“It seems our foreign policy is up for grabs at the moment,” he said, citing Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s seeming endorsement of India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group despite New Zealand’s previous long-standing objection.
“I think these are bad moves for New Zealand. We should continue to be independent and principled in our foreign policy.”
It included a reference to India’s hopes of joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Indian PM Narendra Modi at the Sikh temple Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib . . . “both acknowledged the value of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).” Image: RNZ
“Both leaders acknowledged the importance of upholding the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime and acknowledged the value of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in context of predictability for India’s clean energy goals and its non-proliferation credentials,” the statement said, as reported by StratNews Global.
The NSG was set up in 1974 as the US response to India’s “peaceful nuclear test” that year. Comprising 48 countries, the aim was to ensure that nuclear trade for peaceful purposes does not contribute to the proliferation of atomic weapons, the report said.
India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which is one of the pre-requisites of joining the NSG.
NZ objected to India In the past New Zealand has objected to India joining the NSG because of concern access to those nuclear materials could be used for nuclear weapons.
“So it’s a principled stance New Zealand has taken. Christopher Luxon signed that away yesterday,” Hipkins said.
“He basically signed a memo that basically said that we supported India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group despite the fact that India has consistently refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
It was “a reversal” of previous policy, Hipkins said, and undermined New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance.
But a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters denied there had been a change.
“New Zealand’s position on the Nuclear Suppliers Group has not changed, contrary to what Mr Hipkins claims. The joint statements released by the New Zealand and Indian Prime Ministers in 2016 and 2025 make that abundantly clear,” he said.
“If Mr Hipkins or his predecessor Jacinda Ardern had travelled to India during their six years as Prime Minister, the Labour Party might understand this issue and the New Zealand-India relationship a bit better.”
Opposed to ‘selling out’ Peters was also Foreign Minister during the first three years of the Ardern government.
On a possible free trade deal with India, Hipkins said he did not want to see it achieved at the expense of “selling out large parts of New Zealand’s economy and potentially New Zealand’s principled foreign policy stance” which would not be good for this country.
“The endorsement of India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group is a real departure.”
Comment has been requested from the Prime Minister’s office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has floated the idea of amending the Australian Constitution to allow government ministers to strip dual citizens of their Australian citizenship if they commit serious crimes related to terrorism.
Almost immediately, Dutton’s coalition colleague and Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash walked back the idea, saying the Coalition had “no plan” for a referendum.
Dual citizens can already lose their Australian citizenship if they commit terrorism offences.
So what does the Constitution say about the issue?
Citizenship cessation
Under the Australian Citizenship Act, there are three main ways an Australian citizen can cease their Australian citizenship.
First, a dual citizen can voluntarily renounce their Australian citizenship. Some people choose to do this if they move overseas and don’t intend to return to Australia.
Second, the government can revoke a dual citizen’s Australian citizenship if they obtained it by fraud. The logic here is that the person was never really eligible for Australian citizenship in the first place.
Third, and most seriously, a court can – if the government asks it to – strip a dual citizen of their Australian citizenship as part of the sentencing process for serious crimes such as terrorism and foreign incursions.
In deciding whether to impose this punishment, the court must be satisfied the person’s crime was “so serious and significant that it demonstrates that the person has repudiated their allegiance to Australia”.
In other words, dual citizen terrorists can already lose their Australian citizenship.
What does the Constitution say?
Federal parliament can make laws only on certain subject matters, as listed in the Constitution. One of those subject matters is “naturalisation and aliens”.
In a 2022 case called Alexander, the High Court confirmed the naturalisation and aliens power allows the federal parliament to pass laws taking away a person’s citizenship if the person has done something that shows they had repudiated their allegiance to Australia.
That case concerned an Australian-Turkish dual citizen who travelled to Syria to fight with the Islamic State militant group. That kind of voluntary conduct clearly repudiates allegiance to Australia.
The High Court has made a series of rulings against government attempts to strip citizenship. Shutterstock
But to be valid, a federal law must not only fall under one of the listed subject matters such as “naturalisation and aliens”, it also must not breach any limitation on the federal parliament’s power.
An important limitation on the federal parliament’s lawmaking power is keeping federal judicial power separate from the power of the parliament and the executive. This is called the “separation of powers”.
The separation of federal judicial power is an important constitutional concept. The idea is that it prevents the parliament or government ministers interfering in the role of the courts or usurping the role of the courts.
Attempts at legislation
Only courts can exercise federal judicial power. Judicial power includes things like imposing punishments on people for criminal conduct. This is where past citizenship stripping laws have run into trouble.
The problem with the law in the Alexander case was that it allowed a government minister to take away the terrorist’s Australian citizenship, rather than a court, and even if the person had not been first convicted by a court.
So while the High Court ruled the parliament could legislate under the aliens power, it found ministers cannot decide guilt or punishment.
The government thought the problem with the law was simply the lack of criminal conviction. So the parliament passed a new law allowing a government minister to strip dual citizen terrorists of their Australian citizenship, but only if they had first been convicted by a court.
But the High Court struck down that law in a 2023 case called Benbrika.
Benbrika had been convicted of terrorism offences in the courts, then a government minister made an order taking away his citizenship.
The problem with the law, the High Court said, was that a government minister was imposing a punishment. Only courts can impose punishment under the separation of powers.
So in response to that decision, the federal parliament passed another law. This time the new law allowed the courts to strip a dual citizen of their Australian citizenship as a punishment as part of the sentencing process for serious crimes like terrorism.
This is the law that’s currently in place. It avoids the separation of powers issue. There is no constitutional problem with courts imposing punishment for crimes.
So what does Peter Dutton want to do?
Peter Dutton’s comments suggest he wants government ministers – rather than courts – to impose the punishment of removing citizenship. He hasn’t said why or what purpose this would serve, apart from “keeping our country safe”.
The only way to allow federal ministers to impose punishments is to change the Constitution through a referendum that inserts a new provision overriding separation of powers rules.
Given Australia’s long history of defeated referendums, such a vote is unlikely to succeed.
That’s if it makes it out of the gate. Reported tensions within the Liberal party suggest it may not get off the ground to become official Coalition policy.
Luke Beck is a rank and file member of the ALP. The views expressed in this piece are his own.
Israel says President Donald Trump green lit a scorched-earth bombing of Gaza that wiped out entire families and killed dozens of infants and other children.
The US-backed Israeli government resumed its intense genocidal attacks on Gaza early yesterday morning, unleashing a massive wave of indiscriminate military strikes across the Strip and killing more than 410 people, including scores of children and women, according to local health officials.
The massacre resulted in one of the largest single-day death tolls of the past 17 months, and also killed several members of Gaza’s government and a member of Hamas’s political bureau.
The Trump administration said it was briefed ahead of the strikes, which began at approximately 2 am local time, and that the US fully supported Israel’s attacks.
“The sky was filled with drones, quadcopters, helicopters, F-16 and F-35 warplanes. The firing from the tanks and vehicles didn’t stop,” said Abubaker Abed, a contributing journalist for Drop Site News who reports from Deir al-Balah, Gaza.
“I didn’t sleep last night. I had a pang in my heart that something awful would happen. At 2 am, I tried to close my eyes. Once it happened, four explosions shook my home. The sky turned red and became heavily shrouded with plumes of smoke.”
Abubaker said Israel’s attacks began with four strikes in Deir al-Balah.
“Mothers’ wails and children’s screams echoed painfully in my ears. They struck a house near us. I didn’t know who to call. I couldn’t feel my knees. I was shivering with fear, and my family were harshly awakened,” he said.
‘My mother couldn’t breathe’ “My mother couldn’t take a breath. My father searched around for me. We gathered in the middle of our home, knowing our end may be near. That’s the same feeling we have had for the 16 months of intense bombings and attacks.
“The nightmare has chased us again.”
The Israeli attacks pummeled cities across Gaza — from Rafah and Khan Younis in the south to Deir al-Balah in the center, and Gaza City in the north, where Israel carried out some of the heaviest bombing in areas already reduced to an apocalyptic landscape.
Since the “ceasefire” took effect in January, more than half a million Palestinians returned to the north and many of them have been living in makeshift shelters or on the rubble of their former homes.
Hospitals that already suffer from catastrophic damage from 16 months of relentless Israeli attacks and a dire lack of medical supplies struggled to handle the influx of wounded people, and local authorities issued an emergency call for blood donations.
Late Tuesday morning, Dr Abdul-Qader Weshah, a senior emergency doctor at Al-Awda Hospital in Al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, described the situation.
“We’ve just received another influx of injuries following a nearby strike. We’ve dealt with them. We are just preparing ourselves for more casualties as more bombings are expected to happen,” he told Drop Site News.
‘Horrified . . . awoke to screams’ “Since the morning, we were horrified and awoke to the screams and pain of people. We’ve been treating many people, children and women in particular.”
Weshah said they have had to transfer some of the wounded to other hospitals because of a lack of medical supplies.
“We don’t have the means. Gaza’s hospitals are devoid of everything. Here at the hospital, we lack everything, including basic necessities like disinfectants and gauze. We don’t have enough beds for the casualties.
We don’t have the capacity to treat the wounded. X-ray devices, magnetic resonance imaging, and simple things like stitches are not available. The hospital is in an unprecedented state of chaos.
“The number of medical crews is not enough. Overwhelmed with injuries, we’re horrified and we don’t know why we are speaking to the world.
“We’re working with less than the bare minimum in our hands. We need doctors, devices and supplies, and circumstances to do our job.”
Al-Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya told Al Jazeera Arabic: “Every minute, a wounded person dies due to a lack of resources.”
The Indonesia Hospital morgue in Beit Lahia, Gaza on March 18, 2025. Image: Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu
Rising death toll Dr Zaher Al-Wahidi, the Director of the Information Unit at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Drop Site Tuesday afternoon that 174 children and 89 women were killed in the Israeli attacks. [Editors: Latest figures are 404 killed, including many children, and the toll is expected to rise as many are still buried beneath rubble.]
Local health officials and witnesses said that the death toll was expected to rise dramatically because dozens of people are believed to be buried under the rubble of the structures where they were sleeping when the bombing began.
“We can hear the voices of the victims under the rubble, but we can’t save them,” said a medical official at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
Video posted on social media by Palestinians inside Gaza portrayed unspeakable scenes of the lifeless bodies of infants and small children killed in the bombings.
Zinh Dahdooh, a dental student from Gaza City, posted an audio recording she said was of her neighbours screaming as their shelter was bombed, trapping them in the destruction.
“Tonight, they bombed our neighbors,” she wrote on the social media site X. “They kept screaming until they died, and no ambulance came for them. How long are we supposed to live in this fear? How long!”
According to local health officials, many strikes hit buildings or homes housing multiple generations of families.
‘Wiped out six families’ “Israel in its strikes has wiped out at least six families. One in my hometown. The others are from Khan Younis, Rafah, and Gaza City. Some families have lost five or 10 members. Others have lost around 20,” Abubaker reported.
“We talk about families killed from the children to the old. The Gharghoon family was bombed today in Rafah. The strikes have killed the father and his two daughters. Their mom and grandparents along with their uncles and aunts were also murdered, erasing the entire family from the civil registry.
“We are talking about the erasure of entire families. Among Israel’s attacks in Deir al-Balah, Israel bombed the homes of the Mesmeh, Daher, and Sloot families.
“More than 10 people, including seven women, from the Sloot family were killed, wiping them out entirely. The same has happened to the Abu-Teer, Barhoom, and other families.
“This is extermination by design. This is genocide.”
On Tuesday, Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirmed that “Abu Hamza,” the spokesman of its military wing, Al Quds Brigades, had been killed along with his wife and other family members.
A hellish scene Israeli officials said they had been given a “green light” by President Donald Trump to resume heavy bombing of Gaza because of Hamas’s refusal to obey Trump’s directive to release all Israeli captives immediately.
“All those who seek to terrorise not just Israel but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News.
“All hell will break loose.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement asserting that “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength”.
Israeli media reported that the decision to resume heavy strikes against Gaza was made a week ago and was not in response to any imminent threat posed by Hamas.
Israel, which has repeatedly violated the ceasefire that went into effect January 19, has sought to create new terms in a transparent effort to justify blowing up the deal entirely.
“This is unconscionable,” said Muhannad Hadi, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
“A cease-fire must be reinstated immediately. People in Gaza have endured unimaginable suffering.”
Compounding the crisis in Gaza’s hospitals, Israel recently began blocking the entry of international medical workers to the Strip at unprecedented rates as part of a sweeping new policy that severely limits the number of aid organisations Israel will permit to operate in Gaza.
Plumes of smoke from central Gaza just as Israel began its heavy bombing on Monday night. Image: Abubaker Abed/Drop Site News
Editor’s note: Due to the ongoing Israeli attacks, Abubaker Abed relayed his reporting and eyewitness account to Jeremy Scahill by phone and text messages. This article is republished from Drop Site News under Creative Commons.
During Australia’s winter sports seasons, hundreds of thousands of children will take to the field in contact sports like rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules and soccer.
Despite growing awareness and rule changes aimed at increasing safety, concussion rates in junior sport remain concerning.
Despite growing awareness and rule changes in some sports, concussion is still a risk to many athletes.
How bad is the problem?
Sports-related concussions account for a significant portion of emergency department visits and hospitalisations.
One in five concussion hospitalisations involve sport but this figure does not capture the full scope of concussions that are managed outside hospitals, such as those treated in general practice, by physiotherapists, or that go unreported.
children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable. Boys aged 5–14 had the highest rates of emergency department presentations for concussions, suggesting sports and recreational activities play a significant role in injury occurrence at these ages.
young men are at highest risk of severe concussion requiring hospitalisation. Males aged 15–24 had nearly double the hospitalisation rate for concussion compared to females in the same age group.
although men had more concussions, when adjusted for participation numbers, women had higher concussion rates in contact sports such as rugby and Australian rules football. This means women proportionally experience concussions at a higher rate than men.
Children and adolescents are particularly susceptible to concussions as their brains are still developing. This makes them more vulnerable to the effects of head trauma.
Most young athletes also have significantly lower neck strength compared to adults. This weakness, combined with a proportionally larger head size relative to their neck, leads to greater forces transmitted to the brain when an impact occurs.
While many sports have tried to lower concussion risks by implementing simplified gameplay and modifications to player-to-player contact, these approaches don’t directly boost an athlete’s physical capacity to withstand impacts.
Can neck strength reduce concussion risk?
One crucial yet often overlooked protective factor is neck strength.
Research suggests stronger necks can significantly reduce concussion risk by helping to stabilise the head during impact.
The reason appears obvious: a stronger neck helps stabilise the head during impact, reducing the acceleration forces transmitted to the brain.
Data from high school sports suggests athletes with stronger neck muscles can better control head movement during a collision. This essentially creates a more effective “shock absorber” system.
In soccer players, adolescents who performed neuromuscular neck exercises reported fewer concussions and possible concussive events. They also had less pain when heading the ball compared to those who didn’t perform the exercises.
A landmark study, which examined concussions in 6,662 high school athletes across multiple sports, discovered a direct relationship between neck strength and concussion risk. It found that if athletes developed stronger neck muscles, it reduced their risk of concussion.
This finding suggests even modest improvements in neck strength could yield significant protective benefits.
Fewer concussions mean less time away from sport, potentially reducing dropout rates and encouraging long-term participation.
