Source: The Conversation – UK – By William E. Donald, Associate Professor of Sustainable Careers and Human Resource Management, University of Southampton
July is Disability Pride Month, a time to celebrate disabled people while continuing the push for equality, accessibility and visibility. Despite making up 16% of the global population, disabled people rarely appear in fashion marketing campaigns. For brands, treading the right line between solidarity and accusations of performative allyship is vital.
Primark’s latest initiative is a notable attempt to navigate this challenge. The fashion chain has introduced its first mannequin representing a wheelchair user. Designed with disability advocate Sophie Morgan, the mannequin (named Sophie) now appears in 22 flagship stores internationally.
At first glance, this looks like progress. However, in an industry where inclusivity is often more about appearance than systemic change, it prompts an important question. Is this a genuine step forward?
The mannequin is designed to reflect a manual wheelchair user. Morgan contributed to a year-long design process that included reviewing body dimensions, 3D mock-ups and a custom wheelchair frame strong enough to withstand store conditions.
Disability campaigner Sophie Morgan was involved throughout the design process. Brett D Cove/Primark, CC BY-ND
The launch coincides with the expansion of Primark’s adaptive clothing collection, which was launched in January 2025. The collection features magnetic closures, elasticated waistbands and discreet openings for medical access points like feeding tubes or stomas. Many garments are designed specifically for seated wearers – as a wheelchair user, I am only too aware that this is often missing from mainstream clothing ranges.
What sets Primark’s effort apart is its emphasis on affordability. Adaptive clothing has been sold mostly through specialist retailers or premium brands. Primark’s decision to offer it at a low price point could represent a meaningful shift in making accessible fashion mainstream. And the involvement of disabled advocates and the visible changes across stores suggest a more serious commitment.
In 2014, supermarket Sainsbury’s Back To School campaign featured Natty Goleniowska, a seven-year-old girl with Down’s syndrome. Then, in 2017, the fashion chain River Island ran a campaign featuring Joseph Hale, an 11-year-old boy also with Down’s syndrome. While Sainsbury’s campaign was groundbreaking and both were widely praised, they were largely confined to advertising and online platforms.
Primark, by placing its seated mannequin in shop windows and on store floors, brings representation into physical retail spaces. This challenges long-standing visual norms and offers disabled shoppers something that has long been absent – recognition in the places where they live and shop.
What Primark gets right
First, disabled people were included throughout the campaign’s development. Morgan’s role was not symbolic – her input shaped the final design.
Second, the mannequin is more than a token gesture. It is a durable, mass-produced model intended for multiple locations. This kind of visibility in bricks-and-mortar stores matters. For many disabled people, seeing themselves reflected in major retail environments can be validating and empowering.
Third, the adaptive clothing range includes thoughtful, functional features that are often missing in standard retail offerings. Design details like seated-friendly fits or catheter access offer tangible improvements for dressing with dignity.
Finally, launching the campaign during Disability Pride Month adds relevance. Amid growing scrutiny of superficial inclusion, Primark’s approach appears to be carefully considered, as it builds on a campaign that began in January 2025.
But there’s still room for improvement across the retail sector. Mannequins cannot solve physical barriers in stores. Many retail spaces still lack step-free access, automatic doors or accessible changing rooms. Until these issues are addressed, the mannequin risks becoming a symbol disconnected from the reality of disabled shoppers.
Second, while Primark’s adaptive line is innovative, it remains small. Style variety, trend relevance and extended sizing should be priorities to ensure disabled shoppers are not limited to functional basics.
Third, economic accessibility extends beyond low prices. Disabled people face disproportionate financial pressures. Future efforts could include partnerships with health schemes or grants to improve access further.
And representation should be broader still. Disability comes in many forms, intersecting with race, body size, gender identity and types of mobility aids (including for invisible disabilities). Future campaigns should reflect this diversity. And true inclusion extends to employment practices and customer service. Hiring more disabled staff and creating accessible roles in retail would shift inclusion from visual representation to operational reality.
Ultimately, diversity should include retailers’ workforce as well as their customers. DC Studio/Shutterstock
While there are certainly green shoots of positivity here, it is too early to tell if this will be a gamechanging move by Primark. The answer depends on whether this campaign marks the start of sustained change across the retail sector. The real test lies ahead.
Long-term commitments such as improving store accessibility, expanding representation and inclusive hiring practices are essential. Without these, it might come to be seen as performative allyship that risks damaging not only Primark’s brand but also the disabled community and society at large.
Primark’s seated mannequin is not a revolution, but it is a powerful symbol. It sends a message that disabled people deserve visibility in public life – not as an afterthought, but as valued participants. To move from intention to transformation, visibility must be matched with access.
Inclusion needs to be embedded into the infrastructure of retail, not just its imagery. All retailers should take a broader view of inclusive practices to ensure clear messaging and commitments across their supply chain, advertising and stores.
William E. Donald 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 Martien Lubberink, Associate Professor of Accounting and Capital, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
The recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on climate action marked a significant step forward in formalising an idea many already accept: climate inaction is not merely a policy failure, but potentially a breach of legal duty by governments.
The court’s opinion is not legally binding but establishes global expectations. Crucially, the court confirmed environmental protection includes a duty to regulate private businesses and organisations.
In New Zealand, large organisations already have to list climate-related risks in their annual reports and regulatory filings under the External Reporting Board’s Climate Standards.
But our latest research suggests the benefits of mandatory climate reporting regulation in New Zealand may not be as straightforward as they appear.
Extreme weather, limited financial impact
We analysed how New Zealand’s stock market responds to extreme weather events (heavy rain, windstorms, snow, temperature spikes and thunderstorms) using data curated by Earth Sciences New Zealand.
Climate risk is widely assumed to have an impact on markets. So, we expected investors would respond to damaging weather with selloffs or price adjustments.
Instead, we found most extreme weather events had little to no impact on the share prices of New Zealand’s 50 largest listed companies, those on the NZX50.
Even firms directly exposed to these events – airlines, utilities, logistics companies – showed only muted reactions, if any.
It may be that markets already price in these risks. Or that firms have managed them effectively through infrastructure investment and planning.
What is more, the location and severity of extreme weather in New Zealand have remained relatively stable over the past three decades.
Using a statistical analysis, we found no evidence of accelerating trends typically attributed to global warming. This technique assessed whether a particular extreme weather event can be linked to human-induced climate change.
New Zealand’s extreme weather events tend to involve cold, rain and wind – unlike the heatwaves, wildfires and droughts that dominate international headlines.
What this means for disclosure mandates
If markets are already efficiently pricing in these risks – or if the risks are genuinely immaterial for the company – the benefits of mandatory disclosure may be overstated.
Our study suggests the case for universal, mandatory disclosure of extreme weather events under the climate board’s standards may not be strong. If financial impacts are already reflected in stock prices, the current voluntary framework may suffice for many firms.
This is not an argument against disclosure broadly. While our study did not assess other climate-related risks – such as supply chain disruption or chronic sea level rises – these may well be material for some organisations, especially unlisted or regionally exposed firms.
But for the NZX50, where climate regulation is currently focused, the value of standardised extreme weather events disclosures seems limited.
Global principles, local realities
None of this contradicts the ICJ’s opinion.
The court emphasised that states must act, not only to reduce emissions but to protect against climate-related harm. That includes harm caused by private actors, who must be subject to effective regulation.
But the ICJ also recognises the importance of national circumstances. While bound by international obligations, each country still needs to tailor its climate policies to the actual risks it faces.
To do otherwise risks shifting government energy and private capital towards compliance that offers little benefit to investors, the public or the climate.
New Zealand at a crossroads
The ICJ decision comes as New Zealand’s climate ambition appears to be softening.
The government recently released an updated emissions pledge that barely improves on its predecessor. At the same time, it is also reviving offshore oil and gas exploration, expanding coal production and backing legislation to shield carbon-intensive firms from environmental, suitability and governance aligned lending decisions by banks.
Such moves may be politically popular in some quarters, but they sit uneasily with both the ICJ’s vision and New Zealand’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and various trade deals.
If New Zealand wants to avoid being seen as lagging – or worse, a bad-faith actor – it must reconcile its domestic policies with international decision-making.
That does not mean copying regulation from other countries. But it does mean being honest about what is material, what is symbolic and what actually helps reduce emissions or build resilience.
Regulation needs to be smart, not just visible
The ICJ opinion should not be used to justify every climate policy proposal. Rather, it should encourage governments to develop regulation that is meaningful, proportionate and based on evidence.
Our study offers one such piece of evidence. In terms of financial market impacts, New Zealand’s extreme weather may not justify the same disclosure obligations as those in countries where the physical risks are more severe or more clearly linked to climate change.
This is not a reason to do less. It is a reason to do better. Policy needs to target disclosure where it matters, to focus adaptation spending where it is needed and to measure the impact of climate policies not only by their intentions, but by their outcomes.
In short, the ICJ has spoken. Now it is up to each country to act wisely.
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.
A cinematic firecracker of a film exploded onto international screens 50 years ago this week, blending martial arts mayhem, Bond-esque set pieces, casual racism – and a distinctly Australian swagger.
From its audacious visual style; to its complex, life-threatening stunts; to its pioneering status as an international co-production, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s The Man from Hong Kong has solidified its place as a cult classic.
The plot is deceptively simple. A Sydney-based crime lord’s activities come under the scrutiny of a determined Hong Kong detective, Inspector Fang Sing Leng. A fiery East-meets-West martial arts showdown explodes across the Australian landscape, pushing both sides to their limits.
Jimmy Wang Yu (known at the time as Asia’s Steve McQueen) plays Inspector Fang Sing Leng. Fang delivers justice with his fists and uses his wits navigating greater Sydney, with help from the local constabulary and its adoring female population.
The movie is a playful pastiche that confidently combines martial arts action, police procedurals, spy thrillers, and Westerns, all filtered through a distinctly Australian “crash-zoom” lens.
An Australia–Hong Kong co-production
The Man from Hong Kong was the first official Australia–Hong Kong co-production, uniting Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studio with Australian producer John Fraser.
This model would pave the way for numerous future collaborations – the film demonstrating that Australia was open for international (film) business, albeit with some constraints, such as shooting locales.
In The Man from Hong Kong’s case, the financial arrangement was 50/50. As a result, half of the film had to be shot in Hong Kong, despite 85% of the storyline being set in Australia. Many of the interiors were filmed in Hong Kong studios to meet this production requirement.
An example of this is the interrogation scene, which alternates between its Sydney exteriors and a fight scene taking place in the interior film set shot thousands of miles away at the Golden Harvest studios.
In a genius bit of montage, the scene jumps from a shot of a kick in the crotch to a close-up of pool balls breaking on a table.
A film of cunning stunts
The Man from Hong Kong served as a reunion of sorts for many of the cast and crew, either starring in Stone (1974) or featuring in Trenchard-Smith’s documentary about martial arts films, Kung Fu Killers (1974).
The film was an influence to Quentin Tarantino and paved the way for films such as Mad Max (1979), particularly in what Trenchard-Smith and his partner in film, stunt legend Grant Page, might call its “cunning stunts”.
The elaborate car chases and explosive stunt setups in The Man from Hong Kong served as prototypes for iconic sequences that would inspire the Mad Max films, among others, a testament to a bygone era of practical effects and thrill seeking audacity.
Car crashes and other explosive stunts were executed without permits or road closures. This sense of chaos is heightened by the stunts being performed by the actors themselves, adding a sense of immediacy and peril.
An example of this is set on the cliffs at Stanwell Park. Wang Yu drives at speed towards the waiting Caroline, executing a precision gravel slide that misses Caroline’s car by under a metre, the shot continuing as he exits the car to greet her.
Part character, and part tourism advert
Trenchard-Smith’s script wasn’t shy in its depiction of culture clash, especially when it came to the racist attitudes of the Australian characters.
But as Trenchard-Smith recalls:
Our lead character, a Chinese Dirty Harry/James Bond upends these racial stereotypes by being smarter, sexier, and tougher than his opponents.
Cinematographer Russell Boyd brings a sharp, dynamic (did I mention the crash-zooms?) visual style to the film that deftly matches the on-screen action.
The film’s Australian setting is part character and part tourism advert – from the “Ayers Rock” (Uluru) cold opener, to the cafe scene on the Opera House forecourt.
Pure cinema
Stunt legend Grant Page appears in multiple villainous roles throughout the film, with the martial arts choreography handled by the legendary director Sammo Hung, who also played the role of Win Chan.
The cast was a fascinating mix of talent and personality. Wang Yu, a martial arts icon, was also an established film director, leading to creative clashes on set with Trenchard-Smith.
Playing the film’s villain is George Lazenby, whose casting added another layer of meta-textual intrigue, positioning him as an antagonist to a character who was explicitly a Bond villain archetype.
The Man from Hong Kong remains an exhilarating piece of pure cinema, despite its relatively small budget. It’s an exemplar (and occasional cautionary tale) for filmmakers in terms of international co-production, its cunning stunts, and genre blending.
The film is a testament to a moment when Australian cinema was confidently looking outwards, ready to take on the world, one explosive car crash at a time.
Gregory Ferris 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.
Too often, it’s anti-immigration sentiment dominating headlines in Australia. But a quieter story is going untold. Migrants are not just fitting into Australian society, they’re actively reshaping it through entrepreneurship.
Starting a business is difficult for anyone. But migrant entrepreneurs often do so without the networks, credit history, or local knowledge many Australian-born business owners take for granted.
Our new research drew on interviews with 38 migrant business owners from 25 different countries, who had all lived in Australia for at least five years.
We found many are able to turn everyday exclusion into entrepreneurial fuel.
Many have been able to survive – even thrive – by turning their identity into an asset.
Yet there is still more we can do to take migrant entrepreneurship seriously and make it a core part of our economic and social planning.
Key challenges
Our research reveals migrant business owners face many forms of marginalisation. Some of these are well-understood among the public, others less so.
One of the biggest is social. Arriving in a new country without established relationships in the community or financial sector, many struggle to gain customer trust or secure loans. It can also mean having less of a safety net.
As one interviewee put it:
I don’t have networks built up over the generations to sustain me and give me time to jump back out [of financial difficulties] […] For migrant entrepreneurs, we often do not have such a structure to absorb risks.
Cultural stereotypes also hinder migrant entrepreneurs, and negative media portrayals can reinforce these biases. Even with local qualifications, they are often perceived as less professional or competent due to race, religion, accent or appearance.
Many interviewees spoke of constantly having to prove their legitimacy – being overlooked, second-guessed or treated as representatives of their ethnic group rather than as individual business people.
While the lack of networks and cultural acceptance undermines confidence and connection, structural barriers directly constrain access to the resources needed to survive and expand.
Without a local credit history or collateral, many are ineligible for loans, yet need those very funds to build their credit standing. Even long-settled migrants found Australia’s legal, bureaucratic and financial systems difficult to navigate.
Language barriers and unfamiliar regulations can add layers of complexity to this problem. While government support programs exist, they are often inaccessible, or the availability of those programs are poorly communicated to culturally diverse communities.
These social and systemic disadvantages can push migrant business owners into informal markets or ethnic enclaves, where opportunities are fewer and risks higher.
Turning identity into an asset
Despite these barriers, migrant entrepreneurs often find ways to survive. One key strategy is to turn marginalised identities into business strengths.
Our research found some migrants begin by serving customers from their own ethnic communities, leveraging shared language, culture and trust. Once established, they expand to other migrant groups or the broader public.
In sectors such as food, fashion and wellness, cultural authenticity can be a competitive advantage.
One hairdresser from Korea, for example, drew clients by offering Korean styling techniques popularised by the global rise of the Korean popular music style K-pop. She said this gave her work appeal among other migrant groups:
Korean hairdressers are actually attractive to other Asian countries because Korean hairstyles are considered fashionable and detailed. It’s getting popular here too. This is like free marketing for me.
And rather than simply competing on price, many migrant businesses offer something different: handmade, ethical, sustainable or culturally-rooted products. An Indian small business owner started her business by selling curry pastes made from her own family recipes, telling us:
I use my family’s traditional Indian recipes to create small spice packs, making it easy for Australians, mostly non-Indian customers, to cook authentic dishes at home.
Such ventures create not only economic value, but also spaces of cultural exchange and community belonging.
There’s more we can do
The most recent figures show migrant entrepreneurs make up one in three small business owners in Australia. Research conducted in 2017 found the vast majority of migrant entrepreneurs had not owned a business before migration.
With fewer systemic barriers and better support, their potential to contribute would be even greater. There are a range of actions policymakers, local councils, support organisations and local businesses could take.
First, access could be expanded to small business grants by removing overly complex eligibility and documentation barriers.
We should also support migrants to navigate collectively “gatekeeping” practices that lock them out of lending, investment and business certification.
That could include developing alternative credit assessment tools for migrants without a local credit history. There are already some microloan schemes tailored to new migrants or visa holders, including Thrive Refugee Enterprise.
At the same time, we need to ensure such schemes are being effectively communicated to the communities they’re intended to serve.
