Every year, one of Australia’s biggest longitudinal surveys provides a range of insights on how the nation is changing.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, released today, provides unique insights into the lives of Australians, and collects rich data on income, employment, health and wellbeing.

HILDA has been following the same people every year since 2001, with about 17,000 respondents in the latest survey. This makes it possible to examine how the lives of Australians have changed over time.

Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools.

So, what are the highlights from the 2026 report?

Housing stress is on the rise

Housing stress occurs when a low-income household spends more than 30% of its after-tax income on rent or mortgage payments. This can leave little money for food, transport and other essentials. We define low income as being in the bottom 40% of Australia’s household income distribution, after adjusting for household size. This adjustment recognises that a family needs more income than a person living alone.

Housing costs and incomes differ substantially across Australia, so we separately examine three different regions. Among those living in the five mainland capitals – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth or Adelaide – the share of mortgage holders in housing stress more than doubled between 2021 and 2024, rising from 4.4% to 10%.

Renters living in mainland capital cities had much higher rates – about one in four experienced housing stress in 2024, compared with about one in five in 2001.

The largest long-term increase in housing stress was among renters living in regional areas, which includes small towns of fewer than 1,000 people as well as rural and remote areas. Rates of housing stress for this group rose from about 13% in 2001 to 29% in 2024.

In other urban areas – which includes Hobart, Darwin, Canberra and other areas with populations above 1,000 – housing stress affected about 9% of mortgage holders and 25% of renters in 2024.

Half of young adults are still living at home

Housing costs also matter for young people deciding whether to live with their parents or move out, and HILDA shows a long-term shift.

The proportion of young adults living with parents rose from 39% in 2001 to 47% in 2012. By 2024, half of Australians aged 18–29 were living with their parents.

The largest change was for those aged 18–21, which rose from 69% in 2001 to 85% in 2024. Among those aged 22–25, the proportion rose from 35% to 48%, while among those aged 26–29 it rose from 17% to 22%.

Young men remained more likely to live with their parents than young women in 2024 – 55% versus 45%.

Food insecurity is on the rise

Food insecurity – the inability to put food on the table due to a shortage of money – has been measured by the HILDA Survey in 2020 and 2024.

In 2024, 17.9% of Australians reported at least one indicator of food insecurity, up from 13.7% in 2020. The most commonly experienced form of food insecurity is eating only a few kinds of foods because of a lack of money, followed by inability to eat healthy and nutritious food.

Single-parent families are at the most risk, while people with disability, those in poor health and smokers also face an elevated risk.

Food insecurity appears to often persist for many years, with half of those experiencing food insecurity in 2020 also experiencing it in 2024.

One in ten have been victims of a cybercrime

For the first time, HILDA Survey respondents were asked to report whether they had experienced a form of cyber crime in the past 12 months, such as online harassment, identity fraud or other scams.

About 12.1% of women reported they had experienced at least one form of cyber crime, compared to 11% of men. Online scams and identity crime are the most common.

Life-partner relationships are very strong

This year’s report shows that even when long-term couples face challenges or problems, the most common dimension of an Australian relationship is love.

In 2024, the survey asked respondents not just how satisfied they are with their relationship, but also to rank the relationship’s strength on six more specific measures.

An overwhelming 87.9% of women and 92.3% of men in long-term relationships say they have strong love for their partner.

In other measures however, we see slightly larger differences between men and women, such as 72.4% of women reporting their partner meets their needs compared to 79.4% of men.

Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Co-Director, HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Ferdi Botha, Principal Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; Inga Lass, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne, and Kyle Peyton, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australians are once again mourning after the alleged murders of three women in New South Wales over the weekend. With two of the victims being 70 and 90 years old, questions are being asked about the safety of older people.

Research has long established that older people are less likely to be victims of crime than younger people, with two notable exceptions: fraud, and abuse by people known to them.

But why are older Australians so vulnerable to certain types of crime, have rates changed over time, and what can we do about it?

Which crimes most affect older people?

Australia has been experiencing a declining overall crime rate for decades. But one of the most vulnerable populations is often overlooked: older people.

We might think the majority of crime experienced by elderly people would be financial scams. However, evidence shows they are victimised at similar rates as other age groups, despite losing more money.

Adults 65 and over account for about 26.5% of losses reported to Scamwatch, while only accounting for about 17% of the population.

The largest single source of data on the abuse of older Australians is the National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, run by the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

In the past year, it found 14.8% of people aged 65+ had experienced abuse.

Types of abuse varied. This proportion of people aged 65+ who experienced abuse was made up of those who had experienced psychological abuse (11.7%), neglect (2.9%), financial abuse (2.1%), physical abuse (1.8%) and sexual abuse (1.0%).

For all abuse types, around half the perpetrators were family members, but this increased to 64% for financial abuse. This adds another layer of complexity when it comes to reporting.

There were other compounding factors increasing the likelihood of becoming a victim: where the person was single or separated, renting, or in poor physical or mental health. People on lower incomes were also more likely to be victims of abuse.

Many reported suffering multiple forms of abuse simultaneously.

Has it become worse over time?

While total scam losses have generally lessened over time, the 65+ age group were the only group whose total scam losses rose in 2023, the last year data is available, compared with previous years.

General rates of people experiencing credit card fraud have increased from 5.9% in 2014–15, to 10.4% in 2024–25, but older Australians have been less affected than younger age groups.

It’s hard to know how family violence and abuse has changed over time as no baseline exists. The 2021 National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study was the first of its kind in Australia.

But in Queensland, for example, police recorded significant increases in reported abuse of older people between 2008–09 and 2020–21. Reports were up by 76% for First Nations people and 97.7% for non-Indigenous people.

Applications for protection orders from the court involving an older aggrieved person also increased over the same period.

While this dramatic change is concerning, it is important to consider these findings could suggest an increase in reporting and policing of abuse, not necessarily an increase in occurrence rates.

Under-reporting is likely

Crimes against elder Australians are very likely to be under-reported as many victims stay silent – comprising what criminologists refer to as the “dark figure of crime” – though few studies compare generations directly.

In one prevalence study, only one in three victims of elder abuse sought help from anybody, with only 17% of those reporting the abuse to the police.

Of those who experienced financial abuse, 52% stayed silent, while 39% of emotional abuse victims did not make a report to anyone as they did not want the perpetrator to get into trouble.

Neglect and sexual abuse were only reported 20% and 24% of the time, respectively.

Elderly people disclose feelings of shame and embarrassment in reporting experiences of abuse. Victims of fraud in particular reported feeling foolish and fearing judgement if they reported it.

A further barrier to reporting abuse is the parent-child bond, with victims citing feelings of obligation to adult children or prioritising help for perpetrators of the abuse.

What about family violence?

Domestic and family violence can have very significant impacts on older victims, and can be fatal. This past weekend saw the deaths of a 90-year-old woman, allegedly murdered by her grandson, and a 70-year-old woman allegedly murdered by a man known to her.

While specifics are currently unknown and the allegations have not been tested in court, the cases shine a light on a population that is inherently vulnerable.

Abuse of older Australians by known parties generally falls into two categories: intimate partner violence and family violence. The latest data available suggest rates of intimate partner violence appear to be lower for older women than for younger women.

More common for older people is family violence, with national data showing sons and daughters combined are the most common perpetrators of abuse at 18%, well ahead of partners and spouses at around 10%.

This confirms it’s family, and not partners, that is the largest source of abuse for older people.

Older women face unique barriers to accessing help when being abused. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, among hospitalisations of people aged 65+ in the context of domestic and family violence, the rate for cases involving family members was nine per 100,000, which is much higher than the rate involving an intimate partner (five).

The same data show 21% of older women accessing specialist homelessness services had experienced domestic and family violence, compared to 4.8% of older men.

What needs to happen?

It’s clear we don’t have the whole picture when it comes to abuse of older people. We need to understand the scope of the current problem, beginning with repeating the National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study from 2021 and including in-care residents (which accounts for more than 200,000 people) .

Governments need to invest in making more alternative reporting avenues available – not just police – to make reporting safer and easier. This should include GPs, aged care workers and disability support workers to screen for abuse, as well as banks where fraud victims seek support.

And while domestic violence is not specific to older people, they do have particular risks and need different supports.

Currently the majority of services are built around younger couples as those we consider most at risk, however this means we may miss what older people experience – particularly abuse by adult children.

This means we need more specialised family violence services for older Australians, to support victims as well as provide additional mental health and violence prevention programs for perpetrators.

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

Xanthe Weston, Associate Professor of Domestic and Family Violence, Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, CQUniversity Australia and Elizabeth Boardman, Associate Lecturer, Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s Medicare system manages health and medical data for over 27 million people. So it makes sense there has been widespread shock at the news it was hacked by an OpenAI agent in June.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed the hack while in New York to advocate for tighter international regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) systems at the United Nations.

The government is still working out exactly what happened, with a newly announced taskforce set to investigate further.

Early reports indicate OpenAI’s agent had been tasked with researching public medical data when it broke into Medicare’s systems. It accessed private statistical data, such as billing patterns, rather than personal medical information from an old Australian government website that carried Medicare statistics.

Albanese said the agent found a way around privacy protections – it “didn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer”.

This hack marks a real escalation in the recent history of concerning behaviour by AI systems controlled by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, which have all been found to have hacked multiple websites.

And given Australia’s recent history of cybersecurity lapses, it’s unlikely this will be the last time a prominent Australian system is hacked by an AI agent.

It also raises an important question: will anyone be held responsible?

What are agents?

AI agents are essentially highly advanced, autonomous chatbots. Rather than having a conversation, these agents are empowered to pursue complex tasks with limited guidance. They can browse the web, download data and run code, all without human oversight.

This power – and the lack of human oversight – underpins why we’ve repeatedly seen these agents hacking websites. An agent that is tasked with gathering data on the healthcare system in Australia may see hacking a private system as just another part of following its instructions.

It’s also why it’s so challenging for these companies to clamp down on these behaviours. Empowering the agents with greater capabilities increases their power and usefulness – but it also provides them with tools that can be used to hack websites.

Cause for alarm

Even though personal medical data was apparently not accessed in this hack, it is hard to overstate how serious this incident is. This appears to be the first time an AI agent breach of a government system has been made public.

Moreover, it appears Medicare was completely unaware that a hack had taken place until OpenAI notified the government about it on September 10 – roughly three months after the hack occurred.

The notification from OpenAI, which itself learned of the hack in August during a review of the model’s activity, came via an email sent to a public government mailbox.

And while OpenAI’s disclosure will ultimately help the government fix the security issue that led to this hack, it also speaks to the fact we’re reliant on the goodwill of AI companies to disclose potentially illegal or harmful acts.

Relying on these companies to disclose these types of breaches is fraught with danger. In previous data privacy and cybersecurity incidents, we’ve repeatedly seen how self-reporting by tech companies rarely protects consumers.

The long delay between the hack occurring and OpenAI becoming aware of it raises another question: what else have AI agents been up to that no one knows about yet?

After learning a New South Wales government website was among the four sites accessed by the OpenAI agent, the state’s health department announced a review into its own systems to make sure they weren’t compromised.

Late on Thursday morning, NSW Premier Chris Minns said OpenAI agents may have also accessed information from the state’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Minns said the information wasn’t private or personal – it was “a similar example of what is generalised information but was not released to the public, being accessed by an open AI agent”.

Abstracting responsibility

The way AI companies have disclosed these hacks – and the way we talk about them – highlights a real failure of public discourse and legislation to keep up with AI agents.