This has implications not just for athletic development but for public health more broadly, as lifelong sport participation contributes to better physical and mental wellbeing.
For sporting organisations, implementing neck strength training represents a low-cost, effective intervention that demonstrates commitment to player welfare.
How to develop a stronger neck
Effective neck strengthening doesn’t require expensive equipment or extensive time commitments.
Simple exercises can be easily integrated into training sessions or warm-ups.
Isometric neck holds are a great starting point. Athletes place their hand against their forehead, temple, or the back of their head and push gently against resistance for 5–10 seconds. These exercises activate key neck muscles without requiring any equipment.
Over time, these exercises can be progressed using minimal equipment to increase the complexity and better mimic sports-specific movements.
The key is consistency. Performing these exercises two to four times weekly can produce meaningful improvements in neck strength and function.
An easy win
As the evidence mounts, one thing becomes increasingly clear: neck strength training represents a simple, effective strategy that may reduce the effects of concussion in junior athletes.
The minimal time and equipment requirements make it an accessible option in sports where head and neck injuries are a concern.
Parents, coaches and sporting bodies should consider making neck strengthening exercises a standard component of junior athlete training programs.
By doing so, we can help ensure our young athletes enjoy safer sporting experiences and healthier futures both on and off the field.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Married at First Sight Australia (colloquially known as “MAFS”) is one of Australia’s most popular reality TV shows, averaging two million viewers an episode. But this year’s season has come under fire for multiple narratives plagued by domestic violence.
In particular, one episode brought up three troubling facets of violence: physical violence, coercive control, and expectations of male dominance. Parallels between these three relationships are evident to those of us who work with gendered violence.
Disappointingly, the show has only directly addressed physical violence. By failing to address properly these other facets of violence, MAFS missed an opportunity to examine the way men’s violence against women exists on a continuum.
How does the show work?
The premise of the show is simple: individuals who are unlucky in love are matched by three relationship “experts”. The first time they meet is at the end of the aisle.
The spouses move in together and are put through a series of exercises designed to “fast track” their connection – although success rates are quite low.
In weekly commitment ceremonies, each couple, in front of the group, receives relationship therapy from the show’s expert panel: registered psychologist John Aiken, relationship coach Mel Schilling, and sexologist Alessandra Rampolla.
Each week, each member of the couple chooses to stay or leave. If only one member of a couple wants to leave, both must stay.
‘This is deeply troubling’
At the commitment ceremony in the episode that aired on March 2, groom Paul Antoine confessed he punched a hole in a door during an argument with his wife Carina Mirabile.
The experts appear to take Antoine’s violence seriously. They threaten to expel him from the show. Other grooms speak directly to camera about the seriousness of physical violence.
Mirabile downplays his behaviour. She says the incident happened after she talked about a previous relationship, and Antoine’s actions show “he does have strong feelings towards me” and it is “a real relationship”.
Expert Schilling responds, saying:
I cannot sit here and listen to this justification from you […] This is not normal behaviour, sweetheart […] This is deeply troubling.
The incident is being investigated by New South Wales Police. At the time of writing, the couple remain in the series.
A difficult relationship
Before the season began airing, it came to light that a member of one couple, Adrian Araouzou, was previously charged with domestic assault, before being acquitted. At the time of writing, this history has not been addressed on screen.
At the same commitment ceremony, Araouzou whispers requests to his wife, Awhina Rutene, that she not talk about an argument between his sisters and Rutene’s sister.
Another groom, Dave Hand, criticises Araouzeou’s behaviour, saying
let her say how she really feels […] She looks at you for permission to speak, mate.
Aiken says this is a “serious statement”. Rutene says she doesn’t need permission, although she sometimes feels speaking will cause “a rift between us” and she does not want to “hurt Adrian’s feelings”.
Rutene votes to leave. Because Araouzeou chooses to stay, she is also compelled to stay.
Looking for ‘domination’
In the same episode, bride Lauren Hall says she was horrified to come home and find her husband, Clint Rice, cleaning. Hall says she expects a husband to be “very dominating”.
Sexologist Rampolla suggests Rice embracing domination could “grow the spark” within the relationship. The experts ask Rice whether he feels he can live up to Hall’s gendered expectations. He agrees to try.
A national emergency
Given the national platform of the show, and the “national emergency” of domestic and family violence, the failure to seize any opportunity to send a strong message about gender equality to the public is deeply disappointing.
A 2021 survey found 23% of Australians believe domestic violence is a normal reaction to stress. This points to a mainstream acceptance of violence within intimate relationships. There is a need for further public discourse – and MAFS is very well positioned to contribute to it.
When MAFS allows people to stay on the show after they have enacted violence, the show sends the message that violence is not enough of a reason to leave a relationship. A 2016 survey from the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 46% of women who have experienced violence from their partner and have never separated have wanted to leave the relationship.
People should be able to leave a relationship at any time, and for any reason. It is estimated it takes seven attempts for a woman to leave a relationship characterised by violence. In MAFS, one member of a couple can effectively force the other to stay. This suggests the ultimate goal of marriage is lasting commitment, rather than happiness, fulfilment and safety.
While the experts openly addressed Antione’s violence in the March 2 episode, there has been no further discussion of the incident since. This sends the message intimate partner violence is easily solved, and not important enough for ongoing attention.
When the experts supported the idea that Rice should be “dominant” in a relationship, they missed an opportunity to explore the intricate ways patriarchal expectations play out in intimate relationships. Research shows relationships characterised by dominant forms of masculinity are precursors for male violence against women.
Had MAFS seized this opportunity to open up this discussion (perhaps in a group therapy session with all of the grooms, including with quietly supportive Rice, and strong and respectful Hand) they could have used their platform to push back on the idealised image of a dominating man.
Research from 2020 found most representations of masculinity on Australian television show men as “inherently chauvinistic, sexist, and misogynist”. MAFS has an opportunity to delve into Australian masculinity and question these stereotypes. What a shame this opportunity has been missed.
Kate Toone is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers.
Two windswept beaches 80km south of Adelaide have been closed to the public after locals reported “more than 100” surfers fell ill on the weekend. Their symptoms included “a sore throat, dry cough and irritated eyes” or blurred vision. Dead sea dragons, fish and octopuses have also washed up on the beaches.
Water samples have been taken for testing and health authorities suspect toxins from an algal bloom may be to blame.
But the “mysterious foam” in the water is a health hazard in its own right.
My research shows people should not go in the sea when it is foaming. These bacterial smoothies can contain more harmful pathogens than a sewage treatment plant – and you wouldn’t go swimming in sewage.
Beware of sea foam
Sea foam doesn’t look dangerous. But looks can be deceiving. This foam is likely to contain a mixture of many different types of microbes and pollutants.
On beaches with lots of sea foam, people should avoid all contact with the water – and definitely avoid surfing or breathing in the contaminated water droplets in the air.
I have been studying sea foams since 2003. In 2021, my PhD student Luke Wright and I published research on our discovery of infectious disease-causing microbes in the sea foams of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
Named Nocardiae, these microbes are filamentous bacteria that can cause foaming in wastewater treatment plants, particularly when there’s a high load of fats, oils and greases. We now know the bacteria can cause foaming in the sea too.
We detected 32 strains of Nocardiae in samples of sea foam from beaches at Noosa and south to Caloundra.
Some of these species were new to science. So we named them Nocardia australiensis and Nocardia spumea (“spumea” meaning froth or foam).
Nocardiae bacteria are known to cause skin, lung and central nervous system infections in both humans and animals. But the infection usually only takes hold in people with weakened immune systems. The bacteria can cause abscesses in the brain, lungs and liver.
The incubation time can range between one and six months, depending on the strain of bacteria and the health status of the person involved.
This means it will take some time for people to get infected and show symptoms. Long-term medical monitoring is required to detect the condition, as it can be masked by other disease-causing microbes such as the infectious agent that causes tuberculosis.
Where is the sea foam coming from?
During heavy winds, microbial spores from the soil can end up on the surface of the ocean.
If the water is polluted with floating fats and grease as well as asphaltene, motor oil and hydrocarbons, these spores soon form bacterial colonies or biofilms that go forth and multiply.
That’s because these microbes use pollution as a food source. Seawater is increasingly polluted by runoff from farmland or hard surfaces such as roads. Everything washed into the stormwater drains out to sea. During heavy storms accidental overflow from sewage systems can also occur, as Rockhampton has experienced in the past.
Algae is another food source for these microbes, as they can crack open algae cells to access the nutritious oils inside. Sea foams have been observed in northern France during algal blooms.
Warm water makes matters worse, as the warmth increases the survival rate for Nocardiae. In our laboratory on the Sunshine Coast, we were able to replicate a foaming event. We found foaming started at water temperatures of 24°C and above.
What can be done about it?
Reducing stormwater pollution will reduce the growth of sea foams. Any potential incident of infections of these surfers can raise awareness of the problem.
But sea foam can also be found in pristine environments such as national parks, where it is mostly due to oils leached from trees. We proved this fact at Noosa National Park.
In my experience on the Sunshine Coast, the council and other local authorities have been very receptive to advice on how to fix the problem. They have supported our research and also completed major upgrades at sewage treatment plants over the last 20 years.
Once there’s an outbreak in the environment it is very difficult to control. That’s because ocean is an open system, as opposed to the closed system of a sewage treatment plant, where operators can use special chemicals or mechanical equipment to break the foam down. In open sea it’s impossible. So we just have to wait for it to go away.
In this case, teams of researchers from different disciplines should come together to explore the issue. Microbiologists, marine scientists, meteorologists and chemists should team up to find out what’s going on. Ocean currents should be followed to determine where the pollutants end up.
Sea foam is a global issue
Earlier this month Tropical Cyclone Alfred whipped up sea foam all the way along the coast from South East Queensland to northern New South Wales. I was horrified to see footage of people playing in the thick, sticky sea foam, blissfully unaware of the dangers.
But the problem is not confined to Australia, sea foam can be found at polluted beaches all over the world. Examples include India and Turkey.
I have been telling this story ever since I first observed it on the Sunshine Coast in 2003. Every time there’s a major sea foam event, the media is interested. But research support is also needed in the gaps in between. We scientists need to monitor the shorelines continuously.
As long as humanity continues to produce pollution, the problem will increase. It will also worsen as the world warms, because sea foams like it hot.
Ipek Kurtböke 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.
Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of glaciers, and the end of the last ice age.
Much of this sudden influx of atmospheric CO₂ came from the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, highlighting the key role this body of water plays in regulating the global climate.
However, we have a poor understanding of how and why CO₂ release from this region changed during periods such as the end of the last ice age. But our new study, published in Nature Communications, reveals how much CO₂ was released to the atmosphere from the polar Southern Ocean during this period – and what factors were responsible.
We reached these conclusions by examining the chemistry of sand-sized fossils, called foraminifera, from the seafloor south of Tasmania.
Tiny shells preserved in mud
Foraminifera are tiny single-celled organisms, either floating in the ocean surface or living on the seabed. Most of them build shells made of calcium carbonate to protect themselves. After death, these foraminifera shells are preserved in the mud on the seabed.
Newer generations of foraminifera shells stack over older ones, like adding new pages to a book. Over time, these foraminifera shells form a book on the seabed that can be dated back to millions of years ago.
Even more fascinating, trace amounts of elements in the seawater are incorporated into the calcium carbonate shells of foraminifera. In some foraminifera species, the amount of these elements is sensitive to the environment they live in.
For example, the amount of boron in a species called Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi is sensitive to carbonate ion concentrations, and the amount of cadmium in another species (Hoeglundina elegans) is sensitive to phosphate concentrations.
By looking at trace elements in these foraminifera shells found in the sequence of mud on the seabed, we can decipher mysteries about the past seawater condition in the book left by foraminifera on the seabed.
In some species of foraminifera, such as Cibicidoides wuellerstorfi (pictured here), the trace amount of elements found in their shells is sensitive to their environment. Le Coze, François/WoRMS, CC BY-SA
A giant metal straw
How do scientists do this? First we go out to the ocean to collect mud.
In this process, a giant metal straw is dropped to the seabed and then raised to our research ships, fully filled with mud. We take these mud samples back to our lab. There, we slice them into pieces and examine them separately.
This allows us to extract information from each page of the book in chronological order. Foraminifera shells are washed out of the mud, and specific shells are picked out under a microscope, cleaned, and finally analysed for their chemical composition.
Foraminifera have lived almost everywhere in the ocean for millions of years. Based on their chemical composition, scientists have reconstructed a continuous record of seawater temperature during the past 66 million years in great detail.
Among a few places in the ocean where you cannot find foraminifera is the polar Southern Ocean. Although some foraminifera live there, seawater in this region is often too corrosive for their shells to preserve on the seabed. The lack of foraminifera in the polar Southern Ocean brings a huge challenge for scientists eager to understand past changes in CO₂ exchanges between the ocean and the atmosphere.
Among a few places in the ocean where you cannot find foraminifera is the polar Southern Ocean. Mathias Berlin/Shutterstock
From Antarctica to Tasmania
We decided to tackle the problem using mud on the seabed 3,300 metres below the surface just south of Tasmania.
Seawater at that depth near Tasmania is ideal for studying the chemistry of the polar Southern Ocean. That’s because seawater from the polar Southern Ocean sinks to the bottom of the ocean, moves northwards, and eventually occupies the seabed south of Tasmania.
Seawater chemistry – including concentrations of carbon, phosphate and oxygen – does change along its way at the bottom of the ocean.
These changes are, however, generally proportional to each other. So if all these concentrations are known for seawater at depth near Tasmania, we can work out their concentrations in the polar Southern Ocean.
Fortunately, there were plenty of foraminifera shells in the mud for all these reconstructions at the site we examined near Tasmania.
Reconstructing ancient chemical concentrations
Using the chemistry of foraminifera, we reconstructed changes in concentrations of carbonate ion (which is largely related to carbon), phosphate and oxygen at the bottom of the ocean near Tasmania during the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000–10,000 years ago. This period is known as the last deglaciation.
Based on these reconstructions, we calculated the amount of CO₂ released from the polar Southern Ocean during the last deglaciation. Some of this CO₂ came from biological processes – changes in the amount of carbon used by microscopic organisms living near the ocean surface. The rest was from physical processes – CO₂ molecules escaping from seawater directly to the air.
We found that biological processes were more important for CO₂ releases during the earlier stages of the deglaciation, while the physical processes contributed more during the later stages.
From the polar Southern Ocean, seawater sinks to the bottom of the ocean and moves northwards to reach the seabed south of Tasmania. Steve Todd/Shutterstock
So why is this important?
Scientists use climate models to predict future climate and to reproduce past atmospheric CO₂ changes.
Our results provide testing targets for climate models to reproduce.
Better reproduction of past changes will improve climate model design for predicting future changes.
This will help us understand how future changes in the polar Southern Ocean can affect atmospheric CO₂, contributing to making effective plans to mitigate CO₂ emissions.
Yuhao Dai receives funding from the Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative, Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science.
A West Papuan liberation advocacy group has condemned the arrest of 12 activists by Indonesian police and demanded their immediate release.
The West Papuan activists from the West Papua People’s Liberation Movement (GR-PWP) were arrested for handing out pamphlets supporting the new “Boycott Indonesia” campaign.
The GR-PWP activists were arrested in Sentani and taken to Jayapura police station yesterday.
In a statement by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), interim president Benny Wenda, said the activists were still “in the custody of the brutal Indonesian police”.