And we need media narratives and public campaigns that highlight successful migrant businesses. Crucially, both policy and practice must be informed by the voices and experiences of migrant entrepreneurs themselves, not just as case studies, but as co-designers of better systems.
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.
Loneliness is not a word often associated with young people. We tend to think of our youth as a time spent with family, friends and being engaged with school and work activities. Loneliness is an experience we may be more likely to associate with older people.
In a new report looking at loneliness in young Australians, we found 43% of people aged 15 to 25 feel lonely. That’s more than two in five young people.
While one in four felt lonely when asked, one in seven had felt lonely for at least two years (what we call persistent loneliness).
There’s more we should be doing in Australia to address loneliness among young people and more broadly.
What else did we find?
In this report, we analysed data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey from 2022–23. This helped us understand what sort of factors increase the risk of loneliness among young people.
We found having poor physical health and mental health can double (or more) the likelihood of persistent loneliness among young people.
Life circumstances, as well as socioeconomic and behavioural factors, also play a role, as shown below.
Worryingly, young people who report persistent loneliness are over seven times more likely to experience high or very high psychological distress compared to those who aren’t lonely.
But loneliness in young people should not be seen just as a mental health issue. Research shows it can have consequences for physical health too. For example, a study published in 2024 found loneliness is linked to early signs of vascular dysfunction (functional changes to the arteries) in adults as young as 22.
Why does loneliness persist?
As well as analysing data, we also interviewed young people aged 16 to 25 from diverse backgrounds about what helps them make healthy social connections, and what hinders them.
One of the things they flagged was a need for safe community spaces. A male participant from metro New South Wales, aged between 22 and 25, said:
After lectures, someone’s hungry, you go to eat together. We used to go to [Name of restaurant] after almost every lecture. Talk or discuss somethings so it gave us that extra opportunity to mingle amongst each other and take that next step towards building a good friendship.
We found technology could both help and hinder social connections. A female from regional Victoria, aged 22 to 25, who identified as LGBTIQ+, told us:
If you’re in school or something like that and you don’t really have […] many people within your community to look to, it’s really nice being able to connect with people and make those friends online.
On the flip side, a female participant from metropolitan Victoria, aged between 16 and 18, said:
a lot of maybe like mean stuff or like bullying and stuff happens over the Internet […] there’s a big group chat and like everyone’s texting on it or something. And then a lot of the time, people will break off into a smaller chat […] or they’ll break off into one on one and be like, ohh, do you see what she said?
The high cost of living was also regarded as a hindrance to maintaining social connections. As a male aged 22 to 25 from metro NSW told us:
you’ll go on [a] drive [with friends] or whatever […] but that is so like incredibly expensive. Having to pay for your own car and like petrol and insurance and maintenance. Sometimes it’s hard to […] even like […] sit down in peace and have a chat. All the cafes will close at 2 and by the time everyone gets out of their jobs, you’re having to go to a restaurant and [you’re] spending 50 dollars.
So what can we do?
Loneliness has long been treated as a personal issue but it’s increasingly clear we have to shift our approach to include community-wide and systemic solutions.
The World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Connection recently released a report pointing to loneliness as a public health, social, community and economic issue.
In Australia, the economic burden of loneliness stands at A$2.7 billion each year for associated health-care costs including GP and hospital visits.
And there are additional costs including lower workforce productivity and educational outcomes that have yet to be accounted for.
Some countries have already developed and implemented strategies to address loneliness. In 2023, Denmark, for example, commissioned the development of a national loneliness action plan led by a consortium of organisations. This was underpinned by an investment of around 21 million Danish kroner (roughly A$5 million) over 2023–25.
Australia now stands at a crossroads.
Australia needs a national loneliness strategy
A national strategy underpinned by evidence and by lived experience is crucial to effectively address loneliness. This approach would:
coordinate efforts across sectors: health, education, social services and business
identify effective strategies that should be included in a comprehensive response, and the principles to guide their delivery in communities and other settings
highlight sub-groups at risk of persistent loneliness who should be prioritised within population-wide strategies
commit to the delivery of a national awareness campaign that can educate the public and reduce stigma around loneliness.
With the right national strategy, we will be able to increase our capacity to help all Australians, not just young people, connect in meaningful ways.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. You can learn more about youth loneliness and how to help at Ending Loneliness Together.
Michelle H. Lim is the CEO and Scientific Chair of Ending Loneliness Together. She is also the Vice-Chair of the International Scientific Board of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection, and is part of the Technical Advisory Group – Social Connection at the World Health Organization.
Ben Smith is a member of the Management Committee and Scientific Advisory Board of Ending Loneliness Together. He is also the Conjoint Chair of Public Health with the Western Sydney Local Health District.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeleine Pugin, Research Fellow, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University
The Productivity Commission’s latest data on Closing the Gap progress represents an unsurprisingly grim overview of the socioeconomic inequalities experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Closing the Gap is the plan federal and state governments have to address Indigenous socioeconomic disadvantage. It sets specific targets across a range of areas.
This edition annual data report paints a concerning picture of Indigenous peoples’ quality of life across the states and territories. Despite 17 years of Closing the Gap policy, First Nations communities continue to face significant disadvantage. Of the 19 targets, 16 have been assessed, with four targets worsening. They are:
adult imprisonment
children in out-of-home care
suicide
children developmentally on track.
There have been some successes. Four targets are on track to be met: preschool enrolment, employment, and land and water rights. Although the latter targets are likely to be achieved, the Queensland and Northern Territory governments are walking away from plans for Treaty. This could undercut efforts for increased Indigenous rights recognition.
There is also improvement in six other target areas, but they are still not on track to be met by 2031:
life expectancy
healthy birthweights
year 12 or equivalent qualifications
youth engagement
appropriately sized housing.
Time for change
Year after year, Closing the Gap reporting offers little hope for meaningful change. It also falls short of providing crucial insights into what is working, what isn’t, and where resources and expertise should be directed to address unmet targets.
We must ask ourselves: when is it time to pursue a different approach?
These are complex issues with no simple solutions, but that must not deter us from pursuing every possible avenue for change. As the worsening suicide target shows, lives depend on it.
Nonetheless, there is little evidence to suggest governments are being impelled to act on the transformational changes required to implement the four priority reforms.
Since the failed Voice referendum, there has been little will from all levels of government to radically transform their way of working with First Nations communities. The gaps in outcomes are unlikely to close with this business-as-usual approach.
So what could be changed to help improve the lives of Indigenous people? Here are three ideas.
1. A national action plan, driven by human rights
Australia has no comprehensive Indigenous rights framework. Currently, recognition of Indigenous rights in existing Australian laws is “piecemeal” and inconsistent across jurisdictions.
Adopting a rights-based approach to the Closing the Gap framework could provide one way forward. The realisation of rights is central to genuine self-determination for Indigenous peoples.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which Australia endorsed in 2009, outlines the minimum standards of human rights relating to Indigenous peoples.
A 2023 report looking at how UNDRIP works in Australia contains a list of recommendations, with the first being:
that the Commonwealth Government ensure its approach to developing legislation and policy on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (including, but not limited to, Closing the Gap initiatives) be consistent with the Articles outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
UNDRIP’s core principals of self-determination and participation in decision-making directly align with what communities and experts have been calling for on Closing the Gap reform. At a minimum, the federal government should meaningfully negotiate a national action plan to implement the declaration.
Such a plan would help drive community-led solutions, empowering Indigenous peoples at local and regional levels. Bottom-up grassroots approaches are vital to Closing the Gap.
2. An independent oversight body
Despite the failure of the Voice referendum, an independent representative body is still needed at the national level. It would provide strategic oversight and accountability for implementation of the Closing the Gap policy at the local and regional levels.
This body could also provide much-needed political and policy advocacy to hold governments to their commitments.
There is the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which Commonwealth, state, territory governments are a party to, as well as the Coalition of Peak Indigenous bodies and the Australian Local Government Association.
Yet some governments are enacting policies and laws which are inconsistent with the agreement. Queensland and the Northern Territory, for instance, have ceased involvement in Treaty processes and turned toward stricterpenalties in response to youth offending – movescriticised by human rights commissions.
An independent representative body would help shed light on these inconsistencies and better hold governments accountable.
3. A bigger role for local government
What is often missing from the conversation is the crucial role local governments play in implementing policies that shape outcomes on the ground.
As frontline service providers, local governments are positioned to engage with communities on a direct, day-to-day basis, which can be responsive to the everyday needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
In a first for local implementation of Closing the Gap, Tamworth Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations and Tamworth Regional Council entered an agreement to work together towards addressing key aspects of initiative.
There are strong reasons for local governments to take a more central leadership role in trying to meet the Closing the Gap targets. To do so effectively, however, they require adequate resourcing and sustained funding to support community-driven programs.
Additionally, embedding Indigenous rights and interests in local government planning and policy would significantly enhance their capacity to contribute meaningfully.
Bartholomew Stanford receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).
Madeleine Pugin 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.
AI is on the agenda in Canberra. In August, the Productivity Commission will release an interim report on harnessing data and digital technology such as AI “to boost productivity growth, accelerate innovation and improve government services”. Shortly afterward, the government will host an Economic Reform Roundtable where AI policy will be up for discussion.
AI developers are aggressively pursuing influence over the new rules. The Chinese government wants to include AI in trade deals. Meanwhile, as the US government seeks to “win the AI race”, US-based tech companies are making their own overtures.
OpenAI’s AI Economic Blueprint for Australia makes bold projections about the new technology’s impact on the country’s economy, accompanied by a host of policy proposals. However, these claims warrant careful scrutiny, particularly given the company’s clear commercial interests in shaping Australian regulation.
The gap between promise and evidence
OpenAI claims AI could boost Australia’s economy by A$115 billion annually by 2030. It attributes most of this to productivity gains in business, education and government. However, the supporting evidence is thin.
For instance, the report notes Australian workers have lower productivity than their US counterparts and then claims (without evidence) this is because Australia has invested less in digital technologies such as AI. However, it ignores numerous other factors affecting productivity, from industrial structure to regulatory environments.
The report also describes supposed AI-driven productivity gains in companies such as Moderna and Canva. However, these narratives lack any data about improved organisational or individual performance.
Perhaps more concerning is the report’s uniformly optimistic tone, which overlooks significant risks. These include organisations struggling with costly AI projects, massive job displacements, worsening labour conditions, and concentrating wealth.
Most problematically, OpenAI’s blueprint assumes AI adoption and its economic benefits will materialise rapidly across the economy. However, evidence suggests a different reality.
Economic impact from AI will unfold gradually
Recent evidence suggests AI’s economic impact may take decades to fully materialise. Studies report some 40% of US adults use generative AI yet this translates to less than 5% of work hours and an increase of less than 1% in labour productivity.
AI may not spread much faster than past technologies. The limiting factor will be how quickly individuals, organisations and institutions can adapt.
Even when AI tools are available, meaningful adoption requires time. People must develop new skills, change the way they work, and integrate the new technologies into complex organisations. The economic impacts of earlier general-purpose technologies such as computers and the internet took decades to fully materialise, and there’s little reason to believe AI will be fundamentally different.
The push for AI tutoring and automated educational tools raises profound concerns about human development and learning.
Early evidence suggests over-reliance on AI tools may condition people to depend on them. When students routinely turn to AI, they risk avoiding the mental effort required to build critical thinking skills, creativity and independent inquiry. These capacities form the foundation of a thriving democracy and innovative economy.
Students who become accustomed to AI-assisted thinking may struggle to develop intellectual independence. This is needed for innovation, ethical reasoning and creative problem-solving.
AI applications that help teachers personalise instruction or identify learning gaps may be useful. But systems that substitute for students’ own cognitive effort and development should be avoided.
A multi-partner infrastructure strategy
Australia’s digital strategy will undoubtedly include significant investment in AI infrastructure such as data centres. One challenge for Australia is to avoid concentrating our investment around a single technology provider. Doing so would be a mistake that could compromise both economic competitiveness and national sovereignty.
Amazon plans to spend $20 billion on local data centres. Microsoft Azure already has significant local capacity, as does Australian company NextDC. This diversity provides a foundation, but maintaining and expanding it requires deliberate policy choices.
Maintaining multiple data centre suppliers helps keep computing power that is independent of foreign governments or single companies. This approach will give Australia more bargaining power to ensure lower prices, greener power and local skills quotas.
Diversification provides regulatory leverage as well. Australia can enforce common security standards knowing no single supplier can threaten an investment strike.
Australia’s AI future
AI technology is developing rapidly, driven by large corporations wielding vast amounts of capital and political influence. It presents real opportunities for economic growth and social benefit that Australia can’t afford to squander.
However, if the government uncritically accepts corporate advocacy, these opportunities may be captured by foreign interests.
Australia’s approach to AI policy should maintain human-centred values alongside technological advancement. This balance requires resisting the siren call of corporate promises.
The decisions made today will shape Australia’s future for decades. These choices should be guided by independent analysis, empirical evidence, and a commitment to outcomes for all Australians.
The Australian government must resist the temptation to let Silicon Valley write our digital future, no matter how persuasive their lobbyists or how impressive their promises. The stakes are simply too high to get this wrong.
Uri Gal 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.
Currently, there are no sources of administrative data that include adequate rainbow demographic markers such as sexual orientation, gender, transgender experience or variations of sex characteristics.
Without high-quality data, the policy reforms needed to address underserved and historically marginalised populations become harder to make. How can we create evidence-based policy with no evidence?
Rainbow communities had been invisible in the census since its inception in 1851. The 2023 Census was a watershed moment, born out of decades of determined activism and advocacy from the community.
For us, as housing and homelessness researchers, it was particularly important to finally have whole-of-population data about rates of homelessness among LGBTQIA+ communities. Data on housing showed rainbow communities pay higher rents, live in mouldier housing and move more frequently than non-rainbow communities.
Adding LGBTQIA+ data to the census meant we were the first country in the world to have such data on the housing experiences of these communities. We were applauded internationally by colleagues who have long been wanting similar homelessness and rainbow data from their own national censuses.
This data will be a great advocacy tool, but it is bittersweet that we will never have such information again.
History of advocacy
There is a nearly 50-year history of various community movements, from boycotts to activism, chronicling the queer struggle to be appropriately counted in the census.
In 1981, a group of Wellington lesbians held a “dykecott” of the New Zealand census to protest their exclusion. This included sending blank census forms to the Human Rights Commission with various explanations essentially saying “no rights, no responsibilities.”
Then, in the 1990s, the Wellington City Council’s lesbian and gay advisory group came together to lobby Stats NZ about the need for inclusive census data. In 1996, census forms were changed to be able to count same-sex partners.
In 2002, the former editor of the New Zealand LGBTQIA+ magazine Express Victor van Wetering went so far as to lodge a formal complaint against Stats NZ, stating the agency was in clear breach of the Human Rights Act. He alleged it was failing to meet its statutory requirements.
Stats NZ’s present and historical stance towards sexual orientation data amounts to a consistent denial that any imperative exists for it to develop a statistical picture of our queer communities. This statistical invisibility deprives queer communities of knowledge and power.
Advocacy continued throughout the 2000s and 2010s, and in 2018, Stats NZ released their statistical standards for measuring sexual orientation. The possibility of inclusive census data started to become more of a reality.
The decision to halt the census as we know it means there will be no longitudinal comparative data for rainbow communities. Just as the community has been allowed out of the statistical closet, people will be put back in.
It had long been argued that accuracy of rainbow data would improve over subsequent censuses. Now we will never know what developments might have emerged.
In 2020, the Human Rights Commission released a report which found New Zealand’s data collection processes fail to accurately count the country’s rainbow community members.
Stats NZ had already started significant work to evaluate and update their sex and gender identity standards. Weeks after the report, the agency committed to what would become the 2023 census. Rainbow community groups applauded, felt finally listened to and called the shift a major win.
This sense of pride continues as reports and data are released from the census.
Research and survey data consistently show rainbow communities in Aotearoa New Zealand experience multiple forms of discrimination. This includes violence, family rejection, bullying and social exclusion.
These experiences contribute to disproportionately high rates of serious negative outcomes such as suicidality, health inequities, homelessness and substance use. Despite this, we continue to lack data comparing the experiences of rainbow communities with those of the general population.
As a result, health and social disparities affecting LGBTQIA+ people are systematically under-recognised in government strategies and across health and social service systems. Efforts to address these inequities are also frequently under-resourced and inadequately prioritised.
There is no time over the past 50 years when the scope and quality of population statistics has been of such importance in public life in Aotearoa New Zealand as now.
Scrapping the census is a cost-cutting exercise. But what is the real cost of losing data and which communities will disproportionately bear this cost? The decision renders LGBTQIA+ people, once again, invisible.
Lori Leigh is affiliated with the Trans Health Research Network, Kawe Mahara Queer Archives Aotearoa and receives funding from MBIE’s Endeavour Fund programme as part of their work for the University of Otago, Wellington.