Many people think of AI systems as if they are human – which reflects how we feel when we chat with them. However, this way of thinking also allows us to abstract away responsibility from the companies that are responsible for them.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles described the Medicare hack as “unauthorised” but “unintended”, while an OpenAI spokesperson, Drew Pusateri, referred to it as a “misaligned model”.

Framing model behaviours like this obscures the human decisions that led to this outcome. These agents do not exist by themselves – they are software systems that are designed by humans and operated by humans.

However, establishing who is legally responsible for an AI action like this is a real challenge.

In a speech earlier this year, New South Wales Chief Justice Andrew Bell took aim at this question. In his view, the current legal standard in Australia is clear: AI agents cannot be blamed in and of themselves for their actions.

However, legal liability does not necessarily fall on the user, either. Legal scholars in the area have noted that the law requires a crime to have some level of deliberate intention by the person who commits it.

For instance, if a human asks an AI agent to gather health statistics, and the agent hacks a government server to do so, the human could lack the deliberate intent required for a conviction. The AI agent, meanwhile, lacks the legal personhood to be charged, as well as human intentionality.

Current laws effectively treat AI actions as if they are something that just happens to us – like a severe weather event. This shows a glaring loophole in our legal system that does not hold those who make, maintain and use these systems to account when something goes wrong.

AI agents are, in the end, commercial products deployed by billion-dollar corporations. And while “regulatory lag is inevitable” with AI, as Chief Justice Bell argues, he also stresses this is not sustainable in an era of such rapidly advancing technology.

Andrew Cullen, Guest Research Fellow, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

An OpenAI artificial intelligence (AI) agent gained unauthorised access to an Australian government Medicare statistics portal in June, accessing both public and non-public information.

The incident occurred on June 18, but OpenAI didn’t notify Services Australia until September 10. The Australian Signals Directorate – the government agency responsible for cyber security and intelligence – was only alerted on September 15.

The government says there’s currently no evidence individual Medicare records were accessed. The website was separate from systems handling individual Medicare claims, payments or personal information.

According to a report in The New York Times, the OpenAI agent also tried accessing the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website, but no private info was obtained. A relationship between the two events has not been confirmed at this stage.

Investigations are continuing, so we don’t yet know precisely what vulnerability allowed the agent in.

But the incident raises a broader question: how ready are Australian government systems for increasingly capable AI agents? And who is responsible for keeping government systems secure?

Who keeps government systems safe?

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles described the OpenAI incident as “very serious” and “utterly unacceptable”. However, he also noted the information wasn’t sensitive and was not guarded as rigorously:

The analogy I would give here is that it was behind a fence. The AI agent climbed the fence […] When you’re talking about our national security, the most sensitive information that we have, it sits behind a fortress.

There’s no one organisation responsible for securing every Australian government website. Individual Commonwealth entities manage security risks within their systems, while operating under whole-of-government requirements – the protective security policy framework.

The Australian National Audit Office requires government entities to identify and actively manage risks associated with vulnerable technologies, including ones they manage for other entities.

Meanwhile, the Australian Signals Directorate provides detailed technical cyber security guidance. Its manual provides a cyber security framework that government organisations can apply to protect their systems and data.

Services Australia, which administers Medicare, therefore, has the responsibility for managing risks within its systems, while operating within broader government security requirements.

All this is to say Australia isn’t lacking cyber security frameworks. The harder question is whether they’re being implemented effectively across large, complex and sometimes ageing government technology environments.

There is evidence this remains a challenge.

Ongoing privacy risks

A 2025 Australian National Audit Office review found Services Australia relies on “multiple ageing legacy ICT [information and communications technology] systems” to deliver services and payments. The audit said this creates privacy risks.

It also found the agency hadn’t resolved previously flagged issues around managing which users get access to what, and how they’re monitored.

While we don’t know what caused the OpenAI incident, these findings establish that concerns about ageing technology and access controls at Services Australia existed before the OpenAI breach became public.

Opposition defence spokesperson James Paterson has argued the incident demonstrates Australia’s cyber defences are not “fit for an age of AI”.

He particularly questioned why an internet-facing legacy system containing non-public information could remain unpatched, and called for vulnerabilities to be identified and rectified.

However, the broader issue he raises – whether government cyber defences are adapting quickly enough to AI – isn’t new.

Australia’s cyber security guidance for the AI era

On May 27, the government issued a whole-of-government policy advisory about cyber security readiness in the current AI era. It provides Commonwealth entities with advice on preparing for cyber security risks associated with increasingly capable AI.

Then, this month, the Australian Signals Directorate released new guidance specifically addressing agentic AI.

An AI agent is more than a chatbot producing text. It’s what allows a large language model to interact with other systems and perform actions. You can think of the model as the “brain”, and the agent as the “body” – the brain gives signals to the body, which then moves and touches things in the world.

The directorate now recommends giving each AI agent a unique identity so its actions can be distinguished from those of a person or another agent. It’s similar to giving every employee their own login: you can trace which agent performed a particular action.

It also recommends maintaining an AI agent register to record information such as the agent’s owner, purpose, credentials, tools, permissions and data access.

The Medicare incident demonstrates the importance of such an approach. A government website doesn’t have to use AI to encounter an AI-related cyber security problem. External autonomous systems – such as the OpenAI model – can interact with government infrastructure and potentially find weaknesses.

What should happen next?

First, government agencies should identify internet-facing legacy systems and understand what information and functions they expose. Existing government policy already requires agencies to actively manage risks associated with vulnerable technologies.

Second, the principle of least privilege becomes increasingly important. Cyber security experts use this term to describe a simple rule: an AI system should have only the access it needs to perform its task, and nothing more.

Third, detection needs attention. The Medicare incident happened in June but OpenAI reported it almost three months later. Government systems therefore need monitoring capable of detecting unusual automated behaviour rather than relying only on an external company to identify and report it.

Finally, cyber security testing needs to reflect the capabilities that exist now. The Australian Signals Directorate recommends introducing agentic AI through a phased approach, validating security controls and maintaining human oversight.

The Medicare incident doesn’t establish that Australian government systems are broadly insecure. But it highlights a problem the government and the Signals Directorate have already recognised – now it’s about making sure we keep up those defences as AI development continues.

Meena Jha, Associate Professor, College of Information & Communication Technology, School of Engineering and Technology, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The federal government’s Intergenerational Report published this week shows Australia will need significantly more skilled workers if we want to flourish in a rapidly changing world.

The report outlines how over the next four decades we will need:

• more nurses and carers for our ageing population

• more electricians and builders for our energy transition

• more people with the knowledge and skills to enable Australia to benefit from artificial intelligence.

Many of these careers start through Australia’s vocational education and training system, which includes TAFEs, independent providers and community colleges.

But how we will find and fund those workers is less clear.

What the report found

The Intergenerational Report is unambiguous about the need for the vocational education and training system to respond to skilled worker shortages:

responding to these challenges will require education and training systems that better align with labour market demand.

The report forecasts growth in the number of vocationally-educated workers, growing from 28% of the working-age population (25–64 years old) today to 37% in 2066.

Enrolments are falling

But this is unlikely to happen without a change in trajectory. At the moment, Australia’s enrolments in vocational education and training are actually declining.

Between 2016 and 2018, the average number of new students starting a vocational education or training qualification fell from 2 million to closer to 1.6 million. The figure has hovered around this point since. There has also been a declining trend in the last two years of data.

This means hitting the report’s expectation of 37% of the working-age population having a vocational education qualification by 2066 would require an uplift of nearly 40% in the number of people taking these qualifications.

The funding puzzle

But the funding projections in the Intergenerational Report go in a different direction.

Despite the need for more vocationally trained workers, federal vocational education and training payments are one of only two segments (the other being the Family Tax Benefit) which are forecast to decline. These federal payments fund training delivery and employer assistance for apprenticeships, among other purposes.

The report outlines federal vocational education and training payments are projected to decrease 15% by 2066. This suggests there will be a 15% reduction in the number of people taking these courses, or a 15% average funding decrease per student, or a combination of both.

By contrast, higher education payments are forecast to increase 43% over the same period. These payments include student subsidies like Commonwealth Supported Places, as well as research funding, for example through the Australian Research Council.

The report does note the vocational sector is allocated A$12.6 billion from the National Skills Agreement. This provides Commonwealth funding to states and territories to boost the sector. But this is presumably accounted for in the forecast of declining vocational education and training payments.

Will states have to pay more?

The Intergenerational Report is a federal government report, and vocational education and training is largely a state-based policy responsibility.

But without further insights available, we have to assume the average funding per person in vocational education is going to decrease and the number of people going to the sector will go down.

Another outcome might see more responsibility fall onto states and territories to provide a major increase in vocational education and training funding. This will need agreement between the federal government and the states, which could be difficult to come by.

What is needed beyond funding?

Outside of vocational education funding, the Intergenerational Report highlights $85 million set aside to speed up assessment of migrants with skilled trades and occupational licensing, so their skills can be recognised in Australia.

The Intergenerational Report also notes how wider recognition of prior learning and qualifications by educational institutes would help students earn qualifications more quickly and at lower cost to the individual.

But this is mentioned largely as a pathway towards university rather than vocational study.

The risk is that if credit recognition is intended to smooth the pathway towards uni from vocational study, then we are not helping to meet the skills we need.

In the face of persistent skill shortages and growing demand for the skills, Australia needs a more serious plan to turn around enrolments. As a start, this will probably require more money for vocational education and training, not less.

Lizzie Knight, Program Director, Education and Skills, Grattan Institute and Ben Jefferson, Associate, Education and Skills Program, Grattan Institute

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scroll through social media and you will soon encounter advice about living longer, from fasting plans and supplements to elaborate daily routines. Yet reaching an advanced age tells us little about how healthy or independent those later years will be.

Researchers often use the term healthspan for the years spent in good health, free from disability or chronic disease. In 2021, global life expectancy was 71.4 years, while healthy life expectancy was 61.9 years, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That represents a gap of nine and a half years. A separate analysis estimated that this gap widened in 203 of 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2023.

The WHO takes a broader view of healthy ageing, focusing on the abilities that allow people to do what they value, such as undertaking daily tasks, maintaining relationships and contributing to society. This recognises that people can live well while managing a health condition. “Functional healthspan” describes how long someone maintains the capacities needed for independent living.

As we age, declining muscle strength and mass, reduced aerobic fitness and even “inflammaging” (or low-grade inflammation) become more prevalent. These changes vary considerably between people. Diet, physical activity and sleep can influence how well we age, although income, housing, healthcare and the wider environment also play important roles.

Why researchers study calorie restriction

One intensively studied approach to ageing is calorie restriction: reducing energy intake by about 20–40% while still obtaining enough essential nutrients.

Calorie restriction can extend lifespan in organisms ranging from yeast to rodents, although its effects vary with species, genetics, sex, age and diet. Evidence in humans is less certain.

The largest long-term human trial of calorie restriction, the Comprehensive Assessment of Long-term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE), followed 218 healthy adults without obesity for two years. Participants assigned to calorie restriction reduced their intake by 12% on average. They experienced improvements in measures linked with cardiovascular and metabolic health, including blood pressure, insulin sensitivity and blood markers of inflammation. They also lost about 5.4kg of body fat and 2kg of lean mass, while bone mineral density fell slightly at the spine and hip.

Although the trial examined age-related biomarkers, it did not establish whether calorie restriction improves functional healthspan or extends human life. Sustaining even this degree of restriction can be difficult.

Researchers are also studying compounds that affect similar cellular processes that impact ageing without requiring people to eat substantially less. These are known as calorie-restriction mimetics (CRMs), and many are found in our foods.