The arrested activists were named as:
Ones M. Kobak, GR-PWP leader, Sentani District Elinatan Basini, deputy secretary, GR-PWP Central Dasalves Suhun, GR-PWP member Matikel Mirin, GR-PWP member Apikus Lepitalen, GR-PWP member Mane Kogoya, GR-PWP member Obet Dogopia, GR-PWP member Eloy Weya, GR-PWP member Herry Mimin, GR-PWP member Sem. R Kulka, GR-PWP member Maikel Tabo, GR-PWP member Koti Moses Uropmabin, GR-PWP member
“I demand that the Head of Police release the Sentani 12 from custody immediately,” Wenda said.
“This was an entirely peaceful action mobilising support for a peaceful campaign.
“The boycott campaign has won support from more than 90 tribes, political organisations, religious and customary groups — people from every part of West Papua are demanding a boycott of products complicit in the genocidal Indonesian occupation.”
Wenda said the arrest demonstrated the importance of the Boycott for West Papua campaign.
We express deep concern over the recent arrests of individuals in Sentani, West Papua for distributing pamphlets advocating a boycott of Indonesian products from West Papua and raising awareness of ongoing political issues in the region. The detention of these individuals likely… pic.twitter.com/4e4hJ7FxUJ
Now back on Earth thanks to Space X’s Dragon capsule, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be breathing fresh air again after a gruelling nine months onboard the International Space Station.
A successful rescue mission will be a relief to NASA, which had the unprecedented task of figuring out how to get the astronauts home. But the crisis has also raised difficult questions about space missions and what happens if they don’t go to plan.
Corporations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and Virgin Galactic are increasingly at the forefront of the new space race, but they operate in a legal vacuum as well as an atmospheric one.
With the law not keeping pace with this rapid rise in commercial space exploration and exploitation, just who has a duty to rescue so-called space tourists and astronauts is unclear. Urgent legal reform is needed.
Privatisation of space
International space law contains a special duty for countries to rescue astronauts, regardless of their nationality.
According to the United Nations Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, all member countries of the treaty, not just the country that launched the mission, have a duty to take “all necessary steps” to assist spacecraft crew in distress.
This includes missions still in space as well as spacecraft that crash land in another state’s territory or at sea. The state conducting the rescue mission must safely return the astronauts to Earth – and to the country they originally launched from.
But it’s not clear whether private space companies will have a similar duty. Some experts worry space tourists may have no real legal protection.
Space law dates from the 20th century, when the 1967 Outer Space Treaty was adopted. But the original space race involved superpowers, and the possibility of corporations one day crossing the “final frontier” wasn’t even considered.
So, if space tourists become stranded like Williams and Wilmore have been, there’s a possibility – in law at least – they could be left to fend for themselves.
NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on their way to the launch craft of the ill-fated mission in June 2024. Getty Images
Who is an ‘astronaut’?
Space policy experts are now calling on the international community to adopt a broad interpretation of the term “astronaut” to ensure anyone has a right to be rescued regardless of their legal status.
They’re also calling for new rules to determine who is responsible for rescuing private citizens if they get into trouble. Despite the several treaties and conventions regulating space activity, none address space tourism.
Currently, space tourism involves lower atmosphere travel, but SpaceX’s Elon Musk has talked about sending tourists to Mars. However realistic that is, space law is struggling to keep up with such ambitions.
With the rise of private space missions, there is now a strong argument for the companies involved being required to shoulder or share the associated costs and responsibilities.
Described by the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs as “envoys of humankind”, astronauts undergo years of arduous training before taking part in space missions. They are acutely aware of the risks of space travel – but have embraced it.
The same can’t be said for civilians. Space tourism is still in its early days, but the companies promoting it will need to act responsibly and sustainably. This means making their customers aware of the dangers and implementing rescue procedures and protocols.
Without proper regulatory oversight, however, space tourism companies could require prospective customers to sign legal agreements waiving their right to rescue if they are in danger.
The challenge for space law now is to find a workable compromise between human safety and corporate profit motives.
Anna Marie Brennan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the first few months of 2025, there’s been a flurry of private venture space missions. Some have been successful, such as American company Firefly Aerospace landing its spacecraft Blue Ghost Mission 1 on the Moon. This was the first successful lunar landing of a privately owned spacecraft.
But there have also been several recent failures. None have been more spectacular than the repeatedexplosions of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rockets in January and March.
In theory, there are a range of international laws governing these activities. However, most were established roughly half a century ago, before space was within reach of private companies eager to explore it and exploit its untapped resources.
With this development, there is an urgent need to update laws governing what happens in space, in order to prevent it becoming a kind of “wild west” where tech billionaires and the companies they own can do as they please with little to no accountability, consequence or regard for the public good.
Laws as old as the Cold War
Space activities are mainly governed by United Nations treaties. These include the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, the 1972 Liability Convention, and the 1979 Moon Agreement.
But these agreements were created during the Cold War, when space exploration was shaped by military sensitivities and mainly conducted by nation states.
Yet private companies are now major players in space. They can bring the allure of space to the masses, for a pretty penny. For example, most of the roughly 11,000 active satellites orbiting Earth are privately owned.
NASA now relies on partnerships with companies to combine expertise and save costs. The European Space Agency does the same, as do many of the 77 countries with space programs
Just days later, another company put a spacecraft on the Moon. Yet the Intuitive Machines Athena spacecraft landed awkwardly. It toppled over and was soon declared dead. It too was carrying expensive NASA cargo.
National space agencies will continue to rely on company partners in more ambitious ventures. But what happens when things go wrong? How can private companies be held accountable if they damage the property of others, or cause environmental harm on celestial bodies?
Space traffic
There is an increasing risk of collisions among satellites, spacecrafts and space debris. And while there are some mechanisms for collision warnings, there is no global approach to assess the risk of collisions.
The 1972 Liability Convention provides guidance about addressing liability after satellite collisions. However, it only directly applies to states, not private companies.
If a private company’s spacecraft causes damage, the affected party can only initiate a claim via diplomatic channels against the launching state, not the company itself. The claims pathway can be complex, slow and subject to diplomatic negotiations.
Also, some satellite operators purchase insurance to cover damage from collisions, wisely bypassing the convention. Insurance creates an efficient private mechanism to address damages, avoiding the need to involve states or navigate the diplomatic processes required under the Convention.
The Outer Space Treaty says countries must avoid contamination of space. But it does not specifically address the problem of accumulated space debris.
The long-term sustainablity of space activities, including the build up of debris, was not the pressing issue for the treaty’s drafters. Moreover, the treaty’s language is vague, requiring states to act with “due regard” for others’ interests and conduct “appropriate” consultation before undertaking potentially harmful activities. However, it does not define what these terms mean.
Who owns the resources in space?
The prospect that humans will be able to collect and sell mineral resources from astronomical objects is edging closer to reality. Initial focus is on the Moon. But who owns the resources on the Moon?
There is no internationally agreed-upon property rights regime beyond Earth. The US is trying to achieve private ownership of space resources through its 2020 “Artemis Accords”.
This effort is a big boost to the privatisation of space. But it contrasts with the “common heritage of mankind” concept – the cornerstone of the 1979 Moon Agreement.
So far 53 countries have signed the Artemis Accords. But only 17 countries are parties to the Moon Agreement. Without clear rules applicable to all space players, lunar exploration and mining by private entities may run into trouble.
There are many worrying scenarios. A private spacecraft might crash into a country’s lunar accommodation facility due to a lack of “rules of the road” on the Moon. Lunar traffic and mining might cause damage to the Moon’s surface.
Can private entities be held accountable for this damage? The current space law regime does not address such hypothetical problems that may become real in coming years.
NASA now relies on partnerships with private companies such as SpaceX to combine expertise and save costs. SpaceX/Flickr, CC BY-NC
Safe and sustainable space exploration
Space law must evolve to ensure safe and sustainable commercial space travel and lunar exploration. This can only be achieved by building international consensus on new rules for space missions.
This requires many challenging discussions.
What types of damage to the Moon should be remediated, and by who? What is the most suitable avenue for affected entities to apply for compensation? What rules should be in place to manage the increased traffic volume in outer space? How can countries be incentivised to strengthen their oversight of their private entity partners in joint missions?
Perhaps the easiest issue to solve is which side of future lunar highways to drive on. With the US and China leading the way at the moment, it would be on the right side.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Filmed in a one-take style, Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s new crime drama Adolescence is being hailed by critics as a technical masterpiece.
Out now on Netflix, the four-part series follows the fallout surrounding 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) after he is arrested and later charged for the murder of his classmate, Katie. Co-creator Stephen Graham stars as Jamie’s father, Eddie.
Adolescence draws inspiration from the United Kingdom’s knife crime epidemic, the rise of incel culture and the brutality of online bullying. These malignant forces combine to create every parent’s worst nightmare.
However, unlike true crime, where there is often a resolution, there is no escape from the horror.
The show’s continuous filming style offers no reprieve, and the story itself provides no easy outs – refusing to provide a simple explanation for why an intelligent boy from an “ordinary” loving family would borrow a knife from a friend and, on a casual Sunday evening, stab another child to death.
While Jamie’s motives remain murky, the show makes one thing clear: today’s teens inhabit an online world that adults, however well-intentioned, are incapable of understanding if they do not listen.
Anxieties distorted by algorithms
At the centre of the show’s broken heart is a devastating truth: the most dangerous place in the world for a teenager is alone in their bedroom.
Trapped in the dark mirror of social media, Jamie – like a growing number of teenage boys – turns to the digital “manosphere” and the grim logic of online misogynists.
He subscribes to the “red pills” of incel culture, so-called truth groups and the 80/20 rule (the theory that 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men, and that women only seek out men who are physically and socially desirable).
While Jamie is, for the most part, an outwardly “normal” and well-adjusted teen, his explosive rage and aggrieved entitlement is revealed in a climatic scene in episode three, when he intimidates and shouts down a female psychologist (Erin Doherty).
“You do not control what I do!” he yells. “Get that in that fucking little head of yours!”
Jamie is quick to apologise when a guard intervenes. “I shouted,” he says. “I’m sorry. Can I have another hot chocolate, please?”
In one particularly unnerving moment, Jamie recalls his decision to ask Katie out after receiving a topless photo of her on Snapchat.
“I thought she might be weak cause everyone was calling her a slag,” he says. “I just thought that when she was that weak, she might like me. It’s clever, don’t you think?”
While the sinister child-teen killer trope has been a mainstay of horror, from Child’s Play (1988) to The Exorcist (1973), Adolescence out-scares its predecessors in its unflinching portrayal of a radicalised misogynist-turned murderer.
A nightmare with no end
The show’s most stunning achievement is without a doubt its one-take style. Each hour-long episode is filmed in a single take which, as director Philip Barantini explains, “basically means that we press record on the camera, and we don’t stop until the very end of the hour”.
Tapping into today’s true crime zeitgeist, the series renders Jamie’s story more real than it actually is by imitating the cinéma vérité style of documentary filmmaking.
Each episode creates an immersive fly-on-the wall experience that is deeply compelling and uncomfortable. The lack of breaks forces viewers to feel as trapped as the characters, in an unfathomable spiral through confusion, guilt and shame.
This unease is heightened when the action is shot in claustrophobic spaces, such as inside the family van or a police interrogation room.
The continuous shooting style makes the viewer feel as trapped as the characters as they spiral through confusion, guilt and shame. Netflix
The soundtrack adds another layer of gritty true crime trauma, with random sirens, slamming doors and thumping discordant notes designed to mirror the inner turmoil of the characters.
As the story unfolds, it charts the devastating impact of Jamie’s crime on those around him. While Katie’s school friends struggle to process their unfathomable grief, Jamie’s parents must also confront their son’s capacity for cruelty.
“We made him,” despairs Jamie’s mother (Manda Miller).
The unbroken style, in this regard, is important for understanding how broken this family is. Because there are no cuts, there is no escape from the nightmare.
Indeed, Jamie seems to have fallen through the cracks of the social institutions we relied on in the pre-internet age: the schooling system, the judiciary and the family itself.
Jamie has fallen through the cracks of the schooling system – a social institution that is supposed to help keep him and his peers safe. Netflix
The generational chasm
The show’s true sympathy lies not with its cast of troubled teens but with the baffled adults around them. Like Jamie’s parents, viewers must surrender to the sorrow and disbelief of never truly understanding what went wrong.
Adolescence is a convincing portrayal of the widening chasm between parents and their teenage children in a savage, unregulated digital age.
It is also a social commentary on how little we know about how to communicate with teens effectively.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Desalegn Markos Shifti, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Child Health Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland
An allergy happens when the body’s immune system mistakenly reacts to certain foods or other substances as if they were dangerous.
But do allergies affect all Australians equally?
In a recent study, we looked at emergency department (ED) presentations related to asthma and other allergic diseases in central Queensland. The region has a population of 228,246 according to the most recent Census data, and 7.2% of residents identify as First Nations.
We found First Nations Australians were almost twice as likely to present to hospital with asthma or other allergy-related illnesses compared to other Australians.
What we did and found
We analysed 813,112 ED presentations from 12 public hospitals in central Queensland from 2018 to 2023. The hospitals were spread across regional and remote areas.
Of the conditions we looked at, asthma was the most likely to bring patients to the ED. This was followed by unspecified allergies, atopic dermatitis (or eczema) and anaphylaxis (a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction). First Nations people were more likely than other Australians to present with each of these conditions.
Overall, we found First Nations people were almost twice as likely to visit an ED for asthma or allergic diseases compared to other Australians. It should be noted that asthma is not always caused by allergies, and in this study we looked at all presentations for asthma, regardless of the cause.
Our study also found ED visits for allergic diseases among First Nations people increased over time. They were around 1.5 times more common in 2023 compared to 2018.
Further, we found a notable peak in asthma-related visits to the ED among First Nations people in 2019. This increase may have been partly due to Australia’s Black Summer bushfires during 2019–20.
Other research has shown ED visits and hospitalisations for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease increased during the Black Summer bushfires. Exposure to bushfire smoke significantly increases the risk of breathing problems and other health issues.
The increase in asthma-related ED visits could also be linked to the severe flu season in 2019, as flu is known to trigger asthma attacks.
National data shows asthma is one of the most commonly reported chronic illnesses for First Nations Australians. More than 16% of First Nations Australians reported they had asthma in 2022–23 compared to 10.8% of the general Australian population.
So it’s not entirely surprising that hospital presentations for asthma were higher among First Nations people.
However, we were surprised to find First Nations people visited the ED more often for other allergic diseases. Allergies have not necessarily been recognised as an important concern among First Nations people, particularly in remote areas.
Interestingly, we didn’t find any food allergy cases in our data. But some of the “unspecified” allergies could be linked to food allergies, as could some of the cases of anaphylaxis.
Australian researchers have found differences in the prevalence of food allergies among different groups, but they lacked specific data on First Nations populations. We know little about how common food allergies are in First Nations Australians.
In a recent national survey, 12% of First Nations people self-reported an allergy to a food, drug, or other substance (compared to 14% in the overall population). But some cases might go unrecognised or unreported, and these data were not broken down into different types of allergies.
This is the first comprehensive study, to our knowledge, that looks at asthma and allergic disease-related ED visits among both First Nations people and other Australians in an under-researched part of Australia.
However, we only looked at asthma and allergic diseases treated in the ED, which doesn’t encompass all cases. For example, some people might visit other health services such as GPs when they’re having a less severe allergic episode.
