survival of a species. These populations may have unique traits, behave differently, or buffer declining core habitats.

Our findings show conservation shouldn’t focus solely on assumptions about habitat. If we only search where we expect to find a species, we risk missing important parts of the bigger picture — or, in this case, vital parts of the population.

Yet, there is much we still do not know about this population. Where did it originate? How far does its range extend? How will it cope with droughts and climate change? Our discovery raises more questions than answers.

To better understand this population, we are now conducting genetic analyses to explore how it interacts with the core population. The results should tell us more about how closely they are connected.

We are also incorporating this new data into computer models to identify other possible hidden populations, refine the species’ range, and aid in population discovery.

Perhaps most importantly, this research allows us to protect not just the places we’ve always looked — but the places we’ve overlooked.

Keep searching for more surprises

It’s uncommon to write a positive story about a species listed as critically endangered, especially when they’re in better condition than expected.

Even as biodiversity loss accelerates, discoveries like this remind us nature still holds surprises.

This find serves as a strong reminder to keep searching, not just in the usual spots, but in the misunderstood areas at the edges of a species’ range. Because sometimes, hope can be found in the most unexpected places.

This research was made possible through Bush Heritage Australia funding, and with the support of the Grubb foundation, BirdLife Australia, Nature Conservation Society of South Australia, and the Schultz Foundation.

Steven Delean 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.

– ref. We tracked one of Australia’s most endangered birds into strange new habitat – https://theconversation.com/we-tracked-one-of-australias-most-endangered-birds-into-strange-new-habitat-262317

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

A new road charge is looming for electric vehicle drivers, amid reports Treasurer Jim Chalmers is accelerating the policy as part of a broader tax-reform push.

At a forum in Sydney this week, state and federal Treasury officials are reportedly meeting with industry figures and others to progress design of the policy, ahead of next week’s economic reform summit.

Much discussion in favour of the charge assumes drivers of electric and hybrid vehicles don’t “pay their way”, because they are not subject to the fuel excise tax.

This view is based on an economic misconception: that fuel taxes are justified by the need to pay for the construction and maintenance of roads.

This is incorrect. In a properly functioning economic system, fuel taxes should be considered a charge on motorists for the harmful pollution their vehicles generate.

That leaves the problem of paying for roads. To that end, a road-user charge should be applied to all motorists – regardless of the vehicle they drive – so no-one gets a free ride.

What is the fuel excise?

The fuel excise in Australia is currently about 51 cents a litre and is rolled into the cost of fuel at the bowser.

Some, such as the Australian Automobile Association claim revenue from the excise pays for roads. But it actually goes into the federal government’s general revenue.

The primary economic function of the fuel tax is that of a charge on motorists for the harmful pollution their vehicles generate.

Paying the cost of pollution

Vehicles with internal combustion engines – that is, those that run on petrol or diesel – create several types of pollution.

The first is carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to human-caused climate change. Others include local air pollution from particulates and exhaust pollution as well as noise pollution.

In economic terms, these effects are known as “negative externalities”. They arise when one party makes another party worse off, but doesn’t pay the costs of doing so.

How big are the costs to society imposed by polluting vehicles? Estimates vary widely. But they are almost certainly as large as, or larger than, the revenue generated from fuel excise.

Let’s tease that out.

A litre of petrol weighs about 0.74 kg. But when burned, it generates 2.3 kg of CO₂. That’s because when the fuel is combusted, the carbon combines with heavier oxygen atoms.

Before the re-election of United States President Donald Trump, the nation’s Environmental Protection Agency estimated the social cost of carbon dioxide emissions at about US$190 (A$292) per metric tonne.

So in Australian terms, that means CO₂ emissions from burning petrol costs about 67 cents a litre, more than the current excise of 51 cents per litre.

Even using a more conservative estimate of US$80 a metric tonne, CO₂ emissions generate costs of around 28 cents a litre, more than half the fuel excise.

A spotlight on health impacts

Motor vehicles are a major cause of air pollution. Air pollution is causally linked to six diseases:

• coronary heart disease
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• stroke
• type 2 diabetes
• lung cancer
• lower respiratory infections.

Estimates of the deaths associated with air pollution in Australia range from 3,200 to more than 4,200 a year.

Even the lower end of that range is far more than the roughly 1,200 lives lost in car crashes annually.

University of Melbourne analysis in 2023 landed at an even higher figure. It suggested vehicle emissions alone may be responsible for more than 11,000 premature deaths in adults in Australia a year.

Putting a dollar value on life and health is difficult – but necessary for good policy making.

The usual approach is to examine the “statistical” reduction in deaths for a given policy measure. For example, a policy measure that eliminates a hazard faced by 1,000 people, reducing death risk by 1 percentage point, would save ten statistical lives.

The Australian government ascribes a value of $5.7 million per (statistical) life lost or saved. So, hypothetically, a saving of 2,000 lives a year would yield a benefit of more than $10 billion.

This is more than half the revenue collected in fuel excise each year.

The best road forward

Given the harms caused by traditional vehicles, society should welcome the decline in fuel excise revenue caused by the transition to EVs – in the same way we should welcome declining revenue from cigarette taxes.

If we assume fuel excise pays for pollution costs, then who is paying for roads?

The cost of roads goes far beyond construction and maintenance. The capital and land allocated to roads represents a huge investment, on which the public, as a whole, receives zero return.

Vehicle registration fees make only a modest contribution to road costs. That’s why all motorists should pay a road-user charge. Such a system will soon be introduced in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The payment should be based on a combination of vehicle mass and distance travelled. That’s because damage to roads is overwhelmingly caused by heavy vehicles.

Then comes the question of Australia’s emissions reduction. The switch to electric vehicles in Australia is going much too slowly. A road user charge targeting only electric and hybrid vehicles would be a grave mistake, slowing the uptake further.

John Quiggin is a former member ot the Climate Change Authority.

– ref. Stop the free ride: all motorists should pay their way, whatever vehicle they drive – https://theconversation.com/stop-the-free-ride-all-motorists-should-pay-their-way-whatever-vehicle-they-drive-262950

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

The phrase “We are now one people” has resurfaced lately, largely due to a campaign by the Hobson’s Pledge lobby group against the retention of Māori wards at referendums being held as part of the upcoming local body elections.

Māori wards and constituencies are the local authority equivalent of the Māori seats in Parliament, enabling a level of representation Māori have historically struggled to access. Anyone – Māori or non-Māori – can stand for election in a Māori ward or constituency.

The campaign against these arrangements has been somewhat overshadowed by the misuse of a Māori woman’s photograph on Hobson’s Pledge billboards next to the lines “My mana doesn’t need a mandate – vote no to Māori wards”.

But behind the immediate controversy lie deeper questions about the historical basis of claims made by Hobson’s Pledge and their justification for opposing city and district Māori wards.

At the core of those claims is the idea that the phrase “We are now one people” – more correctly, “He iwi tahi tātou” in te reo Māori, which is what Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson is held to have said at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 – has both moral and constitutional status.

Effectively, the inference is that Hobson’s words amount to a political requirement to treat everyone in the same manner, irrespective of ethnicity. The Hobson’s Pledge website frames this as Hobson’s “promise […] that all New Zealanders would be one people”.

Colenso’s remembered history

Since the formation of Hobson’s Pledge in 2016, this interpretation has assumed canonical status among those determined to counter a perceived misinterpretation of te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi that enshrines Māori “privilege” and promotes “race-based” policies.

However, the only evidence Hobson uttered the phrase “He iwi tahi tātou” comes from Church Missionary Society printer William Colenso’s account, The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, published as part of the colony’s jubilee celebrations in 1890, 40 years after the events it recounts.

In his 39-page booklet, Colenso stresses that his recollections are based on notes written “down on the spot while fresh in memory”, and says the manuscript on which his history was based was read and commented on by fellow missionary William Wade and James Busby, the outgoing British Resident, in late February 1840.

But research comparing Colenso’s manuscript and his later history has concluded his account “should be treated with a degree of informed caution”, partly because “none of the footnotes attributed to Busby by Colenso in his 1890 history appear in his 1840 manuscript”.

Colenso is clear Hobson spoke in te reo Māori, uttering the phrase “He iwi tahi tātou” each time he shook hands with one of the 45 rangatira (chiefs) who signed the Treaty at Waitangi. But his English translation – “We are [now] one people” – appears in parentheses to clearly indicate it has been added after the fact.

In their promotional material, Hobson’s Pledge routinely remove those parentheses, suggesting Hobson also uttered Colenso’s English translation.

No other existing record corroborates Colenso’s claim about what Hobson said. This includes the one compiled at the request of parliament by William Baker, a translator for the Native Department, in July 1865 – 25 years before Colenso’s recollections of events were published.

Neither Hobson nor Colenso make any reference to a “pledge”. In fact, Colenso gives just one line to Hobson’s interactions with rangatira at the signing, and spends far longer on the lieutenant-governor’s concerns about the behaviour of the Queen’s British subjects.

He recounts at some length Hobson’s explanation to rangatira that because “the law of England gives no civil powers to Her Majesty out of her dominions”, she “asks you to sign this treaty, and so give her that power which shall enable her to restrain them [her subjects]”.

‘We are peoples together’

Rather than being a pledge or promise, it’s much likelier Hobson was simply being polite when he said “He iwi tahi tātou”.

Significantly, too, there is no record of what the Māori rangatira at the time had to say about being “one people”. The same goes for the 500 or so other Māori, including 13 wāhine, who would subsequently sign te Tiriti o Waitangi in other parts of the country.

Colenso’s account lays bare the concern among, and division between, rangatira about signing the Treaty. But their views on Hobson’s te reo Māori phrase have not survived. Perhaps they simply assumed “we” were all Māori, which would have made sense given the estimated Māori population at the time was some 80,000, compared to around 2,000 Pākehā.

