Coles has been found to have misled its supermarket customers over discounts – and could now face hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties.

In a landmark case, Federal Court Justice Michael O'Bryan found 13 out of 14 sample sale tickets examined in the case had not offered genuine discounts, because Coles had not sold the products at a higher price for a reasonable period before promoting them with “Down Down” discounts.

In 2024, consumer watchdog the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced it was taking both of Australia’s biggest supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, to court. It alleged they had each offered hundreds of discounts that an “ordinary customer” might think were genuine, but which were misleading.

Coles and the ACCC have been given until May 29 to agree on penalties and other orders, including a possible donation to Foodbank. A separate class action against Coles by customers will also be dealt with at the same time. If they can’t agree, they will head back to court.

The maximum penalty in this case could be A$50 million per breach of consumer law, or more, which is why the total could stretch into hundreds of millions.

However, an appeal from Coles is still possible. Coles has said it’s “reviewing the judgement”.

Justice O'Bryan is set to rule on the case against Woolworths at a later date. Around two thirds of all Australian supermarket sales are made at Woolworths or Coles. So most Australians are likely to have seen some of the disputed “discounts” being fought over in these two cases.

This was a genuinely difficult decision for the Federal Court. Here’s why it will have huge ripple effects right across Australian retail – and petrol retailers in particular should be paying close attention.

Why it was a lineball decision

As Coles argued in defending itself, its “Down Down” discount tickets were strictly accurate in showing a “before” and “after” price.

However, the decision came down to whether “ordinary customers” might feel aggrieved that the discount did not really deliver the bargain they thought.

The case arose from the ACCC’s allegations that, between February 2022 and May 2023, Coles temporarily increased the price of at least 245 products, from toothpaste to cereal.

It then placed those products on “Down Down” promotions at prices that were the same – or higher – than the price of the products before the temporary price rise.

In his ruling, Justice O'Bryan recognised prices had also risen due to inflation. But he concluded that where the discount “Down Down” ticket referred to a previous price that had only recently been raised, shoppers would be misled about the bargain offered by the discount.

Effectively, this court decision accepts that ordinary customers would expect the “was” price to have been stable for a reasonable period – in this case, at least 12 weeks – for the advertised discount to be genuine and not misleading.

In the judge’s view, 12 weeks was an appropriate period to establish an ordinary price, as it matched Coles’ own internal policies in 2022.

The judge rejected Coles’ argument that inflation meant customers understood prices fluctuate. However, the judge did not find Coles had been shown to have artificially inflated prices. This matters, as it could potentially reduce how much the supermarket faces in future fines.

Huge news for shoppers and retailers

This decision is really significant. It means Australian retailers – not just supermarkets – cannot play games with consumers’ expectations.

If consumers have been led to understand a marketing campaign is directing them to good deals, then that has to be a genuine deal, which takes into account the price customers have been paying over a longer period – not just a temporary discount right beforehand.

For retailers, the decision means they’ll need to take greater care in their marketing. They need to consider whether the overall impression created by a discount campaign matches the reality of what is being offered, and whether it could mislead an ordinary shopper.

Why it matters for Woolworths

The ACCC has also brought a case against Woolworths – Australia’s biggest supermarket – on very similar grounds.

It’s worth noting the Woolworths case in court is slightly different from Coles’ – so we can’t assume the same result.

But Woolworths must at this point be considering its options – including whether settling now, and agreeing on a penalty, may be a smarter choice than waiting for its day in court before the same judge, Justice O'Bryan.

Why it matters for consumer protection

This was a high-stakes case for the ACCC. And it’s a welcome confirmation of the Australian Consumer Law being “fundamental” protective legislation for all Australians.

Just this week, the watchdog was given another $67.7 million over four years in the federal budget to strengthen its competition and consumer law enforcement capabilities.

The ACCC is celebrating its win in court, with its chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb saying “this case has increased transparency and accountability in relation to Coles’ Down Down program”.

The watchdog will now be feeling more confident in its judgement about marketing practices that should not be tolerated.

Much of the new federal funding for the ACCC is to monitor petrol pricing. So petrol retailers in particular should take heed about truth in advertising tied to fuel price fluctuations.

All retailers are now on notice.

Jeannie Marie Paterson, Professor of Law (consumer protections and credit law), The University of Melbourne

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

Every day, hundreds of trucks barrel along highways from Melbourne to Brisbane. Some B-triple trucks stretch to 36 metres or more, more than seven times the length of an average car.

Australia relies on those largely diesel-fuelled trucks for the vast majority of our intercity freight.

More trucks are on the way. Infrastructure Australia predicts “large increases in road freight are expected for Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth” – especially in Melbourne, home to Australia’s busiest cargo port.

As the recent global oil shock has shown, Australia’s reliance on road freight leaves the nation vulnerable to global oil supply problems.

Yet the federal government has just dumped the northern half of the Inland Rail project, connecting Parkes in central New South Wales to near Brisbane.