Brodie Fraser is affiliated with the Trans Health Research Network and currently funded by two MBIE Endeavour Fund programmes, and has previously been funded by the Health Research Council and the University of Otago.
Sports fans might love their teams, cheer or curse each game’s result and admire their favourite athletes, but we rarely associate sports with romance.
However, that may be slowly changing thanks to the recent spike in the popularity of romance fiction, which has created an unlikely sub-genre.
Dedicated romance bookstores are popping all over the world thanks to the visibility of social media communities such as “BookTok” and “Bookstagram” and the avenues digital and self-publishing are creating.
Sports romance titles are contributing to the growing romance numbers and are helping to attract new and non-traditional fans to sport.
Sports bringing the spice
Sports romance fiction is not a new phenomenon. But it has gained popularity in the past few years, predominantly through ice hockey titles.
Ice hockey romance has a growing, passionate following. Authors such as Elle Kennedy, Hannah Grace, Tessa Bailey and Emily Rath – all New York Times-bestselling writers – bring a wide-reaching visibility to the sub-genre.
Kennedy’s Off Campus series is currently being developed as a TV series.
Formula 1 romance fiction also has a strong following, while football (soccer) is popular too. Meryl Wilsner’s soccer-based romance Cleat Cute is also getting the TV treatment through sporting legends Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird’s production company A Touch More.
You name the sport and there will be a title for you: golf, chess, lacrosse, tennis, basketball, pickleball, Australian rules football, swimming, ballet, baseball and e-sports, the list goes on.
Something for everyone
While a majority of sports romance texts reflect heteronormative relationships and depict some of the more stereotypical, idealised body types and aesthetics often associated with the romance genre and athletic bodies, there are also diverse titles. These explore relationships across genders, sexualities, ethnicities, body shapes and different sports.
The ability to self-publish and reach an audience through social media allows sports romance authors and the creator community to be responsive and representative.
Authors are motivated to create narratives that reflect their own experiences and identity or contribute perspectives they feel are missing in the sporting landscape.
Happily ever after?
What makes these diverse contributions significant is how the authors present their sporting narratives within the romance genre storytelling structure. This means the majority of texts conform to what romance readers call, the “HEA”: the happily ever after.
While some narratives will have drama, tension and tragedy, the “happily ever after” framework allows for stories and relationships to end on a happy note.
In sports romance, there are many authors using this approach to challenge social norms, restrictive sporting environments and advocate for inclusion by presenting narratives where these tensions are resolved and everything works out.
Examples include K.T. Hoffman’s The Prospects, which features a trans man as the protagonist who makes it onto a Major League Baseball team and finds true love. Esha Patel’s Offtrack presents a Middle Eastern woman as the first woman driver for a Formula 1 team this century — who also finds true love. Australian author Abra Pressler’s Love and Other Scores shares the coming out journey of a professional male tennis player while competing at the Australian Open — after he finds true love. You get it.
The romance genre allows these fictional stories to play out with the authors placing love and care for diverse communities at their centre, showing us a world where the inclusion for these diverse lived experiences are possible in sport.
Risks and rewards
There are opportunities for sports organisations to think more creatively about connecting with fans who may be interested in different elements of sporting culture and fandom.
That could be through sports romance, new forms of narrative storytelling such as docuseries like Netflix’s Drive to Survive, or intersections with pop culture such as Taylor Swift’s recent impact on NFL fandom.
What is important is understanding the community and serving that community rather than trying to retrofit diverse fans into preexisting fan engagement strategies.
Sports should understand fans are not a homogeneous group, and not all diverse fans will respond to and connect with this content.
There are also risks for sports that try to shoehorn non-traditional fans into their space without fully understanding the community, such as when the National Hockey League’s Seattle Kraken targeted the sports romance audience in 2023. The initiative went horribly wrong when the organisation misguidedly promoted social media engagement which led to some users crossing the line and allegedly harassing players.
But there are rewards when it is done right. Australian Ice Hockey League discovered this after developing a genuine connection with author Emily Rath and facilitating welcoming and safe spaces for romance readers at games. The result? A surge in attendances and fan connection.
The sports romance genre is a space for sport to pay attention to, and with the second annual Sports Romance Convention taking place in Minneapolis next year, its community will continue to grow.
Kasey Symons has received funding from the Victorian Government, and national and state sport governing bodies, including the Australian Football League and the National Rugby League. She is also one of the co-founders of Siren: A Women in Sport Collective.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
The following two tables show New Zealand and the 24 other economies in the world most easily and fruitfully compared to New Zealand. The countries are sorted with the worst-performing economies (in terms of economic growth per capita) listed at the top. Thus, taking four-year compounded growth for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, Germany was the worst performer (ranked 25 out of 25); its economy, adjusted for population growth, shrank over four years by 1.2 percent.
The ‘top’ three countries in the table all had such negative growth.
Table 1: Rankings for 25 Advanced Economies 2019-23
2019-23*
growth pc
inflation
interest
population
rank
rank
rank
rank
Germany
25
6
9
18
Finland
24
19
9
20
Austria
23
1
9
9
United Kingdom
22
2
4
12
Canada
21
14
3
3
Spain
20
15
9
10
France
19
16
9
19
Japan
18
24
25
24
Norway
17
10
7
6
Sweden
16
9
21
15
New Zealand
15
4
1
5
Switzerland
14
25
24
7
Australia
13
11
8
4
Belgium
12
8
9
13
Portugal
11
17
9
16
Netherlands
10
3
9
8
Italy
9
12
9
23
Israel
8
22
6
1
United States
7
5
2
11
Slovenia
6
7
9
17
Denmark
5
18
23
14
Korea
4
21
5
21
Greece
3
20
9
25
Taiwan
2
23
22
22
Ireland
1
13
9
2
*
end of year data for inflation and interest
source: IMF World Economic Outlook Database, April 2025
On growth, New Zealand was in the middle of the pack, with 3.9 percent compounded growth per capita; that averages out to just below one percent per annum.
On inflation and interest rates, a high ranking is generally regarded as a poor performance; although a low inflation rate may be outside the policy target zone, just as a high inflation rate may be. New Zealand had the fourth-highest CPI inflation over that four-year period, comparing consumer prices in December 2023 with December 2019. In December 2023, consumer prices were 20.6% higher than in December 2019. The country with highest compounded inflation was Austria with 22.4%, and the lowest Switzerland with 5.5%.
New Zealand had the highest compounded interest rates for that period; it had top-ranking for high-interest. If $1,000 was ‘invested’ at the Official Cash Rate each December from December 2020, and reinvested each December for four years in total, the accumulated amount would have been $1,111. Next highest were the United States and Canada. This ranking gives a sense of the monetary policy in the four years after the 2020 covid wave; New Zealand had the tightest monetary policy for the period as a whole, meaning the strongest ‘anti-inflationary policy’. If you see Table 2 below, you will see that New Zealand had the lowest economic growth in 2024, a direct consequence of that tighter monetary policy stance.
On interest rates, we note that the countries in the Euro currency zone all experience the same monetary policy setting. It means that those Euro countries which are more aggressively anti-inflation tend to resort most to fiscal consolidation, a euphemism for government retrenchment and austerity. There is no simple measure for tight fiscal policy; the Budget deficit/surplus is often used incorrectly because government retrenchment significantly undermines government revenue.
On inflation, we note that some of those northern European countries which we normally expect to have low inflation actually had the highest inflation: Austria, Netherlands, Germany. One country similar to New Zealand on inflation and interest, and with zero growth per capita, was the United Kingdom. Australia was better than New Zealand on all three measures: growth, inflation, and interest. And much the same as New Zealand on population growth.
Table 2: Rankings for 25 Advanced Economies 2023-24
2023-24*
growth pc
inflation
interest
population
rank
rank
rank
rank
New Zealand
25
13
6
2
Austria
24
15
8
15
Canada
23
17
7
1
Finland
22
22
8
12
Ireland
21
24
8
3
Germany
20
9
8
20
Israel
19
3
2
5
Switzerland
18
25
24
4
United Kingdom
17
10
1
6
Netherlands
16
2
8
11
Belgium
15
1
8
14
Australia
14
11
5
13
Japan
13
6
25
25
Sweden
12
20
22
17
Italy
11
23
8
22
France
10
21
8
19
Portugal
9
4
8
10
Norway
8
14
2
7
Slovenia
7
19
8
18
United States
6
8
2
9
Korea
5
16
20
21
Spain
4
7
8
8
Greece
3
5
8
24
Denmark
2
18
21
16
Taiwan
1
12
23
23
*
end of year data for inflation and interest
source: IMF World Economic Outlook Database, April 2025
Table 2 shows the same data items for 2024. Of particular interest is the 2024 growth and inflation rates in 2024, compared to the interest rates for the preceding four years. New Zealand, with the toughest monetary policy over a longer period certainly got the recession it asked for; and was the median country for CPI inflation in 2024, virtually bang-on the policy target. (Was the pain worth it?)
It’s important to note that many countries with significantly lower inflation than New Zealand did not have anything like the very high policy interest rates that New Zealand was subjected to; eg Sweden, Italy, France, Denmark, Slovenia. Any beneficial link from high interest rates to low inflation remains moot; and it is clear that high-interest-rate policies do much damage to the wider economy. While Japan had higher inflation in 2024 than New Zealand, we note that Japan’s overall increase in consumer prices in the half-decade was much lower than New Zealand’s. Japan’s inflationary pressures are almost entirely imported, with New Zealand’s domestically generated CPI inflation being significantly greater than Japan’s.
We should note that southern Europe was doing particularly well in 2024. Although Greece’s per capita growth is fuelled in part by substantial population losses. Spain, on the other hand, is getting its population back. Further north, the Austrian economy is looking particularly problematic; it’s no wonder the ‘far-right’ political party did so well there in elections at the end of 2024 (ten percentage points higher than the Hitler-led NSDAP party got in Germany in 1930). And Finland is not looking happy either, despite low inflation.
United States, United Kingdom and Australia continued to have above-median inflation in 2024, despite – or, more likely, because of – their continued perseverance with high-interest monetary policies.
On population growth we see that Canada has been the overall ‘winner’, presumably in the sense that it both attracts and accepts immigrants. Surprisingly, in 2024 Australia slumped in its population growth, whereas New Zealand did not. I suspect that 2025 will show more immigration in Australia than New Zealand.
Finally
All is not well in the New Zealand economy. And it’s also quite unwell in some other countries, especially the North European Euro-zone countries, and the United Kingdom. And the United States, with its tight monetary policies, seems to have only averted the fate of the United Kingdom and New Zealand (and Germany and Austria) by virtue of stimulus to its military-industrial complex. Or, strictly speaking, to its military complex. Civilian industry remains weak in the USA.
*******
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.
The United Arab Emirates and Jordan airdropped 25 tonnes of food and humanitarian supplies on Sunday. Israel has further announced daily pauses in its military strikes on Gaza and the opening of humanitarian corridors to facilitate UN aid deliveries.
The UN emergency relief chief, Tom Fletcher, has characterised the next few days as “make or break” for humanitarian agencies trying to reach more than two million Gazans facing “famine-like conditions”.
A third of Gazans have gone without food for several days and 90,000 women and children now require urgent care for acute malnutrition. Local health authorities have reported 147 deaths from starvation so far, 80% of whom are children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed – without any evidence – “there is no starvation in Gaza”. This claim has been rejected by world leaders, including Netanyahu ally US President Donald Trump.
Famine expert Alex de Waal has called the famine in Gaza without precedent:
[…] there’s no case of such minutely engineered, closely monitored, precisely designed mass starvation of a population as is happening in Gaza today.
While the UN has welcomed the partial lifting of the blockade, the current aid being allowed into Gaza will not be enough to avert a wider catastrophe, due to the severity and depth of hunger in Gaza and the health needs of the people.
According to the UN World Food Programme, which has enough food stockpiled to feed all of Gaza for three months, only one thing will work:
An agreed ceasefire is the only way to reach everyone.
Airdrops a ‘distraction and a smokescreen’
Air-dropping food supplies is considered a last resort due to the undignified and unsafe manner in which the aid is delivered.
The Global Protection Cluster, a network of non-governmental organisations and UN agencies, shared a story from a mother in Al Karama, east of Gaza City, whose home was hit by an airdropped pallet, causing the roof to collapse:
Immediately following the impact, a group of people armed with knives rushed towards the house, while the mother locked herself and her children in the remaining room to protect her family. They did not receive any assistance and are fearful for their safety.
Air-dropped pallets of food are also inefficient compared with what can be delivered by road.
One truck can carry up to 20 tonnes of supplies. Trucks can also reach Gaza quickly if they are allowed to cross at the scale required. Aid agencies have repeatedly said they have the necessary aid and personnel sitting just one hour away at the border.
Given how ineffective the air drops have been – and will continue to be – the head of the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine has called them a “distraction” and a “smokescreen”.
Malnourished women and children need specialised care
De Waal has also made clear how starvation differs from other war crimes – it takes weeks of denying aid for starvation to take hold.
For the 90,000 acutely malnourished women and children who require specialised and supplementary feeding, in addition to medical care, the type of food being air-dropped into Gaza will not help them. Malnourished children require nutritional screening and access to fortified pastes and baby food.
Gaza’s decimated health system is also not able to treat severely malnourished women and children, who are at risk of “refeeding syndrome” when they are provided with nutrients again. This can trigger a fatal metabolic response.
The UN has characterised the limited reopening of aid deliveries to Gaza as a potential “lifeline”, if it’s upheld and expanded.
According to Ciaran Donnelly from the International Rescue Committee, what’s needed is “tragically simple”: Israel must fully open the Gaza borders to allow aid and humanitarian personnel to flood in.
Israel must also guarantee safe conditions for the dignified distribution of aid that reaches everyone, including women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities. The level of hunger and insecurity mean these groups are at high risk of exclusion.
The people of Gaza have the world’s attention – for now. They have endured increasingly dehumanising conditions – including the risk of being shot trying to access aid – under the cover of war for more than 21 months.
Two leading Israeli human rights organisations have just publicly called Israel’s war on Gaza “a genocide”. This builds on mounting evidence compiled by the UN and other experts that supports the same conclusion, triggering the duty under international law for all states to act to prevent genocide.
These obligations require more than words – states must exercise their full diplomatic leverage to pressure Israel to let aid in at the scale required to avert famine. States must also pressure Israel to extend its military pauses into the only durable solution – a permanent ceasefire.
Amra Lee 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 Magis Bell Chair, made from recycled plastic, saves energy during production and transport and produces less waste for recycling or disposal at end of life.Magis
What springs to mind when you’re asked to think of plastic chairs? Do you picture the ubiquitous lightweight, stackable polypropylene chair sold cheaply in hardware stores worldwide?
Or perhaps you picture something more glamorous, such as Shiro Kuramata’s Miss Blanche (1988). This limited-edition artwork, featuring imitation roses suspended in acrylic resin, now sells for more than US$500,000 at auction.
I research industrial design, exploring the symbiotic relationship between technology, commercial design and sustainability. The 80-year history of the plastic chair was the focus of my PhD.
This humble, ubiquitous object offers unique insights into society’s shifting attitudes to plastic, and the changes to come.
An 80-year history
The story of the plastic chair began in the United States in the 1930s, when petrochemical manufacturers DuPont and Röhm & Haas started mass-producing acrylic glass.
The material, available in rods and sheets, enabled industrial designers to produce a wide range of consumer products using traditional manufacturing techniques.
Widespread shortages of traditional materials during World War II drove further development of plastics.
After the war, designers and manufacturers quickly embraced plastics. They were seen as the foundation of a new, plentiful future, allowing the masses to access products previously reserved for the elite. Many household items such as televisions, toys and upholstery became cheaper, thanks to plastics.
Fibreglass manufacturing advanced during WWII to support the US Navy. This involves weaving strands of glass into a loose mat, which is then placed into a mould. Polyester resin is poured in to bind the fibres together before it hardens into a solid shape. Fibreglass is strong, lightweight, corrosion-resistant and can be moulded into complex shapes.
The first fibreglass chair designs were Charles and Ray Eames’ Plastic Armchair and Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Chair. Then the Space Age (1957–69) inspired enthusiastic experiments with technicolor-saturated glossy surfaces and futuristic curved shapes, all made possible by fibreglass.
Designers could handcraft prototypes, perfecting comfort and form. Many designs from this era are still in production and often feature in science fiction films.
Plastic furniture features many in sci-fi movies (Scandinavian Design 101)
A shift in public sentiment
Looking back at Earth from space was a turning point for humanity. The famous Earthrise photo captured the precarious nature of our existence and dependence on finite resources, such as fossil fuels. Oil was used to make most plastic at that time.
In the 1970s, the price of oil shot up tenfold when Arab nations banned petroleum exports and cut oil production during the Arab–Iraeli War. The Iraq–Iran war followed. In 1981, oil reached US$31 per barrel. Suddenly, plastics were expensive.