Ultimately, we need more research to better understand how common allergies and allergic diseases are among First Nations Australians.
Why do these gaps exist?
We don’t know exactly why there are disparities in ED presentations for allergic diseases between First Nations people and other Australians.
One possibility is that asthma and allergic diseases might be more severe in First Nations people, leading to more hospital visits, even if they’re not more common.
Another reason could be limited access to specialists, especially in rural and remote First Nations communities. Long wait lists to see allergy doctors and their limited availability in some areas could lead to delays in care and make it harder to get the right treatment. This can worsen asthma and allergic disease symptoms, causing patients to seek ED care instead.
We want to learn more about how allergies affect First Nations people, especially in regional and remote areas, and whether people have unmet needs. In initial conversations with First Nations Australians living with a food allergy, we’ve heard allergies might not be well understood in rural areas. This could be because they’re rare or because traditional lifestyles offer some protection.
We’re interested in finding out more, especially whether allergies are a concern for First Nations people, and, if so, how we can support communities to develop targeted and culturally respectful strategies to address them.
Desalegn Markos Shifti is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)-funded Centre for Food and Allergy Research (CFAR) Postdoctoral Funding.
Jennifer Koplin receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. She is a member of the Executive Committee for the National Allergy Centre of Excellence (NACE), which is supported by funding from the Australian government.
Renarta Whitcombe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A carved erotic scene on the outer wall of temple in Khajuraho complex, India.Cortyn/Shutterstock
For some people, the Kamasutra is little more than a name associated with condom brands, scented oils and chocolates shaped into erotic positions. In India, where sex remains a taboo subject, this ancient sex manual has often been reduced to merely a “dirty book”.
But beneath this narrow view lies a deeper message: the Kamasutra is a treatise on sexual autonomy, one that could be revolutionary for women.
In Indian society, women’s sexual pleasure is often invisible, buried beneath layers of cultural silence. Women are often taught to suppress their desires, their voices stifled by traditions that prioritise male needs. Yet, it was in this very country that the Kamasutra was written.
Composed in the ancient Sanskrit language in the 3rd century by the Indian philosopher Vatsyayana, the Kamasutra is more than a book about sexual positions. The word “kama” means love, sex, desire and pleasure, while “sutra” translates to a treatise. The text explores relationships, ethics and social norms. It offers a framework for mutual respect and understanding between partners.
In her 2016 book Redeeming the Kamasutra, scholar of Indian culture and society Wendy Doniger argues that Vatsyayana was an advocate of women’s pleasure as well as stressing their right to education and the freedom to express desire. Far from reinforcing male dominance, the Kamasutra originally emphasised the importance of mutual enjoyment and consent. It presents sex as a shared experience rather than a male conquest.
The perception of the Kamasutra as a male-centred sex manual can be traced back to its first English translation by Sir Richard Burton in 1883.
Burton, a British soldier and explorer, omitted or altered passages that highlighted women’s autonomy. It shifted their role from active participants to passive recipients of male pleasure.
In contrast, scholars such as Ganesh Saili have argued that the Kamasutra originally depicted women as equal partners in intimacy. According to the text, women communicated their needs through gestures, emotions and words, ensuring that their pleasure was just as valued as men’s. Importantly, conversation played a central role in intimacy, reinforcing the necessity of a woman’s consent before having sex.
Despite this rich history, Indian society continues to largely suppress discussions around female sexuality. Indian sex educator and journalist Leeza Mangaldas argues that women’s sexual pleasure remains a taboo topic, policed by cultural expectations that dictate women must remain silent, subservient and sexually inactive before marriage.
Social scientist, Deepa Narayan, argues that this suppression begins at home. Girls are often taught to deny their own bodies and prioritise male desires.
This control extends to patriarchal social norms that uphold virginity as a virtue for women while imposing no such expectation on men. Sex is framed as something women “give” rather than something they experience. Pleasure is seen as a right for males but merely an afterthought for females. Sex is for men but for women, it is only for producing babies.
Yet the Kamasutra itself tells a different story. In its original form, it described women as active participants in their pleasure and compared their sensuality to the delicacy of flowers – requiring care, attention and respect.
My own research explores “Kamasutra feminism”. This is the idea that this ancient text is not just about sex but about sexual autonomy. It challenges patriarchal norms by promoting women’s freedom to articulate their desires and take control of their pleasure. The Kamasutra rejects the notion that women’s sexuality should be regulated or repressed. Instead, it advocates for mutual satisfaction and consent.
Doniger describes the Kamasutra as a feminist text, citing its emphasis on women choosing their partners, expressing their desires freely and engaging in pleasurable sexual relationships. It recognises economic independence as a crucial factor in women’s sexual autonomy. Financial freedom is linked to the ability to make personal choices.
An original Kamasutra manuscript page preserved in the vaults of the Raghunath Temple in Jammu & Kashmir. Ms Sarah Welch/Wikimedia, CC BY
Patriarchy versus sexual liberty
Ultimately, the Kamasutra represents a clash between patriarchy – where women’s sexuality is controlled – and a vision of sexual liberty. It offers an alternative narrative, one where seduction is about mutual enjoyment rather than male domination. Its teachings encourage open discussions about intimacy, allowing women to reclaim their voices in relationships.
For more than a century, the Kamasutra has been misinterpreted, its radical message buried beneath layers of censorship and cultural shame. But if we look beyond its erotic reputation, we find a text that speaks to the importance of consent, equality and female agency.
Reclaiming the Kamasutra as a guide for sexual empowerment could help dismantle deeply ingrained taboos and reshape the conversation around women’s pleasure. In a world where female desire is still widely policed, this ancient manuscript reminds us that women’s pleasure is not a luxury, but a right.
Sharha Sharha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
We’re roughly half way through this parliamentary term, and it looks as though the 2026 election could deliver “Christopher vs Chris: the sequel”.
Neither leader is currently riding high, though. National’s Christopher Luxon and Labour’s Chris Hipkins are both scoring in the low 20s in the most recent preferred prime minister polls.
But it pays to be cautious, especially this far from an election. Leadership is a complex mix of individual ability, career stage and political context.
We can think of political leaders having a “stock” of leadership “capital” that fluctuates over time. They build up credit or authority, but they have to spend it. Former supporters can become bored, disappointed or disillusioned.
Any assessment of a leader will involve some subjective judgements. But the Leadership Capital Index (LCI) was developed by three British and European political scientists as a framework for scoring leadership on a range of sliding measures.
I applied the LCI to Hipkins and Luxon. Ideally, this would be conducted by a panel, and more than once over a career. But readers are welcome to examine and comment below on my assessments – a virtual panel, if you like. You can see more detail about my reasoning here.
The LCI’s ten factors are a mixture of the objective and subjective, adding up to an overall ranking of a leader’s political capital on a five-point scale:
depleted – “lame duck”
low – “politically weakened”
medium – “muddling through”
high – “momentum”
exceptional – “political weather maker”.
Neither Luxon nor Hipkins performed very well: Luxon came out on the low-capital range looking “politically weakened”, while Hipkins was “muddling through” on medium capital.
Leadership capital changes over time, and the LCI takes account of that. This assessment relates to mid-March 2025.
I’ve given both leaders 4 out of 5 here. Both have presented clear and consistent political and policy visions. Readers who disagree will see I take some relevant issues into account in the items below.
2. Communication performance:(1. Very poor. 2. Poor. 3. Average. 4. Good. 5. Very good.)
Luxon has been struggling here. His failure to give broadcaster Mike Hosking a straight answer about a cabinet sacking didn’t help, and he has been criticised for his corporate speaking style. Hipkins has performed better as a communicator (regardless of your views on his values). I’ve given Luxon 2/5 and Hipkins 4/5.
3. Personal poll rating relative to the most recent election:(1. Very low (–15% or less), 2. Low (–5 to –15%), 3. Moderate (–5% to 5%), 4. High (5-15%), 5. Very High (15% or more).)
This is an objective numerical measure based on preferred prime minister polls just before the 2023 election compared with the most recent ones. Both Luxon and Hipkins score 3/5.
4. Longevity (time in office as prime minister):(1. less than 1 year. 2. 1-2 years. 3. 2-3 years. 4. 3-4 years. 5. More than 4.)
At March 2025, Luxon gets 2/5 and Hipkins gets 1/5. If we included time in office as party leaders, the numbers would be higher.
5. Selection margin for party leadership:(1. Very small (less than 1%). 2. Small (1-5%). 3. Moderate (5-10%). 4. Large (10-15%). 5. Very large (more than 15%).)
Both leaders were elected as party leader by their respective caucuses. These votes are private, but it’s known Hipkins’ selection was unanimous. I believe Luxon also won by a large margin (greater than 15%). So they both get 5/5.
6. Party polling relative to most recent election result:(1. –10% or lower. 2. –10% to –2.5%. 3. –2.5% to +2.5%. 4. +2.5% to 10%. 5. More than 10%.)
In early March, Labour was polling in the low 30s, up from an election result of 26.9%. So Hipkins gets 4/5. National was also polling in the low 30s, down from 38.1%. So Luxon gets 2/5.
7. Levels of public trust:(1. 0-20%. 2. 20-40%. 3. 40-60%. 4. 60-80%. 5. 80-100%.)
Going back to a “trust” poll in early 2023 and a similar one in May that year, Luxon scored a lower trust level (37%) than Hipkins (53%). So Luxon gets 2/5 and Hipkins gets 3/5.
8. Likelihood of credible leadership challenge within next 6 months:(1. Very high. 2. High. 3. Moderate. 4. Low. 5. Very low.)
This relies on predictions, but Luxon is in greater danger than Hipkins. National’s polling is down, with some predicting a leadership change (although others acknowledge this could carry more costs than benefits). Hipkins lost the 2023 election but seems secure as Labour leader. Luxon gets 3/5 (moderate risk) and Hipkins gets 4/5 (low risk).
9. Perceived ability to shape party’s policy platform:(1. Very low. 2. Low. 3. Moderate. 4. High. 5. Very high.)
This is subjective but not about liking or disliking the policies. Both leaders perform moderately well here on 3/5. Luxon has put his own managerial style on policymaking, notably with quarterly targets. When Jacinda Ardern resigned as prime minister, Hipkins lit a “policy bonfire” to begin afresh. But he is taking time to announce new ones. We’d expect to see improvements for both leaders closer to the election.
10. Perceived parliamentary effectiveness:(1. Very low. 2. Low. 3. Moderate. 4. High. 5. Very high.)
Hipkins has an advantage, given his greater parliamentary experience. Luxon hasn’t dealt decisively with two attention-grabbing coalition partners, especially over ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill. Hipkins gets 4/5, Luxon 2/5.
Final scores – now have your say
The results add up to a ranking on the leadership capital index. Out of a possible 50, Luxon scores 28 and Hipkins 35. Neither is a great score; both careers look stalled.
On the index, this defines Luxon as “politically weakened”. This could improve through better communication, sounder leadership of an ambitious team, and greater control over coalition dynamics.
But Luxon’s leadership capital has never been particularly high. He didn’t enjoy a post-election “honeymoon” and may have peaked early – and low. More low polls may see National remove him, but there is also still time for his policies to pay off.
The index has Hipkins “muddling through”. He needs to connect with voters, boost his reputation as a future leader (rather than election loser) and sharpen Labour’s policy platform.
Hipkins’ leadership capital might have peaked in early 2023 when he became prime minister. Labour party polls are up a bit since the election, but his own preferred prime minister polling has stayed relatively low.
Finally, neither leader has performed well compared with their predecessors John Key and Jacinda Ardern at their heights. But political fortunes can be unpredictable, and crises can even boost them, so the future remains unwritten.
Is this assessment fair or unfair? Readers are welcome to critique my analysis and offer alternative ratings in the (moderated) comments section below.
Grant Duncan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Peter Dutton, when he gets on his favoured ground of security, too often goes for the quick hit, and frequently over-reaches.
His suggestion of running a possible referendum to facilitate the removal of bad eggs who are dual citizens is a prime example.
Apart from the substance of the proposal, why would an aspiring prime minister be talking about a referendum after the experience of the Voice?
As Dutton knows very well – and to his advantage in that case – referendums don’t succeed without bipartisan support, and this one certainly wouldn’t get backing from a Labor opposition. They cost a fortune, and they distract prime ministers. Dutton would have enough to do in government without going down this side track to a predictable dead end.
Although this focus on booting people out of the country sounds Trumpian, it has long been a preoccupation of Dutton’s – something he pushed in the Coalition years.
The Coalition amended the Citizenship Act, enabling a minister to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals (so depriving them of the protection from removal that citizenship affords).
But the High Court in 2022 struck this down, so a minister has to apply to a court in the course of a trial relating to a listed offence. The court makes the decision on citizenship as part of sentencing the person.
Fast forward to the present, and Dutton sees advantage in any issues that go to security, of individuals or the country. Hence his talk of attempted constitutional change if the objective can’t be achieved by legislation.
On morning TV on Tuesday he kept repeating that he wanted to keep people safe.
He told Seven, “I want to keep our country safe […] it’s the first responsibility of any prime minister, and at the moment we’ve got people in our country who hate our country, who want to cause terrorist attacks. My argument is that if you betray your allegiance to our country in that way, you should expect to lose your citizenship.”
“What we’re proposing here is a discussion about whether we’ve got adequate laws, whether the Constitution is restrictive, and ultimately, what I want to do is keep our country safe and keep communities safe. I think there are a lot of Australians at the moment who are worried about the rise of antisemitism and what we’ve seen in our country, and elsewhere, which just doesn’t reflect the values that we’ve fought for over many generations.”
Apart from the fact a referendum would fail, the proposal itself has no obvious benefit. It is out of proportion to the problem it is supposed to be addressing, would be unlikely to act as a deterrent, and would stir a divisive debate. On Tuesday Dutton’s senior colleagues Michaelia Cash, who is shadow attorney-general, and Angus Taylor sounded less then enthusiastic about the move.
For Dutton’s campaign, it carries a special danger. It gives the impression of a leader who comes up with extreme proposals. If he is suggesting this today, what will be think of tomorrow? More to the point, what might he suddenly propose when in government?
This close to an election, Dutton needs to give voters the feeling he is predictable, that they know him, not that he produces ideas out of left field (or right field, in this case).
Former Liberal attorney-general George Brandis, who was around for the earlier debate, summed up the situation succinctly, when he wrote in the Nine papers, “An unwanted referendum, without bipartisan support, to overturn the High Court? It is as mad an idea as I have heard in a long time.”
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated negotiations, have now been cast aside by new Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes came after Hamas’ “repeated refusals” to “release our hostages”, and the group’s rejection of all proposals presented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Even before Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in the past two weeks, Hamas claimed it had not met the levels of humanitarian aid, shelter and fuel it agreed to provide in the terms of the ceasefire. However, this is a distraction from a larger issue.
This ceasefire was always more like a strangle contract than a negotiated agreement between equal parties. Israel, as the party with far greater military and political power, has always had the upper hand.
And while the first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, saw the successful release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, the ceasefire also enabled Israel to use it for its own political and military ends.
Buying time
The most common conventional concern about ceasefires is that the parties to a conflict will use them for their own ends.
Typically, the worry is that non-state armed groups, such as Hamas, will use the halt in violence to buy time to regroup, rearm and rebuild their strength to continue fighting.
