Inbox News: October 2024

September 29 - October 27, 2024: Issue 635

Four Aussies qualify for 2025 WSL Championship Tour: George Pittar among them!

On October 17 Australian time the Saquarema Pro in Brazil, the sixth and final stop on the 2024 WSL Challenger Series, was completed.

Avoca surfer Macy Callaghan (AUS) and Marco Mignot (FRA) won the World Surf League (WSL) Corona Saquarema Pro Presented by Banco do Brasil. Callaghan and Mignot overcame Vahine Fierro (FRA) and Deivid Silva (BRA) in the Final. 

The conclusion of the event meant the top 10 ranked men and top five ranked women of the Challenger Series have officially earned their place in the 2025 Championship Tour (CT) class. 

Among this number were four Australians; George Pittar and Joel Vaughan secured their spots for their first full year on Tour. They join women’s CT qualifiers, Sally Fitzgibbons and Isabella Nichols.

The GWM Sydney Surf Pro held at North Narrabeen in May 2024 was event 2 of the World Surf League's 2024 Challenger Series. This had been preceded by event 1, the Bonsoy Gold Coast Pro.

George Pittar came into the North Narrabeen event on a bit of a roll with consistent form and ability to maintain momentum.

Hailing from just down the road in Manly, George Pittar was finally back on home soil after a whirlwind few months of competition. 

Pittar was awarded wildcards into two Championship Tour (CT) events, putting on an incredible performance that saw him earn an equal third-place finish at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro (April 11-21, 2024), even taking down world No. 1 Griffin Colapinto (AUS) along the way. 

He picked up more points after gaining a wildcard entry into the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach presented by Bonsoy (March 26-April 25).  

George then commenced his Challenger Series season with a solid showing and Semi-final finish on the Gold Coast and continued that form at Narrabeen, picking up  3,320 points in the GWM Sydney Surf Pro presented by Bonsoy for his efforts. 

George was working to win a full-time spot on the CT in 2025. 

“It’s amazing to be back home and competing at an event of this size whilst sleeping in my own bed and enjoying mum’s home-cooked meals,” Pittar said in May. “It’s amazing to see all of the world’s best lighting up the Northern Beaches. I know it means a lot to the local surfing community. 

The last month has been amazing. It’s been great to get some results and scores at the CT level and show myself I can belong there and it definitely gives me so much confidence ahead of the CS season. It’s given me incentive to qualify and compete at the CT level full-time.” 

On qualifying for the 2025 CT Tour, George said:

''Far out that was an unforgettable feeling, I’ve dreamed of qualifying for the tour since I was a kid.

Cheers to all the people I’ve met on this journey, to the Aussie lads I’ve travelled with over the past two years sharing each others highs and lows, to the support I’ve received from Sydney and Vanuatu, to my family for giving me the belief in myself and of course to my sponsors.

So many people in my life helped me achieve this moment but to be able to share it with my best mates was a special experience.

Keen to give next year an honest crack, Cheers everyone!''

George Pittar upon qualifying for the WSL 2025 CT at the Saquarema Pro . Credit: WSL / Thiago Diz

North Shelly beach surfer Joel Vaughan said:

''Wow what a feeling! Still can’t wipe the smile off my face and I feel like it’s only just sinking in. Achieving one of my biggest dreams and goal felt so special especially with a bunch of my mates on the beach! Big thanks to everyone who helped me out over the last few years and everyone who constantly supports me!

So excited for the year to come!''

Joel Vaughan upon qualifying for the WSL 2025 CT at the Saquarema Pro . Credit: WSL / Thiago Diz

And that's not to detract from Macy Callaghan earning her first 2024 Challenger Series event win against runner-up Vahine Fierro, who also secured her place in the last Challenger 2024 event.

Macy scored a 6.67 (out of a possible 10) on consecutive backhand snaps on a left-hander at Praia de Itaúna. She backed it up with a 5.67 to earn a 12.34 total to finish off the 2024 Challenger Series season with a victory. Callaghan closed out the season ranked No. 10, and earned her spot on the 2025 Challenger Series. 

“I’m so happy, but I’m actually really tired after that last heat,” said Callaghan.

“This is the reason why I came, and I’m just super stoked to finish off the season with a win. Saquarema is always a fun time, the waves were great, and the weather was really nice after all the fog from the event in Portugal. The weekend when the girls surfed was a blast, the beach was filled with people, and they had that cool airshow. But it’s going to be great going back home, I haven’t been back in three months, so it’ll be nice to see my friends and family again.” 

Macy Callaghan  wins at the Saquarema Pro . Credit: WSL / Thiago Diz

Vahine Fierro (FRA) had an incredible run at the Corona Saquarema Pro. Fierro’s Quarterfinal win against Sophia Medina (BRA) secured her the fifth and final qualification spot on the 2025 Championship Tour. 

In the Final versus Macy Callaghan (AUS), Fierro’s heat total of 10.57 (out of a possible 20) fell short of the win.

“I try to keep it calm in the chaos, but I’m still super happy with everything. I was a little out of rhythm there, but still tried to do my best,” said Fierro. “I just want to thank everyone for watching and all the support, I really feel your mana all the way here. Thanks to my dad too because I know it’s late in Tahiti, but I know he’s watching.”

Earlier this year, Vahine Fierro (FRA) was selected as the Event Wildcard for the 2024 SHISEIDO Tahiti Pro where she went on to win at Teahupo’o. 

On finding out she had accomplished her goal of making the Tour alongside CT qualifiers, Fierro has her eyes set on the next step in her career.

“This is a dream come true,” said Fierro. “This year I’ve been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. So coming out of the Olympics when I was really down and now clinching my spot on Tour is an incredible feeling. Thanks to the support of everyone that’s been with me each and every day and never giving up. Today was scary, but I love the feeling and am super grateful for this moment.”

Vahine Fierro upon qualifying for the WSL 2025 CT at the Saquarema Pro . Credit: WSL / Thiago Diz

Marco Mignot (FRA) defeated Brazil’s Deivid Silva (BRA) to secure his first Challenger Series win. After two consecutive victories by Brazilian athletes at the Corona Saquarema Pro, Mignot became the first international to take home the victory. Mignot joins event winners Gabriel Medina (BRA) in 2022 and Samuel Pupo (BRA) in 2023. 

“You know it’s been an amazing year,” said Mignot. “I’ve just been trying to live every second in the present. My time here has been incredible and my goals were to win a Challenger Series event and qualify, and I was able to accomplish it. But it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but I know there’s a new chapter coming and I feel ready for what’s next.” 

2024 Challenger Series Rankings and 2025 CT Qualifiers 

Women’s 

1 - Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS) 32,170 points 

2 - Bella Kenworthy (USA) 27,290 points 

3 - Isabella Nichols (AUS) 26,915 points 

4 - Erin Brooks (CAN) 24,440 points 

5 - Vahine Fierro (FRA) 23,665 points  

Men’s

1 - Samuel Pupo (BRA) 25,865 points

2 - Ian Gouveia (BRA) 22,810 points

3 - Marco Mignot (FRA) 21,600 points 

4 - Alejo Muniz (BRA) 20,525 points 

5 - Deivid Silva (BRA) 17,760 points

6 - Miguel Pupo (BRA) 17,475 points 

7 - Joel Vaughan (AUS) 17,390 points 

8 - George Pittar (AUS) 16,050 points 

9 - Edgard Groggia (BRA) 14,630 points 

10 - Jackson Bunch (HAW) 14,430 points 

Record HSC cohort begin exam preparation as the end of Term 3 completes their formal schooling

The largest-ever cohort of students completing their Higher School Certificate conclude their formal schooling today as Term 3 draws to a close and the countdown begins to the HSC written exam period.

The 2024 HSC enrolment snapshot released today shows a record 80,166 NSW students are completing at least one HSC course this year, with 76,221 of those students set to sit at least one HSC exam.

The snapshot, released by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), provides a breakdown of enrolments by course, gender, and location. It offers insights into which areas of study students are interested in and how enrolments have changed, or remained stable, over time.

Continuing an 11-year trend, Mathematics (61,963 students), Business Studies (20,008) and Biology (19,444) again see the highest enrolments after English – with Ancient History moving into 13th place for candidature size, its highest place in recent years.

Six per cent of students are enrolled in language courses this year, consistent with 2023, with Japanese, French and Chinese continuing to see the highest candidature in a trend unchanged over the past decade.

In Vocational Education and Training (VET), Hospitality (7,587 students), Construction (3,529 students), Business Services (2,401 students), Retail Services (1,615 students) and Entertainment Industry (1,243 students) have the highest enrolment numbers, with Primary Industries (1,054 students) continuing to grow and attracting more female students than in previous years. 

The HSC is a family affair for some students, with around 1,647 siblings sitting exams this year, including 798 sets of twins and 17 sets of triplets enrolled in an HSC course.

As they near the end of their 13-year schooling careers, the HSC Class of 2024 are now set to finish classes and finalise preparations for their upcoming written exams in October.

HSC written exams are scheduled to commence on 15 October with English Paper 1 and conclude on 8 November with Geography.  

View the timetables on the NESA website.


NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Prue Car said:
“This point is a major milestone for HSC students, as they head out of the school gates and prepare to take on exams next month. 

“I wish students all the best as they get ready to do their very best in exams. You have done the hard work - now is the time to stay focused, take care of yourself and follow a healthy study schedule. 

“Thank you to the teachers of NSW who have prepared HSC students for this moment and to all teachers who have guided students through their 13 years of education.”  

CEO of the NSW Education Standards Authority Paul Martin said:   
“Congratulations to the 76,221 students who are now finishing up their high school careers and preparing to sit exams in October.

“Be proud of what you have already achieved to get here, and go in to this study period with a clear mind, feeling confident in all that you know and have learned.

“The NSW education system, delivered by the country’s top teachers, has prepared our latest set of high schoolers for success now and into the future."

HSC Online Help Guide

REMINDER: there's a great Practical Guide for Getting through your HSC by Sydney Uni at: cce.sydney.edu.au/getting-through-your-hsc-a-practical-guide

Training programs to plug jobs gap in the visitor economy

The NSW Government is boosting NSW’s visitor economy workforce, delivering subsidised training programs for a sector that is expected to need up to 150,000 more workers over the next decade.

TAFE NSW is partnering with Destination NSW to develop and deliver training programs jointly funded by the Federal Government’s NSW Choose Tourism Program.

The subsidised courses are designed to address industry workforce shortages by encouraging Australians to pursue a career in the visitor economy, helping operators to attract, retain and upskill staff. 

A key recommendation of the Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 Review, to be released in coming weeks, is to encourage school leavers and other jobseekers into the tourism workforce, with the aim of growing the sector in NSW to 450,000 workers. 

The Review finds that currently school leavers are spurning visitor economy careers, with leakage of workers into mining, agriculture and trades due to “perceived better career paths, industry confidence and better pay”. 

Having reached a record $52.9 billion of annual visitor expenditure in the year to June, the NSW visitor economy is Australia’s biggest. 

The growth in the NSW visitor economy over the coming decade will coincide with the opening of the Western Sydney Airport in 2026 and a new emphasis on visitor experiences that show off the best of our food and wine, coastal and aquatic environments, nature-based, cultural, heritage, arts, First Nations, adventure and wellness experiences. 

The new training programs include:
  • An ‘Introduction to the Visitor Economy’ microskill: a short self-directed online course, designed to provide foundational knowledge and explore careers in the visitor economy industry. The microskill will be offered free to the public for the first six weeks of release, with fully subsidised access available for NSW high school students.
  • Five one-hour video masterclasses: fully subsidised pre-recorded masterclasses will be available on the TAFE NSW website, featuring industry experts such as Scenic World, Cupitt’s Estate, Merlin Entertainments, Sydney Opera House, and W Hotels.  
  • Modernised Certificate III in Tourism: set for delivery in 2025, this updated qualification will include new visitor economy skills. Updates will also incorporate contemporary case studies and assessments based on industry feedback to ensure the qualification meets the current needs of the sector. 
The ‘Introduction to Visitor Economy’ microskill is launching today and masterclasses will be available from late October 2024. To find out more, visit tafensw.edu.au/visitoreconomy

Minister for Jobs and Tourism, John Graham said:
“Through the NSW Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 review, we discovered that we need more school leavers to pursue careers in the visitor economy.

“A career in the visitor economy offers not just an incredible professional pathway but also the opportunity for some of the best life experiences available anywhere in the world.  

“These new training programs will be invaluable to attracting more people to the visitor economy workforce and will alleviate pressure from the countless small businesses who are feeling the pinch as they look for skilled workers to fill jobs.”

Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, Steve Whan said:
“TAFE NSW is working closely with industry to deliver relevant, modern training to build a pipeline of workers needed to support a thriving visitor economy.

“High schools across NSW, as well as the public, will have access to fee-free places in the Introduction to Visitor Economy microskill, opening doors for people to discover opportunities in this dynamic sector.

“These exciting new training opportunities will be available online, so people across the state can access the skills and expertise needed to excel in the visitor economy, helping regional businesses attract and retain talent.”

Federal Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell said:
“A strong, sustainable, skilled workforce is critically important to Australia’s tourism industry.

“It is a great industry to work in with a diverse range of exciting career opportunities.

“That is why the Albanese Government is supporting New South Wales, and all states and territories, to build their tourism workforce through our Choose Tourism grants program.

“My first job was in tourism, and I know first-hand what an amazing opportunity this industry provides, I commend NSW on these initiatives.”



TAFE NSW to provide free professional learning for early childhood educators

The Government announced on 13 September 2024 the NSW Department of Education is partnering with TAFE NSW to deliver a $10 million Early Childhood Professional Learning Program, providing NSW early childhood educators and teachers  with fully subsidised professional learning.

''This landmark investment is a key election commitment by the Minns Labor Government that aims to address workforce burnout and support retention. It will ensure the early childhood workforce has access to fully subsidised professional learning to enhance skills and knowledge, so all children get a strong start in life and learning.'' the government states

Professional learning will be open to all Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) educators and teachers that work at a service or live in NSW. 

The first phase of the program is expected to launch in Spring 2024 with a series of short online microskills and webinars designed by sector experts. These short courses will be free, self-paced and available through TAFE NSW’s online learning platform.

The second phase will deliver a leadership development program that aims to increase workforce retention by supporting early childhood education and care professionals to thrive as leaders.

The program will include tailored offerings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, and those working in rural and regional areas of NSW. It will be offered through a combination of online learning and face-to-face sessions to be rolled out in 2025.

Applications will be open next year to educators and teachers who want to strengthen their leadership capabilities.

TAFE NSW is seeking sector representatives to help design and deliver the professional learning program to ensure it is informed by evidence, best practice, and is responsive to skills needs.

The professional learning program builds on TAFE NSW’s commitment to train early childhood educators, care educators and teachers using Vocational Education and Training and Higher Education qualifications.


Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said:

“The NSW Government is committed to maintaining and retaining this highly skilled and valued workforce, and fee-free professional development is one of the ways we are doing this.

“There is clear evidence about the benefits of investing in early education for our children, families and communities. A strong early education can be life-changing.

“TAFE NSW is well placed to support our early childhood educators and teachers to deepen their practice, advance their careers and support our youngest learners.”

Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, Steve Whan said:

“As the state with the largest early childhood education and care workforce in Australia, it’s vital for NSW to build and maintain a steady pipeline of workers for the sector.

“We know that the first five years of a child’s life are pivotal in their learning and development, and early childhood educators play a crucial role in nurturing a lifelong love of learning.

“TAFE NSW is working closely with the early childhood education and care sector to ensure these training programs meet the skills needs of the sector, now and into the future.”

 

Newport SLSC's Surf Rowers Youth Development Programme opportunity

Looking for new members - details:


Avalon Beach SLSC Surf Boat Crew Opportunity


whale Beach SLSC: New Members Needed

Looking for something fun to do this summer? Join Whale Beach SLSC!
Whaley is running free first aid, bronze medallion & SRC courses starting October 6th for people that join the club and we would love to see you there.

Reasons to become a lifesaver at Whale Beach:
  • - Year round access to the beachfront club house, including gym and accommodation
  • - Lifesavers get a Northern Beaches parking sticker
  • - Free courses to learn practical life saving skills
  • - Be part of the welcoming community and give back 
  • - Get fit & make new friends
  • - It looks great on your CV
Get fit and learn invaluable lifesaving skills over a 8 week program run on Sunday mornings between 8:30-12:30 starting October 6th.
Spaces are limited so sign up now at: HERE


Science To Revive Our Oceans: SIM's has a PHD Opportunity - operation Crayweed

The Sydney Institute of Marine Science is a collaborative research and training institute bringing together researchers from four NSW universities plus state and federal marine and environmental agencies.

SIMS conducts multidisciplinary marine research on impacts of climate change and urbanisation, eco-engineering and habitat restoration, ocean resources and technologies, and outcomes of marine management approaches.

By bringing together NSW’s leading marine scientists in a collaborative hub, SIMS ensures the efficient use of resources for research on Australia’s critical coastal environments.

They currently have an opportunity for someone to join the Operation Crayweed team. Pittwater Online News has been running updates on this project since 2014. There are a LOT of local connections here, from Barrenjoey to Manly should you feel inspired to get involved.

Image: A SIMS scientist planting crayweed at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly. Photo SIMS

More on Operation Crayweed on the SIMS website at: www.operationcrayweed.com


You can peruse those previous reports at:

Details:




Laura Enever, Tom Hobbs and Tom Carroll at the Bondi planting event. Photo by Frame.co

Study subsidies: NSW’s health workforce

More than 3,900 students across NSW have already benefitted from the NSW Government’s $120 million investment in tertiary health study subsidies, with all subsidies now awarded for the 2024 calendar year, the government announced on October 3.

The recipients of the subsidies include 1,840 nursing students, 280 midwifery students, 1,020 allied health, 520 medical students and 262 paramedical students.

Students beginning their degrees will receive subsidies of $4,000 per year over three years.

The subsidies, announced as part of the 2023-24 Budget, are also expected to support a further 8,000 healthcare students over the next four years.

Students seeking to receive the subsidy in 2025 can apply from mid-January 2025 and must be willing to make a five-year commitment to the NSW public health system.

The subsidies form part of a series of measures introduced by the Minns Government to further strengthen the state’s health workforce, including:
  • Implementing the Safe Staffing Levels initiative in our emergency departments
  • Providing permanent funding for 1,112 FTE nurses and midwives on an ongoing basis
  • Abolishing the wages cap and delivering the highest pay increase in over a decade for nurses and other health workers
  • Beginning to roll out 500 additional paramedics in regional, rural and remote communities.
The full list of 2025 eligible workforce groups will be available in October 2024 on NSW Health's Study Subsidies Webpage.

Premier Chris Minns said:

“I am so pleased more than 3,900 people across NSW have already benefitted from our health worker study subsidies.

“The subsidies help students with costs such as fees, technology, travel, and helps us keep talented people here in NSW, working in the country’s largest public health system.

“Attracting skilled healthcare workers is a longstanding challenge, and while there is a long way to go rebuilding our healthcare system, we are committed to doing it so that people can access the care they need, when they need it.”

Minister for Health Ryan Park:

“We are shoring up the future of our health workforce in NSW and we’re honouring our election commitment to reducing financial barriers to studying healthcare.

“When we boost our health workforce we improve health outcomes, it’s as simple as that.

“It’s encouraging to see such a strong subscription of these subsidies.”

season 3 of She’s Electric competition now open for female surfers

Hyundai She’s Electric is returning for a third season, offering female surfers across Australia, aged 16 and over, the opportunity to showcase their talent in this exciting online competition. Surfing Australia and Hyundai are proud to continue their mission to recognise and amplify grassroots female athletes on a national scale. By uploading a video of your best wave, you could win a share of $58,500 worth of prizes.

Simply record yourself surfing your best wave and submit it for the chance to win weekly prizes and join Hyundai Team Electric. These athletes will gain access to expert coaching and national exposure. The top scorer will walk away with $1,000 in cash, a 12-month Hyundai vehicle loan, a VIP experience at the Hyundai Australian Boardriders Battle Grand Final on the Gold Coast with Laura Enever in March 2025, and will be named a Hyundai ambassador for 12 months.

Female surfers are invited to submit their best wave clips to be judged by Surfing Australia’s panel of female experts. The competition runs until November 22, with the Top 5 finalists to be announced as Hyundai Team Electric. These athletes will receive invaluable support and exposure, including professional coaching and media opportunities, helping them advance to the top levels of the sport.

Hyundai Team Electric: Training, prizes, and national spotlight

At the end of Season 3, the Top 5 athletes will join Hyundai Team Electric and attend a three-day intensive surf camp at the Hyundai Surfing Australia High Performance Centre (HPC) . The camp will include surf analysis form some of Australia's top surf coaches, surf-specific workshops, and workshops led by surfing icons and pioneers of women’s surfing.

Team Electric will then compete in a knockout surf-off, with the overall winner taking home $1000 cash, a one-year Hyundai ambassadorship, a 12-month loan of a Hyundai vehicle, and a VIP experience at the Hyundai Australian Boardriders Battle (ABB) Grand Final alongside former World Tour surfer and Big Wave Record Holder, Laura Enever. Athletes placing 2nd–5th will each receive $1000 in prize money.

Season 3 also marks the return of the Hyundai Bright Spark award, given weekly to a surfer who demonstrates enthusiasm, courage, and commitment, no matter how long or short their ride lasts. The award aims to encourage surfers of all abilities to enjoy the process, commit to wipeouts, and have fun along the way. Each Hyundai Bright Spark winner will receive an MF x Laura Enever Collection Palm Springs surfboard, valued at over $700.

Paving the way for future female surfing talent

Hyundai She’s Electric is designed to elevate and inspire the next generation of female surfers, providing them with the tools, exposure, and support to reach their full potential. The program celebrates the diversity and skill of women’s surfing across Australia, offering athletes the opportunity to connect with some of the country’s best coaches and surfing icons.

Last year’s winner of Hyundai She’s Electric, Rosie Smart, said: "I loved the online format because it really allowed us girls to open up, experiment, and try new things with our surfing without the pressure and expectation of surfing in a 20-minute heat. From charging big barrels to air reverses and rail surfing, it was clear that we were all pushing each other and being inspired by the clips submitted each week.

"The HPC camp brought the Top 5 girls together to surf, hang out, and use the amazing training facilities the HPC has to offer. I really enjoyed the breath work training, something I had never been exposed to before, which gave me insights on how to stay calm when faced with a scary wipeout or long hold down. Winning She’s Electric opened up new opportunities, including commentating the Australian Boardriders Battle, running amok with Laura Enever, and the bonus prize money helped fund my 2024 Challenger Series campaign. As we move into the third season of Hyundai She’s Electric, the level of female surfing is rising so fast—I can’t wait to see some of the clips that will come out this year."

Surfing Australia Manager of Boardrider Clubs and Judging, Glen Elliott, said: "This initiative has been instrumental in showcasing the extraordinary talent we have in women's surfing. The online format, introduced last year, provides more surfers, regardless of their location, the opportunity to participate and be discovered. The standard of entries continues to rise each year, and we’re incredibly excited to see what Season 3 brings."

Hyundai Australia Chief Executive Officer, Ted Lee, said: “Hyundai is proud to further extend our great partnership with Surfing Australia into a third exciting season of Hyundai She’s Electric. Last time round we were delighted to witness the amazing surfing skills on show, not only of our talented winner Rosie Smart, but all of the competitors who boldly took part. Hyundai She’s Electric will continue to unearth the greatest of female surfing stars in Australia and we look forward to Season 3 being as inspiring as ever.”

Join the competition and learn more

Athlete profiles, competition updates, and wave submissions will be featured throughout the competition on Surfing Australia's Instagram. Stay tuned for the official announcement of the Top 5 athletes later this year. For full details on how to enter, and to follow the journey of Hyundai Team Electric, visit the Surfing Australia website.

Ready to make your mark? Submit your best wave now for a chance to join Hyundai Team Electric, win amazing prizes, and gain national exposure. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just love the thrill of surfing, Hyundai She’s Electric is for you!

Conditions apply, visit surfingaustralia.com/sheselectric for full Terms and Conditions and prize details. 

Promotional Period: starts 12.01AM AEST 16/09/24, ends 11.59PM AEDT 11/12/24.

Entry Period: starts 12.01AM AEST 16/09/24,ends 11.59PM AEDT 22/11/24.

Open to female AU residents 16+, with AU motor vehicle driver licence (full, provisional or learner permitted).Parent/guardian approval required if under 18.

Max 1 entry per person per week of entry period.

Entry is free.

Prize 1&2 winners announced 27/11/24, prizes 3&4 announced 11/12/24.

Promoter: Hyundai Motor Company Australia Pty Limited & Surfing Australia Pty Ltd. By entering you agree to the promoter’s Terms and Conditions and privacy policies.


Pic: Enter now for your chance to win an MF x Laura Enever Collection Palm Springs surfboard. Credit: Cathryn Hammond / Surfing Australia

Take a ferry to Rolling Sets this December
Pre-sale sign up at: https://rollingsets.com.au/


Your Voice Our Future: have your say

The NSW Government is seeking feedback from young people on how the government can better support them in NSW.

The Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson, MLC and the NSW Government is seeking feedback from young people aged 14 to 24 years on how the government can better support young people in NSW. The online survey asks about:

  • the important issues that young people face
  • what is not working well for young people in NSW
  • how the NSW Government should support and better engage with young people.

Your feedback will be summarised and and shared with the Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson to inform ministerial priorities. It will also be promoted across NSW Government departments to help deliver better programs and services for young people. By completing the survey, you can go in a monthly draw to win a gift card of your choice up to the value of $250*.

This survey has been developed by the Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson, MLC, the Office of the Advocate of Children and Young People (ACYP) and the Office for Regional Youth.

When we ask for your name and contact details

If you opt in to receive more communications about this work, you will be asked to provide your contact details so that you can be kept updated. You may also be contacted to see if you would like to participate in further surveys or activities.

If you opt in to enter the monthly draw, your contact details will be needed to request your preferred e-gift card so we can deliver it via email, if you win. If you win, we may publicise your first name, age and suburb on NSW Government webpages, social media and other public communications.

If you are under 18, you will also need to provide the contact details of your parent/guardian who may be contacted directly to confirm consent for you to participate.

*View the terms and conditions (PDF 140.28KB) and privacy policy (PDF 140.26KB)

Have your say by Tuesday 31 December 2024.

You can submit your feedback via an online survey, here: https://www.nsw.gov.au/have-your-say/your-voice-our-future


School Leavers Support

Explore the School Leavers Information Kit (SLIK) as your guide to education, training and work options in 2022;
As you prepare to finish your final year of school, the next phase of your journey will be full of interesting and exciting opportunities. You will discover new passions and develop new skills and knowledge.

We know that this transition can sometimes be challenging. With changes to the education and workforce landscape, you might be wondering if your planned decisions are still a good option or what new alternatives are available and how to pursue them.

There are lots of options for education, training and work in 2022 to help you further your career. This information kit has been designed to help you understand what those options might be and assist you to choose the right one for you. Including:
  • Download or explore the SLIK here to help guide Your Career.
  • School Leavers Information Kit (PDF 5.2MB).
  • School Leavers Information Kit (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • The SLIK has also been translated into additional languages.
  • Download our information booklets if you are rural, regional and remote, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, or living with disability.
  • Support for Regional, Rural and Remote School Leavers (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for Regional, Rural and Remote School Leavers (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • Support for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander School Leavers (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander School Leavers (DOCX 1.1MB).
  • Support for School Leavers with Disability (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for School Leavers with Disability (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • Download the Parents and Guardian’s Guide for School Leavers, which summarises the resources and information available to help you explore all the education, training, and work options available to your young person.

School Leavers Information Service

Are you aged between 15 and 24 and looking for career guidance?

Call 1800 CAREER (1800 227 337).

SMS 'SLIS2022' to 0429 009 435.

Our information officers will help you:
  • navigate the School Leavers Information Kit (SLIK),
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Word Of The Week: Kudos

Word of the Week remains a keynote in 2024, simply to throw some disruption in amongst the 'yeah-nah' mix. 

Noun

1. praise given for achievement 2. fame and renown resulting from an act or achievement. 3. compliments or congratulations.

From Greek; 1799, probably originally in university slang, from Greek kydos "glory, fame," especially in battle, "a poetical word, found chiefly in the Iliad and Odyssey", literally "that which is heard of," perhaps from word root keu- "to see, observe, perceive." In form the word is a Greek singular noun, but the final -s often is mistaken as a plural suffix in English, leading to the back-formation kudo (attested by 1936).


Halloween candy binges can overload your gut microbiome – a gut doctor explains how to minimize spooking your helpful bacteria

It’s probably best to enjoy your Halloween spoils in moderation. Jupiterimages/The Image Bank via Getty Images
Christopher DammanUniversity of Washington

Each October, as the days shorten and the air grows crisp, millions of Americans prepare for the beloved – and often sugar-fueled – tradition of Halloween. From jack-o’-lanterns glowing on porches to costumes ranging from the whimsical to the gory, Halloween is a time of playful scares, childhood memories and, of course, candy.

But as the wrappers pile up and the sugar rush hits, there’s something far more sinister brewing beneath the surface: the negative effects of candy on your gut health.

Sugar and other ingredients in Halloween treats can cast a sickly spell on the trillions of microorganisms that reside in your gut, collectively known as the gut microbiome. As a gastroenterologist and gut microbiome researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine, I have dedicated my career to decoding the cipher of how food affects this microbial community within your gut.

While no candy is truly healthy, some options are better for your gut than others. And there are ways you can help wake your gut from its sugar “spell” after holiday indulgence.

Gut-busting treats

What does all this candy do to your gut?

In a healthy state, your gut microbiome acts like a microbial factory. It digests nutrients your body can’t – such as fiber and colorful, health-conferring plant compounds called polyphenols – and produces important molecules called metabolites that protect against infection and support brain health. It also regulates metabolism, or the transformation of food into useful components that power and grow cells.

A balanced diet keeps your gut’s microbial cauldron churning smoothly. But the concentrated sugarsaturated fat and additives in candy can throw things into disarray by feeding inflammatory microbes that weaken your gut barrier – the protective lining that separates your microbiome from the rest of the body.

Once the gut barrier is breached, even friendly microbes can stir up inflammation, causing health issues ranging from overweight to obesityinfections to autoimmune disease, and mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s.

The food you eat shapes your gut microbes, which in turn shape your overall health.

Sugar and inflammation impair your microbiome’s ability to digest food and regulate metabolism. Instead of producing healthy byproducts – such as butyrate from fiber and urolithin A from polyphenols – candy lacking these nutrients may trick your system into storing more fat, providing less energy for your muscles and brain.

Too much candy can also affect your immune system. A healthy gut microbiome helps your immune system distinguish between friend and foe, reducing the risk of infections and autoimmune disorders. Sugar and inflammation undermine the microbiome’s role in training the immune system to distinguish between harmful invaders and harmless substances. Without a carefully calibrated immune system, your body may not effectively clear infections or may strongly react to its own cells.

Neurologically, excess sweets can also affect the gut-brain axis, the two-way communication between the gut and brain. A healthy microbiome normally produces neurotransmitters and metabolites, such as serotonin and butyrate, that influence mood and cognitive performance. Sugar and inflammation adversely affects the microbiome’s role in mental health and cognitive function, contributing to depressionanxiety and memory troubles.

The candy conundrum

Not all Halloween treats are created equal, especially when it comes to their nutritional value and effects on gut health. Sugar-coated nuts and fruit such as honey-roasted almonds and candy apples rank among the top, offering whole food benefits just beneath the sugary coating. Packed with fiber and polyphenols, they help support gut health and healthy metabolism.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are chewy treats such as candy corn, Skittles, Starbursts and Twizzlers. These sugar-laden confections are mostly made of high fructose corn syrup, saturated fat and additives. They can increase the unsavory bacterial species in your gut and lead to inflammation, making them one of the least healthy Halloween choices.

Chocolate-based candies, however, stand out as a more microbiome-friendly option. While varieties such as Twix, Three Musketeers and Milky Way contain only a small amount of chocolate, pure chocolate bars – especially dark chocolate – are rich in fiber and polyphenols. In moderation, dark chocolate with at least 80% to 85% cacao may even benefit your gut microbiome and mood by encouraging beneficial bacterial species to grow.

Two green apples on a stick, coated in caramel and dusted with pecans.
Candy apples usually provide a serving of fruit and nuts. Ryan Benyi Photography/Connect Images via Getty Images

Chocolates with whole nuts, such as almonds or peanuts, offer a boost of fiber, protein and omega-3 fats, making them a healthier choice. Dark chocolate with nuts is best. But when sorting through Halloween treats, Peanut M&Ms, 100 Grands and Almond Joys may be better options over Rolos, Krackels and Crunches. Even candies with processed nuts, such as Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfingers, retain small amounts of fiber and protein, making them preferable to nut-free options.

At the bottom of the list, along with chewy sugar candies, are pure sugar candies such as lollipops, Jolly Ranchers, gummies and Smarties. These sweets lack nutritional value, and their high sugar content can contribute to the growth of unhealthy bacteria in your gut microbiome.

In the end, all candies are high in sugar, which can be harmful when consumed in large quantities. Moderation and an otherwise balanced diet is key to enjoying Halloween treats.

Rebalancing after indulgence

If the microbiome is critical for health, and candy can disrupt its balance, how can you restore gut health after Halloween?

One simple strategy is focusing on the four F’s of food: fiber, phytochemicals, unsaturated fats and fermented foods. These food components can help support gut health.

Fiber-rich foods such as whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, fruits and vegetables regulate digestion and nourish beneficial gut bacteria.

Partially unwrapped chocolate bar
Dark chocolate is a treat that may offer some health benefits. Wachiwit/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Polyphenol-rich foods such as dark chocolate, berries, red grapes, green tea and extra virgin olive oil help reduce inflammation and encourage the growth of healthy gut bacteria.

Unsaturated fats such as omega-3 fats, walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseed, avocados and fatty fish such as salmon can also support a healthy microbiome.

Fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kefir and miso help replenish beneficial bacteria and restore gut balance.

To make tracking your diet easier, consider using a food calculator to measure how well your meals align with the four F’s and microbiome friendly options. Like a virtual “spellbook,” an online tool can help ensure your food choices support your gut health and ward off the effects of sugar overload.

As my daughters often remind me, it’s perfectly fine to indulge every now and then in a few tricks and treats. But remember, moderation is key. With a balanced diet, you’ll keep your gut healthy and strong long after the Halloween season ends.The Conversation

Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington

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

Mary Queen of Scots and the clandestine tricks of the women who kept her secrets

Jade ScottUniversity of Glasgow

Mary, Queen of Scots spent almost 20 years in captivity. She was held in various locations across Britain from 1568 until her execution on February 8 1587. As I explain in my new book, Captive Queen: The Decrypted History of Mary, Queen of Scots, during this period she relied upon letters to maintain her support back in Scotland, encourage international allies to join her cause and foster allegiances in England.

Mary was aware that her letters were routinely read by her jailers and passed on to be scrutinised by Elizabeth I’s closest advisers, notably William Cecil. At times, she was forced to rely on clandestine techniques, including writing in invisible ink. She wrote that “although such artifices be very hazardous and vulgar, they will serve me in extreme necessity”.

Less technical means of conveying correspondence covertly also proved useful. Letters were regularly passed surreptitiously in clothing. They could be slipped under the sleeves of ladies’ gowns, sewn into doublets, or even packed into the heel of a shoe.

In 1572, Mary’s longest-serving custodian, the earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot, reported that he had discovered that Mary was having letters left hidden under stones in the gardens. These would be collected later by servants and carried out of the property, to avoid unwanted attention.

Mary also used complex ciphers to disguise the contents of her correspondence, especially when she wished to discuss plots designed to set her free. Hundreds of her coded letters survive in different forms (as copies, translations, and originals), many of them from supporters who were directly involved in schemes including the Babington plot of 1586, which aimed to assassinate Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary.

Painting of Mary Queen of Scots and two of her ladies-in-waiting.
Mary, Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay by John Duncan (1929). University of St AndrewsCC BY-SA

The women who carried Mary’s secrets

The role of women in Mary’s coded correspondence is often overlooked. Yet she relied upon her female supporters to ensure that covert networks were maintained during her captivity.

The countess of Northumberland, Lady Anne Percy, was one of the noblewomen at the heart of a transcontinental network of Catholic exiles who went to great efforts to preserve clandestine channels of communication between themselves and Mary.

In August 1571, William Maitland of Lethington, Mary’s principal secretary in Scotland, wrote to her. He explained that he had shared a new cipher so that Lady Percy could write to Mary secretly. Several years later, Mary confirmed that she was still writing in code to Lady Percy and receiving such letters in return.

A painting of Mary Queen of Scots on a boat looking mournful
Mary Queen of Scots Bidding Farewell to France by William Powell Frith (1851). National Trust, Newton House, Dinefwr Park and Castle

Similarly, Mary communicated with Scottish noblewomen using ciphers. Lady Livingston, Agnes Fleming, journeyed with Mary into England in late 1568 and remained by her side in captivity until 1572, when she returned to Scotland. We know that she communicated with Mary using coded letters because in 1573 Lethington warned her that she must stop using their usual cipher.

He explained that the letter bearer had been arrested and so their cipher was likely “known to their adversaries”. Lady Livingston remained a loyal supporter of Mary after she returned to Scotland. She was even briefly imprisoned in Dalkeith by the regent of Scotland, James Morton, for sharing news and intelligence via secret messages.

Lady Ferniehirst, Jean Scott, also composed coded correspondence to navigate the surveillance and scrutiny that the Scottish queen was subject to in England. Her husband, Sir Thomas Kerr of Ferniehirst, was exiled in 1573 following his attempts to hold Edinburgh Castle on Mary’s behalf. This meant that during the 1580s, Lady Ferniehirst was crucial to the survival of a network of Scottish nobles who continued to agitate for Mary’s restoration.

She regularly acted as an intermediary between Mary and James VI, allowing at least some of their communication to avoid English detection. Several of Lady Ferniehirst’s own coded letters to Mary survive, and many were intercepted and decoded by contemporary agents seeking evidence of Mary’s plotting.

In 1578, Mary requested that Lady Ferniehirst’s 13-year-old daughter be allowed to join her household in England. Aware of the clandestine correspondence between the two women, this request was denied by Elizabeth I. She suspected that Lady Ferniehirst’s daughter would ensure even more coded letters managed to make their way from Mary to her supporters.

The correspondence of Mary’s female supporters reveals early modern women’s skilful navigation of political crisis. Illuminating the examples of women like Lady Percy, Lady Livingston and Lady Ferniehirst challenges gendered assumptions that have led to women being underestimated or dismissed throughout history.



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Jade Scott, Affiliate in History , University of Glasgow

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

The long culinary history of pumpkins – from ancient Mexican soups to modern spiced lattes

Carving the Pumpkin by Franck Antoine Bail (1910). Bonhams
Serin QuinnUniversity of Warwick

October heralds the beginning of pumpkin season. Over the course of the month, they will be used for a variety of non-culinary purposes. In Belgium, they are hollowed out for boat races, and in Ludwigsburg, Germany, thousands of multi-coloured pumpkins are used to make seasonal sculpture parks. At the end of the month, they will be carved up with a ghoulish grin to celebrate Halloween, a tradition that is becoming increasingly popular across the globe.

Despite being harvested until December, for many, Halloween will mark the end of pumpkin season with the decorations unceremoniously binned. Studies show that just over half of the pumpkins bought in the UK each year (18,000 tonnes of them) go to waste uneaten. Many people don’t even realise that pumpkins are edible.

But it hasn’t always been this way: pumpkin carving is actually a fairly recent tradition, practiced in the US since around the 1890s. Before becoming the symbol of Halloween, pumpkins had a very long history as a foodstuff.

Like tomatoes, maize and potatoes, the pumpkin is indigenous to the Americas, with the earliest evidence of pumpkin consumption dating as far back as 8,000BC in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Pumpkins have come a long way since then, as Indigenous American communities carefully adapted the wild pumpkin into successively bigger and better-tasting varieties. These weren’t all the bright orange we’re familiar with: white, green and yellow varieties were also common, mixed in with squashes (a genetically identical relation).