CRMs may reduce signals associated with cell growth, encourage autophagy, through which cells recycle damaged components, or influence how cells sense energy, function metabolically and support mitochondria to produce energy. Much of this evidence comes from cells and animals, however, and influencing one cellular mechanism does not necessarily improve health or lifespan.

What have human studies found?

One CRM, spermidine, is a compound found in wheat germ, mushrooms, legumes and nuts. In an observational study of 23,894 US adults, higher estimated spermidine intake was associated with a lower risk of death during follow-up, both overall and from cardiovascular disease. However, this does not establish cause and effect. People who eat more spermidine-rich foods may have healthier diets overall, or differ in other ways that could help explain the findings.

A small three-month pilot trial involving 30 older adults initially suggested that spermidine might improve memory. However, a larger 12-month randomised trial involving 100 older adults with subjective cognitive decline found that a spermidine-rich supplement did not improve the trial’s main measure of memory compared with a placebo.

Other compounds proposed as calorie-restriction mimetics because they may produce some of the same cellular effects include resveratrol, found in grapes and berries; catechins, found in green tea and cocoa; and quercetin, found in onions and apples. In a study of 30 adults aged 65–80, resveratrol supplementation combined with exercise improved measures of muscle strength, power and resistance to fatigue. Older adults taking quercetin during six weeks of resistance training produced more force with their knee muscles, but did not improve physical tasks such as rising from a chair.

Although these studies highlight some healthspan benefits, both tested supplements (not wholefoods), and neither assessed whether proposed calorie-restriction mechanisms caused the changes.

Another possible CRM, urolithin A, is produced by our gut bacteria when they break down substances called ellagitannins found in foods including pomegranates and walnuts. In a trial of 66 adults aged 65–90, urolithin A supplementation improved muscle endurance and measures of mitochondrial health, but did not significantly improve the study’s main outcomes: six-minute walking distance and the muscles’ capacity to produce energy.

A separate industry-sponsored trial in middle-aged adults reported urolithin A improved muscle strength, aerobic fitness and walking speed, but not peak muscle power. These results highlight functional benefits, but do not show that eating pomegranates or walnuts will produce the same effects, or that urolithin A can directly extend healthspan.

What should people do now?

Research into these compounds may help scientists understand how cells respond to nutrients and ageing. Current findings do not justify trying to obtain large doses of individual compounds, particularly from supplements.

More reliable evidence concerns overall habits. A 2025 study that followed more than 105,000 adults for up to 30 years found that several healthy dietary patterns were associated with reaching older age free from major chronic disease and with good cognitive, physical and mental health. These diets generally included plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes and unsaturated fats (such as omega-3s). Sufficient high-quality protein is also important for maintaining muscle, particularly in combination with resistance exercise.

Physical activity remains central to preserving function. UK guidance recommends that older adults undertake activities that improve strength, balance and flexibility on at least two days each week, alongside regular aerobic activity.

Foods containing proposed calorie-restriction mimetics can form part of a varied, nourishing diet. Mediterranean diets typically emphasise vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts and olive oil. Traditional Okinawan diets have centred on sweet potatoes and other vegetables, alongside soy foods and small amounts of fish. Both have been associated with healthy ageing, although these associations do not show that individual CRM compounds are responsible for their benefits.

Research in humans has yet to show that these compounds reproduce the effects of calorie restriction or extend healthspan. For now, the strongest evidence for ageing well supports a varied, nutritious diet and purposeful physical activity, while the benefits of CRM nutrients continues to gather scientific interest.

Justin Roberts, Professor of Nutritional Physiology, Anglia Ruskin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We live in Denmark, which consistently ranks as one of the world’s healthiest countries. The modern Danish diet, however, may not be quite so world-leading – with many Danes consuming high levels of sugar, salt and convenience food.

Yet, go back a few generations and science is increasingly showing that many of the staple foods of our grandparents’ generation.

Think homemade rye bread, herring, root vegetables and berries – can significantly reduce your risk of chronic disease and help you live longer.

Often described as the Mediterranean diet of the north, the Nordic diet is a predominantly plant-based diet rooted in traditional Nordic foods.

Health Gap / Sundhedskløften is a collaborative series from The Conversation UK and Denmark’s Videnskab.dk exploring what the two countries can learn from each other when it comes to health and wellbeing.

From cycling and alcohol to inequality, healthcare and everyday habits, the series looks beyond hospitals and medical treatment to explore how culture, politics and society shape the way people live – and how healthy they are.

It emphasises whole grains such as rye and oats; fatty fish, like salmon, herring and mackerel, root vegetables and cabbages, Nordic fruits like apples and pears and berries like bilberries – with modest amounts of dairy and rapeseed oil as the main source of fats.

These foods work together to support health.

Rye, oats and vegetables provide a diversity of dietary fibres, which help to regulate cholesterol, blood sugar and digestion. Salmon, herring, mackerel and rapeseed oil supply heart-healthy unsaturated fats. Fruits and berries contribute antioxidants that may reduce inflammation. And the overall diet is typically low in sugar and saturated fat.

A look at the evidence

Much of the evidence for the Nordic diet comes from something researchers call the Healthy Nordic Food Index, a score that ranks people by how closely their everyday eating matches traditional Nordic staples.

One of the earliest studies using this index tracked 57,053 Danes over 12 years. It found that men who ate the most Nordic-style foods ended up with a 36% lower risk of dying than those who ate the least.

Similar studies have linked this pattern of eating to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke.

But the strongest evidence for the health benefits of a Nordic diet comes from a 12-month study in Sweden, a country with broadly similar eating habits to Denmark.

Participants were asked to swap to porridge and rye bread instead of eating white bread and pasta, rapeseed oil instead of butter and more locally grown produce like apples, berries and cabbage alongside fatty fish like salmon and herring.

In this study, people in the Nordic diet group saw improvements across several risk factors for chronic disease compared to the people who weren’t eating in this way. This included the lowering of high blood sugar and cholesterol, a reduction of liver fat, along with decreased inflammation levels – all of which can raise your chances of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes, or liver disease over time.

A local diet

The Mediterranean diet and the Nordic diet have a great deal in common. In fact, they share more similarities than differences.

Both are big on plant foods, whole grains, fish and healthy fats. Both diets also treat processed food and red meat as occasional extras rather than staples.

And for people living in northern Europe, like the UK, this more Nordic way of eating may actually be an easier diet to follow than the Mediterranean diet, given that many of the ingredients are already grown locally and familiar.

Plus, because it leans on foods grown and caught close to home, rather than shipped in from afar, this way of eating tends to do more to support local food production. Thus potentially making it better for the climate.

How to adopt the Nordic diet

It’s clear then that adopting some healthy Nordic habits could bring clear health benefits.

Some simple changes might include:

• swapping refined grains for whole grains like oats and rye bread and aiming for 90g a day

• eating more fatty fish each week

• using unsaturated oils instead of butter

• adding more legumes, root vegetables and seasonal produce to meals

• cutting back on highly processed foods

It’s also important to add that healthy eating does not depend on specific “superfoods” or exotic ingredients. Instead, this diet demonstrates the value of simple, local and minimally processed foods. Think: more whole foods, more plants, better fats and fewer sweets and snacks.

Ultimately, though, the healthiest diets are not about perfection, but about consistent, balanced choices that can fit into your everyday life.

This series was commissioned as part of a partnership between Videnskab.dk and The Conversation, where articles are published in English and Danish.

Daniel Borch Ibsen, Associate Professor in nutrition and cardiometabolic disease, Aarhus University; Christina C. Dahm, Professor of Epidemiology, Aarhus University, and Michael Fridén, Postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Clinical Medicine and Steno Diabetes Centre, Aarhus University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Many runners describe the first ten to 15 minutes of a run as the hardest of all. Breathing can feel laboured, the legs can feel heavy and a pace that would normally seem manageable may suddenly feel surprisingly difficult.

It might be easy to assume the reason your run feels so difficult at the start is because you’re not fit enough. But in reality, this sensation is actually caused by a normal feature of human physiology – and one that affects almost everyone, from someone attempting their first 5K to elite endurance athletes.

One way I often explain this phenomenon to athletes and students is that when you begin running, an argument starts between your muscles and your cardiorespiratory system. While there’s nothing we can do to stop this quarrel from happening, there are many things we can do to help the body find a resolution more quickly in the future.

The moment you start running, your working muscles demand a rapid supply of energy almost instantly. Yet the system responsible for producing that energy from oxygen cannot respond quite as quickly.

To meet this increased demand, your heart rate rises, breathing becomes deeper and faster and blood flow is redirected towards the working muscles. These adjustments allow more oxygen to be transported from the lungs to the muscles, where it’s used to support aerobic energy production. While these changes occur remarkably quickly in the body when we start exercising, they’re not instantaneous.

This transition is known as oxygen uptake (VO₂) kinetics. This refers to how rapidly the body can increase oxygen consumption when we begin exercising.

The transition unfolds in three phases. During the first phase, the body focuses on increasing blood flow and oxygen, while in the second phase the muscles begin activating aerobic energy production. By the third phase, oxygen delivery and demand become largely matched – and the body reaches what’s known as a physiological “steady state”.

In simple terms, this means your body has moved from being surprised by the demand of running to being fully organised around it.

But before we can reach this steady state, the muscles still need energy. To bridge the gap during this transition, the body temporarily relies on energy stored within the muscle.

This results in those sensations most runners immediately recognise. Breathing may feel disproportionately difficult, the legs can feel heavy or sluggish and perceived effort may seem unusually high compared with the pace you’re doing.

Around ten to 15 minutes into a run, many runners report that something suddenly changes. The pace feels smoother. Breathing becomes more controlled. The run begins to settle into a rhythm. This is the point at which your body has largely resolved its internal argument.

Your body has increased its oxygen delivery, aerobic energy production is contributing more fully and the cardiovascular system is better matched to the workload being performed. Muscle temperature has also risen, which improves muscle function and movement efficiency.

Reducing the effect

Although this response is common, the speed at which the body adjusts varies between people. Studies suggest that trained endurance athletes can increase oxygen uptake around 40-60% more rapidly than amateur athletes.

This is due to their years of endurance training, which has produced a variety of adaptations within their cells, muscles and cardiovascular systems that allow them to settle into exercise more quickly.

So while the transition period cannot be eliminated entirely, there are several ways to make it less noticeable.

A gradual warm-up is perhaps the most effective strategy. Easy jogging, brisk walking or progressive increases in pace can raise muscle temperature, increase blood flow and begin activating the aerobic system before the main run starts. Research shows that warm-up exercises can accelerate the VO₂ kinetic response during subsequent exercise – a phenomenon often referred to as “priming”.

If you don’t have time to warm-up, starting slightly slower than your intended pace can also help. Easing into a run allows the body to adjust, making it a much more comfortable experience.

Regular endurance training appears to help too. This sort of training might involve performing a mixture of easy runs, tempo runs and interval sessions of varying durations and intensities. Together, these different types of training help improve the body’s ability to deliver and use oxygen, allowing it to adapt more quickly when exercise begins.

There’s also a psychological component. Experienced runners understand that the starting minutes of a run may feel uncomfortable and don’t interpret this as a sign they’re having a bad run. Instead, they trust the process and allow their body time to settle into its rhythm.

As both an ex-international runner, exercise physiologist and coach, perhaps the most important message is that the sensations you feel at the start of a run are rarely a sign something is wrong. More often, it’s evidence that the body is doing exactly what it’s designed to do: adjusting to the demands of exercise before settling into a more sustainable rhythm.

Richard Taylor, Lecturer, Strength, Conditioning and Rehabilitation, Coventry University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

School holidays mean more free time and less structure.