But states such as Israel have this ability, too. Even though they have standing armies that might not need to regroup and rearm in the same way, states can use this time to manoeuvre in the international arena – a space largely denied to non-state actors.
Trump’s rise to power in the US has seemingly given the Israeli government carte blanche to proceed in ways that were arguably off limits to previous US presidents who were also largely supportive of Israel’s actions.
This includes the plan of forcing Gaza’s population out of the strip. This plan was raised earlier in the war by Trump advisor Jared Kushner and Israeli officials as a supposed humanitarian initiative.
Trump has now repeated the call to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan – or possibly other parts of Africa – and for the US to take “ownership” of the coastal strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
On the face of it, this plan would be a war crime. But even if it is never fully implemented, the fact it is being promoted by Trump after many years of domestic Israeli and international opprobrium shows how political ideas once thought unacceptable can take on a life of their own.
Political and military maneouvering
Israel has also used the ceasefire to pursue larger political and military goals in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria.
Even though the ceasefire did reduce overall levels of violence in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on targets in the strip.
It has also escalated the construction of settlements and carried out increasingly violent operations in the West Bank. In addition, there have been egregious attacks on Palestinian residents in Israel.
And though nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released during the ceasefire, Israel was holding more than 9,600 Palestinians in detention on “security grounds” at the end of 2024. Thousands more Palestinians are being held by Israel in administrative detention, which means without trial or charge.
During the ceasefire, Israel also accelerated efforts to evict the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli government has also proposed increasinglydraconian laws aimed at restraining the work of Israeli human rights organisations.
On the military front, the ceasefire arguably alleviated some pressure on Israel, giving it time to consolidate its territorial and security gains against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in Syria.
In the past two months, two deadlines for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon passed. Israel has instead proposed establishing a buffer zone on Lebanese territory and has begun destroying villages, uprooting olive trees and building semi-permanent outposts along the border.
In a speech in February, Netanyahu also demanded the “complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month Israel would keep its troops in southern Syria to “protect” residents from any threats from the new Syrian regime.
Be careful what you wish for
While Palestinians are known for their sumud – usually translated as steadfastness or tenacity – there is a limit to what humans can endure. The war, and subsequent ceasefires, have created a situation in which Gazans may have to put the survival and wellbeing of themselves and their families above their desire to stay in Palestine.
There is a general assumption that ceasefires are positive and humanitarian in nature. But ceasefires are not panaceas. In reality, they are a least-worst option for stopping the violence of war for often just a brief period.
A ceasefire was never going to be the solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it has turned out to be part of the problem.
Marika Sosnowski 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.
Papua New Guinea being declared a Christian nation may offer the impression that the country will improve, but it is only “an illusion”, according to a Catholic priest in the country.
Last week, the PNG Parliament amended the nation’s constitution, introducing a declaration in its preamble: “(We) acknowledge and declare God, the Father; Jesus Christ, the Son; and Holy Spirit, as our Creator and Sustainer of the entire universe and the source of our powers and authorities, delegated to the people and all persons within the geographical jurisdiction of Papua New Guinea.”
In addition, Christianity will now be reflected in the Fifth Goal of the Constitution, and the Bible will be recognised as a national symbol.
Father Giorgio Licini of Caritas PNG said that the Catholic Church would have preferred no constitutional change.
“To create, nowadays, in the 21st century a Christian confessional state seems a little bit anachronistic,” Father Licini said.
He believes it is a “cosmetic” change that “will not have a real impact” on the lives of the people.
“PNG society will remain basically what it is,” he said.
An ‘illusion that things will improve’ “This manoeuvre may offer the impression or the illusion that things will improve for the country, that the way of behaving, the economic situation, the culture may become more solid. But that is an illusion.”
He said the preamble of the 1975 Constitution already acknowledged the Christian heritage.
Father Licini said secular cultures and values were scaring many in PNG, including the recognition and increasing acceptance of the rainbow community.
“They see themselves as next to Indonesia, which is Muslim, they see themselves next to Australia and New Zealand, which are increasingly secular countries, the Pacific heritage is fading, so the question is, who are we?” he said.
“It looks like a Christian heritage and tradition and values and the churches, they offer an opportunity to ground on them a cultural identity.”
Village market near a Christian church building in Papua New Guinea . . . secular cultures and values scaring many in PNG. Image: 123rf
Prime Minister James Marape, a vocal advocate for the amendment, is happy about the outcome.
He said it “reflects, in the highest form” the role Christian churches had played in the development of the country.
Not an operational law RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said that Marape had maintained it was not an operational law.
“It is something that is rather symbolic and something that will hopefully unite Papua New Guinea under a common goal of sorts. That’s been the narrative that’s come out from the Prime Minister’s Office,” Waide said.
He said the vast majority of people in the country had identified as Christian, but it was not written into the constitution.
Waide said the founding fathers were aware of the negative implications of declaring the nation a Christian state during the decolonisation period.
“I think in their wisdom they chose to very carefully state that Papua New Guineans are spiritual people but stopped short of actually declaring Papua New Guinea a Christian country.”
He said that, unlike Fiji, which has had a 200-year experience with different religions, the first mosque in PNG opened in the 1980s.
“It is not as diverse as you would see in other countries. Personally, I have seen instances of religious violence largely based on ignorance.
“Not because they are politically driven, but because people are not educated enough to understand the differences in religions and the need to coexist.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Meagher, Professor Emerita, School of Society, Communication and Culture, Macquarie University
On Monday, an ABC’s Four Corners investigation reported shocking cases of abuse and neglect in Australian childcare centres. This included examples of children being sexually abused, restrained for hours in high chairs, and fed nutritionally substandard meals such as pasta with ketchup.
While acknowledging there are high-quality services operating in the community, the program also showed how centre-based childcare is big business, dominated by for-profit providers, who may not be meeting regulatory standards.
What is going wrong with childcare in Australia?
Differing levels of quality
Data from Australia’s childcare regulator consistently shows for-profit childcare services are, on average, rated as lower quality than not-for-profit services.
Of those rated by regulators, 11% of for-profit long daycare centres are not meeting national minimum quality standards (they are just “working towards”). This compares with 7% of not-for-profit centres not meeting minimum standards.
There are 13% of for-profit centres exceeding the standards, compared to 28% of not-for-profits.
Inquiries suggest this divergence is due to staffing levels, qualifications and pay. In 2023, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found large for-profit providers spend significantly less on staffing than not-for-profit providers.
Large for-profit providers have a higher proportion of part-time and casual staff than not-for-profits. They also employ less experienced early childhood teachers. On top of this, they are more likely to use award rates of pay, which are typically lower than enterprise agreement rates.
Lower pay and less job security is related to higher turnover of staff, which makes it difficult for educators to establish and maintain the trusting relationships with children and families that underpin high quality.
Despite this, the federal government continues to support for-profit services through childcare subsidies.
These subsidies are designed to help families with the costs of childcare. But they do not stop some providers increasing their fees. The ACCC found a consistent pattern of increased government subsidies leading to higher out-of-pocket expenses for families, due to subsequent fee increases.
It hasn’t always been like this
Childcare subsidies haven’t always worked in this way. “Operational subsidies” were introduced in 1972 through the historic Child Care Act, which set the precedent for Australian governments to fund childcare.
This aimed to support women’s workforce participation through an expanded, high-quality childcare sector. Subsidies at the time were only available to not-for-profit services and required the employment of qualified staff, including teachers. In these ways, Commonwealth funding positioned childcare as a public good, like school education.
Then, in 1991, federal government subsidies were extended to for-profit providers. This prompted dramatic changes in the childcare landscape, leading to a dominance of for-profit centres.
Today, more than 70% of all long day-care centres are operated by private providers. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of for-profit long daycare services jumped by 60%, while not-for-profits only grew by 4%.
Quality concerns
There are 25 large long daycare providers in Australia and of these, 21 are run for profit. Large for-profit providers impact sector quality in several ways.
Many have disproportionately high numbers of staffing waivers, granted by regulators, permitting them to operate centres without the required number of qualified staff.
According to unpublished research by Gabrielle Meagher, as of October 2024, 11 large for-profit providers held waivers for a quarter or more of their services and five held waivers for more than a third. This compares to 15% of the sector overall.
Large for-profit providers also serve investors as well as families. So there are extra incentives to cut costs and maximise profits.
The dominance of for-profit providers also makes them powerful players in policy-making circles, as governments depend on them to provide an essential service.
As the Productivity Commission found, regulators are under-resourced, and inspections are infrequent. Services that repeatedly fail to meet the minimum standards are still allowed to operate, sometimes for more than a decade.
Services are notified about upcoming inspections, potentially giving them time to give a false impression of their quality and safety standards.
As Four Corners highlighted, poor-quality services, with bad pay and working conditions are driving good educators away from the sector.
What next?
The Albanese government recently passed legislation to “guarantee” eligible families three days of subsidised childcare per week from January 2026.
But families need more than access. They also require a guarantee this childcare will be high-quality and keep children safe.
Even without the extra spending on the three-day guarantee, government spending on childcare subsidies is due to reach nearly A$15 billion by 2026–27. Thus there is also a corresponding duty to taxpayers to ensure these funds are going to high-quality providers.
In the wake of the Four Corners report, the Greens are calling for a royal commission into childcare. But we do not need this level of inquiry to tell us the current system needs fundamental change.
Stronger regulatory powers, while important, will not be enough on their own. High-quality services need well-educated and well-supported staff. They also need governance and leadership that value educators’ expertise and enable consistently high standards.
Gabrielle was interviewed as part of the 4 Corners program mentioned in the article.
Marianne Fenech receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
The Greens have heaped a lot of pressure on the government during this term, from issues of the environment, housing, and Medicare, to the war in the Middle East.
With the polls close to a dead heat and minority government appearing a real possibility, would the Greens push a minority Labor government even harder in pursuit of their agenda?
To talk about the Greens’ policies and prospects, we’re joined by South Australian Greens senator Barbara Pocock, who is the party’s spokeswoman on employment, the public sector and finance.
After their efforts in this term, Pocock says the Greens would be just as tough in pushing a possible Labor minority government next term:
People can judge us on our record in the last few years. People saw us really fight hard on housing – we wanted to see something meaningful. It is the most significant post-war crisis in housing that is affecting millions of Australians’ lives and certainly an intergenerational crisis.
So we held out for a long time to try and push Labor to improve its offering on public housing [and] on housing spending and we achieved some real wins there. We will fight hard for the things that matter.
We will push very hard on those core issues of a better health system, putting dental into Medicare. We pushed very hard on that in the last time there was a minority government and won it for kids. We want to see everyone be able to get to the dentist, and we really want to see reductions in student debt.
However, Pocock stresses that keeping Peter Dutton out of government remains a key focus:
We are very focused on preventing a Dutton Coalition government, because everything we hear from that stable sends a shiver down my spine.
Pocock did a lot of work during the Senate inquiry investigating consulting services and she warns Dutton’s policy to cut 36,000 public servants would lead to a return to consultants:
In that last year of the Morrison government, we saw a spend of $20 billion on consulting and labour hire and a hollowing out in the public sector. We are still seeing a slow regrowth of the capability of the federal public sector following the scandals relating to the consulting industry and the way it worked with government.
I am very worried about the Coalition’s proposals for a 36,000 cut in the public sector. That’s one in five public sector workers gone and that means services like Centrelink, Veterans Affairs, services that Australians depend on cannot deliver on what they suggest. And we also need to remember that a very significant number – something like two-thirds of our public service, federal public service – actually live outside Canberra.
All they would be doing is taking that money, which pays for public servants, doing a whole range of many different things and taking it across to, in many cases, their supporters and buddies and donors in the consulting and labour hire industry and it’s a very bad value-for-money proposition for the Australian voter.
As spokeswoman on employment, Pocock is a strong advocate for the Greens policies on a four-day work week:
If we go right back to 1856 when Australia led the world on reducing working hours, and the eight-hour day, now we were the first to adopt that internationally for stonemasons in Melbourne. And in the last 40 years, [we] have not seen any reduction in average working time. It’s been 38 hours now since 1983. In that 40 years, we’ve seen massive changes in technology. We have seen increases in productivity. And in the last 10 years, we’ve seen private profit increase by 97% while wages have gone up by 50%. And what we’re saying is, let’s look at the length of the average full-time working week and let’s see how we can move the dial on that.
We’d certainly like to see a wide range of pilots, diverse experimentation, real change, working with those who are ready for it, who are up for it, but making sure we collect the evidence and then move over time towards a national test case, which is the way in which over decades we have slowly ratcheted back the length of the working week.
On the attack from the opposition and others that the Greens are anti-Semitic, Pocock defends the Greens as an anti-racist party.
I think there are diverse views out there in the community and certainly, and we can see it every day, but I think that there are also many people, including many Jewish people, who understand that you can have a critique of a war that’s had such a terrible consequence for civilian women and children in Gaza, and you can still take a very strong position in relation to the kinds of attacks we’ve seen on the Jewish community, for example.
We are an anti-racist party. We want to call out behaviour which is wrong wherever it happens and we have certainly been critical of the behaviour of the Israeli state, their military, and the way they continue to conduct a war against the civilians in Gaza.
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Next week’s budget will have cost-of-living assistance that will be meaningful and substantial but “responsible”, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said.
In a Tuesday speech framing the budget Chalmers said, “it will be a responsible budget which helps with the cost of living, builds our future, and makes our economy more resilient in the new world of global uncertainty”.
He said the budget would have five major priorities:
helping the recovery and rebuild following Cyclone Alfred, for which it will provide $1.2 billion
helping with the cost of living and finishing the fight against inflation
strengthening Medicare and funding more urgent care clinics
putting money into every stage of education
making the economy more competitive and productive.
In the question-and-answer part of his appearance at the Queensland Media Club Chalmers refused to be drawn on whether the cost-of-living relief would include more help on power bills, as is widely expected.
He was also put on the spot about his future leadership ambitions, initially being asked whether, given federal Labor’s poor showing in Queensland, it would do better with a leader from that state.
After diverting the question with a joke and a vigorous defence of Anthony Albanese’s “practical pragmatism” and his appreciation of Queensland, he was asked directly, “So you don’t have aspirations to become leader one day yourself?” “No”, he replied.
Chalmers is lowering expectations of extensive new initiatives being announced next Tuesday, because big spending measures in health, education and infrastructure have been announced.
The budget will project deficits throughout the forward estimates. But Chalmers said Treasury did not expect the bottom line this year or the coming years to be substantially changed from the mid year update.
In the mid-year update release in December, Treasury said it expected the deficit this financial year to be $26.9 billion. The deficit was forecast to increase further next year to $46.9 billion, compared with $42.8 billion forecast in last year’s budget.
Chalmers sought to scotch incorrect predictions he said had been made.
“For example, some commentators have made wild and wide-of-the-mark predictions about big surges in revenue.
“Some wrongly predict the tax-to-GDP ratio will go up this year, when Treasury expects it to be stable or even a bit down.
“Revenue upgrades have actually come off very significantly since the highs of October 2022.”
Chalmers argued the Australian economy “has turned a corner” but acknowledged “a new world of uncertainty” in which it was operating.
“The global economy is volatile and unpredictable.
“There’s a new US administration disrupting trade, a slowdown in China, war in eastern Europe and a fragile ceasefire in the Middle East, division and dissatisfaction around the world.
“Overnight, the OECD downgraded its growth expectations for next year and the year after.”