The axing came after the cost of the whole 1,600 kilometre project was forecast to exceed A$45 billion – more than four times the original budget.

But with Inland Rail not proceeding to Queensland, what does the future of rail freight on Australia’s east coast look like? And does this risk leaving the nation dependent on road freight for decades more?

Inland Rail’s problems and potential

Just three years ago, the Albanese government re-committed to building Inland Rail. Construction had already started in 2018 under then prime minister Scott Morrison, with the project overseen by the government’s Australian Rail Track Corporation.

Labor’s commitment followed an independent review in 2023 by Dr Kerry Schott, who found Inland Rail was “late and over budget”.

Yet the independent review still concluded Inland Rail was “an important project”, which was “needed to meet the increasing national freight task”.

The review said Inland Rail was expected to take around 200,000 trucks off the road each year, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 750,000 tonnes a year by 2050. It was also expected to boost regional communities in NSW and Queensland.

Last week, one regional Queensland business said scrapping the northern leg of Inland Rail was “a disaster”.

Why rail freight has declined for decades

Since the 1990s, all Australian highways have been upgraded to handle larger, heavier trucks.

Over the same period, there have been only limited improvements to rail freight. Not surprisingly, much freight that used to go by rail now goes by road.

As an example, back in 1994-95, rail carried about 28% of freight on Australia’s busiest freight corridor between Melbourne and Sydney.

By 2024, rail carried just 2% of freight between the two cities.

Inland Rail was meant to take pressure off highways

The Newell Highway is NSW’s longest highway, reaching from the Victorian border at Tocumwal to Queensland’s border at Goondiwindi. It’s currently the main means of moving freight between Melbourne and Brisbane.

Truck movements on the Newell Highway come with many costs. As well as road maintenance costs and the significant costs of ongoing highway upgrades, there are the very real human costs of road crashes.

In the past two years alone, there have been three fatal crashes involving trucks and semi-trailers: in July 2024, September 2025 and January this year. Five people died in those crashes.

Roads and city rail get a better deal

Only days after scrapping the northern half of Inland Rail, the federal government announced it would spend another $3.8 billion on Melbourne’s controversial Suburban Rail Loop. That new funding – ahead of November’s state election – takes the federal contribution to $6 billion over four years.

Other suburban train projects have also won federal funding, such as $5.2 billion towards a Western Sydney Airport Metro and $4.87 billion for Perth’s Metronet urban rail.

Road projects consistently do even better, such as more than $10 billion in federal funds to upgrade Queensland’s Bruce Highway or $15 billion in federal and state funding for a past upgrade of the Pacific Highway.

$2.8 billion for rail freight doesn’t cut it

In place of completing the Inland Rail project, the federal government promised to reallocate $1.75 billion towards other interstate rail track, on top of another $1 billion previously announced. That’s less than $2.8 billion for upgrades on a 9,600km national rail network.

That funding will include track renewal, passing loop extensions and improved signalling to remove speed restrictions on the rail network between Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. There will also be some upgrades in flood-prone parts of the east-west rail corridor to Perth.

It’s far from what’s actually needed, especially for interstate rail lines waiting on much-needed track upgrades. Priority areas I’ve long argued need funding include:

• a more direct route between Macarthur and Cootamundra in NSW, cutting two hours off freight train times and speeding up passenger train journeys

• securing a corridor now for a less winding track between Macarthur and Mittagong in NSW

• two key bypasses north of Sydney, around Newcastle and Karuah Valley, which would jointly cut around an hour off train trips.

Along with upgrades like those, if Australia wants to be able to reduce its reliance on road freight, a future government will have to revisit completing the northern half of Inland Rail.

Without Inland Rail reaching Queensland, we won’t get as much benefit back from upgrading inland freight tracks from Melbourne to central NSW, underway now.

Our current approach to transport funding favours roads and urban rail projects. Rail freight – which gets trucks off the road and better connects our regional communities with our cities – keeps being shortchanged.

Until we strike a better balance, we will continue to be as vulnerable to future oil shocks as we are today.

Philip Laird, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Wollongong

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

Australia’s Health Minister Mark Butler has declared reducing specialists’ fees will be his next key focus of health policy reform.

Doctors are currently free to set their own fees and many have rapidly increased them over the past 15 years. The average out-of-pocket cost for a non-bulk billed specialist consultation increased from A$46 in 2009–10 to $126 in 2024–25, or 11.9% per year. These are averages, so actual fees can be much higher and vary by specialty.

As a result, non-GP specialists have the highest incomes in the country and run the most profitable businesses.

So what has the government done so far to get specialist fees under control? And what options are left for reform?

Starting the reform process

This year the government introduced legislation to enable the publication of fees for individual specialists. The Medical Cost Finder website will show what individual specialists charge, rather than regional averages. This will better facilitate choice of doctor.

A Senate committee has also been set up to investigate access to and affordability of medical specialists which will report in late 2026.

The committee is likely to hear that high fees, and uncertainty about what fee will be charged, means people are less likely to attend appointments. This can mean a choice between poor health and potential financial hardship.