Early plastics also had drawbacks. Colours faded and surfaces scratched, eroding consumer confidence. Disillusioned consumers began to favour traditional materials such as metal and timber. Few noteworthy plastic chair designs appeared during the next two decades.
In response, the plastics industry changed tactics. If consumers favoured wooden furniture, then woodchips and veneer – held together by polymer adhesives and varnished with polyurethane – offered a cost-effective solution. Plastics were simply camouflaged within an ever-increasing range of products.
As the environmental impacts of plastics became evident, the industry recognised it had an image problem and launched a major public relations effort around recycling. It worked. By the end of the century, plastics were fashionable again.
Recycling eases guilt
From the late 1990s, leading designers enthusiastically embraced injection moulding. This was much cheaper and faster than labour-intensive fibreglass.
Philippe Starck’s LaMarie for Kartell launched a new trend for translucent chairs. Karim Rashid launched the affordable Oh Chair and Jasper Morrison introduced air injection moulding to the industry with the Air Chair.
Ocean pollution became a focus when it was shown that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in our seas. Alarm further intensified over the impact of chemical additives used in plastics and their effects on human health and the ability to reproduce.
In response, designers and manufactures are now exploring plastics made at least partly from recycled plastics or renewable organic resources such as plants, algae or even carbon dioxide (bioplastics).
My study of 60 such chairs identified the Bell Chair as the best of the bunch. Made from just 2.8kg of plastic waste, the design minimises the amount of energy required to make and transport the chair.
These chairs come off the automated production line stacked 12-high for efficient transport. The manufacturer Magis also claims Bell Chairs can be recycled at end-of-life. But the lack of a resin identification code mark, and the inclusion of fibreglass, make it unlikely the product will actually be recycled.
I thought my study would identify chairs made from bioplastics as delivering superior environmental outcomes. However, designers working with these materials were forced to compensate for inferior material strength by bulking up their designs, or mixing bio-based material with traditional plastics.
Bulky designs demand higher energy consumption during manufacture and transport, while hybridised materials are problematic as they cannot be recycled and are not biodegradable.
Siamese Chair, designed by Karim Rashid in 2014. The bioplastic made from acai fruit and bark from Ipe Roxo trees was not strong enough for the legs, and the shell of the chair had to be bulked up. The use of aluminium for the legs and the energy consumed during production and transport meant this 9.8kg chair achieved a weak score in my analysis. A Lot of Brasil
The chair of the future
Bans on single-use plastics, and measures to reduce plastic packaging and increase recycled content in packaging and products, are beginning to take effect. Manufacturers are also experimenting with renewable plastics in consumer goods.
But to achieve global emissions-reduction targets, the transition from virgin fossil-based plastics to renewable plastics must accelerate. Government intervention will be crucial where voluntary industry agreements are failing, both at home and abroad.
It’s likely the plastic chair of the future will be made entirely from renewable organic resources. Creating a more circular plastics economy is not only possible, it’s imperative.
Geoff Isaac 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.
Anthony Albanese will recall well when another Labor prime minister was feeling the heat over Palestinian status.
It was 2012 and then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard was forced into a corner over the stand Australia should take on a motion to give Palestine observer status at the United Nations.
Gillard and her foreign minister, Bob Carr, clashed over the matter. Gillard wanted to oppose the motion, siding with the United States and Israel. Carr and others pushed back hard, and eventually Australia abstained.
In his book, Diary of a Foreign Minister, Carr records that in the cabinet debate earlier, “Albanese gave a no-holds-barred robust presentation of the case for voting ‘yes’ or abstaining”.
Now Albanese, in the wake of France having just declared it will recognise Palestine as a state, faces another, albeit different, iteration of the Palestinian status issue. The circumstances are much more direct and acute. On this occasion, he is arguing for time.
Carr is still out there advocating. But a more central voice is former minister Ed Husic (who was around in 2012, too, but still on the backbench). The Labor rank and file are strongly pro-Palestine. They are backed by the ALP platform, which calls for Palestine to be recognised as a state.
Even as a minister in the last parliamentary term, bound by cabinet solidarity, Husic pushed the boundaries when speaking out about the Middle East conflict. Having been dumped from the frontbench in factional manoeuvring after the election, he is free to say bluntly what he thinks. Now he is putting his shoulder to the wheel to advocate recognition.
In a Guardian article on Monday he reminded his Labor peers and betters “that our party has twice agreed at its highest decision-making forum – the National Conference of the Australian Labor party – to recognise the state of Palestine.
“The time to do so is absolutely right now.”
Albanese is caught between his party and his caution.
It is a fair assumption the prime minister, with his long history of being pro-Palestinian, would like to follow the lead of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Equally, however, he would want Australia to move in concert with like-minded countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Australia has previously banded with these countries in joint statements about the Middle East conflict.
Albanese said at the weekend Australian recognition of a Palestinian state wasn’t imminent – although last year Foreign Minister Penny Wong opened the way for possible recognition as part of a peace process (rather than only accorded at the end of it).
The prime minister put a context around recognition. “How do you exclude Hamas from any involvement there? How do you ensure that a Palestinian state operates in an appropriate way which does not threaten the existence of Israel? And so we don’t do any decision as a gesture. We will do it as a way forward if the circumstances are met.”
In caucus on Tuesday, Husic pressed his point, asking how long the preconditions for statehood could be expected to take. Albanese essentially went through what he’d said before.
Labor’s Friends of Palestine group is pressing for sanctions, as well as recognition.
The group’s spokesperson Peter Moss says: “Over the past 21 months, Labor members in branches and conferences have repeatedly urged the government to join 147 UN member states and now France in recognising Palestine.
“By making recognition contingent on a non-existent peace process, the government has effectively ruled out delivering on policy that has broad public support.
“We call on the Australian government to implement official platform policy and immediately and unconditionally recognise a Palestinian state on the pre-4 June 1967 borders.”
In recent weeks more than 80 Labor branches and other party units have passed a strong motion calling for sanctions and an arms embargo on Israel.
In the last few days, the group wrote to Wong, seeking a meeting to discuss its calls for sanctions and for the Albanese government “to work with international partners to develop a practical plan for the establishment of a free and independent Palestinian State”. No meeting has yet been arranged.
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.
The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji has sharply criticised the Fiji government’s stance over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, saying it “starkly contrasts” with the United Nations and international community’s condemnation as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace.
In a statement today, the NGO Coalition said that the way the government was responding to the genocide and war crimes in Gaza would set a precedent for how it would deal with crises and conflict in future.
It would be a marker for human rights responses both at home and the rest of the world.
“We are now seeing whether our country will be a force that works to uphold human rights and international law, or one that tramples on them whenever convenient,” the statement said.
“Fiji’s position on the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinians starkly contrasts with the values of justice, freedom, and international law that the Fijian people hold dear.
“The genocide and colonial occupation have been widely recognised by the international community, including the United Nations, as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace and the self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognise the state of Palestine — the first of G7 countries to do so — at the UN general Assembly in September.
142 countries recognise Palestine At least 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, including European Union members Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia.
However, several powerful Western countries have refused to do so, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
At the UN this week, Saudi Arabia and France opened a three-day conference with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.
Last year, Fiji’s coalition government submitted a written statement in support of the Israeli genocidal occupation of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, noted the NGO coalition.
Last month, Fiji’s coalition government again voted against a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
Also recently, the Fiji government approved the allocation of $1.12 million to establish an embassy “in the genocidal terror state of Israel as Fijians grapple with urgent issues, including poverty, violence against women and girls, deteriorating water and health infrastructure, drug use, high rates of HIV, poor educational outcomes, climate change, and unfair wages for workers”.
Met with ‘indifference’ The NGO coalition said that it had made repeated requests to the Fiji government to “do the bare minimum and enforce the basic tenets of international law on Israel”.
“We have been calling upon the Fiji government to uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes,” the statement said.
“We campaigned, we lobbied, we engaged, and we explained. We showed the evidence, pointed to the law, and asked our leaders to do the right thing.
“We’ve been met with nothing but indifference.”
Instead, said the NGO statement, Fiji leaders had met with Israeli government representatives and declared support for a country “committing the most heinous crimes” recognised in international law.
“Fijian leaders and the Fiji government should not be supporting Israel or setting up an embassy in Israel while Israel continues to bomb refugee tents, kill journalists and medics, and block the delivery of humanitarian aid to a population under relentless siege.
“No politician in Fiji can claim ignorance of what is happening.”
“Many more have been maimed, traumatised, and displaced. Starvation is being used by Israel as weapon to kill babies and children.
“Hospitals, churches, mosques,, refugee camps, schools, universities, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed.
“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment.
“Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of always standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.”
Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Programme, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.
Also, Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.
The NGO coalition said it stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.
“Silence is not an option,” it added.
Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network said it supported this NGO coalition statement.
Populism is rife in various African countries. This political ideology responds to and takes advantage of a situation where a large section of people feels exploited, marginalised or disempowered. It sets up “the people” against “the other”. It promises solidarity with the excluded by addressing their grievances. Populism targets broad social groups, operating across ethnicity and class.
But how does populism fare when it informs state interventions to address long-standing societal issues under capitalism? Do populist state measures – especially when launched by a politically powerful leader – deliver improvements for the stated beneficiaries?
As academics who have researched populism for years, we were interested in the implementation and outcomes of such policies and programmes. To answer these questions, we analysed a populist intervention by President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda to address rampant land conflicts. In 2013 he set out to halt land evictions.
What good came of this? Did it help the poor?
We analysed land laws, court cases, government statements and media reports and found that, for the most part, the intervention offered short-term relief. Some people returned to the land, but the underlying land conflict was unresolved.
This created problems that continue to be felt today, including land disputes and land tenure insecurity. The intervention also increased the involvement of the president and his agents personally in providing justice.
It didn’t make pro-poor structural changes to address the root of the problem.
Yet, the intervention had several political benefits:
it enhanced the political legitimacy of the president and state
it offered a politically useful response to a land-related crisis and conflict
it addressed broader criticisms over injustice and poverty by sections of the public and opposition leaders, some of whom (like Robert Kyagulanyi) also relied on populist rhetoric.
The promise to deal with land evictions “once and for all” has yet to be realised over a decade later. During Heroes Day celebrations on 9 June 2024, Museveni’s speech repeated his promise to stop evictions.
Such promises of getting a grip on and ending evictions via decisive state actions, including proposed new legal guidelines, were also made more recently, for example during Heroes Day 2025. This indicates that evictions – and state responses to them – remain a top issue on the political agenda ahead of Uganda’s 2026 election.
Persistent evictions
Evictions were rampant in the 2010s, especially in central Uganda’s Buganda region. They were driven by increased demand for land amid a growing population and legal reforms that seemed to protect tenants over landlords. Some landlords, desperate to free their land of tenants, were carrying out the evictions themselves.
In response, Museveni set up a land committee within the presidency. He announced at a press conference in early 2013 that:
all evictions are halted. There will be no more evictions, especially in the rural areas. All evictions involving peasants are halted.
The dynamics of populism-in-practice
Museveni’s attempts to personally deal with evictions illustrate a continued power shift in Uganda, from institutions to the president’s executive units.
Despite its shortcomings, such as case backlogs, the judicial system offers an opportunity to present cases in a more neutral environment. It also allows parties to appeal decisions. This way, higher courts can correct errors where necessary.
The presidential land committee, we found, tended to be biased in favour of tenants, paying less attention to the landlords’ cases.
The president’s intervention wasn’t adequate to address the immediate causes and effects of the evictions, nor the root causes.
Those included land tenure insecurities. Due to legal reforms, land-rich landlords were unable to get rent at market value from tenants. Neither could they evict them lawfully where rent was in arrears.
In some cases, legal options such as land sales between landlords and tenants were applied. This was often to the detriment of tenants, especially where there was no neutral actor to oversee negotiations.
Land reforms need to be institutionalised and funded to deliver the intended outcomes. Otherwise, unlawful sales and evictions become a quick option for landlords.
Museveni’s populist initiative also unleashed new problems for beneficiaries. Some secured land occupancy in the interim but lived in fear of a relapse of conflict. Mistrust and scarred interpersonal relationships hampered cohesion in some communities. Disputes over land put political actors who would ideally be working together to restore calm at loggerheads.
Populism as power
The creation of populist presidential units has become routine in Uganda. More recently, Museveni created a unit to protect investors, which has resolved some investment-related land disputes. Another one was established to fight corruption. Both units remain very active.
Our research finds that the government needs these units and interventions for a number of reasons. It uses them to govern the country’s conflict-ridden economy and society. They allow the government to assemble a politically useful response to crises and to address some on-the-ground problems. They make the state look concerned and responsive to people’s needs. And they allow ruling party political actors to increase their popularity locally.
Museveni and his ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, therefore, benefit from a key aspect of populism. It allows the merging of disparate, competing and contradictory views, interests and demands of members of various societal classes and groups into a significantly simplified and uniform narrative that (potentially) speaks to all. This could mean: end corruption, end evictions, wealth for all, and so on.
A general election is due in early 2026. The steps Museveni has taken on evictions, and the units set up to fight corruption or protect investors, need to be seen with this political context in mind.
Museveni has put protecting people from evictions high on his government’s agenda. Speaking to party members in August 2024, he emphasised
the importance of adhering to the mass line, which prioritises the needs and rights of the masses over those of the elite.
In our view, this pre-election narrative signifies the continued political and social relevance of populism in today’s Uganda. This could result in heightened populist state activity in the run-up to and after the election.
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.
While cinema-goers have responded enthusiastically to many of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the history of the Fantastic Four on the silver screen is less heralded.
Yet in comics history, the Fantastic Four have been up to the challenge of driving a popular media enterprise forward — something that the film producers and Marvel fans alike are both now hoping for.
From their 1961 debut, Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm/the Invisible Girl, Johnny Storm/the Human Torch and Ben Grimm/the Thing were celebrities who rented office space in a Manhattan highrise and found themselves variously beloved and reviled by both the public and the government.
Cover of ‘The Fantastic Four’ No. 1, 1961. (Marvel)
The team also rejected secret identities. Until the third issue of their series, they even eschewed superhero costumes (in part because of a restriction imposed by the owner of Marvel’s then-distributor, DC Comics).
Pushed representational boundaries
The Fantastic Four comics of the 1960s also pushed boundaries in a number of significant ways. They featured the first pair of married superheroes (Reed and Sue wed in 1965) and the first superhero pregnancy (Sue gave birth to her son Franklin in 1968).
And though not canonical until 2002, it has been suggested by scholars that Ben Grimm was always envisioned as a Jewish superhero by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, offering another milestone in representation (at least for those readers attuned to the character’s Jewish coding).
These milestones emphasize a dedicated concern for the human aspects of superheroes.
A family with relatable issues
Set amid fittingly fantastic science-fiction landscapes inspired by Space Age optimism was a story about a family who “fought among themselves, sometimes over petty jealousies and insults,” in the words of Christopher Pizzino, an American scholar of contemporary literature, film and television.
This approach of building character dynamics out of internal conflict proved deeply influential.
In his bestselling book All the Marvels, comics critic and historian Douglas Wolk concurs that the “first hundred issues of Fantastic Four are Marvel’s Bible and manual,” establishing the style, theme, genre and approach of the company’s comics for decades to come.
Marvel’s universe continued to expand following the Fantastic Four debut. (Marvel)
Defining personal conflicts
In contrast to moral paragons such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (all published by rival DC Comics), each member of Marvel’s Fantastic Four had defining personal conflicts.
Reed Richards, the team’s patriarch, was a world-altering genius who often fell victim to his own hubristic ambition.
Storm, according to scholar Ramzi Fawaz, “made the concept of women’s social invisibility an object of visual critique by making invisible bodies and objects conspicuous on the comic book page.”
Her younger brother, Johnny Storm, a playboy and showboat, had a lot of growing up to do, a journey that was frustrated by his flashy powers.
Ben Grimm, Reed’s college roommate turned best friend turned rock monster, oscillated between childlike rage and world-weary depression, his rocky hide granting him super-strength and invulnerability while burdening him with social isolation.
While none of us are likely to acquire superpowers through exposure to cosmic rays like the Four, we’ve all dealt with anxiety and grief like these heroes.
Origin of the Marvel universe
The world of the Fantastic Four didn’t just feel unusually human. It also felt unusually lived in, partly because the Fantastic Four comics of the 1960s weren’t just the origin of the Marvel style of storytelling — they were also the origin of the Marvel universe.
Fantastic Four began and became the model for Marvel’s shared continuity universe, in which dozens of superheroes passed in and out of each other’s stories and occasionally intersected long enough for whole crossover story arcs and events. For a time, Marvel’s superheroes even aged alongside their readers, with teenage characters like Johnny Storm graduating high school and enrolling in college.
Previous superhero comics hadn’t embraced this shared continuity in a meaningful way, tending to prioritize discrete stories that had no effect on future tales. But Fantastic Four pitched what comics scholar Charles Hatfield calls “intertitle continuity,” which quickly became “Marvel’s main selling tool.”