A still life showing many varieties of pumpkin
Still Life with Pumpkins by Jan Anton van der Baren (1657). Kunsthistorisches Museum

In pre-colonial America, there were a host of different ways to prepare the vegetable, as pumpkin historian Cindy Ott explains. She wrote that Indigenous communities ate pumpkins in soups, roasted them on embers, made them into sauces and baked them into a “bread”.

Pumpkins and squash were commonly grown and eaten with maize and beans; a combination sometimes called the “three sisters”.

The rise of the ‘pompion’

The pumpkin only came to Europe in the 1500s, following the invasion of the Americas. This new vegetable wasn’t as much of a surprise to Europeans as we might expect: gourds, cucumbers and melons are from the same family as pumpkins, Curcubitaceae, and the plants all look very similar, with trailing vines and large golden flowers.

Impressionist painting of a farmer woman holding two pumpkins
Farmer with pumpkins by Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov (1930). WikiArt

In European languages, the new plant was given the name of these more familiar foods, so that in English and French it became the pompion (another name for melons), in Italian the zucca and in German the kürbis (both names for gourds).

All these overlapping names caused some confusion. In 1640, botanist John Parkinson wrote of “gourds or millions, or pompions, or whatsoever else you please to call them”.

The recipes that pumpkins are best known for in today’s Anglo-American cuisine come from this era of food history. “Pumpion” pies started to appear in English recipe books in the 1660s, but they weren’t much like today’s versions.

An early printed recipe was written by Hannah Woolley, an English writer who published books on household management, in 1672. It instructs the reader to fry egg-coated slices, mix these with raisins, sugar and fortified wine then place the mixture in a pie dish on top of apples. A little different maybe, but it doesn’t sound too bad.

The apple association stayed strong in England. Another method, recorded in 1735, was to scoop out the pulp, mix it with chopped apples and sugar, bake this in the hollowed pumpkin, then eat it spread on bread. The author was careful to note that this meal was “too strong for persons of weak stomachs, and only proper for country people who use much exercise” – so be careful if you try this at home.

The pie recipes followed a longer tradition of sweet-and-savoury pies which were popular in England at the time. This is also where we get the typical “pumpkin spice” from. These pies were made with artichokes, sweet and ordinary potatoes, and even earlier with parsnips, skirrets and eryngoes (once popular root vegetables). They were mixed with the go-to expensive spices of the day: cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, cloves, ginger and sugar. Maybe we should be calling it the “skirret spice latte”.

As Europeans steadily colonised America over the 17th century, they brought with them their familiar recipes, including spiced pies. Here, in the home of pumpkins, they had an abundance to make them from.

The steady rise of Halloween in the globalised age suggests our current waste issue will get worse before it gets better. Reviving the egg-apple-pumpkin pie might not be the solution, but there are plenty of other ways we can use these versatile vegetables. Remembering that pumpkins had millennia of history as a food before they were a decoration is one step on the way.



Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.The Conversation


Serin Quinn, PhD Candidate, Department of History, University of Warwick

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

From fish to clean water, the ocean matters and here’s how to quantify the benefits

Drake’s Island in Plymouth Sound, Devon, is part of the UK’s first national marine park. Artur Niedzwiedz/Shutterstock
Stefanie BroszeitPlymouth Marine Laboratory

Nature protection, conservation and restoration is “not a trivial matter but key to human survival,” according to scientists quoted in a 2005 UN report. To demonstrate this, they developed the concept of “ecosystem services” – the benefits that people derive from nature. Over the next 20 years, this concept has been in constant development to reflect our growing understanding of how ecosystems work and how we benefit from them.

For many people, it feels wrong to take a human-centred view on nature. But for governments and conservation organisations, this concept is a useful tool. It helps us quantify the value of nature and make sure certain aspects are conserved and protected.

My team and I provide other scientists with information about how coastal areas help to regulate the climate and reduce water pollution. In part, we work with marine conservation experts who restore ecosystems that have been depleted, such as seagrass or oyster beds. This can help choose the best approaches to restoring coastal areas to healthy habitats while providing other benefits, such as shelter for young fish or food for seabirds. Another group of scientists use our data to assess the value of these habitats, now and in the future once they have been restored to good health.

In my work as a marine ecologist, I split ecosystem services into three different groups. First, provisioning services include the provision of food or timber along many other material gains we get from nature. For marine ecosystem services ,this includes fish and chemicals used for research and medicines. Second, regulating services support our planet and human wellbeing. Mussels clean water by filtering it and seagrass takes up and stores carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thereby helping to regulate the climate. Third, cultural services include leisure and recreation such as sea swimming or fishing.

Diving deeper

crab on green fronds of seagrass, sandy seabed
A baby crab on seagrass growing at Kingsand, Plymouth Sound. Stefanie BroszeitCC BY-NC-ND

To better understand these marine ecosystem services and how to use them sustainably, my research delves into some of the more complicated processes that regulate ecosystem services. In terms of the ocean’s role in regulating climate, it’s not just about seagrass.

Seaweeds such as kelp take up carbon too, but cannot bury it in the soil beneath them due to holding onto rocks rather than having roots. They store carbon by getting buried in the deep sea when they are whipped off the rocks during winter storms and transported by currents into deeper waters. There, worms and crabs can feed on this important food source, drawing the carbon deeper into the sediment.

Another step is to measure the benefits of particular ecosystem services. Food provision can be relatively easily measured by data collected by harbours to quantify how much fish is being landed and sold. So we can estimate the volume of harvested fish and calculate their market value. Some cultural services, such as measuring the wellbeing benefits people receive from interacting with coastal environments, can be more difficult to measure.

Plymouth Sound is a great place to assess both benefits to human wellbeing and marine ecology, because not only is this city a hotspot for marine biology research with three internationally recognised marine institutes, it’s also the UK’s first national marine park. Here, I can engage not only with the ecological sciences and datasets but also with environmental psychologists who study how nature affects us and how we affect nature. My team and I have created the marine, social and natural capital laboratory to explore this more.

Plymouth coastline from a drone
Plymouth Sound provides a multitude of ecosystem services. Robert Harding Video/Shutterstock

Because of so many complex variables, it’s important that scientists like me choose the appropriate indicators to estimate the value of contributions from different ecosystem services. Then, we can assess whether interventions such as restoring seagrass or building a port might help or hinder the marine environment.

Often, different ecosystem services might interact or conflict with each other. Fishing in the northeast Atlantic might, for example, negatively affect marine mammals such as seal if the fish they rely on as food are also being eaten by humans. So we need to look at the bigger picture to assess all of the ecosystem services provided by a particular area of ocean. And as our understanding of ecosystem services develops, we can refine efforts to give nature a helping hand.


Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle - the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health.

This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.The Conversation


Stefanie Broszeit, Senior Scientist, Marine Ecosystem Services, Plymouth Marine Laboratory

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

New Prada-designed spacesuit is a small step for astronaut style, but could be a giant leap for sustainable fashion

Alyssa ChoatUniversity of Technology Sydney

For its recent Spring/Summer 2025 show, fashion brand Diesel filled a runway with mounds of denim offcuts, making a spectacle of its efforts to reduce waste.

Haunting yet poetic, the “forgotten” byproducts of fashion production were reclaimed and repurposed into something artful. But the irony isn’t lost, given fashion shows like this one demand significant resources.

Diesel’s event is an example of a growing trend towards the “spectacle of sustainability”, wherein performative displays are prioritised over the deeper, structural changes needed to address environmental issues.

Can the fashion industry reconcile its tendency towards spectacle with its environmental responsibilities? The recent spacesuit collaboration between Prada and Axiom Space is one refreshing example of how it can, by leaning into innovation that seeks to advance fashion technology and rewrite fashion norms.

Performance art instead of substantive change

The fashion industry has always relied on some form of spectacle to continue the fashion cycle. Fashion shows mix art, performance and design to create powerful experiences that will grab people’s attention and set the tone for what’s “in”. Promotional material from these shows is shared widely, helping cement new trends.

However, the spectacle of fashion isn’t helpful for communicating the complexity of sustainability. Fashion events tend to focus on surface-level ideas, while ignoring deeper systemic problems such as the popularity of fast fashion, people’s buying habits, and working conditions in garment factories. These problems are connected, so addressing one requires addressing the others.

It’s much easier to host a flashy event that inevitably feeds the problem it purports to fix. International fashion events have a large carbon footprint. This is partly due to how many people they move around the world, as well as their promotion of consumption (whereas sustainability requires buying less).

The pandemic helped deliver some solutions to this problem by forcing fashion shows to go digital. Brands such as Balenciaga, the Congolese brand Hanifa and many more took part in virtual fashion shows with animated avatars – and many pointed to this as a possible solution to the industry’s sustainability issue.

But the industry has now largely returned to live fashion shows. Virtual presentations have been relegated to their own sectors within fashion communication, while live events take centre stage.

Many brands, including Prada, held fashion shows without guests during lockdowns in 2021.

Towards a sustainable fashion future

Technology and innovation clearly have a role to play in helping make fashion more sustainable. The recent Prada-Axiom spacesuit collaboration brings this into focus in a new way.

The AxEMU (Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit) suits will be worn by Artemis III crew members during NASA’s planned 2026 mission to the Moon. The suits have been made using long-lasting and high-performance materials that are designed to withstand the extreme conditions of space.

By joining this collaboration, Prada, known for its high fashion, is shifting into a highly symbolic arena of technological advancement. This will likely help position it at the forefront of sustainability and technology discussions – at least in the minds of consumers.

Prada itself has varying levels of compliance when it comes to meeting sustainability goals. The Standard Ethics Ratings has listed it as “sustainable”, while sustainability scoring site Good on You rated it as “not good enough” – citing a need for improved transparency and better hazardous chemical use.

Recently, the brand has been working on making recycled textiles such as nylon fabrics (nylon is a part of the brand DNA) from fishing nets and plastic bottles. It also launched a high-fashion jewellery line made of recycled gold.

Innovating for a changing world

Prada’s partnership with Axiom signifies a milestone in fashion’s ability to impact on high-tech industries. Beyond boosting Prada’s image, such innovations can also lead to more sustainable fashions.

For instance, advanced materials created for spacesuits could eventually be adapted into everyday heat-resistant clothing. This will become increasingly important in the context of climate change, especially in regions already struggling with drought and heatwaves. The IPCC warns that if global temperatures rise by 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, twice as many mega-cities are likely to become heat-stressed.

New innovations are trying to help consumers stay cool despite rising temperatures. Nike’s Aerogami is a performance apparel technology that supposedly increases breathability. Researchers from MIT have also designed garment vents that open and close when they sense sweat to create airflow.

Similarly, researchers from Zhengzhou University and the University of South Australia have created a fabric that reflects sunlight and releases heat to help reduce body temperatures. These kinds of cooling textiles (which could also be used in architecture) could help reduce the need for air conditioning.

One future challenge lies in driving demand for these innovations by making them seem fashionable and “cool”. Collaborations like the one between Prada and Axiom are helpful on this front. A space suit – an item typically seen as a functional, long-lasting piece of engineering – becomes something more with Prada’s name on it.

The collaboration also points to a broader potential for brands to use large attention-grabbing projects to convey their sustainability credentials. In this way they can combine spectacle with sustainability. The key will be in making sure one doesn’t come at the expense of the other.The Conversation

Alyssa Choat, Lecturer in Fashion and Textiles Design, University of Technology Sydney

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


Hidden women of history: 19th-century author Augusta Drane was an intellectual ‘warrior nun’. Was she queer?

Wikimedia Commons
Duc DauThe University of Western Australia

Augusta Theodosia Drane, a 19th-century English religious leader, published works including poetry, histories, essays and biographies. Impressively, Drane wrote her two-volume life of St Catherine of Siena in a matter of six weeks. The book was the most complete life of the saint in any language and was translated into German and French.

Yet few people these days know Drane’s name.

This is surprising because her story resonates with our modern world. From early on, she knew she did not want to marry and abhorred the idea of being on the marriage market.

Moreover, in some of her poems the speaker is clearly male, as was Drane’s acquired religious name Francis Raphael. These days we might potentially call her queer, though this is speculation. In any case, she is a fascinating figure.

A precocious child

Drane was born in 1823 to a prosperous family living near London. She was a precocious child and prolific reader: according to her memoir, “up to the age of 19, I had few friends, but I had read many books.”

She was excitable and apparently naughty, behaviour attributed to a “brain-fever” in early infancy. However, the main extent of her naughtiness seems to have been a high intelligence coupled with an independent mind and an understandable disinclination to grammar and mathematics.

A top student, she skipped several grades, but drew the ire of a teacher who felt she was “not prim and neat enough”. Yet another teacher understood her strengths, nurturing her interests in natural history, literature and the Bible.

Drane’s family was Anglican. In 1850, after three years of grappling with her faith and suffering the death of her beloved mother, she converted to Roman Catholicism. She was 26 at the time. Her father reluctantly accepted her decision. Her sister would later become a Catholic too.

St Catherine of Siena. Lawrence OP/FlickrCC BY-NC-ND

In 1852, Drane joined the Dominican Congregation of St Catherine of Siena, then based in Clifton, England. The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 had given Catholics full civil rights. Even so, Catholics were still barred from studying at Cambridge and Oxford until 1871.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (Mary’s preservation from the guilt of Original Sin), declared in 1854, had a lasting impression on Drane. Not long after, she would take on the religious name of Francis Raphael of the Immaculate Conception. Drane joined an order with a special devotion to Mary, a community of women overseen by a woman with the title of Mother. She would eventually become a Mother Superior and, ultimately, Mother Provincial in charge of all the nuns in the order.

Drane’s decision to choose Mary, celibacy and the convent did not simply signal her commitment to her new faith; it also repudiated Protestant Victorian family values and the expectation that women would marry and bear children.

Catholic sisterhoods in England came under enormous suspicion, partly because they were led by women. Men were largely redundant to the running of a convent. Moreover, these religious communities were chiefly active rather than contemplative. Thus, by focusing on areas of community need, such as education, or helping orphans or fallen women or the elderly, the working nuns obtained relative financial security.

Warrior lovers

Drane believed the life of a nun was intimately bound up with a love for Christ. Yet she acknowledged it was by no means an easy kind of love. Nuns often risked health and safety in the slums of England or the remote corners of empire — all for Christ.

As Drane exclaims in her poem Sensible Sweetness, “We dare not shrink from work in His dear Love begun.” Drane’s Songs in the Night and Other Poems was first published in 1876 and the volume had an impact on its readers for its spiritual insights.

She remarks in her memoir,

It is the only book of mine that I know for certain has done good to others, because they have told me so.

Drane declares in her poem Dartmoor that the religious life “tread'st a harder way”. This quality of hardness translates to the notion of the nun as masculine. Drane believed that characteristics often associated with manliness, such as courage, strength and independence of spirit, were cultivated through hard work rather than being innate.

The garb of masculinity enabled Drane to describe herself and her vocation in the language of a warrior nun. The concept derives part of its language from the Song of Songs, which describes the bride’s neck as “like the tower of David”, armed with the shields of warriors.

A similar image is of the bride being as majestic as an army with banners. Nuns saw themselves as brides of Christ.

Drane’s superiors recognised and encouraged her writing talents. Her wide-ranging interests included religious warfare and military orders, exemplified in the publication of a book about the Knights Hospitaller, a medieval Catholic military order founded in the Holy Land originally to care for sick pilgrims, which also came to defend the Crusader kingdom. Published anonymously in 1858, the book was admired by military men who were shocked to discover its author was a nun.

The book’s preface praises members of the order for their “determined courage and heroic devotion”. Likewise, in her poetry Drane holds the life of a nun to be as valorous as that of these warriors: “Wring out the sweetness from thy life, / And gird thy loins for nobler strife,” she says in Dartmoor.

In this poem, the speaker seeks a higher cause and resolves to live a heroic life by turning his back on the “soft, voluptuous green”.

Unconventional

Although we might be projecting our current worldviews on to the past, a researcher might ask if Drane was what we would today call queer.

From an activist perspective, this line of thinking potentially enables sexual minorities to carve out a place for themselves in history, which is often “straightwashed” by scholars. At the very least, an exploration of Drane’s relationships could well expand our contemporary understanding of intimacy, friendships and “soulmates”.

Drane was certainly unconventional in her attitude to marriage. From an early age she understood she was neither destined for London seasons, nor for courtship and marriage. Such things she “held in abhorrence”, according to her memoir. She was much more interested in the virtues of poverty and issues of theology.

From an early age, Drane understood she was neither destined for London seasons, nor marriage. Wikimedia Commons

The solitude of religious life restricted the number of close friendships she had. At the same time, the realisation that such a life was a lonely one enhanced the need for human companionship within the context of one’s love for Christ. These friendships could be especially passionate.

Thus, Drane’s dearest friend and mentor, Mother Imelda Poole, addresses her in a letter as “my very dear sister, and true yoke-fellow”, expressing gratitude to God for granting, “even in this world, such a great blessing as a perfect union of two hearts in Him!”

Drane’s memoir describes her “lifelong friendship” with Poole as “one of the special graces, as well as the greatest joys” of her life.

Poole possessed intelligence, wisdom and an understanding of her friend’s character as she helped guide her through her early trials as a novice.

It’s difficult to conclude if the two women were queer according to our modern definition of the word, or even queer (strange) in the Victorian sense. (Either that or the Victorians were queerer than we are today.) Yet Drane’s memoir records how Poole was indeed her soulmate. After Poole’s death in 1881, she writes:

During these last ten years, union in work, union in daily and hourly intercourse, have made up such entire union of soul, as I did not think was possible in this poor world.

Mosaic, Westminster Cathedral. Lawrence OP/FlickrCC BY-NC-ND

That the depth of their friendship could be discussed so openly in letters and published in Drane’s memoir suggests this and similar relationships, such as that between fellow convert Cardinal John Henry Newman (the most famous Catholic of the era) and Ambrose St. John, another Catholic priest, were publicly accepted and almost certainly admired in Catholic circles.

American scholar Sharon Marcus argues a range of relationships between women, including those in which they simultaneously “wrote of love for God and love for female friends with equal erotic fervor”, formed an essential element of Victorian society.

In fact, Marcus notes, “People who thought of God as a friend easily linked friends to God”. If Drane did have queer desires and remained celibate, I believe such desires could still fall within the expansive Victorian concept of friendship, which allowed for a depth of emotional intimacy comparatively rare today.

‘He loves me!’

Possessing a vivid imagination and active intellect meant the restraint and monotony of convent life was a trying change in the novitiate. As a novice, Drane heard Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne, the first bishop of Birmingham, give a speech on the personal love of Christ for each soul. His words had a profound impact on her spiritual devotion. She says in her memoir,

When in my cell alone, I lay prostrate on the floor in a sort of ecstasy. I could not sleep for three nights, but lay broad awake, thinking, ‘He loves me! He loves me myself with a personal love!’ I could hardly touch food. There was a complete revolution in my spiritual life, and the solid grace lasted when the sensible devotion was withdrawn.

This mania or hypomania could well have been an intense religious experience or it could potentially point to bipolar disorder and/or another category of neurodivergence, especially coupled with Drane’s periods of deep depression and times of prolific creativity.

Drane died in Stone in April 1894, aged 70, following a bout of pneumonia and incurable gangrene in her right foot. She was laid to rest next to the bodies of her two predecessors, including her friend Mother Imelda Poole.

Her final words were, “Is this dying? Will it be long?”The Conversation

Duc Dau, Honorary Research fellow, The University of Western Australia

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

If a Year 12 student gets an early offer for uni, does it mean they stop trying?

Ground Picture/Shutterstock
Andrew J. MartinUNSW Sydney

Early entry schemes for university – where students get an offer before their final exams – are increasingly popular.

For example, more than 27,000 students applied to the Universities Admissions Centre (which mostly deals with New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory unis) for an early offer in 2024. This was a record number and an almost 19% increase on 2023.

On the one hand, early offers are seen as a way to reduce pressure on Year 12 students. But they are also increasingly criticised, with concerns students may stop trying once they receive an offer.

Our new research shows applying for an early offer does not make a significant difference to how hard a student tries leading up to their final exams or their final results.

What are early offers?

The main round of university offers is in December-January, after students have done their final exams in the previous October and November and have their final results or ATAR.

With early entry offer schemes, universities assess students using criteria other than (or on top of) final results.

Amid concerns about students reducing their efforts, in February this year, federal and state education ministers agreed there would be no university offers until September. Federal Education Minister Jason Clare is pushing for a new, national approach to early entry by 2027.

A teenage boy writes at a desk in a bedroom, he has a laptop next to him.
Year 12 students around Australia sit their final exams in October and November. Monkey Business Images/ Shutterstock

Our research

Our new study investigated the role of early entry offers on Year 12 students’ academic and personal wellbeing.

We looked at three types of students: students applying for and receiving an early offer, students applying for but not receiving an early offer, and students who did not apply for an early offer.

We then looked at multiple forms of academic and personal wellbeing, including:

  • the ATAR

  • motivation at school (their interest, energy, and drive to learn) and enjoyment of school

  • how students dealt with academic challenges (also called “academic buoyancy”)

  • study burnout

  • overall life satisfaction, mental health and self-esteem.

Who did we study?

The study involved Year 12 students in 2022 from schools in New South Wales.

The average age for participants was 17, most (68%) were female, the majority (69%) lived in an urban area, just under a quarter (23%) were from a non-English speaking background, and just over half were from government schools (52%).

We tracked the ATARs of 1,512 students for whom we had early offer data.

We also surveyed a subset of 525 students from this group. We surveyed them in term 2 of Year 12 and then followed up with a second survey in term 4, about 2 weeks before their final exams.

The surveys included questions about their academic and personal wellbeing. Both surveys were done online.

What we found

In terms of early entry status, 16% did not apply for an early offer, 21% applied but were unsuccessful, and 63% received an early offer.

Using statistical modelling to control for prior differences in achievement and motivation between the groups, as well as age, gender, school type and learning difficulties, we found an early offer did not appear to have an impact on a student’s ATAR.

We also found no impact on their motivation, effort, burnout or mental health.

In fact, the best predictors of students’ final results were their previous results and their efforts earlier in Year 12.

As our research showed, the findings for these predictors were statistically significant, meaning we can have confidence the results were not due to chance.

This mirrors other research that suggests you can predict a student’s ATAR from their Year 11 results.

Two female students sit in a classroom, looking like they are listening to what is happening.
Students in our study did not stop trying if they had an early offer to uni. Jacob Lund/ Shutterstock

One important difference

We did find one statistically significant effect. Those receiving an early offer scored about 10% higher in academic buoyancy than the other two groups.

This means these students reported they were better able to overcome academic challenges, such as difficult assessment tasks and competing deadlines, as they approached their final exams.

We found this difference even after controlling for any prior group differences in academic buoyancy.

But we note it was only a relatively small effect.

Why was there so little difference?

Some possible explanations about why early offers did not appear to make much difference include:

  • Year 12 is a busy year full of activities (from formals and other events, to plans for life after school). It could be early entry status is quickly absorbed in all the demands of the final year and becomes normalised

  • the joy or relief of an early offer is short-lived and students return to their emotional equilibrium or their typical “set point” in terms of outlook on life

  • the ATAR looms large in students’ lives, so they may still want to do as well as they can – regardless of whether they get an early offer or not.

What does this mean?

Our study suggests receiving an early offer for university does not make much of a difference to final outcomes.

So this suggests students can apply for an early entry offer if they want to.

But once the application is submitted, they need to return their focus to factors that are influential in final outcomes — such as their learning, motivation, and engagement through Year 12.


Helen Tam, Kim Paino, Anthony Manny, Mitch Smith and Nicole Swanson from the Universities Admissions Centre helped with the research on which this article is based.The Conversation

Andrew J. Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology, UNSW Sydney

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

Going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole? Science says you’re one of these three types

Johnson Martin / Unsplash
Sarah PolkinghorneRMIT University

If you’ve ever gone to look up a quick fact and just kept browsing from one article (or page, or video), to another, to another – then you know the feeling of “going down a rabbit hole”. This experience of curiosity-led online wandering has become synonymous with the free, user-created encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is today one of the world’s most popular websites. With more users than Amazon, Netflix, TikTok or ChatGPT, the site is a go-to source for people to learn about and discover new interests.

In new research involving more than 480,000 Wikipedia users in 14 languages across 50 countries, US researchers led by Dale Zhou at the University of Pennsylvania studied three distinctly different ways of going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. These “curiosity styles” have been studied before, but not in such a large, diverse group of people using Wikipedia “naturalistically”, in daily life.

The research may help us better understand the nature and importance of curiosity, its connections to wellbeing, and strategies for preventing the spread of false information.

Wikipedia: first controversial, now mature, always popular

When Wikipedia was new in the early 2000s, it sparked controversies. People such as librarians and lecturers voiced concerns about Wikipedia’s potential for platforming untrue or incomplete information.

Today, the factuality of Wikipedia’s existing contents is less concerning than questions of bias, such as which topics the site’s volunteer editors deem noteworthy enough to include. There are global efforts to fill gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage, such as “edit-a-thons” to add entries on historically overlooked scientists and artists.

Part of what made Wikipedia groundbreaking was how it satisfies people’s intrinsic learning needs by inviting navigation from page to page, luring readers into rabbit holes. This, combined with the site’s participatory approach to creating and verifying pages, sparked its rapid growth. These qualities have also sustained Wikipedia as a predominant everyday information source, globally.

Research about Wikipedia has also evolved from early studies comparing it to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

This new study examines data about Wikipedia readers’ activities. It looks at the different “architectural styles of curiosity” people embody when they navigate.

Busybodys, hunters and dancers

The new study explores the “knowledge networks” associated with the three main styles of curiosity: busybody, hunter and dancer. A knowledge network is a visual representation of how readers “weave a thread” across Wikipedia articles.

As the researchers explain:

The busybody scouts for loose threads of novelty, the hunter pursues specific answers in a projectile path, and the dancer leaps in creative breaks with tradition across typically siloed areas of knowledge.

Earlier research had shown evidence of busybodies and hunters, and speculated about the existence of dancers. The new study confirms that busybodies and hunters exist in multiple countries and languages. It also details the dancer style, which has been more elusive to document.

The researchers also identified geographical differences between curiosity styles.

In all 14 languages studied, busybodies tend to read more about culture, media, food, art, philosophy and religion. Hunters in 12 out of 14 languages tend to read more about science, technology, engineering and maths.

In German and English, hunters were more drawn to pages about history and society than busybodies. The opposite was true in Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Dutch and Chinese.

Dancers were identified by their forward leaps between disparate topics, as well as the diversity of their interests.

The research team points out we still have much to learn about how curiosity is shaped by local norms. Relating these results to gender, ethnicity, access to education, and other elements will paint a fuller picture.

Curiosity is beneficial, generally … and we have more to learn

Overall, this study supports the benefits of freer, broader browsing and reading. Following our curiosity can help us become better informed and expand our worldviews, creativity and relationships.

At the same time, people sometimes need closure more than they need exploration. This is not a bad thing or a sign of narrow-mindedness. In many situations there are benefits to moving on from information-seeking, and deciding we’ve learned enough for now.

Endless curiosity can have downsides. This is especially true when it’s motivated not by the joy of learning, but by the discomfort of uncertainty and exclusion. As other research has found, for some people, curiosity can lead toward false information and conspiracy theories. When information has a sense of novelty, or a hint of being hidden by powerful elites, this can make it more appealing, even when it’s not true.

The new study emphasises that different curiosity styles do not lead simply or universally to creativity or wellbeing. People’s contexts and circumstances vary.

Each of us, like Goldilocks, can follow our curiosity to find not too much, not too little, but the information that is “just right”. The researchers also hint at evidence for a spectrum of new curiosity styles beyond the main three, which will surely spark more research in future.

Stay curious and enjoy the rabbit hole

This study also suggests ways Wikipedia (and sites like it) could better support curiosity-driven exploration. For example, rather than suggesting pages based on their popularity or similarity to other pages, Wikipedia could try showing readers their own dynamic knowledge network.

As a Wikipedian would say, this new study is noteworthy. It shows how smaller-scale, exploratory research into people’s reading and browsing can be translated to a much larger scale across languages and cultures.

As AI becomes more influential and the problems of misinformation grow, understanding technologies that shape our access to information – and how we use them – is more important than ever. We know YouTube recommendations can be a radicalising pipeline to extremist content, for example, and ChatGPT is largely indifferent to the truth.

Studying Wikipedia readers reveals a rich picture of people’s freely expressed, diverse online curiosities. It shows an alternative to technologies built on narrower assumptions about what people value, how we learn, and how we want to explore online.The Conversation

Sarah Polkinghorne, Adjunct Senior Industry Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

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

What’s the difference between fusion and fission? A nuclear physicist explains

Quality Stock Arts/Shutterstock
Matthew HoleAustralian National University

Globally, nuclear power accounts for roughly 10% of electricity generation. In some countries, such as France, this figure is nearly 70%.

Big tech companies such as Google are also turning to nuclear power to meet the huge power demands of their data centres.

The source of all nuclear power is the binding energy of an atom. The energy stored in an atom can be released in two main ways: fission or fusion. Fission involves splitting big heavy atoms into smaller, lighter ones. Fusion involves combining little atoms together into bigger ones.

Both processes release a lot of energy. For example, one nuclear fission decay of U235, an isotope of uranium typically used as the fuel in most power plants, produces more than 6 million times the energy per single chemical reaction of the purest coal. This means they are great processes for generating power.

What is fission?

Fission is the process behind every nuclear power plant in operation today. It occurs when a tiny subatomic particle called a neutron is slammed into an uranium atom, splitting it. This releases more neutrons, which continue colliding with other atoms, setting off a nuclear chain reaction. This in turn releases a tremendous amount of energy.

To convert this energy to electricity a heat exchanger is installed, which turns water to steam, driving a turbine to produce power.

The fission reaction can be controlled by suppressing the supply of neutrons. This is achieved by inserting “control rods” which soak up neutrons. Historically, nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl have occurred when the control rods fail to engage and quench the neutron supply, and/or coolant circulation fails.

So called “third generation” designs improve on early designs by incorporating passive or inherent safety features which require no active controls or human intervention to avoid accidents in the event of malfunction. These features may rely on pressure differentials, gravity, natural convection, or the natural response of materials to high temperatures.

The first third generation reactors were the Kashiwazaki 6 and 7 advanced boiling water reactors in Japan.

Aerial view of a power plant on the banks of the ocean.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in Japan. Tokyo Electric Power CoCC BY-SA

An unresolved challenge for fission is that the byproducts of the reaction are radioactive for a long time, in the order of thousands of years. If reprocessed, the fuel source and waste can also be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Fission power is a demonstrated technology. It is also scalable from large scale (the largest is the 7.97 gigawatt Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan) through to small-to-medium reactors that produce around 150 megawatts of electricity, as used on a ship or nuclear submarine. These are the reactors that will power Australia’s eight nuclear submarines promised as part of a trilateral security partnership with the United Kingdom and the United States.

What is fusion?

Fusion is the process that powers the Sun and stars. It is the opposite process to fission. It occurs when atoms are fused together.

The easiest reaction to initiate in the laboratory is the fusion of isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. Per unit mass, the reaction produces 4 times more energy than the fission of U235.

The fuel ion deuterium is incredibly abundant on Earth and in the universe. Tritium is radioactive with a half-life of 12 years, so is very rare on Earth. The universe is 13.8 billion years old; the only isotopes of light nuclei (hydrogen, helium and lithium) found in nature are those that are stable on those time scales.

In a fusion power plant, tritium would be manufactured using a “lithium blanket”. This is a solid lithium wall in which fusion neutrons slow and ultimately react to form tritium.

However, at present it’s very difficult for scientists to create a fusion reaction outside of the laboratory. That’s because it requires incredibly hot conditions to fuse: the optimal conditions are 150 million degrees Celsius.

Bright orange, flaming ball.
Fusion is the process that powers the Sun. SOHO (ESA & NASA)

At these temperatures the fuel ions exist in the plasma state, where electrons and (nuclear) ions are dissociated. The byproduct of this process isn’t radioactive; rather, it’s helium, an inert gas.

The leading technology path to demonstrate sustained fusion is called “toroidal magnetic confinement”. This is when the plasma is confined at extreme temperatures in a very large doughnut-shaped magnetic bottle.

Unlike fission, this technology path requires continuous external heating to reach fusion conditions and a strong confining field. Terminate either and the reaction stops. The challenge is not uncontrolled meltdown, but getting the reaction to occur at all.

A major unresolved challenge for toroidal magnetic confinement fusion, which attracts the majority of research interest, is the demonstration of a burning self-heated plasma. This is when the heating power produced by the reaction itself is primary. This is the objective of the publicly funded multi-national ITER project, the world’s largest fusion experiment, and the privately funded SPARC experiment at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

However, the consensus of much of the scientific community is that fusion will not be commercially viable until at least 2050.

A climate solution?

I am often asked if nuclear power could save Earth from climate change. I have many colleagues in climate science, and indeed my late wife was a high-profile climate scientist.

The science is clear: it is too late to stop climate change. The world needs to do everything it can to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and minimise catastrophic damage, and it needs to have done it decades ago.

For the planet, fission is part of that global solution, together with widespread rollout and adoption of renewable sources of power such as wind and solar.

On a longer time scale, one hopes that fusion might replace fission. The fuel supply is much larger and ubiquitously distributed, the waste problem is orders of magnitude smaller in volume and timescale, and the technology cannot be weaponised.The Conversation

Matthew Hole, Professor, Mathematical Sciences Institute and School of Computing, Australian National University

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

From Camilla to the ‘ugly’ Elizabeth of Austria: our problematic history of obsessing over royal women’s looks

Elizabeth of Austria and Casimir IV of Poland in the woodcut from the Łaski Statute. Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych
Darius von Guttner SporzynskiAustralian Catholic UniversityMagdalena Biniaś-SzkopekAdam Mickiewicz University, and Robert TomczakAdam Mickiewicz University

Throughout history, queens have often been judged on their looks. Beauty standards shaped early-modern queenship. Even today, royal women such as the UK royal family’s Camilla, Catherine and Meghan are scrutinised for their looks, while their male counterparts aren’t held to the same standard.

One woman who faced particular scrutiny for her looks was Elizabeth of Austria (1436/37–1505). Known as the “mother of kings”, Elizabeth married Casimir IV of Poland and had 13 children, securing the Jagiellon dynasty’s future. Yet she is still remembered for her supposed lack of beauty.

This obsession with her appearance overlooks what really mattered for queens in her time: fertility, motherhood, political alliances and dynastic stability.

Beauty versus duty

Elizabeth was a powerful queen consort of Poland who played a significant role in European politics. Yet for centuries, she has been chiefly labelled as unattractive. This narrative likely began as early as 50 years after her death, with commentators focusing on her supposed ugliness.

But the foundation for these claims is shaky, at best. Medieval chroniclers, such as Jan Długosz, who documented the lives of Polish rulers and their families, made no mention of Elizabeth’s appearance.

This omission is significant as Długosz often commented on the beauty, or lack thereof, of other royal women. The absence of such remarks in Elizabeth’s case suggests her physical appearance was not a matter of public concern during her lifetime.

Later chroniclers such as Maciej of Miechów (1457–1523) and Marcin Bielski (1495–1575), who drew heavily from Długosz, also failed to comment on Elizabeth’s looks, further underscoring the lack of focus on her beauty.

In 1548, Polish nobleman Andrzej Górka alleged in a rhetorical speech that King Casimir IV was disappointed by Elizabeth’s appearance and considered breaking off their engagement. Górka claimed the king expressed doubts about the impending marriage because of Elizabeth’s lack of beauty – and the only thing that persuaded him to wed was a sense of duty.

However, Górka’s speech took place almost a century after the actual events. It was delivered in a political context where the goal was to influence Casimir’s grandson not to marry for love.

This saga mirrors a well-known English story involving Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves. In 1540, Henry, eager to meet his new bride, rode in disguise to surprise her. The meeting didn’t go as planned. Henry’s disappointment in Anne’s appearance became notorious and the marriage was speedily annulled.

Both of these stories reflect the pressure queens faced to meet idealistic beauty standards, often with serious consequences. Henry’s judgement of Anne based on her looks altered the course of their marriage and, by extension, future political alliances. His behaviour reinforced the idea that a queen’s worth was tied to her physical appearance, overshadowing her political or dynastic significance.

Elizabeth as the ‘ugly queen’

The primary role of a queen in early-modern Europe was to provide heirs and secure political alliances through marriage. Beauty was arguably not the most important factor.

This 1454 painting depicts the marriage of Elizabeth of Austria to Casimir IV of Poland. Wikimedia

Elizabeth of Austria’s marriage to Casimir IV of Poland was about strengthening ties between the Habsburg and Jagiellon dynasties, not about physical attraction. Of Elizabeth’s 13 children, several went on to become kings and queens across Europe. Her ancestry and status as a mother were the basis of her political influence – far more valuable than her looks.

Around 1502, in anticipation of the birth of her grandchild, Elizabeth commissioned a treatise to provide practical advice on raising a future ruler. She believed a royal child should embody values, attitudes and behaviours befitting a future monarch.

However, as history shows, the perception of a queen’s beauty could still end up influencing her legacy. While Elizabeth’s contemporaries didn’t seem to care about her appearance, later generations did.

The myth of Elizabeth’s unattractiveness gained traction primarily after a 1973 investigation into the royal tombs at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków. Skeletal remains identified as belonging to Elizabeth showed facial deformities, reinforcing the myth. However, there’s no solid proof these bones were even hers, and the findings have since been questioned.

Nonetheless, the idea that a queen had to be beautiful to be politically capable took hold over time. Even though Elizabeth helped secure the future of one of Europe’s most powerful dynasties, her legacy is clouded by a narrative focused on her appearance.

Royal beauty standards today

Royal women in the 21st century continue to be haunted by the same narratives that plagued Anne of Cleves and Elizabeth of Austria. Queen Camilla, for instance, has been criticised for her looks throughout her public life, especially in comparison to the late Princess Diana.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle also face intense media scrutiny over their appearance, with headlines dissecting everything from their fashion choices to their weight. Queen Mary of Denmark, Princess Charlene of Monaco and Queen Letizia of Spain face similar scrutiny.

Sure, queens were and are aware of this. Many even weaponised beauty, ritual and fashion for their own gain. Cleopatra did this to hold onto power in ancient Egypt, and Marie Antoinette to protect herself from the hostile French court.

A circa 1774 portrait of Marie Antoinette.
Marie Antoinette, with her extravagant dresses, became as renowned for her fashion as her scandalous behaviour. British MuseumCC BY-NC-SA

Elizabeth I’s reign in England gave rise to a concept of “Elizabethan beauty”, characterised by pale skin and rosy lips and cheeks. And the late Elizabeth II understood the need to dress the part.

By reducing royal women to their looks – or framing them as fashion icons – we fail to reckon with their individual characters and influence in the world. Meanwhile, men such as King Charles, King Frederick of Denmark and King Felipe of Spain are more likely to be judged by their virility, actions and policies.

Should beauty really matter when it comes to royal women? Shouldn’t we be more interested in their contributions to history, politics and society?

It’s time to shift the conversation away from appearance and focus on what matters: the impact these women have on the world. Like their male counterparts, they are crucial figures in shaping history and politics, so we ought to think carefully about how we judge them.The Conversation

Darius von Guttner Sporzynski, Historian, Australian Catholic UniversityMagdalena Biniaś-Szkopek, Profesor of History, Adam Mickiewicz University, and Robert Tomczak, Post-doc in History, Adam Mickiewicz University

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

Dying to receive home care

October 23, 2024
National Seniors Australia (NSA) has responded to reports of an 86-year-old South Australian who has applied to end his own life because of extended delays with home care support, as brought to public attention by Federal Member for Mayo Ms Rebekha Sharkie MP.

NSA Chief Executive Officer Chris Grice said the blow out for an approved home care package, up to 15 months for a Level 4 (the highest need), was appalling.