School drop-offs and pick-ups disappear, bedtimes may shift, and families may need to organise childcare, travel or visits with extended family to fill out the days. It means everyone in the household is adjusting to changes in how each day looks.

So how can parents and carers create routines that give children some predictability without turning the holidays into another timetable?

Why do routines matter?

At its core, a routine is about predictability.

Routines mean children gradually learn what to expect. They begin to understand the sequence in which things take place, the cues that signal what comes next and what is likely to happen when they follow familiar routines. In other words, the pattern of the routine helps set expectations of what the day will look like.

When children know what is likely to happen, it can make it easier for them to navigate everyday life. Consistent routines, responses, and boundaries also provide them with opportunities to practise skills such as managing emotions, behaviour and attention.

Flexibility is important

This doesn’t mean every minute needs to be planned. Predictability and flexibility can coexist. What matters is children have enough consistency to know what to expect, while families can adapt when circumstances change.

There is also no single “best” family routine. Families have different work arrangements, cultural traditions, caregiving arrangements and children’s needs. A good routine is one that is predictable enough for children and sustainable for the family.

Why are school holidays challenging?

Family members’ routines often change during the school holiday period, which can lead to feelings of unfamiliarity and uncertainty.

First, the structure provided by school disappears. This means children suddenly have a lot more free time. For parents, this can mean taking leave from work, arranging childcare or changing their usual working arrangements.

Second, holiday planning can create disagreements between adults. They might disagree on questions, such as “which grandparents should we visit?” Parents may also disagree about rules, including screen use.

Third, children may respond differently to the same environment. While some children may enjoy the freedom and spontaneity of school holidays, others may find changes to their usual routines unsettling. This means parents and carers should pay attention to how their own children respond and adjust routines accordingly.

So how can families build a holiday routine that works?

Plan and negotiate in advance

If possible, discuss arrangements before the holidays, particularly when extended family or multiple households are involved. Compromise may be necessary, such as alternating which grandparents the family visits each year.

You can also involve older children in planning. Giving them a voice can help them understand the reasons behind decisions and develop their own planning skills.

If children have homework or other school tasks, decide when this will happen during the holiday period, rather than leaving it until the last minute. Think ahead about how you will transition back to the school routine.

Keep some normality

Maintaining a few familiar anchors can help children transition to the school holiday routine without it feeling too rigid. Identify the things that matter most to your family, such as family movie time or weekly visits to the grandparents. Keep these relatively consistent. You might also decide to maintain similar times for meals, wake-ups and sleep, or planned activities, such as going for a daily walk.

At the same time, leave space for spontaneous activities and remember that a holiday routine should work for parents and carers too.

Focus on what you can control

For families with shift-working parents, shared custody or children moving between households, identical routines may not be realistic. Instead, focus on creating predictability during the time children are with you, and communicate with other caregivers where possible.

For example, a parent who works different shifts might make reading a bedtime story a regular part of their time together, even if it sometimes happens in the morning rather than at night.

Ask for help when you need it

Parenting does not have to be managed alone. Evidence-based parenting programs, including online programs, can help parents build confidence and develop strategies for managing everyday family life.

Remember, school holidays don’t need to be completely structured. Children need time to relax, play and be spontaneous.

The goal is not to recreate school at home. It is to create enough predictability that children know what to expect, while keeping enough flexibility for families to enjoy the holidays together.

Tianyi Ma, Research Fellow, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A record 44,039 Australians lodged claims at the Fair Work Commission between July 2025 and April 2026.

Those claims cover everything from unfair dismissal and underpayment disputes to bullying, sexual harassment and, most recently, arguments over the right to disconnect.

In late August, the commission declared it’s facing an “unprecedented growth in its workload” – linking a 70% surge in claims over the past three years to the growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI).

A survey of more than 400 unfair dismissal applicants from earlier this year revealed about 40% had used AI, mainly ChatGPT. It also found “sycophantic or hallucinatory AI outputs may reinforce the applicant’s position, elevating their expectations” of winning their case.

That’s why, from October 20 onwards, the Fair Work Commission will enforce new rules on how to use AI and properly disclose it.

Here’s what you need to know about those rules, and why trusting AI too blindly could end up costing you money and your case.

What are the new rules?

Under new guidelines and updated forms, anyone who uses generative AI to help prepare a document lodged in a commission case will be required to:

• disclose if, and how, generative AI was used
• check all facts and legal evidence in your document are correct – and this checking needs to be done by a human, not another AI tool, and
• ensure any witness statement is based on the witness’s own knowledge and words, and is declared to be true.

Failing to comply with those new rules could see documents given less weight or being disregarded; you could be ordered to pay others’ legal costs; or the case could be dismissed.

The commission also warns people not to enter personal information about others – including confidential case information – into public AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, CoPilot or Gemini. Lawyers and even OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman have also warned about serious legal and privacy risks of doing so.

Professional representatives – such as lawyers, paid agents or human resources advisers employed by a party in a Fair Work Commission case – will be held to a higher standard.

In their documents, they’ll be required to include hyperlinks to all cited cases. Legal practitioners who fall short may be referred to their professional regulator.

Beyond the Fair Work Commission, more courts across Australia have also been giving clearer guidance on how to use AI, especially for people who want to represent themselves in court.

When AI and people get it wrong

Just days before the Fair Work Commission finalised its new guidelines, there was a significant decision showing why they are so urgently needed, for everyone’s sake.

In August, Deputy Commissioner Michael Easton declared he was taking “the very rare step” of ordering a former Aldi employee to pay some of the supermarket’s legal costs, “because his unreasonable conduct caused his former employer to incur those costs unnecessarily”.

Why? Because his AI-driven claim for unfair dismissal was doomed from the start.

The store assistant lost his job three days short of the six-month minimum employment period that would have made him eligible to make an unfair dismissal claim.

Yet he still filed an application “obviously prepared using AI”, with chatbot notes left in (“Here is your final clean copy-paste version”).

The worker was warned by the commission in advance that his case was legally hopeless. But his AI kept arguing, so he persisted – and it ended up costing him $1,230, part of Aldi’s legal bill.

The commission didn’t blame the tool: Easton said AI “can assist litigants when used properly”. But in this case, it had been treated it as a “quasi-legal advisor”, while real-world human advice was ignored.

Broader lessons for AI use

Research has shown undisclosed “shadow use” of AI is running ahead of laws or many workplaces’ policies.

This leaves workers and organisations exposed to exactly the kind of unverified, but confidently wrong, output that ended up costing the former Aldi worker not just wasted time on a fruitless case, but more than $1,200 in costs.

The Fair Work Commission’s measured response — clear rules and user education, not a ban — is textbook good governance.

It’s a model any workplace or individual using AI can learn from too:

• be transparent – say when and how AI was used in your work
• final fact checks should be done by a person – not another chatbot
• and keep sensitive personal or confidential information out of public AI tools.

Guzyal Hill, Research fellow, Law, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australian Prime minister Anthony Albanese appears to be listening to artificial intelligence (AI) firms’ warnings to the world about the dangers of the technology they are developing.

Over the weekend, he said global rules were needed to regulate the development of AI “to make sure that humans remain in control”.

This comes after Dario Amodei, the boss of AI firm Anthropic, called for AI development to slow down so governments and firms have more time to address the “serious” risks associated with the technology. Other leading AI figures, such as Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, agree with him.

But how exactly could AI be better regulated? And who exactly would enforce it?

What’s prompting this?

There are growing concerns about the ability of AI to escape human control. This comes after a series of high-profile AI cybersecurity incidents.

For example, just last week Google announced its Gemini AI model autonomously hacked three websites during a test of its cybersecurity capabilities in May.

Similar incidents involving Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s AI models have also occurred recently.

One way to interpret these cybersecurity incidents is as hyperbolic marketing. In a world of rapid media cycles, they help maintain the excitement on AI capabilities. They are also far more interesting than incremental tech development.

But they also raise the question of whether AI firms need greater oversight and regulation.

What are countries currently doing?

Last week, the Australian government released a consultation paper on proposed national “AI standards”.

The focus is on realising opportunities and minimising potential harms around data centres and AI training infrastructure. But there is also a proposal that AI companies be legally required to report rogue incidents, such as the hacking of another company, to Australian authorities.

The European Union’s AI Act is perhaps the most progressive of all instruments to regulate AI. It enforces a risk-tiered framework, classifying AI from unacceptable to minimal risk.

Each tier comes with legal explanations and practical examples to help stakeholders understand and comply with the prohibitions.

The enforcement of the AI Act is shared between the member states, the European Data Protection Supervisor, and by the European Commission’s AI Office. The AI Office can request technical documentation, evaluate models, require corrective measures and importantly issue fines for noncompliance.

In the United States, there is a political deadlock when it comes to AI regulation. President Donald Trump is opposed to formal regulation.

Other politicians, such as Senator Bernie Sanders, are calling on the US to work with China on AI regulation.

An international approach is needed

AI is a global technology and piecemeal laws in individual countries which target specific issues such as deepfakes, algorithmic bias or hacking aren’t enough to keep it under control.

An international approach – as Anthony Albanese is calling for – is clearly needed.

It’s important to acknowledge at the outset that any international approach will be imperfect. This is especially true as the technology continues to evolve. But an imperfect instrument is better than merely trusting AI firms to do the right thing.

This approach could take inspiration from how the global aviation industry is regulated. For example, it has national regulators as well as an international governing body known as the International Civil Aviation Organisation. This organisation sets safety standards, undertakes compliance audits and leads studies and analysis of incidents.

An international approach to AI regulation could also take inspiration from the International Atomic Energy Agency. This body plays a central role in setting global standards for nuclear safety and security and promotes international cooperation and regulation.

These are some of the best models of international collaboration when it comes to governing new and emerging technology. If applied to AI, they could result in a stronger safety framework, mandatory third-party audits of AI models, and greater transparency of the technology.

Australia can play a key role

Australia might be a middle power with limited influence over big tech firms.

But it can still help to build a global consensus on the need for greater AI regulation. Its world-leading – albeit imperfect – push to curb young people’s access to social media demonstrates this. Many other countries are now making similar moves to address some of the harms caused by social media platforms.

Developing strong international AI regulations is likely to be slow – especially given the US is struggling with its own stance. In the absence of such regulations, it’s important individual jurisdictions around the world hold AI firms more accountable for any harms that arise from the technology they’re developing.

The Australian government includes this idea in its AI ethics principles:

People responsible for the different phases of the AI system lifecycle should be identifiable and accountable for the outcomes of the AI systems, and human oversight of AI systems should be enabled.

But other jurisdictions have gone further.

For example, the Attorney General of the US state of Alabama has launched an investigation into OpenAI and Sam Altman over the hack of tech startup Hugging Face earlier this year. The investigation will look at whether OpenAI violated consumer protection laws. It also includes a subpoena for the company to hand over any relevant documents and data.

It is this kind of accountability that will help push AI firms to ensure the safety their products. Without more of it, the risks of such a rapidly developing technology will continue to grow.

Stan Karanasios, Professor in Information Systems, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scroll through social media these days and you’ll likely come across someone injecting themselves with a clear liquid, waxing lyrical about how it’s changed their body for the better, improved their recovery, or maybe their skin.

That magic substance is often (allegedly) a peptide, a short chain of amino acids, the same building blocks that make up proteins, that can be used to send specific instructions to cells in the body.

Some peptides, such as semaglutide (Ozempic) are legitimate prescription medicines. Many being sold and promoted online are not – and can have serious health consequences. Just this week, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration revealed that a person who used an unapproved peptide suffered a potentially fatal torn oesophagus due to uncontrolled vomiting.