It is curious that one particular line – “He iwi tahi tātou” – has been picked from Colenso’s translation, when other lines have not – including his recollection that “Mr. Busby addressed the Natives to the effect that the Governor was not come to take away their land, but to secure them in the possession of what they had not sold”.

None of this is Colenso’s fault, of course. And Hobson’s Pledge is entitled to promote its broader political aims. But to assert Hobson made a “pledge” at Waitangi is a historical fiction, based on a Pākehā missionary’s translation of words spoken in te reo Māori that can’t be independently verified.

In fact, when translated by someone for whom Māori is their first language, “He iwi tahi tātou” might be better understood to mean “We are peoples together”. Which is largely where contemporary debates about the Treaty’s meaning begin, not end.

Richard Shaw 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.

– ref. Māori wards: how the Hobson’s Pledge campaign relies on a ‘historical fiction’ – https://theconversation.com/maori-wards-how-the-hobsons-pledge-campaign-relies-on-a-historical-fiction-262944

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olaf Meynecke, Research Fellow in Marine Science and Manager Whales & Climate Program, Griffith University

As the annual humpback whale migration is underway with thousands of whales passing by the Australian coast, there are reports of dolphins joining the mass movement.

But this isn’t a one off. In fact, our new study, published today in Discover Animals, shows interspecies interactions between dolphins and whales are widespread and frequent around the world.

An astonishing interaction

There have been several reports of whale and dolphin interaction in the past.

One that astonished the public back in 2004 featured a humpback whale in Hawaii repeatedly lifting a bottlenose dolphin on its head.

Researchers suggested such close contact between whales and dolphins is likely very rare – and maybe related to care giving.

But other forms of interactions resembling joint feeding, play and harassment are now being frequently documented thanks to drone technology. Many are also featured on social media.

A ‘whale’s-eye view’ of the world

For our new study, we undertook an analysis of 199 independent whale-dolphin interaction events involving 19 different species. These interactions spanned two decades and occurred across 17 countries.

We drew from social media platforms – such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram – and footage contributed by citizens to get a variety of observations.

Each entry was carefully reviewed to identify the species involved, validate the interaction and categorise behaviours. Two additional cases came from camera tags attached to humpback whales. These offered an underwater “whale’s-eye view” of their encounters with dolphins.

We categorised behaviours such as rolling, tail slaps, bow riding, and rubbing, and classified dolphin positions relative to whale body parts such as head, flank and tail fluke.

Having fun or fighting?

The study contradicted earlier assumptions that interspecies interactions between dolphins and whales are very rare.

The most common interaction was dolphins swimming near the whale’s head (akin to bow riding). This accounted for 80% of observed dolphin positions. Humpback whales were the most involved whale species, while bottlenose dolphins led the dolphin side.

Based on videos we analysed, dolphins initiated most interactions through bow riding, swimming in formation, or even touching whales.

In more than one-quarter of the events, the whales responded in seemingly similar ways. For example, humpback whales often rolled, exposed their bellies, or gently turned toward dolphins.

Tail slaps and other signs of distress or aggression were rare (roughly 5% of cases).

As a result of this, we classified more than one-third of all interactions between humpback whales and dolphins as positive or possible social play.

The two camera-tag videos revealed previously undocumented interaction. Dolphins were observed following humpback whales not only at the surface but down to the ocean floor. They maintained eye contact or even touched the whales’ head – suggesting intentional, possibly social, engagement.

Reflecting advanced emotional capabilities

The findings reshape our understanding of how social marine mammals interact across species. They suggest interspecies interaction among marine mammals may be far more prevalent and complex than previously believed.

Dolphins may seek out whales as companions for stimulation, play or even courtship-like behaviour. Meanwhile, certain whale species, particularly humpback whales, may not only tolerate but also engage with dolphins in a social capacity.

This interspecies dynamic adds a new dimension to marine mammal social ecology and could point to cultural elements in whale and dolphin societies. The playfulness, cooperation and apparent enjoyment observed in many interactions reflect advanced cognitive and emotional capabilities.

The study also demonstrates the power of new technologies and community science. Social media and drones proved invaluable for collecting a range of diverse behavioural data that traditional surveys might miss.

Social media data has limitations, such as geographic and observer bias caused by different angles, heights, equipment and frequency of use of social media. But it does complement other data and helps uncover previously unknown behaviours.

Whales and dolphins don’t just coexist but also seek each other out. Future studies incorporating acoustic recordings and longer observation periods could further unravel the motivations and meanings behind these fascinating encounters.

Olaf Meynecke receives funding from the Whales and Climate Research Program through a private, charitable trust and is a board member of the not for profit organisation Humpbacks and Highrises Inc.

– ref. Whales and dolphins regularly hang out with each other – new study – https://theconversation.com/whales-and-dolphins-regularly-hang-out-with-each-other-new-study-260196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aayushi Badhwar, Lecturer in Enterprise and Technology, RMIT University

Today’s consumers are swimming in a sea of information. Products are marketed with big, bold words such as “sustainable”, “ethical” and “organic”. They sound good, they catch our attention, and they make us feel better about what we buy.

The reality is, in today’s market, figuring out which claims are true is no easy task.

One big reason is greenwashing, when brands use these buzzwords to sell products without living up to what the words actually mean. In fashion especially, these terms are thrown around so often that their meaning has been watered down. Instead of being about genuine change, they are often just a sales tool.

So, how can you know what to look out for?

Who should take responsibility for green claims?

Greenwashing takes many forms. Sometimes brands know they are misleading; this is direct greenwashing. Other times, it’s indirect, when brands simply do not know the full story of their own supply chains. A T-shirt, for example, might start as raw cotton in one country, get processed into fabric in another, sewn into a garment, and then shipped overseas for sale.

At each stage, there are different suppliers, factories and workers. The brand has limited visibility over what happens in these tiers. When a brand claims it produces ethically, but does not, that is greenwashing. If it involves exploitation or forced labour, it then becomes modern slavery, turning greenwashing into something more dangerous.

This raises a big question: who is responsible? The obvious answer is the brands. They design, order, and sell the products, and they profit from them. Consumers are paying for these goods, so they should have access to credible information, not just vague claims or nice-sounding labels.

The fashion industry is constantly in the spotlight for problems in its supply chains. Stories about poor working conditions, environmental damage, and lack of transparency pop up all the time. But just like a viral trend on social media, the attention often fades quickly, and people move on to the next story.

Certifications aren’t perfect

There are many certifications in the fashion industry trying to help, but they are not foolproof. A label might promise ethical sourcing, but that does not guarantee transparency or prove that every step was ethical.

A large portion of China’s cotton comes from the Xinjiang region, which has long been linked to forced labour; concerns were highlighted in a United Nations report in 2022. Another example is deforestation in Brazil, where cotton from affected areas was certified under the “Better Cotton” scheme. Many major brands – like ASICS producing the Australian Olympic uniforms – have faced scrutiny for sourcing cotton from controversial regions.

Tracing global supply chains is hard. But the responsibility does not disappear just because it’s complicated.

In Australia, the Modern Slavery Act took effect in January 2019 to tackle issues such as forced labour and exploitation. Penalties include heavy fines or jail time.

However, there is a major loophole, as only companies with an annual revenue over A$100 million are required to report under the act. For big corporations, even if they are caught, the penalty can be tiny compared to the profits they have made.

This is not just an Australian problem, it’s global. For example, luxury brand Dior was placed under judicial administration after being found negligent for failing to act against worker exploitation in its subcontracted supply chain in Italy. The pattern is often the same; a company gets accused, sometimes even fined, but the cost is minimal compared to their annual revenue, so it’s barely a setback.

Is there a role for government?

So, should the responsibility rest only with brands? Not entirely. Governments also benefit from these companies through taxes and trade. They profit indirectly when the companies profit, and they benefit from the jobs these companies provide.

A stronger approach would involve government bodies and brands working with supply chain mapping companies, such as Textile Genesis, TrusTrace or FibreTrace. These platforms, often powered by blockchain and artificial intelligence, track a product through every stage of production.

Blockchain – which uses a decentralised database – can be a game changer.

Unlike websites or paper trails, blockchain data cannot be altered without leaving trace. Once recorded, the information is permanent, and it can be shared across manufacturers, brands and government bodies to maintain real-time disclosure.

When products enter a country, the ethical claims behind them could be verified in real time, instead of relying on brands to respond after an allegation is made.

The upfront cost is high and adoption might be slow. But in the long run it could save money on compliance, audits and damage control, while also building consumer trust.

Brands would still make profits, but consumers would have the confidence the products they are buying live up to the claims. Instead of government agencies being passive players, they would actively enforce that products meet the standards consumers expect.

In short, brands need to be held accountable, but so do governments. Greenwashing, modern slavery, and unethical sourcing will keep slipping through the cracks, unless they both work together.

The tools to make the fashion industry more transparent and honest already exist; it’s just a matter of using them.

Aayushi Badhwar 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.

– ref. How can you be sure your clothing has been produced ethically? – https://theconversation.com/how-can-you-be-sure-your-clothing-has-been-produced-ethically-262800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine de Fontenay, Honorary Fellow, Department of Economics, The University of Melbourne

Over the next two decades, the average Australian worker is likely to change occupations at least twice.

Rapid technological change and longer working lives mean the days of having “one job for life” are long gone. New occupations will also appear and some older ones will shrink or vanish. And our preferences change.

So Australians’ ability to adapt to new occupations will be crucial for their wellbeing at work and for national productivity.

In a new Productivity Commission interim report, released today, we examine how Australia can build a skilled and adaptable workforce.

Here’s what we recommend for schools, mid-career learning and entering new occupations.

Can we help schools teach basic skills?

Being able to adapt in the workforce starts with having basic skills that can be transferred across different occupations. These are taught at school and include reading, maths and basic digital literacy.

But many Australian students lack these skills. For example, the most recent NAPLAN results show about 10% of students need additional support and about 20% are “developing” towards expectations.