“This month marks six years since the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

During NSA’s appearances before the Commission, we described the crisis with the home care wait list as a “running sore” with more than 128,000 older Australians waiting for much needed support at home,” Mr Grice said.

“While the wait list has steadily decreased since June 2019, wait times have shot up again since 2023, with more than 76,000 older Australians now waiting for home care support.

“The waitlist for home care packages has surged within the past sixteen months with around 47,000 more people on the wait list since June 2023. The services and workforce needed to meet this demand clearly have to grow, especially if the government is to once again meet its own three-month target from 2027. The government achieved one – three months in early 2023, it can do it again.

“To have a situation where an older person with a terminal illness applies to end his own life (using his state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Scheme) because he understandably can’t wait any longer in pain and without care is appalling. NSA is grateful for his sharing his story and appreciates Ms Sharkie’s advocacy with the aim of ensuring home care receives sufficient resources, to reduce and avoid such lengthy delays.

“The proposed Aged Care Bill 2024 alters means testing rules to increase the number of home care packages available. However, this will not happen until July next year. This is far too late for people waiting now.

“The other issue is the proposed Act has no strict timeframes for the approval process, as we recently raised at the Senate Enquiry into the new Aged Care Act.

“As the Royal Commission heard all those years ago, people were receiving approvals for care long after they were assessed, in some instances they died waiting. Everyone agreed it shouldn’t happen but here we are again, having them same conversation, about the same situation.

“The other elephant in the room is workforce. It doesn’t matter how many additional packages there are if we don’t have the staff to deliver them. That’s why NSA continues to call for an exemption for care workers from the Age Pension Means Test as one solution to help retain experienced staff in the sector.”

Hip fracture mortality decreases with high quality clinical care

October 21, 2024
Hip fractures are common and their impact can be substantial, but researchers have found that adhering to clinical care standards reduces the risk of death and significantly improves patient outcomes.

The Medical Journal of Australia has published a report, led by NeuRA Senior Research Fellow, Lara Harvey, that showed the Hip Fracture Care Clinical Standard is improving outcomes for patients, with some factors substantially lowering risk of death for patients.

“What this research found was that if hip fracture patients received high quality clinical care, there is a significant decrease in short- and longer-term mortality,” Dr Harvey said.

“Hip fracture is common and unfortunately associated with substantial morbidity, mortality, reduced quality of life and independence. 25% of people die within one year of their fracture, a further 50% don’t regain their previous level of function and, for 11%, that fracture results in a new placement in aged care.

“This research showed mortality risk dropped significantly with orthogeriatric care, having surgery within 48 hours of presentation, being offered the ability to mobilise on the day-of or day-after surgery, and receiving bone protection medication prior to discharge.”

Clinical standards critical to patient outcomes
The Hip Fracture Clinical Care Standard was introduced by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in 2016 to improve care for around 19,000 people who fracture their hip each year, usually after a fall.

Researchers analysed data from the Australian and New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry, hospital, residential aged care facility and death records to explore the impact of the Hip Fracture Care Clinical Care Standard in improving outcomes for patients. The results were published as ​“Adherence to clinical care standards and mortality after hip fracture surgery in NSW, 2015 – 18: a retrospective population-based study”.

“This study showed that where patients received care in line with the Hip Fracture Clinical Care Standard, there were significant improvements to their outcomes,” Dr Harvey said.

The study found where patients received care that met five or six out of six key quality indicators there was a 60% decreased risk of 30-day mortality, while those who received care with moderate adherence to the quality indicators had a 40% decreased risk. This pattern was sustained at one year.

“These findings emphasise the significant cumulative impact of adhering to multiple care processes and underscore the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to delivering high-quality hip fracture care,” Dr Harvey said.

“We would like to see more patients continue to receive this high level of care in line with the Standard, which was updated last year.”

Hip Fracture Registry finds care improving, but more to be done

The Australian and New Zealand Hip Fracture Registry (ANZHFR) Annual Report 2024 released this month found an ongoing increase in participation of the registry, noting both achievements and areas requiring work.

Professor Jacqueline Close AM, Co-Chair of the ANZHFR and NeuRA Senior Principal Research Fellow, said the 9th annual report had a focus on performance against the clinical care standard.

“We’re seeing improvement in preoperative assessment of cognition and delirium and the use of nerve blocks prior to surgery,” Prof Close said.

“Whilst initiation of treatment for osteoporosis has improved this year, the rate remains poor and many people leave hospital without treatment that we know can reduce the risk of future fractures. We still face challenges in ensuring people get timely access to surgery and more work needs to be done in getting people out of bed and up on their feet the day after surgery – both of these indicators are strongly linked to better outcomes for patients.

“The paper released today in the Medical Journal of Australia provides an important message to all hospitals. We know that many hospitals do one or two things well, but the real benefits to our patients are when we do all of it well.”

ANZHFR Co-Chair, Associate Professor Chris Wall, said the trans-Tasman registry has data on more than 110,000 hip fractures and continues to grow.

“The Registry continues to grow as a platform for clinical research, practice development and to support clinicians and researchers,” he said.

“All eligible New Zealand hospitals are contributing to the Registry, but at this stage that’s not the case in Australia.”

Chief Medical Officer for the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, emergency physician Associate Professor Carolyn Hullick, said the Standard was developed to reduce serious outcomes from a hip fracture.

“The Registry’s research demonstrates that standards of care work in the interest of patients,” she said.

“The Commission commends the Registry for their vital work in leading improvements in the quality of hip fracture care.”

The Hip Fracture Care Clinical Care Standard was revised in late 2023, and reporting of new indicators in the ANZHFR Annual Report will commence from next year.


AvPals Term 4 2024


Smoky Dawson's heritage listed gates at Ingleside: Fundraiser

My name is John Illingsworth. Smoky's gates are deteriorating and the land they stand on is weed infested, yet they are Pittwater Heritage Listed. I have opened this Gofundme account in my name specifically and only for the following:

I am supporting Phillip Walker who has already tended the gates once before - years ago, and also Kylie Adams-Collier who has written the music and lyrics for "On a Sandstone Ridge" with a view to SAVE THE GATES. We also intend to address the weed problem. No wages, salaries, gratuities or other monies will be paid to any of these people including me - we just want to fix the gates and secure their future.

Fundraiser page: 

"On a Sandstone Ridge" celebrates Smoky Dawson's heritage listed gates at Ingleside. 

We need some some financial assistance to save them .
Music and lyrics by Kylie Adams-Collier.

A Call to Volunteer Trainers and Students

Come and share your knowledge or learn more about your device! 
Computer Pals for Seniors Northern Beaches would love to hear from you. We are a not-for-profit organisation helping seniors navigate the wonderful world of technology.

We teach in term times Monday to Friday in a relaxed fun environment.

Common topics requested by Students are: Sending and receiving emails, discovering useful apps, safe banking online, learning how to take and store photos, avoiding Scams, and basically being able to operate their device with confidence.

We teach Android/Apple tablets and phones, and Apple/Microsoft/ Chromebook laptops.

We are based at the Tramshed Arts & Community Centre, 1395a Pittwater Road, Narrabeen, near the B-Line bus stop.

Why not give us a call on 0478 920 651



Registration for Walking Netball Open

Starting Wednesday, October 16th, join us for 7 fun-filled weeks. Sign up for just one week or all seven!

📅 Dates: Wednesday 16th October 7pm
🕒 4 x 10-minute quarters

Walking Netball is a great way for senior women and men to stay active and enjoy the social benefits of netball at a comfortable walking pace. Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay fit and make new friends!

Manly Warringah Netball Association MWNA


Party season is coming. Here are 2 ways to make small talk less awkward

Mongkolchon Akesin/Shutterstock
Nick EnfieldUniversity of Sydney

Most people will tell you they hate small talk. It can feel awkward, especially when it steers to that blandest of topics, the weather.

We turn to the weather when we can’t think of anything else to talk about. This is because we can be sure the other person will share the experience of rain or sunshine. But the weather is something you could talk about with anyone. It’s so universal it becomes meaningless and seems to assume no other common ground. No wonder it’s awkward.

The solution is to think about “audience design” in your use of language. This is a foundational principle of all communication. When we communicate, we are not just exchanging information, rather we are influencing each other. You can only achieve this influence using language if you consider who your audience is, what will they notice, how will they understand what you say, and how will they react.

To apply meaningful audience design we need to take the social power of language seriously. Here’s how you can harness that power on your next social outing.

It’s a jungle out there

Language is a form of animal communication. One of its functions is to create and regulate social relationships.

In all species with complex social systems, there are certain forms of behaviour individuals engage in to show who their closest allies are. We see this, for example, when coalitions of dolphins swim in synchrony, when baboons spend long bouts of time picking at each other’s skin, and when pairs of white-faced capuchins carry out mock attacks on random inanimate objects.

While language is much more than a display behaviour, it serves similar functions.

For example, consider the opposite of small talk: conversation about your most personal affairs. We can all recognise that an embarrassing health condition is not a good place to start a conversation with the spouse of a workmate you’ve just met at an end-of-year party.

group of people chatting and laughing in club or party setting at night
You don’t have to be the life of the party. But small talk helps connection. Jacob Lund/Shutterstock

Oxford biologist Robin Dunbar defines various layers of social distance which distinguish our relationships. He starts with our innermost circle of around seven people, known as a “support clique”. These are the ones we’d call first in an emergency, or go to first if we needed a big favour.

The circles move out to a “sympathy group” of around 20 people, and so on, including Dunbar’s famous group of 150 familiar acquaintances. We design our language to fit our degrees of familiarity or intimacy within these various layers.

Strangers are friends you haven’t met yet

The problem is that in our species’ evolutionary past we spent our time in much smaller groups than today. For most of human history it was rare to meet a stranger. It was usually quite clear who we were talking to, and what common ground we already shared. These days we talk to strangers all the time.

This is the dilemma of small talk. On the one hand, the person you are about to talk to is not in one of your defined social circles, so you have little or no common ground to draw on. Nor is it appropriate to talk about the kinds of probing personal matters that would suit a closer relationship.

And you don’t want to wallow in that lack of common ground by talking about the most vacuous thing possible, like the weather. What to do?

people are event share food and conversation
If in doubt, head for the buffet. rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

Hacking the chat

One approach is to be guided by American writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (first published in 1936).

His fourth principle was this: “Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.”

1. Be generous

Finding a way to get someone talking about what they know is a win-win.

First, by being generous you give the other person a way to avoid the discomfort of not knowing what to say. If they are talking about what they know, they will be comfortable. And showing interest in the other person’s knowledge and experience is a good way to engage their interest in return.

As the Ancient Latin writer Publilius Syrus is supposed to have said: “We are interested in others when they are interested in us.” In this way, we move from the bland, generic topics of small talk to topics that are tailored by definition to your conversational partner, thereby maximising audience design.

This requires that we resist the urge to talk about ourselves, and instead allow the other that privilege.

2. Be curious

Everybody you meet knows things you don’t. Why do people do the things they do? How does a person get into that kind of work? What is life like in the places they know and that you haven’t been to? And so on.

Again, by resisting the urge to talk about nothing, or to talk about ourselves, we stand to gain by learning new things. That is one of the many magic tricks of language.

As you are listening and learning, you have opportunities to contribute, too, with feedback, prompts and follow-ups. And, ideally, by this time your conversation has hopefully developed an organic two-way exchange of generous curiosity.

When looking down the barrel of a conversation with someone you don’t know, resist the twin urges of boring conversation: the urge to talk about nothing and the urge to talk about yourself.

Instead, apply the combination of generosity (let the conversation be about their world) and curiosity (you will learn new things). Together, we can rid ourselves of the futility and awkwardness of small talk.The Conversation

Nick Enfield, Professor and Chair of Linguistics, University of Sydney

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

World Falls Guidelines updates poised to dramatically reduce falls and ease $2.3b healthcare burden

October 2024
Falls are a growing issue globally, but two simple modifications to the World Falls Guidelines could dramatically improve prevention, new research from NeuRA (Neuroscience Research Australia) and UNSW has found.

In a new study published today in Age and Ageing today, researchers found that two simple changes to the World Falls Guidelines algorithm can significantly improve the classification of older adults into low, intermediate and high fall risk groups. This improvement is crucial, as research has shown that falls prevention programs — particularly exercise-based interventions — can reduce falls by up to 50 per cent. However, these programs are most effective when tailored to those with low, moderate and increased falls risk.

Professor Stephen Lord, Senior Principal Research Fellow and Director of the Falls, Balance and Injury Research Centre at NeuRA, said the previous World Guidelines for Falls Prevention and Management, launched in 2022, could not accurately identify people at moderate risk of falls.

“While the Falls Guidelines were developed to assist with identifying risk and supporting prevention, we found the algorithm missed significant groups. By refining the algorithm and incorporating a broader ​‘Timed Up and Go’ test, we can now accurately identify those at intermediate risk and therefore posed to transition to high fall rates over the medium to long term,” Prof Lord said.

“This research has significant implications for fall risk assessment and prevention for health care providers working with older people.”

Improving falls risk assessment and prevention
These changes have significant implications for healthcare providers who work with older adults. The modified guidelines not only improve how falls risk is classified, but also enhances the effectiveness of falls prevention interventions.

The study compared the original and modified algorithms in 693 people aged 70 – 90. The modified algorithm successfully identified 18.3% of participants as intermediate-risk, compared to almost none with the original. This group shared characteristics with the high-risk group but had lower rates of falls, suggesting the modified algorithm could more accurately identify those who would benefit from targeted fall prevention, preventing their progression to ​‘high risk’.
​“The high-risk group had more than double the fall rate of the low-risk group and community living older people. For these individuals, we recommend multifactorial interventions such as addressing risk factors like hypotension, frailty, balance and mobility impairments, depressive symptoms and fear of falling,” Professor Lord said.

“This improvement in the algorithm is expected to lead to better triaging of older adults, ensuring they receive the personalised fall prevention interventions needed to reduce their risk.”

A crucial step forward
“The ageing of the Australian population means that the problem of fall-related injuries and deaths will worsen if we fail to take preventive action,” Prof Lord said.

“These modifications to the World Falls Guidelines represent a significant step towards reducing the burden of falls, enhancing quality of life and potentially saving lives.”

Removing debit card fees crucial for older Australians

Removing the fees attached with using your debit card for transactions would be welcomed by many Australians, including many older Australians who are struggling with the increasing difficulties associated with paying with cash for goods, COTA Australia says. 

COTA Australia – the leading advocacy organisation for older people – welcomed news today that the ACCC will receive funding to tackle excessive surcharges today, as well as the Federal Government’s indication that it will investigate the option of banning debit card surcharging from 1 January 2026, subject to the consultation undertaken by the Reserve Bank of Australia.

COTA Australia Chief Executive Officer, Patricia Sparrow, said giving Australians access to a ‘digital cash’ solution that isn’t eaten up by fees is crucial.

“Being charged additional fees is a bugbear of many older people who are concerned about the increasing removal of cash as a payment option,” Ms Sparrow said.

“As it becomes harder and harder to pay with cash, people are being left with no option to pay for goods that doesn’t seem them hit them with additional charges.“Removing fees attached to debit cards is a long overdue reform that would be very welcomed by many Australians, including older Australians.

“While it’s still important that steps are taken to ensure people, including older people, are able to pay cash, there’s no doubt that consumers should have access to another fee free payment solution into the future.

“It’s fantastic that the Federal Government is exploring this option and we look forward to ensuring the voices of older people are heard throughout the investigation and consultation period.”

Sydney’s beloved Footbridge Theatre launched some of our biggest stars. After nearly 20 years, it’s making a grand return

The Footbridge Theatre in the 1960s, when it was known as the Union Theatre. University of Sydney Archives

Laura GintersUniversity of Sydney

After nearly 20 years as a lecture theatre, the University of Sydney’s Footbridge Theatre is reopening as a live performance venue in the university’s arts precinct.

The Footbridge is home to a long history of student theatre on campus. When it opened in 1961 as the 655-seat Union Theatre (replacing the old Union Hall) it was the first theatre to have been built in Sydney in more than 20 years.

Hopes were high for the new venture to be shared by student theatre groups and Sydney’s first professional repertory company, the Union Repertory Theatre Company (not to be confused with the Melbourne Theatre Company’s original name, the Union Theatre Repertory Company).

For decades, the Footbridge Theatre was host to both industry heavyweights and budding talent from across the arts sectors, before being converted to a lecture hall in 2006. Now, it’s back.

Hitting the ground running

The theatre opened with productions from the Sydney University Musical Society, including Claudio Monteverdi’s ballet Il Ballo Delle Ingrate and Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.

Also on show was the Sydney University Theatre Council’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance, starring John Bell in the title role. Ken Horler, with whom Bell founded the famous Nimrod Theatre a decade later, co-directed the play with May Hollinworth, who ran the university’s Dramatic Society in the 1920s and ’30s. The production also featured John GadenBob EllisBruce BeresfordRichard Brennan and Mungo MacCallum.

The following year, Horler directed Coriolanus, with Bell in the title role and Gaden and Arthur Dignam in the cast.

Sepia photograph

John Bell and Arthur Dignam in Coriolanus. University of Sydney

Horler would go on to direct the first Australian production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage in 1963. The cast included Germaine Greer as Mother Courage, Peter Carroll and Ron Blair.

Bell also acted in and directed a number of shows in the following years. He returned again in the early 1990s to stage a series of productions with his fledgling Bell Shakespeare company.

A woman sits on a wagon, three men stand.

Peter Carroll, Germaine Greer, Maree D’Arcy, Ron Blair and Paul Thom in Mother Courage. University of Sydney

A smidge of controversy

The university students of the 1960s had been delighted to have their “own” venue after years of makeshift spaces. They produced some adventurous – as well as some scandalous – works.

When the Dramatic Society staged its Revue of the Absurd in 1963, it included a controversial film by the then-nascent filmmakers Bruce Beresford and Albie Thoms. It Droppeth as the Gentle Rain depicted a cocktail party coming to a sticky end as shit rained down from the sky.

The film was promptly banned. This ban was reinstated the following year when Beresford and Thoms sought to show it at a gala commemorating the Dramatic Society’s 75th birthday.

A legal letter.

Bruce Beresford and Albie Thoms’ film, It Droppeth as the Gentle Rain, was banned in 1963 – and again the following year. University of Sydney

Student revues were a popular feature of the theatre in its early years. One of these was the 1964 revue called Jump, which starred Colin Anderson, Germaine Greer, John Gaden and Paul Thom.

Two black and white photographs

The revue Jump featured Paul Thom and John Gaden (left), as well as Colin Anderson and Germaine Greer (right). University of Sydney

The Union Repertory Theatre Company was short-lived, collapsing within 12 months of its launch in 1961.

Also, ironically, the Footbridge was too expensive for students to hire often. Nonetheless, it was still a launching pad for those involved in student theatre, including Henry Szeps (who later acted in the 1984–94 series Mother and Son), Jack Thompson, who played Claudius in a production of Hamlet (1969), and Neil Armfield in Much Ado About Nothing (1974).

Fellow student actor and director David Marr would later acknowledge Armfield’s genius as a director, while diplomatically adding “acting was not his strength”.

Poster

A poster designed by Martin Sharp for the 1965 revue First, No Pinky. University of Sydney

What’s in a name?

The Union Theatre was a venue for hire throughout the 1970s, with student theatre, concerts, music theatre, French language theatre and other genres sporadically staged. In 1981, it was renamed the Footbridge Theatre (after a footbridge that was constructed over Parramatta Road in 1972).

For two decades from the mid-1980s, the Gordon Frost Organisation leased the theatre to present a number of popular commercial productions.

It also rented the theatre to other companies, including Bell Shakespeare, the Sydney Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre and Sydney Festival, which programmed outstanding international works such as the Irish Druid Theatre’s 1998 production of The Leenane Trilogy.

The 1990s also saw students back onstage in annual faculty revues.

The next act begins

A squeeze on space at the university led to Footbridge’s conversion to a lecture theatre in 2006. Following extensive renovations, the now 300-seat theatre is opening once again, with Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

The university’s Dramatic Society first produced Into the Woods in the early 2000s (starring Virginia Gay). The Sydney University Musical Theatre Ensemble (MUSE) staged it again in 2011.

This time around the production is showcasing the talents of the inaugural cohort of music theatre students from the university’s Conservatorium of Music.

Just as it was for the “Johns” (Bell and Gaden) who, in the early 1960s, took their first steps as student actors into their future careers – and are still going strong six decades later – campus theatres remain vitally important for students finding their feet as the artists of the future.

Now, in a new decade and with a new generation of students, it’s time to go into the woods again.The Conversation

Laura Ginters, Associate Professor, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Sydney

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

‘It just lifted me’: new research suggests shared reading groups combat loneliness – and the effects can be astounding

Robert Kneschke/Shutterstock
Juliane RoemhildLa Trobe University and Sara JamesLa Trobe University

In Eleanor Rigby, the Beatles asked: “All the lonely people – where do they all come from?” The answer to that question is complex, but loneliness is a widespread feeling among Australians. One in three people feel lonely, and one in six experience severe loneliness.

The findings of our research suggest that shared reading groups, where people from all walks of life meet regularly to read and discuss literature, can provide the kind of meaningful social connections necessary to alleviate loneliness.

In shared reading, small groups of people read aloud short stories and poetry under the guidance of a trained facilitator, who gently steers the conversation to encourage deeper conversations about life, emotions and personal experience.

Not quite a book club or a self-help group, shared reading unites the best of both. It can take place in a variety of settings: libraries, community houses, care homes, prisons, hospitals and schools. The aim is to reconnect people with themselves and others, thereby nurturing wellbeing and social inclusion.

In 2022-2023, we assembled a team of researchers to run a pilot project with ten shared reading groups in Melbourne and Bendigo. We wanted to find out if the groups could help Victorians leave behind their sense of isolation after the pandemic and improve mental health. Our partners included libraries, a neighbourhood house, a hospital, an aged care home and the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council. We surveyed 35 participants and conducted 26 follow-up interviews.

The groups read stories and poems chosen by the facilitators. Texts were selected for their potential to evoke strong feelings and describe broadly relatable human experiences, so as to encourage members of the groups to open up. Authors included Kate Chopin, Langston Hughes, Mary Oliver, Li-Young Lee, Tobias Wolff, Susan Glaspell, Moniza Alvi, Maya Angelou, James Joyce and Judith Wright.

Although our participants differed in age, social background, mental and physical health and cultural identity, the most salient feature was that they came to feel a deep sense of social connection and improved wellbeing. In fact, almost all of the surveyed participants said the group had made them feel better, while the majority found it helped them relate to others in a deeper way.

Take 94-year-old “Elaine”, who joined a shared reading group shortly after moving into aged care. When she joined, she was feeling “miserable” and “crook on everybody”, but she found the group rejuvenating: “it just lifted me and I couldn’t wait till the next week […] It brought me out of myself.”

The positive effects were not only social. “When I came here I wasn’t walking, I was in a wheelchair,” Elaine reported. “I had a boost in my walking […] It was a struggle to get here. But I could run back.”

Research suggests shared reading can help people connect with others and reflect on common experiences. SeventyFour/Shutterstock

Shared memories and experiences

In shared reading, literature works as a springboard to talk about life, compare experiences and share memories in a safe and inclusive space. The effects are nothing short of astounding. Research into shared reading has shown its capacity to combat loneliness, alleviate depression, lower anxiety and even help with chronic pain.

Shared reading is widely established in the United Kingdom, where The Reader Organisation runs over 700 groups across the country and has received NHS funding. But initiatives in Australia are still limited in scope and scale.

Conversations in shared reading groups tend to skip the small talk and, through the medium of a story, get to the core of things. Hearing different perspectives from other group members helps participants connect across differences and reflect on common human experiences.

As “Ruby” found, the shared text “enables you to get quite a deep understanding of other people”. It provides a “jumping off point to really quickly get to know people as opposed to starting with, you know, general chit chat or, like, things that seem a little bit more superficial”.

One of the most powerful motivations for reading is a sense of identification, or recognition of facets of one’s own experience in the text. We read to feel reassured that we are not alone in the world. The effect of recognition is amplified in shared reading when the sharing of experiences is met with an accepting response from the group. We are not left alone with the experience, as we are when we read by ourselves.

That sense of visibility and connection within the group played a particular role all the reading groups we held. Shared reading offered a safe space to show oneself without any pressure to confess. “Beth” described how potent those moments of sharing can be:

People shared parts of themselves that you can tell made them feel vulnerable as well. Or when they were being very honest, like there was a reflection in something that either myself or someone else in their group was really touched by. And those moments of connection were really, really powerful.

In Australia, one in three people feel lonely, and one in six experience severe loneliness. David Michael Bellis/Shutterstock

Combatting loneliness

According to the recently released State of the Nation Report on Social Connection, loneliness is an experience that affects all of us, but some are more vulnerable than others. Young people, carers, people who have poorly met financial needs, those who live in rural areas, live alone, or have chronic disease and poor mental health are particularly vulnerable to loneliness.

While men and women are equally lonely, young people aged 18-24 report the highest levels of loneliness, followed by 45-54 year-olds. Contrary to common perception, older people – those over 65 – feel less lonely.

While those living on their own report higher levels of loneliness than those living with a partner or friends, being surrounded by people is not marker of feeling connected. In fact, half of those living with extended family report loneliness – by far the highest levels.

Part of the problem is that the stigma surrounding loneliness remains high: nearly one in two believe that lonely people have negative personality traits. More than half say they would not want to be friends with a lonely person. A third of the people believe loneliness is a sign of weakness or that there is something wrong with someone who is lonely.

No wonder, then, that 58% of people won’t talk about their feelings of loneliness to others and half say they would conceal their loneliness.

Yet the price we pay for loneliness is high: our mental and physical health can be severely affected by loneliness. Loneliness and depression are closely linked. Lonely people are less productive at work and seek help from mental health services more often, confirming that we tend to see loneliness as a personal shortcoming which needs medical attention.

So what can be done? Two key suggestions made by the State of the Nation report are relevant to all of us: we need to change the conversation surrounding loneliness, and we need to foster meaningful connections within communities.

As it turns out, shared reading groups seem to be doing just that. These groups can foster the kind of meaningful connections that are needed to combat widespread loneliness in Australia.

If groups run long enough, they can spark friendships. “Janet”, who migrated from China and joined a group to improve her English, has been attending for over two years. She has made lasting friendships, and the group is now the highlight of her week:

It’s just making me feel life worth living, just gave me the pleasure of love of life […] yeah really, really important I can come.

Tea and biscuits encourage socialising before or after sessions. Over time, participants get to know each other well. But even without this element, shared reading offers of a third space: an informal opportunity to meet and talk on a regular basis in a safe setting about the things that matter.The Conversation

Juliane Roemhild, Senior Lecturer in English, La Trobe University and Sara James, Senior Lecturer, Sociology, La Trobe University

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

SafeWork NSW inspectors launch blitz targeting scaffold safety

October 25, 2024
SafeWork NSW inspectors are out in force, targeting scaffold safety on construction sites across the state as part of their Scaff Safe 2024 campaign​.

Falls from heights remains the leading cause of fatalities on NSW construction sites, with falls from unsafe scaffolds a significant contributor.

In Newcastle, where the “Scaff Safe” campaign is being launched, a zero-tolerance approach to workers lives being put at risk has seen the number of penalty notices more than double since 2021, while the number of falls from unsafe scaffolding has halved.

Across the state, the most common injury as a result of a fall from height was ligament, muscle and tendon damage or a traumatic joint injury with more than 5,200 incidents reported since 2021/2022.

Scaffold incidents commonly involve:
  • people falling from, or through, scaffolds that are poorly erected, incomplete or have been altered including having components removed by unlicenced workers, such as brickies, builders, painters,
  • people falling from scaffolds due to misuse, for example standing on rails or boxes, adding makeshift work platforms,
  • scaffold collapse or failure of components due to incorrect assembly, overloading platforms, or incompatible or overly rusted/rotted componentry,
  • objects falling off scaffolds and hitting people below,
  • scaffolds being struck by mobile plant/vehicles or being snagged by a crane, and
  • scaffolders being injured when unsafely erecting, adjusting or dismantling scaffold.
Inspectors will be visiting sites to talk with principal contractors and site supervisors about how to ensure their site is ‘Scaff Safe’, including verifying they have a plan in place to manage scaffold safety for each stage of the build.

Inspectors are taking a zero-tolerance approach to workers lives being placed at risk and can issue on-the-spot fines for not managing the risk of scaffolds, falls from heights and alterations by unlicenced workers. Individuals may be fined up to $900 and businesses up to $4,500.

Further information for workers, employers and licence holders about managing the risks of scaffold can be found at: www.safework.nsw.gov.au/hazards-a-z/scaffolding

NSW Government passes most significant rental reforms in a decade

October 24, 2024
The Government has passed rental reforms in the NSW Parliament.

The government states the legislative package honours Labor’s election commitment to improve rental laws and strikes the right balance between the interests of owners and renters.

These reforms will mean over 2.2 million renters across the state will soon enjoy the following benefits:
  • No grounds evictions will be banned;
  • Rent increases will now be limited to only one per year;
  • It will be easier to have pets in rentals;
  • Fee-free ways to pay rent; and
  • A ban on paying for background checks when applying for a property.
The government states the banning of no grounds evictions will ensure housing security for renters. The reforms will also give landlords more clarity on when they can end a fixed term or periodic lease based on clear, straightforward reasons.

Previous protections against multiple rent hikes did not apply to fixed term leases of less than two years, or when there is a change in the type of lease, such as from periodic to fixed term. The government states the new legislation closes those legal loopholes.

The changes to make it easier to have pets in rentals will mean a tenant can apply to keep a pet, with landlords only able to decline on certain grounds.

Tenants will now have easy and free ways to pay their rent by requiring property owners and agents to offer zero-fee ways to pay such as bank transfer and Commonwealth Centrepay.

The new laws protecting renters from having to pay for background checks and limiting rent rises to one per year will take immediate effect upon the Bill’s assent.

The ban on no ground evictions and the rules making it easier to have pets in rentals will come into effect once the Residential Tenancies Regulation 2019 has been amended in early 2025.

The passing of these laws follows extensive and detailed discussions with renter advocates, industry stakeholders and tenancy experts, as well as a ‘Have Your Say’ public consultation process which received more than 16,000 submissions and survey responses.

The Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill 2024 also complements key initiatives already announced to rebalance the rental marketplace:
  • Portable bond scheme – Investing $6.6 million to develop and deliver the nation’s first Portable Rental Bonds Scheme. This means eligible renters can move homes and digitally transfer their existing bond with them.
  • Establishing Rent Check – A new, free tool renters can use to help check whether the rent they’re being asked to pay is fair.
  • Rental Taskforce within NSW Fair Trading – The Government will invest $8.4 million for a taskforce with investigators, inspectors and support teams to help renters and act on serious breaches of rental laws.
Premier Chris Minns said:

“Renters have been the forgotten people in NSW for too long, and that ends now.

“We have delivered major changes that make it fairer for the millions of renters across our state.

“Millions of people rent in NSW, and we know how anxious and challenging it can be.

“This brings the rental market into the 21st century.

“These are sensible reforms to get the balance right for renters and owners.

“Housing is the biggest cost people have, and renters are now getting a fairer deal.”

Minister for Better Regulation and Fair Trading Anoulack Chanthivong said:

“These landmark reforms are a huge leap forward and will create a fairer and more affordable rental system for the 2.2 million renters in this state. 

“By limiting rent increases to only one a year, banning no grounds evictions, making it easier to have pets in rentals, and ensuring people can pay their rent without hidden fees, these historic reforms will make it easier for renters in NSW.

“We want a thriving rental market in NSW where landlords have certainty and tenants have security, and these reforms do just that.”

Minister for Homelessness Rose Jackson said:

“Renters deserve a fair go. We know how hard it can be for young people and families who are facing consecutive rent increases, unfair evictions and hidden fees.

“Today we are taking historic steps to ban unfair “no-grounds evictions”, ending hidden fees and allowing pets in rentals.

“We inherited a rental crisis and a housing crisis and since day one we’ve been committed to making renting fairer and more secure.

“This is a huge win for renters in our state – it was an election commitment and today we are making the system fairer and more compassionate for all.”

NSW Rental Commissioner Trina Jones said:

“The current rental market in NSW is the toughest that renters have seen for decades, with historically low vacancy rates, and median rent prices for houses increasing by around 7 per cent over the last 12 months.

“These reforms will provide tenants with practical and meaningful support, which will help ease the insecurity and vulnerability of renting in challenging city and regional rental markets.”

Bill to strengthen puppy and dog welfare across New South Wales

October 24, 2024
The Minns Government has introduced a Bill to Parliament to strengthen puppy and dog welfare across the state by establishing clear guardrails and standards for dog breeders.

Committed to during the election this legislation has been developed through close consultation with experts, industry and animal welfare advocates, to ensure community expectations are reflected in New South Wales laws.

The Bill targets key risks to animal health and welfare associated with dog breeding practices that have been of concern for some time.  Changes under this Bill include:
  • Mandating that breeders must, for the first time, obtain a Breeder Identification Number through the NSW pet registry, enabling transparency of the sector and assisting people acquiring a puppy.
  • Setting a lifetime litter limit for fertile female adult dogs (those over 6 months old) to five natural litters or up to three caesarean litters, whichever occurs first.
  • Establishing a care standard of one staff carer for every 20 adult dogs ensuring sufficient care, food and water are provided.
  • Establishing a maximum cap of 20 fertile female dogs (over the age of six months) at any breeding premise.
  • A maximum penalty for individuals of $110,000, two years imprisonment or both and $550,000 for organisations will apply for breaches of this cap.
The government stated the bill seeks to stop puppy farming by providing a robust and modernised regulatory system for all breeders to deliver good animal welfare without imposing undue regulatory burden on legitimate breeders.

The Government is therefore enabling within the Bill that breeders with more than 20 fertile dogs will be able to apply for a limited exemption from this cap. The government stated this exemption will apply for ten years, giving breeders significant time to appropriately scale down their operations.

There is no compulsory registration scheme for breeders in New South Wales at present and no restrictions on the number of breeding female dogs that a person or business can have, or the number of litters a female dog can produce in their lifetimes.

Without these safeguards animal welfare has been jeopardised with unethical breeders in some instances establishing facilities of dozens or hundreds of dogs without providing essential care.

The majority of the changes will come into effect from December 2025, allowing time for the Government to rollout an education campaign for breeders, dog owners and those considering acquiring a puppy.

NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty said:

“With half of all households having a dog at home there is significant community concern about the welfare of these dogs as puppies, and about the practice of puppy farms.

“Most breeders do the right thing, but there is a clear message from the community that large-scale, unregulated breeding practices are not acceptable, and breeders should be registered.

“We came to Government with a commitment to clean up the sector and to enhance animal welfare because it means a lot to everyone in our community and for our dogs.

“Our Bill ensures transparency, accountability, and appropriate animal welfare standards in all breeding operations across NSW.

“This Bill is about stopping the bad apples of this industry while supporting good and professional people who prioritise the health and welfare of their animals.

“These changes will be easy to understand for industry and will allow people to distinguish ethical breeders who promote responsible breeding practices from dodgy puppy farmers.

Minister for Local Government Ron Hoenig said:

“People expect that any dog purchased from a breeder has been treated well and has not been exploited by dishonest puppy farmers to turn a profit.

“This Bill applies a strict regulatory framework to provide the government with greater oversight to ensure all breeders are complying with animal welfare standards and community expectations.

“All industry and animal welfare stakeholders agree that there is a need to clean out the bad actors and for better animal and customer protection against those few unethical breeders. That is what this Bill delivers.”

Animal Welfare League NSW CEO Stephen Albin said:

“The Animal Welfare League NSW strongly supports the Bill as it will crack down on breeders who are doing the wrong thing and improve animal welfare.

“It also sets a new regulatory framework that will deliver higher standards in the breeding industry and give established breeders time to meet those standards.

“We have seen a huge spike in breeding since COVID-19, with a big increase in dogs coming into the shelter, blowing out our waiting lists and making it extremely challenging to find new, loving homes for dogs, who are often just puppies.

“Sadly, too many dogs are not finding a new home.

“This Bill will help ease the pressure on our shelters and allow us to rehome dogs that have been surrendered or abandoned.”

Government states Liberals back profiteering private insurers over public hospitals

October 25, 2024
The NSW Government has passed legislation addressing the refusal of private insurers to pay their bills in public hospitals.

The refusal of the country’s biggest private health funds to pay the correct single room rate has been robbing public hospitals of $140 million each year.

The bill passed the Legislative Council 21 to 17 with the support of the Greens, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, the Animal Justice Party and the Legalise Cannabis Party.

In the Legislative Assembly it passed 50 to 31 with the backing of six of the eight independents who voted, and the Greens.

The result means the Leader of the Opposition led a vote against the very same legislation he backed a decade ago.

In 2013, Liberal Leader Mark Speakman supported then-Treasurer Mike Baird’s bill to amend the Health Insurance Levy.

This achieved an agreement from the private insurers to pay their fair share.

However in 2019 the major funds began walking away from that agreement, and since then have doubled their profits.

Mr Baird’s 2013 legislation was supported by NSW Labor in a united effort to ensure the big private health insurers paid their bills.

But the Liberal Party’s opposition signals that under Mr Speakman’s leadership, private insurers can walk away from their bills with no recourse.

The Opposition Leader, the Shadow Treasurer and the Member for Vaucluse must explain why they believe wealthy private insurers don’t have to play by the same rules as hard-working families across NSW and pay their bills.

The NSW Government remains open to dialogue with major insurers to resolve the issue.

The Government applauds the majority of non-profit private health funds, including Teachers Health, Nurses and Midwives Health and Emergency Service Health, who continue to pay the correct rate.   

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said:

“Mike Baird was right in 2013 when he demanded insurers pay their fair share and a decade later, we are right to reinforce that agreement.

“Premiums didn’t go down when the big insurers stopped paying their bills.  They shouldn’t threaten families with an increase now. The big insurers can still resolve this impasse by simply paying their bills.

“The Government thanks those on the cross benches in both houses who supported this bill.”

Minister for Health Ryan Park said:

“All we’re asking is that private health insurers pay their fair share of their use of public hospital beds.

“Every day they don’t, it’s costing the state over $338,000 – every single day.

“It is so emblematic of the current Liberal Opposition that they refuse to support the very same bill they proposed when they were confronted with this very same set of circumstances.

“It is so symptomatic of this Liberal Opposition which no longer knows what it stands for, completely devoid of conviction."

NSW support for the Commonwealth community safety order scheme

October 25, 2024
The Australian Government and New South Wales Government have signed an agreement to support the Commonwealth’s implementation of its Community Safety Order (CSO) Scheme.

As a result of the High Court’s decision in NZYQ v. Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs & Anor, NZYQ and other similarly affected people were required to be released from immigration detention.

The Department of Home Affairs is responsible for the CSO scheme, which seeks to ensure that individuals who pose an unacceptable risk to the community, who have no real prospect of being removed from Australia in the reasonably foreseeable future, are subject to either a community safety detention order or a community safety supervision order.

New South Wales has agreed to support the Commonwealth’s delivery of services under the CSO Scheme, including the Community Safety Detention Order scheme (CSDO) and the Community Safety Supervision Order (CSSO) scheme.

This will include – where it is ordered by a court – accommodation of CSDO offenders within Corrective Services NSW facilities, and assistance to the Australian Government with CSSO supervision case management.

Corrective Services NSW support for therapeutic case management will be limited to development of case plans, assessments and the referral or provision of therapeutic programs.

The Commonwealth will continue to be responsible for the monitoring of NZYQ affected people, including those on the CSSO scheme, and responding to any breaches of conditions.

This support is in addition to the ongoing support provided to the Commonwealth by the NSW Police Force since the High Court’s decision in November 2023.

NSW Government takes action after customers unlawfully charged for merchant fees

October 23, 2024
Merchant fee surcharges were levied on tens of millions of customer card transactions, despite repeated legal advice during the term of the former Liberal-National government that the government agency surcharges were unlawful.