Peptide-related content is spreading fast on social media. Which raises an important question: when a platform’s algorithm is actively promoting sellers, influencers and products to millions of people, how much responsibility does that platform carry for what happens next?

What we know so far

Recent research found more than 130,000 Instagram posts and over 230 million TikTok views of peptide-related content. That’s not a drug market operating in the shadows; it’s playing out in plain sight, on platforms millions of people check every day.

This finding was echoed at a recent roundtable hosted by the University of Queensland focused on public health and peptides. It brought together several representatives from a variety of organisations – researchers, clinicians, and people with experience using these products. Social media came up repeatedly.

Stakeholders said social media is now one of the easiest ways to find out about peptides and to buy them. But that ease of access comes without the information you’d normally get from person-to-person interactions – like what to do if something goes wrong when using these substances.

Attendees also raised a larger issue – many people using peptides don’t see themselves as “drug users” at all, and may be reluctant to seek help from healthcare services.

This problem is not restricted to Australia. Peptide-related content is becoming a global issue, mimicking earlier online trends seen within image and performance enhancing drug communities.

And even if you’ve “done you’re own research” and trust the seller, you still can’t know for certain what you’re injecting into your body.

Independent laboratory testing of several peptide products bought through the same unregulated online market tells the story. Products sold as retatrutide (an experimental weight-loss peptide not approved for use anywhere, but widely used by bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts), ranged from 51% to 190% of their labelled dose.

In our wider testing of steroid and peptide products, some samples contained none of the active ingredient at all. Others contained a completely different substance from the label.

That matters because dosing errors with these substances aren’t trivial. They can result in serious health effects.

So what should platforms be doing?

Social media companies do respond when peptide sales are flagged, typically by removing or restricting the individual post or account.

That’s necessary, but it’s the smallest possible intervention against this surging market, and new listings replace old ones almost as fast as they vanish. Several things would go further.

Drawing some parallels, research has found illicit vape content thriving on TikTok with slick, highly shareable videos. Information on health risks was largely absent from these videos, which instead commonly featured themes of apathy towards the law, entertainment, and shared experience.

And the parallels don’t stop at marketing: illicit vapes can also contain substances that people neither expect nor intend to consume.

In June 2026, etomidate, a potent sedative, was detected in a vape sold in Melbourne, highlighting how little is known about the contents and emerging risks of Australia’s illicit vape supply.

Peptides look to be following the same playbook. One fix is to meet people in the same feeds the sellers are already using, with something more compelling than a static warning.

First, proactive health literacy is needed for young people. Platforms already do this for other risks – search “how to lose weight fast” or anything suicide-related on Instagram or TikTok, and you’re shown a warning screen and pointed to a helpline.

There’s no reason the same intervention model couldn’t apply to peptide-related searches, explaining in plain terms what these products are, what’s actually known about them, and where to get reliable health information.

Second, regulators and researchers need a real, ongoing window into the scale of this market, especially peptides.

At the moment, nobody has a live picture of how fast this market is growing, which products are moving through which channels, or where the next serious harm is likely to show up. Structured, ongoing data-sharing arrangements between platforms, regulators, and independent researchers would let us see problems coming instead of reading about them after someone’s ended up in an emergency department.

The platforms hosting this market didn’t directly invent the demand for these products. Right now though, they are the easiest place for a curious 16-year-old to find a seller – and one of the hardest places for that same teen to find something honest about what they’re injecting.

Timothy Piatkowski, Senior Research Fellow in Public Health, The University of Queensland; Cheneal Puljević, UQ Amplify Senior Research Fellow, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland; Luke Cox, Lecturer in Sport Integrity, Swansea University, and Samuel Cornell, Research Fellow in Public Health, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

If you’re renting a house or apartment, you’re probably all too familiar with rent tech: online systems and apps for searching and applying for properties, paying rent and logging maintenance requests.

These platforms collect, use and circulate an enormous amount of data from and about renters. Renters generally have no choice but to use the platforms, and little say over the data they are required to provide.

Many of these platforms now also incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) to automate communications with renters and optimise property manager workflows. In my interviews with renters, many have told me they find using rent tech systems “dehumanising”.

I am investigating the impact of rent tech for my PhD research, which has also helped inform a new report from the non-profit Consumer Policy Research Centre. Surveying rent tech platforms across Australia, we found a grim situation: while protections for renters are improving in Victoria after recent changes to the law, the same can’t be said elsewhere.

Deceptive designs and dubious claims

The report notes widespread use of deceptive or manipulative design tactics (known as “dark patterns”) by rent tech platforms.

We found several attempts to trick renters into handing over more data than necessary. Even where it’s not mandatory to provide certain pieces of information, renters are sometimes pushed and nudged to give it or shamed when they don’t.

This aligns with a landmark ruling from the privacy commissioner in April. The commissioner found that one rental application platform, 2Apply, was collecting too much personal information from renters, and doing so in an unfair way.

The commissioner looked at the platform’s “online choice architecture”: its design, structure and way of presenting information. The commissioner found it was unfairly pressuring renters into handing over more information than they would otherwise.

Though the commissioner only investigated 2Apply, she called for other rent tech providers to improve their practices. The findings in our new report suggest this has not happened.

Our research also found one platform using a dubious “personality questionnaire” as part of the rental application process, which claimed to screen applicants based on “agreeableness”. Some platforms also compelled renters to pay for unnecessary add-ons, such as joining a rewards program with questionable value, or for data storage programs.

Rent tech practices are improving in Victoria, but lagging in other states

In March, Victoria introduced new laws to limit the questions that can be asked on a rental application form. The laws also ban charging renters third-party fees for things like rent payment or ID checks.

We examined platforms before and after these new rules came into effect. We found the changes to Victorian rental laws led to an improvement in practices across many of the major platforms. Paid ID verification has been removed, and the application process has become streamlined, with fewer invasive or unnecessary questions.

However, when we checked the application processes in other states, the improvements disappeared. Outside of Victoria, the same old data-harvesting practices continue.

Despite the improvements in Victoria, we found rent tech platforms may be circumventing the new laws by asking for additional personal information outside the rental application process. This suggests rent tech companies may continue invasive data practices unless something makes them stop, such as stronger Australia-wide regulations.

No choice

Renters have very little choice over which rent tech platforms they use, and minimal control over what happens to the data they are required to provide.

Opting out is becoming increasingly difficult. Online rental listings often provide no alternative but to use an online platform to apply for a property.

This is made worse by the significant imbalance of power in the private rental sector and the ongoing rental crisis. Renters are presently particularly vulnerable to unfair practices.

In 2023, consumer advocacy organisation CHOICE found 41% of renters were pressured to use a rent tech platform. Renters also can’t simply decide to use a different platform to the ones implemented by real estate agencies.

Renters are also not provided clear information about what is happening with their data. While reviewing privacy policies and terms and conditions for the new report, I found they are mostly vague and often contradictory. They use broad, technical language and terminology that makes it incredibly hard to understand what is happening with renter data.

Some of the privacy policies list concerning uses of personal information that renters might not reasonably expect, like sharing renter data with debt collectors and financial product providers.

Need for further improvements

Housing is a basic necessity. Renters have little choice but to engage with rent tech, regardless of unfair practices or privacy concerns.

What can be done to improve the situation for renters? One place to start would be some guidance for the real estate industry with regards to best practices when choosing and implementing rent tech. The peak body for real estate professionals would be well placed to do this work.

However, the most meaningful improvement will require more changes to Australian privacy law and state-based rental laws, as well as rigorous enforcement.

Industry experts interviewed for the new report agreed that real estate agencies – including those that operate as small businesses – ought to be required to comply with privacy laws.

Currently, small businesses are exempt from the Privacy Act. Since July, some aspects of real estate operations now have some privacy obligations under new anti-money-laundering rules, but this does not apply to rental property management. This means that privacy protections for the renting part of real estate businesses remain patchy across Australia.

The federal government is currently proposing reforms to the Privacy Act. Protections that benefit renters across Australia shouldn’t be left out.

Samantha Floreani, PhD Candidate, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the tasks people do at work and the skills they need. As work changes, being able to move between jobs, and sometimes industries, may become increasingly important.

For women, the pressure to adapt may be particularly significant. Jobs and Skills Australia has found women have greater exposure than men to automation and AI changes, largely because of the industries and occupations in which they work.

And while it doesn’t mean that jobs will just disappear, it does mean AI is likely to change how the jobs are conducted. Many workers will need to learn new skills and adapt; others may need to move into different jobs or industries altogether.

Much of this discussion about transition currently focuses on workers – they need to reskill, retrain and become more adaptable.

But there’s another side to this story. Employers across industries may also need to become more flexible in how they decide what experience really matters.

Changing industries doesn’t mean starting again

Our research with women who successfully moved into construction from other unrelated industries suggests employers will also need to adapt, particularly in how they recognise experience gained in other sectors and industries. Changing industries does not mean starting from zero.

We studied 655 women working in Australian construction companies. Some had started their careers in construction, while others had moved there from health care, education, transport, finance, hospitality or manufacturing.

Those career changers brought many skills developed over the years, including management, communication, collaboration, coordination and experience. One woman who previously worked as a commercial pilot and later in engineering consulting told us:

I do have a lot of experience, and I do have lot of relevant skills that I think I bring to the table too.

But having these skills from diverse professional backgrounds and getting the employer to recognise them are two different things.

Australian construction industry is already struggling to find enough workers. Around 20,000 construction jobs remain unfilled, while women make up just 13% of the industry’s 1.37 million workers.

Attracting more women could help. BuildSkills Australia estimates that increasing women’s participation in residential construction could add 51,000 workers by 2029, reducing its projected workforce gap by 44%.

Getting through the door

In fact, most of the career changers in the study entered construction through informal channels, often using personal networks rather than conventional recruitment.

One woman explained how important these connections had been for her:

If I […] didn’t have access to this network, I’m not sure how I’d even go about starting. I’d find it intimidating, and would presume my qualifications wouldn’t marry with the expectations.

Networks might help with people getting a foot in the door, but they also reveal a bigger problem. What if people moving between industries don’t have the industry contacts, and they don’t know where opportunities are? They may assume that their skills and experience are not what the employers want.

Our research showed this may also happen via formal recruitment. Hiring managers recognised that the problem was not simply with the candidates, but with how the industry viewed career changers. One told us:

I don’t believe the obstacle is with the candidate; I think it’s us not being creative enough to create roles or positions that would suit the skill set of those candidates or provide them with a platform where they can transition into the industry.

This creates a paradox – we are asking workers to become more mobile and more adaptive, while employers may still struggle to recognise experience gained in another industry.

Who really needs industry experience?

This does not mean employers should ignore industry experience, of course. It takes time to learn those critical skills.

The hiring managers we interviewed said specialist roles require specialist training in construction or engineering. But they also saw much more scope for people to move across industries into roles such as administration, finance, safety and environmental work. In these jobs, skills developed elsewhere could be very useful, while industry experience could sometimes be learned.

That suggests a different way of thinking about career changers.

Instead of asking only whether this candidate has worked in our industry before, employers could ask:

• what existing skills could the person bring to the role?
• what can they learn?
• and what genuinely requires specialist training or experience?

Adaptation may need to work both ways. Employers will have to get better at recognising transferable skills.

Focus on the skills

This matters beyond construction. As AI changes the jobs and the skills needed, workers will increasingly be told they need to adapt.

But career mobility and adaptation depend on more than workers being willing to change. If we expect workers to become more adaptable as AI changes the work we do, employers may need to become more adaptable too.

They can do that by getting better at recognising what skills people already bring, what they can learn, and what really requires previous industry experience.