Each year, almost 1 million people report avoiding seeing specialists because of the cost.

High fees also skew incentives for doctors who may prefer to work in high-fee specialties rather than in specialties where population needs are higher, further reducing access for populations in greatest need.

Can’t we just increase competition?

Economists argue more competition in the market can help reduce market power and reduce fees.

However, our research has shown more competition (measured by more specialists of the same specialty in an area) has no impact on fees.

Increasing the supply of specialists might increase competition. But this already occurred in the 2000s when the number of medical graduates doubled and the number of specialists increased exponentially.

However, fees continued to rise higher and faster than inflation.

Competition can also be increased through more consumer information and choice, the focus of the current legislation.

However, our research and review of previous studies suggests fee transparency through the government’s existing Medical Cost Finder may not work, unless GPs have this information available during consultations when referring patients. Even then, patients have no objective information on quality.

Patients don’t have the same information or knowledge as doctors about diagnosis or which treatments provide most value. More information for patients won’t necessarily address this, as patients don’t have medical degrees to interpret it.

Patients may also be vulnerable, and motivated by fear and hope, and not in a position to make clear and rational decisions.

Four options for reining in fees

If increasing competition can’t bring fees down, the only options are direct fee regulation, additional government spending, or both. This could involve:

1. Legally enforceable price caps

Doctors have traditionally relied on a clause in the constitution to argue against direct regulation of fees. But the minister seems willing to legally test this. And doctors have lost previous legal tests of this clause.

Direct fee controls could make it illegal to charge above a certain amount, and caps could vary by individual Medicare items or by episode of care.

An independent body could be established to set these caps and Medicare rebates, based on submitted evidence on how costs vary across regions and patients’ needs. However, doctors with fees below the caps could increase them.

2. Pay Medicare rebates only if fees are below a certain cap

An alternative to testing the constitution is to make the payment of Medicare rebates conditional on doctors charging a fee below a certain cap.

If doctors charged above the cap, this would remove the Medicare rebate for patients so could potentially increase out-of-pocket costs for patients.

Since some patients regard higher fees as an indicator of high quality, this increased out-of-pocket cost might not reduce demand for everyone.

Some very high-fee doctors would not change their fees at all and the services they provide would become fully private. Skewed incentives would remain.

3. Increase Medicare rebates

Doctors groups argue that Medicare rebates should be increased, as this would lower fees charged.

However, previous experience with the Medicare Safety Net found strong evidence doctors may not reduce fees but, rather, take the extra rebate, or a proportion of it, as extra income.

This could reduce the growth of fees but discretion remains with the doctor on what to charge and the out-of-pocket cost.

This could be combined with fee caps or rules that prevent doctors from increasing fees if they accept the higher rebate. This would guarantee that the rebate increase would reduce out-of-pocket costs.

4. Standardising gap cover arrangements across health insurers

For services provided in private hospitals (and to private patients in public hospitals), health insurers use gap cover arrangements to help keep out-of-pocket costs down.

Doctors who choose to have an agreement with a health insurer can then choose whether a patient pays any out-of-pocket costs if their fee is equal to or less than the fee schedule determined by health insurers.

Patients can pay no out-of-pocket cost (“no gap” cover) or a known out-of-pocket cost (“known gap” cover) or pay the full out-of-pocket cost if the fee is above the known gap amount. Each insurer uses a different fee schedule which adds to the variation in out-of-pocket costs.

This scheme could be strengthened and fee variations reduced by requiring all insurers to use the same fee schedule.

It could also be mandated that all doctors accept the insurers’ fee as full payment.

Where to next?

These options require careful thought to determine which might be more effective in reducing fees and out-of-pocket costs. Some involve further government spending or impose costs on health insurers, while others involve changes in legislation and rules.

Some combination of both is likely to make this work. But reducing out-of-pocket costs while maintaining doctors’ earnings is likely to be expensive.

Anthony Scott, Professor of Health Economics and Director, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School, Monash University

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

Governments have spent about a year announcing new policies to make early education safer for Australian children.

In the wake of reports of shocking abuse and neglect in daycare centres, there have been moves to improve training and screening of educators, as well as more centre inspections.

All of these measures have been implemented in response to a crisis. Amid significant community concern about childcare safety, early childhood experts and peak bodies have also been calling for a commission to drive long-term strategic reform.

Ahead of the 2026 federal budget, Education Minister Jason Clare announced plans for a new national commission for early education and care. He told reporters, the idea is

to build on the safety reforms that we’ve already implemented, and help to make sure that the system works better than it does today.

If designed well, there is potential to go beyond addressing the immediate crisis. A national commission could fundamentally reshape the early childhood sector.

What has been announced?

Before anyone gets too excited, the commission is still at the “consideration” stage. The federal government says it will consult with state governments and stakeholders about how a commission would work.