The issue was identified by the NSW Auditor-General during settlement of the Department of Customer Service (DCS) financial statements for 2023-24 and brought to the attention of the current Government.

The current Secretary of DCS, Graeme Head, sought further information from his Department which revealed that Service NSW’s practice of charging merchant fees had been flagged as unlawful in legal advice received from the Crown Solicitor's Office between February 2016 and December 2022. Despite this, merchant fees continued to be passed onto customers.

Merchant fee surcharges are levied to recoup transaction fees charged by payment providers including banks. Recouping the cost of merchant fees was directed by NSW Treasury in 2012.

Typical surcharges on Service NSW transactions include 30 cents for a 1-year licence renewal, 29 cents for a marriage certificate and $1.92 to renew registration for a small car (like a Toyota Corolla). The average surcharge on a Revenue NSW payment in 2023-24 was $0.92.

It's currently estimated that 92 million transactions unlawfully incurred about $144 million in merchant fees from 2016 across Service NSW and Revenue NSW.

The Minns Labor Government has established an incident management taskforce and is progressing urgent work to shut down the unlawful charging of merchant fees.

People who have been charged fees are encouraged to register for updates on the Government’s response at service.nsw.gov.au/about-us/our-services/merchant-fees or by calling Service NSW on 13 77 88.

The Treasurer, Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government, and Minister for Finance have written to the NSW Ombudsman requesting an investigation into possible serious maladministration.

The Secretary of DCS has also referred the matter to the Ombudsman and the Independent Commission Against Corruption, noting the apparent failure to act on the 2016 Crown Solicitor’s advice.

The taskforce led by DCS has switched off fees being charged directly by Revenue NSW and the Rental Bond Board, and stopped fees on more than 80 per cent of Service NSW transactions.

Merchant fee surcharges have been switched off for more than 90 per cent of online payments, including the top 12 Service NSW transactions such as renewing a driver licence or vehicle registration or paying a fine.

Service NSW is urgently continuing work to switch off fees on all remaining transactions, including thousands of credit card terminals in Service NSW Service Centres. These transactions span several technology platforms and are conducted on behalf of multiple agencies.

While this work is being completed, alternate payment methods are available which do not incur a surcharge, such as paying in a Service Centre by cash or online with over-the-counter support from Service NSW staff.

The majority of Government transactions take place through Service NSW, but as a result of this information being uncovered, all departments have been instructed to report to NSW Treasury by 30 November on whether they charge merchant fees for services and to confirm they have the legal authority to do so. 

Minister for Customer Service and Digital Government Jihad Dib said: 

“Our most immediate priority has been to stop these charges as quickly as possible.”

“It is deeply concerning that this practice has been ongoing, despite legal concerns being raised.”

“While the individual amounts typically charged may appear to be small, they have been charged unlawfully.”

“The community rightfully deserves an explanation about how this was allowed to continue for so long under the previous government.” 

Minister for Finance Courtney Houssos stated:

“We have acted swiftly to establish a taskforce to deal with this issue. Our immediate efforts are focused on switching off the payment methods that charge these merchant fees as quickly as possible.

“We will get to the bottom of what happened and why millions of people were unlawfully charged merchant fees.

“Families, households and businesses expect governments to conduct themselves lawfully. That’s why all agencies have been instructed to examine their own processes.”

New research shows problematic community attitudes allow child sexual abuse to continue

Andrea de SilvaMonash University and Amanda L. RobertsonGriffith University

Many Australians are victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

Almost one in three have been sexually abused as a child, generally more than once, and often with significant and lifelong impacts.

The National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse has released findings from more than 4,000 adults in a new study examining the community’s attitudes towards, knowledge of, and responses to child sexual abuse.

The data reveal some troubling findings, with pervasive and harmful community norms and attitudes that act to enable child sexual abuse to continue.

What are social norms?

Social norms are “rules” shared among people in a particular society, community, or group, and define what is considered “normal” and appropriate behaviour within the group.

These rules are often unwritten and not openly discussed.

These norms influence what people do (and don’t do) in many aspects of life, including preventing and responding to child sexual abuse.

Why do they matter?

Some cultures’ norms and attitudes limit disclosure of abuse.

In our study, 62% were pretty sure they knew someone who had been sexually abused as a child.

Yet only 9% had directly been told by a child about being sexually abused, while 35% had been told by an adult about historical child sexual abuse.

These low rates suggest there are forces at play that limit talking about child sexual abuse.

Some in the community believe it’s not acceptable to discuss child sexual abuse. In response to a hypothetical disclosure by an adult friend, about one in ten thought it was very/extremely important to tell their friend that it’s best not to talk about it at all.

Some (5%) reported they would try to avoid their friend.

What else did the research reveal?

There was also evidence community members didn’t think child sexual abuse was an important problem or that it affected them directly.

Around two in three adults felt they were not directly affected or were unsure if they were affected by child sexual abuse. More than half didn’t think child sexual abuse happened where they live.

One in ten thought child sexual abuse receives too much media coverage.

Some norms and attitudes also limit intervention to stop child sexual abuse.

We found that of those who discovered or received a child’s disclosure about sexual abuse, less than half had a supportive conversation with the child (about 40%) and/or reported to authorities like police or child protection agencies (about 30%).

Also, almost one in three adults were “not at all” confident about how to talk to the parent/carer of a child they suspected had been sexually abused. More than a quarter (28%) felt “not at all” confident about how to start a conversation with the child they suspected had been sexually abused.

Not having these conversations or not reporting maintains secrecy around child sexual abuse. It can send a message to victims and survivors not to talk about it, or that nothing will be done to stop the abuse.

Though the lack of intervention may be due to a lack of confidence, we also found adults held attitudes that children can’t always be believed (22%) or were too unreliable to take their word over an adult’s (18%).

These attitudes mean many children won’t be believed and protected if they disclose sexual abuse.

Some norms and attitudes increase acceptance of child sexual abuse, or blame victims, especially adolescents.

Alarmingly, 40% of respondents in the study thought older children were responsible for actively resisting an adult’s sexual advances, and 12% believed adolescent girls who wear very revealing clothing are “asking” to be sexually abused.

Adding to this, 13% believed children who act “seductively” are at least partly to blame if an adult responds sexually, while 8% thought obedient children are less likely to experience child sexual abuse, implying “good” children won’t be sexually abused.

These harmful attitudes misdirect the blame for the abuse onto the victim, making it unsafe for them to disclose and at the same time, making it acceptable for adults to stay silent.

Blaming victims maintains the status quo of unacceptably high levels of child sexual abuse and causes further harm.

Where to from here?

Putting an end to the sexual abuse of children in Australia requires concerted and co-ordinated action at all levels of society.

Global initiatives offer some guidance on how shifting entrenched and harmful attitudes and norms can change behaviours.

At a minimum, we must challenge gender inequality and power imbalances, promote equitable relationships and shared responsibilities. Mobilisation programs intervening directly at the community level and initiatives with specific populations who hold harmful and problematic attitudes are also promising in preventing child sexual abuse.

Now we have benchmarks on the community’s attitudes towards child sexual abuse, we can measure the effectiveness of Australia’s efforts for change.

It is everyone’s responsibility to know the signs, listen, believe and act in response to child sexual abuse.The Conversation

Andrea de Silva, Adjunct professor, Monash University and Amanda L. Robertson, Adjunct Research Fellow - Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

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

ASIC alleges QBE misled customers over pricing discounts

October 23, 2024
ASIC has commenced court proceedings alleging QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited (QBE) misled customers about the value of discounts offered on certain general insurance products.

Between July 2017 and September 2022, QBE made statements and sent renewal notices promising discounts on premiums for a range of general insurance products, including home, contents and car insurance.

ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said, ‘ASIC alleges QBE’s pricing model potentially eroded the discounts received by over half a million customers, in some cases to nil.

‘Some customers were promised discounts for their loyalty when renewing their policies, which they didn't receive.

‘The failure by insurers to deliver on pricing promises is a key priority for ASIC and we will continue to take action to hold insurers to account. Where insurers make discount promises to renewing customers, they need to have robust systems and controls in place to make sure their customers receive the discounts they were promised.’

The discounts were offered through more than 500,000 renewal notices to retirees, loyalty customers, QBE shareholders, those holding multiple QBE policies, and those holding QBE policies and who had made no claims.

Statements offering pricing discounts were also made in various product disclosure statements published on QBE’s website.

The court proceedings have been filed in the Federal Court. ASIC is seeking civil penalties, declarations and adverse publicity orders.

Today’s announcement follows ASIC’s action against IAG-subsidiaries, Insurance Australia Limited (IAL) and Insurance Manufacturers of Australia Pty Limited (IMA) in August 2023 (23-228MR), alleging IAL and IMA misled customers about the loyalty discounts available for certain types of home insurance.

ASIC also brought action against IAL (21-270MR) in October 2021 alleging it misled customers regarding loyalty discounts available for certain types of home insurance including NRMA branded insurance, resulting in IAL being penalised $40 million over pricing discount failures in June 2023 (23-179MR). Separately, ASIC also initiated proceedings against RACQ for pricing discount failures resulting in a $10 million penalty (23-323MR).

Background
QBE Insurance (Australia) Limited is a member of the QBE Insurance Group of companies (ASX: QBE), which is Australia’s largest insurers and reinsurers, and one of the largest insurers and reinsurers in the world.

ASIC alleges that QBE’s pricing mechanism involved:
  • imposing a minimum premium to ensure it was at or above the lowest retail premium QBE was prepared to accept from a customer to insure a particular risk; and/or
  • using a pricing algorithm at the renewal of the insurance policy to limit the extent of any reduction (in percentage terms) in the premium compared to the expiring premium.
These pricing mechanisms meant the final price of a customer’s insurance premium may not have included the full value of the discount(s) promised by QBE. ASIC alleges QBE did not disclose to customers during the relevant period the existence minimum premiums or the price reduction limits imposed by the pricing algorithm.

ASIC alleges QBE made false or misleading representations regarding the value, benefit, price and the existence or effect of a right of its general insurance products, and misled the public as to the nature, characteristics and suitability of its insurance products. As a result, QBE may have breached sections 12DB(1)(a), (e), (g), (i), and/or 12DF(1) of the ASIC Act.

QBE self-reported the failures to ASIC in October 2022.

In June 2023, ASIC released Report 765 When the price is not right: Making good on insurance pricing promises. The report outlines a range of pricing failures identified by general insurers after an ASIC-initiated review of pricing practices. It sets out the standards general insurers need to meet in designing and promoting pricing promises to ensure customers get the full benefit of any discounts promised. As a result of ASIC’s work, general insurers were, at the time the report was issued, remediating over $815 million to more than 5.6 million customers for pricing failures reported to ASIC since 1 January 2018.

ASIC’s Moneysmart website features information that supports Australian customers in making decisions about insurance. It’s important to compare policies from different insurers and to shop around for the best value for money. Find out more about choosing car insurance and home insurance.

Ombudsman to provide advice and dispute resolution for community members hosting renewable energy

October 22, 2024
The Minns Labor Government has announced it is taking further measures to ensure community members and landowners hosting renewable energy infrastructure projects are actively supported, by expanding the functions of the Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW.

For the first time, the Ombudsman will provide impartial information and an external dispute resolution service to landholders and community members impacted by new major renewable energy transmission infrastructure and renewable energy infrastructure projects which will deliver more affordable and reliable power across NSW.

The government states the $1.3 million in grant funding from the NSW Government will improve efficiency, transparency and accountability in addressing complaints by individual community members or landowners hosting renewable energy generation and transmission projects.

The Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW will provide a ‘no wrong door’ referral service for residents, connecting them with the most appropriate channels to address their complaints where they fall outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

The service will also provide an investigation and resolution process for residents dissatisfied with how their complaints are handled by the relevant transmission and renewable energy entities.

The Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW will actively engage with residents to understand their concerns and identify any widespread issues requiring action.

The Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW was established in 1998 as the NSW Government-approved dispute resolution scheme for electricity and gas customers, and some water customers. The external dispute resolution scheme operates independent of Government and industry.

The new services will be rolled out by the NSW Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW from December.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Penny Sharpe said:

“We have listened to communities and understand that better engagement and support is needed for communities hosting renewable energy infrastructure.

“The investment in expanding this dedicated complaint handling function proves our commitment to a fair and transparent energy sector.

“Residents will no longer have to navigate a maze of agencies. The Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW will connect them with the right people to have concerns investigated and addressed.”

Energy and Water Ombudsman NSW, Janine Young said:

“The Energy & Water Ombudsman NSW is the established, trusted and independent dispute resolution scheme for NSW energy and water customers. We resolved more than 28,000 energy and water complaints last year.

“This isn't new territory for us. We already handle complaints about existing energy transmission and distribution infrastructure, so we’re well placed to expand into managing complaints and disputes regarding new network and renewable energy infrastructure projects.

“The renewable energy sector is developing rapidly, and customers need a free and impartial Ombudsman scheme to help them navigate the energy transition."

NSW invites technology and AI solutions to improve planning assessments

October 23, 2024
The Minns Labor Government has announced it is calling on the best and brightest in developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology tools to improve the NSW Planning Portal and speed up assessment timeframes to deliver more homes, jobs and infrastructure.

The NSW Planning Portal processes all the state’s Development Applications (DA) as well as Complying Development Certificates (CDC) and Concurrence and Referrals (C&R) for DAs that require state agency advice.

The NSW Government has launched two Requests for Proposals (RFP) seeking innovative technology and AI solutions to integrate into the Planning Portal as a feature of the Next Generation NSW Planning Portal Ecosystem. The first RFP asks for:
  • Products to improve DA quality and assessment times that can be integrated into the existing Portal
  • Products or services that use AI to provide data analytics and spatial insights
  • Products to strengthen cybersecurity and improve user privacy including document security and certificate forgery
A second tender seeking a range of technology enhancements to upgrade the core platform functionality of the NSW Planning Portal which include:
  • Making this legacy platform more efficient through upgrades to assessment and implementation planning
  • Seeking products that improve security through data processing and document migration and validation
  • Enhancements to the core platform, making it more reliable and improving the user experience
These two RFPs follow the NSW Government’s $5.6 million investment to introduce AI into the planning system with 16 councils currently trialling AI solutions through the AI Early Adopter Grant.

To provide a Request for Proposal for the NSW Planning Portal, applicants should respond by 3pm on Friday 1 November: NSW Planning Portal - Pega Upgrade - SR00252 | buy.nsw

To provide a Request for Proposal for the Next Generation NSW Planning Portal ecosystem applicants should respond by 3pm on Monday 4 November: Next Generation NSW Planning Portal Ecosystem - SR00132 | buy.nsw

Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said:

“The NSW Planning Portal services millions of people, it should be utilising the best technological platforms available to us.

“AI can assist planners to determine DAs much faster and that means faster assessments for housing across NSW.

“We are also looking for solutions to improve the core technology of the Planning Portal to improve user experience.

“The Minns Labor Government is bringing the planning system into the 21st century.

“Our Early Adopter AI grant Program has already seen 16 councils commence technology trials to help their planners free up valuable time and energy to improve assessment times. This next round of technology enhancements will bring us even closer to the future of digital assessment in the planning system.”

Child protection caseworkers - NSW government sign historic deal

October 23, 2024
The NSW Government and the Public Service Association (PSA) have signed a reform agreement to deliver an immediate $8,283 pay increase for new caseworkers and improve rates of pay, roles and conditions for the state’s child protection workforce.

The agreement covers more than 2,000 public sector caseworkers who do one of the most important jobs in the state, keeping vulnerable children safe.

Under the reform agreement:
  • Child protection caseworkers will receive a 4 per cent pay increase this year, backdated to 1 July 2024, plus 0.5 per cent in superannuation. This totals 8 per cent in the first two years of the Labor Government;
  • The commencing rate for new child protection caseworkers in 2024-25 has been lifted by $8,283, including the 4 per cent;
  • A standalone child protection worker classification will be established for the first time in NSW history (currently child protection workers are under the general classification structure which covers nearly 80,000 workers);
  • The NSW Government and the PSA will enter into a reform process to update role descriptions and examine specific conditions such assafe working allocation guidelines;
  • At the conclusion of the reform process a three-year pay agreement will be made from 2025-26 onwards under a new Child Protection Award.
This agreement delivers on a promise by the NSW Government to better support the vital work caseworkers do and consigns the former Coalition government’s punitive public sector wages cap to history.

The NSW Government is also undertaking significant structural reform of the child protection system following years of neglect under the former government.

The government will ban the use of unaccredited emergency accommodation for vulnerable children in the foster care system from March next year, with the government already achieving a 72 per cent reduction in the number of these arrangements since November 2023.

The 2024-25 NSW Budget has invested $224 million in funding that will allow the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) to: 
  • re-enter the market as a foster care provider and expand the recruitment of DCJ emergency foster carers to include longer-term carers,
  • introduce government-run intensive and professional foster care models,
  • deliver government-run residential care for children where non-government providers are unable to offer stable placements,
  • ensure children living in residential care are supported by high quality, accredited providers, and
  • commence recruiting family time workers and additional caseworkers to undertake carer authorisation assessments. 
These initial measures will help rebuild the broken out-of-home care system and ensure that more children grow up in safe and loving homes in NSW. 

Minister for Families and Communities, Kate Washington said:

“Child protection caseworkers have one of the most challenging and important jobs in the world, keeping vulnerable children safe.

“When we came into government, we inherited a broken child protection system with a workforce walking out the door because they hadn’t felt valued in years.

“I have seen first-hand the incredible difference these workers make to children and families, and I hope that this agreement will encourage more caseworkers to take up positions with DCJ.

“I thank the PSA and their hardworking members for their advocacy and commitment to keeping children in NSW safe.”

Australia’s fertility rate has reached a record low. What might that mean for the economy?

BaLL LunLa/Shutterstock
Jonathan BoymalRMIT UniversityAshton De SilvaRMIT University, and Sarah SinclairRMIT University

Australia’s fertility rate has fallen to a new record low of 1.5 babies per woman. That’s well below the “replacement rate” of 2.1 needed to sustain a country’s population.

On face value, it might not seem like a big deal. But we can’t afford to ignore this issue. The health of an economy is deeply intertwined with the size and structure of its population.

Australians simply aren’t having as many babies as they used to, raising some serious questions about how we can maintain our country’s workforce, sustain economic growth and fund important services.

So what’s going on with fertility rates here and around the world, and what might it mean for the future of our economy? What can we do about it?

Are lower birth rates always a problem?

Falling fertility rates can actually have some short-term benefits. Having fewer dependent young people in an economy can increase workforce participation, as well as boost savings and wealth.

Smaller populations can also benefit from increased investment per person in education and health.

But the picture gets more complex in the long term, and less rosy. An ageing population can strain pensions, health care and social services. This can hinder economic growth, unless it’s offset by increased productivity.

Other scholars have warned that a falling population could stifle innovation, with fewer young people meaning fewer breakthrough ideas.

Students sitting at a school assembly
In the short term, lower birth rates can mean more is able to be spent per-person on services like education. Jandrie Lombard/Shutterstock

A global phenomenon

The trend towards women having fewer children is not unique to Australia. The global fertility rate has dropped over the past couple of decades, from 2.7 babies per woman in 2000 to 2.4 in 2023.

However, the distribution is not evenly spread. In 2021, 29% of the world’s babies were born in sub-Saharan Africa. This is projected to rise to 54% by 2100.

There’s also a regional-urban divide. Childbearing is often delayed in urban areas and late fertility is more common in cities.

In Australia, we see higher fertility rates in inner and outer regional areas than in metro areas. This could be because of more affordable housing and a better work-life balance.

But it raises questions about whether people are moving out of cities to start families, or if something intrinsic about living in the regions promotes higher birth rates.

Fewer workers, more pressure on services

Changes to the makeup of a population can be just as important as changes to its size. With fewer babies being born and increased life expectancy, the proportion of older Australians who have left the workforce will keep rising.

One way of tracking this is with a metric called the old-age dependency ratio – the number of people aged 65 and over per 100 working-age individuals.

In Australia, this ratio is currently about 27%. But according to the latest Intergenerational Report, it’s expected to rise to 38% by 2063.

An ageing population means greater demand for medical services and aged care. As the working-age population shrinks, the tax base that funds these services will also decline.

Aged care worker holding the hand of an aged care resident.
An ageing population can mean more pressure on tax-payer funded services like healthcare. Chinnapong/Shutterstock

Unless this is offset by technological advances or policy innovations, it can mean higher taxes, longer working lives, or the government providing fewer public services in general.

What about housing?

It’s tempting to think a falling birth rate might be good news for Australia’s stubborn housing crisis.

The issues are linked – rising real estate prices have made it difficult for many young people to afford homes, with a significant number of people in their 20s still living with their parents.

This can mean delaying starting a family and reducing the number of children they have.

At the same time, if fertility rates stay low, demand for large family homes may decrease, impacting one of Australia’s most significant economic sectors and sources of household wealth.

Can governments turn the tide?

Governments worldwide, including Australia, have long experimented with policies that encourage families to have more children. Examples include paid parental leave, childcare subsidies and financial incentives, such as Australia’s “baby bonus”.

Many of these efforts have had only limited success. One reason is the rising average age at which women have their first child. In many developed countries, including Australia, the average age for first-time mothers has surpassed 30.

As women delay childbirth, they become less likely to have multiple children, further contributing to declining birth rates. Encouraging women to start a family earlier could be one policy lever, but it must be balanced with women’s growing workforce participation and career goals.

Research has previously highlighted the factors influencing fertility decisions, including levels of paternal involvement and workplace flexibility. Countries that offer part-time work or maternity leave without career penalties have seen a stabilisation or slight increases in fertility rates.

Mother with small baby working from homeoffice, typing on laptop
Any solutions to falling fertility rates must balance other important factors such as women’s increased workforce participation. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

The way forward

Historically, one of the ways Australia has countered its low birth rate is through immigration. Bringing in a lot of people – especially skilled people of working age – can help offset the effects of a low fertility rate.

However, relying on immigration alone is not a long-term solution. The global fertility slump means that the pool of young, educated workers from other countries is shrinking, too. This makes it harder for Australia to attract the talent it needs to sustain economic growth.

Australia’s record-low fertility rate presents both challenges and opportunities. On one hand, the shrinking number of young people will place a strain on public services, innovation and the labour market.

On the other hand, advances in technology, particularly in artificial intelligence and robotics, may help ease the challenges of an ageing population.

That’s the optimistic scenario. AI and other tech-driven productivity gains could reduce the need for large workforces. And robotics could assist in aged care, lessening the impact of this demographic shift.The Conversation

Jonathan Boymal, Associate Professor of Economics, RMIT UniversityAshton De Silva, Professor of Economics, RMIT University, and Sarah Sinclair, Senior Lecturer in Economics, RMIT University

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

What are executive function delays? Research shows they’re similar in ADHD and autism

ABO Photography/Shutterstock
Adam GuastellaUniversity of Sydney and Kelsie BoultonUniversity of Sydney

Neurodevelopmental conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism affect about one in ten children. These conditions impact learning, behaviour and development.

Executive function delays are core to challenges people with neurodevelopmental conditions experience. This includes skills such as paying attention, switching attention, controlling impulses, planning, organising and problem-solving.

These skills are important for learning and long-term development. They have been linked with future occupational, social, academic and mental health outcomes. Children with improved executive function skills and supports for these skills do better long term.

Decades of studies have described how difficulties in attention and impulse control underpin ADHD. Meanwhile, difficulties with switching attention and flexibility of thinking have been proposed to underpin autism.

As a result, different supports and interventions developed for different neurodevelopmental conditions target these skills. It sets up a system where a diagnosis is made first, then a set of supports is provided based on that diagnosis.

But our recent study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, shows executive function problems are similar across all neurodevelopmental conditions. Understanding these common needs could lead to better access to supports before waiting for a specific diagnosis.

Our study found more similarities than differences

We looked at 180 studies, over 45 years, that compared executive function skills across two or more neurodevelopmental conditions.

We brought the research together for all neurodevelopmental conditions that have been defined by diagnostic manuals, including ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, communication disorders and intellectual disabilities.

Surprisingly, we found most neurodevelopmental conditions showed very similar delays in their executive skills.

Children with ADHD showed difficulties with attention and impulse control, for example, but so did children with autism, communication and specific learning conditions.

There were very few differences between each neurodevelopmental condition and the type of executive function delay.

This suggests executive function delay is best considered as a common difficulty for all children with neurodevelopmental conditions. All of these children could benefit from similar supports to improve executive skills.

But supports have become siloed

For decades, research has failed to integrate findings across conditions. This has led to siloed research and practices across the education, health and disability sectors.

Our data showed a gradual shift in the type of conditions that have been studied since 1980. In the earlier days, as a percentage, there were a far greater proportion of studies conducted on tic disorders, such as Tourette’s syndrome. In the past ten years, autism has been of greater focus.

This means research and practice is also siloed, based on the focus on funding and interest in the community. Some groups miss out from good science and practice when they become less visible in the political landscape.

This has led to a skewed support system where only children with a specific diagnosis can be offered certain interventions. It also reduces access to supports if families can’t access diagnostic services, which can be particularly difficult in regional and rural communities.

Due to these diagnosis-driven research practices, there are now assessment services, guidelines and treatments that are recommended for autism. These are usually independent from and not offered to children with ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, communication disorders or intellectual disabilities despite a significant overlap in children’s needs.

How does this affect access to support?

Families often find it hard to get the help they need. They often describe the assessment and support process as confusing, with long wait times and lots of barriers.

We have previously shown caregivers often attend assessment and support services with a broad range of needs, but leave with many needs unaddressed.

Recent national child mental healthautism and ADHD guidelines call for more integrated supports for children. But most services are not well set up to do this. It will take time to drive such system change if this is to be achieved.

Why we need integrated research

More integrated research will lead to more cohesive support systems across education, health and disability for all children in need.

Studies show, for example, that many risk factors (genetic and environmental) are common to all neurodevelopmental conditions. These include a broad overlap of risk genes that are the same between conditions, and common environmental factors that influence development in the womb, such as the use of certain drugs, stress and a significant immune response.

Other studies show how most children diagnosed with one neurodevelopmental condition will also be diagnosed with others.

But gaps remain. While we know certain stimulant medications can work well for ADHD, for example, we have less information about how they might help children with other neurodevelopmental conditions who have attention difficulties.

Unlike our knowledge about social supports for children with autism, we don’t have much research on how we can help children with ADHD with their social needs.

We should take a wider view of children’s needs

It’s important for families to be aware that if their child meets criteria for one neurodevelopmental condition, it is very likely that they will meet criteria for other neurodvelopmental conditions. They will likely have many needs relevant to other conditions.

It is worth asking clinical services about broader needs beyond a diagnosis. This should include developmental, mental and physical health needs.

It is also important to consider that many common interventions may have potential to support all children with neurodevelopmental conditions.

This is an important issue for government. Reviews are under way for supporting the needs of people with autismintellectual disability and ADHD.

It’s time to establish more integrated systems, supports and strategies for all people with neurodevelopmental conditions for their home, school, play and work.The Conversation

Adam Guastella, Professor and Clinical Psychologist, Michael Crouch Chair in Child and Youth Mental Health, University of Sydney and Kelsie Boulton, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Autism Clinic for Translational Research, University of Sydney

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

Where there’s smoke: the rising death toll from climate-charged fire in the landscape

Daria Nipot, Shutterstock
Fay JohnstonUniversity of Tasmania

Inhaling smoke is bad for you. Smoke from any kind of fire, from bonfire to burn-off to uncontrolled wildfire, can have serious consequences.

Even low levels of smoke can make many heart and lung diseases worse, sometimes triggering a rapid deterioration in health. When we are repeatedly exposed over months and years, air pollution, including smoke, makes us more likely to develop heart, lung and other chronic diseases.

Now, new international research has linked the warming climate to some of the deaths from exposure to fire smoke in large parts of the world, including Australia.

In 2012, I led the first team to estimate the number of landscape fire smoke-related deaths globally each year. Our estimate of 339,000 deaths did not attempt to pull out the influence of climate change. But we noticed much higher impacts during hotter and drier El Niño periods.

The researchers behind the new study took this a step further, estimating how much of the historical burden of fire smoke-related deaths might be attributable to climate change. They found a considerably increasing proportion, from 1.2% in the 1960s to 12.8% in the 2010s.

Where there’s fire, there’s smoke

A wall of flames is way more deadly than a bit of smoke in the air – isn’t it? It’s not so simple. When you look back at a fire disaster, the smoke-related death toll in the aftermath can be surprisingly high.

During the extreme Australian bushfire season of 2019–20, there were 33 deaths directly related to fire. But my team found the number of smoke-related deaths was 429, more than ten times higher.

Smoke travels vast distances and can affect very large populations. Millions of people in Australia and New Zealand breathed smoke from the 2019-20 Australian fires. The sheer scale of the air quality impacts means the associated public health burden can be very large.

Smoke harms our health in two ways. In the short term, it makes existing diseases worse. As soon as the body detects smoke, it initiates immune and stress responses that affect, among other things, blood pressure, blood glucose and the risk of forming blood clots.

For some people with serious chronic illness such as heart and blood vessel disease, these subtle changes can trigger deadly complications including heart attacks or strokes.

When smoke reaches our eyes, throats and lungs, it acts as an irritant. This can be enough to make people living with asthma or other lung conditions seriously unwell.

Over the longer term, air pollution is a known risk factor for developing heart disease, lung disease, asthma, diabetes and stroke, and landscape fire smoke is increasingly contributing to the load.

How did the researchers find this out?

Most research on the health impact from air pollution focuses on the damage done by fine particles called PM2.5. These particles are defined as those less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter, meaning they are small enough to get into the lungs and bloodstream.

In the new paper, the authors used computer models to estimate how global changes in fire-related PM2.5 emissions between 1960 and 2019 had been influenced by the warming climate. To do this, they evaluated climate factors known to promote fire activity, such as higher air temperatures and lower humidity. Then, they used modelling to estimate how these changes would have influenced fire activity, smoke exposure and smoke related deaths globally.

Using this approach, the authors attributed 669 (1.2%) of the wildfire-induced smoke-related deaths in the 1960s to climate change. But that rose to 12,566 (12.8%) in the 2010s. They found the influence of climate change was higher in some regions, including Australia.

Climate change is making fires worse

These reported numbers seem to be surprisingly low when put in context with previous global and regional estimates of deaths due to air pollution from landscape fires.

But estimating how many deaths can be attributed to landscape fire smoke is a challenging task, requiring assumptions about the size and strength of the links between meteorology, fire activity, smoke production and dispersal, population vulnerability and health outcomes in the huge diversity of landscapes, climates and cultures across the world.

Importantly, the estimates in this recent study were driven by changes in climate. But the modelling approach can less easily account for fluctuations and trends in another incredibly important driver of fire activity on Earth, human activity.

For example, huge volumes of smoke globally are created by setting fires to burn and clear tropical forests for agriculture. Corporate activity and government policies drive these fires more than climate change, and are harder to capture in a modelling study.

Nevertheless, these new results clearly support empirical studies showing increases in extreme fire activity attributable to climate change, and illustrates the relative impacts when other influences are held constant. Importantly, it points to parts of the world – including the north and southeast of Australia – where we can expect harmful population smoke impacts to get worse.

The likely geographic impacts can be put together with information about the location of more vulnerable population groups, or higher population densities, to focus on responses where they are most needed. But in Australia that means pretty much everywhere, including the tropical north.

What we can do about it?

To adapt to a smokier world, we will need comprehensive education about escalating air quality hazards and ways to reduce the harm for both the general public and health professionals.

These include keeping on top of long-term health conditions that could be made worse by air pollution, knowing how to keep track of air quality, and when to use strategies such as face masks, air filtration and managing the ventilation of homes and buildings to reduce individual smoke exposure.

Adaptive responses alone do not get around the urgent need to act on climate change. Watching fire seasons around the world get steadily worse year on year really frightens me. We are getting into a vicious cycle where the hotter climate is driving more and more fire. These fires are increasingly venting long-stored carbon and contributing to further climate change.

As well as ending the massive combustion of fossil fuels, we must halt the burning of tropical rainforests and agricultural crop residues globally. These actions will also dramatically improve air quality and health globally and support ongoing capture and storage of atmospheric carbon.The Conversation

Fay Johnston, Professor, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania

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

Draft guidelines for ‘forever chemicals’ have been released. Here’s what it means for drinking water safety in Australia

Alexander_Safonov/Shutterstock
Ian MusgraveUniversity of Adelaide

The Australian National Health and Medical research Council (NHMRC) has today released draft guidelines for acceptable levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in drinking water.

PFAS chemicals are also known as “forever chemicals”, because they don’t break down easily and can persist in the environment, including drinking water supplies.

The new guidelines – which are not mandatory but will inform state and territory policy – are expected to be finalised in April 2025. They propose a reduction in the maximum levels previously considered safe for four key PFAS chemicals: PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS and PFBS.

Continually scrutinising and updating our PFAS regulations is important to ensure Australians’ safety. However, these updated guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on Australia’s drinking water. The majority of potable water supplies in Australia either have no detectable PFAS, or have levels already below the new limits.

What are PFAS chemicals?

PFAS are highly fat-soluble compounds that are very slow to break down. They are basically long chains of carbon atoms studded with fluorine molecules.

PFAS chemicals are inert, water-repellent and heat-resistant. These properties make them ideal for industrial usage and they have been used in firefighting foams and fire-retardant material. They have also been used in common household items such as nonstick pans and stain-resistant fabrics.

A woman washes a nonstick pan in the kitchen sink.
PFAS chemicals are very slow to break down. Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock

Unfortunately, their useful industrial stability means they persist in the environment and can accumulate in the human body. It can take five years for half an ingested dose of PFAS to be removed.

Given PFAS chemicals have the potential to mimic the body’s own fats, there has been concern they could harm our health if sufficient amounts accumulated in the body.

What sorts of health effects are they linked to?

The buildup of a chemical that’s hard to remove from our bodies is always of concern. Despite this, the potential health risks appear to be low. In 2018 the Australian Expert Health Panel for PFAS looked in detail at the evidence.

One of the largest concerns was PFAS chemicals’ ability to increase levels of cholesterol in the blood, potentially increasing heart disease risk. However, studies of people who have been chronically exposed to significant levels of PFOA have not shown statistically significant increases in heart disease.

In 2018, the report from Australia’s expert health panel stated:

Evidence to date does not establish whether PFAS at exposure levels seen in Australia might increase risks of cardiovascular disease… Established risk factors … are likely to be of a much greater magnitude than those potentially caused by PFAS.

Cancer has also been a concern. However the expert panel found no consistent evidence that PFAS chemicals are associated with cancer. One study even found exposure to PFOA decreased the incidence of bowel cancer.

However, the impact of PFAS on human health is continuously reviewed as new evidence comes to light.

Why has Australia revised its drinking water guidelines?

Australia began to phase out PFAS chemicals in the early 2000s. Since then, the levels of PFAS detected in the Australian population have steadily dropped.

Now that industrial use is being phased out, the main way we are exposed to PFAS is through things like persistent environmental contamination. While drinking water is not a major source of PFAS, water can be contaminated from environmental sources, for example, if contaminated dust or ground water makes its way into reservoirs.

Aerial view of Cotter Dam in the Australian Capital Territory.
Most drinking water levels in Australia either have no detectable PFAS or are already below the new levels. Juergen_Wallstabe/Shutterstock

The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines provide limits for how much PFAS is allowed to be in our drinking water.

The NHMRC periodically reviews the health evidence around PFAS used to develop these guidelines, which were last updated in 2018. The latest review looks at additional evidence available since then.

A few developments were of particular interest in this review: studies about the influence of PFAS on thyroid function. Altering thyroid function can be problematic because thyroid hormones regulate our metabolism, growth and development.

The International Agency for Cancer Research’s (IARC) recent ruling on PFAS and cancer also needed to be investigated. The IARC has classified PFOS – one of the four key chemicals Australia is regulating – as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”. However the IARC noted there was “inadequate” evidence PFOS directly causes any type of cancer in people.

This agency can rule on the probability that a chemical can cause cancer under any possible exposure, no matter how extreme. But it doesn’t evaluate the risk of cancer from ordinary exposure.

This means the NHMRC needed to reevaluate the evidence that the levels present in drinking water would constitute a risk.

What are the new PFAS limits?

The NHRMC considered evidence about PFAS exposure in animal studies, and by looking at human epidemiology.

In studies involving animals, the NHMRC review paid particular attention to what concentration of PFAS exposure had no effect on their health. This threshold is used to determine limits for humans, by adding a safety buffer usually a hundred times lower than the level that was safe for animals.

The limits are set are carefully considering the evidence about impact on human health, as well as evaluating how much PFAS exposure is likely from sources beyond drinking water, such as food and inhaled dust.

The proposed limits are:

Note: PFOS and PFHxS are now regulated separately. NHMRC

These guidelines are unlikely to have a significant impact on health. As the NHMRC report shows, majority of potable water supplies in Australia have no detectable PFAS, or levels are already below these new limits.

For example, drinking water sampling for WaterNSW found PFOS levels were between 1.2ng/L and undetectable. Similar results were found for PFHxS (between 1.4 and 0.1ng/L) and PFOA (basically undetectable).

While the concentration of PFAS in bores near contamination sites are higher, these are typically not used as sources of drinking water.

The Australian guidelines differ from some international guidelines. The draft guidelines note that different jurisdictions place different weighting on animal and human evidence, and this will affect these regulatory levels.

The draft guidelines are now open to public consultation, with submissions closing on November 22 2024. Final guidelines are expected to be released in April 2025.The Conversation

Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology, University of Adelaide

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

Scurvy is largely a historical disease but there are signs it’s making a comeback

Matilda Wormwood/Pexels
Lauren BallThe University of Queensland

Scurvy is is often considered a historical ailment, conjuring images of sailors on long sea voyages suffering from a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Yet doctors in developed countries have recently reported treating cases of scurvy, including Australian doctors who reported their findings today in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

What is scurvy?

Scurvy is a disease caused by a severe deficiency of vitamin C (ascorbic acid), which is essential for the production of collagen. This protein helps maintain the health of skin, blood vessels, bones and connective tissue.

Without enough vitamin C, the body cannot properly repair tissues, heal wounds, or fight infections. This can lead to a range of symptoms including:

  • fatigue and weakness
  • swollen, bleeding gums or loose teeth
  • joint and muscle pain and tenderness
  • bruising easily
  • dry, rough or discoloured skin (reddish or purple spots due to bleeding under the skin)
  • cuts and sores take longer to heal
  • anaemia (a shortage of red blood cells, leading to further fatigue and weakness)
  • increased susceptibility to infections.

It historically affected sailors

Scurvy was common from the 15th to 18th centuries, when naval sailors and other explorers lived on rations or went without fresh food for long periods. You might have heard some of these milestones in the history of the disease:

  • in 1497-1499, Vasco da Gama’s crew suffered severely from scurvy during their expedition to India, with a large portion of the crew dying from it

  • from the 16th to 18th centuries, scurvy was rampant among European navies and explorers, affecting notable figures such as Ferdinand Magellan and Sir Francis Drake. It was considered one of the greatest threats to sailors’ health during long voyages

  • in 1747, British naval surgeon James Lind is thought to have conducted one of the first clinical trials, demonstrating that citrus fruit could prevent and cure scurvy. However, it took several decades for his findings to be widely implemented

  • in 1795, the British Royal Navy officially adopted the practice of providing lemon or lime juice to sailors, dramatically reducing the number of scurvy cases.

Evidence of scurvy re-emerging

In the new case report, doctors in Western Australia reported treating a middle-aged man with the condition. In a separate case report, doctors in Canada reported treating a 65-year old woman.

Tangarines
There’s an abundance of vitamin C in our food supply, but some people still aren’t getting enough. Rebecca Kate/Pexels

Both patients presented with leg weakness and compromised skin, yet the doctors didn’t initially consider scurvy. This was based on the premise that there is abundant vitamin C in our modern food supply, so deficiency should not occur.