Marzena Baker, Senior Lecturer and Head of Discipline - HRM & Management & OHSE, Australian Catholic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This year’s Intergenerational Report (IGR) highlights AI, population ageing and geopolitical fragmentation. It is a tribute to optimistic forecasts.

Things will turn out for the best if artificial intelligence (AI) improves productivity, promised budget savings are actually achieved, global turmoil creates new opportunities and global warming is limited.

But it is a more political IGR than many have been since they first began in 2002. Although nowhere near the low-water mark of the highly political 2015 report from then treasurer Joe Hockey, politics features in this one via its many mentions of current government policies. They may not last the coming 40 years.

The population is ageing, but healthier

An important topic in each report has been the ageing population.

Australia’s fertility rate has been below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman for 50 years. It is projected to drop further to 1.34 children by 2065–66. By then, deaths will outnumber births. This is the first time this has been projected in an IGR.

The first IGR in 2002 noted that the proportion of the population aged over 65 had risen over a century from just over 4% to 12.5%. That proportion is now projected to be 25% by 2065–66.

Most countries are spending an increasing share of their national income paying pensions. By contrast, Australia’s superannuation scheme means the proportion is actually projected to fall here.

Moreover, the IGR notes the “working age” cutoff at 65, the official definition “is increasingly less reliable as an indicator of economic dependency” (that is, older Australians supported by taxes paid by younger people still in the workforce).

Australians are living longer and healthier. A continuing trend of more people staying in work for longer will help the economy and budget.

By 2065–66 it is projected that 1.9 million Australians (5% of the population) will be over 85 years old.

Climate change gets scant attention

The importance accorded to climate change has varied over the reports. Then treasurer Wayne Swan’s IGR in 2010 was the first to highlight it. It was almost ignored in the Abbott-Hockey IGR in 2015.

The 2026 IGR executive summary frames energy transition in terms of cost savings from renewables, ability to deal with energy supply bottlenecks globally, and industrial opportunities such as green aluminium. A fuller discussion in chapter 3 notes climate change is leading to more frequent and severe natural disasters and environmental challenges.

The brief discussion contrasts with the intergenerational scale of these risks, especially if global warming is higher than the report’s optimistic “Paris-aligned” scenario, in which the world cooperates to keep global warming to 2 degrees.

Artificial intelligence and productivity

The economy is projected to grow at a slower annual rate of 2% over the next 40 years, down from 3% over the previous 40.

Intergenerational reports have analysed economic growth based on three “P"s – population, productivity and participation.

Labour force participation has risen gradually and is not expected to change much over coming decades.

The key "P” is productivity. Successive reports have become more realistic about the chances of productivity growing in the future as fast as it did in the post-war boom or after the economic reforms of the 1980s and ‘90s.

Some economists have criticised the assumption that labour productivity will grow at an average rate of 1.2%, since the average growth rate has only been 0.8% over the past 20 years. The Reserve Bank assumes 0.7% in its forecasts.

Possible grounds for expecting a productivity acceleration include a wider adoption of AI.

But it is important that AI is not seen as a necessary and sufficient answer to the nation’s productivity problem. AI has potential for businesses to deliver better goods and services at lower cost – that is, productivity – only if business managers know how to use it effectively. The report notes AI could lead us in opposite directions, to either social progress or disruption.

One challenge of restoring productivity growth is that many measures will only have an impact well after the next election. Better primary education would improve productivity, for example, but only after the children join the workforce more than a decade later.

Encouraging businesses to invest more would help.

Geopolitics is front and centre

The IGR has noticed – it could hardly fail to – that the world is becoming less safe and predictable.

We see more conflict, strategic competition, and restrictions on trade. The United States has increased tariff rates to their highest levels since the 1940s, leading to significant shifts in patterns of world trade.

The report argues this creates opportunities arising from Australia’s stable institutions, skilled workforce and natural resources. These are possible if the scale of global disruption remains at current levels; if there are more or more severe political or economic disruptions, the consequences will be much less positive for Australia.

Budget outlook still a sea of red

The main areas of spending pressure are health and aged care, reflecting the ageing population, and defence, reflecting geopolitical risks.

All IGRs have projected persistent deficits (other than the unrealistically optimistic 2015 edition).

But spending cuts in this year’s budget mean the deficits are now smaller than had been projected in 2023. Of course, this assumes that the budgeted spending cuts (notably to the National Disability Insurance Scheme) are actually achieved and that they are not used to fund spending increases elsewhere.

Addressing the equity question

This is the seventh IGR. More than most, it considers intergenerational equity.

That was central to the 2026 budget. The IGR emphasises government tax and superannuation reforms, both of which will help improve equity.

Housing affordability is one of the most important equity concerns. Recent budget tax changes – summarised again in this Intergenerational Report – aimed to address this. Each successive generation has had lower rates of home ownership than the previous one.

Turning this around will address a key equity concern.

The value of an Intergenerational Report is that it provides a longer term perspective on the economy, society and budget. It is a refreshing alternative to short-term political debate.

Stephen Bartos, Professor of Economics, University of Canberra and John Hawkins, Senior lecturer, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be “a defining influence” on Australia’s economy over the next 40 years, according to the Intergenerational Report (IGR) released by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Monday. Australia is also expected to experience lower growth, a decline in the birth rate and unending budget deficits.

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese makes AI a central issue of discussion during his current trip to the United States, the IGR emphasises the precise nature of the new technology’s impact will depend on how extensively it is adopted and Australia’s position in global supply chains.

This means the estimates of AI’s potential to boost productivity vary widely, the report says.

The IGR, the first since 2023, presents a mixed picture for Australians in the four decades ahead.

It emphasises a more fraught and turbulent world and an ageing population exacerbating budgetary pressures. On the other hand, it argues Australia is well placed to deal with the difficult challenges it will face.

The report, prepared by the Treasury, also has an overtly political streak. For example, it declares the government’s “ambitious reform agenda is all about […] ensuring Australians can be the beneficiaries” of change. It also canvasses the initiatives in the recent budget.

Launching the report, Chalmers said “the economy of the next 40 years will be built with AI-enabled services, smarter technologies, new clean industries powered by cheaper energy, and more secure partnerships in the world”.

He said the government took responsibility for getting “policy and planning right” and “the pressures in this report make all of our longer-term reforms even more important”. He laid out ten key government priorities:

• making productivity a whole-of-government priority

• harnessing AI in the national interest

• building an adaptable, well-trained workforce

• attracting talent through skilled migration

• rebalancing the tax system to support workers

• helping more Australians into housing

• making retirement more secure

• delivering cleaner and cheaper energy

• boosting national resilience

• improving budget sustainability

By the mid-2060s, in real terms, the Australian economy is projected to be more than twice as large as it is now. Per capita income is projected to be 55% higher, the IGR says.

Economic growth is projected to be weaker over the coming 40 years, at 2% annually, compared with the 3% over the last 40 years.

“A more productive, dynamic and competitive economy will be key to lifting living standards over time,” the report says.

The report says that since the 2023 IGR, the budget position has improved “noticeably”, but fiscal pressures remain.

The Australian economy is one of the best placed to benefit from the major transitions that will unfold over coming decades. We have a resilient economy, a highly skilled workforce, a stronger and more sustainable budget position than most advanced economies and a younger population compared to other comparable nations.

We have enormous strengths when it comes to the energy transition and AI revolution, and geostrategic advantages as a stable middle power in the Asia–Pacific region.

Intergenerational equity has been strained by the decline of home ownership, the pressures of an ageing population and structural trends in the tax base, which will be felt most by those of working age, the report says.

Democracies around the world are also under increasing pressure as economic anxieties lead to fracturing and fragmentation. Discontent is driving political upheaval at faster rates than in recent decades. This underscores the urgency of governments responding to the real pressures and concerns in the community through ambitious reform and long-term planning.

On the potential of AI, the report says the Productivity Commission estimates it could increase multi-factor productivity in Australia by at least 2.3% over a decade.

The rise and adoption of AI is likely to support the achievement of Treasury’s long-term labour productivity growth assumption over time. This IGR assumes long-term labour productivity growth of 1.2% a year, consistent with the 2023 IGR and the long-term assumptions of many peer economies.

As a medium-sized economy, Australia’s productivity performance will depend on adopting innovation, supporting investment, developing skills and delivering regulatory reforms that improve the efficient operation of the economy.

Measures of AI capability

The IGR says the impact of AI on labour markets are not really clear, but are set to be uneven.

Australia is well positioned to benefit from the global AI revolution, given our stable institutions, abundant renewable energy potential and well-developed international connectivity, including in the Indo-Pacific region.

Ensuring AI investment and adoption is aligned with Australia’s national interests will improve Australia’s competitiveness, resilience and wellbeing in the decades ahead.

The report says that economic relationships increasingly shaped “by security and strategic alignment could have severe economic or security consequences.”

It also stresses the importance of “remaining open to the benefits of well-functioning markets, while guarding against the volatile impacts of geopolitical instability.”

The report says Australia’s “energy transition will be more important and urgent as global energy supply chains face disruption.” Data centres’ demand for energy is expected to be almost 10% of the National Electricity Market by 2050.

On demographics, the IGR says the population is now expected to age faster and grow more slowly then projected in the 2023 report. This is due primarily to lower fertility rates, a common trend across advanced economies. “Deaths are projected to outnumber births by the 2060s – the first time this has been forecast in an IGR.”

Australians will continue to have among the longest life expectancies in the world. The life expectancy for women is expected to be 89.5 years by the mid-2060s; the expectancy for men will be 86.1 years.

The projections for participation in the labour force are “substantially upgraded” in this report. They are projected to continue rising until 2039–40, especially among women and older people.

But still, an ageing population will “weigh on overall labour force participation over the long term and contribute to the ongoing shift towards a more service-based economy.”

On the budget, the report says that an ageing population and increasing community expectations for services are likely to see payments rise to 27.7% of GDP by the mid-2060s.

“Additional pressures such as further spending on defence, the impacts of climate change and the rise of AI are more difficult to quantify and present risks to the fiscal outlook.”

Tax receipts are expected to reach a historical high of 24.2% of GDP in 2032-33 and then remain there. This is lower than the last IGR assumed.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia’s population is projected to reach 39.3 million in 2065-66 but its rate of growth will have slowed, according to the Intergenerational Report (IGR) released Monday.

The projected number in 40 years’ time compares with a current population of about 27.9 million.

The IGR projects population growth slowing from an average of 1.4% a year over the last 40 years to 0.9% a year over the coming four decades. This is 0.2 percentage points lower growth compared with the projection period of the last report, issued in 2023.

In 2062–63 the projected population would be 1.8 million lower than projected in the 2023 IGR.

In a Monday speech launching the report, Treasurer Jim Chalmers will say that by the mid 2060s: “People live longer, healthier lives, families have fewer kids, and that will make the population grow more slowly, to less than 40 million in forty years”.

He elaborated on News24 on Sunday:“We do acknowledge in the IGR that we expect fertility rates to fall further and faster than we anticipated even three years ago. That’s actually one of the biggest influences over the next 40 years or so. Almost half the decline in fertility rates is actually because fewer people are having three or more kids. And what that reflects is mums having fewer kids later in life. That’s what’s playing out in the fertility rates.”

Population level projection across intergenertational reports

Chalmers says in his speech the report’s projections also show living standards will have risen and people will retire with much larger superannuation accounts than they do now.

A major change in this report compared with the 2023 one is the central place it gives artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has met Apple executive chairman Tim Cook in Silicon Valley on the first leg of his visit to the United States, where he will attend the United Nations and spruik Australia’s case for one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council for 2029-30.