Case in point, the Fantastic Four shared the cover of 1963’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 1, helping sell the newly created wall-crawler to their adoring readers.
Voluminous, chaotic universe
The 1965 wedding of Reed and Sue in Fantastic Four Annual No. 3 showcased how quickly the Marvel comics universe became vibrantly voluminous and charmingly chaotic.
This event featured at least 19 superheroes fighting 28 supervillains and foregrounded the Fantastic Four’s symbolic mother and father as the progenitors of an extended super-family.
It also featured a cameo by the Fantastic Four’s creators, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, previously introduced in 1963’s Fantastic Four No. 10 as the official creators of imaginary adventures starring the “real” Fantastic Four, further blurring the boundary between fiction and reality.
Decades later, this sprawling comics universe would become a sprawling cinematic universe. This informs the pressure facing the latest Fantastic Four adaptation.
Phase 6 of universe
Fantastic Four: First Steps marks the start of what Marvel calls “Phase Six” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began in 2008 with the first Marvel Studios film, Iron Man.
Essentially, Fantastic Four: First Steps is meant to launch a new cluster of shared universe stories, just as Fantastic Four No. 1 did for Marvel Comics in the 1960s.
This cluster will culminate in the release of Avengers: Secret Wars in December 2027. Will Marvel’s first family deliver?
J. Andrew Deman 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.
Rugby union, commonly known as just rugby, is a fast-paced and physical team sport. More girls and women in Canada and around the world are playing it now than ever before.
As of 2021, women’s rugby reached a record 2.7 million players globally, a 25 per cent increase over four years, and by 2023, women’s rugby participation was growing at a rate of 38 per cent year-over-year.
Canada’s senior women’s XVs team is currently ranked second in the world and heading into the 2025 Rugby World Cup, which kicks off on Aug. 22 in England. The national sevens team also captured silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics — further evidence of the game’s growing competitiveness in Canada.
However, many systems, including coaching and medical support, have not kept pace with the demands of elite competition. With visibility increasing ahead of the 2025 World Cup, stronger institutional support is needed to match the sports’ growing professionalism and popularity.
These concerns are especially urgent as the women’s game becomes more physical and professionalized, and players are hit harder and more often. Unlike men’s rugby, women’s teams often operate with fewer medical or coaching support resources, which can lead to inconsistent or absent injury prevention programs.
Without proper supports, the physical risks of the game may outweigh its benefits.
Science is still playing catch-up
While women’s rugby is growing rapidly, the science behind it is has not kept pace. Most of what we know about rugby safety — how to tackle, how much to train or when it’s safe to return to play after injury — largely comes from research on men.
Decisions around coaching and player welfare have been based on male data, leaving female players under-served and potentially at greater risk. While these foundations may well apply to girls and women, the problem is we don’t yet know for sure.
Only four per cent of rugby tackle research has focused on women. Much of the early evidence on girls rugby comes from Canada, underscoring the country’s leadership in this space. Still, most coaches and clinicians rely on a “one-size-fits-all” approach that may not account for menstrual cycles, pregnancy, different injury profiles or later sport entry.
Even safety tools reflect this gap. World Rugby’s Tackle Ready and contact load guidelines were designed around male athletes. While well-intentioned, we know little about how they work for girls and women. Instead of discarding these tools, we need to adapt and evaluate them in female contexts to ensure they support injury prevention and provide equal protection.
Women’s rugby needs better data
Change is underway. More research and tools are being designed specifically for girls and women. A search of PubMed, a database of published biomedical research, reveals a steep rise in studies on women’s rugby over the past decade, especially in injury surveillance, injury prevention, performance, physiology and sociocultural contexts.
Much of this new research is led by our team at the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, a pan-Canadian, multidisciplinary group focused on moving upstream to prevent concussions in adolescent girls’ rugby.
The women’s game is also driving its own innovations. Resources like World Rugby’s Contact Confident help girls and women safely build tackle skills, particularly those new to contact sport.
The scope of research is also expanding to pelvic health, breast protection and more tailored injury prevention. Global collaboration is making this work more inclusive, spanning different countries, skill levels and age groups, not just elite competitions.
But this is just the start.
A golden opportunity lies ahead
Girls’ and women’s rugby is experiencing unprecedented growth. Rising participation, media attention and new sponsorships are fuelling momentum. It’s a golden opportunity to build strong, sustainable foundations.
Gold-standard support requires focused, ongoing research and a commitment to sharing that evidence with players, coaches, health-care providers and policymakers. It’s time to build systems for women’s rugby based on women’s data, not borrowed assumptions from the men’s game.
But challenges remain. Some national teams still have to raise funds to attend World Cups. Others train without consistent access to medical or performance staff — clear signs that the women’s game is still catching up.
To sustain and accelerate the growth of girls’ and women’s rugby, the sport deserves more resources and research tailored specifically to participants. A “one-size-fits-all” model no longer works. By investing in systems that are safer, focused on prevention, more inclusive and grounded in evidence, we can build a thriving future for women’s rugby that lasts for generations to come.
Isla Shill has received funding from World Rugby.
Stephen West has previously received funding from World Rugby
Kathryn Dane 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.
Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Have you noticed how, in New Zealand news items and weather reports, Nelson and Marlborough are called the “top” of the South Island rather than the ‘north’ of that island. We also get phrases such as the “lower North Island” and the “upper North Island”. And New Zealand’s narrators regularly refer to New Zealand as being at the “bottom of the world”.
These phrases reference the (conventionally portrayed) map of the world, not the world itself. Rotate the map 180°. Nelson-Marlborough will still be the north of the South Island. But they will now be at the bottom of the top island! (And noting that the Roof of the World is the Tibetan Himalayas, not the North Pole. The South Island is at a higher latitude than the North Island; eg 44°S rather than 38°S. And Upper Egypt is south of – lower than? – Lower Egypt.)
Another really annoying aspect of a similar problem – in this case, the problem of colloquial jargon – is the propensity of financial journalists to refer to ‘up’ as ‘north’, as in “the stockmarket is heading north”. An even more egregious example I heard on RNZ on 29 May (Reserve Bank cuts OCR 25 basis points) was the Acting Reserve Bank Governor (Christian Hawkesby) referring to the ‘North Star’ as the ‘target’ of arcane monetary policy. Especially problematic was when he said “if you knew your North Star was much further south”. A bit ‘woo woo’ new age, if you get my meaning. Is the Reserve Bank trying to navigate the stormy seas where myth and reality meet, as in the search for Moby Dick? (Irish navigators 4,000 years ago could always return from a trip to Spain by following the North Star. Being in the ‘lower world’, Maui and Kupe faced more complex problems.)
Does the Reserve Bank make policy decisions based on Tarot Cards? Indeed, astrology did guide policy formation for most of human history.
The lesser problem is that ‘bottom’ has a pejorative meaning; a meaning that has been transferred to the word ‘south’ (which means ‘poor’ in the label ‘Global South’). The more substantive problem is the diminishing ability of ‘modern man’ (or at least homo sapiens in the Global North) to think abstractly. A diminishing abstract capacity allows us to conflate the reality of the planet Earth with its representation in the form of a map. And once too many of us see the representation as the same thing as the reality, the ongoing repetition of that framed construct self-reinforces; we give in to the narrative for the sake of mental peace and quiet. The imputed ‘reality’ of the conventional map becomes hard-wired; the map becomes reality, hardware rather than software.
Other examples of incongruent representation follow.
Knowledge Rich
‘Knowledge rich’ is a label that doesn’t match the package; refer Govt’s curriculum changes come under fire RNZ 22 July 2025. The phrase ‘knowledge rich’ appears to be an example of vacuous bureaucratic weasel words, to use a bit of idiomatic anti-jargon; a label useless except for obfuscation purposes. We would expect that the term ‘knowledge rich’ would mean something like ’emphasising the acquisition of knowledge’; ie the more understanding of reality the better.
When asked to define ‘knowledge rich’, the senior bureaucrat interviewee said in that RNZ interview: “really well-structured, clear content, the things that we want young people to know [my emphasis] and the things [skills?] that we want them to know how to do; we want them to learn … in nice sequential and … coherent learning pathway… structured ways … and that teachers need clarity on what needs to be taught and what students should be learning at any particular point on the pathway”. That’s actually reasonably clear for a bureaucrat put on the spot, but it’s not in any way the meaning of ‘knowledge rich’. This definition is about structure and constrained knowledge acquisition; it’s about young people learning what the state wants them to learn, only what the state wants them to learn, and in the ways the state wants them to learn. The label contradicts the reality, possibly with political intent.
It is clear that the Israeli government is exploiting the increased naivete of the western news audience; a state of entrenched naivety that – as noted above – has become hard-wired in too many of our brains, thanks to the ongoing use of language which presents representation as reality.
We should also note that, in Germany in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler was able to gain a groundswell of popular support through his representation of Jews as cunning and Machiavellian disrupters; it does not serve Israel well for their present-day leaders to give any semblance of support to Hitler’s portrayal.
Holocaust
Through a relentless multi-decade campaign, it has become hard-wired into too many western brains that there was little more to World War Two than The Holocaust; ie that WW2 was essentially a battle between ‘Hitler’ and ‘The Jews’, and that it was resolved by white knights in the form of Churchill and Roosevelt and Truman coming to the rescue – albeit too late – by dealing to Hitler and giving (as compensation) Palestine to The Jews. In the process, most other narratives in that war are by now largely forgotten.
World War Two was of course far more complex. Further, the label Holocaust is an inaccurate portrayal of those catastrophic events. One strength of the English language is its capacity to borrow from other languages. The correct label for this greatest of catastrophes should be that from the victims’ own language; their label, the Shoah. The word holocaust, correctly used, has connotations of fire and brimstone (especially raining from the sky); the best-known biblical example being the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ‘documented’ in Genesis. We may note that part of the divine and the diabolical intents of both the biblical holocaust and of the Shoah was to eradicate homosexuals. World War Two has a number of ready-made examples of true holocausts; many perpetrated by the Allies, starting with Operation Gomorrah which incinerated Hamburg in 1943, and ending with the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
The Holocaust obscures the holocausts, and much else. Inadequate representation indeed misrepresents the Shoah as a biblical spectacle, whereas it was really a coldly cynical mix of operations conducted in the then shadows. Was the Shoah a bigger catastrophe than Gomorrah? Probably yes.
Genocide and Terrorism
Earlier in the 2020s, people such as Paula Penfold and Liz Truss tried to represent the Chinese government’s persecution of the East Turkestan (aka Xinjiang) Uyghurs as “genocide”. They were ‘weaponising’ the g-word, part of a wider cross-partisan opportunity to demonise China during the Covid19 pandemic.
In the light of recent events in the Levant, an obvious and unmistakeable genocide which too many people refrain from calling a ‘genocide’, those anti-China representations look rather silly.
It is perfectly possible that people using the same identity label can be both victims of genocide and perpetrators of genocide; most likely at different places in different times. Most petty of all, this ‘is it a genocide?’ has become an elitist word-game. Anyone who thinks that if what is happening in Palestine does not meet some English-language definition of ‘genocide’ is morally bound to come up with an alternative word or phrase – presumably a somethingelse-icide – that more accurately conveys their assessment. Myself, I think that these events may be even more than a genocide; such as philosopher historian AC Grayling’s term culturicide (from Among the Dead Cities) which expresses what – for example, the Morgenthau Plan – looked to impose on post-war Germany (seeking to reduce Germany, with a pre-war population of 80 million to an impoverished ‘pastoral’ nation of 30 million). Cultural erasure is more than genocide.
Genocide is an unfortunate reality, a human propensity which has occurred in the past, is occurring in the present, and will occur periodically (unless finished by the ‘final genocide’, or biocide) in the future. Trying to weasel our way around it through an absence of language is a trait which has hard-wired itself, through denial and distractive fig-leaves, into elite cultures of complicity and impunity.
Another such word is ‘terrorism’. Winston Churchill and his bomber commander Arthur Harris had no doubt about the meaning of that word. So did the victims of their fiery terror, in Hamburg and many other cities. Now the representation of ‘terror’ through this word is restricted to a selected subset of resistance organisations. Winston Churchill understood that meaning of ‘terrorism’, too. His friend – Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne – was assassinated in Cairo by fascist Lehi terrorists. (Re Lehi, see Stern: The Man, the Gang and the State, Al Jazeera 13 Aug 2024.)
Appeasement
This word may be used improperly, as a damaging misrepresentation of a political opponent, or avoided when it is most needed. (Grayling, in Among the Dead Cities, concludes that the Churchill/Harris holocausts on German cities, were in large part an ineffective appeasement of Josef Stalin.)
Here’s a correct recent use of the a-word: “With such uncontrolled power and aggressive posture, it seems Israel is seeking submission [in Syria and the rest of the ‘Middle East’ region]. The Trump administration’s approach of solving crises by appeasing Israel will entrench this doctrine and push the region into further instability.” (Nour Odeh, reporting from Amman in lieu of Al Jazeera ban by Israel, Al Jazeera News, about 8:05am NZ time, 20 July 2025. She ‘hit the nail on the head’.)
Could someone who has been represented as an ‘appeaser’ ever be a justifiable winner of a Nobel Peace Prize? I think the answer is a ‘qualified yes’; just as good fishers sometimes have to appease their quarry before reeling them in. But, I think, neither an appeaser of Netanyahu nor Stalin could qualify for that prize.
In reality, appeasement has to be done sometimes. New Zealand dairy owners have been routinely asked to appease violent robbers. And, in the movies, when someone points a gun at someone and says “hands up”, the victim almost always appeases the gunner, regardless of their moral position.
‘Appeasement’ is a representation that’s both underused and overused; a representation designed to construct a deception. If we cannot distinguish between representation and reality, label and labelled, then we stand to become victims to all kinds of mischievous narratives.
Cost of Living
The Government and the Opposition both frame the alleged “cost of living crisis” as a problem of inflation rather than deflation. Indeed, the linguistic minefield around economic policy is so problematic that a whole separate article is required to examine it.
The key issue for us here is that the ‘cost-of-living’ framing – ie representation – in government circles is that the economy must be in an inflationary phase and therefore a deflationary policy is required. However, when the New Zealand public complain about the ‘cost-of-living’ they are saying that prices are too high compared to their incomes; it’s an ‘affordability crisis’, not an inflationary crisis. And clearly the deflationary retrenchment policies – meaning policies to slow the economy down, to instigate a recession – pursued by the government are a critical part of the problem. The government’s solution is to represent its actual class-war anti-growth policies as ‘pro-growth’ policies. And the Labour Opposition completely falls for the way the government frames New Zealand’s structural recession as a ‘cost-of-living’ crisis.
At present, New Zealand has near-record-high (north!?) ‘terms of trade’, only slightly below the record highs of 2022. New Zealand’s terms of trade are now 50% higher than they were in 2000, and nearly 100% higher than the dramatic lows of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. As when Brian Easton wrote In Stormy Seas: The Post-War New Zealand Economy in 1997, the terms of trade represented the stormy waves, some bigger than others; and the favourable crests of those waves were when New Zealand expected (and generally got) economic good times. The troughs during the Muldoon years – not Robert Muldoon’s fault; he never had the power to shift the tides of a stormy world – were very difficult times for Aotearoa New Zealand. In these terms the twenty-first century has been the ‘best of times’ for New Zealand, and the 2020s the ‘very best of times’. Yet they are also the ‘worst of times’, to reference Charles Dickens. (Many of our most potent truths come from literature.)
New Zealand, like other countries, has experienced economic cycles and economic shocks. Through my lifetime one consistent cycle has been the short ‘trade-cycle’, on average about 32 months. We are near the crest of that cycle now. The last quarterly growth peak, September 2022, led to an annual growth peak of 4% in the year-to June 2023. Based on the usual timing of the trade cycle, June 2025 will be the next quarterly peak. It will not be pretty, if that will be the best GDP data that we get on this government’s watch. Any positivity when the next GDP figures are released in September, in colloquial jargon, may be characterised as a ‘dead-cat bounce’.
The government is undertaking structural retrenchment under the cover of a ‘cost-of-living crisis’ that means very different things to different people. Insinuating that New Zealand has a crisis of inflation – taken as a synonym for ‘overspending’ – when it has a very real crisis of structural recession and growing unemployment, is a particularly cynical misrepresentation of reality.
Conclusion
We too easily fall for these misrepresentations of reality; for representations that, in our minds, become a reality like treacle; sets of overlayed representations which play tricks on our minds. That makes us, and our political Opposition parties, quite unable to form coherent critiques of the too many misrepresented and problematic things that are happening to us.
In New Zealand, although we are allegedly at the ‘bottom of the world’, in the Far Southeast (fortunately not in the incorrectly named ‘Middle East’!). We also pride ourselves as being in the West and in the Global North. What is genuinely true is that Aotearoa New Zealand is geographically very far from most of the rest of humanity. We could use that birds-eye bottom-of-the-world detached perspective to see past the labels, the frames, the self-serving narratives. We don’t have to play ‘silly buggers’ when the rest of the world is so-doing; we can cut through the ‘bullshit’, to use some more colloquial jargon. We can be the North Star of the South.