On both occasions, treatment with high doses of vitamin C (1,000mg per day for at least seven days) resulted in improvements in symptoms and eventually a full recovery.

The authors of both case reports are concerned that if scurvy is left untreated, it could lead to inflamed blood vessels (vasculitis) and potentially cause fatal bleeding.

Last year, a major New South Wales hospital undertook a chart review, where patient records are reviewed to answer research questions.

This found vitamin C deficiency was common. More than 50% of patients who had their vitamin C levels tested had either a modest deficiency (29.9%) or significant deficiency (24.5%). Deficiencies were more common among patients from rural and lower socioeconomic areas.

Now clinicians are urged to consider vitamin C deficiency and scurvy as a potential diagnosis and involve the support of a dietitian.

Why might scurvy be re-emerging?

Sourcing and consuming nutritious foods with sufficient vitamin C is unfortunately still an issue for some people. Factors that increase the risk of vitamin C deficiency include:

  • poor diet. People with restricted diets – due to poverty, food insecurity or dietary choices – may not get enough vitamin C. This includes those who rely heavily on processed, nutrient-poor foods rather than fresh produce

  • food deserts. In areas where access to fresh, affordable fruits and vegetables is limited (often referred to as food deserts), people may unintentionally suffer from a vitamin C deficiency. In some parts of developing countries such as India, lack of access to fresh food is recognised as a risk for scurvy

  • the cost-of-living crisis. With greater numbers of people unable to pay for fresh produce, people who limit their intake of fruits and vegetables may develop nutrient deficiencies, including scurvy

Couple buy capsicums at the supermarket
Capsicums are a good source of vitamin C but they’re not cheap. Pexels/Jack Sparrow
  • weight loss procedures and medications. Restricted dietary intake due to weight loss surgery or weight loss medications may lead to nutrient deficiencies, such as in this case report of scurvy from Denmark

  • mental illness and eating disorders. Conditions such as depression and anorexia nervosa can lead to severely restricted diets, increasing the risk of scurvy, such as in this case report from 2020 in Canada

  • isolation. Older adults, especially those who live alone or in nursing homes, may have difficulty preparing balanced meals with sufficient vitamin C

  • certain medical conditions. People with digestive disorders, malabsorption issues, or those on restrictive medical diets (due to severe allergies or intolerances) can develop scurvy if they are unable to absorb or consume enough vitamin C.

How much vitamin C do we need?

Australia’s dietary guidelines recommend adults consume 45mg of vitamin C (higher if pregnant or breastfeeding) each day. This is roughly the amount found in half an orange or half a cup of strawberries.

When more vitamin C is consumed than required, excess amounts leave the body through urine.

Signs of scurvy can appear as early as a month after a daily intake of less than 10 mg of vitamin C.

Eating vitamin C-rich foods – such as oranges, strawberries, kiwifruit, plums, pineapple, mango, capsicum, broccoli and Brussels sprouts – can resolve symptoms within a few weeks.

Vitamin C is also readily available as a supplement if there are reasons why intake through food may be compromised. Typically, the supplements contain 1,000mg per tablet, and the recommended upper limit for daily Vitamin C intake is 2,000mg.The Conversation

Lauren Ball, Professor of Community Health and Wellbeing, The University of Queensland

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

Promoted as a win-win, Australia’s Pacific island guest worker scheme is putting those workers at risk

Matt WithersAustralian National University

The Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme (PALM) has been lauded by both sides of politics as a “win win” for the islanders who come here and the Australians who use their services.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs has even labelled it a “triple win”, for the workers, their hosts and for their home nations who receive remittances.

But beneath the surface serious questions are being asked about the safety of workers denied the right to leave their employers.

A report by the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner entitled Be Our Guests has identified signs of debt bondage, deceptive recruiting, forced labour and, in extreme cases, servitude, sexual servitude and human trafficking.

The NSW parliament has launched its own inquiry into the risks faced by migrant workers in response and is seeking submissions.

Employment Minister Murray Watt this month signalled changes, saying there had been “far too many abuses of the PALM scheme”.

PALM allows rural and regional employers to hire workers from nine Pacific nations and Timor-Leste when there are not enough local workers available.

Unplanned pregnancies, sleeping rough

The workers hired do not have the right to change employers while in Australia, even for contracts of up to four years, except via a request from their original employer or a direction from the Department of Employment.

This means workers who abandon their employers for reasons including underpayment of wages, excessive deductions and overcharging for accommodation become absconders and lose their rights.

The NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner says there are several thousand absconded PALM workers in Australia, without access to health insurance and formal income. Among them are women with unplanned pregnancies denied antenatal care due to ineligibility for Medicare.

The Commissioner says crisis accommodation services in the NSW Riverina report having exhausted all available resources, including tents, for PALM workers who have left their employers and are sleeping rough.

Australia had 30,805 PALM workers at the end of August, one-third of them (11,420) in Queensland. Most work in farming (52%) and 39% in meat processing. The accommodation and care industries between them account for 6%.



For many of these workers, the income is life-changing. An I-Kiribati worker I interviewed recently told me she makes more money cleaning hotel rooms in Queensland than is paid to the president of her country.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says between July 2018 to October 2022 PALM workers sent home a total of A$184 million, but their employers made profits of $289 million and charged them a further $74 million in rent.

Unable to switch employers, their bargaining power is weak.

An estimated 45 workers on the PALM scheme died between June 2022 and June 2023. Nineteen deaths remain under investigation.

After a Fijian abattoir worker died of a brain tumour in June, Fiji raised with Australia claims of racism, bullying, excessive workloads, unfair termination and unsafe working conditions under the program.

Minimum pay, but no right to move

Reforms introduced last year guaranteed PALM workers a minimum of 30 hours per week and a minimum weekly take-home pay (after deductions) of $200.

But until PALM workers are able to move freely between approved employers they will remain at risk of what the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions Michele O'Neil calls modern-day slavery.

O'Neil wants the government to blacklist bad employers and identify ethical ones in consultation with unions and civil society organisations. But she says until PALM workers can move, they risk being treated as disposable labour.

Many employers treat their PALM workers well, but the current design of the scheme leaves that outcome to chance, and leaves badly-treated workers trapped.

It’s time to give them the same sort of right to move between employers as the rest of us.The Conversation

Matt Withers, Senior Lecturer, School of Sociology, Australian National University

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

‘They do not respect our land. They do not respect our people’. Brazil’s traditional people take on BHP in one of the world’s biggest class actions

Ebony BirchallMacquarie University

Australian mining giant BHP is at the centre of one of the world’s largest class actions, the trial for which started this week in London.

The Fundão Dam in Mariana, Brazil, co-owned by BHP, collapsed in 2015 spilling a gigantic wave of toxic mud across 700 kilometres of land. Nineteen people were killed, villages and livestock wiped out, vast areas of land rendered uninhabitable and rivers and water supplies contaminated.

Corporate accountability

The class action has renewed questions about the responsibilities multibillion-dollar corporations have to local communities.

Leaders of the traditional people groups impacted by the disaster visited Australia with their lawyer Tom Goodhead from international legal firm Pogust Goodhead to raise awareness of the case two weeks ago.

Goodhead told a public forum at Macquarie University this was a case of corporate negligence and putting profit before safety. He said the operators were warned of the risk of dam collapse and continued to push operations beyond what was safe.

The class action is brought on behalf of more than 600,000 claimants. The trial is expected to run for 12 weeks and will be heard in the UK, because this is where BHP was headquartered at the time of the disaster.

The UK courts will apply the Brazilian laws, which say environmental polluters must pay for the damage they cause.

Can BHP fix this?

The claimants’ lawyers say the case is valued at more than A$68.8 billion. The figure is based on an estimation of the impact of the disaster on land, culture and sacred places, as well as some form of recompense for the lost lives.

Maycon Krenak, one of the Krenak chiefs, explained:

[the] river has always been there for us to guarantee our livelihoods. It is a sacred space for us. The river is where we carry out our sacred practices. That’s where we sing, where we dance, where we gather. The new leaders, [our] children, have to learn how to swim in a water tank of a thousand litres.

BHP is reported as saying its Renova Foundation, established in 2016, has spent more than A$11.5 billion to compensate victims and remediate the environment.

But Thatiele Monic, president of the Vila Santa Efigênia and Adjacências Quilombola Association said the victims don’t trust the foundation.

In the same way that the mining company invades our land, the Renova Foundation also is invading our space and our territories. They do not respect our land. They do not respect our people, and they are creating more and more conflict. So that people are essentially giving up pursuing this.

Poor human rights record

Australian corporations operating overseas have a poor record on human rights.

Two weeks ago, a preliminary report of the Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment uncovered human rights violations, including risks to life, at Rio Tinto’s abandoned Panguna mine in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

The gold and copper mine triggered a brutal civil war between 1988 and 1998. Despite decades passing since the mine was decommissioned, the recent report confirms the mine continues to pose risks to life and safety due to the collapsing mine and ongoing contamination down rivers and into new areas.

Australian mining corporations have also been linked to death and destruction in their operations in Africa.

Corporate activities within Australia have impacted our own Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. For example, Rio Tinto’s explosion at Juukan Gorge destroyed sites of cultural significance dating more than 46,000 years.

Where Australia stands

The Australian government has endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises both of which outline corporations’ human rights obligations.

The UNGPs say states should set out clearly the expectation that corporations in their jurisdiction respect human rights in all their operations – even those occurring overseas.

The Human Rights Law Centre found in a 2018 report on this topic that the Australian government was not doing enough to hold corporations to account.

It found Australian corporations operating overseas did so with impunity. Efforts to seek justice locally is often thwarted by corruption, lack of resources or ineffective legal process. At the same time, attempts by overseas communities to take legal action in Australian courts face enormous hurdles and rarely succeed.

This is why cases like the class action for claimants in Mariana are crucial for corporate accountability.

In my 2023 report with colleagues Surya Deva and Justine Nolan, we found this kind of litigation can raise awareness, facilitate broader industry developments and shape laws and policy.

Our report also found litigation needs to be supported by strong regulatory responses from governments, and complementary advocacy like shareholder or consumer engagement.

Cost of litigation

Litigation comes with significant risks to victims and their allies.

In a controversial development for corporate accountability in Australia, oil and gas giant Santos is using legal processes to challenge environmental groups who supported traditional owners opposing their Barossa gas project. Santos’ tactics, if allowed to continue, could limit public interest litigation in the future.

Thatiele Monic ended her speech at the Macquarie University event with a question worth repeating

This has happened in Brazil, but it has happened in many other places, and if we don’t do anything about it, and we don’t talk about it, it will continue to happen in many more other places. This is not the future I want for myself and for my people. I’d like to know. What future do you want for yourselves?The Conversation

Ebony Birchall, Lecturer, Law School, Macquarie University

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

Andrew Garfield and Elmo are going viral with their moving chat. Celebrities can help us talk about grief

Sesame Workshop/YouTube
Lauren BreenCurtin University

When was the last time you heard someone talk in detail about their grief?

For many of us, it could be rarely or never. There are several reasons for this.

Grieving people often avoid raising the topic in conversation because they want to avoid upsetting or burdening people. Family and friends of grieving people often feel unsure or uncomfortable about asking them to talk about it, fearing they will infringe on the person’s privacy. One study of grieving adults in Australia and Ireland showed nearly one-third said they didn’t receive the support they would have liked. Some experts note we tend to deny or minimise others’ grief, increasing their isolation.

Actor Andrew Garfield, best known for playing Spiderman, appeared on Sesame Street last week and spoke with Elmo in moving and affirming ways about grieving his mother’s death. Clips of their short conversation have been widely shared on social media. It presents a great example of communicating well about grief.

Sadness can be a gift explains Garfield, ‘a lovely thing to feel in a way because it means you really loved somebody when you miss them.’

Kids grieve too

Issues around grief and isolation can be the same for children and young people as for older people.

In fact, grief in young people is recognised as “the last taboo in public health”. By the age of 18, around one in 20 children have a parent die. Even more will experience grief following the deaths of other close people such as siblings and grandparents. Children also grieve the deaths of pets. Yet we struggle to acknowledge, let alone understand and help them with the grief.

Due to a desire to protect them from harm or distress, adults are often reluctant to talk about dying and death with children. We also underestimate their abilities to understand such difficult topics. My recent work with Lionheart Camp for Kids shows such good intentions leave grieving children with many unanswered questions.

So it was great to see Andrew Garfield (who has discussed the topic before on talk shows and in interviews) share his experience on children’s television.

Losing the person who gave you life is bizarre tells Anderson Cooper. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

It takes two (or more)

Their exchange begins with the character of Elmo checking in with Garfield, to see if he’s OK. He asks in a warm and open-ended way.

What Garfield communicates well is checking if Elmo is willing and comfortable to hear him talk about his thoughts and feelings. He conveys his feelings of grief and speaks about how missing someone is due to love. He shares his understanding about the comforting role memories can bring to the bereaved, and about recognising a deceased person can be celebrated and missed at the same time.

Elmo also does a great job of listening. He normalises Garfield’s thoughts and feelings, and gently affirms his memories of his deceased mother. Importantly, Elmo doesn’t make the conversation about himself or resort to tired clichés like “this shall pass” or “she’d want you to move on”. He doesn’t minimise his discomfort with jokes or provide unsolicited advice on how to feel or behave.

Social support in the wake of loss helps grieving people – if it’s done right. Too often, however, it’s not, and can leave grieving people more distressed.

Though an almost universal need, providing effective social support for grieving people is a complex process. It must involve:

  • a potential supporter recognising the bereaved person’s need for support

  • support that is available, sufficient and offered to the bereaved

  • them perceiving the support as helpful.

Perceptions of whether an offer if support is useful can depend on where it comes from, the type of support, whether it is offered at the right time, and the griever’s level or receptiveness or social isolation.

Listening, validating, support

Garfield and Elmo aren’t the first celebrities to talk openly about grief.

But in daily life, it’s rare to hear anyone talk openly about these feelings. That’s why it’s so refreshing when people in the public eye break the taboo that surrounds grief and loss. It is important for grieving people of all ages to be able to talk about their grief and be listened to. For potential supporters, it is enriching to think about they can listen, validate and support.

As Garfield and Elmo show, grieving people and their support people can work together to develop a compassionate connection in a conversation that benefits both parties.

The Conversation

Lauren Breen, Professor of Psychology, Curtin University

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

View from The Hill: We have bigger issues around freedom of speech than Lidia Thorpe’s noisy protest

Michelle GrattanUniversity of Canberra

King Charles – as the old-fashioned saying goes – didn’t come down in the last shower. He’s unlikely to have been fazed by the outburst from independent senator Lidia Thorpe, who disrupted Monday’s Parliament House reception for the royals.

And neither, frankly, should anyone else.

Thorpe, clad in a possum-skin cloak, shouted: “You are not our king.”

“You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist.”

“You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people.”

The conduct of Thorpe, who used to be with the Greens and is an outspoken advocate of ‘Blak sovereignty’, was rude, albeit absolutely in character. She acts up in the parliament regularly.

As a senator, Thorpe, who was escorted out of the Great Hall, still yelling, had the right to be at the reception. And it is not the only time a parliamentarian has created a fuss when a dignitary was visiting. In 2003, Greens senator Bob Brown shouted out during the address to the joint houses by US President George W. Bush.

While not at all condoning Thorpe’s exhibitionism, she wasn’t inciting violence. Was she bringing our parliament into disrepute? Sadly, many parliamentarians do that all the time in less dramatic ways, as visitors to question time will tell you.

Those muttering that perhaps there should be some parliamentary censure of Thorpe are misguided. As Senate Opposition leader Simon Birmingham pointed out on Tuesday, Thorpe “would probably revel in being censured by the Senate”. The one thing she wants is publicity.

Thorpe pushes her right to air her views to the limit, but her antics are not at the sharp end of the current “free speech” debate in this country. There are two, very different and much more important, fronts in that debate.

One relates to the pro-Palestine demonstrations. The other is the government’s attempt to crack down on misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms.

Those on the political right tend to play down worries about limiting free expression when it comes to the pro-Palestinian demonstrations. On the other hand, they are worried about putting more restrictions on the internet. Those on the left tend to support the battle against misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms, and are less worried about its free speech impact.

Increasing antisemitism has fuelled calls for the ubiquitous pro-Palestinian protests to be curbed in some way.

Critics highlight the hate preached on occasion; they say the demonstrations make Jewish Australians feel unsafe, disrupt citizens’ weekends, and are a drag on police resources.

What are the relevant rights here, and their comparative weights? The right to free expression and protest. The right to feel safe. The right for people to go about their business without undue inconvenience. The trade offs are much more complicated than any questions thrown up by Thorpe’s behaviour.

The number and regularity of the pro-Palestine demonstrations have driven some critics to argue enough is enough. That is not convincing, and nor is the argument that these protests soak up police resources. Unfortunately, these are the costs of preserving the right to protest.

Much more troubling is that these protests can foster hate and make people feel threatened in their own country. Here balances must be carefully struck, and that’s hard.

Incitement laws must be enforced. Beyond that, demonstrations have to be managed, so that the protesters’ right to have their say and the safety of others, especially a vulnerable section of the population, are both preserved.

So for example, it’s important university campuses can have protests (as they always have). But “encampments” on campuses have been properly condemned and should not be allowed.

Even more complex in the free speech debate is how to deal with disinformation (the deliberate spread of false information) and misinformation (where the misleading is not deliberate).

The government presently has a bill in parliament seeking to combat misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms. It is a reworked version of a much-attacked earlier draft.

In her second reading speech on the bill last month, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said:

To protect freedom of speech, the bill [which does not apply to “professional news content”] sets a high threshold for the type of misinformation and disinformation that digital platforms must combat on their services – that is, it must be reasonably verifiable as false, misleading or deceptive and reasonably likely to cause or contribute to serious harm.

The harm must have significant and far-reaching consequences for Australian society, or severe consequences for an individual in Australia.

Among the “serious harms” in the bill is “harm to the operation or integrity of an electoral or referendum process in Australia”.

The struggle against misinformation and disinformation on digital platforms will always be a losing one. The reach is just too vast.

But more particularly, there is also the problem that what is “misinformation” and “disinformation” can be less clear than one might think. On occasion, what seems wrong at the time turns out to be correct later.

Beyond those obvious points, some material so-labelled is not one or the other but disputed information.

For example, proponents of the Voice have blamed its loss at least partly on misinformation and disinformation. However, much of this involved highly contested claims, especially about an unpredictable future.

What this legislation does is push as much responsibility as it can, backed by a regulatory framework, onto the platforms to do the censoring of misinformation and disinformation, thus trying to avoid constitutional issues of implied freedom of political communication.

Human rights lawyer Frank Brennan has written, “The real challenge for Minister Rowland is that debating such a detailed bill without the backstop of a constitutional or statutory bill of rights recognising the right to freedom of expression, there are no clear guard rails for getting the balance right for ‘the freedom of expression that is so fundamental to our democracy’.”

All things considered, it is hard to see the bill clearing its obstacle course before the election.The Conversation

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

4,300 tonnes of space junk and rising: another satellite breakup adds to orbital debris woes

Intelsat
Sara WebbSwinburne University of TechnologyChristopher FlukeSwinburne University of Technology, and Tallulah WatersonSwinburne University of Technology

A large communications satellite has broken up in orbit, affecting users in Europe, Central Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia, and adding to the growing swarm of space junk clouding our planet’s neighbourhood.

The Intelsat 33e satellite provided broadband communication from a point some 35,000km above the Indian Ocean, in a geostationary orbit around the equator.

Initial reports on October 20 said Intelsat 33e had experienced a sudden power loss. Hours later, US Space Forces-Space confirmed the satellite appears to have broken up into at least 20 pieces.

So what happened? And is this a sign of things to come as more and more satellites head into orbit?

A space whodunnit

There are no confirmed reports about what caused the breakup of Intelsat 33e. However, it is not the first event of its kind.

In the past we’ve seen deliberate satellite destructionsaccidental collisions, and loss of satellites due to increased solar activity.

What we do know is that Intelsat 33e has a history of issues while in orbit. Designed and manufactured by Boeing, the satellite was launched in August 2016.

In 2017, the satellite reached its desired orbit three months later than anticipated, due to a reported issue with its primary thruster, which controls its altitude and acceleration.

More propulsion troubles emerged when the satellite performed something called a station keeping activity, which keeps it at the right altitude. It was burning more fuel than expected, which meant its mission would end around 3.5 years early, in 2027. Intelsat lodged a US$78 million insurance claim as a result of these problems.

However, at the time of its breakup, the satellite was reportedly not insured.

Intelsat is investigating what went wrong, but we may never know exactly what caused the satellite to fragment. We do know another Intelsat satellite of the same model, a Boeing-built EpicNG 702 MP, failed in 2019.

More importantly, we can learn from the aftermath of the breakup: space junk.

30 blue whales of space junk

The amount of debris in orbit around Earth is increasing rapidly. The European Space Agency (ESA) estimates there are more than 40,000 pieces larger than 10cm in orbit, and more than 130,000,000 smaller than 1cm.

The total mass of human-made space objects in Earth orbit is some 13,000 tonnes. That’s about the same mass as 90 adult male blue whales. About one third of this mass is debris (4,300 tonnes), mostly in the form of leftover rocket bodies.

Tracking and identifying space debris is a challenging task. At higher altitudes, such as Intelsat 33e’s orbit around 35,000km up, we can only see objects above a certain size.

Visualisation of debris around the Earth.

One of the most concerning things about the loss of Intelsat 33e is that the breakup likely produced debris that is too small for us to see from ground level with current facilities.

The past few months have seen a string of uncontrolled breakups of decommissioned and abandoned objects in orbit.

In June, the RESURS-P1 satellite fractured in low Earth orbit (an altitude of around 470km), creating more than 100 trackable pieces of debris. This event also likely created many more pieces of debris too small to be tracked.

In July, another decommissioned satellite – the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) 5D-2 F8 spacecraft – broke up. In August, the upper stage of a Long March 6A (CZ-6A) rocket fragmented, creating at least 283 pieces of trackable debris, and potentially hundreds of thousands of untrackable fragments.

It is not yet known whether this most recent event will affect other objects in orbit. This is where continuous monitoring of the sky becomes vital, to understand these complex space debris environments.

Who is responsible?

When space debris is created, who is responsible for cleaning it up or monitoring it?

In principle, the country that launched the object into space has the burden of responsibility where fault can be proved. This was explored in the 1972 Convention of International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects.

In practice, there is often little accountability. The first fine over space debris was issued in 2023 by the US Federal Communications Commission.

It’s not clear whether a similar fine will be issued in the case of Intelsat 33e.

Looking ahead

As the human use of space accelerates, Earth orbit is growing increasingly crowded. To manage the hazards of orbital debris, we will need continuous monitoring and improved tracking technology alongside deliberate efforts to minimise the amount of debris.

Most satellites are much closer to Earth than Intelsat 33e. Often these low Earth orbit satellites can be safely brought down from orbit (or “de-orbited”) at the end of their missions without creating space debris, especially with a bit of forward planning.

In September, ESA’s Cluster 2 “Salsa” satellite was de-orbited with a targeted re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, burning up safely.

Of course, the bigger the space object, the more debris it can produce. NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office calculated the International Space Station would produce more than 220 million debris fragments if it broke up in orbit, for example.

Accordingly, planning for de-orbiting of the station (ISS) at the end of its operational life in 2030 is now well underway, with the contract awarded to SpaceX.The Conversation

Sara Webb, Lecturer, Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of TechnologyChristopher Fluke, Professor, Swinburne University of Technology, and Tallulah Waterson, PhD Student at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology

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

Battle of the Bends 2024: NASA + Newport Plus

Jemma Smith Wins 2024 Coolangatta Gold Ironwoman - Jackson Borg secures podium finish

Five years after falling just seven seconds short of victory in the iconic long course, a dominant and thoroughly professional performance from Newport SLSC’s Jemma Smith has helped her to claim her maiden Coolangatta Gold title. 


Jemma Smith and Ali Day: 2024 Coolangatta Gold Winners. Photo: Surf Life Saving Australia

There was a matter of metres between Smith and eventual champion, Lana Rogers in 2019, after Rogers successfully came from behind to pass the NSW athlete on the final run leg.  

A highly focussed Smith never looked like having history repeat this time around, powering ahead in the opening ski leg and never looking back as she worked her way to a comfortable and composed title on Sunday 13 October. 

Smith took control of this year’s race from the outset, delivering a dominant performance throughout each stage, finishing an impressive 6 minutes ahead of Lucy Derbyshire (Surfers Paradise) in second and 17 minutes ahead of Tiarnee Massie (Maroochydore) in third place.

The 25 year old, who hails from New South Wales Central Coast, said today’s win was made extra special being able to share it with Ali Day who she has admired as a competitor and person for such a long time.

“That’s incredible, to be able to finish that, see that [finish] banner and be able to take it.

I’ve been so incredibly lucky to be able to have a big six month block leading into this race with the support of Newport Surf Club,” said Smith.

“I just tried to keep focusing on me. I knew that if I got too caught up with where everyone was, that’s when you start to lose focus. I just really pushed the pace as much as I could.

“I think in 2019 it was so unknown for me. I’d never done it before and it was such a competitive field. To be right up the top of that field, right up until literally the last couple of metres was something I was really proud of but it definitely lit the fire in me to come back one day.

“My athletic journey went a different way the last couple of years, focusing more on paddling. But I made the decision six months ago to try and come back into this field and put together a race I knew I was capable of. So to get that win today is absolutely incredible.

“Ali has been such a source of inspiration for me, not only the athletic feats that he’s been able to set the bar so high. But the incredible person that he is and a role model. That’s something that I really try to emulate and take a lot away from.

“To be able to stand atop of the podium today, with Ali getting his tenth, is just insane. It’s so special to be able to do this alongside an amazing human being,” she said.

In commentary for the event, 2014 Coolangatta Gold champion, Josh Minogue said she is the first NSW-trained athlete to win the legendary race. 

On the men’s side of the draw, Newport’s Jackson Borg put together a fantastic race to finish in third place while former Warilla Barrack Point SLSC athlete and surf sports legend, Ali Day claimed his 10th title from 10 starts with a remarkable sub-four hour effort across the 41.8km course. 

His run to the finish line included embracing family and friends along the esplanade and even carrying his kids for a stretch, and Day later confirmed this would be his last Coolangatta Gold. 

“Ali has been such a source of inspiration for me, not only the athletic feats that he’s been able to set the bar so high. But the incredible person that he is and a role model. That’s something that I really try to emulate and take a lot away from,” Jemma said. 

“To be able to stand atop of the podium today, with Ali getting his tenth, is just insane. It’s so special to be able to do this alongside an amazing human being.” 

“I dreamt of this moment when I got to nine, and I think that’s my best one yet to be honest. I don’t think it will ever fully sink in,” Day said. 

“I hope there’s a kid out there now watching me that can walk away and say they are going to do the race next year. But that definitely won’t be me, 10 and done.” 

The 2024 Shaw and Partners Coolangatta Gold celebrated 40 years since the first event was staged as part of the movie of the same name.  The event that launched the career of Ironmen legends such as Guy Leech, Michael King and Darren Mercer, has now grown to include Ironwomen, masters and youth competitions.

Sunday’s action capped off two days of racing across the long and short courses, for the elite, open, masters and youth competitors.  More than 1,000 competitors from across Australia and internationally took part in Australia’s most gruelling event on the surf sports calendar.


Newport SLSC's Jackson Borg on the Coolangatta Gold 2024 Course. Photo: Surf Life Saving Australia


Jackson Borg won 3rd in the Coolangatta Gold 2024 . Photo: Surf Life Saving Australia

NSW Softball U16's Team 2025 

Softball NSW are pleased to announce the 2025 U16 Girls' State Team! 
Congratulations to all the selected athletes, as well as all the appointed officials!


Record HSC cohort begin exam preparation as the end of Term 3 completes their formal schooling

The largest-ever cohort of students completing their Higher School Certificate conclude their formal schooling today as Term 3 draws to a close and the countdown begins to the HSC written exam period.

The 2024 HSC enrolment snapshot released today shows a record 80,166 NSW students are completing at least one HSC course this year, with 76,221 of those students set to sit at least one HSC exam.

The snapshot, released by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), provides a breakdown of enrolments by course, gender, and location. It offers insights into which areas of study students are interested in and how enrolments have changed, or remained stable, over time.

Continuing an 11-year trend, Mathematics (61,963 students), Business Studies (20,008) and Biology (19,444) again see the highest enrolments after English – with Ancient History moving into 13th place for candidature size, its highest place in recent years.

Six per cent of students are enrolled in language courses this year, consistent with 2023, with Japanese, French and Chinese continuing to see the highest candidature in a trend unchanged over the past decade.

In Vocational Education and Training (VET), Hospitality (7,587 students), Construction (3,529 students), Business Services (2,401 students), Retail Services (1,615 students) and Entertainment Industry (1,243 students) have the highest enrolment numbers, with Primary Industries (1,054 students) continuing to grow and attracting more female students than in previous years. 

The HSC is a family affair for some students, with around 1,647 siblings sitting exams this year, including 798 sets of twins and 17 sets of triplets enrolled in an HSC course.

As they near the end of their 13-year schooling careers, the HSC Class of 2024 are now set to finish classes and finalise preparations for their upcoming written exams in October.

HSC written exams are scheduled to commence on 15 October with English Paper 1 and conclude on 8 November with Geography.  

View the timetables on the NESA website.


NSW Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Prue Car said:
“This point is a major milestone for HSC students, as they head out of the school gates and prepare to take on exams next month. 

“I wish students all the best as they get ready to do their very best in exams. You have done the hard work - now is the time to stay focused, take care of yourself and follow a healthy study schedule. 

“Thank you to the teachers of NSW who have prepared HSC students for this moment and to all teachers who have guided students through their 13 years of education.”  

CEO of the NSW Education Standards Authority Paul Martin said:   
“Congratulations to the 76,221 students who are now finishing up their high school careers and preparing to sit exams in October.

“Be proud of what you have already achieved to get here, and go in to this study period with a clear mind, feeling confident in all that you know and have learned.

“The NSW education system, delivered by the country’s top teachers, has prepared our latest set of high schoolers for success now and into the future."

HSC Online Help Guide

REMINDER: there's a great Practical Guide for Getting through your HSC by Sydney Uni at: cce.sydney.edu.au/getting-through-your-hsc-a-practical-guide

2024 ARIA Teacher Nominees Announced

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is thrilled to reveal the nominees for the 2024 ARIA Music Teacher Award.
Now in its eighth year, ARIA Music Teacher Award in partnership with The Song Room highlights the vital role that music teachers play in fostering a love of music among students across Australia, shining a light on the importance of music education to improve students’ wellbeing, learning and community connection.

Every year, the public helps determine the winner of the ARIA Music Teacher Award, with the winner announced at the ARIA Awards on Wednesday, 20 November broadcast on Channel Nine and Stan.

This year’s nominees have been recognised for their outstanding dedication to providing music education and building vibrant musical communities. From reconnecting students with traditional languages through song to fostering inclusive music programs, these educators are changing lives through music.

The nominees were surprised by celebrated artist ambassadors, who each visited a school to share the exciting news. This year’s ambassadors are Meg Mac, Sarah McLeod, Emma Memma and Jessica Mauboy.

Voting for the ARIA Music Teacher Award is now open!



Meet the Nominees


Hayley Wedding
Seaview High School, Seacombe Heights, Kaurna Country, SA

In Hayley’s teaching practice, she makes it her daily mission to create a supportive environment and empower students to thrive and reach their full potential by embracing new challenges and persevering through difficulties. Her belief is that every student has the capacity to excel when given the opportunity, regardless of barriers they may face.

The Seaview High School Music program started with the goal to provide all students access to music with the Scholarship Immersion Program, which utilises school resources to waive the financial pressures for students to commit to musical learning. A simultaneous redesign of classroom music courses provided a safe space for students to shape their identity and nurture resilience while building emotional maturity and self-expression.

One of Hayley’s proudest achievements has been re-designing student learning based on student input which has seen the program flourish over the past four years, jumping from just six per cent of students participating in the music program in 2021to 43% of students in 2024.

Nathaniel Miller
Bulman School, Bulman Community, Arnhem Land, NT

The son of successful musician Peter Miller, Nathaniel has always loved music. Growing upon country, he taught himself to play guitar by ear and knows first-hand the transformative power music has on children, families and communities.

What began as a bit of musical fun for school children two years ago, Nathaniel’s music program has now evolved into a life-changing program teaching students to play different instruments alongside song writing, singing and performance in English, Dalabon and Rembarrnga language, guided by local elders.

In a community that struggles with high teacher turnover, low student attendance and lack of resources, Nathaniel has created a safe and inclusive space where children feel comfortable enough to express themselves, reconnect with their culture, and find pride in their heritage. “It’s about more than just playing instruments,” he says. “It’s about keeping our culture alive, and it’s about building confidence in our young people.”

The impact of Nathaniel’s work is clear. One parent said, “I never thought I’d hear my son sing in our language, but now he’s teaching the words to others. We’re so proud.” For Nathaniel, seeing students stand on stage and sing in front of their community is a powerful reminder of the importance of music in healing and growth.


Susan Sukkar
Petersham Public School, Lewisham, Gadigal and Wangal Country, NSW

For over 20 years, Susan Sukkar has been a cornerstone of music education at Petersham Public School and beyond. As the driving force behind the Festival of Instrumental Music, held annually at the Sydney Opera House, Susan has given thousands of students the opportunity to perform in one of the world’s most iconic venues. Her dedication to the craft of teaching music has inspired generations of children to embrace the joy of performance.

Susan’s approach is rooted in inclusivity. She works with every child from kindergarten to Year6, crafting programs that not only teach musical skills but also build self-confidence, teamwork, and emotional resilience. “Music isn’t just something we do – it’s who we are,” Susan says. “For many of my students, stepping onto that stage is a life-changing moment. It’s about proving to themselves that they are capable of greatness.”

One of the most touching aspects of Susan’s work is the way she brings together families and communities. Her annual Performing Arts extravaganza sees parents, grandparents, and students collaborating in a shared celebration of music. A student once said, “Mrs. Sukkar believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, and because of her, I want to keep playing music for the rest of my life.”
 

Casey Allen
PLC Sydney, Croydon, Gadigal and Wangal Country, NSW

Casey has been a classroom music teacher at Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Sydney for two decades. In 2017, her role expanded to include a Head of Faculty (Classroom) position which included a co-ordinating role for choirs at the school.

In a fast-paced, highly academic and progressive school, her vision has always been to ensure the school delivers an inclusive program that caters for musicians of varying abilities, interests and experiences.

Casey believes it is vital for young girls to understand the importance of music in society and see a place for themselves in creative industries, saying: “Music connects us in ways that words cannot. It brings joy, fosters creativity, and gives our students the courage to express themselves fully. Seeing students discover a lifelong love for music is one of the greatest rewards of teaching.”

The ARIA Music Teacher Award has become one of the ARIA Awards’ most cherished categories, recognising the importance of music education and the teachers inspiring the next generation of musicians.

ARIA CEO, Annabelle Herd, said: “Every year, the ARIA Music Teacher Award allows us to celebrate the incredible individuals who are changing lives through the power of music. The 2024 nominees are a testament to the diversity and impact of music education across Australia. From fostering inclusivity in high-performing academic environments to reviving Indigenous languages through song, these educators have gone above and beyond to ensure that music is accessible, meaningful, and transformative for all their students. It’s an honour to recognize their passion, dedication, and unwavering commitment to nurturing the next generation of musicians and music lovers.”

The Song Room CEO, Alice Gerlach, said: “Working in communities across the country, we witness how vital music education is in giving young people a chance to experience success and to find a sense of belonging. This year’s ARIA Music Teacher nominees exemplify the wonderful traits of innovation, inclusion and excellence that all great educators strive towards. Congratulations to them all.”

Previous winners of the ARIA Music Teacher Award include; Sue Lowry (2023, Southport Special Previous winners of the ARIA Music Teacher Award include; Sue Lowry (2023, Southport Special School, Southport, Yugambeh Territory, QLD),Matt Orchard (2022, Apollo Bay P-12 College, Apollo Bay, Gaduband Territory,VIC), Zoe Barry (2021, Fitzroy Sacred Heart School, Fitzroy, WurundjeriCountry, VIC), Sarah Donnelley (2020, Wilcannia Central School, Wilcannia, Barkindji Country, NSW), Antonio Chiappetta (2019, St Andrews College, Sydney, Eora Nation, NSW), Scott Maxwell (2018, Grant High School, Mount Gambier(Berrin), Bunganditj, SA) and Renee McCarthy (2017, Woodcroft College, Adelaide, Kaurna Country, SA).


Votes are also now open for:
  • Song of the Year
  • Best Video
  • Best Australian Live Act
  • Most Popular International Artist


World Teachers' Day

World Teachers’ Day in NSW is an opportunity to recognise primary, secondary and early childhood teachers. Learn when World Teachers' Day is celebrated in NSW this year.

About World Teachers' Day
World Teachers' Day celebrates quality teaching and inspirational teachers.

There are over 170,000 primary, secondary and early childhood teachers working in NSW. The event is an opportunity to recognise all teachers.

World Teachers' Day is celebrated every year on 5 October. As this date is within the school holidays, NSW celebrates on the last Friday of October.

This year, World Teachers' Day will be celebrated in NSW on Friday 25 October 2024, alongside our annual HALT Recognition Ceremony.

NSW Teaching Gems – celebrate your teachers 
The wisdom and expertise of teachers shines brightly in our NSW schools, communities, homes, and vibrant workforce.

Tell us who lights up your school community by adding a NSW teaching gem this #WTD2024. A gem is a teacher or educator who is important to you.

Access the NSW teaching gems map and let your teachers know you care by pinning a gem to the map in their honour.


Training programs to plug jobs gap in the visitor economy

The NSW Government is boosting NSW’s visitor economy workforce, delivering subsidised training programs for a sector that is expected to need up to 150,000 more workers over the next decade.

TAFE NSW is partnering with Destination NSW to develop and deliver training programs jointly funded by the Federal Government’s NSW Choose Tourism Program.

The subsidised courses are designed to address industry workforce shortages by encouraging Australians to pursue a career in the visitor economy, helping operators to attract, retain and upskill staff. 

A key recommendation of the Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 Review, to be released in coming weeks, is to encourage school leavers and other jobseekers into the tourism workforce, with the aim of growing the sector in NSW to 450,000 workers. 

The Review finds that currently school leavers are spurning visitor economy careers, with leakage of workers into mining, agriculture and trades due to “perceived better career paths, industry confidence and better pay”. 

Having reached a record $52.9 billion of annual visitor expenditure in the year to June, the NSW visitor economy is Australia’s biggest. 

The growth in the NSW visitor economy over the coming decade will coincide with the opening of the Western Sydney Airport in 2026 and a new emphasis on visitor experiences that show off the best of our food and wine, coastal and aquatic environments, nature-based, cultural, heritage, arts, First Nations, adventure and wellness experiences. 

The new training programs include:
  • An ‘Introduction to the Visitor Economy’ microskill: a short self-directed online course, designed to provide foundational knowledge and explore careers in the visitor economy industry. The microskill will be offered free to the public for the first six weeks of release, with fully subsidised access available for NSW high school students.
  • Five one-hour video masterclasses: fully subsidised pre-recorded masterclasses will be available on the TAFE NSW website, featuring industry experts such as Scenic World, Cupitt’s Estate, Merlin Entertainments, Sydney Opera House, and W Hotels.  
  • Modernised Certificate III in Tourism: set for delivery in 2025, this updated qualification will include new visitor economy skills. Updates will also incorporate contemporary case studies and assessments based on industry feedback to ensure the qualification meets the current needs of the sector. 
The ‘Introduction to Visitor Economy’ microskill is launching today and masterclasses will be available from late October 2024. To find out more, visit tafensw.edu.au/visitoreconomy

Minister for Jobs and Tourism, John Graham said:
“Through the NSW Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 review, we discovered that we need more school leavers to pursue careers in the visitor economy.