The PM and Cook canvassed AI as well as what Apple is doing about safety online, and Australia’s social media ban for under 16s and its proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation.

Later Albanese told the ABC Cook regarded the work Australia had done on social media as “world leading”. The prime minister will use Australia’s lead on the under 16s ban and its Duty of Care initiative in his campaigning for the Security Council spot.

Albanese said he hoped this week’s talks between US Predident Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping would see “positive engagement” on managing AI.

Australia supports guardrails. But Trump has made it clear he regards AI as a central element in the competition between the US and China and does not want to see its development slowed in any way.

“Individual leaders will speak for themselves. What I do is I speak for Australia’s national interests, and Australia’s national interests are served by us engaging, by us recognising that there are risks which need to be mitigated,” Albanese told a news conference at Apple Park.

“That is something that we will continue to pursue, and something that is common. The discussions that I’ve had with leaders already in the lead-up to this week’s [UN] meeting, I think you’ll see some statements this week emerge as well from nations that recognise that we need to work together and cooperate.”

In his IGR address Chalmers says the Australian economy will be twice as big as at present in 40 years’ time. While the budget will be under strain, it will be better placed than in the last report, he says, in a speech extract released ahead of delivery.

“Our industrial base will be dominated by services, powered by cleaner energy, completely transformed by technology.”

The world is expected to be more fragmented and uncertain.

Chalmers says the report shows Australia better placed than peer countries “in almost every regard”.

But is is living in a world that is becoming more dangerous, unpredictable, unequal, and divided. “These are not just individual threads but part of a bigger fraying of that intergenerational promise of better times.”

Chalmers quotes writer and activist James Baldwin who said if people were denied participation in the American Dream, “by their very presence they will wreck it”.

I know this was the 1960s, not the 2060s, the US not Australia, but it still speaks to a truth on every page of this analysis and in every corner of the Commonwealth.

If people are unmoored economically, generationally, they feel disconnected from, and disregarded in, our politics. At worst that’s what we’re seeing now, at best it’s what’s at stake.

Accelerating change is putting more pressure on people. It’s eroding trust in the institutions of our democracy. It’s exacerbating the strain felt by younger generations in particular.

The division in politics now is not between those who accept this and those who don’t. But between those who prey on it and pick on it and politicise it and catastrophise it – and those who seek to alleviate it.

The responsibility that we embrace today and every day is to respond to the pressures of the here and now – and plan so that the accelerating pace of change is accompanied by the accelerating pace of opportunity.

Chalmers confirmed on Sunday that the IGR assumed growth for productivity at 1.2% annually, despite the fact it has been flat for years.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The weather is warming up and the hay fever season has begun, but more people are experiencing cases of influenza than expected for spring.

In the two weeks to September 6, flu cases were up 27% on the previous two weeks. And case numbers are rising.

How is this year’s flu season different?

This year, surveillance systems based in laboratories, data from members of the community, GPs and hospitals all suggest influenza activity has been lower than in previous years for most of the year.

But influenza case numbers have increased since mid-August.

So far, the majority of influenza cases have been due to the H3N2 subtype of influenza A, although some H1N1 and influenza B have also been reported.

The H3N2 subtype has mostly been due to the “super K” strain that was associated with a late surge of cases in 2025. This strain seemed to be more transmissible than usual, although it didn’t cause more severe disease.

There are also some differences in activity in different parts of Australia. New South Wales and Western Australia both had an increase in influenza activity from late June that was not seen in other other states and territories.

What is the usual pattern of influenza in Australia?

Since the COVID pandemic, influenza epidemiology has been more unpredictable than usual. Before the pandemic, influenza cases usually started to rise in June-July and peaked in August, falling to lower levels by late October.

During the pandemic, influenza activity was essentially absent for 2020 and 2021, but resumed with the re-opening of international borders and relaxation of public health measures in 2022.

The influenza seasons in 2022 and 2023 were unusually early, peaking in late June.

Last year was also unusual, with an initial peak in mid-July and then persisting activity until late December. This was attributed to the “super K” strain of H3N2 influenza that has also been circulating this year.

Influenza activity does vary between different parts of Australia. Tropical regions tend to get two peaks of influenza each year: one early in the year and a second around the same time as the other states.

Why does the influenza season vary from year to year?

The drivers of influenza transmission are still unknown, which makes long-term predictions difficult.

In general, infectious diseases are an interaction between the “agent” (characteristics of the influenza virus) the “host” (characteristics of the people who are susceptible to influenza) and the environment that brings them together.

The influenza virus changes from year to year, and each strain may have different properties, such as being able spread more readily, or to cause more severe disease.

Apart from pandemics due to completely new strains, seasonal influenza is usually a small variation on the previously circulating strain. So most people have some degree of at least partial immunity to influenza, which may also be enhanced by vaccination.

People’s behaviour can also impact influenza transmission. An obvious example is school holidays reducing transmission in school-aged children.

The role of the environment is less clear with influenza, but it is likely some combinations of temperature and humidity may increase the spread.

What else can cause flu-like illnesses?

Influenza is not the only virus that causes flu-like symptoms. Other viruses such as rhinovirus can cause flu-like symptoms, but less commonly cause serious illness.

However, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – and since 2020 SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID – can also cause significant illness. The pattern of RSV has been similar to previous years, and COVID activity continues to decline.

What about influenza vaccines?

Influenza vaccines are partially protective against influenza, and the degree of protection can vary year to year.

Preliminary data this year suggests the influenza vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalisation with severe influenza by about 35%. This is on the lower side when compared to estimates in previous years.

The proportion of people who get a vaccine varies by age group. In older people (65 and over), around 60% of people have received an influenza vaccine this year, down from around 70% in 2022.

In pre-school children (aged 2–5 years), 28% have received a flu vaccine, similar to the figures reported in 2022.

What does the unusual influenza season mean for me?

The unusual pattern of influenza means it’s still worth getting an influenza vaccine now, if you haven’t had one earlier this year.

Although there is some evidence that the protection from influenza vaccine does wane over three to six months, people vaccinated early in the season still have some protection.

A second vaccine in the same season is generally not recommended. (The exceptions to this are young children who have not previously received an influenza vaccine, and people with specific conditions such as those receiving bone marrow transplants.)

The influenza vaccine is free for high-risk groups including older people, young children and people with chronic medical illnesses. Talk to your pharmacist, GP, nurse or Aboriginal health practitioner. Influenza vaccines may also be available through workplace immunisation programs.

Allen Cheng, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Farmers and other industry groups have warned a new crackdown on backpacker visas will make it harder to fill jobs in regional Australia, from fruit picking to aged care.

Over the past four years, we have spoken to more than 600 backpackers working across Australia, as well as more than 60 employers, industry groups and community members. What we’ve heard suggests regional employers have good reason to be worried.

Working backpackers have often told us things such as:

• “I want a second year visa, so I’m working in a papaya farm”
• “I don’t like the farm work, but it’s all for the extra visa time,” and
• “I want a second visa […] so I have to do farm work.”

The Working Holiday Maker backpacker visa has been around since 1975. Our research has shown how those tourists have become essential workers for Australian farmers over the past five decades.

Backpackers are doing 1 in 7 farm jobs

About one in seven farming jobs are done by backpackers, particularly at peak periods such as harvests.

Over the financial year to June 30, more than 323,000 backpackers from more than 40 countries were granted a Working Holiday Maker visa. That’s well up on pre-COVID levels, when it was between 210,000-250,000 a year from 2011 to 2019.

Those backpackers are then encouraged to work for months in regional Australia in exchange for visa extensions.

Backpackers can stay for an extra year if they work three months or more in regional, remote or specified industries, including agriculture, tourism and hospitality, construction, healthcare, and disaster recovery efforts.

What’s set to change

Late last week Immigration Minister Tony Burke announced significant changes, including a ballot system for backpackers who want to stay longer than a year.

Few details have been provided yet. This has created uncertainty as to whether months spent working in the bush would actually count.

Second year working backpacker visas will be cut from 57,000 to 45,000. For the third year it will fall from 31,000 to 5,000. That’s a reduction of 38,000 places.

A three-month visa processing delay also announced in the overhaul of Australia’s migration policy sparked the sharpest warning from the National Farmers Federation:

Farmers need approvals in days, not months. For many farms, three months is the difference between harvesting a crop and losing it.

‘The trickiest part was navigating the visa’

In our ongoing research, we have spoken to backpackers across the country about doing regional work to get visa extensions.

For example, a backpacker from Peru said:

When I arrived I did hospitality in Melbourne, but after that I had to go north to do mango picking to get the extra visa. It was hard, hot, at the beginning I thought ‘what am I doing here?’ but then I work every day and complete the specified days to extend my visa.

Our research shows that visa holders and employers are already confused about what “counts” as regional workdays. Days worked are calculated by payslips and postcode of employment, but there are no set minimum hours per day.

A Dutch backpacker explained: “The trickiest part was navigating the visa and the visa extension. It does bring some added uncertainty in your plans.”

A ballot system for visa extensions would further complicate the process.

Lessons from the past

Farmers saw the devastating impact of a lack of backpackers during the pandemic pause on migration, when fresh fruit was left to rot due to worker shortages.

While some have argued that Australia should rely more on workers from the Pacific under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, logistically it’s not always that easy. Peak periods like harvest season need a lot of workers for a relatively short time.

As a fruit and vegetable growers’ association representative told us:

We’re reliant on those workers that are just looking for those short windows of work […] the visa helps with that. Backpackers make up our main labour source for harvest work.

Transient workforces like backpackers are also cheaper to recruit and employ.

Attracting Australian workers isn’t an easy solution either, as one Irish backpacker told us: “On our farm we had a few Australians this year travel from further afield to work, and a lot of them have just left, disappeared after smoko.”

Efforts to get young Australians into farming work to cover COVID labour shortages did not generate strong results.

As a police sergeant in a rural township said of backpackers: “Without them, our food wouldn’t get picked, our potatoes would sit in the ground […] The pubs would be empty, the supermarkets bare. They’re part of our community.”

The risk for regional Australia

Backpackers told us that they were “willing to put [themselves] through so much” to gain a visa extension.

Past experience shows that, unless offered incentives, backpackers are less likely to work in the regions.

The government should consult further with backpackers and regional employers before making these immigration changes. Visa caps and a three-month processing delay risk leaving farms and regional industries short on workers.

Expecting backpackers to work in tough conditions in the bush for months, only to be entered into a ballot with uncertain results, is a gamble not just for those backpackers, but for regional Australia.

Kaya Barry, Senior Lecturer, Griffith University and Donna James, Lecturer in Heritage and Tourism, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

There is a shock reverberating through the regional South Australian town of Whyalla and its crisis-hit steelworks. This week, administrators KordaMentha and SA Premier Peter Malinauskas jointly announced they would abandon all attempts to restart the steelworks’ blast furnace.

At least 500 workers will lose their jobs, along with 100 people employed through labour-hire arrangements. The future of a further 200 “embedded contractors” remains uncertain.

To be clear, the closure of the blast furnace does not mean the end of the Whyalla steelworks. Efforts remain underway to find a buyer. While primary steelmaking will remain paused for an estimated two to four years, other operations such as mining and steel rolling will continue.

Still, the future of this town of more than 21,000 people – where 12.8% of the workforce work in iron smelting and steel manufacturing – has been abruptly thrown into limbo.

Often, when news like this breaks, we focus on the economic impacts and the immediate support needed for workers and their families. That is important.

My research, however, has examined other Australian communities undergoing similar economic shocks. It suggests disruption can extend well beyond jobs and income. If we want to ensure a just transition for Whyalla, we should start preparing now.