This follows a 2024 Productivity Commission report, which recommended a national independent early education and care commission. The report noted while there are a number of government entities and peak bodies across the sector, “there is no dedicated body that monitors the system’s performance against its objectives”.

It said a new commission should be an independent watchdog and evidence hub, to complement current regulatory efforts at both national and state levels.

In 2023, the South Australian Royal Commission into Early Childhood Education and Care similarly noted the need for a national long-term vision for the sector.

What could a commission do?

The safety and quality problems we are seeing right now cannot be addressed through tighter regulation alone.

Current concerns around safety and quality are tied to the sector’s ongoing workforce challenges.

This includes concerns about workforce shortages, pay and conditions, training quality, heavy workloads, and educator wellbeing.

A national commission could focus on how all these issues connect – and impact on child safety and education quality. It could gather consistent data to inform long-term planning, monitor progress against national commitments, and provide governments with independent advice that cuts across jurisdictional boundaries.

What is needed to make this work?

To be effective, the commission would need to be legislated, independent and adequately resourced.

The Productivity Commission report noted a commission could hold governments to account for the performance of the sector. Professor Deborah Brennan, associate commissioner of the 2024 Productivity Commission inquiry, has also called for a commission to “give detailed consideration to the most effective ways to expand not-for-profit provision”. This call is grounded in evidence that large for-profit services tend to provide lower quality education and care.

The commission would also need to cover the entire sector, across all service and provider types and all jurisdictions. This includes private, public, not-for-profit and for-profit services. It requires a clear mandate, particularly in how it would interact with other government bodies and support national data collection.

If it is going to work – and use the best information available – it also needs to meaningfully involve educators’ experiences and voices.

What now?

Establishing a commission is not the entire answer. There is also an urgent need to improve educator-child ratios. And educators need to be paid and treated like professionals who provide quality early childhood education and keep children safe. If given the right powers and within its mandate, a commission could support these goals.

Done right, a national commission could represent a genuine shift from reactive policy and “bandaid solutions” to a long-term, whole-of-system vision for a sector more than one million families depend on every day.

Erin Harper, Lecturer, School of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney and Marianne Fenech, Professor, Early Childhood Governance, University of Sydney

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

Frozen shoulder can make simple tasks – such as lifting your arm, sleeping on your side, getting out of bed, putting on a bra, driving or playing with your kids – painful and challenging.

This condition usually starts with pain suddenly developing in the shoulder and stiffness. Over time, the pain and stiffness get worse. It can drag on for months or even years.

So, what causes frozen shoulder? And can it be treated?

What is frozen shoulder?

This shoulder condition, also known as “adhesive capsulitis”, affects around 8% of men and 10% of women aged 25–64. But it’s more common over 40, especially for people in their 60s.

We don’t fully understand what causes frozen shoulder.

The tissues around the joint become tight, swollen and stiff. But we don’t know exactly why these changes occur and lead to pain and limited movement.

There are usually three stages:

• freezing – pain gradually gets worse and the shoulder becomes stiff, limiting the range of movement

• frozen – stiffness and pain usually peak, but may begin to ease

• thawing – pain and stiffness slowly improve, and movement begins to return.

While health professionals commonly accept it, this staged description suggests frozen shoulder will follow a predictable pattern and always get better on its own. But research suggests this is not always the case.

For example, the “freezing” stage is usually expected to last at least ten weeks. But some people will start to notice improved movement sooner.

Recovery stages will vary from person to person and can take months to years. Some people may not fully recover, even with treatment.

One 2020 study followed up with 215 patients with frozen shoulder. While over 70% of participants said they were happy with improvements in their symptoms, around 40% still had some movement restriction two years after their symptoms began.

Another study from 2008 found over a third of people they surveyed (41%) had ongoing symptoms two to seven years later, including pain and difficulty sleeping.

Who is most at risk?

Certain groups are more likely to develop frozen shoulder:

• women, especially during menopause
• people with diabetes
• older adults
• those with high cholesterol or thyroid problems.

There is some evidence genetics also plays a role, as a family history increases your risk.

But we need more high-quality research to understand what’s behind these risk factors.

For example, people with diabetes are around five times more likely to develop frozen shoulder than those without diabetes – and also have worse pain. This may be linked to diabetes-related changes in the body, such as reduced blood flow to tissues and chemical changes from high blood sugar. But the exact mechanisms are unclear, and research is yet to determine whether controlling blood sugar better could help prevent or slow frozen shoulder.

Similarly, women are 40% more likely to develop frozen shoulder than men, with one theory suggesting hormone fluctuations during menopause are responsible. But there is no clear evidence yet to support this.

How is frozen shoulder treated?

There is mixed evidence about which treatments are effective, including whether over-the-counter pain medication such as Voltaren helps.

Oral steroids

A review of the evidence suggests oral steroids, such as prednisolone, can provide some short-term pain relief and improve shoulder movement, compared to doing nothing or a placebo. But these benefits don’t seem to last beyond six weeks, and the evidence comes from a few small studies. These require a prescription.