Gaps in outcomes for students from disadvantaged groups emerge early and worsen over time. For example in Year 3, on average, students with parents who did not finish high school are two years behind in reading compared to students with parents with a bachelor’s degree. By Year 9, they are five years behind.

Students who fall behind also pose a huge challenge for teachers, who may need to teach a broad range of levels within one class. Our report found 53% of schools had the highest possible range of achievement levels when it came to NAPLAN scores.

To build these students’ skills, the Productivity Commission proposes investment in a comprehensive online bank of high-quality lesson planning materials. Some states and school systems already have, or are developing, banks of lesson plans. There is an existing central resource, but it requires updating and expanding.

A central bank could help teachers support students of all abilities in their classes. These would be available to all teachers, no matter what type of school they teach at. They would cover all aspects of the Australian Curriculum from the first year of school to Year 10.

Our report also found generative artificial intelligence (AI), if implemented well, has tremendous potential to support students who are falling behind (and to challenge those who are ahead).

We propose a national approach to “edtech” – including a stocktake of what’s currently used. This approach could also draw on the combined purchasing power of states to provide approved AI tools at a cheaper price than what schools could procure alone.

Can we make it easier to train and study mid-career?

Lifelong learning is also vital for adaptability. Workers who improve their skills or gain new ones over their working lives are more likely to adjust successfully to new technology and developments in their occupation.

We found sole traders and small and medium enterprises provided 65.9% of Australian jobs, yet their workers tend to receive less training than those in larger firms. So the Productivity Commission recommends trialling financial incentives (such as a tax credit) to encourage training for staff working in these organisations.

Some workers also need new qualifications to change occupations. They may look to get credit from their new institution for some of their prior experience to speed up their study.

But this system can be complicated. Providers get less revenue if students finish their courses more quickly and may be hesitant to give credit for prior learning. It can be also hard to determine what experiences, including overseas qualifications, should get what specific credits.

So we propose an independent process to assess “recognition of prior learning” and a public register of credit transfer decisions to show students what education pathways they might pursue.

Can we make it simpler to enter a new field?

Occupational entry regulations – or rules that require workers to meet minimum conditions – may also be hampering workers’ adaptability.

Excessive regulations can deter workers from entering occupations to which they are suited if the financial or time costs are too high. This can result in higher prices for consumers.

Our inquiry found between 15% and 31% of Australian workers are subject to registration or licensing – a higher proportion than as many as 23 European Union countries.

Across different Australian states, the rules for licensing workers vary widely, yet the Productivity Commission found no evidence those states with tighter licensing experience better consumer or worker safety outcomes.

Some of the industries we found has too many regulations included hairdressers, motor vehicle repairers, painters and decorators and air conditioning mechanics.

Many Australian occupations require lengthy qualifications, and in some non-trade occupations the educational requirements have ratcheted up over time.

In trades, trade apprentice numbers have stagnated. And only 54% of trade apprentices have finished within four years of starting their training. So we recommend alternative models are considered. These include a shorter apprenticeship for mature students, more narrowly focused qualifications, and completing coursework prior to a shorter apprenticeship.

Adapting to new job markets is always challenging. But workers who are changing occupations multiple times need to be supported to manage this volatility. Helping Australians to survive and thrive through change is the key to an adaptable workforce.

Catherine de Fontenay is a Productivity Commissioner.

Alex Robson is deputy chair of the Productivity Commission.

– ref. Australian workers are likely to change occupations twice in the next 20 years. How do we help them do this? – https://theconversation.com/australian-workers-are-likely-to-change-occupations-twice-in-the-next-20-years-how-do-we-help-them-do-this-262689

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan O’Brien, Professor of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Director of the Boston Area Research Initiative, Northeastern University

It’s summer, and it’s been hot, even in northern cities such as Boston. But not everyone is hit with the heat in the same way, even within the same neighborhood.

Take two streets in Boston at 4:30 p.m. on a recent day, as an example. Standing in the sun on Lewis Place, the temperature was 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.6 degrees Celsius). On Dudley Common, it was 103 F (39.2 C). Both streets were hot, but the temperature on one was much more dangerous for people’s health and well-being.

The kicker is that those two streets are only a few blocks apart. The difference epitomizes the urban heat island effect, created as pavement and buildings absorb and trap heat, making some parts of the city hotter.

A closer look at the two streets shows some key differences:

• Dudley Common is public open space sandwiched between two thoroughfares that create a wide expanse of pavement lined with storefronts. There aren’t many trees to be found.

• Lewis Place is a residential cul-de-sac with two-story homes accompanied by lots of trees.

This comparison of two places within a few minutes’ walk of each other puts the urban heat island effect under a microscope. It also shows the limits of today’s strategies for managing and responding to heat and its effects on public health, which are generally attuned to neighborhood or citywide conditions.

Even within the same neighborhood, some places are much hotter than others owing to their design and infrastructure. You could think of these as urban heat islets in the broader landscape of a community.

Sensing urban heat islets

Emerging technologies are making it easier to find urban heat islets, opening the door to new strategies for improving health in our communities.

While the idea of reducing heat across an entire city or neighborhood is daunting, targeting specific blocks that need assistance the most can be faster and a much more efficient use of resources.

Doing that starts with making urban heat islets visible.

In Boston, I’m part of a team that has installed more than three dozen sensors across the Roxbury neighborhood to measure temperature every minute for a better picture of the community’s heat risks, and we’re in the process of installing 25 more. The Common SENSES project is a collaboration of community-based organizations, including the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and Project Right Inc.; university researchers like me who are affiliated with Northeastern University’s Boston Area Research Initiative; and Boston city officials. It was created to pursue data-driven, community-led solutions for improving the local environment.

Data from those sensors generate a real-time map of the conditions in the neighborhood, from urban heat islets like Dudley Common to cooler urban oases, such as Lewis Place.

These technologies are becoming increasingly affordable and are being deployed in communities around the world to pinpoint heat risks, including Miami, Baltimore, Singapore and Barcelona. There are also alternatives when long-term installations prove too expensive, such as the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration volunteer science campaign, which has used mobile sensors to generate one-time heat maps for more than 50 cities.

Making cooler communities, block by block

Although detailed knowledge of urban heat islets is becoming more available, we have barely scratched the surface of how they can be used to enhance people’s health and well-being.

The sources of urban heat islets are rooted in development – more buildings, more pavement and fewer trees result in hotter spaces. Many projects using community-based sensors aspire to use the data to counteract these effects by identifying places where it would be most helpful to plant trees for shade or install cool roofs or cool pavement that reflect the heat.

However, these current efforts do not fully capitalize on the precision of sensors. For example, Los Angeles’ massive investment in cool pavement has focused on the city broadly rather than overheated neighborhoods. New York City’s tree planting efforts in some areas failed to anticipate where trees could be successfully planted.

Most other efforts compare neighborhood to neighborhood, as if every street within a neighborhood experiences the same temperature. London, for example, uses satellite data to locate heat islands, but the resolution isn’t precise enough to see differences block by block.

In contrast, data pinpointing the highest-risk areas enables urban planners to strategically place small pocket parks, cool roofs and street trees to help cool the hottest spaces. Cities could incentivize or require developers to incorporate greenery into their plans to mitigate existing urban heat islets or prevent new ones. These targeted interventions are cost-effective and have the greatest potential to help the most people.

But this could go further by using the data to create more sophisticated alert systems. For example, the National Weather Service’s Boston office released a heat advisory for July 25, the day I measured the heat in Dudley Common and Lewis Place, but the advisory showed nearly the entirety of the state of Massachusetts at the same warning level.

What if warnings were more locally precise?

On certain days, some streets cross a crucial threshold – say, 90 F (32.2 C) – whereas others do not. Sensor data capturing these hyperlocal variations could be communicated directly to residents or through local organizations. Advisories could share maps of the hottest streets or suggest cool paths through neighborhoods.

There is increasing evidence of urban heat islets in many urban communities and even suburban ones. With data showing these hyperlocal risks, policymakers and project coordinators can collaborate with communities to help address areas that many community members know from experience tend to be much hotter than surrounding areas in summer.

As one of my colleagues, Nicole Flynt of Project Right Inc., likes to say, “Data + Stories = Truth.” If communities act upon both the temperature data and the stories their residents share, they can help their residents keep cool — because it’s hot out there.

Dan O’Brien has received funding from the National Science Foundation’s Smart & Connected Communities program for work associated with this article (award #2230036).

– ref. Inside an urban heat island, one street can be much hotter than its neighbor – new tech makes it easier to target cooling projects – https://theconversation.com/inside-an-urban-heat-island-one-street-can-be-much-hotter-than-its-neighbor-new-tech-makes-it-easier-to-target-cooling-projects-261917

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, Edith Cowan University

Many people are familiar with the saying that a woman is “eating for two” during pregnancy. Although this is an exaggeration, nutritional needs do certainly increase during pregnancy to support the growing baby.

But what’s perhaps less known is that energy needs are actually even slightly higher during breastfeeding than during pregnancy.

Human breastmilk is a dynamic liquid and its composition (including carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals) varies over the entire breastfeeding period, and even between feeds.

It can change depending on what mum is eating, environmental factors, and what the baby needs, through a biofeedback system (sometimes called “baby backwash”). For example, if a baby is starting to get sick, breastmilk will adjust to include more leukocytes, immune cells that fight infection.

So what should breastfeeding women be eating? And how does a mother’s diet influence the nutritional makeup of her milk?

Nutritional needs increase during breastfeeding

Fully breastfeeding mums can produce around 800 millilitres of milk a day in the first six months after birth, which has an energy content of roughly 3 kilojoules per gram.

Even factoring in using up excess fat stored during pregnancy, mums still need on average an extra 2,000 kilojoules to support milk production. This is roughly equivalent to adding a cheese sandwich, a handful of nuts and a banana on top of normal dietary intake.

Interestingly, requirements don’t drop off after the baby starts solids. In the second six months, milk production is thought to drop to an average of 600ml per day, as babies start to eat solid foods. But because maternal fat stores deplete by this stage, additional energy requirements remain similar.