With escalating geopolitical wars, and plenty of undertested nuclear weapons in the hands of numerous political sociopaths, being at ‘the bottom of the world’ may not be such a great place to be. All of us of a certain age remember British, American, and French nuclear testing in Oceania. Some, a bit older, remember nuclear testing in Japan.
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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.
One-time Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce sought to dominate the first sitting week of the current federal parliament by proposing a divisive plan to reverse Australia’s net zero emissions target.
If Australia is to take meaningful climate action, federal parliament must engage with the facts honestly and without distortion. So let’s take a closer look at whether Joyce and McCormack’s latest claims withstand scrutiny.
Claim 1: Australia’s net zero policy will not address climate change
Joyce describes as “perverse” the notion that Australia’s net zero goal can meaningfully help address global climate change.
Every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions adds to global warming. What’s more, Joyce’s claim ignores the near-universal agreement of nations signed up to the Paris Agreement – including Australia – to pursue efforts (including domestic measures) to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
It’s true that collective national efforts to curb warming have so far been insufficient. But that doesn’t mean they should be abandoned.
A landmark court ruling this week is likely to further strengthen global pressure for nations to ramp up emissions reduction. The advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice observed countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change – including by regulating the fossil fuel industry.
As others have noted, Australia must now reconsider its stance on approving new fossil fuel projects – including those geared to export markets.
the International Court of Justice said countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change. JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images
Claims 3: the net zero goal is a security threat
Joyce claims a net zero policy agenda is “treacherous” for Australia’s security and will “inflame our incapacity” to contend with geopolitical threats.
But evidence suggests the opposite is true. There is a significant link between climate change and certain types of military conflicts.
Research predicts the Australian Defence Force will become involved in more wars as the climate crisis escalates, and respond to more frequent climate-related disasters inside our borders.
Claim 4: net zero is bad for regional Australia
Both Joyce and McCormack say the net zero target and associated renewable energy rollout is devastating regional Australia. The Institute of Public Affairs, a prominent right-wing think tank, this week launched a documentary making similar claims.
Joyce cited division in rural communities over renewable energy. In reality, there is significant support in regional Australia for such technology. A poll last year by Farmers for Climate Action found 70% of regional Australians in renewable energy zones support the development of renewable energy projects on local farmland.
Joyce also pointed to “the removal of agricultural land from production” to support his stance. However, analysis shows very little farmland is required for the clean energy transition.
What’s more, the cost of inaction is high. Climate change is disproportionately affecting cost of living for regional households – for example, due to higher insurance premiums.
Joyce also appears deaf to the myriad regional voices calling for stronger climate action.
The Mackay Conservation Group, for example, is challenging Whitehaven’s Winchester South coal mine in Queensland’s Land Court. Similarly, an environment group based in the NSW Hunter Valley this week successfully appealed the expansion of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine.
Only facts can stop a new wave of climate wars
Clearly, the efforts of Joyce and McCormack to undermine Australia’s net zero goal are not backed by evidence.
The Coalition must heed the facts – not backbench pressure – as it weighs its climate and energy policy. Only then can Australia avoid reigniting the divisive climate wars that stalled progress and positioned Australia as a global laggard.
Likewise, the Albanese government must not be distracted from the climate action task. Australia’s next round of climate targets should be based on the best available science, and make a meaningful, credible contribution to the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Ella Vines 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.
No New Zealanders were on board the Handala in the latest arrest and abductions of Freedom Flotilla crew on humanitarian siege-busting missions to Gaza. However, two Australians were and one talks to The New Arab just before the attack on Saturday.
INTERVIEW:By Sebastian Shehadi
The Handala, a 1968 Norwegian trawler repurposed by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), set sail for Gaza from southern Italy on July 20, carrying around 21 people and a cargo of food, medical kits, baby formula, water desalination units and more.
The ship is named after the iconic Palestinian cartoon figure, Handala, who symbolises Palestinian identity, resilience and the ongoing struggle against displacement and occupation.
Just hours before departure, the crew uncovered deliberate sabotage: a rope tightly bound around the propeller and a sulfuric acid swap mistaken for water, leading to chemical burns in two people.
Despite this alarming start, the mission continued, echoing the defiance of past flotilla efforts such as the interception of the Madleen in June and the Israeli drone strike on the Conscience in May.
However, contact with the vessel was reported lost on July 24, with coalition officials warning that communications have been jammed and drones have been seen near the ship, raising concerns about interception or further hostile action.
The mission resumed following the brief two-hour communications blackout. “Connection has now been re-established. ‘Handala’ is continuing its mission and is currently less than 349 nautical miles from Gaza,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) announced on Telegram on July 25.
Then on Saturday, the Israeli military attacked the ship and violently detained and “abducted” the entire crew and issued a statement saying they were “safe” and on their way to Israel.
‘Handala’ was illegally boarded by Israel military in international waters, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.
Before interception the 21 crew made this statement: if attacked they will join the global hunger strike for Gaza.
— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) July 27, 2025
The New Arab spoke to one of Handala’s crew, Lebanese-Australian filmmaker, human rights activist and journalist Tan Safi, before the arrest to find out more about the mission and why she chose to be on board this mission:
The New Arab: How’s the mood on the ship at the moment? Tan Safi: The morale of everyone at the moment is high, as everyone is happy to be here. Of course, different emotions come up, and we talk them out, but as a collective, we’re all looking out for one another. Everyone is very caring and kind.
We are a group of 21 people from 10 different countries. We have a very proud grandmother, as well as MPs, nurses, a human rights lawyer, a comedian, an actor, human rights activists and more. We’re from many different walks of life, and we pose absolutely no threat to anyone.
We’re simply trying to challenge something illegal. Like previous Freedom Flotilla actions, we will be sailing through international waters into Palestinian territorial waters.
Australian Handala crew member Tan Safi . . . “Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.” Image: FFC
How are you preparing for the very real threat of Israeli violence? Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.
So we know very well that Israel poses a real threat.
More importantly, we’ve seen what they’re capable of over the last two years. The most horrific things imaginable. Israeli soldiers are committing endless crimes against Gazan children, and then going into the homes of the Palestinians they’ve murdered and taking selfies in women’s lingerie. We know what they’re capable of.
Any interception of our vessel would violate international maritime law. The ICJ [International Court of Justice] itself ordered Israel not to interfere with any delivery of international aid. Of course, we know that Israel gets to exist in this world by hopping over international law, without any accountability, without any real sanctions.
In terms of processing, what might happen to me? I’ve had to do it time and time again whenever I’ve joined FFC missions over the last two years. I’ve had to say goodbye to my friends and family, but also try to keep them reassured.
Sometimes I feel like I’m lying, to be honest. I tell them that “everything will be okay”. But it’s psychologically impossible to explain.
Are you worried that Handala is less protected than the last ship, Madleen, which had the global media attention (and protection) of having Greta Thunberg on board?
A Gaza Freedom Flotilla Instagram poster. Image: Instagram/@loremresists
No matter how many Instagram followers you have, your life is just as important as the next person’s. We have people on this boat who have Instagram. We have people who do.
The lives of all these people are as valuable as everyone else’s. I would just try to focus on the fact that we’re all human beings, just as every Palestinian in Gaza is. I’m more worried that Israel’s violence will expand until it’s too late, and people wish that they had done more. The time is now.
What is your message to global or Australian leaders? I’m Lebanese, but I grew up in so-called Australia, a country that has such a dark history. What our politicians forget is that so-called Australia was not theirs to begin with. Australia was, and will always be, Aboriginal land. They can try to hide their dark truths, just like Israel used to as well. But the truth will become exposed in time.
To this day, Aboriginal people are abused and discriminated against by the state. My message to Australia’s leadership is: how can you watch tens of thousands of men, women and children being slaughtered and still be enabling Israel’s siege and genocide?
The Australian embassy in Israel sent me a message urging me to “please reconsider your decision to join a humanitarian aid trip to Gaza”. If they’re so concerned about the two Australians on this boat, I would urge them to be more concerned with the millions of Palestinians who are suffering daily.
The Palestinian cartoon character Handala . . . reimagined with deliberate starvation by the Israeli military forces. Image: X/@RimaHas
Can you tell us more about daily life and organisation on the ship? We all put our hands up to volunteer for various tasks throughout the day. Some of us are more skilled in certain areas than others. For example, we have someone here from France who is a nurse, and they’re helping anyone who is feeling sick.
We have the proud grandmother, Vigdis from Norway, who loves to cook. And then someone will put their hand up to do the dishes. No one is too good to clean the toilets.
We’re all helping out to keep this ship organised. We also do shifts, helping out with the crew when needed. No one is sitting around. And if someone is, it’s because it’s really hot or the seas are rough.
What do you hope Handala will achieve, beyond potentially breaking the siege? I hope this action will encourage all forms of solidarity and, more importantly, inspire direct action. I know that protests and non-direct actions serve a purpose, but we have talked and talked and talked at length. I don’t know how people are finding the strength.
Sometimes when I’m asked to talk at events, I just don’t know what to say, because if you need me to explain this, maybe you will never understand.
But what we clearly need to do is disrupt the financial flow that enables and fuels this genocide. The BDS movement is huge. People used to look down on it and question its efficacy. But now we’re able to quantify that it’s actually affecting real, big business.
I’ve always been advocating for that and asking people to be aware of the companies they consume from, such as Unilever, Nestle and Coke. This is having a real impact on these companies that are profiteering from unethical practices to begin with, that extends far beyond the genocide in Gaza.
Direct action could also involve blockading shipments of weapons from ports and docks, as seen in Greece. It’s amazing to see more countries step up. However, we often see a lot of lip service as well. It takes everyday people to actually stand up and say: “I’m able-bodied. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m gonna listen to my instinct and explore other options”.
If protesting is not working, explore other options. If there is no direct action group, create one. All it takes is one person to begin.
Are there any final or other messages you’d like to convey? The Handala ship is the 37th boat from the FFC to travel to Gaza. There are thousands of people behind each of these journeys who make these voyages happen.
The FFC has existed for as many years as Israel’s siege on Gaza has. The FFC exists only because of Israel’s illegal siege.
We are people from around the world who are united in our shared consciousness and care for Palestine. We pose no threat. I’m looking at a bunch of toys and baby formula. We have as much food as we can carry, but our main goal is to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza because you need to fix a problem at the root of the cause.
Sebastian Shehadi is a freelance journalist and a contributing writer at the New Statesman. This article was first published by The New Arab.Follow Shehadi on X: @seblebanon
We are entering the third phase of generative AI. First came the chatbots, followed by the assistants. Now we are beginning to see agents: systems that aspire to greater autonomy and can work in “teams” or use tools to accomplish complex tasks.
The latest hot product is OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent. This combines two pre-existing products (Operator and Deep Research) into a single more powerful system which, according to the developer, “thinks and acts”.
These new systems represent a step up from earlier AI tools. Knowing how they work and what they can do – as well as their drawbacks and risks – is rapidly becoming essential.
From chatbots to agents
ChatGPT launched the chatbot era in November 2022, but despite its huge popularity the conversational interface limited what could be done with the technology.
Enter the AI assistant, or copilot. These are systems built on top of the same large language models that power generative AI chatbots, only now designed to carry out tasks with human instruction and supervision.
Agents are another step up. They are intended to pursue goals (rather than just complete tasks) with varying degrees of autonomy, supported by more advanced capabilities such as reasoning and memory.
Agents are also “tool users” as they can also call on software tools for specialised tasks – things such as web browsers, spreadsheets, payment systems and more.
A year of rapid development
Agentic AI has felt imminent since late last year. A big moment came last October, when Anthropic gave its Claude chatbot the ability to interact with a computer in much the same way a human does. This system could search multiple data sources, find relevant information and submit online forms.
Other AI developers were quick to follow. OpenAI released a web browsing agent named Operator, Microsoft announced Copilot agents, and we saw the launch of Google’s Vertex AI and Meta’s Llama agents.
Earlier this year, the Chinese startup Monica demonstrated its Manus AI agent buying real estate and converting lecture recordings into summary notes. Another Chinese startup, Genspark, released a search engine agent that returns a single-page overview (similar to what Google does now) with embedded links to online tasks such as finding the best shopping deals. Another startup, Cluely, offers a somewhat unhinged “cheat at anything” agent that has gained attention but is yet to deliver meaningful results.
Not all agents are made for general-purpose activity. Some are specialised for particular areas.
Coding and software engineering are at the vanguard here, with Microsoft’s Copilot coding agent and OpenAI’s Codex among the frontrunners. These agents can independently write, evaluate and commit code, while also assessing human-written code for errors and performance lags.
Search, summarisation and more
One core strength of generative AI models is search and summarisation. Agents can use this to carry out research tasks that might take a human expert days to complete.
OpenAI’s Deep Research tackles complex tasks using multi-step online research. Google’s AI “co-scientist” is a more sophisticated multi-agent system that aims to help scientists generate new ideas and research proposals.
Agents can do more – and get more wrong
Despite the hype, AI agents come loaded with caveats. Both Anthropic and OpenAI, for example, prescribe active human supervision to minimise errors and risks.
OpenAI also says its ChatGPT agent is “high risk” due to potential for assisting in the creation of biological and chemical weapons. However, the company has not published the data behind this claim so it is difficult to judge.
But the kind of risks agents may pose in real-world situations are shown by Anthropic’s Project Vend. Vend assigned an AI agent to run a staff vending machine as a small business – and the project disintegrated into hilarious yet shocking hallucinations and a fridge full of tungsten cubes instead of food.
In another cautionary tale, a coding agent deleted a developer’s entire database, later saying it had “panicked”.
Agents in the office
Nevertheless, agents are already finding practical applications.
In 2024, Telstra heavily deployed Microsoft copilot subscriptions. The company says AI-generated meeting summaries and content drafts save staff an average of 1–2 hours per week.
Many large enterprises are pursuing similar strategies. Smaller companies too are experimenting with agents, such as Canberra-based construction firm Geocon’s use of an interactive AI agent to manage defects in its apartment developments.
Human and other costs
At present, the main risk from agents is technological displacement. As agents improve, they may replace human workers across many sectors and types of work. At the same time, agent use may also accelerate the decline of entry-level white-collar jobs.
People who use AI agents are also at risk. They may rely too much on the AI, offloading important cognitive tasks. And without proper supervision and guardrails, hallucinations, cyberattacks and compounding errors can very quickly derail an agent from its task and goals into causing harm, loss and injury.
The true costs are also unclear. All generative AI systems use a lot of energy, which will in turn affect the price of using agents – especially for more complex tasks.
Learn about agents – and build your own
Despite these ongoing concerns, we can expect AI agents will become more capable and more present in our workplaces and daily lives. It’s not a bad idea to start using (and perhaps building) agents yourself, and understanding their strengths, risks and limitations.
For the average user, agents are most accessible through Microsoft copilot studio. This comes with inbuilt safeguards, governance and an agent store for common tasks.
For the more ambitious, you can build your own AI agent with just five lines of code using the Langchain framework.
Daswin de Silva 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.
Last month, actor Brad Pitt stepped onto the Formula One circuit as the leading man of the high-octane film F1, backed by Apple Studios, Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Pitt’s own Plan B Entertainment.
Pitt was never charged over these allegations, but he was under considerable public scrutiny when they first came to light.
The tone has since shifted. Now, many media outlets are focused on Pitt’s clothing, describing him as looking “effortlessly iconic” and someone who is “just trying to have fun with his style” – a seemingly polished return to the limelight.
Pitt is far from an exception. He is part of a well-established pattern of powerful men in Hollywood who rebound from scandal quickly, and with seemingly little repercussion.
Pitt’s career trajectory, bolstered by critical acclaim and PR campaigns, reveals how easily the public memory can be rewritten.
How the media protects accused men
One 2019 study that looked at coverage of rape allegations against Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo highlighted how the media helps construct narratives that favour the accused. The allegations came from American woman Kathryn Mayorga, who accused Ronaldo of raping her in 2009.
The study found Portuguese media and political leaders largely defended Ronaldo, hailing him as a “national hero”. They focused on his career and presumption of innocence, while minimising and discrediting Mayorga’s account.
When Mayorga reopened the case in 2018, alleging coercion into an earlier settlement, the coverage stereotyped her as a “gold digger”, diverting attention away from the issue of sexual violence. Reports also emphasised “collateral damages”, such as Ronaldo’s club avoiding matches in the United States.
These findings underscore how the “celebrity halo” can compromise serious coverage of allegations.
According to Karen Boyle, gender studies professor and author of the 2018 book #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism, mainstream media and celebrity culture systemically protect powerful men accused of violence against women.
Celebrity culture is fundamentally patriarchal, Boyle argues, and will centre men even when they’re found to be perpetrators. She writes:
Even when these men fall, they fall spectacularly, with all eyes on them […] Their stories dominate.