Towns shaped by an industry

The cessation of steelmaking in Whyalla is about more than lost jobs. The town as we now know it has been built around the steelworks. As a major employer, the steelworks has shaped family life and social interactions.

People have moved to Whyalla to work there, while local businesses and institutions have grown around it.

Since steel production began in 1941, it has been integral to the town’s development. Whyalla’s identity and how people understand their place in the world have been shaped around the steelworks, the furnace, and the rhythms of work and community life that have grown around them.

The uncertainty about the steelworks can become an uncertainty about the town itself: will businesses survive, will families stay, will young people see a future for themselves, and, ultimately, will there be a future in and for Whyalla?

Immediate reactions from locals illustrate this anxiety, with some residents expressing fears Whyalla could become a “ghost town”.

Grief for an imagined future

These effects do not begin only if the steelworks does eventually close. The uncertainty Whyalla is experiencing now has consequences.

When an industry is so closely intertwined with a place, uncertainty about its future can change how people experience home. The familiar relationship between past, present and expected future is disrupted.

In my research, I explore the way this can result in feelings of grief for a future once imagined in a place that now feels uncertain or impossible.

People and communities living with deep uncertainty about the future can end up uncommitted to the present.

Feeling displaced without leaving home

I saw this in my research with residents of Wollar, a small rural community in New South Wales affected by the expansion of open-cut coal mining. As the mines expanded, the traditional economy and social structure of the place were dismantled.

Properties were acquired, people moved away and livelihoods were disrupted. The school, shop, nursery and churches closed, leaving those still there with a deep uncertainty about the future of the place they called home.

People who remained described putting their lives on hold, becoming disconnected from the everyday practices through which home and place are made and sustained.

As one resident told me:

You put yourself on hold, like I’ve done. Right after my parents passed away in Sydney and I inherited some money, I would have done the house up, painted it and used that money, but now I’m too scared to. I haven’t even dug new gardens. You put yourself on hold for all this time.

Disempowered from the future of the place they can call home, and reliant on decisions and actions of external parties such as the government and industry, people can find questions about identity, home and place become ambiguous.

This can have consequences for both personal and communal wellbeing. As those who have lost their jobs move away, other economic activity may dwindle and the social networks and social infrastructure that sustain the place become dispersed.

Population loss can, in turn, make it harder to sustain services and economic activity, creating a cycle of decline. It is this possibility that underpins the fears of industrial towns becoming “ghost towns”.

Support for those ‘in limbo’

This is why support must not only focus on workers who have lost their jobs. Training, financial assistance and mental health support for those who have lost their jobs are essential. But there is also a need for a whole-of-community approach that recognises and responds to the wider effects of economic rupture.

Steelmaking may return to Whyalla. But whatever happens, there may be a long road ahead and the intervening years matter. Living in limbo can itself reshape a community, creating uncertainty not only about employment but about what Whyalla is as a place and the future it holds for those who call it home.

In this moment, it is essential to invest in social infrastructure, maintaining services and local institutions, and creating genuine opportunities for local people to participate in decisions about what comes next.

People’s connection to place must be supported through the transition, with hope and the possibility of a future in place providing anchors for what comes next.

A successful transition cannot be measured by whether steelmaking returns. It must be measured by what happens to the community in the meantime, and whether the people of Whyalla can see themselves in, and help shape, the future of the place they call home.

Hedda Haugen Askland, Associate Professor in Anthropology, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

After a six-week delay, Immigration Minister Tony Burke has announced changes to the migration system. Amid all the analysis and discussion it triggered, there was nothing to indicate an understanding that these changes need to have a safety net for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence.

There has been significant work documenting the connection between temporary migration and domestic and family violence. This includes the ways the migration system can be weaponised by perpetrators and can punish victim-survivors (including by excluding them from access to support).

The largest national study of migrant and refugee women found that one in three experienced domestic and family violence. It also found temporary migrants were more likely to experience violence, and specifically violence connected to their visa status.

The connection between temporary migration and domestic and family violence

Migration policy as it is now provides a safety net for women on partner visas with a pathway to permanency – the family violence provisions.

However, many women are in relationships with abusive partners and in many cases have children with perpetrators who do not hold a partner visa. This includes:

• women who might come to Australia (for example, as student visa holders) and form a relationship with someone who becomes abusive
• women who seek asylum in Australia and do not report violence because of concerns this will result in the family breadwinner being denied a protection visa
• women who are promised partner visas by perpetrators, but come to Australia on visitor visas, and this promise of a permanent visa is used to control them.

In some cases, perpetrators lie about visa status. Women are tricked into believing they hold partner visas, but actually enter the country on visitor visas.

Migrant women who experience violence in Australia are denied many forms of domestic and family violence-related support. They also have limited claims to remaining in Australia if they want to. Notably, to date, there is limited commitment to addressing these issues in the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and their children.

What will the impact be on victim-survivors?

In his National Press Club address, Burke announced a number of changes. I highlight just one to show the importance of why recognising the reality of domestic and family violence matters in any changes to migration system settings is urgent.

A key change Burke has announced is a crackdown on overstayers, with the threat of detention facilities to increase deterrence.

This matters because as detailed above, many women overstay their visas without knowing they are doing so.

In the national study of migrant and refugee women we asked all participants who were temporary visa holders and/or had indicated they had experienced migration-related controlling behaviours about their confidence in their visa rights in Australia.

Notably, only 22% were confident in their knowledge of the visa they held and their rights connected to that visa in Australia.

These changes also provide another way for perpetrators to weaponise this system and threaten women with “dobbing them in” to have them deported. This already happens at high rates, and the new policy hands more control to perpetrators.

A key part of documented controlling behaviours in these cases is perpetrators denying women access to information. This ensures they cannot access correspondence from the Department of Home Affairs. It also means the perpetrators hold all access and information about visa matters.

Across Australia, service providers who support women in these circumstances often come across victim-survivors who don’t know what visa they hold and whose visa has expired. They have no idea they are in the country unlawfully.

What should be done?

These changes run the risk that more women will remain silent and be forced to remain in violent and dangerous situations. The proposed changes could also result in women who are experiencing violence also being punished by the migration system settings.

How do we ensure we send the right signals to women experiencing violence that they should come forward and seek safety?

We need the Albanese government to recognise that victim-survivors of domestic and family violence will potentially be collateral damage in this new policy.

We need urgent measures to review how the migration system is impacting victims of domestic and family violence. And we need the government to have a clear visa solution for victims of domestic and family violence.

Next week, the national advocacy group for women on temporary visas experiencing domestic and family violence is launching the third Blueprint for Reform. This document outlines ways to address the current migration system settings to ensure all women who are experiencing domestic and family violence have access to safety in Australia.

This announcement signals the urgency of attending to reform that factors in what we already know about domestic and family violence and the migration system, and ensuring there are safety nets for all victim-survivors.

Marie Segrave, ARC Future Fellow and Professor of Criminology, The University of Melbourne

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Do you remember how old you were when you got your first period? And whether it was considered early, late or about average?

Some parents are reportedly overhauling lunchboxes, shampoos and doing all they can to attempt to delay their child’s periods, so they don’t “grow up too early”.

But are periods actually getting earlier? And is this anything to worry about? Let’s look at what the science says – and whether parents can actually impact the timing.

When do periods start and has this changed?

Girls begin puberty between the age of eight and 13 years. Breast development, known as thelarche, is the first sign. Menarche, the first menstrual period, follows 1.5 to three years later.

The evidence suggests girls are entering puberty a little earlier.

A global review found thelarche began, on average, about three months earlier per decade from 1977 (10.5 years) to 2013 (9.6 years) but this varied across the world.

In Australia, the average age of menarche is about 12.9, but it’s unclear how this has changed over time.

In the United States, the average age of menarche fell from 12.5 years among those born from 1950 to 1969, to 11.9 years among those born from 2000 to 2005.

But the researchers asked the women to remember when their periods began. This risks inaccurate recollection, or recall bias, if participants can’t remember their age when they got their first period.

The typical range for periods to start is nine to 15 years and depends on factors such as ethnicity.

What if puberty starts earlier?

Precocious puberty means breast or pubic hair development before age eight in girls, not simply an early period. About 3% of children show signs before age eight.

If your child has breast or pubic hair development or a first period before they’re eight, take them to your family doctor for a check up.

Only a small proportion of girls – around 0.2% – have an underlying medical issue causing precocious puberty that requires treatment.

How does puberty start?

Puberty is triggered by the hypothalamus, a region at the base of the brain, when it releases gonadotopin-relaseasing hormones (GnRH). This causes the chain reaction of chemical messengers for puberty.

The hormones reach the pituitary gland in the brain, which triggers luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). These hormones stimulate the ovaries to produce oestrogen and progesterone.

Genetics, body weight, diet, physical activity, environmental factors and family circumstances may all influence when these hormones are triggered.

Genetics

Some 400 genes and genetic markers are associated with the timing of the first period, so we can see how variable this can be.

A study of around 370,000 Icelandic women found that of the factors that contribute to the variance in the age at menarche, genetic signals account for around 25%.

Another study estimated the age of menarche was half attributed to genes and half to other factors.

Body weight

In more economically advanced countries, trends toward earlier puberty have correlated with changes in body weight.

This is often attributed to excess calorie intakes, but also with reduced physical activity in children.

Higher body mass index, based on weight in relation to height, predicts earlier thelarche and menarche, while earlier puberty may promote later weight gain.

But while this looks like a neat cycle, shared biological and social factors may affect both, making cause and consequence difficult to separate. Early menarche may be a risk marker rather than a cause of obesity.

Diet and exercise

Studies have found nutritional deficiencies – of proteins, essential amino acids, calories and essential fatty acids, as well as some micronutrients such as iron and zinc – can delay the onset of puberty.

Girls who play a lot of sport or dance at a young age sometimes have delayed periods. This may be a result of low energy availability, which can delay triggering the hormones that start puberty.

Restricting food or encouraging excessive exercise can delay periods because the body lacks energy – this can be harmful.

Environmental chemicals

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are associated with the disruption of hormones during puberty and puberty timing.

In Australia, many have been banned, phased out or limited. This includes polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), bisphenol A (BPA) and certain phthalates.

Some endocrine-disrupting chemicals are still found in personal care products such as shampoo, as well as in plastic bottles, containers and elsewhere in the environment.

But an association between earlier puberty and endocrine-disrupting chemicals doesn’t mean swapping every plastic container or shampoo bottle will postpone a period. We’re all exposed to them to some degree.

Family circumstances

Finally, social and family circumstances may also play a role in determining the age of menarche, with studies linking father absence and earlier menarche.

But financial strain, maternal stress and family disruption are difficult to separate, so the link may be related to these other factors.

What does this all mean?

Parents can’t control when their child’s period starts. No particular “clean” diet or exercise regimen is proven to safely delay normal puberty. And when it comes to plastics, reducing exposure is reasonable but you can’t control this entirely.

Puberty isn’t something to fear. A girl’s first period is an opportunity for parents to help her understand her body, prepare for what’s coming, learn how to manage periods and let her know when to seek help for pain.

Getting a first period doesn’t mean a girl is now ready for dating, having sex, or “losing innocence” in general. It doesn’t mean she has to “grow up”, dress differently, or stop enjoying her childhood.

Menarche is just a biological process, preparing the body for maturity. It means the body is healthy and doing what it’s supposed to do. And happens at different times for everybody.

Jodie Avery, Research Co-Lead, Chronic Reproductive Health Conditions, Robinson Research Institute, Adelaide University and Shae Maple, PhD Candidate, Women's Health Imaging, Adelaide University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.