Injections

High-quality evidence shows corticosteroid injections can provide short-term relief, compared to doing nothing.

There is also some limited evidence that corticosteroid injections and platelet rich plasma injections can provide better short-term pain relief, compared with over-the-counter pain relief and physiotherapy. However, the studies are small or poorly designed and the effects are small, so the evidence needs to be interpreted with caution.

Physiotherapy

Moderate-quality evidence suggests physiotherapy can help improve shoulder movement. Benefits of physio are greater when combined with a steroid injection, and followed up by doing the exercises at home. More research is needed to understand how well these treatments work in the long term.

What about surgery?

There are two main procedures for frozen shoulder, both done while the patient is unconscious under anaesthetic.

1. Manipulation under anaesthetic

This is a less invasive procedure where the surgeon stretches the shoulder, without cutting into the joint, to help loosen tight tissue that may be causing stiffness.

2. Arthroscopic capsular release

In this type of keyhole surgery, the surgeon cuts tight tissues inside the shoulder joint to try to free up shoulder movement.

Improvements from these procedures are typically small, and evidence suggests the results are not better than non-surgical treatments. For example, one study showed that after one year, patients who’d had surgery had similar improvements to those who’d had physiotherapy and a steroid injection, but no surgery.

These procedures also have several downsides. It’s more expensive than other treatments, carries additional risks, and typically requires weeks (and up to three months) of rehabilitation.

The bottom line

Being physically active and doing exercises can help if you’re experiencing pain and limited movement. But you don’t have to work this out alone. It’s a good idea to get advice on managing pain and how to stay active.

If you suspect you have frozen shoulder, it’s important to see a doctor or physiotherapist so they can rule out other conditions, such as fracture and arthritis.

A health professional can also discuss management – the potential benefits, harms, costs, and how easy it is to access each treatment option.

Fernando Sousa, Research Fellow in Physiotherapy, Monash University; Joshua Zadro, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Sydney Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney, and Peter Malliaras, Professor in Physiotherapy, Monash University

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

Teenagers lead busy lives.

And to get through everything from school exams to softball games, they need nutritious food.

But research suggests Australian teens aren’t getting the nutrients they need, because their diets often revolve around sugary, salty and processed foods.

So what’s behind this? And how can we help our teens eat better?

The teenage years

Adolescence is a crucial time of growth and development.

During this time, teenagers go through various physical changes. They generally double their body weight and go through a growth spurt. They also experience rapid hormonal changes, as the adolescent brain pumps out more hormones related to growth, stress and sexual development.

At the same time, they are dealing with various social and emotional pressures. This includes their growing desire to be independent which may involve distancing themselves from – or in some cases actively rebelling against – their family values. They may also develop new friendships, juggling these with other commitments such as schoolwork and sport.

Good nutrition helps teens navigate all these changes. However, research suggests teenagers aren’t eating enough healthy foods.

What teens are eating

Australian teenagers get, on average, around 35% of their daily energy from nutrient-poor, energy-dense foods. These include confectionery, processed meats and salty snacks. Young Australians also consume a lot of sweetened drinks, such as soft drinks and energy drinks. On average, teens have sugary drinks at least once a week.

Compared to other age groups, adolescents are the least likely to eat the recommended amount of fruit and vegetables – two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables each day. Worryingly, only 4% of teenagers meet that recommendation.

Worse still, globally roughly one-third of teenagers can’t access enough food. This may be because they live in regions affected by poverty, conflict or climate change.

One 2022 study examined the eating habits of students aged between 11 and 18, across 95 countries. It found up to 30% had experienced food insecurity – meaning they couldn’t access enough safe and nutritious food – in the last month. This study also suggested a link between food insecurity and reduced school attendance and physical activity, as well as poorer mental health.

Not just ‘bad choices’

So why are teenagers choosing unhealthy foods over healthy ones?

They are not simply making bad choices. So criticising their eating habits will only harm their relationship with food, and may contribute to feelings of shame and low self-esteem.

Research suggests teenagers make food choices based on various factors.

One is relationships. As teenagers grow and mature, they spend less time with their family and more time with their peers. As a result, their food choices are increasingly shaped by what their friends eat. Research suggests teenagers’ food choices are also influenced by where they socialise, such as fast food restaurants. The price of food also matters, with teenagers more likely to eat unhealthy foods because they are cheaper.

Another factor is social trends. Research suggests targeted advertising and celebrity endorsements have a disproportionate impact on adolescent food choices. And they mainly promote convenient, nutrient-poor options such as fast food and confectionery. Food trends, many of which are driven by social media, may also influence what teenagers eat. Recent examples include microwave-friendly mug cakes and the TikTok-famous “girl dinner”, both of which generally have little nutritional value.

Teenagers also care about taste. It goes without saying, junk food is delicious. That’s because food companies design it in a way that taps into our cravings, making us eat more. Research suggests teenagers may struggle to resist or stop eating unhealthy foods because they haven’t fully learnt to control their appetites. Advertising exacerbates this by framing unhealthy food as the most delicious and convenient option.