Instead of drawing attention to female survivors, media narratives orbit around the accused celebrity – including their downfall, legacy and potential redemption.
The machinery of ‘redemption’
The post-#MeToo era promised a reckoning. Survivors were to be heard, and powerful men held accountable. Yet the cultural reset hasn’t been what many supporters of the movement hoped for.
Boyle argues we must understand #MeToo in relation to an ongoing history of popular misogyny which normalises men’s abuse of women.
The #MeToo movement has faced mounting backlash since it went viral in 2017. Articles in Vox and Dame Magazine highlight how public sympathy is increasingly shifting towards accused men, recasting them as victims of “cancel culture” while sidelining survivors.
Online platforms such as Instagram, Reddit and Youtbe have also created space for public commentators to blame victim-survivors and make excuses for famous male perpetrators.
And it’s not just about attraction-leniency theory, wherein physically attractive people are judged more favourably. It’s also about race.
One 2015 study found media coverage of intimate partner violence by celebrity men was more likely to be portrayed as “criminal” when the man was black.
“Reports are more likely to include excuses for men’s violence against women when the coverage is of a white celebrity than when the celebrity is black,” said the author Joanna Pepin.
White men in Hollywood accumulate prestige, status and connections that operate like currency, buffering them from consequences that would derail the careers of others.
Ideology, power and coercive control
As a scholar who had been analysing coercive control for more than ten years, I argue power operates not just through institutions, but through discourse: through who gets to speak, who is believed, what is remembered, and what is erased.
Belief is often unconscious. The public may know violence occurred, but still act as though it didn’t. People choose to forget, to preserve the comforting fiction their favourite heartthrob is a good man.
My research argues coercive control isn’t limited to perpetrators of domestic violence, but is a widespread tactic employed by high-profile men to assert power and dominance.
It operates like a modern panopticon. Powerful men can use gendered power and social status to not only trap and discipline victims within an invisible prison, but can extend this control to entire communities.
Importantly, this control can be subtle. It is often hidden behind performative niceness – hard to see and harder to prosecute.
Shifting the lens
Gender studies scholar Judith Butler argues Trump-era politics have actively distorted public conversations about gender, power and accountability. They explain in one interview:
What we’re seeing with the Trump administration is a normalisation of hatred, of xenophobia, masculinity and misogyny that emboldens far-right groups and legitimises violence against vulnerable populations.
Moving forward, we need to collectively recognise how media narratives can contribute to our collective amnesia of violence against women.
We also need to prioritise teaching younger generations about masculine culture and the dangers of gendered violence. And when survivors speak, the focus shouldn’t be on whether they seem “credible” or “emotional enough”, but on the structures that may embolden the men they are accusing.
Jamilla Rosdahl 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.
Is there anything you can do to protect your superannuation from dodgy providers or questionable financial advice? And if someone rings you out of the blue and tempts you with a better return on your savings – what should you do?
People have described being cold-called or seeing ads on social media, suggesting they could earn more by leaving their current super fund. Several financial advisers linked to these funds have now been banned for giving “inappropriate advice” to clients, containing “false and misleading statements”.
As a former financial adviser and now researcher, here are the questions I wish more people asked to screen out scammers and dodgy financial advisers faster – and places to seek help if you need it.
What do I do if someone calls with an unexpected sales pitch?
The first thing you need to know is that in Australia we have anti-hawking legislation. This prohibits people making cold calls or unsolicited face-to-face approaches for financial products, such as superannuation.
I didn’t request this cold call. Did you know you’re breaking the law and I can report you?
They will probably put the phone down! They know they’re not doing the right thing. If they keep talking, hang up.
Block their number. Tell a family member if you need help. If you’ve shared personal information, call your super fund or bank.
I’m thinking of switching super funds. What should I ask first?
Whether you’re talking to a super fund or a financial adviser, my first three questions would be about their fees, what’s known as “the 4Ps” – philosophy, people, process and performance – and risk profile.
What are the fees?
Don’t just look at a super fund’s returns: look closely at their fees.
Your super fund statement will disclose how much administration, insurance premiums, transactions, buy/sell spread and investment fees and costs are being deducted.
High fees charged by a trustee eat up your super balance over time. If a fund earns 7% annually and charges fees of 0.63% annually, then your actual return is only 6.37%.
Is the fund a good match on “the 4 Ps”?
Go to the provider’s website to understand whether the fund’s philosophy reflect your core beliefs about investing and risk.
Learn about the reputations of the people behind the fund who lead and invest your money.
Find out what process they use to select and manage investments. Finally, consider how well and consistently the fund has performed over the past five to ten years.
What’s the risk profile?
Super funds classify investment options into risk profiles (such as conservative, balanced or growth) to provide you with investments to match your risk tolerance and age.
Want to check if your retirement savings are in an underperforming fund? For the past few years, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has called out MySuper funds that aren’t performing to standard.
register of disciplinary action for Financial Advice Association members who’ve been investigated by the conduct review committee.
If you’re comfortable using OpenAI, such as ChatGPT or CoPilot, you can try searching with the following prompts.
“Can you find any complaints or disciplinary actions against (name of adviser/fund)?”
“What is the public reputation of (adviser/fund) in financial forums or news?”
“Has (adviser/fund) been mentioned in any ASIC enforceable actions, bans or media reports?”
More action promised, but not yet delivered
There are echoes in what’s allegedly happened with First Guardian and Shield of Storm Financial’s collapse in 2009, which also hit thousands of people.
There are bad apples in every industry. Whether it’s in finance or medicine, it’s often colleagues who know who the dodgy operators are. Then it’s a question of whether anyone does anything about it.
In the case of First Guardian and Shield, other financial advisers helped raise the alarm – unfortunately several years before the corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, acted.
The commission says they’re now working with the federal government on more “reform options”. But that won’t help the thousands of people currently without access to their retirement savings, uncertain how much of those funds they’ll recover.
Disclaimer: this is general information only and not to be taken as financial advice.
Angelique Nadia Sweetman McInnes received funding from the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand and Central Queensland University. She is presently on a panel in her academic capacity assisting the Financial Advice Association of Australia (FAAA) review and update their Professional Standards. She is also a council member of the FAAA Financial Planning Education Council. Angelique was an authorised representative (practicing financial adviser) from 2009 to 2012.
In the wake of last week’s Tasmanian election that delivered another hung parliament, the new government will need to shore up crossbench support. One of the issues to be negotiated will be support for the new stadium due to be constructed next to Hobart’s historic docks. It won’t be an easy task given the bulk of likely crossbenchers are strongly opposed.
Whatever the political wrangling, it’s important this takes place in the light of the actual economics of the proposed stadium.
Building the 23,000 seat stadium is a condition of the state’s licence for an AFL team.
What the studies show
Fortunately, there have been several studies of the proposed waterfront stadium that attempt to evaluate its net social and economic benefits to the Tasmanian community. While estimates vary between the studies, they all indicate the benefits from the stadium are likely to be substantially below its cost.
The state government has downplayed the negative net-benefit estimates from these studies, citing positive impacts on the economy and employment. But the independent cost-benefit analysis undertaken by KPMG in 2024 already includes an assessment of the positive benefits for businesses and workers.
The whole point of a social cost-benefit analysis is to evaluate the entire effects on the welfare of the population of its reference region (Tasmania).
But does the cost-benefit analysis tell the whole story? In its consolidated report released last month, KPMG refers to unquantifiable intangible benefits not captured by its analysis.
Some of the benefits are ‘intangible’
On purely tangible economic criteria, as KPMG recognises, stadiums rarely have benefits that exceed costs. The justification for building stadiums is that the net economic cost is spent to acquire intangible benefits, such as national pride and social cohesion.
But on my reading, KPMG has already included estimates for the main intangible benefits. Indeed, there is research suggesting one of the intangible benefits that KPMG includes – health benefits – is tenuous. It would seem unlikely there are other significant unaccounted intangible benefits from the stadium.
In January, a further cost-benefit report was released. This report, by independent economist Nicholas Gruen, says KPMG overestimates benefits and underestimates costs.
Gruen performs his own cost-benefit analysis and finds the benefits to Tasmanians are likely to be less than half of what it costs them.
There are reasons for paying attention to pessimistic findings. The University of Oxford’s Bent Flyvbjerg and his colleague, Dirk Bester, have recently highlighted the dangers of optimism bias in cost-benefit analyses of public projects. They find unambiguous statistical evidence that projections of costs and benefits are consistently inaccurate and biased towards overoptimism.
If Gruen’s estimates are correct, the new stadium will come at a considerable cost to Tasmanians. There may be winners and losers. But Gruen’s results imply the Hobart stadium may come at a cost to the welfare of the average Tasmanian household of about A$3,300.
Indeed, it may turn out to be more. Recently, there has been a $190 million, or almost 25%, increase in estimated construction costs. That takes the total to $945 million, up from the most recent estimate of $755 million. The original costing was $715 million.
And it’s worse when viewed from a Tasmanian government perspective. That’s because the AFL, as is common with major sporting bodies, has ensured a contract in which all cost overruns are the responsibility of the state government.
My recent literature review shows venues built for mega sporting events under urgent timelines and rigid specifications tend to have particularly large cost overruns.
While the budget for the Hobart stadium contains a significant amount for contingencies, cost overruns can be huge – for Olympic venues 172% on average. While the stadium is unlikely to see overruns of this magnitude, the downside risks imposed by current AFL requirement to build the stadium are considerable.
Can Tasmania draw a lesson from the Beijing National (Bird’s Nest Stadium), built for the 2008 Olympics, where it was decided to save costs by abandoning the planned retractable roof?
Gruen finds that not including the fixed, translucent roof would reduce the net social cost to Tasmanians by about 10%. And it would help lower risk exposure, and may substantially improve the aesthetics.
Hobart winter nights are only about one degree colder than Melbourne, so the necessity for a roof for AFL games is questionable, and it poses problems for test cricket. Against this, not having a roof might make it a less appealing venue for concerts.
Of course, not having a new stadium at all, but still having a Tasmanian AFL team, might represent the best outcome for the state. But standing up to the AFL comes at the risk of Tasmania not entering the AFL.
In the case of mega events, the history of negotiations between sporting organisations and potential host cities, however, is that cities most unwilling to jeopardise their chances of selection, end up with the worst deal. Sports economists refer to this as the “winner’s curse”.
John Madden does not receive income from any organisation that might benefit from this article. John has been a fan of Tasmanian sports teams since the 1950s.
One-time Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce sought to dominate the first sitting week of the current federal parliament by proposing a divisive plan to reverse Australia’s net zero emissions target.
If Australia is to take meaningful climate action, federal parliament must engage with the facts honestly and without distortion. So let’s take a closer look at whether Joyce and McCormack’s latest claims withstand scrutiny.
Claim 1: Australia’s net zero policy will not address climate change
Joyce describes as “perverse” the notion that Australia’s net zero goal can meaningfully help address global climate change.
Every tonne of greenhouse gas emissions adds to global warming. What’s more, Joyce’s claim ignores the near-universal agreement of nations signed up to the Paris Agreement – including Australia – to pursue efforts (including domestic measures) to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
It’s true that collective national efforts to curb warming have so far been insufficient. But that doesn’t mean they should be abandoned.
A landmark court ruling this week is likely to further strengthen global pressure for nations to ramp up emissions reduction. The advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice observed countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change – including by regulating the fossil fuel industry.
As others have noted, Australia must now reconsider its stance on approving new fossil fuel projects – including those geared to export markets.
the International Court of Justice said countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change. JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images
Claims 3: the net zero goal is a security threat
Joyce claims a net zero policy agenda is “treacherous” for Australia’s security and will “inflame our incapacity” to contend with geopolitical threats.
But evidence suggests the opposite is true. There is a significant link between climate change and certain types of military conflicts.
Research predicts the Australian Defence Force will become involved in more wars as the climate crisis escalates, and respond to more frequent climate-related disasters inside our borders.
Claim 4: net zero is bad for regional Australia
Both Joyce and McCormack say the net zero target and associated renewable energy rollout is devastating regional Australia. The Institute of Public Affairs, a prominent right-wing think tank, this week launched a documentary making similar claims.
Joyce cited division in rural communities over renewable energy. In reality, there is significant support in regional Australia for such technology. A poll last year by Farmers for Climate Action found 70% of regional Australians in renewable energy zones support the development of renewable energy projects on local farmland.
Joyce also pointed to “the removal of agricultural land from production” to support his stance. However, analysis shows very little farmland is required for the clean energy transition.
What’s more, the cost of inaction is high. Climate change is disproportionately affecting cost of living for regional households – for example, due to higher insurance premiums.
Joyce also appears deaf to the myriad regional voices calling for stronger climate action.
The Mackay Conservation Group, for example, is challenging Whitehaven’s Winchester South coal mine in Queensland’s Land Court. Similarly, an environment group based in the NSW Hunter Valley this week successfully appealed the expansion of MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine.
Only facts can stop a new wave of climate wars
Clearly, the efforts of Joyce and McCormack to undermine Australia’s net zero goal are not backed by evidence.
The Coalition must heed the facts – not backbench pressure – as it weighs its climate and energy policy. Only then can Australia avoid reigniting the divisive climate wars that stalled progress and positioned Australia as a global laggard.
Likewise, the Albanese government must not be distracted from the climate action task. Australia’s next round of climate targets should be based on the best available science, and make a meaningful, credible contribution to the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
Ella Vines 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 Ken Pang, Senior Principal Research Fellow and Group Leader, Transgender Health Research Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
Gender clinics provide multidisciplinary care that helps trans people to explore and affirm their gender identity.
The number of adolescents referred to gender clinics has increased worldwide in recent years, especially among those who were assigned female at birth.
This has prompted claims that “social contagion” is driving young people – and in particular, teenagers who were assigned female at birth – to identify as trans and seek medical care.
Despite its lack of evidence, the social contagion theory has been used by critics to help fuel an international backlash against adolescent gender care.
In the United States, more than half of all states have enacted laws or policies limiting access to gender care for those under 18 years.
In the United Kingdom, laws now prohibit transgender young people under 18 from starting puberty blockers.
Evidence has now emerged of the adverse consequences of these laws in both the US and UK. This includes sharp declines in mental health and increased suicide attempts among transgender young people.
This decision was made even though a 2024 independent evaluation found that gender care in Queensland is safe and evidence-based and recommended that service capacity be increased.
Trans people seek gender care at different stages of their lives
We used data from publicly funded gender clinics in Melbourne and Amsterdam across a three-year period between 2016 and 2019. The Amsterdam and Melbourne services received 2,044 and 1,903 referrals respectively.
We found remarkably similar results in both countries. The majority of adolescent referrals (around 70%) were for trans boys and non-binary people assigned female at birth. However, among adults, this observation was flipped, with the majority of adult referrals being for individuals assigned male at birth.
Specifically, 55% of referrals of those aged in their 20s were for individuals assigned male at birth. This grew every subsequent decade, reaching around 80% for those in their 50s and beyond.
What do these findings mean?
Previous surveys from Sweden, Belgium and the United States indicate the proportion of people assigned male and female at birth who are transgender is roughly equal.
Assuming these two groups share a similar desire to access gender clinics, you would expect the number of referrals to be around the same over the course of a lifetime.
Our new findings are consistent with this expectation but the likelihood of referral to gender clinics seems to be influenced by both the sex a person was assigned at birth, as well as their age. While those assigned female at birth are more likely seek referral as adolescents, those assigned male “catch up” in later years.
So rather than an over-representation of those assigned female at birth, adolescent referral patterns most likely reflect an under-representation of assigned males.
Why is this happening?
Trans misogyny is a unique type of discrimination trans girls and women face. It combines transphobia, the hatred for and discrimination against trans people, with misogyny, the prejudice and contempt towards women.
The impact of trans misogyny is far-reaching. During adolescence, trans girls experience higher rates of bullying and victimisation than trans boys and cisgender peers.
Faced with such daunting prospects, it seems much harder for trans girls to reveal their gender identity as adolescents at an already uncertain time of their lives.
These new findings suggest we need to do more to support trans adolescents. Rather than being driven by the fear of “social contagion”, we must instead recognise and address the challenges trans adolescents, and specifically trans girls and women, face.
This article was co-authored by Freya Kahn, a paediatrician working on research projects at the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Ken Pang receives research funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and the Medical Research Future Fund. He is a member of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and the editorial board of the journal, Transgender Health.
Anja Ravine has paid membership of the Australian Professional Association for Trans Health.
A recent landmark court decision could have significant ramifications for several million social security recipients.
The ruling means the federal government will need to recalculate more than A$4 billion in debts owed to the Department of Social Services, which administers Centrelink.
Some of the debts – which occurred due to overpayment of benefits – stretch back decades.
Reminiscent of Robodebt, the problem occurred because an unlawful method – income apportionment – was used to calculate the money Centrelink claimed it was owed.
The judgement
From the early 1990s until 2020, more than 5.3 million welfare debts were calculated using income apportionment.