Some nutrients are particularly important during breastfeeding, including protein, calcium, iron, iodine and vitamins.

For example, compared with a non-pregnant, non-breastfeeding woman, protein requirements increase by almost half when breastfeeding (from 0.75 grams to 1.1 grams per kg of body weight per day).

Meanwhile, iodine requirements almost double (from 150 micrograms per day to 270 micrograms per day). Iodine is important for thyroid function, and can impact baby’s growth and brain development.

It’s important women who are breastfeeding eat a variety of foods, including:

• high-protein foods (meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, soy-based protein such as tofu and tempeh, legumes such as chickpeas, baked beans and lentils)
• dairy foods or alternatives (for dairy alternatives, check calcium is included)
• whole grains
• fruits and vegetables.

While making all that milk, drinking more water also becomes extremely important. Thirst is a good guide, but around 2.5 litres per day is generally recommended, or more if it’s hot or with exercise.

Is there anything I shouldn’t be eating?

What a mum consumes can pass into her breastmilk. For example, in one study, babies whose mothers drank small amounts of carrot juice while breastfeeding were more accepting of cereal flavoured with carrot juice compared with a control group of babies whose mothers drank water.

It’s therefore important to limit alcohol and caffeine, which can also pass though to the baby. No alcohol is the safest choice, but if you’re planning to have a drink, tools such as the Feed Safe app can be used to estimate when your breastmilk should be free of alcohol.

Up to 200mg of caffeine per day (equivalent to roughly a cup of brewed coffee, an energy or cola drink, or four cups of tea) is considered safe for breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding mums don’t need to take any particular foods out of their diet to prevent allergies in their baby. In fact, experts believe babies exposed to common allergens via breast milk could be less likely to develop allergies to these foods, however we need more research into this question.

Although relatively uncommon, babies can be allergic or intolerant to certain aspects of their mothers’ diet when breastfeeding. They may react in the form of colic or wind, reflux, mucus or blood in their poo, eczema or rash, or appear to be in pain.

In these cases, mum’s diet may need adjustment. The most common culprits include cows’ milk (the protein, not the lactose component), soy and egg.

It’s recommended to remove suspected foods from the diet for a minimum of three weeks. This should ideally be done with supervision from an Accredited Practising Dietitian who specialises in allergy, to ensure the mother’s nutritional needs continue to be met.

4 tips for breastfeeding mums

1. it’s a good idea to get a blood test to check your vitamin D and iron levels – these can be depleted over pregnancy and are important for breastfeeding. If your levels are low, you can discuss options with your doctor

2. iodine requirements are so much higher in breastfeeding that an iodine supplement of 150 micrograms a day is recommended to support infant growth and neurodevelopment

3. have a variety of nutritious snacks that can be eaten with one hand for those late-night feeds, such as peeled boiled eggs, a peanut butter sandwich on wholegrain bread, or avocado and cheese on a rice cake. My personal favourite is homemade rocky road with dark chocolate, nuts, seeds and dried fruit

4. keep a drink bottle with water nearby when breastfeeding.

If you’re considering a gift for a family with a new baby, remember new parents’ personal needs often take a back seat when bub arrives, including eating well. Consider a hearty frozen meal, muffins with oats and nuts, a nice stainless steel water bottle, gourmet trail mix or even some homemade rocky road.

Therese O’Sullivan has previously received funding from the Stan Perron Charitable Foundation and the Department of Health Western Australia for a project on antenatal colostrum expressing.

– ref. What should I eat (and avoid) while breastfeeding? How does my diet affect baby’s milk? – https://theconversation.com/what-should-i-eat-and-avoid-while-breastfeeding-how-does-my-diet-affect-babys-milk-260423

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Kear, Sessional Lecturer, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September, joining the United Kingdom, Canada and France in taking the historic step.

Recognising a Palestinian state is at one level symbolic – it signals a growing global consensus behind the rights of Palestinians to have their own state. In the short term, it won’t impact the situation on the ground in Gaza.

Practically speaking, the formation of a future Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is far more difficult to achieve.

The Israeli government has ruled out a two-state solution and reacted with fury to the moves by the four G20 members to recognise Palestine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision “shameful”.

So, what are the political issues that need to be resolved before a Palestinian state becomes a reality? And what is the point of recognition if it doesn’t overcome these seemingly intractable obstacles?

Settlements have exploded

The first problem is what to do about Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the International Court of Justice has declared are illegal.

Since 1967, Israel has constructed these settlements with two goals in mind: prevent any future division of Jerusalem, and expropriate sufficient territory to make a Palestinian state impossible. There are now more than 500,000 settlers in the West Bank and 233,000 in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians see East Jerusalem as an indispensable part of any future state. They will never countenance a state without it as their capital.

In May, the Israeli government announced it would also build 22 new settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – the largest settler expansion in decades. Defence Minister Israel Katz described this as a “strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.

The Israeli government has also moved closer to fully annexing the West Bank in recent months.

Geographical complexities of a future state

Second is the issue of a future border between a Palestinian state and Israel.

The demarcations of the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem are not internationally recognised borders. Rather, they are the ceasefire lines, known as the “Green Line”, from the 1948 War that saw the creation of Israel.

However, in the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula (since returned), and Syria’s Golan Heights. And successive Israeli governments have used the construction of settlements in the occupied territories, alongside expansive infrastructure, to create new “facts on the ground”.

Israel solidifies its hold on this territory by designating it as “state land”, meaning it no longer recognises Palestinian ownership, further inhibiting the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

For example, according to research by Israeli professor Neve Gordon, Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries covered approximately seven square kilometres before 1967. Since then, Israeli settlement construction has expanded its eastern boundaries, so it now now covers about 70 square km.

Israel also uses its Separation Wall or Barrier, which runs for around 700km through the West Bank and East Jerusalem, to further expropriate Palestinian territory.

According to a 2013 book by researchers Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir, the wall is part of the Israeli government’s policy of cleansing Israeli space of any Palestinian presence. It breaks up contiguous Palestinian urban and rural spaces, cutting off some 150 Palestinian communities from their farmland and pastureland.

The barrier is reinforced by other methods of separation, such as checkpoints, earth mounds, roadblocks, trenches, road gates and barriers, and earth walls.

Read more:
Explainer: what is the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Then there is the complex geography of Israel’s occupation in the West Bank.

Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, the West Bank was divided into three areas, labelled Area A, Area B and Area C.

In Area A, which consists of 18% of the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority exercises majority control. Area B is under joint Israeli-Palestinian authority. Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank, is under full Israeli control.

Administrative control was meant to be gradually transferred to Palestinian control under the Oslo Accords, but this never happened.

Areas A and B are today separated into many small divisions that remain isolated from one another due to Israeli control over Area C. This deliberate ghettoisation creates separate rules, laws and norms in the West Bank that are intended to prevent freedom of movement between the Palestinian zones and inhibit the realisation of a Palestinian state.

Who will govern a future state?

Finally, there are the conditions that Western governments have placed on recognition of a Palestinian state, which rob Palestinians of their agency.

Chief among these is the stipulation that Hamas will not play a role in the governance of a future Palestinian state. This has been backed by the Arab League, which has also called for Hamas to disarm and relinquish power in Gaza.

Fatah and Hamas are currently the only two movements in Palestinian politics capable of forming a government. In a May poll, 32% of respondents in both Gaza and the West Bank said they preferred Hamas, compared with 21% support for Fatah. One-third did not support either or had no opinion.

Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, is deeply unpopular, with 80% of Palestinians wanting him to resign.

Read more:
The politics of recognition: Australia and the question of Palestinian statehood

A “reformed” Palestinian Authority is the West’s preferred option to govern a future Palestinian state. But if Western powers deny Palestinians the opportunity to elect a government of their choosing by dictating who can participate, the new government would likely be seen as illegitimate.

This risks repeating the mistakes of Western attempts to install governments of their choosing in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also plays into the hands of Hamas hardliners, who mistrust democracy and see it as a tool to impose puppet governments in Palestine, as well as Israel’s narrative that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves.

Redressing these issues and the myriad others will take time, money and considerable effort. The question is, how much political capital are the leaders of France, the UK, Canada and Australia (and others) willing to expend to ensure their recognition of Palestine results in an actual state?

What if Israel refuses to dismantle its settlements and Separation Wall, and moves ahead with annexing the West Bank? What are these Western leaders willing or able to do? In the past, they have been unwilling to do more than issue strongly worded statements in the face of Israeli refusals to advance the two-state solution.

Given these doubts around the political will and actual power of Western states to compel Israel to agree to the two-state solution, it begs the question: what and who is recognition for?

Martin Kear 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.

– ref. Beyond recognition: the challenges of creating a new Palestinian state are so formidable, is it even possible? – https://theconversation.com/beyond-recognition-the-challenges-of-creating-a-new-palestinian-state-are-so-formidable-is-it-even-possible-262493

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Azadeh Dastyari, Director, Centre for Western Sydney, Western Sydney University

Access to the internet is not a luxury. It’s an essential part of life. It shapes how people study, find and do work, access healthcare, stay connected with community and interact with government services.

For Indigenous peoples, the internet also plays a vital role in maintaining cultural connection, sharing knowledge, and keeping links to kin and Country strong.

Despite it being essential, a new study has found many Indigenous people are denied internet access because of poor infrastructure, high costs, lack of culturally appropriate training and inadequate services that don’t meet community and individual needs.

This digital exclusion compounds existing disadvantage and makes daily living, such as paying bills, working, or getting an education, prohibitively difficult.

Our research

Digital inclusion refers to having sufficient access to appropriate devices and the internet, affordable connectivity, and the necessary skills and ability to use digital technologies safely.

Digital connection is not just a challenge in rural and remote areas. It is also a major issue in urban areas such as Western Sydney, which is home to one-tenth of Australia’s population and the largest urban population of Indigenous peoples in the country.