Raising healthier teens

The good news is, we can help our teens eat more nutritious foods. But that requires action on both a policy and household level.

In policy

Unfortunately, we tend to overlook teenagers in nutrition research and policy. Our new global framework for adolescent nutrition aims to change that. With help from young people and international nutrition experts, we developed several key recommendations:

• boost nutrition education in schools, by establishing a national school curriculum to safely promote healthy eating and combat nutrition misinformation from social media
• increase access to healthy, affordable foods by providing or subsidising healthy school meals, expanding community food programs in places where teenagers hang out such as sporting clubs and supporting local produce markets
• regulate how companies market unhealthy foods to young people, by restricting teen-directed advertising in apps and gaming platforms and banning unhealthy food marketing near schools, sporting fields and on public transport.

At home

There are also practical ways parents and families can help teenagers eat more healthily.

Here are some ideas:

• make your teen the “cook of the day”, assigning them one day each week where they choose and/or cook a nutritious meal that helps build their cooking skills
• involve your teen in meal planning, encouraging them to brainstorm healthy meals that are also tasty and affordable
• eat shared meals, ideally as a family and without any devices.

As policymakers, we must make healthy foods more visible, convenient and affordable for teenagers. And as parents, we shouldn’t shame teens for their eating habits, but instead show them how fun and achievable healthy eating can be. Together, these actions will help our teenagers grow into healthy, active adults.

Catharine Fleming, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, Western Sydney University

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

General practitioners (GPs) and hospital doctors are usually the first contact point for patients, but as our new research shows, they can take on different roles, acting either as gatekeepers or brokers.

As gatekeepers they make sure unnecessary investigations are avoided and scarce resources used efficiently. As brokers, they advocate for their patients’ access to the limited resources available.

For people living with life-limiting disease, the role a doctor adopts can mean the difference between timely care and dangerous delay.

Our research focused on people who had lived with a terminal cancer diagnosis for a long time. The impact of these different roles can be seen clearly.

When GPs were concerned a person’s symptoms could indicate cancer, most patients were referred to specialist services quickly so diagnostic work could be undertaken.

But there were also cases where patients, even with a history of cancer, were not referred quickly. There are several reasons why this might occur.

One is that the GP thinks the patient’s symptoms are due to a different condition. For example, one of the people in our study had a history of breast cancer, but also of mental health issues. When they presented with breathlessness, their GP prescribed an antidepressant.

The breathlessness persisted and the patient returned to the GP and eventually ended up in the emergency department where they were diagnosed with lung metastases.

Another patient had a lump on her breast ten years after breast cancer. Her GP said it was a cyst, and it was not until she saw a female doctor that she was sent to her specialist to find the cancer had metastasised.

Even in the hospital sector resources could be withheld from patients.

One study participant was found to have a terminal brain tumour and was sent home and told treatment would be “a waste of time”. It was only due to the tenacity of their spouse that the patient was eventually sent for possible treatment.

Doctors as advocates

In contrast, for some patients a health professional will broker access to resources others might not be given.

Again, reasons for this vary, but can often come down to some assessment about who is worthy of this extra effort.

One of the patients we spoke to had malignant melanoma that had been misdiagnosed years earlier as benign. Their specialist went in to bat for them, working to get them onto a vaccine trial, trying to make up for that system failure.

Another patient, a medical professional, was one of only 100 people in New Zealand put on an unsubsidised medication at no cost to them. Yet another, who was in their 30s, was placed on a number of trials for melanoma, even in circumstances where they did not meet the trial protocol.

We can see some clear reasons why a health professional may broker access to scarce resources for their patient. The patient may have been let down by the health system earlier, they may have strong connections with the health system because of their work, and they may be regarded as being more worthy because of their age.

There will be many other factors, but we have no systematic research on this issue. What we do have, though, is a situation where health professionals are making determinations about who is worthy of access to resources.

These decisions are not mere judgements about need or likely clinical benefits.

Reinforcing existing inequities

For Māori, gatekeeping and brokering may have very different effects.

Gatekeeping may not be malicious but can reproduce the experience of later diagnosis and poorer outcomes, which is already more common for Māori.

Māori are also less likely to start with the advantages that make a patient “broker-worthy”. If brokerage is informal and discretionary, it risks reinforcing inequities the system nominally wants to reduce.

A third role we saw was less about tests and treatments and more about what kinds of knowledge and practice are allowed into the clinic. Some practitioners acted as boundary enforcers, defending the edge of Western evidence-based medicine by excluding or ignoring other approaches to cancer and healing.

One patient in our study rejected Western medicine, concluding that doctors did not listen to them or understand their cultural and spiritual world.

GPs and hospital specialists will always have to balance finite resources, uncertain evidence and competing obligations. But whether they primarily act as gatekeepers, brokers, boundary enforcers or as bridge builders across these roles has real consequences for who is diagnosed, who is treated, and who lives well with cancer in Aotearoa.