“A career in the visitor economy offers not just an incredible professional pathway but also the opportunity for some of the best life experiences available anywhere in the world.  

“These new training programs will be invaluable to attracting more people to the visitor economy workforce and will alleviate pressure from the countless small businesses who are feeling the pinch as they look for skilled workers to fill jobs.”

Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, Steve Whan said:
“TAFE NSW is working closely with industry to deliver relevant, modern training to build a pipeline of workers needed to support a thriving visitor economy.

“High schools across NSW, as well as the public, will have access to fee-free places in the Introduction to Visitor Economy microskill, opening doors for people to discover opportunities in this dynamic sector.

“These exciting new training opportunities will be available online, so people across the state can access the skills and expertise needed to excel in the visitor economy, helping regional businesses attract and retain talent.”

Federal Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell said:
“A strong, sustainable, skilled workforce is critically important to Australia’s tourism industry.

“It is a great industry to work in with a diverse range of exciting career opportunities.

“That is why the Albanese Government is supporting New South Wales, and all states and territories, to build their tourism workforce through our Choose Tourism grants program.

“My first job was in tourism, and I know first-hand what an amazing opportunity this industry provides, I commend NSW on these initiatives.”



Digital platform regulators release working paper on multimodal foundation models

The Digital Platform Regulators Forum (DP-REG) has published a working paper on multimodal foundation models (MFMs) used in generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The latest working paper Examination of technology – Multimodal Foundation Models examines MFMs – a type of generative AI that can process and output multiple data types, such as image, audio or video – and their impact on the regulatory roles of each DP-REG member.

As generative AI is rapidly expanding into other areas, such as image, audio and video generation, DP-REG has extended its exploration of these technologies to consider the impacts of generative AI more holistically in this new working paper.

There is potential for widespread adoption by consumers and businesses of MFMs, presenting both significant opportunities and substantial risks. One related risk often cited is the increasing use of ‘deepfake’ images and videos.

This paper supports DP-REG’s 2024–26 strategic priorities, which include a focus on understanding, assessing and responding to the benefits, risks and harms of technology, including AI models. It aims to complement and inform broader government work on AI that is underway.

As technologies continue to evolve, it is vital that regulators continue to work together to understand new developments and anticipate emerging issues.  The MFMs paper is the third in a series of papers produced by DP-REG, exploring digital platform technologies.

Past papers include:
  1. Literature summary – Harms and risks of algorithms, which considers the harms and risks posed by some commonly used types of algorithms to end-users and society.
  2. Examination of technology – Large Language Models, which explore the benefits and potential harms of Large Language Models (LLMs) that generate text.
DP-REG is made up of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the eSafety Commissioner (eSafety) and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). Each member contributed to the working papers, reflecting DP‑REG’s purpose to promote a streamlined and cohesive approach to the regulation of digital platform technologies in Australia.

Young Australians embrace national online gambling self-exclusion register

More than 28,000 Australians have made the decision to self-exclude from all licensed online and phone wagering services since BetStop – The National Self-Exclusion Register was launched by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in August 2023.

The register allows people to self-exclude for a minimum of three months up to a lifetime and of the 28,000 registrants who to date have chosen to self-exclude:
  • Almost half were aged 30 and under, and around 80 per cent were aged 40 and under. 
  • Around 40 per cent have decided to self-exclude for life.
  • Fewer than 20 per cent of registrants chose the minimum period of three months. 
  • More than 14 per cent have already extended or reactivated their self-exclusion period.
ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said that the register’s first year of operation has shown that Australians want help in managing their gambling behaviour.

“Online gambling can cause a great deal of harm to individuals, their families and friends, so it’s encouraging that so many people have decided to take the step and register to self-exclude. 

‘Younger Australians in particular are making early decisions about the role that online gambling will play in their lives.

“Many people are also choosing to nominate someone to support them. Stopping online gambling can be a difficult decision to make – having someone to support you can make the decision much easier.

“And many people are committing to long-term change, with a high percentage of people choosing to exclude for life,” Ms O’Loughlin said.

Australians can register to self-exclude from online and phone wagering at www.betstop.gov.au. All you need is access to your phone, your email address and an identity document such as a driver’s licence, Medicare card or passport. 

Registering is quick and easy – with most people able to register in less than 5 minutes.

Additional details about the first year of BetStop – the Self-Exclusion Register are available in this fact sheet. More information about the ACMA’s work in online gambling harm minimisation is available on our website, including how to protect yourself from illegal gambling operators and instructions on how to make a complaint about an illegal site.

If you or someone you know is affected by gambling and needs help, call the national gambling helpline on 1800 858 858 or visit Gambling Help Online

TAFE NSW to provide free professional learning for early childhood educators

The Government announced on 13 September 2024 the NSW Department of Education is partnering with TAFE NSW to deliver a $10 million Early Childhood Professional Learning Program, providing NSW early childhood educators and teachers  with fully subsidised professional learning.

''This landmark investment is a key election commitment by the Minns Labor Government that aims to address workforce burnout and support retention. It will ensure the early childhood workforce has access to fully subsidised professional learning to enhance skills and knowledge, so all children get a strong start in life and learning.'' the government states

Professional learning will be open to all Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) educators and teachers that work at a service or live in NSW. 

The first phase of the program is expected to launch in Spring 2024 with a series of short online microskills and webinars designed by sector experts. These short courses will be free, self-paced and available through TAFE NSW’s online learning platform.

The second phase will deliver a leadership development program that aims to increase workforce retention by supporting early childhood education and care professionals to thrive as leaders.

The program will include tailored offerings for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, and those working in rural and regional areas of NSW. It will be offered through a combination of online learning and face-to-face sessions to be rolled out in 2025.

Applications will be open next year to educators and teachers who want to strengthen their leadership capabilities.

TAFE NSW is seeking sector representatives to help design and deliver the professional learning program to ensure it is informed by evidence, best practice, and is responsive to skills needs.

The professional learning program builds on TAFE NSW’s commitment to train early childhood educators, care educators and teachers using Vocational Education and Training and Higher Education qualifications.


Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said:

“The NSW Government is committed to maintaining and retaining this highly skilled and valued workforce, and fee-free professional development is one of the ways we are doing this.

“There is clear evidence about the benefits of investing in early education for our children, families and communities. A strong early education can be life-changing.

“TAFE NSW is well placed to support our early childhood educators and teachers to deepen their practice, advance their careers and support our youngest learners.”

Minister for Skills, TAFE and Tertiary Education, Steve Whan said:

“As the state with the largest early childhood education and care workforce in Australia, it’s vital for NSW to build and maintain a steady pipeline of workers for the sector.

“We know that the first five years of a child’s life are pivotal in their learning and development, and early childhood educators play a crucial role in nurturing a lifelong love of learning.

“TAFE NSW is working closely with the early childhood education and care sector to ensure these training programs meet the skills needs of the sector, now and into the future.”

 

Newport SLSC's Surf Rowers Youth Development Programme opportunity

Looking for new members - details:


Avalon Beach SLSC Surf Boat Crew Opportunity


whale Beach SLSC: New Members Needed

Looking for something fun to do this summer? Join Whale Beach SLSC!
Whaley is running free first aid, bronze medallion & SRC courses starting October 6th for people that join the club and we would love to see you there.

Reasons to become a lifesaver at Whale Beach:
  • - Year round access to the beachfront club house, including gym and accommodation
  • - Lifesavers get a Northern Beaches parking sticker
  • - Free courses to learn practical life saving skills
  • - Be part of the welcoming community and give back 
  • - Get fit & make new friends
  • - It looks great on your CV
Get fit and learn invaluable lifesaving skills over a 8 week program run on Sunday mornings between 8:30-12:30 starting October 6th.
Spaces are limited so sign up now at: HERE


Science To Revive Our Oceans: SIM's has a PHD Opportunity - operation Crayweed

The Sydney Institute of Marine Science is a collaborative research and training institute bringing together researchers from four NSW universities plus state and federal marine and environmental agencies.

SIMS conducts multidisciplinary marine research on impacts of climate change and urbanisation, eco-engineering and habitat restoration, ocean resources and technologies, and outcomes of marine management approaches.

By bringing together NSW’s leading marine scientists in a collaborative hub, SIMS ensures the efficient use of resources for research on Australia’s critical coastal environments.

They currently have an opportunity for someone to join the Operation Crayweed team. Pittwater Online News has been running updates on this project since 2014. There are a LOT of local connections here, from Barrenjoey to Manly should you feel inspired to get involved.

Image: A SIMS scientist planting crayweed at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly. Photo SIMS

More on Operation Crayweed on the SIMS website at: www.operationcrayweed.com


You can peruse those previous reports at:

Details:




Laura Enever, Tom Hobbs and Tom Carroll at the Bondi planting event. Photo by Frame.co

Study subsidies: NSW’s health workforce

More than 3,900 students across NSW have already benefitted from the NSW Government’s $120 million investment in tertiary health study subsidies, with all subsidies now awarded for the 2024 calendar year, the government announced on October 3.

The recipients of the subsidies include 1,840 nursing students, 280 midwifery students, 1,020 allied health, 520 medical students and 262 paramedical students.

Students beginning their degrees will receive subsidies of $4,000 per year over three years.

The subsidies, announced as part of the 2023-24 Budget, are also expected to support a further 8,000 healthcare students over the next four years.

Students seeking to receive the subsidy in 2025 can apply from mid-January 2025 and must be willing to make a five-year commitment to the NSW public health system.

The subsidies form part of a series of measures introduced by the Minns Government to further strengthen the state’s health workforce, including:
  • Implementing the Safe Staffing Levels initiative in our emergency departments
  • Providing permanent funding for 1,112 FTE nurses and midwives on an ongoing basis
  • Abolishing the wages cap and delivering the highest pay increase in over a decade for nurses and other health workers
  • Beginning to roll out 500 additional paramedics in regional, rural and remote communities.
The full list of 2025 eligible workforce groups will be available in October 2024 on NSW Health's Study Subsidies Webpage.

Premier Chris Minns said:

“I am so pleased more than 3,900 people across NSW have already benefitted from our health worker study subsidies.

“The subsidies help students with costs such as fees, technology, travel, and helps us keep talented people here in NSW, working in the country’s largest public health system.

“Attracting skilled healthcare workers is a longstanding challenge, and while there is a long way to go rebuilding our healthcare system, we are committed to doing it so that people can access the care they need, when they need it.”

Minister for Health Ryan Park:

“We are shoring up the future of our health workforce in NSW and we’re honouring our election commitment to reducing financial barriers to studying healthcare.

“When we boost our health workforce we improve health outcomes, it’s as simple as that.

“It’s encouraging to see such a strong subscription of these subsidies.”

season 3 of She’s Electric competition now open for female surfers

Hyundai She’s Electric is returning for a third season, offering female surfers across Australia, aged 16 and over, the opportunity to showcase their talent in this exciting online competition. Surfing Australia and Hyundai are proud to continue their mission to recognise and amplify grassroots female athletes on a national scale. By uploading a video of your best wave, you could win a share of $58,500 worth of prizes.

Simply record yourself surfing your best wave and submit it for the chance to win weekly prizes and join Hyundai Team Electric. These athletes will gain access to expert coaching and national exposure. The top scorer will walk away with $1,000 in cash, a 12-month Hyundai vehicle loan, a VIP experience at the Hyundai Australian Boardriders Battle Grand Final on the Gold Coast with Laura Enever in March 2025, and will be named a Hyundai ambassador for 12 months.

Female surfers are invited to submit their best wave clips to be judged by Surfing Australia’s panel of female experts. The competition runs until November 22, with the Top 5 finalists to be announced as Hyundai Team Electric. These athletes will receive invaluable support and exposure, including professional coaching and media opportunities, helping them advance to the top levels of the sport.

Hyundai Team Electric: Training, prizes, and national spotlight

At the end of Season 3, the Top 5 athletes will join Hyundai Team Electric and attend a three-day intensive surf camp at the Hyundai Surfing Australia High Performance Centre (HPC) . The camp will include surf analysis form some of Australia's top surf coaches, surf-specific workshops, and workshops led by surfing icons and pioneers of women’s surfing.

Team Electric will then compete in a knockout surf-off, with the overall winner taking home $1000 cash, a one-year Hyundai ambassadorship, a 12-month loan of a Hyundai vehicle, and a VIP experience at the Hyundai Australian Boardriders Battle (ABB) Grand Final alongside former World Tour surfer and Big Wave Record Holder, Laura Enever. Athletes placing 2nd–5th will each receive $1000 in prize money.

Season 3 also marks the return of the Hyundai Bright Spark award, given weekly to a surfer who demonstrates enthusiasm, courage, and commitment, no matter how long or short their ride lasts. The award aims to encourage surfers of all abilities to enjoy the process, commit to wipeouts, and have fun along the way. Each Hyundai Bright Spark winner will receive an MF x Laura Enever Collection Palm Springs surfboard, valued at over $700.

Paving the way for future female surfing talent

Hyundai She’s Electric is designed to elevate and inspire the next generation of female surfers, providing them with the tools, exposure, and support to reach their full potential. The program celebrates the diversity and skill of women’s surfing across Australia, offering athletes the opportunity to connect with some of the country’s best coaches and surfing icons.

Last year’s winner of Hyundai She’s Electric, Rosie Smart, said: "I loved the online format because it really allowed us girls to open up, experiment, and try new things with our surfing without the pressure and expectation of surfing in a 20-minute heat. From charging big barrels to air reverses and rail surfing, it was clear that we were all pushing each other and being inspired by the clips submitted each week.

"The HPC camp brought the Top 5 girls together to surf, hang out, and use the amazing training facilities the HPC has to offer. I really enjoyed the breath work training, something I had never been exposed to before, which gave me insights on how to stay calm when faced with a scary wipeout or long hold down. Winning She’s Electric opened up new opportunities, including commentating the Australian Boardriders Battle, running amok with Laura Enever, and the bonus prize money helped fund my 2024 Challenger Series campaign. As we move into the third season of Hyundai She’s Electric, the level of female surfing is rising so fast—I can’t wait to see some of the clips that will come out this year."

Surfing Australia Manager of Boardrider Clubs and Judging, Glen Elliott, said: "This initiative has been instrumental in showcasing the extraordinary talent we have in women's surfing. The online format, introduced last year, provides more surfers, regardless of their location, the opportunity to participate and be discovered. The standard of entries continues to rise each year, and we’re incredibly excited to see what Season 3 brings."

Hyundai Australia Chief Executive Officer, Ted Lee, said: “Hyundai is proud to further extend our great partnership with Surfing Australia into a third exciting season of Hyundai She’s Electric. Last time round we were delighted to witness the amazing surfing skills on show, not only of our talented winner Rosie Smart, but all of the competitors who boldly took part. Hyundai She’s Electric will continue to unearth the greatest of female surfing stars in Australia and we look forward to Season 3 being as inspiring as ever.”

Join the competition and learn more

Athlete profiles, competition updates, and wave submissions will be featured throughout the competition on Surfing Australia's Instagram. Stay tuned for the official announcement of the Top 5 athletes later this year. For full details on how to enter, and to follow the journey of Hyundai Team Electric, visit the Surfing Australia website.

Ready to make your mark? Submit your best wave now for a chance to join Hyundai Team Electric, win amazing prizes, and gain national exposure. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just love the thrill of surfing, Hyundai She’s Electric is for you!

Conditions apply, visit surfingaustralia.com/sheselectric for full Terms and Conditions and prize details. 

Promotional Period: starts 12.01AM AEST 16/09/24, ends 11.59PM AEDT 11/12/24.

Entry Period: starts 12.01AM AEST 16/09/24,ends 11.59PM AEDT 22/11/24.

Open to female AU residents 16+, with AU motor vehicle driver licence (full, provisional or learner permitted).Parent/guardian approval required if under 18.

Max 1 entry per person per week of entry period.

Entry is free.

Prize 1&2 winners announced 27/11/24, prizes 3&4 announced 11/12/24.

Promoter: Hyundai Motor Company Australia Pty Limited & Surfing Australia Pty Ltd. By entering you agree to the promoter’s Terms and Conditions and privacy policies.


Pic: Enter now for your chance to win an MF x Laura Enever Collection Palm Springs surfboard. Credit: Cathryn Hammond / Surfing Australia

Take a ferry to Rolling Sets this December
Pre-sale sign up at: https://rollingsets.com.au/


Your Voice Our Future: have your say

The NSW Government is seeking feedback from young people on how the government can better support them in NSW.

The Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson, MLC and the NSW Government is seeking feedback from young people aged 14 to 24 years on how the government can better support young people in NSW. The online survey asks about:

  • the important issues that young people face
  • what is not working well for young people in NSW
  • how the NSW Government should support and better engage with young people.

Your feedback will be summarised and and shared with the Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson to inform ministerial priorities. It will also be promoted across NSW Government departments to help deliver better programs and services for young people. By completing the survey, you can go in a monthly draw to win a gift card of your choice up to the value of $250*.

This survey has been developed by the Minister for Youth, the Hon. Rose Jackson, MLC, the Office of the Advocate of Children and Young People (ACYP) and the Office for Regional Youth.

When we ask for your name and contact details

If you opt in to receive more communications about this work, you will be asked to provide your contact details so that you can be kept updated. You may also be contacted to see if you would like to participate in further surveys or activities.

If you opt in to enter the monthly draw, your contact details will be needed to request your preferred e-gift card so we can deliver it via email, if you win. If you win, we may publicise your first name, age and suburb on NSW Government webpages, social media and other public communications.

If you are under 18, you will also need to provide the contact details of your parent/guardian who may be contacted directly to confirm consent for you to participate.

*View the terms and conditions (PDF 140.28KB) and privacy policy (PDF 140.26KB)

Have your say by Tuesday 31 December 2024.

You can submit your feedback via an online survey, here: https://www.nsw.gov.au/have-your-say/your-voice-our-future


School Leavers Support

Explore the School Leavers Information Kit (SLIK) as your guide to education, training and work options in 2022;
As you prepare to finish your final year of school, the next phase of your journey will be full of interesting and exciting opportunities. You will discover new passions and develop new skills and knowledge.

We know that this transition can sometimes be challenging. With changes to the education and workforce landscape, you might be wondering if your planned decisions are still a good option or what new alternatives are available and how to pursue them.

There are lots of options for education, training and work in 2022 to help you further your career. This information kit has been designed to help you understand what those options might be and assist you to choose the right one for you. Including:
  • Download or explore the SLIK here to help guide Your Career.
  • School Leavers Information Kit (PDF 5.2MB).
  • School Leavers Information Kit (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • The SLIK has also been translated into additional languages.
  • Download our information booklets if you are rural, regional and remote, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, or living with disability.
  • Support for Regional, Rural and Remote School Leavers (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for Regional, Rural and Remote School Leavers (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • Support for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander School Leavers (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander School Leavers (DOCX 1.1MB).
  • Support for School Leavers with Disability (PDF 2MB).
  • Support for School Leavers with Disability (DOCX 0.9MB).
  • Download the Parents and Guardian’s Guide for School Leavers, which summarises the resources and information available to help you explore all the education, training, and work options available to your young person.

School Leavers Information Service

Are you aged between 15 and 24 and looking for career guidance?

Call 1800 CAREER (1800 227 337).

SMS 'SLIS2022' to 0429 009 435.

Our information officers will help you:
  • navigate the School Leavers Information Kit (SLIK),
  • access and use the Your Career website and tools; and
  • find relevant support services if needed.
You may also be referred to a qualified career practitioner for a 45-minute personalised career guidance session. Our career practitioners will provide information, advice and assistance relating to a wide range of matters, such as career planning and management, training and studying, and looking for work.

You can call to book your session on 1800 CAREER (1800 227 337) Monday to Friday, from 9am to 7pm (AEST). Sessions with a career practitioner can be booked from Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm.

This is a free service, however minimal call/text costs may apply.

Call 1800 CAREER (1800 227 337) or SMS SLIS2022 to 0429 009 435 to start a conversation about how the tools in Your Career can help you or to book a free session with a career practitioner.

All downloads and more available at: www.yourcareer.gov.au/school-leavers-support

Word Of The Week: Mind

Word of the Week remains a keynote in 2024, simply to throw some disruption in amongst the 'yeah-nah' mix. 

Noun

1. the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. 2. a person's ability to think and reason; the intellect. (in a conscious being) the element, part, substance, or process that reasons, thinks, feels, wills, perceives, judges, etc.: the processes of the human mind. Synonyms: reason

Verb

1. to be distressed, annoyed, or worried by. 2. regard as important; feel concern about. - e.g.: 'mind the bright blue cake left on the floor while dancing through here in your pink and yellow polka-dot shoes!'.

From: Old English gemynd ‘memory, thought’, of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root meaning ‘revolve in the mind, think’, shared by Sanskrit manas and Latin mens ‘mind’.

Compare Mindfulness: 

Noun

1. the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. - e.g.: "their mindfulness made them choose what to give to their minds - they chose beautiful imagery, fine poetry, the pursuit of finding out what they wanted to know and avoided and rejected that which would pollute or scar."

2. a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.


Farms to fame: How China’s rural influencers are redefining country life

Mitchell GallagherWayne State University

In the quiet backwaters of Yunnan, Dong Meihua – though her followers know her by the public alias Dianxi Xiaoge – has done something remarkable: She’s taken the pastoral simplicity of rural China and made it irresistible to millions. In her hands, a village kitchen becomes a stage, and the rhythms of farm life become a story as compelling as any novel. She is one of many rural influencers returning to their roots.

In a digital revolution turning established narratives on their head, China’s countryside is emerging as an unlikely epicenter of viral content. Xiaoge is one of thousands of influencers redefining through social media how the countryside is perceived.

Upending preconceptions of rural China as a hinterland of poverty and stagnation, this new breed of social media mavens is serving up a feast of bucolic bliss to millions of urbanites. It is a narrative shift encouraged by authorities; the Chinese government has given its blessing to influencers promoting picturesque rural images. Doing so helps downplay urban-rural chasms and stoke national pride. It also fits nicely with Beijing’s rural revitalization strategy.

Hardship to revival

To fully appreciate any phenomenon, it’s necessary to first consider the historical context. For decades, China’s countryside was synonymous with hardship and backwardness. The Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s – Communist China’s revered founder Mao Zedong’s disastrous attempt to industrialize a largely agrarian country – devastated rural communities and led to widespread famine that saw tens of millions die.

The subsequent Cultural Revolution, in which Mao strengthened his grip on power through a broad purge of the nation’s intelligentsia, further disrupted customary rural life as educated youth were sent to the countryside for “reeducation.” These traumatic events inflicted deep scars on the rural psyche and economy.

Meanwhile, the “hukou” system, which since the late 1950s has tied social benefits to a person’s birthplace and divided citizens into “agricultural ” and “nonagricultural” residency status, has created a stark divide between urban and rural citizens.

The reform era of Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, beginning in 1978, brought new challenges. As China’s cities boomed, the countryside lagged behind.

Millions of rural Chinese have migrated to cities for better opportunities, abandoning aging populations and hollowed-out communities. In 1980, 19% of China’s population lived in urban areas. By 2023, that figure had risen to 66%.

Government policies have since developed extensively toward rural areas. The abolition of agricultural taxes in 2006 heralded a major milestone, demonstrating a renewed commitment to rural prosperity. Most recently, President Xi Jinping’s “rural revitalization” has put countryside development at the forefront of national policy. The launch of the Internet Plus Agriculture initiative and investment in rural e-commerce platforms such as Taobao Villages allow isolated farming communities to connect to urban markets.

Notwithstanding these efforts, China’s urban-rural income gap remains substantial, with the average annual per capita disposable income of rural households standing at 21,691 yuan (about US$3,100), approximately 40% of the amount for urban households.

Enter the ‘new farmer’

Digital-savvy farmers and countryside dwellers have used nostalgia and authenticity to win over Chinese social media. Stars such as Li Ziqi and Dianxi Xiaoge have racked up huge numbers of followers as they paint rural China as both an idyllic escape and a thriving cultural hub.

The Chinese term for this social media phenomenon is “new farmer.” This encapsulates the rise of rural celebrities who use platforms such as Douyin and Weibo to document and commercialize their way of life. Take Sister Yu: With over 23 million followers, she showcases the rustic charm of northeast China as she pickles vegetables and cooks hearty meals. Or Peng Chuanming: a farmer in Fujian whose videos on crafting traditional teas and restoring his home have captivated millions.

Since 2016, these platforms have turned rural life into digital gold. What began as simple documentation has evolved into a phenomenon commanding enormous audiences, fueled not just by nostalgia but also economic necessity. China’s post-COVID-19 economic downturn, marked by soaring youth unemployment and diminishing urban opportunities, has driven some to seek livelihoods in the countryside.

In China’s megacities, where the air is thick with pollution and opportunity, there’s clearly a hunger for something real – something that doesn’t come shrink-wrapped or with a QR code. And rural influencers serve slices of a life many thought lost to China’s breakneck development.

Compared with their urban counterparts, rural influencers carve out a unique niche in China’s vast social media landscape. Although fashion bloggers, gaming streamers and lifestyle gurus dominate platforms such as Weibo and Douyin, the Chinese TikTok, rural content creators tap into a different cultural romanticism and a yearning for connection to nature. In addition, their content capitalizes on the rising popularity of short video platforms such as Kuaishou and Pinduoduo, augmenting their reach across a wide demographic, from nostalgic retirees to eco-conscious millennials.

But this is not simply digital escapism for the masses. Tourism is booming in once-forgotten villages. Traditional crafts are finding new markets. In 2020 alone, Taobao Villages reported a staggering 1.2 trillion yuan (around $169.36 billion) in sales.

The Chinese government, never one to miss a PR opportunity, has spotted potential. Rural revitalization is now the buzzword among government officials. It’s a win-win: Villagers net economic opportunities, and the state polishes its reputation as a champion of traditional values. Government officials have leveraged platforms such as X to showcase China’s rural revitalization efforts to international audiences.

Authenticity or illusion?

As with all algorithms, there’s a catch to the new farmer movement. The more popular rural influencers become, the more pressure they face to perform “authenticity.” Or put another way: The more real it looks, the less real it might actually be.

It raises another question: Who truly benefits? Are we witnessing rural empowerment or a commodification of rural life for urban consumption? With corporate sponsors and government initiatives piling in, the line between genuine representation and curated fantasy blurs.

Local governments, recognizing the economic potential, have begun offering subsidies to rural content creators, causing skepticism about whether this content is truly grassroots or part of a bigger, state-led campaign to sanitize the countryside’s image.

Yet, for all the conceivable pitfalls, the new farmer trend is an opportunity to challenge the urban-centric narrative that has dominated China’s development story for decades and rethink whether progress always means high-rises and highways, or if there’s value in preserving ways of life that have sustained communities for centuries.

More importantly, it’s narrowing the cultural disconnect that has long separated China’s rural and urban populations. In a country where your hukou can determine your destiny, these viral videos foster understanding in ways that no government program ever could.The Conversation

Mitchell Gallagher, Ph.D Candidate in Political Science, Wayne State University

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

A brief history of the muses: the Greek goddesses who provided divine inspiration for ancient poets

The muses in The Parnassus, a fresco by Raphael (1511). Vatican MuseumsCC BY-SA
Alison HabensUniversity of Portsmouth

In the beginning, there was just one, unnamed, muse. The blind bard Homer (a poet born around around 850BC) invoked her with the words “Sing, daughter of Zeus” in the first lines of his epic poem, the Odyssey.

Then there were said to be three: Melete (practice), Mneme (memory) and Aoede (song), perhaps embodying the basic creative process of early humanity. Eventually, nine muses were identified, covering every branch of the arts, in the ancient Greek poet Hesiod’s introduction to Theogony, his epic poem about mythical stories and characters (circa 730–700BC). Hesiod, formerly an illiterate shepherd, claimed that he was inspired to write the poem when a beautiful goddess whispered the story in his ear.

There were muses specifically for comedy, tragedy and even erotica. The oldest was Calliope, mother of the legendary musician Orpheus. Euterpe was the muse of music. Urania guided the scientists. Terpsichore taught dance.

The muses promised fame and fortune to artists who followed them, but are rarely mentioned by name in the prologues and prefaces of artworks today.

A timeline of the muses

Originally characterised as singing and dancing goddesses guarding a sacred spring, evidence for the muses is found in writing by some of the earliest known authors.

Painting of a nude man embraced by a winged muse
Hesiod and the Muse by Gustave Moreau (1891). Musée d'Orsay

Yet, the muses existed long before reading and writing. It was only later that they were conscripted as the mascots of writers, with some ancient mosaics showing pens and parchment superimposed on their original images. Following their assimilation from the oral tradition into cheerleaders of literacy, the muses are seen waving pens and quills, scrolls and manuscripts in ancient artworks.

Written storytelling about the muses started in the matriarchal period of prehistory, shifting to patriarchy in approximately 3,000BC, in Ovid’s story of the god Apollo fashioning himself the first laurel wreath. This crown of leaves, which supposedly signified his genius, is seen in the myth of Daphne, who turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo’s unwanted advances.

Written by Ovid in Metamorphoses, this picturesque tale may have been a metaphor for the switch from female to male authority. Legend has it that Apollo prevented his muse priestess from brewing, imbibing or smoking laurel leaves, which have a mild narcotic property.

It wasn’t just fanciful poets in the muse’s congregation – philosophers kept the faith too. In approximately 370BC, Socrates classed “possession” by the muses as a form of divine madness like drunkenness, eroticism or dreaming: “He who, having no touch of the muses’ madness in his soul, thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art – he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted.”

English poet and soldier Robert Graves (1895-1985) agreed, writing in 1948 that his:

‘Inspiration’ was the breathing-in by the poet of fumes from an intoxicating cauldron, the Awen of the cauldron of Cerridwen, containing probably a mash of barley, acorns, honey, bull’s blood and such sacred herbs as ivy, hellebore and laurel as at Delphi.

Changing times

These original practices of using drink or drugs to inspire art are still in use around the world today. The muses may hold a pen in one hand and a smoke, or steaming mug, in the other – herbal remedies continue to be efficacious for writer’s block.

In the Elizabethan period, when a poet’s relationship with the muses was perceived as directly proportionate to their success in romance, loving attention was paid to their invocation in rhythm and rhyme. But post-Enlightenment, it was no longer considered right for writers to invoke a supernatural mentor for literary endeavours. Modern men were influenced by reason and rationality, rather than a deity. Then it was more likely that a dead bard or scene from nature was deemed an appropriate source of inspiration.

The nine muses on a Roman sarcophagus
The nine muses on a Roman sarcophagus (second century AD). Louvre MuseumCC BY-SA

Though writing remained a ritualistic practice, and its mechanisms sometimes mystical, the desk no longer doubled as an altar at which the author worshipped.

Yet writers still often claim “the muse is with me” at moments when the words flow magically. Her voice can be heard in the modern Interval with Erato by Scott Cairns (2015), which name checks the ancient overseer of love poetry:

That’s what I like best about you, Erato sighed in bed, that’s why you’ve become one of my favourites and why you will always be so.

For the most part, the muses are missed off the agenda by both the microscope-gazers and the navel-gazers, these days. However, Plato did insist in his dialogue Phaedrus (370BC) that most people are eu amousoi (εὖ ἄμουσοι) an ancient Greek expression that means “happily without the muses”.

Contemporary theories of creativity do not often mention divine inspiration. We no longer like the idea that the best stories are given to a few fated writers by God, that great plots and characters are bestowed on favoured authors by goddesses. But the answer to that common question all writers are asked – “where do you get your ideas from?” – still seems more mystic, less mathematic and as much supernatural as subconscious.



Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.The Conversation


Alison Habens, Head of Creative Writing, University of Portsmouth

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

Can listening to music make you more productive at work?

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Anna FiveashWestern Sydney University

Listening to music can enhance our lives in all kinds of ways – many of us use it during exercise, to regulate our mood, or in the workplace.

But can listening to background music while you work really make you more productive?

It’s a controversial topic. Some people swear by it, others find it painfully distracting. The research agrees there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.

The best way to use music in the workplace depends on several factors, including your personality traits, what you’re doing, and what kind of music you’re listening to.

Here’s how to find out what works best for you.

Who you are

Your personality has a key influence on whether background music can boost productivity or be distracting in the workplace, which relates to your unique optimal level of arousal.

Arousal in this context relates to mental alertness, and the readiness of the brain to process new information. Background music can increase it.

Research suggests that being at an optimal level of arousal facilitates a state of “flow”, enhancing performance and productivity.

Girl seen through a window working on a laptop
Introverts may need less external stimulus – such as music – to focus well. Ground Picture/Shutterstock

Introverts already have a high baseline level of internal arousal.

Adding background music might push them over their optimal level, likely reducing productivity.

Extroverts, on the other hand, have lower baseline levels of internal arousal, so need more external stimulation to perform at their optimal level.

This is why introverts may perform worse than extroverts with background music, especially when the music is highly arousing.

What you’re doing

Research has shown the nature of the task you’re doing can also have an important effect.

Because of connections between music and language in the brain, trying to read and write at the same time as listening to complex music – especially music with lyrics – can be particularly difficult.

However, if you’re doing a simple or repetitive task such as data entry or a manual task, having music on in the background can help with performance – particularly upbeat and complex music.

These findings could be related to music’s effects on motivation and maintaining attention, as well as activating reward networks in the brain.

Man wearing headphones arranges flowers in a florist shop
Complex music may increase performance on some simple or manual tasks. Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock

The type of music itself

One important and often overlooked influence is what kind of music you choose to listen to.

Research has shown that fast and loud music can be more detrimental to complex tasks, such as reading comprehension, than soft and slow music.

Other research found that listening to calming music can have benefits for memory, while aggressive and unpleasant music can have the opposite effect.

However, these effects also depend on your personality, your familiarity with the music, and your musical preferences, so the type of music that works best will be different for everyone.

Music can be very rewarding and can benefit attention, mood and motivation.

Choosing music that is meaningful, rewarding and makes you feel good will likely help boost your performance, especially when performing simple tasks.

Group of violinists playing in an orchestra
The type of music you listen to can have an effect. Samuel Sianipar/Unsplash

What about complex tasks?

It largely seems that the more complex or demanding the task is, the more distracting background music can be.

One way to harness the motivational and mood-boosting effects of music to help with your workplace productivity is to play music before doing your work.

Using music to boost your mood and enhance attention before starting a work task could help you be more productive in that task.

Woman listening to music on train
Playing music right before a task can provide benefits while reducing the risk of distraction. XiXinXing/Shutterstock

Playing music before a demanding task has been shown to boost language abilities in particular.

So if you’re about to do a cognitively demanding task involving reading and writing, and you feel that music might distract you if played at the same time, try listening to it just before doing the task.

Find what works for you

Music can be both helpful and detrimental for workplace productivity – the best advice is to experiment with different tasks and different types of music, to find out what works best for you.

Try to experiment with your favourite music first, while doing a simple task.

Does the music help you engage with the task? Or do you get distracted and start to become more absorbed in the music? Listening to music without lyrics and with a strong beat might help you focus on the task at hand.

If you find music is distracting to your work, try scheduling in some music breaks throughout the day. Listening to music during breaks could boost your mood and increase your motivation, thereby enhancing productivity.

Moving along with music is suggested to increase reward processing, especially in social situations.

Dancing has the added bonus of getting you out of your chair and moving along in time, so bonus points if you are able to make it a dance break! The Conversation

Anna Fiveash, ARC DECRA Fellow (Researcher), Western Sydney University

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

Claims that Qantas is greenwashing build a case for carbon assurance: here’s what it is

ChristianChan/Shutterstock
Md Safiullah (Safi)RMIT University

Qantas is being taken to Australia’s consumer regulator over its claim it is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

The Environmental Defenders Office and the advocacy group Climate Integrity say the claim is “not backed up by credible targets or substantiating strategies” making it potentially misleading and in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has yet to decide whether to investigate the complaint. Qantas says it has offered to work closely with Climate Integrity and has reached out to the Commission.

The complaint follows a ruling by a Dutch Court earlier this year that the airline KLM had misled consumers by creating the false impression it was sustainable.

The win has spurred the European Commission to write to 20 airlines identifying potentially misleading claims and inviting them to bring their practices in line.

Of most concern to the European regulators are claims the carbon emissions caused by flights can be offset by climate projects and the use of sustainable fuels, to which the consumers can contribute by paying additional fees.

Carbon assurance assesses claims ahead of time

These kinds of complaints would be much easier for airlines (and other compnies) to deal with if they had submitted themselves to a process known as carbon assurance ahead of time.

Usually entered into voluntarily, and conducted by an independent assessor in accordance with an international standard, the process verifies the accuracy, transparency, and credibility of an organisation’s carbon emissions claims.

My own research with Linh Nguyen, just published in Finance Research Letters, finds firms with high carbon assurance scores are more likely to obtain more trade credit from their suppliers.

Europe and Australia are moving towards making carbon assurance mandatory for large corporations.

Few firms submit themselves to it

A survey by KPMG International finds that while nearly all of the world’s 250 largest firms report on the sustainability of their operations, only two-thirds submit themselves to carbon assurance.

Another survey of 5,183 companies from 42 countries that publish emissions data finds half don’t engage a carbon assuror.

This could be because they are afraid of what the assuror will find.

An international survey of 750 companies that sought some level of external assurance found just 14% received a reasonable assurance.

Many firms aren’t ready

Assessors are hard to find. NattapongPunna/Shutterstock

Assurors, and the skills within the organisation to handle the process are hard to find. While international standards are in place, there isn’t yet a professional or regulatory body to certify assurors.

The Australian government intends to make assurance reports for the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of large firms mandatory from July 2026.

Scope 1 and scope 2 emissions are the direct and indirect emissions of the corporation itself.

The government intends to make Scope 3 emissions (those in other parts of the corporation’s supply and distribution chain) mandatory from July 2030.

It will be important to get the systems in place.

While what the firms report will matter a lot, what will matter almost as much is an assurance we can believe what they report.The Conversation

Md Safiullah (Safi), Senior Lecturer in Finance, RMIT University

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

Banning debit card surcharges could save $500 million a year – if traders don’t claw back the money in other ways

Galdric PS/Shutterstock
Angel ZhongRMIT University

In a move that could reshape how Australians pay for everyday purchases, the federal government is preparing to ban businesses from slapping surcharges on debit card transactions.

This plan, pending a review by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), promises to put money back into consumers’ pockets.

The RBA, which is accepting submissions until December, released its first consultation paper on Tuesday to coincide with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ joint announcement.

But as with any significant policy shift, it’s worth taking a closer look to see what it really means for all of us.

How much are we really saving?

Based on RBA data, the potential savings are huge – up to $500 million a year if surcharges on debit cards are banned.

And if the government goes one step further and includes credit card transaction fees in the ban, those savings could hit a massive $1 billion annually.

While these figures sound impressive, when you break it down, the savings per cardholder would amount to around $140 annually.

It’s not a life-changing amount, but for frequent shoppers or anyone making larger purchases, it could add up.

Of course, not everyone will benefit equally. Those who shop less might not notice the difference.

How does Australia stack up globally?

RBA data shows Australians are paying more in merchant service fees than people in Europe, but less than consumers in the United States.

These fees are what businesses pay to accept card payments, and they get passed on to us in the form of surcharges.



The proposed ban on debit card surcharges occupies a middle ground in the global regulatory landscape. The European Union, United Kingdom and Malaysia have implemented comprehensive bans on surcharges for most debit and credit card transactions.

But in the US and Canada, businesses can still charge you for using a credit card, though debit card surcharges aren’t allowed.

The merchant’s perspective

While the surcharge ban seems like a clear win for consumers, it’s essential to consider the impact on merchants, especially small businesses. The reality is not all merchants are created equal when it comes to card payment fees.

In Australia, there’s a significant disparity between the fees paid by large and small merchants. In fact, RBA data shows small businesses pay fees about three times higher than what larger businesses pay.

It all comes down to bargaining power. Bigger businesses can negotiate better deals on fees. This difference is primarily driven by the ability of larger merchants to thrash out favourable wholesale fees for processing card transactions.