The OECD cut its forecasts for GDP growth to just 1.8% in 2026, down from an earlier forecast of 2.5%.
“Treasury forecasts in the Budget will have Chinese and American growth slowing to around 4.5 and 2 per cent next year, respectively.
“The forecasts for the US are the same as the mid-year update but the downside risks are weighing more heavily now.
“Unemployment is rising overseas from higher interest rates, and in the UK inflation is going up again.
“This is the global backdrop for the Budget.”
Chalmers repeated the government’s criticism of the US failure to grant an exemption from the steel and aluminium tariffs.
He said Treasury had modelled the impact of tariffs on our economy, both before the US election, and after the inauguration.
“Treasury estimates the direct hit to GDP from steel and aluminium tariffs would be less than 0.02 per cent by 2030. So the direct overall impacts on Australia should be manageable.
“But when you add in the indirect effects, the hit to GDP could be more like 0.1 per cent by 2030.
“In fact, over a range of scenarios, Treasury found the indirect GDP impacts of a trade war could be up to four times larger than the direct effects of tariffs on our economy.
“In a world of retaliation and escalation, the impacts of tariffs are amplified, they linger for longer, resulting in a bigger reduction in GDP and a bigger increase in prices.”
Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated negotiations, have now been cast aside by new Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes came after Hamas’ “repeated refusals” to “release our hostages”, and the group’s rejection of all proposals presented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Even before Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in the past two weeks, Hamas claimed it had not met the levels of humanitarian aid, shelter and fuel it agreed to provide in the terms of the ceasefire. However, this is a distraction from a larger issue.
This ceasefire was always more like a strangle contract than a negotiated agreement between equal parties. Israel, as the party with far greater military and political power, has always had the upper hand.
And while the first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, saw the successful release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, the ceasefire also enabled Israel to use it for its own political and military ends.
Buying time
The most common conventional concern about ceasefires is that the parties to a conflict will use them for their own ends.
Typically, the worry is that non-state armed groups, such as Hamas, will use the halt in violence to buy time to regroup, rearm and rebuild their strength to continue fighting.
But states such as Israel have this ability, too. Even though they have standing armies that might not need to regroup and rearm in the same way, states can use this time to manoeuvre in the international arena – a space largely denied to non-state actors.
Trump’s rise to power in the US has seemingly given the Israeli government carte blanche to proceed in ways that were arguably off limits to previous US presidents who were also largely supportive of Israel’s actions.
This includes the plan of forcing Gaza’s population out of the strip. This plan was raised earlier in the war by Trump advisor Jared Kushner and Israeli officials as a supposed humanitarian initiative.
Trump has now repeated the call to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan – or possibly other parts of Africa – and for the US to take “ownership” of the coastal strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
On the face of it, this plan would be a war crime. But even if it is never fully implemented, the fact it is being promoted by Trump after many years of domestic Israeli and international opprobrium shows how political ideas once thought unacceptable can take on a life of their own.
Political and military maneouvering
Israel has also used the ceasefire to pursue larger political and military goals in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria.
Even though the ceasefire did reduce overall levels of violence in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on targets in the strip.
It has also escalated the construction of settlements and carried out increasingly violent operations in the West Bank. In addition, there have been egregious attacks on Palestinian residents in Israel.
And though nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released during the ceasefire, Israel was holding more than 9,600 Palestinians in detention on “security grounds” at the end of 2024. Thousands more Palestinians are being held by Israel in administrative detention, which means without trial or charge.
During the ceasefire, Israel also accelerated efforts to evict the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli government has also proposed increasinglydraconian laws aimed at restraining the work of Israeli human rights organisations.
On the military front, the ceasefire arguably alleviated some pressure on Israel, giving it time to consolidate its territorial and security gains against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in Syria.
In the past two months, two deadlines for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon passed. Israel has instead proposed establishing a buffer zone on Lebanese territory and has begun destroying villages, uprooting olive trees and building semi-permanent outposts along the border.
In a speech in February, Netanyahu also demanded the “complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month Israel would keep its troops in southern Syria to “protect” residents from any threats from the new Syrian regime.
Be careful what you wish for
While Palestinians are known for their sumud – usually translated as steadfastness or tenacity – there is a limit to what humans can endure. The war, and subsequent ceasefires, have created a situation in which Gazans may have to put the survival and wellbeing of themselves and their families above their desire to stay in Palestine.
There is a general assumption that ceasefires are positive and humanitarian in nature. But ceasefires are not panaceas. In reality, they are a least-worst option for stopping the violence of war for often just a brief period.
A ceasefire was never going to be the solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it has turned out to be part of the problem.
Marika Sosnowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated negotiations, have now been cast aside by new Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes came after Hamas’ “repeated refusals” to “release our hostages”, and the group’s rejection of all proposals presented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Even before Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in the past two weeks, Hamas claimed it had not met the levels of humanitarian aid, shelter and fuel it agreed to provide in the terms of the ceasefire. However, this is a distraction from a larger issue.
This ceasefire was always more like a strangle contract than a negotiated agreement between equal parties. Israel, as the party with far greater military and political power, has always had the upper hand.
And while the first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, saw the successful release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, the ceasefire also enabled Israel to use it for its own political and military ends.
Buying time
The most common conventional concern about ceasefires is that the parties to a conflict will use them for their own ends.
Typically, the worry is that non-state armed groups, such as Hamas, will use the halt in violence to buy time to regroup, rearm and rebuild their strength to continue fighting.
But states such as Israel have this ability, too. Even though they have standing armies that might not need to regroup and rearm in the same way, states can use this time to manoeuvre in the international arena – a space largely denied to non-state actors.
Trump’s rise to power in the US has seemingly given the Israeli government carte blanche to proceed in ways that were arguably off limits to previous US presidents who were also largely supportive of Israel’s actions.
This includes the plan of forcing Gaza’s population out of the strip. This plan was raised earlier in the war by Trump advisor Jared Kushner and Israeli officials as a supposed humanitarian initiative.
Trump has now repeated the call to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan – or possibly other parts of Africa – and for the US to take “ownership” of the coastal strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
On the face of it, this plan would be a war crime. But even if it is never fully implemented, the fact it is being promoted by Trump after many years of domestic Israeli and international opprobrium shows how political ideas once thought unacceptable can take on a life of their own.
Political and military maneouvering
Israel has also used the ceasefire to pursue larger political and military goals in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria.
Even though the ceasefire did reduce overall levels of violence in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on targets in the strip.
It has also escalated the construction of settlements and carried out increasingly violent operations in the West Bank. In addition, there have been egregious attacks on Palestinian residents in Israel.
And though nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released during the ceasefire, Israel was holding more than 9,600 Palestinians in detention on “security grounds” at the end of 2024. Thousands more Palestinians are being held by Israel in administrative detention, which means without trial or charge.
During the ceasefire, Israel also accelerated efforts to evict the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli government has also proposed increasinglydraconian laws aimed at restraining the work of Israeli human rights organisations.
On the military front, the ceasefire arguably alleviated some pressure on Israel, giving it time to consolidate its territorial and security gains against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in Syria.
In the past two months, two deadlines for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon passed. Israel has instead proposed establishing a buffer zone on Lebanese territory and has begun destroying villages, uprooting olive trees and building semi-permanent outposts along the border.
In a speech in February, Netanyahu also demanded the “complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month Israel would keep its troops in southern Syria to “protect” residents from any threats from the new Syrian regime.
Be careful what you wish for
While Palestinians are known for their sumud – usually translated as steadfastness or tenacity – there is a limit to what humans can endure. The war, and subsequent ceasefires, have created a situation in which Gazans may have to put the survival and wellbeing of themselves and their families above their desire to stay in Palestine.
There is a general assumption that ceasefires are positive and humanitarian in nature. But ceasefires are not panaceas. In reality, they are a least-worst option for stopping the violence of war for often just a brief period.
A ceasefire was never going to be the solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it has turned out to be part of the problem.
Marika Sosnowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A national Palestinian advocacy group has called on the Aotearoa New Zealand government to immediately condemn Israel for its resumption today of “genocidal attacks” on the almost 2 million Palestinians trapped in the besieged Gaza enclave.
Media reports said that more than 230 people had been killed — many of them children — in a wave of predawn attacks by Israel to break the fragile ceasefire that had been holding since mid-January.
The renewed war on Gaza comes amid a worsening humanitarian crisis that has persisted for 16 days since March 1.
This followed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to block the entry of all aid and goods, cut water and electricity, and shut down the Strip’s border crossings at the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.
“Immediate condemnation of Israel’s resumption of attacks on Gaza must come from the New Zealand government”, said co-national chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) in a statement.
“Israel has breached the January ceasefire agreement multiple times and is today relaunching its genocidal attacks against the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
Israeli violations He said that in the last few weeks Israel had:
refused to negotiate the second stage of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas which would see a permanent ceasefire and complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza;
Issued a complete ban on food, water, fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza — “a war crime of epic proportions”; and
Cut off the electricity supply desperately needed to, for example, operate desalination plants for water supplies.
“The government is out of touch with New Zealanders but in touch with US/Israel.
“Foreign Minister Winston Peters seems to be explaining his silence as ‘keeping his nerve’.
Minto said that for the past 17 months, minister Peters had condemned every act of Palestinian resistance against 77 years of brutal colonisation and apartheid policies.
“But he has refused to condemn any of the countless war crimes committed by Israel during this time — including the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war.
“Speaking out to condemn Israel now is our opportunity to force it to reconsider and begin negotiations on stage two of the ceasefire agreement Israel is trying to walk away from.
“Palestinians and New Zealanders deserve no less.”
A Netanyahu “Wanted” sign at last Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally in “Palestinian Corner”, Auckland . . . in reference to the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued last November against the Israeli Prime Minister and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. Image: APR
‘Devastating sounds’ Al Jazeera reporter Maram Humaid said from Gaza: “We woke up to the devastating sounds of multiple explosions as a series of air attacks targeted various areas across the Gaza Strip, from north to south, including Jabalia, Gaza City, Nuseirat, Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis.”
“The strikes hit homes, residential buildings, schools sheltering displaced people and tents, resulting in a significant number of casualties, including women and children, especially since the attacks occurred during sleeping hours.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said at least 232 people had been killed in today’s Israeli raids.
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas called on people of Arab and Islamic nations — and the “free people of the world” — to take to the streets in protest over the devastating attack.
Hamas urged people across the world to “raise their voice in rejection of the resumption of the Zionist war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip”.
Power prices are set to go up again even though renewables now account for 40% of the electricity in Australia’s main grid – close to quadruple the clean power we had just 15 years ago. How can that be, given renewables are the cheapest form of newly built power generation?
This is a fair question. As Australia heads for a federal election campaign likely to focus on the rising cost of living, many of us are wondering when, exactly, cheap renewables will bring cheap power.
The simple answer is – not yet. While solar and wind farms produce power at remarkably low cost, they need to be built where it’s sunny or windy. Our existing transmission lines link gas and coal power stations to cities. Connecting renewables to the grid requires expensive new transmission lines, as well as storage for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
Notably, Victoria’s mooted price increase of 0.7% was much lower than other states, which would be as high as 8.9% in parts of New South Wales. This is due to Victoria’s influx of renewables – and good connections to other states. Because Victoria can draw cheap wind from South Australia, hydroelectricity from Tasmania or coal power from New South Wales through a good transmission line network, it has kept wholesale prices the lowest in the national energy market since 2020.
While it was foolish for the Albanese government to promise more renewables would lower power bills by a specific amount, the path we are on is still the right one.
That’s because most of our coal plants are near the end of their life. Breakdowns are more common and reliability is dropping. Building new coal plants would be expensive too. New gas would be pricier still. And the Coalition’s nuclear plan would be both very expensive and arrive sometime in the 2040s, far too late to help.
Renewables are cheap, building a better grid is not
The reason solar is so cheap and wind not too far behind is because there is no fuel. There’s no need to keep pipelines of gas flowing or trainloads of coal arriving to be burned.
But sun and wind are intermittent. During clear sunny days, the National Energy Market can get so much solar that power prices actually turn negative. Similarly, long windy periods can drive down power prices. But when the sun goes down and the wind stops, we still need power.
This is why grid planners want to be able to draw on renewable sources from a wide range of locations. If it’s not windy on land, there will always be wind at sea. To connect these new sources to the grid, though, requires another 10,000 kilometres of high voltage transmission lines to add to our existing 40,000 km. These are expensive and cost blowouts have become common. In some areas, strong objections from rural residents are adding years of delay and extra cost.
So while the cost of generating power from renewables is very low, we have underestimated the cost of getting this power to markets as well as ensuring the power can be “firmed”. Firming is when electricity from variable renewable sources is turned into a commodity able to be turned on or off as needed and is generally done by storing power in pumped hydro schemes or in grid-scale batteries.
In fact, the cost of transmission and firming is broadly offsetting the lower input costs from renewables.
Transmission lines are essential – but building them is sometimes fraught. Naohisa goto/Shutterstock
Does this mean the renewable path was wrong?
At both federal and state levels, Labor ministers have made an error in claiming renewables would directly translate to lower power prices.
But consider the counterpoint. Let’s say the Coalition gets in, rips up plans for offshore wind zones and puts the renewable transition on ice. What happens then?
Our coal plants would continue to age, leading to more frequent breakdowns and unreliable power, especially during summer peak demand. Gas is so expensive as to be a last resort. Nuclear would be far in the future. What would be left? Quite likely, expensive retrofits of existing coal plants.
If we stick to the path of the green energy transition, we should expect power price rises to moderate. With more interconnections and transmission lines, we can accommodate more clean power from more sources, reducing the chance of price spikes and adding vital resilience to the grid. If an extreme weather event takes out one transmission line, power can still flow from others.
Storing electricity will be a game-changer
Until now, storing electricity at scale for later use hasn’t been possible. That means grid operators have to constantly match supply and demand. To cope with peak demand, such as a heatwave over summer, we have very expensive gas peaking plants which sit idle nearly all the time.
Solar has only made the challenge harder, as we get floods of solar at peak times and nothing in the evening when we use most of our power. Our coal plants do not deal well with being turned off and on to accommodate solar floods.
The good news is, storage is solving most of these problems. Being able to keep hours or even days of power stored in batteries or in elevated reservoirs at hydroelectric plants gives authorities much more flexibility in how they match supply and demand.
We will never see power “too cheap to meter”, as advocates once said of the nuclear industry. But over time, we should see price rises ease.
For our leaders and energy authorities, this is a tricky time. They must ensure our large-scale transmission line interconnectors actually get built, juggle the flood of renewables, ensure storage comes online, manage the exit of coal plants and try not to affect power prices. Pretty straightforward.
Tony Wood’s superannuation fund may have shares in companies positively or negatively affected by the issues covered in this article.
The National Rugby League has recently made headlines for trying to crack the American sporting landscape by hosting matches in Las Vegas.
But the NRL’s great rival, the Australian Football League (AFL), has been the Australian export influencing American sport in a much greater fashion in the 21st century.
While casual American football fans might not put much thought into the kicking aspect of the sport, increasingly, Australian rules players have been identified for their unique skills to fulfil the role of punter.
A punter is a specialist kicker, who punts the ball downfield with the aim of limiting the opponent’s field position.
This has led to an influx of Australians in United States college football teams, with some making it to the National Football League (NFL).