For Māori, whose cancer journeys are already shaped by structural inequity, getting those roles right is not an abstract policy debate. It is a matter of life and death.

We need to understand medical practitioners’ decisions about which role they take on. This knowledge may help patients to advocate for themselves and researchers to analyse whether these decisions are fostering equitable outcomes.

Kevin Dew, Professor of Sociology, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington; Chris Cunningham, Professor of Māori and Public Health, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University; Elizabeth Dennett, Associate Professor of Surgery, University of Otago; Kerry Chamberlain, Professor of Social and Health Psychology, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University, and Richard Egan, Associate Professor of Health Promotion, University of Otago

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

As of May 8 end-to-end encryption is no longer available on direct messages on Instagram.

Meta, in announcing the policy reversal, said it had done so because few people used the feature. But this has raised questions about its impact on user privacy and whether it will improve child safety on the platform.

Instagram has long been a focal point for discussion about online safety – whether in relation to body image concerns, cyberbullying or sexual extortion. This policy change by Meta directly affects how safety and moderation are implemented in private messages.

This is important considering research has found that perpetrators first contacted roughly 23% of Australian sexual extortion victims on Instagram, the second most frequent method of contact, behind Snapchat (at 50%).

What is end-to-end encryption?

End-to-end encryption is a way of scrambling a message so only the sender’s and recipient’s devices can read it. The platform carrying the message, in this case Instagram, can’t access it.

This same technology is present by default on WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and (since late 2023) Facebook Messenger.

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg first promised to bring end-to-end encryption across Meta’s messaging products back in 2019, under the slogan “the future is private”.

Instagram tested encrypted direct messages in 2021. It rolled them out as an opt-in feature in 2023.

End-to-end encrypted direct messages never became the default, and the low adoption rate of opting in to use the feature is Meta’s justification for removing it. As a spokesperson told The Guardian:

Very few people were opting in to end-to-end encrypted messaging in DMs, so we’re removing this option from Instagram.

There is a circular logic to this: Meta has killed off a feature it buried so deep that most users never knew it existed, then cited low usage as the reason for its removal.

What does this mean for Instagram users?

In practical terms, every message you send on Instagram now travels in a form Meta can read.

Meta’s privacy policy lists the content of messages users send and receive among the data it collects. In principle, this enables the company to use this data to personalise features, train artificial intelligence (AI) models, and deliver targeted advertising.

While Meta has publicly committed not to train its AI models on private messages unless users actively share them with Meta AI, it has made no equivalent public commitment about advertising.

That leaves open the possibility that Meta could use unencrypted Instagram direct messages for ad targeting. And without encryption, Meta’s AI commitment is now backed by policy alone, not by the technology itself.

A clear reversal

This reads as a clear reversal of Meta’s privacy-first posture which Zuckerberg announced seven years ago.

Meta has been under sustained pressure from law enforcement, regulators and child protection organisations who argue end-to-end encryption creates spaces where platforms can’t detect child sexual exploitation and grooming. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has been clear that the deployment of end-to-end encryption “does not absolve services of responsibility for hosting or facilitating online abuse or the sharing of illegal content”.

This argument deserves to be taken seriously. The harms are real and disproportionately fall on young people.

However, sexual extortion research shows perpetrators don’t tend to stay on the platform where they make first contact, with more than 50% of sexual extortion victims saying perpetrators asked them to switch platforms.

Meta still uses end-to-end encryption on its other platforms, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, and it needs to apply a consistent approach to child safety. Predators routinely ask victims to switch platforms, so the company’s safety approach needs to work for Instagram and their end-to-end encrypted services.

A false choice

Meta and privacy advocates often frame this as a choice between end-to-end encryption or child safety. But that’s a false choice. It’s not an “either-or” situation, even if they make it sound like one.

The technology already exists to detect harmful content while keeping messages encrypted in transit. It just has to run in the right place: on the user’s device, before the device encrypts and sends the message, or after it receives and decrypts it.

On-device approaches have a contested history, and any deployment must be genuinely privacy-preserving by design. But technology companies must weigh the objection against the harms that continue to occur. A safety by design approach is needed.

On-device safety measures have been demonstrated at scale with Apple’s on-device nudity detection for images sent or received via Messages, AirDrop and FaceTime. A 2025 study demonstrated high-accuracy grooming detection using Meta’s AI model designed specifically for on-device deployment on mobile phones.

Recently, both Apple and Google have started to take measures towards app store–based age verification in some jurisdictions.

The highest-profile real-world deployment of these is Apple enabling device-level privacy-preserving age verification in the UK.

Social media and private messaging companies, along with operating system vendors (Microsoft, Apple, and Google), all have a role to play in ensuring harmful content is detected, whether or not end-to-end encryption is used. Progress has been slow. But we, as a community, need to demand more from these companies.

Joel Scanlan, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Law; Academic Co-Lead, CSAM Deterrence Centre, University of Tasmania

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

We have been on a years-long campaign of satellite remote sensing of the vast desert landscapes in Eastern Sudan.