Better digital inclusion is a key priority area under the Closing the Gap plan, but progress has been consistently hard to measure and the 2026 target is unlikely to be met.

A new report, First Nations Digital Inclusion in Western Sydney, chronicles the experiences of Indigenous peoples in Western Sydney through story telling, yarning circles and a survey of 105 Indigenous people.

While the study was concentrated to Western Sydney, the findings are consistent with other research nationwide.

We found some areas of Western Sydney simply don’t have reliable internet. Even where coverage exists, many people cannot afford the high costs of data, devices and ongoing connection they need.

No one should have to choose between internet access and essential medicine, but this is the reality for many Indigenous people surveyed, with 27% of people cutting back on medicine to stay connected.

One participant shared:

you have to have a mobile these days and internet. I end up buying less food but I need to feed my kid. I often skip meals to afford my bills.

But access isn’t the only problem. The digital divide is not just about having a device, it is also about feeling confident using it.

We found 66% of Indigenous participants in the study said they had never received any digital skills training. Elders and those who have not had the chance to build these skills are often left behind.

Online safety is also a serious concern. Of the Indigenous people surveyed, 74% reported experiencing racism or other forms of racial discrimination online. This creates further barriers to participation and trust.

Read more:
The government has a target for Indigenous digital inclusion. It’s got little hope of meeting it

What can be done?

The good news is there’s lots that can be done to help.

Currently, Indigenous community-led organisations are stepping up to fill the digital gap, often on shoestring budgets. They’re setting up free wifi hubs, distributing SIM cards and devices and offering digital support.

One participant shared:

since I was given a second hand laptop […] I completed six or more courses at TAFE. This is what is holding back our mob, give them access to an iPad or laptop and also a basic course how to use them.

But Indigenous community-led organisations and the community sector can’t do it alone. What’s needed is government support and long-term investment to make digital inclusion a reality. This means tackling affordability head-on.

Solutions must include cheaper internet plans, low-cost devices and flexible payment options that are designed with Indigenous communities.

Governments and telecommunications companies should work in partnership to deliver programs such as free data in local areas or device lending schemes that enable people to stay connected without financial strain.

On the education front, we need culturally safe, community-led training programs for people of all ages. These could be embedded in schools, workplaces, and local services, particularly through Indigenous-led organisations that already have the trust of the community.

Tech companies must be held accountable for harmful content, and there must be stronger rules to protect users. At the same time, more investment is needed in Indigenous-led platforms and online safety programs that create welcoming spaces.

Public services such as Centrelink need to be more accessible and better designed for people without digital access. In-person services must not only remain available, but be strengthened, to ensure everyone can access the support they need in a way that works for them.

As documented in the report, Indigenous community organisations and peoples have the knowledge and experience and are leading the work to close the digital gap. Their leadership must be respected and supported through genuine partnerships, sustained funding and real decision-making power.

This is not just about technology. Digital inclusion for First Nations peoples is about fairness, dignity and justice.

The answers are already here. Indigenous peoples have shared what works. It is time for government and industry to listen and act.

The First Nations Digital Inclusion in Western Sydney project was supported by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). The operation of ACCAN is made possible by funding provided by the Commonwealth of Australia under section 593 of the Telecommunications Act 1997. This funding is recovered from charges on telecommunications carriers.

Corrinne Sullivan receives funding from Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN). She is affiliated with, and is a Director of BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation.

– ref. ‘I end up buying less food’: Indigenous people should not have to go hungry to use the internet – https://theconversation.com/i-end-up-buying-less-food-indigenous-people-should-not-have-to-go-hungry-to-use-the-internet-262203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexa Scarlata, Lecturer, Digital Communication, RMIT University

At first glance, the ABC’s new flagship drama looks like a soapy cross between Neighbours and Home and Away. Sweeping shots of rugged coastline and holiday homes roll into a tree-lined cul-de-sac near identical to Ramsay Street. The sun is shining. It’s bin day.

But The Family Next Door’s powerfully restrained performances, stellar local cast and twisty tale elevates this suburban mystery. It will quickly have you hooked.

Trouble in paradise

The six-part series, based on Sally Hepworth’s 2018 novel, is set in the fictional seaside town of Osprey Point, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Isabelle (Teresa Palmer) rents a house on Pleasant Court. She is ostensibly in town to write an article about “the new Byron Bay”.

However, we quickly learn she has been suspended from her job at Child Protective Services, and has actually moved in to start obsessively investigating the four neighbouring families. With each episode, Isabelle becomes more frantic and reckless in her search for someone or something, and less willing (or able) to face her own increasingly evident demons.

Palmer – who is in a rich vein of form this year, having starred in two of Binge’s latest series, Mix Tape and The Last Anniversary – brings a magnetism and disconcerting sense of foreboding to the ABC’s drama slate.

Mum’s the word

For me, the greatest appeal of The Family Next Door is its focus on the women in each of the families on the street. The series explores the universal challenges of motherhood, marriage and friendship, as well as the complexities of managing identity and responsibility across these roles.

Resident busy-body realtor Ange (Bella Heathcote) is manically trying to lock in a local property development that she is problematically invested in, while micromanaging everyone around her. She is palpably irritating.

Essie (depicted brilliantly by Philippa Northeast) is struggling to physically and emotionally connect with her young children. The social and personal implications of a frightful incident at the playground reverberate across the series. All the while, Essie’s mother and husband loiter helplessly.

Each episode centres on a different matriarch, so the ensemble cast gets time to shine, as Isabelle chips away at their relationships, stories and secrets.

Familiar faces and accents

It is terrific to spend some time with such a strong local cast.

It’s not uncommon now for Australian dramas to (often clumsily) shoehorn in a big international name to secure development funding and ensure foreign distribution.

The Family Next Door doesn’t do this, and it’s better for it. There are many familiar and reliable faces, including Catherine McClements, Jane Harber, Maria Angelico and Bob Morley. The show feels hefty with talent.

It also makes for an engaging and genuine experience: a funny and authentic portrayal of suburban life, without a random American accent that needs explaining. It’s relatable in an understated way – not in an “I can’t believe how much happens in Summer Bay!” kind of way.

No mystery in adaptations

This series likely got across the line without a big international name due to its limited six-episode run.

But this is also the kind of Australian storytelling that has the potential to resonate with local audiences and also travel well as part of the popular “mystery drama based on a book” genre.

In the past few years we’ve seen Netflix commission several similar examples, such as Boy Swallows Universe based on Trent Dalton’s novel and The Survivors, based on the novel by Jane Harper.

The value of this type of content lies in its existing audience of readers, as well as the ability to hook viewers in and keep them glued.

The Family Next Door is also reminiscent of Netflix’s The Perfect Couple. It even reminded me, bizarrely, of HBO’s The White Lotus – mostly because of the music parallels.

The series is directed by Emma Freeman, who also directed ABC’s The Newsreader (2021–25). With an experienced creative team, and adapted by a handful of award-winning screenwriters, Freeman has ensured the ABC’s latest foray into this genre sits comfortably alongside more expensive mysteries from the big streamers.

The Family Next Door is now on ABC and iView.

Alexa Scarlata 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.

– ref. ABC’s new suburban mystery The Family Next Door is understated and addictive – https://theconversation.com/abcs-new-suburban-mystery-the-family-next-door-is-understated-and-addictive-261171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vera Korasidis, Lecturer in Environmental Geoscience, The University of Melbourne

Pollinators play a vital role in fertilising flowers, which grow into seeds and fruits and underpin our agriculture. But climate change can cause a mismatch between plants and their pollinators, affecting where they live and what time of year they’re active. This has happened before.

When Earth went through rapid global warming 56 million years ago, plants from dry tropical areas expanded to new areas – and so did their animal pollinators. Our new study, published in Paleobiology today, shows this major change happened in a remarkably short timespan of just thousands of years.

Can we turn to the past to learn more about how interactions between plants and pollinators changed during climate change? That’s what we set out to learn.

A major warming event 56 million years ago

In the last 150 years, humans have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by more than 40%. This increase in carbon dioxide has already warmed the planet by more than 1.3°C.

Current greenhouse gas concentrations and global temperature are not only unprecedented in human history but exceed anything known in the last 2.5 million years.

To understand how giant carbon emission events like ours could affect climate and life on Earth, we’ve had to go deeper into our planet’s history.

Fifty-six million years ago there was a major, sudden warming event caused by the release of a gigantic amount of carbon into the atmosphere and ocean. This event is known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

For about 5,000 years, huge amounts of carbon entered the atmosphere, likely from a combination of volcanic activity and methane release from ocean sediments. This caused Earth’s global temperature to rise by about 6°C and it stayed elevated for more than 100,000 years.

Although the initial carbon release and climate change were perhaps ten times slower than what’s happening today, they had enormous effects on Earth.

Earlier studies have shown plants and animals changed a lot during this time, especially through major shifts in where they lived. We wanted to know if pollination might also have changed during this rapid climate change.

Hunting for pollen fossils in the badlands

We looked at fossil pollen from the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming – a deep and wide valley in the northern Rocky Mountains in the United States, full of sedimentary rocks deposited 50 to 60 million years ago.

The widespread badlands of the modern Bighorn Basin expose remarkably fossil-rich sediments. These were laid down by ancient rivers eroding the surrounding mountains.

We studied fossil pollen because we wanted to understand changes in pollination. Pollen is invaluable for this because it is abundant, widely dispersed in air and water, and resistant to decay – easily preserved in ancient rocks.

We used three lines of evidence to investigate pollination in the fossil record:

• fossil pollen preserved in clumps
• how living plants related to the fossils are pollinated today, and
• the total variety of pollen shapes.

What did we discover?

Our findings show pollination by animals became more common during this interval of elevated temperature and carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, pollination by wind decreased.

The wind-pollinated plants included many related to deciduous broad-leaved trees still common in moist northern hemisphere temperate regions today.

By contrast, the plants pollinated by animals were related to subtropical palms, silk-cotton trees and other plants that typically grow in dry tropical climates.