NIL refers to a person’s legal right to control how their image is used, including commercially. Until recently, college athletes were not allowed to profit from their fame but the rules have been relaxed.
This has increased scrutiny within the US about who should be given those opportunities.
Recent deterrents aimed to solve this dilemma include a class-action lawsuit aiming to limit Australian imports.
The class action is based on six legal claims, including age discrimination, anti-trust and unfair trade practices laws, as well as violation of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states “no state shall deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”.
transcripts that had been submitted to American universities that were doctored to improve athlete grades compared to their actual grades
Prokick (the main Australian company bringing athletes into the US system) misleading college football coaches by overstating athletes’ remaining years of eligibility, and omitting information about whether prospective punters previously attended university in Australia.
Many US college football teams have recruited Australian punters.
Why Aussies are so appealing
In the US, punting is a niche skill that gains very little attention. However, many Australians grow up kicking a ball instinctively and learning a variety of techniques.
These skills have translated into punting, where hang time (how long the ball stays in the air), placement and spin are valuable.
Former NFL punter and popular media personality Pat McAfee has often celebrated the AFL and touted the influence of the sport on punting.
What began as just a handful of former AFL players leaving Australia to pursue college football and NFL opportunities has turned into a pipeline where Australians are beginning to dominate the position.
A New York Times article in 2023 stated 61 out of 133 Division 1 (top tier) football programs had an Australian punter on their roster.
In seven of the past 11 seasons, an Australian won the Ray Guy Award as the top punter in Division 1 football.
Of the Australians who have gone on to play in the NFL, the Seattle Seahawks’ Dickson – who recently signed a four-year, $US14.5 million ($A22.9 million) contract – is recognised as one of the best in the league.
Dickson has gone viral multiple times, which is extremely rare for a punter, for plays including a drop-kick and a one-handed scoop and kick.
Punting pathways
To play college football, Australians must deal with National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) eligibility requirements. These include academic standards and amateur status.
Many enter the system as mature-aged athletes, often in their early 20s (compared to 18-19 year old Americans competing for the same scholarships and roster spots), which gives them a physical and mental advantage over younger recruits.
Prokick identifies and trains athletes with the potential to transition into American football, coaching them in punting mechanics, the rules of the game and the university recruiting process.
Prokick has created established partnerships with coaching staff across the US, giving their clients an inside track on scholarship opportunities.
Their website touts success stories, which include representing 270 athletes getting full scholarships with an estimated value of more than $A50 million.
Beyond being good at kicking a football, a key step in being allowed to play for an US university involves submitting immigration materials to the US State Department. This includes academic documentation.
This has led to several attempts to push back on Prokick’s influence in this space, including the class action.
Where to from here?
With college football and NFL teams placing increasing value on field position, the demand for Aussie punters is unlikely to slow down.
As long as pathways like Prokick remain viable, Australians should continue to dominate one of the most specialist roles in American football, unless sweeping changes and restrictions are put in place.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
On April 2 the United States is set to implement a new wave of tariffs under its Fair and Reciprocal Trade Plan. Details of the plan that will impact all US trading partners are not yet known, but the US administration has suggested these tariffs will target any rules it considers “unfair”.
This means the April 2 tariffs may take aim at a range of Australian domestic policies, such as biosecurity rules that govern food imports, and the government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
The size of the hit is uncertain. One report indicates a relatively modest tariff between 2% and 8% is being considered, below the 25% rate imposed on steel and aluminium on March 12. But it will apply to a much larger set of exports.
Australia and the US have been allies for over a century. The two nations celebrated a “century of mateship” in 2018. More formally, the two countries have a current free trade agreement, Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).
The agreement was negotiated in good faith, and entered into force on January 1, 2005. It called for the elimination of tariffs between the two nations over time, and until now both parties have upheld their respective bargains. The so-called “reciprocal” tariff plan would breach that agreement.
What sectors are likely to be targeted?
The Trump reference to non-tariff barriers raises two main concerns for Australian products: meat and pharmaceuticals.
In Australia, domestic beef products are subject to strict traceability rules. Similarly, imported beef has rigid biosecurity requirements as it is classified as a high-risk food.
This is because of the potential risk of mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). This disease was detected in the US in 2002 and triggered an Australian ban on US beef products.
The ban was partially lifted in 2018, but some restrictions remain, which the US says are a barrier to trade. This was also raised by the Biden administration in a 2024 report on trade barriers.
The US cannot force Australia to change its laws on the basis of tariffs – but they can make products coming from Australian suppliers more expensive and therefore restrict market access to the US, which many Australian producers rely on.
A tariff on Australian-sourced beef products would also push up prices for American consumers. Trade Minister Don Farrell has warned the price of a McDonald’s burger may increase.
If tariffs are placed on Australian beef, the government has warned that McDonalds burgers in the US will become more expensive. Shutterstock
Medicines are also in the line of fire
Turning to pharmaceuticals, the Australian PBS has been a sticking point between US and Australian trade negotiators for the past 20 years.
The PBS, which has been in place since 1948, ensures Australians have affordable access to essential medicines. It formed part of discussions during the free-trade negotiations and has been raised as a potential barrier to trade.
The US argues innovation and unfettered market access for American drug companies should be prioritised over Australia’s reference pricing arrangements. Reference pricing means medicines with similar outcomes should have similar pricing.
The reason the US has a problem with this scheme is because some of their companies are not able to charge higher prices for medicines.
Although these are the categories of most concern, there is no assurance the “Fair and Reciprocal Plan” will be limited to beef and pharmaceuticals.
For instance, there are no barriers imposed on the import of wine into Australia. But there has been some concern tariffs could be introduced regardless.
Wine is often the target of trade wars and President Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with a 200% tariff on all wine and spirits entering the US. As Australian wine makers have only recently recovered from Chinese and Canadian tariffs, any US tariffs would deal a harsh blow to the industry.
An old clip of the former Republican President Ronald Reagan went viral this week, highlighting his quite different view:
Is there any avenue for appeal?
There is one thing that is clear about these tariffs. Their imposition will be in violation of both the WTO rules and the free-trade agreement.
Both have provisions to settle disputes and Australia does have options for filing complaints. However, the rule of law and existing norms of the international order do not appear to be persuasive to the Trump administration.
Despite this, it is important to note the US cannot force Australia to change its longstanding laws that protect consumers and ensure accessibility to medicines. This remains the choice of the Australian government.
If the tariffs are introduced in the range of 2% to 8%, there may not be a significant direct economic impact. But they will have other consequences. Trade negotiations, and international agreements, are largely based on goodwill. These acts of the US will erode much of what has been built up over the past century.
The downturn we are seeing in financial markets has so far been dismissed by the Trump administration as necessary. But if the correction turns into a crash, it may give President Trump pause. Given his lack of interest in negotiating, this may be the only thing that could change his mind.
Felicity Deane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The reality of shorter working hours could be one step closer for many Australians, pending the outcome of the federal election.
The Greens, who could control crucial cross bench votes in a hung parliament, have announced plans for a four-day working week, with no loss of pay. They say the policy would alleviate stress and burn out, and increase women’s participation in the workforce.
Earning the same money for fewer hours would appeal to most workers. But is it too good to be true? Could it really be rolled out cost free to all workplaces, especially to “client facing” companies and service providers?
Or does research suggest the Greens could be onto something?
The Greens’ plan
The Greens’ policy would involve a new National Institute for the Four Day Work Week and a test case through the Fair Work Commission.
A series of national trials would be set up in a number of different industries, whereby workers would work 80% of their normal hours, while maintaining 100% of their pay.
According to Greens Senator Barbara Pocock, it’s a win-win for everyone:
It can increase productivity, reduce absenteeism, improve recruitment and retention and give employees more time to manage their home life. This change will allow workers to create a working week that works for them.
The 100:80:100 model
The four-day work week being proposed in this instance is commonly regarded as the 100:80:100 model.
It delivers 100% of the pay, for 80% of the hours, in return for maintaining 100% of productivity.
This is unlike other forms of shorter working weeks, which compress five days’ worth of work into four longer days. This obviously disadvantages some employees.
Recent research conducted by Swinburne University of Technology involved interviews with ten Australian firms that have already adopted the 100:80:100 model.
They were a mixture of small and medium sized private sector businesses, including management consulting firms, a shipping and logistics company, and recruitment and marketing agencies.
The research underlined the potential for a range of positive outcomes for both employers and employees.
Workers reported having better work-life balance, more time to complete “life administration” tasks, and more time to invest in hobbies, exercise, wellness and self-care. Bosses cited productivity gains, reduced sick days, and significant improvements in recruitment and retention rates.
However, the 100:80:100 model is viewed with scepticism in some quarters. There is still doubt that productivity and output would be maintained, or in some cases improved, when workers are working one day fewer per week.
Also, there could be costs associated with the implementation of this work model for front-line roles, such as retail, schools, hospitals and nursing homes. Additional workers may need to be hired, at extra expense, to cover the hours dropped by the existing workforce.
100 years of working 5 days a week
The year 2026 will mark the 100th anniversary of the five-day work week.
It was car maker Henry Ford who reduced the working week in the United States from six days to five. Other sectors and countries followed suit. This was at a time when the average life expectancy of Australian workers was just 55 and households typically only had one bread-winner.
Despite the time saved by the many technological breakthroughs in the past 100 years – from the photocopier, desktop computer and fax machine, to the internet, mobile phones and AI – the average Australian is now working longer hours in paid and unpaid labour than ever before.
The Greens point out Australian society is changing. More women and carers are either in the workforce or would be encouraged into the workforce by more flexible arrangements:
yet we are constrained by archaic labour laws that see the fruits of our efforts swallowed up in profits for bosses and shareholders.
The role of generative AI technologies in the workplace may also deliver benefits to workers. Separate Swinburne research has revealed an increasing expectation among workers that they will receive a share in the time saved by future technologies in the form of improved work-life balance and wellbeing gains.
Time to enter the 21st century
Earlier this year, 200 UK companies signed up to the 100:80:100 model, as part of a campaign to “reinvent Britain’s working week”. Large scale trials are also underway in Canada and several European countries.
The global interest in a shorter working week is not surprising, and has likely been fuelled by the COVID pandemic, which has caused workers and employers to re-imagine their working lives.
If the Greens are in a position to leverage any balance of power after the coming election, it could be Australia’s turn to recognise the conventional five-day working week is no longer fit for purpose.
John L. Hopkins 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.
From May 1, the oral contraceptive Slinda (drospirerone) will be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). This means the price will drop for the more than 100,000 Australian women who currently use it – from around $A320 a year to around $94.
It’s the third contraceptive pill the federal government has added to the PBS this year, after Yaz and Yasmine. But these two are combined oral contraceptives – meaning they contain both the hormones oestrogen and progestogen – whereas Slinda is progestogen-only.
So, Slinda is a little bit different – here’s how it works and what it will cost.
What is Slinda and how does it work?
Oral contraceptive pills contain active ingredients based on the female sex hormones oestrogen and progesterone to prevent pregnancy.
Contraceptive pills with both hormones are known as combined-contraceptive pills. Progesterone only pills are often referred to as mini-pills.
The active ingredient in Slinda is a progestogen, which is a synthetic derivative of progesterone, which makes the medication a mini-pill.
Slinda works by stopping ovulation (the ovary doesn’t release an egg) and making the mucus in the cervix thicker so sperm cannot get into the uterus from the vagina.
Both combined contraceptive pills and mini pills effectively prevent pregnancy, but their suitability varies for different women. Mini-pills, including Slinda, can be 99% effective if used perfectly – but with typical day-to-day use, they provide only around 93% protection.
Who will find Slinda useful?
Slinda may be a particularly beneficial alternative for people who can’t use contraceptives containing oestrogen.
This may include women who are older, overweight, or prone to migraines. This is because oestrogen is known to increase the risk of blood clots which lead to deep vein thrombosis – already a higher risk for older and overweight women.
Similarly, combined pills containing oestrogen aren’t appropriate for those who’ve had a baby in the last 21 days or are breastfeeding. Lower levels of oestrogen are needed in a woman’s body post-birth as it stimulates prolactin, the hormone responsible for milk production. Taking an oestrogen-based pill can potentially interfere with that.
Slinda can be taken at any time after childbirth, including while breastfeeding, and generally remains a safer option for people with a history of blood clots or migraines.
Slinda also has advantages over other, older generations of progestogen-based contraceptive pills. Mini-pills such as Microlut and Noriday have no pill-free days, whichs means if a woman misses taking the pill by even a few hours it can increase her chance of becoming pregnant.
The pill-free window for Slinda is 24 hours. This means if you are less than 24 hours late it’s considered a late pill, not a missed pill. If you take the late pill as soon as you remember, and then the next pill at the normal time, you should have effective protection from unwanted pregnancy.
The potential side effects for Slinda are similar to other contraceptive pills. Women may find that their period may stop altogether, or they may experience bleeding irregularities or spotting, as well as breast tenderness.
The pill may also not work effectively if it’s not taken correctly every day, or if it is taken with other drugs, such as the anti-viral ritonavir and anti-seizure medication phenytoin.
If a woman is suffering from vomiting or severe diarrhoea, Slinda may not be effective and she should use back-up contraception such as condoms.
There are other progesterone-only contraceptive options available on the PBS, such as levonorgestrel pills and implants, including the intrauterine devices, Mirena and Kyleena.
Why was Slinda added to the PBS?
Slinda has been available in Australia since at least 2004, but not at a subsidised price.
In November 2024, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommended Slinda’s listing on the PBS. The committee cited several reasons, including advice from doctors, the need to provide women with more contraceptive options and Slinda’s longer pill-free window.
At a stakeholder meeting in October 2024, doctors stressed the need for more choice for women, when choosing a pill.
They highlighted women starting an oral contraceptive pill for the first time will often first use PBS-subsidised medications, even though a non-PBS product may be more suitable for them. Slinda’s listing makes it a more accessible first choice for women.
As Slinda is a prescription-only medication, if you wish to change pills or start on the drug you will need to consult your doctor. If you do change, from May 1 and based on similar PBS medications, you can expect to pay around $31 for a four-month supply.
Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd (a medical device company) and was previously a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design, and testing.
Jasmine Lee and Shoohb Alassadi do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The 72 hours after the sexual assault of a child can be a crucial window for police to collect biological evidence and document signs of bruising or injury.
But this procedure – known as a forensic medical examination – can be scary and invasive.
In new research published with colleagues, I interviewed ten children (aged 4-16) and their parents about their experiences attending a Melbourne paediatric hospital in the hours after an alleged assault.
This was a small group, but their stories shed light on wider concerns. Addressing them can help put children first in what may be the most traumatic time of their lives.
Its purpose is to gather biological evidence from the victim to help police identify an offender and prosecute them.
At a hospital crisis care suite, the child will speak to a specialist doctor (a forensic paediatrician) alongside another clinician, usually a psychologist or social worker. Police also attend.
The doctor will take the child’s medical history, as well as asking for an account of the assault.
The doctor swabs relevant areas – such as the child’s vulva, vagina or anus – to collect biological materials that may be present, including saliva or semen. They will also look for injuries or bruising.
This examination can be uncomfortable and can take hours. It may also be emotionally harrowing, for the child as well as their carer.
In the following days, children often need to give another statement to police and are referred for counselling.
A child usually attends a forensic medical examination alongside their parent. fizkes/Shutterstock
A trauma-informed approach means prioritising a sense of safety for children who have experienced trauma, building trust and sharing control, to avoid retraumatisation.