This involved using satellite aerial imagery to systematically and painstakingly search for archaeological features in Atbai Desert of Eastern Sudan, a small part of the much larger Sahara.

Our team – which includes archaeologists from Macquarie University, France’s HiSoMA research unit, and the Polish Academy of Sciences – wanted to tell the story of this desert region between the Nile and the Red Sea, without having to excavate.

One mysterious archaeological feature stood out. We kept finding large, circular mass graves filled with the bones of people and animals, often carefully arranged around a key person at the centre.

Likely built around the fourth and third millennia BCE, all these “enclosure burial” monuments have a large round enclosure wall, some up to 80 metres in diameter, with humans and their cattle, sheep and goats buried inside.

Our new research, published in the journal African Archaeological Review, reveals how we found 260 previously unknown enclosure burials east of the Nile River, across almost 1,000km of desert.

Who built them?

Already known from a few excavated examples in the Egyptian and Sudanese deserts, these large circular burial monuments have long puzzled scholars.

What seemed once isolated examples emerge now as a consistent pattern. It is suggestive of a common nomadic culture stretching across a vast stretch of desert.

Most are within the borders of modern Sudan on the slopes of the Red Sea Hills. Unfortunately, satellite imagery alone cannot communicate the whole story of these enclosure burial builders.

The carbon dates and pottery from the few excavated monuments tell us these people lived roughly 4000–3000 BCE, just before Egyptians formed a territorial kingdom we know of as Pharaonic Egypt.

But these “enclosure burial” nomads had little to do with urbane and farming Egyptians.

Living in the desert and raising herds, these were Saharan desert nomads through and through.

A new elite?

Some enclosures show “secondary” burials arranged around a “primary” burial of a person at the centre – perhaps a chief or other important member of the community.

For archaeologists, this is important data for discerning class and hierarchy in prehistoric societies.

The question of when Saharan nomads became less egalitarian has plagued archaeologists for decades, but most agree it was around this time of the fourth millennium BCE that a distinctive “elite” class emerged.

This is still a far cry from the sort of huge divisions between ruler and ruled as seen in societies such as Egypt, with its pharaohs and farmers. However, it ushers in the first traces of inequality.

Animals held in high esteem

Cattle seem very important to these prehistoric nomads (a theory also supported by ancient local rock art in the area).

Burying themselves alongside their herd, these nomads show they held their animals in esteem.

Thousands of years later, local nomads chose to reuse these now “ancient” enclosures for their burial plots – sometimes almost 4,000 years after they were first built.

In other words, the prehistoric nomads created cemetery spaces that lasted for millennia.

What happened to these people?

No one can say for sure.

The few dates we have for these monuments cluster between 4000–3000 BCE, nearing the end of a period when the once-greener Sahara was drying, a phase scientists call the “African Humid Period”.

From north to south, the summer monsoon gradually retreated, reducing rainfall and shrinking pastures. This led nomads to abandon thirsty cattle, increase the mobility of their herds, migrate to the south or flee to the Nile.

The monuments are overwhelmingly located near what were then favourable watering spots; near rocky pools in valley floors, lakebeds and ephemeral rivers.

This tells us that when the monuments were being built, the desert was already quite challenging and dry.

At some point, as grass and bush made way for sand and rocks, keeping their prized cattle became unsustainable.

Having large herds of cattle in this desert, at this period, may have been a way of showing off an expensive and rare possession – a prehistoric nomad’s equivalent to having a Ferrari. This may help explain why cattle were frequently buried alongside their owners in enclosure burial monuments.

A bigger story

These enclosure burials are only one part of the greater story of human adaptation to climate change across North Africa.

From the Central Sahara, to Kenya and Arabia, keeping cattle, goats and sheep transformed societies. It changed the food they ate, the way they moved around, and community hierarchies.

It’s no coincidence communities changed how they buried their dead at the same time as they adopted herding lifestyles.

These burial enclosures tell us even scattered nomads were extremely well-organised people, and expert adapters.

Our discovery reshapes the story of the Sahara deserts and the prehistory of the Nile.

They provide a prologue for the monumentalism of the kingdoms of Egypt and Nubia, and an image of this region as more than pharaohs, pyramids and temples.

Sadly, many of these enclosure monuments are currently being destroyed or vandalised as a result of unregulated mining in the region. These unique burials have survived for millennia, but can disappear in less than a week.

Maria Gatto (Polish Academy of Sciences) was an author on our paper. We also want to acknowledge Alexander Carter, Tung Cheung, Kahn Emerson, Jessica Larkin, Stuart Hamilton and Ethan Simpson from Macquarie University for their contribution. We are also grateful to the National Corporation of Antiquities and Museums (Sudan).

Julien Cooper, Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University; Maël Crépy, Researcher in Geography and Ancient History, Université Lumière Lyon 2 , and Marie Bourgeois, PhD Candidate, Ancient History, Université Lumière Lyon 2

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