The decline in wind pollination was likely due to the local extinction of populations of wind-pollinated plants that grew in the Bighorn Basin.

The increase in animal-pollinated plants means that plants from regions with warmer, drier climates had spread poleward and moved into the Bighorn Basin.

Earlier studies have shown these changes in the plants of the Bighorn Basin were related to the climate being hotter and more seasonally dry than before – or after – this interval of rapid climate change.

Pollinating insects and other animals likely moved 56 million years ago along with the plants they pollinated. Their presence in the landscape helped new plant communities establish in the hot, dry climate. It may have provided invaluable resources to animals such as the earliest primates, small marsupials, and other small mammals.

A lesson for our future

What lessons does this ancient climate change event have to offer when we think about our own future?

The large carbon release at the beginning of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum clearly resulted in major global warming. It dramatically altered ecosystems on land and in the sea.

In spite of these dramatic changes, most land species and ecological interactions seem to have survived. This is likely because the event occurred at about one-tenth the rate of current anthropogenic climate change.

The forests that returned to the region after more than 100,000 years of hot, dry climate were very similar to those that existed before. This suggests that in the absence of major extinction, forest ecosystems and their pollinators could reestablish into very similar communities even after a very long period of altered climate.

The key for the future may be keeping rates of environmental change slow enough to avoid extinctions.

Vera Korasidis received funding from the University of Melbourne Elizabeth and Vernon Puzey Fellowship Award.

Scott Wing’s fieldwork was supported by the Roland W. Brown fund of the Department of Paleobiology, and by the MacMillan Fund of the National Museum of Natural History.

– ref. 56 million years ago, Earth underwent rapid global warming. Here’s what it did to pollinators – https://theconversation.com/56-million-years-ago-earth-underwent-rapid-global-warming-heres-what-it-did-to-pollinators-260297

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blake Bennett, Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching and Pedagogy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

As the international rugby season kicks off in earnest, and other sporting codes compete for TV airtime and fans’ disposable income, something worrying is happening down at the grassroots.

Sports clubs across many codes are running with drastically fewer volunteer coaches and administrators, and the pressure is rising.

According to the NZ Amateur Sport Association, the average number of volunteers has fallen more than 40% since the onset of the COVID pandemic, and those who remain are close to burnout.

Volunteering has long been the lifeblood of community sport. But the average number of active volunteers in sport clubs has dropped from 31 to just 18 per club over the past five years. Coaching roles, so often filled by volunteers, are increasingly vacant or stretched.

Sport New Zealand estimates young New Zealanders spend millions of hours each year participating in sport and recreation. These experiences rely on the goodwill of those volunteers – unpaid, untrained and often unacknowledged.

But while participation numbers remain healthy, fewer volunteers are having to do more of the work in many clubs. We may be witnessing a slow erosion of capacity that will stretch clubs thinner each season – until something gives.

Admin and risk

The pressure is especially visible in the area of health and safety – specifically, the measures and policies put in place to safeguard children from harm, abuse and exploitation.

My research, conducted with volunteer coaches across New Zealand, has looked at how administering safeguarding policies affects coaching. The picture that emerged was one of confusion and caution rather than clarity.

Coaches were unsure how to get it right, and wary of getting it wrong. Just 33% found their sport’s safeguarding policy helpful. Others described defensive behaviours such as avoiding physical contact with players entirely, or hesitating to coach across gender lines.

These weren’t formal requirements, they were improvised responses, driven by uncertainty and fear of consequences. Some of the strain is caused by the system. Clubs are now expected to meet an expanding list of compliance and governance requirements.

The Incorporated Societies Act, for example, requires every registered club to review its constitution, a task that usually falls to the same handful of volunteers already juggling coaching, managing uniforms or running sausage sizzles.

A report from the Amateur Sport Association suggests only a third of clubs knew by 2024 what the re-registration process required, underscoring the challenges of implementing large-scale compliance changes in a volunteer-led system.

3 big pressures

It might be tempting to think volunteering would recover with better support – more toolkits, training and recognition. But early findings from my current research suggest something deeper is required.

Volunteers aren’t stepping back because they lack information, but because the experience of volunteering has become increasingly complex, isolating and hard to sustain.

Three types of pressure are emerging most clearly:

1. “Role bleed” is when volunteers end up doing far more than they signed up for – agreeing to coach a junior team but finding themselves managing finances, sorting uniforms or leading the AGM.

2. “Interpretive risk” is the stress of not knowing what the rules mean in practice (especially around sensitive areas such as child safety), and the potentially serious consequences of getting this wrong.

3. “Compliance fatigue” involves the energy-sapping obligations around paperwork, reporting and other bureaucratic requirements. While often necessary, this work is rarely energising.

As any volunteer will tell you, one thing that cuts across all three of these pressures is relationships. Where they are strong and volunteers feel supported, trusted and respected, they tend to endure, even when the demands are high.

But when they’re strained or absent, even modest pressure can take a toll – not just on retention, but also on personal wellbeing.

Shared responsibility

There’s another striking aspect of my research findings: it’s not just about why people walk away, but why some don’t.

Even when relationships fracture, support disappears and the joy is gone, many volunteers stay out of a sense of loyalty and obligation, and a mixture of identity and habit. There’s also a fear that if they step back, everything they’ve contributed will collapse.

This is the quiet cost that is rarely named: not just fewer volunteers, but lonelier, wearier ones. Still turning up, still carrying the weight, but without the sense of reward and fulfilment.

Stress, strained relationships and emotional fatigue are well established contributors to mental health decline. It’s a quiet contradiction: on one hand, we position sport and recreation as a path to personal and community wellbeing; on the other, we overlook the toll it takes on the volunteers who hold it all together.

There’s no silver bullet. But the first step is recognising volunteer wellbeing isn’t just a personal challenge, it’s a shared responsibility. We need club systems geared to ease the burden, expectations that don’t overreach, and cultures where kindness isn’t an afterthought.

Ultimately, recruiting more volunteers has to be a priority for all sporting codes – while ensuring the “lifers” who’ve kept the lights on are looked after in the process.

Blake Bennett 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.

– ref. Where have all the coaches gone? The volunteer crisis hitting grassroots sport in NZ – https://theconversation.com/where-have-all-the-coaches-gone-the-volunteer-crisis-hitting-grassroots-sport-in-nz-262607

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Nissen, HERA Program Director – Health Workforce Optimisation Centre for the Business & Economics of Health, The University of Queensland

You’re discharged from hospital with some painkillers but aren’t sure if they’re safe to take with the heart medication you’ve been prescribed for years or the vitamins you take now and again. So you ask your GP. They recommend you see the pharmacist in the next consulting room for advice on how to safely manage all your medicines.

This is the future the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) wants to see. It wants the government to fund pharmacists to be a more permanent fixture in GP clinics – to be physically in the same building, as part of a multidisciplinary team.

The RACGP has made its case to the Productivity Commission inquiry into delivering quality care more efficiently. The commission’s interim report is due to be released this week.

But would this proposal really deliver more efficient health care? And how would it actually work?

We’ve just completed a large trial of pharmacists working in GP clinics in Queensland. Here’s what we think might work, and some of what we need to fix before this becomes reality.

Why would we want pharmacists in GP clinics?

Pharmacists are routinely co-located in GP clinics in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Ireland, Brazil, New Zealand and Malaysia.

Their aim is to improve how patients manage their medicines. They can help clarify why a medicine is needed and how to take it. They can advise on more affordable medicine options. They can liaise between health professionals on issues related to medicines, say when a patient is discharged from hospital and needs care at home. They can also advise GPs on medicine issues, such as a recommendation to stop a particular medication or to prescribe one with more manageable side effects.

Under the Australian proposal these pharmacists would not dispense medicines while working in a GP clinic. The pharmacists would have a professional clinical role related to medicine management (which might also include activities such as giving vaccinations). However, a patient would still need to obtain their medicines in the usual way from a community pharmacy.

The RACGP proposes there would be cost savings from integrating pharmacists into general practice – a potential A$545 million in net savings over four years.

How would this be possible? Presumably by making it more likely patients take their medicines as directed (therefore staying healthier and using fewer health resources), reducing the level and severity of medicine problems (such as side effects that need to be managed), and potentially reducing the number of medicines people take.

While these benefits are broadly plausible, the magnitude of benefit is highly uncertain. This estimate is based on a report from ten years ago, which includes only small studies now almost 20 years old. Patient complexity and treatment options have changed over this time period, so more recent data and models should be considered.

Don’t pharmacists already do medication reviews?

Australian community pharmacists have been conducting medication reviews for more than 20 years. They can review a person’s medications in their home, in aged care, or in a community pharmacy.

But there are some clear advantages to pharmacists using their professional skills in GP clinics.

Having an on-site pharmacist may be convenient for patients who would like extra advice or to have their medicine reviewed outside their home or community pharmacy.

Having pharmacists and GPs work together in the same location also allows trusted relationships to form. This increases the likelihood of a GP responding to a pharmacist’s suggestion to change a patient’s medication compared to those made by pharmacists outside the practice.

But there are potential road blocks

While this sounds promising, it’s not clear if we have enough pharmacists to fill these roles. We need to maintain medication review services including those onsite in aged care and in community pharmacies, while supporting the expansion of pharmacists’ scope of practice (such as their ability to prescribe certain medicines).

Another issue relates to digital health records. Currently, a community pharmacist cannot easily add relevant information about medications purchased over the counter to a patient’s My Health record. It would often be impossible for a pharmacist working in a GP clinic to know what a patient has bought over the counter in a community pharmacy (such as aspirin as a blood thinner).

This means a pharmacist (or other health professional, including the GP) working in a GP clinic doesn’t necessarily have a complete picture of the patient’s medications. For the RACGP’s proposal to work well, the different digital systems used in the health sector need to be better integrated.

So, while the idea of general practice-based pharmacists is good in principle, details still need to be ironed out.

Could this work?