For small businesses, the cost of accepting cards can range from under 1% to more than 2% of the transaction value, which can eat into profits, especially for those working with tight margins.

While the ban may sound like good news for consumers, there’s still a need to fix the bigger issues in the payment system. Innovations like “least-cost routing”, which allows businesses to process transactions at the lowest possible cost, could potentially help level the playing field.

How businesses might exploit the loopholes?

If payment costs are entirely passed on to merchants, they might find ways to recover those expenses through other means. We’ve seen this happen in other countries that abolished surcharges. Some potential strategies include

  • slightly raising overall prices to cover lost surcharge revenue
  • implementing or increasing minimum purchase requirements for card payments
  • introducing new “service” or “convenience” fees for all transactions, or increasing weekend and holiday surcharges.

Most of these tactics have been around for a while. The challenge for regulators will be to monitor and address any new practices that emerge in response to the new rules.

Credit cards: the elephant in the room

While the ban on debit card surcharges is a step in the right direction, it raises an obvious question: why not extend it to credit cards?

The option to ban credit card surcharges along with debit cards is proposed in the RBA’s review consultation paper. The answer lies in the complex web of interchange fees and merchant costs associated with credit card transactions.

Credit card transactions cost merchants more to process because of additional services and rewards programs offered by credit card issuers.

Banning surcharges on these could potentially lead to merchants increasing their base prices to cover these costs. This could effectively result in users of lower-cost payment methods subsidising those opting for premium cards.

The absence of surcharges could also reduce the competitive pressure on card networks to keep their fees in check, potentially leading to higher costs in the long run.

Some countries have managed to ban surcharges on credit cards, but they usually have stricter regulations around interchange fees than we do in Australia.

As policymakers grapple with this complex issue, they must weigh the benefits of consumer simplicity against the risk of distorting market signals and potentially increasing costs for both merchants and consumers alike.The Conversation

Angel Zhong, Associate Professor of Finance, RMIT University

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

Friday essay: crimes, redemption and rebellion – the truths told in 65,000 years of Australian art are essential for national healing

Joanna MendelssohnThe University of Melbourne

The third section of the Uluru Statement from the Heart is Truth. Without knowing the truth of the history of Australia’s Indigenous people, and how the European invasion continues to impact on them, it is hard to understand the pain behind the loss of The Voice referendum and the ongoing need for treaties.

Marcia Langton and Judith Ryan are truth tellers. Their book 65,000 years: A Short History of Australian Art, should be in every library in the country. The truths they tell are compelling, enticing – sometimes appalling – and unless they are known, the country cannot heal.


Review: 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art, edited by Marcia Langton and Judith Ryan (Thames & Hudson)


For much of the 20th century, there was tension between anthropologists and art curators on the status of what we now call Indigenous art. While anthropologists focused on what they saw as visual evidence for culture and custom, art curators and historians marvelled at what the first history of Australian art, William Moore’s The Story of Australian Art (1934), called a “fine sense of design”. It took many years for all concerned to see that both are true.

Billy Benn Perrurle (Alyawarr, 1943–2012) Artetyerre, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri / Canberra. Thames & Hudson

A visual embodiment of knowledge

65,000 Years includes essays by anthropologists, art historians, art curators, artists, astronomers and historians. As one of the contributors, astronomer Duane Hamacher writes, “Art is often focused on aesthetics, but more importantly it is a visual embodiment of knowledge.”

The book is focused on the University of Melbourne for two reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that it is published to support an exhibition of the same name, which will open the university’s Ian Potter Museum of Art next year. The second, more potent reason is that this university was both a participant in some of the more shocking crimes against Indigenous Australians and the keeper of works that tell the slow tale of redemption.

As Langton writes, artists “have a special relationship with the world. They can tell the truth where others cannot or will not because they can represent the truth visually.”

Historian Ross L. Jones’s documentation of the great crime of the university’s medical faculty is harrowing reading. Over many years, bodies were “harvested” en masse – sacrificed, as he writes, “to the Western gods of progress and learning”. “Racial anatomy”, supporting theories of eugenics, became a specialty of the School of Anatomy.

Judith Ryan, former senior curator of Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, notes that pastoralist George Murray Black plundered many sacred burial sites for human remains, which were placed “numbered but unconsidered in metal storage boxes”. Artist Brook Andrew’s response to the abuse of the remains of 52 Tasmanians led to him honouring the dead in Vox beyond Tasmania (2013).

Abuse of Indigenous Australians for “research” was not confined to Victoria. Kokatha and Nukunu artist Yhonnie Scarce has produced Weak in Colour but Strong in Blood, a chilling but exquisite installation of blown glass that critiques the activities of anthropologist and ethnologist Norman Tindale and the South Australian Museum. Scarce’s own relatives were among those whose details were recorded by Tindale.

Waanyi artist Judy Watson’s A Preponderance of Aboriginal Blood, a book of 15 etchings showing bloodstained facsimiles of official communications, is heartbreaking. She demonstrates the pettiness of the cruel administration of laws passed by the Queensland government to deny the humanity of Indigenous Australians.

One of the strengths of 65,000 Years is the way it interlaces Indigenous art with work by some of the early European visitors and settlers. Empathetic portraits by artists on the crew of French explorer Nicolas Baudin’s expedition to southern Australia are contrasted with less sympathetic portraits by artists from Britain.

65,000 Years interperses Indigenous art with work by early European visitors or settlers, like Joseph Lycett, Corroboree at Newcastle, c. 1818. Thames & Hudson

As art curator Alisa Bunbury notes in her essay, “the French travelled with an expansive philosophical belief”. The British were more concerned with property. The disconnect between Indigenous cultures and those of the newcomers is seen in convict artist Charles Rodius’s lithographs of ten “Aboriginal Kings and Queens”. The colonists did not have the language to describe a non-feudal culture.

Approximately two centuries after the arrival of the Europeans, a new generation of Indigenous artists began to incorporate elements of early colonial works in a critique of the arrogance and cruelty of the invaders.

Some of the most effective of these works are by Gordon Bennett, an artist of Anglo-Celtic and Indigenous descent who often adopted the persona “John Citizen” to confront the rhetoric of identity and the politics of categorisation.

His 1993 Death of the Ahistorical Subject (Up Rode the Troopers, ABC), is a riff on an 1850s lithograph that celebrated a massacre. His Big Romantic Painting (Apotheosis of Captain Cook) shows Cook ascending into the clouds after causing destruction throughout the land.

European cultural limitations

The cultural limitations of the Europeans who claimed to have discovered Australia is evident from the explorer Sir George Grey’s response in 1838, when he came to Western Australia and saw the great rock art galleries and their paintings of Wanjina.

Almost a century later, when he wrote his history of Australian art, William Moore accepted as truth Grey’s opinion that such beautiful and powerful works could not be painted by Indigenous Australians, so assumed they had been painted by visitors to the land.

If the newcomers had looked and listened, they would have discovered the complexity and variety of Indigenous cultures that surrounded them. If they were less arrogant, they would also have discovered that many Indigenous people were attempting to educate them. Those few who listened, like explorer Matthew Flinders, benefited.

Bungaree, painted by Augustus Earle. NLA

Bungaree, a Darug man who accompanied Flinders on his first circumnavigation of the continent, was able to mediate to prevent disputes when Flinders’ crew landed to take on water. This was despite him not sharing the language of the many different people whose lands they visited. My favourite painting of Bungaree, by Augustus Earle, shows him resplendent in a red coat, waving his hat as though welcoming visitors to his land.

Nineteenth-century drawings by Tommy McRae, Wurundjeri artist William Barak and Dhurga artist Mickey of Ulladulla created records using an amalgam of Indigenous traditions and western visual tools.

Oscar of Cooktown, an Aboriginal man who was kidnapped as a child and sent to work on a station in the distant Barkly Tableland, made a sketchbook record of the harsh life of men conscripted to join the native police. It took many years for his works to be properly valued.

Works by William Barak both record the traditions that were under attack by the newcomers to Narrm (Melbourne), and serve as a document to advocate for the rights of those displaced.

Sharing knowledge and culture

One advantage the people of northern Australia had over those living in the far south is that they were long aware of the existence of other cultures, other races and the need to interpret. Long before the arrival of the Europeans, they had traded with the Macassans from what we now call Indonesia.

Yolŋu people shared knowledge and culture with the outside world. They taught the Methodist missionaries, who told them different stories in return, and also taught anthropologists what they were permitted to know.

Body paintings were put onto bark for the benefit of anthropologists from down south, including Donald Thomson from the University of Melbourne. Because of their intellectual generosity, Yolŋu art and artefacts are in collections around the world, dominating what many think of as Australian Indigenous art.

These artefacts are held in the University of Melbourne’s Donald Thomson collection. Thames & Hudson

The first European Australian to fully appreciate the beauty of Indigenous art was another anthropologist, Sir Baldwin Spencer. In the early years of the 20th century, he also collected paintings by Australian Impressionists. As “chief protector of Aborigines”, he so admired the drawings made on rock and bark shelters that he commissioned Bininj artists to paint work on portable bark, which he later donated to the Museum of Victoria.

Many years later, in 1972, Yolŋu people gave Justice Edward Woodward of the Aboriginal Land Rights Royal Commission paintings that proved their connections to country.

The iconography of each artist showed their personal ancestral connection to the land from time immemorial. It was one of the reasons for The Aboriginal Land Rights Act of 1976. These works are now in the University of Melbourne Art Collection.

Activist artists effecting change

Not all campaigns end well. In 1971, the Yolŋu people lost a case in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory when they tried to stop bauxite mining at Nhulunbuy. The saddest thing I have ever heard is a recording of the didgeridoo lament on the destruction of the sacred lands.

People involved in both that case and the earlier Yirrkala Bark Petitions later became well known as artists and national leaders, leading the movement that saw international recognition of Australian Indigenous visual culture.

In May 1973, the Whitlam Government created the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council. All the members were Indigenous. The board had full control of its budget and as a result, made the unusual decision not to award grants to individual artists, but rather to buy completed works of art. It was this art, exhibited both in Australia and internationally, that lifted the profile of Indigenous artists.

Thanks to their efforts, Indigenous art, especially paintings from Papunya, soon became better known in Europe and America than it was in Australia. Purchases by the Aboriginal Arts Board led to the Art Gallery of South Australia buying Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri’s Man’s Love Story in 1980, the first acquisition of a Papunya painting by a public collection.

The following year, Bernice Murphy included paintings by Papunya artists in the groundbreaking Australian Perspecta exhibition of new Australian art. A minor criticism of the book is that there is only a passing reference to the significance of support by the Australia Council.

Urban art activism

The complex landscape of Indigenous art is typified by Koori Art ‘84, the first exhibition to include emerging urban Aboriginal artists, which took place in Sydney’s Artspace.

Its many participants included students from Redfern’s Eora Centre and Tranby at Glebe. But it also brought together Indigenous artists from around the country, including Yolŋu artist Banduk Marika, Yorta Yorta artist Lin Onus and Ngarrindjeri artist Trevor Nickolls.

They found common cause with the Sydney artists Tracey MoffattMichael RileyFiona Foley and many more.

Ryan notes the connection between this exhibition, when many of these artists discovered each other for the first time, and the flowering of urban Indigenous art.

One of the collaborations that occurred in the aftermath of this exhibition was Boomalli, which opened in Redfern in 1987, but is still going strong today in Leichhardt. Waanyi artist Gordon Hookey, who saw Boomalli’s opening exhibition when he was a student at UNSW’s College of Fine Arts, later moved to Brisbane. There, he found a similar community at ProppaNOW, founded by Richard Bell, Jennifer Herd and Vernon Ah Kee.

Bell is best known for his cynical commentary on racism in contemporary Australia and the exploiters of the industry now surrounding Indigenous art.

While they have a common purpose, this generation of activist artists did not share a common aesthetic. As Ryan notes, what they did have is “a similar sense of outrage at the politics of colonialism and their experiences of institutionalised racism and intergenerational trauma”.

But the art they have made is remarkable. Trevor Nickolls’ Deaths in Custody, Gordon Hookey’s King Hit for Queen and Country, Robert Campbell Jnr’s Roped Off at the Picture Show II all express justifiable rage at ongoing discrimination.

‘Amazing women’ in the zeitgeist

Coby Edgar, a Larrakia, Jingili and Anglo curator, notes in her essay, titled “Turn to the river”, that for many years, most of the anthropologists who researched Australian Indigenous culture were men. Their own cultural blindness, as well as not being privy to women’s lore, led to them seeing it as being of less importance.

She asks: “Why are there so many amazing female artists in our current art market?” Her answer? It’s the “zeitgeist”. This is true, but I wish she had named some of the agents abetting that spirit of the times.

In 1991, Arrernte and Kalkadoon curator and writer Hetti Perkins, then curator at Boomalli, persuaded the Art Gallery of New South Wales to mount the Aboriginal Women Artists Exhibition.

That exhibition included work by many of the women artists who came to prominence in the following years. In 1997, Perkins, along with Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra curator and artist Brenda L. Croft and Victoria Lynn, mounted fluent, an exhibition of three Indigenous women artists at the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Yvonne Koolmatrie and Judy Watson were thrust into the limelight as a result – and there they stayed.

Dominating Australian culture

In this 21st century, Indigenous art has come to dominate perceptions of Australian culture.

Crimes of the past are painted in heartrending detail by Badimaya artist and activist Julie Dowling. Joyous abstract paintings by the late Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori are yet another reminder that wise old women have much to say.

Torres Strait Islander artist Brian Robinson’s intricate linocut prints map the magic of the night sky. And Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whisky brings joy, synthesising popular culture icons like Cher and Dolly Parton with her daily life in Indulkana, roughly 1,200 kilometres northwest of Adelaide.

All these artists and more are discussed in 65,000 Years: A Short History of Australian Art. Read it. Buy it. It is one for the pool room.The Conversation

Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Senior Fellow, School of Culture and Communication. Editor in chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne

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

For Deaf people, train travel can be a gamble. But an AI-powered Auslan avatar can help

Denis Belitsky/Shutterstock
Jessica KorteQueensland University of Technology

For Deaf people, train travel can be a gamble. On an average day, nothing goes wrong: they catch their train to their destination and carry on with their business.

But when something out of the ordinary happens, the situation can quickly get scary, because most updates are only delivered by audio announcements. A Deaf traveller may miss their train because it was moved to a different platform, or watch as their station whizzes by because the train isn’t stopping there today. They may also remain on a train carriage in an emergency after everyone else has evacuated, and have to be rescued by station staff.

Every single one of these examples has been drawn from the real life experiences of Deaf people in Sydney. But my colleagues and I are working with Sydney Trains and members of the Australian Deaf community to develop an advanced, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered signing avatar which can automatically translate audio announcements into Auslan.

Our work on the avatar also builds towards the next step: developing AI systems which can “understand” Auslan.

Journeys don’t always go to plan

Earlier this year, my colleagues and I ran a pilot study with three Deaf train travellers in Sydney. As well as the stories they shared about what can go wrong during train travel, we learned they use tried and tested strategies for making their journeys go smoothly.

Their strategies might be familiar to regular commuters. For example, they would plan their journeys with an app, arrive early and look for signage to let them know if anything had changed.

But they also said they felt they needed to stand near information screens to watch for updates, and ask station staff or other passengers for information when the situation had changed. They also reported being hypervigilant while on the train, watching to make sure they don’t miss their stop.

But these strategies didn’t always ensure Deaf travellers received important information, including about emergencies. For example, while usually helpful, station staff were sometimes too busy to assist.

The greatest frustration came in situations where other passengers weren’t willing or able to provide information, leaving our Deaf travellers to just “follow the crowd”. This often meant ending up in the wrong place.

Developing a signing avatar

Speech-to-text software might seem like an easy solution to some of these problems. But for many Deaf people, English is not their native language and Auslan can be processed far more easily and quickly.

Our Deaf travellers told us that, in a perfect world, they would want live interpreters. However, automatic, AI-powered translation using a signing avatar displayed on a platform or train screen which could identify key words in an audio announcement, generate a sentence with correct Auslan grammar, and stitch together the corresponding signs from our vocabulary library was appealing for a number of reasons.

Avatar by Maria Zelenskaya, QUT. Auslan by Julie Lyons, QUT.

First, it allows for real-time translation of announcements that use known vocabulary – which is relevant in the trains-and-stations context, where many announcements cover similar topics.

Second, an avatar and its signing can be customised to the needs of a given situation, such as using information about screen location to ensure the avatar signs in the right direction while pointing out exits or other platforms.

Third, multiple signers can contribute signs to an avatar’s vocabulary, which can then be smoothly stitched together to make a sentence.

And importantly, an avatar means no real person has to be the “face” of an organisation’s automatically generated announcements. This is particularly important because the Australian Deaf community is small and close knit, and if something goes wrong with the translation, nobody suffers any reputational damage.

From a technical point of view, an avatar also allows us to ensure a minimum quality threshold for signing. We’re using motion capture to make sure each sign in our vocabulary library is accurate, and movements are clear.

It also helps us avoid the “uncanny valley” – an effect where something human-like but subtly wrong is unsettling. We don’t want any of the many-fingered monstrosities you may have seen recently generated by AI.

AI for everyone

This work is one step in our broader aim of creating an AI system which can understand Auslan. This AI could be used to help Deaf and hearing station staff converse, or to create “chatbot booths” or app-based assistants that would allow Deaf people to get information on demand in Auslan about their train journeys or other daily tasks.

Sign languages and Deaf cultures around the world have nuances and complexities that hearing researchers and developers of AI may not be aware of. These nuances and complexities must be embedded in new technologies, and researchers and developers must take a language-first approach to AI data collection and design with – not just for – Deaf people.

Only then will AI meet Deaf people’s real needs: to ensure their safety and independence in every aspect of daily life.The Conversation

Jessica Korte, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology

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

Three letters, one number, a knife and a stone bridge: how a graffitied equation changed mathematical history

William Murphy / FlickrCC BY
Robyn ArianrhodMonash University

On October 16 1843, the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton had an epiphany during a walk alongside Dublin’s Royal Canal. He was so excited he took out his penknife and carved his discovery right then and there on Broome Bridge.

It is the most famous graffiti in mathematical history, but it looks rather unassuming:

²
 = j 
²
 = k 
²
 = ijk = 
–1

Yet Hamilton’s revelation changed the way mathematicians represent information. And this, in turn, made myriad technical applications simpler – from calculating forces when designing a bridge, an MRI machine or a wind turbine, to programming search engines and orienting a rover on Mars. So, what does this famous graffiti mean?

Rotating objects

The mathematical problem Hamilton was trying to solve was how to represent the relationship between different directions in three-dimensional space. Direction is important in describing forces and velocities, but Hamilton was also interested in 3D rotations.

Mathematicians already knew how to represent the position of an object with coordinates such as xy and z, but figuring out what happened to these coordinates when you rotated the object required complicated spherical geometry. Hamilton wanted a simpler method.

He was inspired by a remarkable way of representing two-dimensional rotations. The trick was to use what are called “complex numbers”, which have a “real” part and an “imaginary” part. The imaginary part is a multiple of the number i, “the square root of minus one”, which is defined by the equation i ² = –1.

By the early 1800s several mathematicians, including Jean Argand and John Warren, had discovered that a complex number can be represented by a point on a plane. Warren had also shown it was mathematically quite simple to rotate a line through 90° in this new complex plane, like turning a clock hand back from 12.15pm to 12 noon. For this is what happens when you multiply a number by i.

Diagram showing multiplication by i.
When a complex number is represented as a point on a plane, multiplying the number by i amounts to rotating the corresponding line by 90° anticlockwise. The ConversationCC BY

Hamilton was mightily impressed by this connection between complex numbers and geometry, and set about trying to do it in three dimensions. He imagined a 3D complex plane, with a second imaginary axis in the direction of a second imaginary number j, perpendicular to the other two axes.

It took him many arduous months to realise that if he wanted to extend the 2D rotational wizardry of multiplication by i he needed four-dimensional complex numbers, with a third imaginary number, k.

In this 4D mathematical space, the k-axis would be perpendicular to the other three. Not only would k be defined by k ² = –1, its definition also needed k = ij = –ji. (Combining these two equations for k gives ijk = –1.)

Putting all this together gives i ² = j ² = k ² = ijk = –1, the revelation that hit Hamilton like a bolt of lightning at Broome Bridge.

Quaternions and vectors

Hamilton called his 4D numbers “quaternions”, and he used them to calculate geometrical rotations in 3D space. This is the kind of rotation used today to move a robot, say, or orient a satellite.

But most of the practical magic comes into it when you consider just the imaginary part of a quaternion. For this is what Hamilton named a “vector”.

A vector encodes two kinds of information at once, most famously the magnitude and direction of a spatial quantity such as force, velocity or relative position. For instance, to represent an object’s position (xyz) relative to the “origin” (the zero point of the position axes), Hamilton visualised an arrow pointing from the origin to the object’s location. The arrow represents the “position vector” x i + y j + z k.

This vector’s “components” are the numbers xy and z – the distance the arrow extends along each of the three axes. (Other vectors would have different components, depending on their magnitudes and units.)

Diagram showing an arrow against three-dimensional coordinate system.
A vector (r) is like an arrow from the point O to the point with coordinates (xyz). The ConversationCC BY

Half a century later, the eccentric English telegrapher Oliver Heaviside helped inaugurate modern vector analysis by replacing Hamilton’s imaginary framework ijk with real unit vectors, ijk. But either way, the vector’s components stay the same – and therefore the arrow, and the basic rules for multiplying vectors, remain the same, too.

Hamilton defined two ways to multiply vectors together. One produces a number (this is today called the scalar or dot product), and the other produces a vector (known as the vector or cross product). These multiplications crop up today in a multitude of applications, such as the formula for the electromagnetic force that underpins all our electronic devices.

A single mathematical object

Unbeknown to Hamilton, the French mathematician Olinde Rodrigues had come up with a version of these products just three years earlier, in his own work on rotations. But to call Rodrigues’ multiplications the products of vectors is hindsight. It is Hamilton who linked the separate components into a single quantity, the vector.

Everyone else, from Isaac Newton to Rodrigues, had no concept of a single mathematical object unifying the components of a position or a force. (Actually, there was one person who had a similar idea: a self-taught German mathematician named Hermann Grassmann, who independently invented a less transparent vectorial system at the same time as Hamilton.)

Hamilton also developed a compact notation to make his equations concise and elegant. He used a Greek letter to denote a quaternion or vector, but today, following Heaviside, it is common to use a boldface Latin letter.

This compact notation changed the way mathematicians represent physical quantities in 3D space.

Take, for example, one of Maxwell’s equations relating the electric and magnetic fields:

 
×
 
E
 
= –∂
B
/∂
t

With just a handful of symbols (we won’t get into the physical meanings of ∂/∂t and ∇ ×), this shows how an electric field vector (E) spreads through space in response to changes in a magnetic field vector (B).

Without vector notation, this would be written as three separate equations (one for each component of B and E) – each one a tangle of coordinates, multiplications and subtractions.

A set of three complicated equations.
The expanded form of the equation. As you can see, vector notation makes life much simpler. The ConversationCC BY

The power of perseverance

I chose one of Maxwell’s equations as an example because the quirky Scot James Clerk Maxwell was the first major physicist to recognise the power of compact vector symbolism. Unfortunately, Hamilton didn’t live to see Maxwell’s endorsement. But he never gave up his belief in his new way of representing physical quantities.

Hamilton’s perseverance in the face of mainstream rejection really moved me, when I was researching my book on vectors. He hoped that one day – “never mind when” – he might be thanked for his discovery, but this was not vanity. It was excitement at the possible applications he envisaged.

Photo of a plaque with inscription 'Here as he walked by on the 16th of October 1843 Sir William Rowan Hamilton in a flash of genius discovered the fundamental formula for quaternion multiplication i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1  & cut it on a stone of this bridge.'
A plaque on Dublin’s Broome Bridge commemorate’s Hamilton’s flash of insight. Cone83 / WikimediaCC BY-SA

He would be over the moon that vectors are so widely used today, and that they can represent digital as well as physical information. But he’d be especially pleased that in programming rotations, quaternions are still often the best choice – as NASA and computer graphics programmers know.

In recognition of Hamilton’s achievements, maths buffs retrace his famous walk every October 16 to celebrate Hamilton Day. But we all use the technological fruits of that unassuming graffiti every single day.The Conversation

Robyn Arianrhod, Affiliate, School of Mathematics, Monash University

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

New research shows most space rocks crashing into Earth come from a single source

Makarov Konstantin/Shutterstock
Trevor IrelandThe University of Queensland

The sight of a fireball streaking across the sky brings wonder and excitement to children and adults alike. It’s a reminder that Earth is part of a much larger and incredibly dynamic system.

Each year, roughly 17,000 of these fireballs not only enter Earth’s atmosphere, but survive the perilous journey to the surface. This gives scientists a valuable chance to study these rocky visitors from outer space.

Scientists know that while some of these meteorites come from the Moon and Mars, the majority come from asteroids. But two separate studies published in Nature today have gone a step further. The research was led by Miroslav Brož from Charles University in the Czech Republic, and Michaël Marsset from the European Southern Observatory in Chile.

The papers trace the origin of most meteorites to just a handful of asteroid breakup events – and possibly even individual asteroids. In turn, they build our understanding of the events that shaped the history of the Earth – and the entire solar system.

What is a meteorite?

Only when a fireball reaches Earth’s surface is it called a meteorite. They are commonly designated as three types: stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and stony-iron meteorites.

Stony meteorites come in two types.

The most common are the chondrites, which have round objects inside that appear to have formed as melt droplets. These comprise 85% of all meteorites found on Earth.

Most are known as “ordinary chondrites”. They are then divided into three broad classes – H, L and LL – based on the iron content of the meteorites and the distribution of iron and magnesium in the major minerals olivine and pyroxene. These silicate minerals are the mineral building blocks of our Solar System and are common on Earth, being present in basalt.

“Carbonaceous chondrites” are a distinct group. They contain high amounts of water in clay minerals, and organic materials such as amino acids. Chondrites have never been melted and are direct samples of the dust that originally formed the solar system.

The less common of the two types of stony meteorites are the so-called “achondrites”. These do not have the distinctive round particles of chondrites, because they experienced melting on planetary bodies.

Black rock with triangle-pattern texture.
An iron-nickel meteorite found near Fort Stockton, Texas, in 1952. JPL/Smithsonian Institution

The asteroid belt

Asteroids are the primary sources of meteorites.

Most asteroids reside in a dense belt between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid belt itself consists of millions of asteroids swept around and marshalled by the gravitational force of Jupiter.

The interactions with Jupiter can perturb asteroid orbits and cause collisions. This results in debris, which can aggregate into rubble pile asteroids. These then take on lives of their own.

It is asteroids of this type which the recent Hayabusa and Osiris-REx missions visited and returned samples from. These missions established the connection between distinct asteroid types and the meteorites that fall to Earth.

S-class asteroids (akin to stony meteorites) are found on the inner regions of the belt, while C-class carbonaceous asteroids (akin to carbonaceous chondrites) are more commonly found in the outer regions of the belt.

But, as the two Nature studies show, we can relate a specific meteorite type to its specific source asteroid in the main belt.

Orbit of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter around the sun, with a dense cluster of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.
Artist’s graphic of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA/McREL

One family of asteroids

The two new studies place the sources of ordinary chondrite types into specific asteroid families – and most likely specific asteroids. This work requires painstaking back-tracking of meteoroid trajectories, observations of individual asteroids, and detailed modelling of the orbital evolution of parent bodies.

The study led by Miroslav Brož reports that ordinary chondrites originate from collisions between asteroids larger than 30 kilometres in diameter that occurred less than 30 million years ago.

The Koronis and Massalia asteroid families provide appropriate body sizes and are in a position that leads to material falling to Earth, based on detailed computer modelling. Of these families, asteroids Koronis and Karin are likely the dominant sources of H chondrites. Massalia (L) and Flora (LL) families are by far the main sources of L- and LL-like meteorites.

The study led by Michaël Marsset further documents the origin of L chondrite meteorites from Massalia.

It compiled spectroscopic data – that is, characteristic light intensities which can be fingerprints of different molecules – of asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. This showed that the composition of L chondrite meteorites on Earth is very similar to that of the Massalia family of asteroids.

The scientists then used computer modelling to show an asteroid collision that occurred roughly 470 million years ago formed the Massalia family. Serendipitously, this collision also resulted in abundant fossil meteorites in Ordovician limestones in Sweden.

In determining the source asteroid body, these reports provide the foundations for missions to visit the asteroids responsible for the most common outerspace visitors to Earth. In understanding these source asteroids, we can view the events that shaped our planetary system.The Conversation

Trevor Ireland, Professor, School of the Environment, The University of Queensland

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

100 years of surrealism: how a French writer inspired by the avant-garde changed the world forever

Andre Breton
Alexander HowardUniversity of Sydney

A century ago, French writer André Breton published a manifesto that would go on to become one of the most influential artistic texts of the 20th century. Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism launched a movement that transformed not only visual art, but also literature, theatre and film.

Surrealism drew on developments in psychology to herald a revolutionary new way of doing, seeing and being. It is, as art critic Jonathan Jones once noted, “the only modern movement that changed the way we talk and think about life”.

Surrealism also fundamentally changed the way we make art. Its cultural impact and legacy can be felt in, to pluck three random examples, the cinematic dreamscapes of David Lynch, the lyrical cut-ups of Bob Dylan and the monumental sculptures of Louise Bourgeois.

The term itself has entered our everyday lexicon. By the same token, some question its significance and aesthetic merits. Moreover, to borrow a couple of rhetorical questions posed by Mark Polizzotti in a book marking the movement’s centenary: “Does Surrealism still matter? Has it ever mattered?”

These questions are hardly new. They’ve been around since the movement’s inception – and continue to be asked in our historical moment of catastrophe. As Polizzotti writes:

young people of the 21st century could hardly be faulted for wondering what a bunch of eccentric writers and artists showing off their dream states could have to do with such pressing concerns as social and racial injustice, a faltering job market, gross economic inequities, the decimation of our civil liberties, questions of gender identity and equality, environmental devastation, education reform, or, once again […] the spectre of world war.

The answer, Polizzotti points out, is simple: “Surrealism engaged with all of these crises.”

While Surrealism started as a literary movement, it quickly evolved into a formidable platform for critiquing dominant sociopolitical inequalities and systems of oppression.

In both word and deed, the surrealists opposed warmongering and colonial expansion. They railed against religious dogma and championed the freedom of sexual expression.

Breton perhaps put it best in 1935. “From where we stand,” he said, while tipping his hat to Karl Marx, “we maintain that the activity of interpreting the world must continue to be linked with the activity of changing the world.”

WWI and meeting Jacques Vaché

Born in Normandy in 1896, André Breton was the only child of a policeman and a seamstress.

While studying medicine, Breton developed an interest in mental illness. He also had a passion for poetry. At an early age, he started exchanging letters with the prominent avant-gardist Guillaume Apollinaire, who coined the term “surrealism” in 1917.

André Breton, a founder of the surrealist movement, died in Paris in 1966. Wikimedia

Breton’s interests were disrupted when he was conscripted into the French army in 1914. During World War I, he served as a stretcher bearer, dealing firsthand with shellshocked soldiers. He also worked as a nurse in Nantes, France, where he met a wounded Jacques Vaché.

According to art historian Susan Laxton, the dandyish Vaché was in equal measure “disdainful and deeply cynical”, seeming to live “in a perpetual state of insubordination”. His unconventional approach to life and creativity had a profound impact on Breton’s thinking about Surrealism.

Vaché had little patience for most writers and artists. He was, however, a big fan of Alfred Jarry – best known for his scandalous drama Ubu Roi (1896). Jarry is frequently cited as an influence on Dadaism, an anarchic art movement that was developed in Europe in 1915 and led by Tristan Tzara.

The Dadaists thumbed their noses at convention and embraced chaos, irrationality and spontaneity. As Tzara explained, Dadaism was vehemently opposed to “greasy objectivity, and harmony, the science that finds everything in order”.

Breton was impressed. Keen to establish his credentials as an artist, he set out to build his own avant-garde coalition.

The rise of automatism

Enlisting Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, Breton set up Littérature. Running from 1919 to 1924, this review published many key surrealist works, including excerpts of Breton and Soupault’s book The Magnetic Fields (1920).

Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the unconscious, this groundbreaking collaboration marked the first sustained use of a practice called surrealist automatism.

The Magnetic Fields was written in secret over the course of a single spring week in 1919. The guidelines Breton and Soupault established for themselves were simple. They would engage in writing sessions that could last for several hours at a time – often inducing a state of shared euphoria – without any chance for reflection or correction.

The aim was to bypass rational modes of thinking and tap directly into the imagination, thereby producing a revolutionary new kind of poetry. In the words of art historian David Hopkins, this practice “was predicated on the conviction that the speed of writing is equivalent to the speed of thought”.

Following this breakthrough, Breton and the surrealists continued to refine the technique, pushing it further into new, untrammelled realms of creative possibility. With the subsequent publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton solidified the movement’s core principles. In it, he offers a definition:

Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dreams, in the disinterested play of thought. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principle problems of life.

In other words, Surrealism was not just an artistic endeavour, but a philosophical stance that sought to radically rethink experience and existence.

One example of early surrealist filmmaking.

Elsewhere in the manifesto, Breton introduces the key surrealist concept of “the marvellous”. For the surrealists, the marvellous could be found in poems, paintings, photographs and everyday objects. It was experienced as a shock or jolt, a moment of recognition that allowed one to transcend the ordinary and glimpse the sublime hidden within the apparently mundane.

By rejecting traditional modes of understanding and embracing the unconscious, the surrealists attempted to upend the established order of things. They viewed automatism and the marvellous as ways to access deeper truths, free from the constraints of rationality which they believed had long dominated Western thought.

A movement transcending borders

The events that followed the publication of Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism supported his claim, made during a 1934 lecture, that the movement had “spread like wildfire, on pursuing its course, not only in art but in life”.

Surrealism’s public profile expanded internationally, along with its adherents. Luis Buñuel, Frida Kahlo, Aimé Césaire, Lee MillerSalvador Dalí and Leonor Fini are just some of the important figures who embraced the movement.

Salvador Dalí’s 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory is one of the most famous surrealist artworks. Salvador Dali

And as the raft of high-profile exhibitions currently taking place confirms, the surrealist spirit lives on, decades after the movement wound down. Unabated, the search for the marvellous continues.The Conversation

Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney

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

Speakers, vacuums, doorbells and fridges – the government plans to make your ‘smart things’ more secure

gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
Abu Barkat ullahUniversity of Canberra

The Australian government has introduced its first-ever standalone cyber security act. Along with two other cyber security bills, it’s currently being reviewed by a parliamentary committee.

Among the act’s many provisions are mandatory “minimum cyber security standards for smart devices”.

This marks a crucial step in defending the digital lives of Australians. So what devices would it apply to? And what can you do right now to protect your smart devices from cyber criminals?

Smart devices are everywhere

The new legislation aims to cover a wide range of smart devices – products that can connect to the internet in some way.

This includes “internet-connectable” products – think smartphones, laptops, tablets, smart TVs and gaming consoles. It also includes indirect “network-connectable” products, which can send and receive data. This means things like smart home devices and appliances, wearables (smart watches, fitness trackers), smart vacuums and many more.

Simple electronic devices that don’t connect to the internet or can’t store or process sensitive data are not included.

According to one study, 7.6 million Australian households – more than 70% – had at least one smart home device by the end of 2023, and 3 million of those households had more than five.

To work as well as they do, smart devices typically collect, store and share data. This can include sensitive personal information, health data and geo-location data, making them attractive targets for cyber criminals.

A notorious example is the Mirai botnet in 2016, when cyber criminals infected more than 600,000 devices such as cameras, home routers, and video players globally to use them in massively disruptive network attacks, known as a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS).

Even implantable medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, can have security flaws that could be exploited.

Just last week, the ABC reported that one of the world’s largest home robotics companies has failed to address security issues in its robot vacuums despite warnings from the previous year.

The consequences of such vulnerabilities can be even more dangerous when smart devices are part of critical infrastructure. As these devices become more interconnected, a breach in one can compromise entire networks, amplifying the security risks.

What will be the ‘minimum’ security standards?

The new cyber security act provides for “mandatory security standards” for smart devices. It establishes the legal framework for enforcing these standards, but doesn’t explicitly outline the technical details smart devices must meet. In the past the Department of Home Affairs has suggested that Australia consider adopting an international security standard, such as ETSI EN 303 645.

The bill’s focus is on securing connected devices to protect users from internet-based threats, vulnerabilities and risks.

In practice, this means manufacturers will have to ensure their products meet these minimum security standards and provide a statement of compliance. And suppliers will have to include statements of compliance with the product, and will be forbidden from selling non-compliant products.

All this will be enforced through the Secretary of Home Affairs, who can issue compliance, stop, or recall notices for violations of these rules.

You can do your bit to stay safe

The proposed cyber security act is a significant step forward in protecting Australians from the growing threat of cyber attacks on smart devices.

But this may only apply to new devices or ones still receiving updates from manufacturers. Exact details on how the legislation will apply to existing devices will be determined by the government agency responsible for its implementation.

“Legacy” devices with outdated software – older products that are no longer supported and don’t receive the latest security patches – are particularly vulnerable to cyber attacks.

While the government works on introducing the new cyber security laws, there are several things you can do to protect your smart devices:

  • set up a strong wifi password to prevent unauthorised access to your home network
  • create a dedicated, more secure wifi network for smart home devices
  • always install security patches and updates promptly
  • create unique and complex passwords for each account
  • where possible, use two-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security
  • disable unnecessary features or permissions, and be mindful of the information you share with apps and devices
  • make sure you understand how your data is collected and used by apps and devices.

By mandating minimum cyber security standards and providing for effective enforcement mechanisms, Australia’s new cyber security act will help keep consumer devices safer.

However, it’s important to note that as technology continues to evolve rapidly, the cyber crime ecosystem is also expanding. The global cost of cyber crime is projected to reach US$9.5 trillion in 2024.

Given the dynamic nature of cyber threats, relying solely on standards may not be sufficient to address all potential risks. New vulnerabilities are discovered regularly, and it’s essential for every one of us to remain vigilant and practice good cyber hygiene by following the tips above.The Conversation

Abu Barkat ullah, Associate Professor of Cyber Security, University of Canberra

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

How did public service leaders talk to staff about Robodebt? What they said – or didn’t – is revealing

Daniel CaseyAustralian National University and Maria MaleyAustralian National University

In July 2023, after the release of the damning Robodebt Royal Commission report, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared:

it was wrong, it was illegal, it should never have happened and it should never happen again.

A major finding was some senior public servants were overly responsive to the wishes of ministers, to the detriment of the general public. The report describes an environment that was:

fraught […] characterised by a powerful drive for savings, strongly expressed ministerial policy positions […] and intense pressure experienced by public servants.

Investigating the scheme, which ran under the Morrison government, Commissioner Catherine Holmes was disturbed by “the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers”, undermining the concept of impartiality and frank and fearless advice.

The release of Rick Morton’s new book Mean Streak brings a renewed focus on the lessons from Robodebt. To learn from such a serious crisis, organisations need to openly confront what happened, discuss and understand what the failure means. What were the systemic causes? What cultural failings did it expose? How can we ensure a similar disaster does not happen again?

Our research found little evidence these questions were being asked by many public service leaders immediately after the royal commission.

In the six months after the royal commission report’s release, almost half of the heads of Australian Public Service (APS) agencies apparently decided they didn’t need to communicate with their staff about Robodebt and explain what it meant for them.

What did department leaders do?

Learning from the failure of Robodebt will take time. In 2024, the public service is investigating and punishing some of those involved and implementing a new integrity plan.

Our research focuses on the six months after the release of the royal commission report: July to December 2023. Research shows the immediate post-crisis period is crucial to effective learning.

But before organisations can respond, they have to interpret and understand the meaning of the failure.

Just as the public turns to political leaders in a crisis, employees look to management. Leaders’ communication, whether by email, an all staff video, or a town hall meeting, is crucial.