This means explaining to children and their carers what is going to happen next, gaining their consent and giving them some control over the timing and pace of any interventions (such as being swabbed).
Children and families have different – sometimes traumatic – experiences of dealing with health services and police. So considering a child’s personal history and culture is important.
However there is still little research examining children and young people’s experience of crisis care.
My study involved seven girls, two boys and one non-binary child, aged between four and 16. In the days or weeks after their examination, I interviewed the child and the parent who attended hospital with them, both individually and together (in child-parent pairs).
The interviews uncovered four areas that were important to children and their parents.
1. Repeating their story but not feeling heard
After they first report their experience, children need to tell their story several times to various strangers.
This means sharing highly personal details while distressed to people who often don’t have the time to get to know them, their context, family, previous trauma history or culture.
Fiona* (16) found this aspect of the process “very, very, very stressful.”
Some said repeating their story felt like they had to convince professionals it was true.
Layla (14) commented:
I felt like I was the one in trouble.
2. Being treated with care matters
Several young participants discussed feeling “traumatised,” “intimidated” and “ashamed” during the examination itself.
Seven-year-old Sasha told us about the doctor who examined her:
She kept saying, ‘Lie still,’ and it was hard for me to just lie still. Then she just, when she did the examination […] I was crying on the bed, and it hurt me […]. And she just looked at me. Because she’s seen me crying and she just looked at me.
But when the doctor, or the clinician was caring – and took time to understand them and their individual needs – it helped ease some of the distress.
One parent, Kaye, felt the clinician “had this incredible demeanour and heart about her” and helped her child “understand what was going to happen.”
Other young people appreciated the clinician helped them with panic attacks and “made us feel relaxed.”
The youngest participant Ava (4) said she liked that she was given a teddy bear.
Children told us caring gestures – such as providing a teddy bear – made the experience less scary. fizkes/Shutterstock
3. Unpleasant surroundings made the experience worse
Some participants described the space where the forensic medical examination took place as small and unwelcoming.
Dylan (16) felt it was “unsafe”, while Ava said it was “a bit scary”.
Examination spaces need to be kept forensically clean. In the hospital where these examinations took place, that meant there were no windows, pictures on the walls or soft furnishings.
Several young participants felt it showed what had happened to them was somehow shameful. As Felicity explained:
it was frightening. […] You’re just walking down a really long corridor, all these white […] ceilings and walls. And it was kind of just like a bit […] not welcoming, not nice and hidden away.
Parents often felt sidelined or unheard before, during and after the examination.
Samira (a parent) said she didn’t feel like her concerns were understood:
I come from a different background, I don’t know what is happening and I don’t know what to ask. I’m not very trusting of police.
Children themselves worried about their parent. As Layla said:
it’s not just me that’s going through this, it’s my mum. […] I feel like she should be able to have that support too. None of it was offered to her.
One parent said they’d been “sent home without any support”. Another had a sense of being “just left there and wondering what to do”.
Responding to the whole child
The children and adults I interviewed made clear they wanted a holistic approach.
They wanted professionals (including doctors, clinicians and police) to not only pursue justice on their behalf, but also listen and respond to their physical, emotional and social needs and take into account their particular context and culture.
The response needs to make children and their families feel safer – not more scared.
It also needs to help them recover from the trauma, including counselling for both parents and children without long waitlists.
The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
*Names have been changed.
Caroline Whitehouse is employed by the Northern Centre Against Sexual Assault, which is affiliated with the peak body Sexual Assault Support Services Victoria (SASVic). She was previously employed by the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, where this study took place. The Royal Children’s Hospital, along with LaTrobe University, gave ethics approval for the study.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Former ambassador Phil Goff is the latest (so far) and (probably) the least of many ‘statesmen’ who have invoked Munich and the ‘resolute’ Winston Churchill (a backbench MP in 1938) in the cause of good-war mongering. (Refer Winston Peters sacks Phil Goff as UK High Commissioner RNZ 6 March 2025, and What Was Actually Wrong With What Phil Goff Said?, Giles Dexter, RNZ and Scoop, 7 March 2025.)
The Munich narrative is central to the ‘Good War’ morality trope, through which democracies (especially the United States) justified wars of aggression; what used to be called ‘gunboat-diplomacy’ in the British days of empire. It’s the now-commonplace narrative that frames any putative war to be fought by a ‘liberal democracy’ against an ‘autocracy’ (ie fought by us against them) as a contest between Good and Evil; and if we don’t “stand up to” Evil – anywhere and everywhere – then Evil goes on to ‘win’, and subsequently to dominate and exact tribute as a regional or global hegemon.
The corollary of the Munich narrative is that Good should never give up, even if Evil is winning on the battlefield; Good neither surrenders to Evil nor negotiates with Evil. Not ‘at any cost’. The logical conclusion of this is that, if that’s what it requires for Good to prevail, life on Planet Earth could be forfeit; better Dead than Red or Black. Earth’s tombstone, left for a future intergalactic explorer to discover, might read: “At Least ‘Atila the Hun’ [substitute any Eurasian ‘Devil’] Did Not Win”. Peter Hitchen (see below, p.27) notes: “one day, this dangerous fable of the glorious anti-fascist war against evil may destroy us all [through our rulers’ vanity]”.
Phil Goff is an example of persons who know just enough fragments of popular history to think they can use a historical argument to substantiate their rhetoric. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, meaning that superficial knowledge may be more problematic than ignorance. On the Munich question, Phil Goff is in good company. Peter Hitchens, in The Phoney Victory (p8, p20), cites the former Prince of Wales (now King) as making the same mistaken views about World War Two and the Ukraine-Russia War, as moral crusades.
(Meanwhile, as well as trying to cut disability benefits as a result of boxing itself into a corner, Keir Starmer UK government – unlike the political leadership of Canada and the European Union – is doing everything it can to appease Donald Trump on international trade and other matters.)
For readers’ interest, Stevan and Hugh Eldred-Grigg have written a New Zealand take on World War Two that does not follow the ‘Good War’ trope: Phoney Wars: New Zealand Society during the Second World War, Otago University Press 2017.
Were Neville Chamberlain’s actions at the September 1938 Munich Conference wrong?
No, neither with foresight nor hindsight. If Britain and/or France had signed a pact with Czechoslovakia similar to the one they signed with Poland in 1939, they would have been committed to declaring at most a phoney war. Neither had the capacity to wage war on Germany nor to come to Czechoslovakia’s aid. At best, British hostilities against Germany in 1938 would have been as ineffective as they were in Archangel, Russia, in 1918.
Popular sentiment was absent in 1938 in the United Kingdom towards war with Germany. That situation had changed by March 1939 after Germany fully annexed Bohemia and Moravia, the territories that make up twenty-first century Czechia. Due in part to changed popular sentiment, the British and French responded differently when Poland was similarly threatened in 1939. The western ‘powers’ declared war on Germany following the first attack on Poland, but did almost nothing to fight Germany or to protect Poland during what became known as the ‘Phoney War’. (The phoney war ended with the German conquest of France in May 1940.)
The 1939 declaration of war was arguably more duplicitous than the 1938 declaration of peace. Poland’s half-century-long tragedy – far worse than anyone today, except for a few professional and amateur historians, realise – began to unfold. (France briefly invaded Germany’s Saarland in 1939, southeast of Luxembourg, before withdrawing. Nowhere near Poland.) The war in 1939 in Poland, remote to the United Kingdom, was far from ‘phoney’.
Examples of invoking or evoking ‘appeasement’ and /or ‘Munich’ and/or Churchill on behalf of ‘democracy’:
Peter Hitchens gives these post-WW2 examples (pp.13-17):
President Harry S Truman, in December 1950, re the continuation of the Korean War
Anthony Eden, 1956, to justify the Suez War (which first brought Israel into an external war of aggression)
President Lyndon Johnson in July 1965, justifying the escalation of the Vietnam War
US Secretary of State George Shultz in February 1984, re conflict in Nicaragua
US Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, in August 1989, before the US invasion of Panama
George Bush (senior) in June 1990, re the first war against Iraq (noting that the initial response to the immanent invasion of Kuwait was not unlike Churchill’s lesser-known response in 1938, to the German reoccupation of the Rhineland [“more talks”])
Bill Clinton’s 1999 comparison of Slobodan Milosevic to Hitler, in the context of the probable secession of Kosovo from Milosevic’s Serbia
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, in 2003, justifying the second invasion of Iraq
President Trump’s aids in June 2017, referring to Barack Obama’s Cuba initiative
Winston Churchill’s worst Appeasement, and Atrocities
The worst act of appeasement that I can think of was Winston Churchill’s kowtowing to Joseph Stain at Yalta (Crimea) in the second week of February 1945 (ref Hitchens p.6 and Wikipedia citing Leo McKinstry, “Attlee and Churchill: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace”, Atlantic Books, 2019, Ch 22). According to McKinstry “When Churchill arrived at Yalta on 4 February 1945, the first question that Stalin put to him was: ‘Why haven’t you bombed Dresden?’.”
Ten days later, Churchill did indeed firebomb Dresden, immolating 25,000 people – mostly civilians and refugees. Stalin (metaphorically) said “jump”, Churchill said “how high?”. And Churchill delivered.
Dresden was far from Churchill’s only actual or intended atrocity. Operation Gomorrah, on Hamburg at the end of July 1943, was a worse 24-hour atrocity than Dresden. The malevolent intent of that ‘raid’ lies in the biblical name given to the operation. While it was largely a test-run and forerunner for later bombings – including a forerunner of the firebombing of Tokyo exactly 80 years ago – it killed more than 35,000 mostly civilians “in their homes”.
(As a single event the firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 – Operation Meetinghouse – caused easily more deaths [100,000] than Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima [70,000] or Nagasaki [35,000]. In the mainstream media, I saw no 80th-anniversary commemoration stories of this ‘worst-ever in the history of the world’ attack on civilians. Now is a timely time for us to be reminded about this kind of aerial megadeath.)
The third Churchill atrocity to mention was the Bengal famine of 1943, which killed three million people. Encyclopedia Britannica says that “the 1942 halt in rice imports to India did not cause the famine, and the 1943 crop yield was actually sufficient to feed the people of Bengal. It was ultimately special wartime factors that caused this difficult situation to become a disastrous famine. Fearing Japanese invasion, British authorities stockpiled food to feed defending troops, and they exported considerable quantities to British forces in the Middle East”. Churchill’s atrocities have been justified on the basis that the casualties were to them while saving some of our lives. But the people of Bengal were, at least notionally part of us, citizens and civilians of the British Empire.
In Wikipedia: “Madhusree Mukerjee makes a stark accusation: “The War Cabinet’s shipping assignments made in August 1943, shortly after Amery had pleaded for famine relief, show Australian wheat flour travelling to Ceylon, the Middle East, and Southern Africa – everywhere in the Indian Ocean but to India.” Indeed, Bengal was required to export rice to Ceylon to support British naval operations there. Of Churchill’s major atrocities, this was the only one to be mentioned in Netflix’s recent over-the-top account Churchill at War.
The Netflix ‘docuseries’ does at least mention Churchill being sidelined by the Americans in late 1943 and 1944. Churchill was sidelined from the top table of war-command largely on the basis of his penchant for atrocities and his unwillingness to confront Germany head-on (an unwillingness that could have been interpreted as ‘appeasement’, and probably was understood as such by the Americans). Churchill indulged in a number of side-wars, including a successful invasion of Madagascar in 1942; an invasion that put paid forever to the 1940 German fantasy of resettling Eastern European Jews there.
The Americans took much longer than Churchill to become convinced about the merits of holocaust-scale bombing than did the British. It would seem that the British burning of Hamburg – which was bombed because it was there, easily accessible from Britain – left quite a bad taste upon some American commanders, and indeed upon President Roosevelt himself. (We note that the atrocious American incendiary bombings of Japan in March 1945 were undertaken after Harry Truman became Vice President, and in the context that Roosevelt was seriously ill, and died soon after the February Yalta ‘Peace’ Conference.)
Churchill’s final atrocity to mention here never actually happened, except to create an environmental disaster on a Scottish Island (Gruinard, Britain’s mysterious WW2 ‘island of death’ Myles Burke, BBC, 22 April 2024). It partly explains some of Churchill’s reticence towards the D-Day invasion of Occupied France. Churchill had another plan, which he seems to have kept secret from his Allies: biological warfare, Anthrax.
“The plan was to infect linseed cakes with Anthrax spores and drop them by plane into cattle pastures around Germany. … The proposed plan would have decimated Germany’s meat supply, and triggered a nationwide anthrax contamination, resulting in an enormous [civilian] death toll. … The secret trials carried on until 1943, when the military deemed them a success, and scientists packed up and returned to Porton Down. As a result, five million linseed cakes laced with Anthrax were produced but the plan was ultimately abandoned as the Allies’ Normandy invasion progressed, leading the cakes to be destroyed after the war.” The test programme on Gruinard was cynically called ‘Operation Vegetarian’. “Gruinard was not the only site where the UK conducted secret biological warfare tests, but it was the first. The consequences of what happened there stand as a grim testament to both the dangers of biological warfare and humanity’s capacity for destruction.”
Have Bill Clinton and subsequent US presidents drawn inspiration from Brezinski’s 1997 essay as a clarion call for world domination?
Zbigniew Brezinski’s call for US world hegemony seems not much different to what Richard Evans claims was Hitler’s aim: “Hitler’s obvious drive for European and eventually world conquest.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, “A Geostrategy for Eurasia,” Foreign Affairs, 76:5, September/October 1997; review of Peter Hitchens’s Eurosceptic take on the Second World War, by Richard J Evans, New Statesman, 26 Sep 2018.)
Evans’ claim about Hitler is obvious hyperbole; Germany never could have had the capacity to “conquer” the world. (Think of the socio-geographic limits to the Roman Empire.) But the Nazi imperial vision for Germany was to create a mega-state in Central Eurasia that would have hegemony over the rest of the world. Is there any country in the twentieth or twenty-first century which has sought such ‘unipolarity’; sought to be the world’s one-and-only superpower, which expects other countries to say “how high?” whenever it says “jump”?
Perhaps there is? Did Brezinski – Henry Kissinger’s 1970s’ foreign policy rival – spell it out in 1997?
Finally
‘Appeasement’ is like ‘Antisemitism’; the powers-that-be only have to say either word to silence commonsense debate about peace and war and genocide. As Hitchens points out (p.27): “We have mythologised the experience so completely that [politicians] only have to say the word ‘appeasement’ to silence opponents and bring legislators and journalists to their side, on any wild adventure.” Phil Goff is a hapless victim of what Joseph Mali and Shlomo Sand have called “mythistory”.
Wars since the 1930s are no more ‘moral’ than were wars before that time. (Indeed, if we wish to personalise it, WW2 at its core was a war between Hitler and Stalin; neither men are commonly described as ‘moral’.) In fact, recent wars are less moral. WW2 became the first major war in which civilians were actively targeted as a predominant military gambit. This approach to war is now becoming entrenched, with drones replacing soldiers, and civilians evermore in the firing line.
We should not be coerced into supporting wars on the basis of narratives by powerful know-not-much persons or cliques dropping words like ‘appeasement’, ‘Munich’, ‘Churchill’ or ‘Hitler’. Wars are very costly, but the costs are not usually paid – at least in the short term – by those elites who promote them from far away.
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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