A recent Australian study has shown that when pharmacists worked with GPs to support patients discharged from hospital, this was cost effective. Patients were less likely to be re-admitted to hospital or go to the emergency department the following year.

However, other aspects of the implementation and benefits of this role require more specific evidence.

For example, our team has just completed a trial in Queensland to see if pharmacists in GP clinics can reduce the number of preventable medicine problems for key at-risk patient groups (for example, people with diabetes).

Through this unpublished research, we have already learnt that relationships and workflows between pharmacists and GPs must be negotiated on a practice-by-practice basis. This process takes time, support and additional funding.

Both GPs and pharmacists need to agree on their role, and pharmacists need to be trained and supported to work in this general practice setting.

Patients should also have a say in the type of services delivered in this model and the way they are offered.

Finally, while we can learn many lessons on how this works in other countries, we need more extensive implementation trials in Australia. They need to be appropriately supported to gather good evidence for evaluation. Then if successful, we could move to a staged roll-out to ensure value for money and better health outcomes.

Lisa Nissen received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund for the ACTMed trial in Queensland mentioned in this article. She is a member and Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

Jean Spinks received funding from the Medical Research Future Fund for the ACTMed trial in Queensland mentioned in this article.

– ref. Pharmacists could one day work in GP clinics. Here’s what’s in it for you – https://theconversation.com/pharmacists-could-one-day-work-in-gp-clinics-heres-whats-in-it-for-you-262321

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Cowan, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Applied Climate Sciences, University of Southern Queensland

Soaking mid-winter rains have brought some relief to drought-stricken farms and rural towns across southern Australia, but the crisis is not over yet.

And there’s more to this challenging episode than you might think. As climate scientists, we see more than a single drought. Rather, it’s a trilogy of droughts.

Across southern Australia over the past six months, three interconnected phases have unfolded in rapid succession: flash drought, green drought and fodder drought.

Each phase brings its own challenges. Together, they reveal the complex and cascading nature of climate stress in southern Australia.

Flash drought: the sudden onset

To state the obvious, drought in Australia happens when there’s a severe lack of rain.

Unlike traditional droughts that develop over months, flash droughts intensify within weeks. They can come out of nowhere and hit hard.

In early 2025, flash droughts struck Australia in waves:

• January in parts of South Australia

• February along the SA-Victoria border and western Tasmania

• March in the Otway Ranges in southern Victoria

• April in northern Tasmania and southern Mallee in Victoria

• May in central Victoria and southern New South Wales.

The May event was the most intense — short-lived but severe — catching many people by surprise.

Flash droughts are marked by a rapid increase in the “thirstiness” of the atmosphere, as measured by the “Evaporative Stress Index”. When the index drops quickly, farmers often have little time to respond — whether through destocking, securing feed or adjusting plans for sowing crops.

Within four to eight weeks of flash drought onset, the health of pasture in open grasslands declines.

Pasture recovery is slow, often taking more than 12 weeks depending on the amount of sunlight, temperature and soil moisture. The impact on growth can linger for months. This delayed response sets the stage for the next phase: green drought.

Green drought: a deceptive recovery

Many southern regions received winter rain, but not enough to break the drought.

Fields turned green, but these plants lacked the nutritional value needed to support livestock. This phenomenon – known as “green drought” – gives the appearance of drought recovery, but the deeper soils remain stubbornly dry and plants stressed.

Satellite data tracking the greenness of vegetation shows that even after soil moisture briefly improved in June, plant health continued to decline. This is due to ongoing dry soils and high evaporation rates (think thirsty atmosphere), which limit plant growth.

Green droughts are particularly challenging because they mask the true extent of agricultural stress. People see green fields but farmers continue to face shortages of feed for livestock, leading to the next phase: fodder drought.

Fodder drought: the hidden crisis

Fodder drought is the third phase of the drought trilogy — a less visible but deeply distressing condition. It’s about whether there’s sufficient feed to keep livestock alive.

Pasture growth across southern Australia has remained well below average since late January, even though this period typically coincides with the off-peak season. With the late autumn break and soils remaining dry, the winter growing season is faring poorly.

Fodder droughts often go unnoticed by city people, but they have serious implications for rural communities. Farmers become increasingly reliant on imported feed, driving up costs and straining supply chains.

What lies ahead?

As we approach the end of winter, the outlook for rainfall in the drought-stricken communities of SA and Victoria’s Mallee is looking more promising.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecast for spring shows a high chance of unusually wetter conditions for much of the southeast. In turn, soil moisture is likely to improve in these regions.

The changing climate

This trilogy of droughts — flash, green and fodder — highlights the complexity of climate extremes. These events are occurring against the backdrop of declining cool season rainfall, which is projected to continue.

It’s not just about rainfall totals; it’s about timing, temperature, soil health and vegetation response. Understanding how these drought types evolve and interact is crucial for building resilience in agriculture.

There’s still much to learn. What triggers the transition from one phase of drought to the next? How long do the impacts last? And what strategies can help farmers adapt?

The current drought emerged as a prolonged dry spell coincided with unusually high temperatures. This placed immense pressure on farms.

A call to action

The trilogy of droughts in 2025 is a wake-up call. As climate variability increases, so does the need for better forecasting, adaptive farming strategies, and policy support. Agricultural drought definitions may need to be updated to reflect the new realities of drought.

Farmers are on the frontline of climate change, so the experiences of those in southern Australia this year offer valuable insights into how communities can prepare for future extremes. By investing in research, improving early warning systems, and supporting rural communities, we can build a more resilient agricultural sector — one that’s ready for whatever the climate throws at us next.

Read more:
Why is southern Australia in drought – and when will it end?

This article includes scientific contributions from Hanh Nguyen and Jessica Bhardwaj from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Tim Cowan receives funding from Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) through the MLA Donor Company, and Queensland’s Department of Primary Industries through The Drought and Climate Adaptation Program.

Thong Nguyen-Huy is a Senior Research Fellow (Agricultural Climate Risk Management) at the Centre for Applied Climate Sciences, University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ).

– ref. Triple whammy: how 3 types of drought crippled southern Australia this year – https://theconversation.com/triple-whammy-how-3-types-of-drought-crippled-southern-australia-this-year-262320

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karyn Healy, Honorary Principal Research Fellow in Psychology, The University of Queensland

Bullying in schools can can have a devastating impact on victims. Research shows it can lead to reduced academic performance depression, anxiety and even suicidal behaviour. So, preventing and reducing bullying is an urgent priority for governments as well as families and schools.

However, a common obstacle to addressing bullying is that parents and schools often disagree about whether a particular situation constitutes bullying.

A study in Norwegian schools found that when parents think their child is being bullied, around two-thirds of the time, the school does not agree. There are also cases in which the school says a child is bullying others, but the child’s parents don’t agree.

Why is it so complicated? How can parents approach this situation?

What does ‘bullying’ mean?

When we look at the definition of bullying, it is not surprising disagreements occur. Identifying bullying is not clear-cut.

The definition used in Australian schools captures the key elements defined by international research. Bullying is a form of aggression that:

• is hurtful for the victim

• happens repeatedly over time

• involves an intent to harm

• involves a power imbalance, with victims feeling unable to stop the problem.

Read more:
With a government review underway, we have to ask why children bully other kids

After a report of bullying, what does the school do?

When a student or parent reports bullying, usually the first thing a school does is talk with students, teachers and parents, and observe interactions between students.

However, there are many challenges in working out whether behaviour is bullying.

First, bullying often occurs when adults are not around and students often don’t tell teachers, so direct observation is not always possible.

Second, even if a teacher is present, social forms of bullying can be very subtle, such as turning away to exclude someone, or using a mocking facial expression, so it can be easily overlooked.

Third, determining whether there is “intent to harm” can be difficult as students accused of bullying may claim (rightly or wrongly) they were “only joking” or not intending to hurt or upset.

Fourth, the issue of power is not easy to determine. If the student is older or physically bigger, or if multiple students are involved in bullying, a power difference may seem apparent. But when power is based on popularity, a power difference may not be clear. There are also cases in which students may deliberately accuse others of bullying to get them into trouble (which may in itself constitute bullying).

Finally, not all aggressive behaviour is bullying. For example, conflict that involves arguments or fights between equals is not bullying, as there is no power imbalance. However, this situation can still be upsetting.

A more difficult situation occurs when the victim of bullying reacts aggressively – such as when they lash out angrily to taunts. The aggressive response of the victim may be more visible to teachers than the bullying that provoked the outburst, and this can make the direction of bullying difficult for schools to ascertain.

What if the school and parents disagree?

A school may not prioritise limited resources to resolve cases they do not see as bullying. This can leave the student languishing and can be very distressing for families.

However, research shows parents’ reports that their child has been bullied predict an increased risk of later child anxiety and depression, regardless of whether school staff concur or were even asked if the child was bullied.

So whether or not the school initially agrees a child is being bullied, it is important to improve the situation.

What can be done?

Sometimes, by taking steps to address the situation, the school can find out if bullying is occurring.

For example, sometimes children are upset by behaviours that may seem innocuous – such as humming, tapping or standing close. If this behaviour is not intended to hurt, we would expect children to reduce this when made aware it is upsetting. However, if the behaviour increases or continues, even with reminders, there would be more reason to believe it is deliberately intended to provoke (and is bullying).

One helpful strategy for parents is to keep a careful record of the child’s experiences – exactly what the child experiences and how it impacts them. This can help establish a pattern of hurtful behaviours over time.

It’s important for parents to maintain a good relationship and ongoing communication with the school (however difficult). As bullying can be a complex and evolving issue, good communication can help ensure issues are promptly managed.

The parent can coach the child to manage the situation – for example, to ask in a friendly and confident way for other students to stop when they are doing things they don’t like. The parent can also help the child plan when they would ask a teacher for help.