The court was not asked whether the debts were unlawful – a point the department had already conceded – but whether its remedy was legally sound. In a two-judge majority, the court ruled it generally was.
Following the judgement, the department swiftly resumed debt recovery, which had been paused in 2023, pending the legal decision. It said in a statement:
now there is certainty to the legal position, assessments will recommence in line with the court’s decision.
The scale of the problem
The unlawful debts are worth $4.31 billion in total, and affect almost three million Australians. About 91% of these debts – $3.93 billion – has already been repaid to Centrelink.
Another 170,000 debts – totalling $347 million – remain outstanding.
All the debts – either repaid or still owing – must be recalculated using the revised method approved by the court.
According to the government, the median debt is $330 and has been owed for 19 years, on average.
But the judgement does not compel the government to actually recover the money. Some mediareports suggest a waiver is being considered.
For its part, the government says it will “evaluate” the court decision and develop a “suitable response”.
What is income apportionment?
An internal anti-fraud policy meant Centrelink was obliged to calculate a person’s income when it was “earned” rather than “received”.
This led to the use of income apportionment – essentially an educated guess about a person’s fortnightly earnings when their pay cycle didn’t align with their income reporting period.
This process, which typically produced overpayments to recipients, spread income outside an instalment period, which was contrary to the applicable law. It also attributed earnings to a person for days and fortnights they hadn’t worked.
Income apportionment was discontinued in 2020. Three years later, the Commonwealth ombudsman found the method was unlawful.
Where apportionment was personalised by using individual customer payslips, Robodebt used Australian Tax Office records to raise debts en masse.
Significantly, while the ombudsman said the department’s understanding of the law relating to apportionment was “incorrect”, it was also “genuinely held”.
On the other hand, the infamous Robodebt scheme was designed to ramp up debt clawbacks. Claims of misfeasance in public office continue to be litigated.
Other troubling overlaps remain.
Many individuals affected by apportionment debts raised after 2015 will be the same people served with Robodebt notices.
Evidentiary burden
A troubling aspect of the test case was the suggestion by the majority judges – citing HighCourtprecedent –
that the evidentiary burden could shift to the welfare recipient when overpayments are believed to occur through “wrongdoing”.
This could force an individual to disprove their alleged debt if a decision-maker concluded the recipient had accidentally under-reported – as occurred in the test case – and a lack of evidence made it difficult for the government to prove its allegation.
The finding arguably runs counter to the Robodebt Royal Commission’s observation that most welfare recipients lack the power to disprove a debt because their historical records are unavailable.
The dissenting judge in the case rejected the government’s proposed recalculation method, finding it “not proper” for recovery action to be taken without probative evidence.
He said the majority decision meant Centrelink could reassess debts in the future after evidence had been lost, and recipients would be powerless to disprove them.
Expensive fix
The administrative burden of reassessing these unlawful debts is immense.
Late last year, a team of 150 public servants, each costing $117,400 per annum, was assigned to rectify income apportionment.
Their internal sampling revealed 64% of people issued debt bills were overcharged, 29% were undercharged, while 4% are owed a total refund.
While the Federal Court has seemingly given the government a legal victory, the ultimate outcome will be costly – especially if the debts are waived.
The court ruling requires recipients be afforded “procedural fairness”, meaning resource-intensive investigations will need to be undertaken into the millions of cases yet to be reviewed.
The final price tag is yet unknown. In the 2025–26 budget, income apportionment was recorded as a “contingent liability – unquantifiable”.
Almost all of the outstanding debts would have already been resolved if the government had implemented the Robodebt Royal Commission recommendation that welfare overpayments should not be pursued if they are more than six years old.
The court’s decision also fails to address the 159 Australians believed to have been criminally prosecuted over unlawful debts since 2018. These people – and likely many more before that year – may have been convicted on defective evidence.
The response to these issues will be a test for the government.
Has it learned the lessons of previous egregious mistakes, or will it allow the ghost of Robodebt to continue to haunt our welfare system?
Christopher Rudge 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.
Muslims, and the global community, must rally around the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights: to exist, to return home, and to live free from occupation.
ANALYSIS:By Shadee ElMasry
In our world today, one would be hard-pressed to find a reputable, well-known scholar or group of scholars who support Israel. Of course, the keywords here are “well-known” and “reputable”, after a “misguided” delegation of European Imams travelled to Israel to placate the Israeli occupation and sponsor the genocide of the Palestinian people.
It is increasingly common to find these figures, Muslim apologists for Israel, who have breached the Islamic tenet of standing against injustice, laundering their authority to provide cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity against their brothers and sisters in Palestine and across the wider Arab world.
We live in a world of shameless opportunism, where the poisoned fruit of “normalising” relations with the Israeli occupation is weighed against moral conviction and our duty to stand with the afflicted Palestinians.
A few weeks ago, this tradeoff played out across our screens.
The delegation’s visit, which included 15 European Imams, was led by the controversial Hassen Chalghoumi (known for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy’s burqa ban) and involved meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has been accused of inciting genocide.
Clearly, their consciences weren’t troubled by the catastrophic famine now gripping Gaza, a “hell on earth” where women and children are killed for scrambling to get flour, and men are killed without rhyme or reason.
I, like many companions across mosques and online feeds, was dumbfounded by the delegation’s complicity. This visit happened at a time when we as Muslims, and the global community, must rally around the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights: to exist, to return home, and to live free from occupation, especially as they face an existential threat.
Delegation swiftly denounced The delegation was swiftly denounced. Al-Azhar University stressed that they “do not represent Islam and Muslims.” Worshippers walked out of UK mosques. A Dutch Imam was suspended.
But this isn’t just about them. We need to ask how this happened and ensure it does not repeat with us. As one scholar said, if an Imam sees the community fall into usury, then gives his Friday sermon on adultery, the Imam has betrayed his congregation.
The same is the case with Muslim apologists for Israel.
To understand their motives, we must examine three theological “traps” these figures use to justify their support for Israel, or at least the very least, their silence over Palestine. The first of which is the “Greater Good Trap”.
They claim that “speaking up against Israel will result in more harm than good”. But only the Prophet Muhammad’s silence constitutes tacit approval. Their reasoning doesn’t hold up.
A weak-willed person will always accept this reasoning because it allows them to have their proverbial cake and eat it: they gain spiritual cover for remaining silent. As we’ve seen, the scholar will say: “Yes, I can speak, but then our school will get shut down, or we’ll lose funding. For the sake of the greater good, I must remain silent.”
Israel, I’m sure, is delighted by this self-censorship. But we should also ask how it is that so many non-scholars, non-Muslims, and non-Arabs are speaking the truth about the Gaza genocide, while Islamic scholars remain silent.
It raises eyebrows, at the very least.
‘Pure theology’ trap The second trap is the “Pure Theology” trap. Here, the scholar says: “Sound belief is the most important thing. How can we support the Palestinians when they resort to armed conflict? Their theology is flawed. I prioritise the truth, what’s wrong with that?”
But what they overlook is that falsehood has degrees. It is foolish to denounce one error while ignoring a greater one.
To attack a people’s doctrinal shortcomings while staying silent on their oppression is not principled; it is a failure to understand the fiqh of priorities.
This trap lies in misplacing truths: loudly condemning the religious mistakes of Israel’s victims while conveniently forgetting the far graver injustice of Israel itself and the violent context that brought it into being.
The final, and most sophisticated, trap that Muslim apologists for Israel use is metaphysical: they attempt to misdirect Muslims to a higher order of spiritual thought about the Divine will.
They ask what sounds like a noble question: “Why is Allah doing this to us? It must be because of our sins. Israel is merely a tool God is using to punish us or purify us.”
But the catch here is that the spiritual angle often (but not always) becomes a cover for pacifism. These figures that travelled to Israel, for instance, actively promote inaction. They showed no emotion, no voice, when witnessing the oppression of their own; only when it came to their sponsors did they find something to say.
Suffer in silence The idea here is to suffer in silence, to clothe disengagement in the language of spiritual endurance.
In the end, this is precisely what Israel and its supporters want: to keep the spotlight off themselves. Any diversion, theological or otherwise, is welcome. As we know, the oppressor laughs at those who fixate on what is bad while ignoring what is worse. And that is the danger behind all three traps.
Yet despite these efforts, something far more powerful holds. The drive within the hearts and minds of Muslims to carry the burden of the Palestinian people, to speak their truth and fight for their freedom has not been extinguished.
It is sustained by faith, shared memory, and the belief that justice is not a slogan but a sacred duty. We ask Allah for continued guidance and protection, and the strength to continue this noble and just cause. Ameen.
Dr Shadee Elmasry has taught at several universities in the United States. Currently, he serves as scholar in residence at the New Brunswick Islamic Center in New Jersey. He is also the founder and head of Safina Society, an institution dedicated to the cause of traditional Islamic education in the West. This article was first published by The New Arab.
One of the first women to hold an open seat in Bougainville, Theonila Roka Matbob, is confident she can win again.
Bougainville goes to the polls in the first week of September, and Roka Matbob aims to hold on to her Ioro seat in central Bougainville, where she is up against nine men.
The MP, who is also the Minister of Community Government, recently led the campaign that convinced multinational Rio Tinto to clean up the mess caused by the Panguna Mine.
RNZ Pacific asked her if she is enjoying running for a second election campaign.
THEONILA ROKA MATBOB: Very, very much, yes. I guess compared to 2020, it is because it was my first time. I had a lot of butterflies, I would say. But this time has been very different. So I am more relaxed, more focused, and also I am more aware of issues that I can actually concentrate on.
DON WISEMAN: And one of those issues you’ve been concentrating on is the aftermath of the Panguna Mine and the destruction and so on caused both environmentally and socially. And I guess that sort of work is going to continue for you?
TRM: Yes, so the work is continuing. I had three platforms when I was contesting in 2020: leadership, governance, institutional governance and the accountability on the issues, legacy issues of Panguna Mine. I thought that the third one was going to be very challenging, given that it involved international stakeholders.
But I would say that the one that I thought was going to be very challenging was actually the one that got a lot of traction, and it’s already in motion while I’m like back on the trail, defending my seat.
DW: In terms of the work that has been undertaken on an assessment of the environmental damage, the impact that the process had had, and the report that has come out, and the obligations that this now places on Rio Tinto?
TRM: The recommendations that were made by the report was on a lot of like imminent survey areas that is like on infrastructure that were built by the company back then in the operation days that is now tearing down.
And also a lot more than that, there was a call for more intrusive assessment to be done on health and bloodstreams as well for the people, but those other things and also now to into the remediation vehicle, what is it going to look like?
These are clear responsibilities that are at the overarching highest level of engagement through the what we call this process, the CP process. It has put the responsibility on Rio Tinto to now tell us, what does the remediation vehicle look like.
At the moment, Rio Tinto is looking into that to be able to engage expertise in communication with us, to see how the design for the remediation vehicle would look. It is from the report that the build-up is now coming up, and there is more tangible or visible presence on the ground as compared to the time we started.
DW: So that process in terms of the removal of the old buildings that’s actually got underway, has it?
TRM: That process is already underway, the demolition process is underway, and BCL [Bougainville Copper Limited] is the one that’s taking the lead. It has engaged our local expertise, who are actually working abroad, but they have hired them because under the process we have local content policy where we have to do shopping for experts from Bougainville, before we’ll look into experts from overseas.
Apart from that as well, one of the things that I have seen is there is an increased interest from both international and national and local partners as well in understanding the areas where the report, assessment report has pointed out.
There is quite a lot happening, as compared to the past years when, towards the end of our political phase in parliament, usually there is always silence and only campaigns go on. But for now, it has been different.
A lot of people are more engaged, even participating on the policy programmes and projects.
DW: Yes, your government wants to reopen the Panguna Mine and open it fairly soon. You must have misgivings about that?
TRM: I have been getting a lot of questions around that, and I have been telling them my personal stance has never changed.
But I can never come in between the government’s interest. What I have been doing recently as a way of responding and uniting people, both who are believers of reopening and those that do not believe in reopening, like myself.
We have created a platform by registering a business entity that can actually work in between people and the government, so that there is more or less a participatory approach.
The company that we have registered is the one that will be tasked to work more on the politics of economics around Panguna and all the other prospects that we have in other natural resources as well.
I would say that whichever way the government points us, I can now, with conviction, say that I am ready with my office and the workforce that I have right now, I can comfortably say that we can be able to accommodate for both opinions, pro and against.
DW: In your Ioro electorate seat it’s not the biggest lineup of candidates, but the thing about Bougainville politics is they can be fairly volatile. So how confident are you?
TRM: I am confident, despite the long line up that we have about nine people who are against me — nine men, interestingly, were against me. I would say that, given the grasp that I have and also building up from 2020, I can clearly say that I am very confident.
If I am not confident, then it will take the space of giving opportunity for other people and also on campaign strategies as well. I have learnt my way through in diversifying and understanding the different experiences that I have in the constituency as well.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
One of the first women to hold an open seat in Bougainville, Theonila Roka Matbob, is confident she can win again.
Bougainville goes to the polls in the first week of September, and Roka Matbob aims to hold on to her Ioro seat in central Bougainville, where she is up against nine men.
The MP, who is also the Minister of Community Government, recently led the campaign that convinced multinational Rio Tinto to clean up the mess caused by the Panguna Mine.
RNZ Pacific asked her if she is enjoying running for a second election campaign.
THEONILA ROKA MATBOB: Very, very much, yes. I guess compared to 2020, it is because it was my first time. I had a lot of butterflies, I would say. But this time has been very different. So I am more relaxed, more focused, and also I am more aware of issues that I can actually concentrate on.
DON WISEMAN: And one of those issues you’ve been concentrating on is the aftermath of the Panguna Mine and the destruction and so on caused both environmentally and socially. And I guess that sort of work is going to continue for you?
TRM: Yes, so the work is continuing. I had three platforms when I was contesting in 2020: leadership, governance, institutional governance and the accountability on the issues, legacy issues of Panguna Mine. I thought that the third one was going to be very challenging, given that it involved international stakeholders.
But I would say that the one that I thought was going to be very challenging was actually the one that got a lot of traction, and it’s already in motion while I’m like back on the trail, defending my seat.
DW: In terms of the work that has been undertaken on an assessment of the environmental damage, the impact that the process had had, and the report that has come out, and the obligations that this now places on Rio Tinto?
TRM: The recommendations that were made by the report was on a lot of like imminent survey areas that is like on infrastructure that were built by the company back then in the operation days that is now tearing down.
And also a lot more than that, there was a call for more intrusive assessment to be done on health and bloodstreams as well for the people, but those other things and also now to into the remediation vehicle, what is it going to look like?
These are clear responsibilities that are at the overarching highest level of engagement through the what we call this process, the CP process. It has put the responsibility on Rio Tinto to now tell us, what does the remediation vehicle look like.
At the moment, Rio Tinto is looking into that to be able to engage expertise in communication with us, to see how the design for the remediation vehicle would look. It is from the report that the build-up is now coming up, and there is more tangible or visible presence on the ground as compared to the time we started.
DW: So that process in terms of the removal of the old buildings that’s actually got underway, has it?
TRM: That process is already underway, the demolition process is underway, and BCL [Bougainville Copper Limited] is the one that’s taking the lead. It has engaged our local expertise, who are actually working abroad, but they have hired them because under the process we have local content policy where we have to do shopping for experts from Bougainville, before we’ll look into experts from overseas.
Apart from that as well, one of the things that I have seen is there is an increased interest from both international and national and local partners as well in understanding the areas where the report, assessment report has pointed out.
There is quite a lot happening, as compared to the past years when, towards the end of our political phase in parliament, usually there is always silence and only campaigns go on. But for now, it has been different.
A lot of people are more engaged, even participating on the policy programmes and projects.
DW: Yes, your government wants to reopen the Panguna Mine and open it fairly soon. You must have misgivings about that?
TRM: I have been getting a lot of questions around that, and I have been telling them my personal stance has never changed.
But I can never come in between the government’s interest. What I have been doing recently as a way of responding and uniting people, both who are believers of reopening and those that do not believe in reopening, like myself.
We have created a platform by registering a business entity that can actually work in between people and the government, so that there is more or less a participatory approach.
The company that we have registered is the one that will be tasked to work more on the politics of economics around Panguna and all the other prospects that we have in other natural resources as well.
I would say that whichever way the government points us, I can now, with conviction, say that I am ready with my office and the workforce that I have right now, I can comfortably say that we can be able to accommodate for both opinions, pro and against.
DW: In your Ioro electorate seat it’s not the biggest lineup of candidates, but the thing about Bougainville politics is they can be fairly volatile. So how confident are you?
TRM: I am confident, despite the long line up that we have about nine people who are against me — nine men, interestingly, were against me. I would say that, given the grasp that I have and also building up from 2020, I can clearly say that I am very confident.
If I am not confident, then it will take the space of giving opportunity for other people and also on campaign strategies as well. I have learnt my way through in diversifying and understanding the different experiences that I have in the constituency as well.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