By working together, and understanding the problem better over time, schools and families can address behaviour that is hurtful – whether or not there is initial agreement it is “bullying”.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Karyn Healy has received funding from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, the Australian Research Council and Australian government Emerging Priorities Program and is an honorary Principal Research Fellow with The University of Queensland. Karyn is a co-author of the Resilience Triple P parenting program. Resilience Triple P and all Triple P programs are owned by the University of Queensland. The university has licensed Triple P International Pty Ltd to publish and disseminate Triple P programs worldwide. Royalties stemming from published Triple P resources are distributed to the Parenting and Family Support Centre, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences and contributory authors. No author has any share or ownership in Triple P International Pty Ltd.

– ref. Often parents and schools disagree about whether something is ‘bullying’: what happens next? – https://theconversation.com/often-parents-and-schools-disagree-about-whether-something-is-bullying-what-happens-next-261474

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Pearce, Adjunct Lecturer in public finance, Griffith University

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has made budget sustainability one of the key pillars of the reform roundtable to be held next week.

Concern that budget spending is on an unsustainable trend has been caused by rising government spending as a share of the economy. The spending has not been matched by an increase in tax revenue.

Government spending is forecast to increase further due to very high growth in National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) spending, health and aged care, and a need for higher defence spending over time.

Budget, or fiscal, sustainability means that government debt as a share of the economy does not consistently increase. This is measured by the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio.

Budget discipline improves the wellbeing of Australians by giving the government room to respond to economic shocks and ensures sustained provision of government services.

To keep government spending in check, stronger budget rules with numerical targets are needed. The treasurer’s roundtable is a good opportunity to consider such rules.

Why targets matter

Fiscal rules usually specify targets for ratios of government spending to GDP, and debt and deficits to GDP. All advanced economies have fiscal rules, as do 105 countries globally.

They were first used in Australia by then Treasurer Paul Keating in the 1985 “trilogy” commitments: that tax revenue to GDP would not increase; government expenditure to GDP would fall; and the size of the deficit would fall.

A legislative requirement for the government to specify fiscal targets was introduced by then treasurer Peter Costello in 1998 in the Charter of Budget Honesty.

Both Liberal and Labor governments since then have committed to several rules with numerical targets, such as spending to GDP, debt to GDP, or a commitment to balance the budget “over the (economic) cycle”.

The four budgets since October 2022 delivered by Chalmers have contained many general statements with good intentions, such as building fiscal buffers. But these are not targets that can be numerically tested and used to ensure the government keeps its promises.

The two numerically testable commitments in these four budgets are:

1. “directing the majority of improvements in tax receipts to budget repair” (which has been met)
2. “limiting growth in spending until gross debt as a share of GDP is on a downwards trajectory, while growth prospects are sound and unemployment is low” (which has not been met).

It’s time to test the treasurer’s claims

As the treasurer renews his focus on budget sustainability, now is the time to commit to precise rules that require the government to meet measurable targets and clear time frames (such as within the next three years) for:

• spending to GDP
• deficit and debt to GDP
• and, desirably, a cap on tax revenue to GDP.

These rules can play an important role in helping Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher to argue against new spending proposals from their cabinet colleagues.

Having fiscal rules in place can also help show a government’s resolve and credibility in the event of a crisis in financial markets. This happened following the bond market crisis in the United Kingdom in 2022.

For the opposition, committing to these rules can show its capacity as an economic manager. They may be required by independents as one of the conditions to work with a minority government.

The role of the Parliamentary Budget Office

As it currently stands, there is no organisation that systematically holds the government to account against any fiscal targets.

The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) provides independent and nonpartisan analysis of fiscal policy. But it does not assess compliance.

Its remit should be expanded to include assessing the government’s compliance with fiscal rules. This occurs for many similar organisations internationally. Overseas research suggests that well-designed PBOs and similar bodies improve compliance with fiscal rules, and thus improve budget outcomes.

A stronger PBO could also make policy recommendations. There are many other examples of Australian independent government entities that make recommendations or decide on economic policy – notably the Productivity Commission, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Net Zero Economy Authority.

A policy remit for the PBO therefore has several precedents and would allow the office to become an advocate for sound fiscal policy, just as the Productivity Commission advocates for microeconomic efficiency.

Put simply, a fiscal watchdog with real teeth would assist the treasurer in meeting the goal of fiscal sustainability.

Julian Pearce is a former Treasury official. He 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 his academic appointment.

Ross Guest 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.

– ref. No one holds the government to account on spending. We need a budget watchdog that can bite – https://theconversation.com/no-one-holds-the-government-to-account-on-spending-we-need-a-budget-watchdog-that-can-bite-261764

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Middle East Studies, Australian National University

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving forward with his plan to take full control of Gaza, expanding his war efforts amid a deepening starvation crisis in the strip and intensifying international condemnation.

In the plan, Netanyahu’s government also announced it would only end the war once five “principles” were met. These included the demilitarisation of the strip, the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas, and the disarmament of the group.

This new phase of the war follows a familiar pattern of poorly devised strategy-making on Netanyahu’s part, without sufficient reasoning or apparent forward planning. Given his new stated goal of taking full control of Gaza City, an end to the war does not feel likely, or imminent.

Here are five questions about whether the plan makes sense.

1. Is it necessary, or wise, militarily?

Significantly, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, has opposed the decision to expand operations in Gaza. He has warned that any plan to occupy the Gaza Strip would “drag Israel into a black hole”.

For one, Zamir believes expanding the military campaign is not necessary – he says the IDF has “met and even exceeded the operation’s objectives” in Gaza.

Hamas has been substantially degraded as a military force and its senior leadership has been killed. It is no longer an organised force in Gaza – it is now embracing guerrilla-style tactics.

This makes an expanded campaign in an urban environment such as Gaza City risky. Hamas will be able to use its vast tunnel network to mount surprise attacks on Israeli soldiers and place booby-traps in buildings.

As such, Netanyahu’s plan will inevitably lead to more IDF casualties. Nearly 900 IDF personnel have been killed so far in the war.

Moreover, taking full control of the strip would take months to complete and lead to countless more Palestinian civilian deaths.

Zamir has also warned it could endanger the lives of the remaining living Israeli hostages, which are believed to number around 20.

The freeing of Israeli hostages has only occurred during ceasefires – not as the result of military action. Hamas murdered six hostages in late 2024 when Israeli forces seemed to be getting close. Why wouldn’t it do so again if it was cornered?

2. Does Israel have enough military personnel for such an operation?

Israel has a relatively small army totalling about 169,000. It relies on more than 400,000 reservists, who have completed their military service, to augment the IDF during emergencies.

But taking reservists from their normal jobs for lengthy periods has adverse effects on the economy and harms Israel in the long term.

Netanyahu’s goal of degrading Hamas’ control of Gaza follows a basic strategy of
“clear, hold and build”. First, the IDF clears an area of Hamas fighters, then it holds the area with sufficient military personnel to prevent their return, and finally it builds an environment in which Hamas cannot function, for example, by destroying their tunnels and encouraging the return of civilian governance.

Israel does not have sufficient IDF personnel and reservists to deploy this strategy for the entire strip. It also needs soldiers in the West Bank, where clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents have become increasingly violent in recent years.

Netanyahu says he doesn’t want to permanently occupy Gaza, yet the far-right members of his cabinet do. They have made clear they want Israeli settlements re-established in Gaza and also to annex most, if not all, of the West Bank.

The mixed messages out of Netanyahu’s government make it very difficult to know what his actual long-term plan is for Gaza, if he even has one.

3. What kind of ‘Arab force’ would eventually come in?

In an interview this week, Netanyahu said he envisions the future security control of the strip would eventually pass to “Arab forces”. But which Arab states would contribute military personnel to such a force?

Arab states have long held the position that they will not solve Israel’s Palestinian problem for it, nor will they agree to any outcome in Gaza or the West Bank that Palestinians oppose. In short, while they oppose Hamas, they refuse to do Israel’s dirty work on its behalf.

A Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, also warned this week that his group would treat any force formed to govern Gaza as an “occupying” force linked to Israel. Any personnel policing Gaza on Israel’s behalf would have targets on their back.

4. What is the plan for Gaza’s civilian population?

In July, Defence Minister Israel Katz announced a plan to force Gaza’s entire population of two million people into a “humanitarian city” in the southern part of the strip. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert likened it to a “concentration camp”.

Little has been said about the plan in recent weeks, but implementing it would no doubt exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the strip even further and draw even more international condemnation of Israel.

Earlier this year, Israel’s security cabinet also approved a plan to facilitate the “voluntary transfer” of Gazans from the strip to third countries. This plan, too, was decried as an attempt to ethnically cleanse the enclave.

Certainly, no states in the Arab League would have any willingness to receive more than two million Palestinian refugees.

5. Is Netanyahu willing to deepen Israel’s isolation?

In a piece for The Conversation on Friday, Middle East expert Amin Saikal pointed out just how much of a hit Israel’s international credibility has taken since the start of the war – even among Americans.

Israelis are becoming aware that travel outside their country could involve risks. Two Israelis were recently detained and questioned in Belgium after attending a music festival and allegedly waving the flag of their army brigade. A human rights group accused the pair of being complicit in war crimes in Gaza.

In addition, the international community has immediately responded to Netanyahu’s decision to expand the war. Germany, in a major step, announced it would halt all arms exports to Israel. The country is the second-largest supplier of arms to the Jewish state.

Netanyahu has responded to international criticism and moves by Israel’s allies to recognise a Palestinian state by accusing them of stoking antisemitism and rewarding Hamas.

However, the Israeli leader seems to be varying his strategy to deal with developments as they occur. He and others in his government probably feel they can continue weathering the international storm over their actions in Gaza until after the war and then work on rehabilitating relationships.

The final and biggest question, however, is: when will be the war be over?

Ian Parmeter 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.

– ref. Israel is deepening its war in Gaza – here are 5 big questions about Netanyahu’s ill-advised next phase – https://theconversation.com/israel-is-deepening-its-war-in-gaza-here-are-5-big-questions-about-netanyahus-ill-advised-next-phase-262918