These messages set the organisational narrative that explains what happened and why, what the repercussions are, how it can be resolved, and what lessons (if any) should be drawn from the crisis.

Three days after the royal commission report was released, the secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Glyn Davis, and Australian Public Service Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, emailed all public service employees saying:

we are committed to working through the findings in an open and constructive way with you — the APS — and with the Australian public.

Our focus, however, is on how leaders of individual departments and agencies responded. Using Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, we asked how leaders communicated with staff in the crucial period straight after the commission reported.

Departments are where policy development occurs and they often work closely with ministers.

But only half of all public servants work for departments. The rest work across the 100 or so agencies.

While most department heads communicated with their staff about Robodebt, only 54% of agencies’ leaders did.

The 50 agencies that did not communicate with their staff about the meaning of Robodebt in the months following the report employ more than 45,000 people, more than 25% of the public service.

Not my problem mentality

Three large departments told us that “no documents were identified” or “the Department does not hold documents […] that meet the terms of the request”. This indicates they did not communicate with staff in the first six months after the Robodebt report was handed down. The departments were:

It is not clear why those secretaries decided not to write to their staff directly about Robodebt, but the absence of communication sends a message.

This was explicit in some responses. For example, in declining our request, we were told that the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority:

[…] is not an outwardly facing organisation and as such does not provide payments to individual recipients. Consequently, it is not required to respond to the Royal Commission and there are no documents that are relevant to your request.

Even when there was some communication, agencies were not necessarily addressing the cultural issues. For example, the Clean Energy Regulator was focused on public perception:

there is a heightened sense of scrutiny on regulators […] please be vigilant if you are approached by anybody working for a media outlet.

In such circumstances, it is unlikely cultural change will occur.

Some positive signs

On the positive side, there were examples of agencies that addressed the serious implications of Robodebt for their work, which is likely to improve their organisational culture.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) identified a number of recommendations “albeit directed at other agencies […] that ASIC should act on”. They noted that “given most of our people come from the private sector”, there was a need to improve training on “our obligations as public servants”.

Similarly, Australian statistician David Gruen emphasised creating a culture where “people feel supported if and when they seek to raise difficult issues with their colleagues or superiors”. Similar discussions were had at AUSTRAC.

Departments are closest to ministers, so we hoped their communications would address problems in the relationships between senior public servants and ministers, a key issue exposed in the Robodebt case.

Unfortunately, only four departments discussed over-responsiveness with their staff or in executive meetings, in the period studied.

The department of industry and science was the most comprehensive. Secretary Meghan Quinn wrote to staff several times, reflecting that the “findings go to the heart of leadership and culture and this should be our focus going forward”. The department’s integrity branch wrote to staff:

public servants [must] […] provide the government with advice that is frank and honest. If you ever feel pressured to do or sign something you are not comfortable with, it’s important you speak with your supervisors […] you have the Executive’s backing not to put your name to anything that is not true or not in the public interest.

However, this was one of the few departments where senior staff confronted these core issues directly in the early months after the royal commission reported. Most departments did not name or discuss the underlying cause of the failures: over-responsiveness to ministers at the expense of protecting the public.

While many of the errors of Robodebt can be solved through new procedures and rules, changing public service culture is a bigger learning project.

It requires a shift in norms and reweighting the competing duties of public servants. They must serve elected ministers, but equally, they must serve the public by ensuring probity, fairness and legality.

Robodebt illustrated the harm that occurs when the balance tips too far towards ministers and away from the public interest.

That this was rarely part of the communication from public service leaders to their staff in the immediate aftermath of the royal commission does not bode well for lessons being learnt from the crisis.The Conversation

Daniel Casey, Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University and Maria Maley, Senior Lecturer in Politics, School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University

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

Hemingway, after the hurricane

Rescue workers search debris for victims of the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, a Category 5 storm that devastated parts of the Florida Keys. Bettman/Getty Images
Verna KalePenn State

The 2024 hurricane season has been especially disastrous, and the casualties and widespread damage from flooding and high winds in towns like Cedar Key, Florida, call to mind another historic hurricane, the Labor Day hurricane of 1935.

As one of the editors of “The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 6 (1934-1936),” with Sandra Spanier and Miriam B. Mandel, I am reminded of the eyewitness account that the writer, then a resident of Key West, Florida, gave of the catastrophic storm that leveled Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key and took the lives of more than 400 people, many of them World War I veterans.

Then, as now, the aftermath of a natural disaster included political finger-pointing.

Today the debates center around how resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency are allocated or how climate change contributes to the intensity of the storms.

Back then, Hemingway had a different beef with the government, blaming the deaths of hundreds of World War I veterans on the failure to evacuate Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key ahead of the storm.

The calm before the storm

Hemingway was no stranger to hurricanes.

A serious deep-sea angler who fished the waters off Florida, he kept an eye on weather patterns. Hurricane season was an anticipated, if dreaded, annual event.

“Now the lousy hurricanes are starting,” he wrote his friends Jane and Grant Mason in June 1934. “Wish we would get lots of east wind and current … and then have a fine july and august without hurricanes.” Knowing that these conditions were unlikely, he jokingly asked the Masons “and what do you want for xmas Mr. and Mrs. Mason yourselves?”

Mustached man holding fishing rod standing next to large fish.
Ernest Hemingway was an avid fisherman. Here he poses with a marlin in Havana Harbor, Cuba. Ernest Hemingway Collection. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

In a Sept. 30, 1934, letter, he wrote friends Gerald and Sara Murphy with hopes that he would get through the rest of hurricane season without incident: “no hurricanes yet […] if we get through the next 20 [days] are all right,” and he was glad that he “can fish without having to tie [the boat] up somewhere up some creek.”

The next day, he wrote to fellow novelist John Dos Passos, “Hurricane months if you dont get a hurricane are fine.”

‘Not a building of any sort standing’

But the following year, when the hurricanes did come, it was not fine.

Over Sept. 2-3, 1935, a hurricane made landfall in the Florida Keys. Occurring in the days before storms were given names, the Labor Day hurricane, as it is commonly known, was the first recorded Category 5 hurricane in the U.S.

It remains the third-most intense storm on record in the Atlantic basin, with a barometric pressure drop to 892 millibars and wind gusts exceeding 200 mph. Much of its damage was caused by the storm surge, and the Overseas Railroad, which had been completed in 1912 and connected the Florida Keys to the mainland, was destroyed and would not be rebuilt.

After the storm, Hemingway wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, describing its aftermath.

Though communications were down and the island was cut off from the mainland, Key West had sustained relatively little damage.

Upper Matecumbe Key and Lower Matecumbe Key, however, were a different story.

“Imagine you have read about it in the papers but nothing could give an idea of the destruction,” Hemingway writes. “The foliage absolutely stripped as though by fire for forty miles and the land looking like the abandoned bed of a river. Not a building of any sort standing. Over thirty miles of railway washed and blown away.”

Worse yet were the human casualties: He notes that the last time he witnessed so many dead in one place was in Europe during World War I as a Red Cross ambulance driver, adding, “We made five trips with provisions for survivors to different places and nothing but dead men to eat the grub.”

Many of the victims were veterans, employed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to work on the Overseas Highway construction project. Outraged by the federal government’s failure to send a train to evacuate the workers in time, Hemingway tells Perkins that the veterans “were practically murdered.”

Federal administrators, he adds, “had all day Sunday and all day monday to get those vets out and never did it. If they had taken half the precautions with them that we took with our boat not a one would have been lost.”

The letter contains graphic descriptions of the hundreds of dead bodies, rapidly decomposing in the Florida sun as they awaited transport to Arlington, Virginia, to be buried.

‘That smell you thought you’d never smell again’

Hemingway would repeat many of these same details in an article published in the Sept. 17, 1935, issue of the leftist magazine The New Masses.

The article, which Hemingway titled “Who Killed These Men?,” and which was re-titled by the editors as “Who Murdered the Vets?,” criticized the federal government for not evacuating the workers.

“Who sent nearly a thousand war veterans … to live in frame shacks on the Florida Keys in hurricane months?” Hemingway asks.

Hemingway, no stranger to the sight and smell of the dead from his experiences during World War I, was disgusted not merely by the bodies “swollen and stinking” but by what brought the veterans to the work camps to begin with.

Skeptical of the various government programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hemingway saw the Federal Emergency Relief Administration work camps as a way for Washington to conveniently rid itself of hundreds of down-on-their-luck veterans, many of whom were experiencing what we would now call post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I would like to make whoever sent them there carry just one out through the mangroves, or turn one over that lay in the sun along the fill, or tie five together so they won’t float out, or smell that smell you thought you’d never smell again, with luck,” Hemingway writes.

This impassioned response to the disaster in 1935 still resonates. Hemingway recognized that while storms are inevitable, mass casualties do not have to be. The government can’t control the weather, but it can fulfill an obligation to protect the most vulnerable in the path of the storm.The Conversation

Verna Kale, Associate Editor, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and Associate Research Professor of English, Penn State

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

Dietary restriction or good genes: new study tries to unpick which has a greater impact on lifespan

Bradley ElliottUniversity of Westminster

As people who research ageing like to quip: the best thing you can do to increase how long you live is to pick good parents. After all, it has long been recognised that longer-lived people tend to have longer-lived parents and grandparents, suggesting that genetics influence longevity.

Complicating the picture, however, is that we know that the sum of your lifestyle, specifically diet and exercise, also significantly influences your health into older age and how long you live. What contribution lifestyle versus genetics makes is an open question that a recent study in Nature has shed new light on.

Scientists have long known that reducing calorie intake can make animals live longer. In the 1930s, it was noted that rats fed reduced calories lived longer than rats who could eat as much as they wanted. Similarly, people who are more physically active tend to live longer. But specifically linking single genes to longevity was until recently a controversial one.

While studying the lifespan of the tiny worm C elegans at the University of California, San Francisco, Cynthia Kenyon found that small changes to the gene that controls the way that cells detect and respond to nutrients around them led to the worms doubling their lifespan. This raises new questions: if we know that genetics and lifestyle affect how long you live, which one is more important? And how do they interact?

To try to tease out the effects of genetics versus lifestyle, the new study in Nature examined different models of caloric restriction in 960 mice. The researchers specifically looked at classical experimental models of caloric restriction (either 20% or 40% fewer calories than control mice), or intermittent fasting of one or two days without food (as intermittent fasting is popular in people looking to see the positive benefits of caloric restriction).

Because we now know that small genetic variations affect ageing, the researchers specifically used genetically diverse mice. This is important for two reasons. First, as laboratory studies on mice are normally performed on genetically very (very!) similar mice, this allowed the researchers to tease out the effects of both diet and genetic variables would have on longevity.

Second, humans are highly diverse, meaning that studies on genetically near-identical mice don’t often translate into humanity’s high genetic diversity.

The headline finding was that genetics appeared to play a larger role in lifespan than any of the dietary restriction interventions. Long-lived types of mice were still longer lived despite dietary changes.

Diet counts, but genes count more

And while shorter-lived mice did show improvements as a result of dietary restrictions, they didn’t catch up to their longer-lived peers. This suggests that there’s truth to the “pick good parents” joke.

Caloric restriction models still increased lifespans across all the types of mice, with the 40% restriction group having improved average and maximum lifespans compared with the 20% group.

And the 20% group showed improvements in both group average and maximum length of lives compared with the control group. It’s just the effects of genetics were larger than the effect of the dietary interventions.

While all the caloric restriction models resulted in increased lifespan in the mice on average, in the most extreme caloric restriction model tested (40% less group) changes that could be seen as physical harms were observed. These included reduced immune function and losses in muscle mass, which outside of a predator- and germ-free laboratory environment could affect health and longevity.

There are some important caveats in studies like this. First, it’s not known if these results apply to humans.

As with most caloric restriction research in mice, the restricted feeding groups were fed 20% or 40% less than a control group who ate as much as they wanted. In humans, that’d be like assuming people eating every meal every day at a bottomless buffet is “normal”. And people who do not eat from limitless trays of food are “restricted feeding”. That’s not an exact parallel to how humans live and eat.

Second, although exercise wasn’t controlled in any way in this study, most groups did similar amounts of running in their in-cage running wheels except the 40% caloric restriction group who ran significantly more.

The researchers suggested that this extra exercise in the 40% group was the mice constantly hunting for more food. But as this group did so much more exercise than the others, it could also mean that positive effects of increased exercise were also seen in this group alongside their caloric restriction.

So, while we can’t pick our parents or change the genes we inherit from them, it is interesting to know that specific genetic variations play a significant role in the maximum age we can aspire to.

The genetic cards we’re dealt dictate how long we can expect to live. Just as important in this study, however, lifestyle interventions such as diet and exercise that aim to improve lifespan should be effective regardless of the genes we have.The Conversation

Bradley Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Physiology, University of Westminster

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

Natalie Siegel-Brown appointed as statutory inspector-general of aged care

October 16, 2024
The Australian Government will soon welcome Natalie Siegel-Brown to the Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care.

The Office of the Inspector-General of Aged Care provides independent and impartial oversight of the Government’s administration, governance and regulation of aged care. 

Their work includes ongoing monitoring and intelligence-gathering activities to address systemic issues and make recommendations for change. 

The Office also has oversight of how complaints are managed by government agencies, approved providers and other aged care bodies. 

Ms Siegel-Brown brings a wealth of experience to the role at a critical time for the aged care system, with the new Aged Care Act set to commence from 1 July 2025, pending parliamentary passage. 

She has most recently served as a Commissioner with the Productivity Commission and a Board Director at Aged and Disability Advocacy Australia (ADA Australia). 

Ms Siegel-Brown has previously held roles across the Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australian and Victorian Governments leading public policy and service delivery in domestic and family violence, statutory child protection, ageing and disability.

She also holds a Master of Politics and Public Management, Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Arts and an Executive Leadership Certificate from Harvard Business School.

Ms Siegel-Brown will commence in the role of Inspector-General in January 2025. Her appointment is for a duration of four years and nine months and will conclude in October 2029.

In the interim, the Minister has appointed Mr Ian Yates AM as Acting Inspector-General until Ms Siegel-Brown commences in her role. 

We thank Mr Yates for his service in the role since its inception in October 2023, and for his willingness to step in and provide leadership and continuity for this important office over the next few months. 

Minister for Aged Care, Anika Wells stated:

“We’re making some big changes to aged care in Australia, and the role of Inspector-General of Aged Care has never been more important as we deliver this once-in-a-generation reform.”

“The Inspector-General of Aged Care plays a critical role in ensuring there is appropriate oversight to systemic issues across the sector – be it around funding, regulation, administration or delivery of care to older people.” 

“Ms Siegel-Brown’s cross-sector experience across a range of social policy areas will bring a fresh perspective to aged care and puts her in good stead to make a real impact to the aged care system in this role.”

Smoky Dawson's heritage listed gates at Ingleside: Fundraiser

My name is John Illingsworth. Smoky's gates are deteriorating and the land they stand on is weed infested, yet they are Pittwater Heritage Listed. I have opened this Gofundme account in my name specifically and only for the following:

I am supporting Phillip Walker who has already tended the gates once before - years ago, and also Kylie Adams-Collier who has written the music and lyrics for "On a Sandstone Ridge" with a view to SAVE THE GATES. We also intend to address the weed problem. No wages, salaries, gratuities or other monies will be paid to any of these people including me - we just want to fix the gates and secure their future.

Fundraiser page: 

"On a Sandstone Ridge" celebrates Smoky Dawson's heritage listed gates at Ingleside. 

We need some some financial assistance to save them .
Music and lyrics by Kylie Adams-Collier.

A Call to Volunteer Trainers and Students

Come and share your knowledge or learn more about your device! 
Computer Pals for Seniors Northern Beaches would love to hear from you. We are a not-for-profit organisation helping seniors navigate the wonderful world of technology.

We teach in term times Monday to Friday in a relaxed fun environment.

Common topics requested by Students are: Sending and receiving emails, discovering useful apps, safe banking online, learning how to take and store photos, avoiding Scams, and basically being able to operate their device with confidence.

We teach Android/Apple tablets and phones, and Apple/Microsoft/ Chromebook laptops.

We are based at the Tramshed Arts & Community Centre, 1395a Pittwater Road, Narrabeen, near the B-Line bus stop.

Why not give us a call on 0478 920 651



Registration for Walking Netball Open

Starting Wednesday, October 16th, join us for 7 fun-filled weeks. Sign up for just one week or all seven!

📅 Dates: Wednesday 16th October 7pm
🕒 4 x 10-minute quarters

Walking Netball is a great way for senior women and men to stay active and enjoy the social benefits of netball at a comfortable walking pace. Don't miss out on this opportunity to stay fit and make new friends!

Manly Warringah Netball Association MWNA


Hearing Services Program provider notice – Amendment to the Voucher Instrument

October 18, 2024
Notification of changes made by the Hearing Services Program (Voucher) Amendment (Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Matters) Instrument 2024.

On 14 October 2024, the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), established by the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 (ART Act), replaced the former Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

The Hearing Services Program (Voucher) Instrument 2019 (Voucher Instrument) has been updated to reflect this change (subsections 13(1), 13(5), 19(1), 43(2)).

Other minor amendments made through the Hearing Services Program (Voucher) Amendment (Administrative Review Tribunal and Other Matters) Instrument 2024, registered on the Federal Register of Legislation include:
  • Replacing ‘Dependents’ with ‘Spouses or de facto partners’ to clarify the meaning of eligible dependents. (section 7)
  • Removing reference to the Disability Services Act 1993 (WA), which no longer has any operational effect. (Section 8)
  • Updating terminology to reflect the changed names of the Veteran Gold Card and Veteran White Card. (subsections 9(a) and 9(b))
  • Removing reference to the Disability Services Act 1986, which is no longer in force. The associated impacts to program eligibility were accommodated by an earlier amendment to the Hearing Services Administration Act 1997. (section 10)
  • Clarifying provider obligations to give the same information to potential voucher‑holders, whether a person enquires about services or devices in person or online. This is consistent with the Schedule of Service Items and Fees 2024-25. (subsection 25(1))
  • Updating website locations of program materials available online. (section 28, subsection 50(1)(note))
Providers are requested to note the above amendments and update any published or printed materials to reflect the recently renamed Veteran Gold Card and Veteran White Card as applicable.

New aged care staffing quality indicators to improve health and wellbeing

October 14, 2024
The Australian Government is introducing 3 new staffing quality indicators to the National Aged Care Mandatory Quality Indicator Program in residential aged care, focused on enrolled nursing, allied health and lifestyle assistants. 

Quality indicators measure critical areas of care that can affect the health and wellbeing of aged care residents. 

This helps the government and residential aged care providers to monitor and improve the quality of services for older people.

The new staffing indicators recognise the crucial role of staff in providing high-quality care. 

Providers will start collecting data for these new indicators from 1 April 2025 and report the data by 21 July 2025. Residential aged care providers must report on quality indicators for each resident every 3 months. 

Their introduction will expand the number of indicators for residential aged care from 11 to 14. This approach ensures the right mix of transparency, accountability and practicality to ensure the continual improvement of residential aged care services. 

Minister for Aged Care, Anika Wells said:

“The Albanese Government’s reforms are continuing to lift the standard of aged care. These new quality indicators recognise the value nurses, allied health and lifestyle officers bring to aged care residents.”

“While it’s great to see improvements across the sector, our work continues to lift the quality of residential aged care in Australia. The new staffing quality indicators put the focus on key roles that support health and wellbeing.”

“We are determined to ensure older people have high-quality care that safeguards their health and wellbeing as they age. Quality indicators are one important way we achieve this.”

My Fair Lady turns 60: a linguist on how the film has held up

Amanda ColeUniversity of Essex

On October 21 1964, the iconic and much-celebrated film My Fair Lady premiered in Hollywood. Sixty years later, the film remains an enjoyable rollick full of catchy songs, but is not a wholly accurate depiction of what linguists do – certainly not nowadays at least.

Linguists are far from the academics who are most frequently depicted in films. It’s normally the white-coat, work-in-a-lab, scientist-of-some-nondescript-sort professors who get to give stark warnings or unsettling research insights to the maverick protagonist. But My Fair Lady is a film all about linguistics (and also class, love and terrible Cockney accents – more on that later).

In the film, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), takes under his wing a Cockney flower seller called Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn). He wagers with his friend and fellow haughty linguist, Colonel Pickering, that he can teach her to speak “properly”.

It seems at first there is no hope but – hoorah! – Eliza finally grasps it, suddenly blurting out “the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain” in a perfect imitation of Queen’s English.

Doolittle then dazzles at an embassy ball, the perfect replica of an upstanding posh woman – or, as the film’s title suggests, a “lady” (itself a problematic word which encodes sexist tropes about what should be aspirational and respectable for women).

She even fools a man who has made a name for himself by identifying imposters based on their accent. Though, you may also wonder if she evades detection by barely speaking at the ball, converted into a demure and unforthcoming shadow of her previously forthright, unapologetic and garrulous self.

Professor Higgins: not your typical linguist

My Fair Lady avoids the common pitfall of assuming that the primary endeavour of the linguist is to learn as many different languages as they can, collecting them like stamps (the film Arrival can take note). But it still doesn’t get our job quite right.

I, for one, have never groomed a young, destitute woman to speak “correctly” while moulding her into a “respectable”, posh woman (if only modern academia granted the breathing space for such folly).

Linguists love, celebrate and are constantly itching to understand, study and explore the diverse tapestry of accents, dialects and languages that exist in the UK and around the world. We have no interest in reinforcing any societal ideal for a supposedly “correct” accent, or throwing a grammar rule book at unwitting members of the public.

By contrast, Higgins is repulsed by any accent that is not Queen’s English (which, by a wonderful turn of luck, is also his accent). In the opening number, he has a pop at the dialects of Yorkshire, Cornwall, America, Scotland and Ireland.

But he is particularly dismayed and repulsed that Doolittle, despite being from London, has a strong London accent (or she is meant to at least – I can only imagine Hepburn was instructed to open her mouth as wide as possible for all vowels and caw like a crow if all else fails).

Higgins makes various proclamations which will have you shouting at the telly, “Steady on, Professor!”. In his words:

Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter / Condemned by every syllable she ever utters / By right, she should be taken out and hung for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

Best not tell him “hanged” is the past tense of “hang” when referring to capital punishment, else he walk himself straight to the gallows.

With a little bit of accent prejudice

The real beast in disguise at the embassy ball is not young, Cockney, Eliza Doolittle. It is misogyny and contempt for the working class that hides behind a mask of maintaining good standards and protecting the English language.

It is no coincidence that women and working-class people (and Cockneys who are often seen as emblematic of the working class) often bear the brunt of accent prejudice.

Accent prejudice is a smokescreen for broader societal prejudice. My Fair Lady seems antiquated and quaint in many ways – like Higgins using a gramophone to play back recordings of Doolittle – but accent prejudice is alive and well.

Women in the UK such as Alex ScottAngela Rayner and Priti Patel still routinely face criticism, commentary and contempt for their regional accents.

You might think that the film’s lesson is for Doolittle to take on the world with her freshly mastered “standard” accent. After all, she consented to being ridiculed and paraded around like a show dog as she felt her accent prevented her from getting a job in a flower shop. Now, nothing stands in her way.

But people should not have to change their accent to get along – and it is not always possible or even a guaranteed ticket out of discrimination. If we take the accent out of accent prejudice, we are still left with the prejudice – let’s remove the prejudice and be left with the accent.

We need more unapologetically working-class women with regional accents at the embassy ball, but also in politics, academia, in the media and in all walks of life.

In the film, Doolittle ultimately feels she has been used and disrespected, leading her to sour on Higgins. After she leaves, he grows to miss her and wistfully plays back recordings of her voice.

And this is the real lesson for viewers today. Higgins has gotten to know Doolittle as a person and now sees beyond her accent and his own prejudice. The more we hear people with regional accents, the more normal and uneventful it becomes, and the more we will focus on what they say and not how they say it.The Conversation

Amanda Cole, Lecturer in Department of Language and Linguistics, University of Essex

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

How can Australia make housing affordable for essential workers? Here are 4 key lessons from overseas

GettyImages
Nicky MorrisonWestern Sydney University

Essential workers such as teachers, health workers and community safety staff play a vital role in ensuring our society works well. Yet soaring housing costs in cities like Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are squeezing essential workers out of the communities they serve.

The issue is reaching crisis point across Australia. Anglicare Australia yesterday released a special edition of its Rental Affordability Snapshot focused on essential workers in full-time work. Housing costs under 30% of household income are considered affordable. In a survey of 45,115 rental listings, it found:

  • 3.7% were affordable for a teacher
  • 2.2% were affordable for an ambulance worker
  • 1.5% were affordable for an aged care worker
  • 1.4% were affordable for a nurse
  • 0.9% were affordable for an early childhood educator
  • 0.8% were affordable for a hospitality worker.

This trend is creating unsustainable patterns of urban sprawl and long commutes. It erodes workers’ quality of life. It also undermines public service delivery by making it harder to recruit and retain these workers in high-cost areas.

International experience, particularly in the UK where I have advised on similar policies, shows there are solutions to this crisis. These global lessons fall into four categories.

A medical worker closes the car door as he prepares to commute to work
Essential workers face long commutes from home when they can’t afford to live in the communities they serve. Halfpoint/Shutterstock

1. Define essential worker housing

Essential worker housing typically targets front-line public sector workers on low to middle incomes. Yet eligibility should extend to support roles, such as ambulance drivers, porters and medical receptionists, who play a vital part in enabling front-line services. They too struggle to find affordable housing near their workplaces.

Conditions of eligibility should also include a cap on household earnings.

The UK experience highlights the importance of providing both rental and ownership options. To keep key worker housing affordable and accessible over time, both types need to be priced appropriately.

Australian cities could adopt similar approaches, by requiring housing developers and community housing providers to allocate affordable housing for essential workers. Prices would be below market rates for both rentals and home ownership for the long term, and not revert to market rates. This ensures stability for public service workers.

2. Financial innovations focused on long-term affordability

Innovative financial models, such as shared equity schemes, have succeeded in the UK. These allow workers to gradually buy into their homes, creating long-term stability.

Shared equity involves the government or another investor covering some of the cost of buying the home in exchange for an equivalent share in the property. Australia could explore similar schemes to provide immediate relief while ensuring sustained affordability for future essential workers.

This approach could build on the Commonwealth’s proposed Help to Buy scheme, currently before the Senate, and existing state and territory shared equity programs. These may need refinement to better serve essential workers by, for example, adjusting income thresholds and eligibility criteria to ensure they qualify. These schemes also need to expand to cover all urban areas where housing affordability is most strained.

3. Leverage planning systems

Countries like the UK have leveraged their planning systems to deliver affordable housing for key workers. In England, planning authorities use mechanisms such as Section 106 agreements to ensure a portion of new developments is reserved for key worker housing as a condition of planning approval.

Australian states could adapt this model, setting targets within existing planning frameworks. For example, they could use Voluntary Planning Agreements to prioritise essential worker housing.

Yet essential worker housing should not displace housing for other people in urgent need. They include people who are homeless, low-income families, people with disabilities, the elderly, those at risk of domestic violence, veterans and youth leaving foster care.

4. Use public land for housing development

The use of surplus public land for essential worker housing has proven successful in several cities, including LondonAmsterdam and San Francisco.

Earmarking land owned by the public sector, such as hospital or education sites, is a strategic way to deliver affordable housing near key public sector employers. It also allows staff to travel to work nearby using sustainable transport instead of cars.

Affordable housing has profound benefits

Without action, essential workers are likely to be forced into lower-quality, high-cost housing, shared accommodation, or long commutes from more affordable areas. Over time, these patterns of job-housing imbalances and urban sprawl are unsustainable. These issues are the focus of my current research, particularly in Western Sydney.

The New South Wales government has set up a parliamentary select committee to inquire into options for essential worker housing. It’s bringing much-needed attention to the housing crisis affecting key public sector roles.

Tackling these issues through targeted housing solutions has many benefits. It can help create more sustainable communities, reduce recruitment and retention difficulties for employers and ease the strain on infrastructure and services.

The key takeaway from the UK and other countries is the importance of long-term, sustainable solutions that do not shift the focus away from those most in need of housing. Australia has the opportunity to strike this balance. We need to ensure essential workers can afford to live near their workplaces while not sidelining everyone else in need of affordable housing.The Conversation

Nicky Morrison, Professor of Planning and Director of Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University

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

NSW Government supports amended Equality Bill

Announced: October 16, 2024
The NSW Government is today announcing the government’s support of the proposed amended Equality Bill to offer protections for members of the LGBTIQA+ community.

First introduced to NSW Parliament in August 2023 by the Independent Member for Sydney Alex Greenwich, this Bill has been subject to extensive consultation, including a Parliamentary inquiry.

The NSW Government has worked with the Member of Sydney on a number of proposed amendments.

The amended Equality Legislation Amendment (LGBTIQA+) Bill 2023 proposes various legislative changes, including:
  • Allowing people to change their registered sex through an administrative process, without requiring surgery.
  • Making hatred for or prejudice against transgender, gender diverse or intersex people an aggravating factor in sentencing.
  • Updating terminology in laws to replace terms such as “HIV infection” and “suffering with AIDS” to “living with HIV/AIDS”.
  • Clarifying in the Mental Health Act 2007 that expressing, or refusing to express, a particular gender identity does not that someone has a mental illness.
  • Enabling a parentage order to be made for a child born through international commercial surrogacy, if it is in the best interests of the child and other criteria and important safeguards are met.
The government stated; ''changes to allow people to register a change of sex without surgery are simple changes that will bring NSW in line with all other jurisdictions across the country.

This follows ongoing work by the NSW Government to progress reforms that ensure all members of our community feel valued, respected and equal.

The Minns Labor Government has already fulfilled our election commitment to ban 'LGBTQ+ conversion practices' through the Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024, which passed the NSW Parliament in March.''

The Premier also issued a formal apology in June to people convicted under discriminatory laws that criminalised homosexual acts, and passed legislation this year that meant more of these offences were able to be extinguished.

In September, the NSW Government supported all 19 recommendations delivered by the Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes, which examined the unsolved deaths of LGBTIQ people and found shortfalls in historical responses by the NSW Government.

The Government has also announced that it is establishing the LGBTIQ+ Advisory Council, which will provide a mechanism for ongoing community consultation.

Penny Sharpe, Leader of the Government in the Legislative Council said:

“The changes proposed by the Equality Bill will make NSW a safer and more inclusive place – and they’ve been a long time coming.

“People in every other state of Australia are already able to change their sex without requiring surgery, and this legislation will bring us in line with the rest of the country.

“As a government, we’ve been committed to equality for a long time. Supporting this bill is our latest step to ensure every citizen in NSW is valued.”

Michael Daley, Attorney General of New South Wales said:

“The Equality Bill seeks to change multiple pieces of legislation to make NSW a more inclusive place.

“As legislators, it is our job to reflect the views of the community, and in this instance, it is clearly time for these pieces of legislation to be updated.”

Forestry firefighters brief Minister on bushfire preparations

Announced: October 17, 2024
Minister for Agriculture and Minister for Regional New South Wales Tara Moriarty has met with Forestry Corporation fire specialists to discuss bushfire preparations on the Mid North Coast.

Minister Moriarty attended Forestry Corporation’s Wauchope depot to speak with fire crews, who are geared up and ready to put their training into action protecting forests and communities during the NSW bushfire season.

Forestry Corporation is one of the state’s four fire authorities joining the NSW Rural Fire Service, Fire and Rescue NSW and National Parks and Wildlife.

The organisation oversees land management, bushfire preparation and response across more than 2-million hectares of state forests.

Forestry Corporation has more than 500 trained firefighters rostered on to respond to state forest fires across NSW.

Firefighters are trained in national firefighting competencies and its highly experienced managers undertake Incident Management Team roles on major firegrounds.

Forestry Corporation has a statewide fleet of more than 450 fire appliances, 35 pieces of heavy plant, four contracted aircraft and over 130 drones and trained pilots.

Heavy plant machinery, which the broader forestry industry uses to harvest sustainable timber is also available to fight fires.

This machinery including bulldozers, excavators and specialist harvesting machines are used to create control lines for firefighting, set up back burns and remove dangerous trees for firefighting safety.

In 2023/24 Forestry Corporation firefighters and fire managers were engaged in a total of 184 fires, this impacted 98,250 hectares of land.

During the 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires, this heavy plant machinery played an instrumental role in stopping the spread of fast burning bushfires saving life, property and assets across NSW.

Outside of the bushfire season, Forestry Corporation also conducts forest hazard reduction burns and undertakes cultural burns in partnership with local Aboriginal communities.

Forestry Corporation also sends its expert fire specialists abroad in the winter months to assist international firefighting agencies in the Northern hemisphere.

Six staff members deployed to the United States and Canada this year and last year Port Macquarie local Matt Model was one of Forestry’s fire specialists, who deployed to Canada bringing back firefighting skills and expertise to the region.

Minister for Regional New South Wales Tara Moriarty:

“The NSW Forestry Corporation has managed fire in state forests for more than 100 years.

“Forestry Corporation’s trained firefighters work in State forests every day of the year, protecting lives, the environment, forestry resources and local communities.

“They have decades of experience in managing forest fires, working with the RFS, managing heavy equipment across major firegrounds and maintaining thousands of kilometres of fire trails,

“When bushfires are reported in our NSW state forests, our forest firefighters rapidly respond using their large fleet of appliances and bringing in heavy plant machinery from the broader forest and timber industry.”

Forestry Corporation Senior Manager Fire and Natural Hazards Rebel Talbert:

“As one of the four statutory firefighting authorities in NSW, Forestry Corporation works collaboratively with the other agencies to protect communities, the environment and the State’s essential timber assets from the risk of fire.

“We are well prepared heading into the fire season with a workforce of skilled firefighters, a fleet of equipment, drones and heavy plant ready to deploy and networks of fire trails and fire towers maintained to aid rapid detection and early suppression of fires.

Forestry Corporation Fire and Operations Team Leader, Wauchope, Matt Model:

“In managing more than 200,000 hectares of state forests here on the Mid North Coast, we keep the Mid Coast Bush Fire Management Committee briefed on fuel loads and fire conditions in state forests.

“Since the Black Summer Bushfires here on the Mid North Coast firefighting technology has been rapidly expanded across NSW to include drones and satellite technology, which this summer will  help our crews with early detection, mapping, response and containment of forest fires.” 

Why are some Australian students having to pay to do PE at public schools?

mattimix/Shutterstock
Jessica Amy SearsCharles Sturt University and Rachel WilsonUniversity of Technology Sydney

Health and physical education is one of the key subjects students learn at school. In Australia it is mandatory for students from the first year of school to Year 10.

It involves theory and practical components to help students manage their health and wellbeing. This includes healthy eating habits, sexual health, cyber safety and mental health. It also incorporates fundamental movement skills (such as throwing and catching), sports (such as swimming, gymnastics and football) and team-building.

Because it is a core, compulsory part of the curriculum it is supposed to be free for students at government schools. But our research shows some students are being asked to pay – and those who cannot are missing out.

Our research

In our recent study, we looked at the staffing and delivery of health and physical education in New South Wales government schools.

We surveyed 556 schools, which make up about 30% of public schools in the state. This included primary and high schools with a mix of locations and levels of advantage.

We used an online survey, which was completed by the teacher in charge of health and physical education.

Many schools are outsourcing lessons

We asked survey respondents who was teaching health and physical education to students at their schools. Some schools were using more than one option.

  • For all schools: 67% were using external provider, 44.5% were using a specialist teacher and 55.4% were using another teacher.

  • For primary schools: 78.4% were using an external provider, 17.9% were using a specialist teacher and 48% were using another teacher.

  • For high schools: 44.8% were using an external provider, 95.9% were using a specialist teacher and 69.2% were using another teacher.

Previous research has shown how schools outsource to external providers to “fill the gap” of teachers lacking confidence and competence to provide quality health and physical education lessons.

This study did not measure how frequent outsourcing was, however, comments from respondents suggests it is regular. For example, one teacher said: “a typical [outsourced] class would have one lesson a week for a term”.

Another teacher similarly said

one 40 min[ute] lesson per week. Company comes in with equipment and young university students to run different activities. They also assess our students for us.

Another teacher told us:

We use [company name], they offer different sports/programs that run for one lesson a week per term.

Families are being asked to pay

Of the schools who were outsourcing lessons, 78% of the schools outsourcing lessons said they were asking parents to help pay for these lessons.

One respondent told us, the costs were “A$45 for one term, $80 for two”.

Of this group, 64% reported students who did not pay did other school work (either for health and physical education or another core subject). About one fifth of schools said students that don’t pay just had to “sit and watch”.

This suggests some students are missing out on basic learning opportunities at school for financial reasons. As one teacher told us:

the school uses some off-campus sporting/gaming facilities that students can choose to pay extra for instead of free on-campus teacher run [activities].

A young boy watches children on a field.
Some students are just made to ‘sit and watch’ if they can’t pay. nannycz/Shutterstock

Why is this a problem?

The outsourcing of health and physical education lessons comes in the middle of an ongoing teacher shortage in Australia and around the world.

A 2024 UN report estimates a global shortage of more than 44 million teachers, with many teachers teaching outside of their areas of expertise.

Specific shortages of health and physical education teachers have been noted for more than a decade.

However, outsourcing lessons away from qualified teachers, is a significant concern. Little is known about the external providers’ qualifications or quality. Unlike teachers, they are not subject to registration requirements or professional standards.

Even more concerning is some students are missing out on lessons or some components of lessons because their families have not been able to pay.

This links to wider concerns about unequal access to sport in the school system. This includes some private schools with new Olympic pools and boat ramps when other public schools don’t have access to council playing fields.

More research is needed

Our study suggests more research is needed. We need further information on staffing, outsourcing and lesson delivery in other areas of the country and in other subjects.

We need to be sure all students are being taught the core curriculum, free of charge and by qualified teachers – ideally specialists.The Conversation

Jessica Amy Sears, Lecturer, School of Education, Charles Sturt University and Rachel Wilson, Professor of Social Impact, University of Technology Sydney

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

NSW Softball U16's Team 2025 

Softball NSW are pleased to announce the 2025 U16 Girls' State Team! 
Congratulations to all the selected athletes, as well as all the appointed officials!

2024 ARIA Teacher Nominees Announced

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is thrilled to reveal the nominees for the 2024 ARIA Music Teacher Award.
Now in its eighth year, ARIA Music Teacher Award in partnership with The Song Room highlights the vital role that music teachers play in fostering a love of music among students across Australia, shining a light on the importance of music education to improve students’ wellbeing, learning and community connection.

Every year, the public helps determine the winner of the ARIA Music Teacher Award, with the winner announced at the ARIA Awards on Wednesday, 20 November broadcast on Channel Nine and Stan.

This year’s nominees have been recognised for their outstanding dedication to providing music education and building vibrant musical communities. From reconnecting students with traditional languages through song to fostering inclusive music programs, these educators are changing lives through music.

The nominees were surprised by celebrated artist ambassadors, who each visited a school to share the exciting news. This year’s ambassadors are Meg Mac, Sarah McLeod, Emma Memma and Jessica Mauboy.

Voting for the ARIA Music Teacher Award is now open!



Meet the Nominees


Hayley Wedding
Seaview High School, Seacombe Heights, Kaurna Country, SA

In Hayley’s teaching practice, she makes it her daily mission to create a supportive environment and empower students to thrive and reach their full potential by embracing new challenges and persevering through difficulties. Her belief is that every student has the capacity to excel when given the opportunity, regardless of barriers they may face.

The Seaview High School Music program started with the goal to provide all students access to music with the Scholarship Immersion Program, which utilises school resources to waive the financial pressures for students to commit to musical learning. A simultaneous redesign of classroom music courses provided a safe space for students to shape their identity and nurture resilience while building emotional maturity and self-expression.

One of Hayley’s proudest achievements has been re-designing student learning based on student input which has seen the program flourish over the past four years, jumping from just six per cent of students participating in the music program in 2021to 43% of students in 2024.

Nathaniel Miller
Bulman School, Bulman Community, Arnhem Land, NT

The son of successful musician Peter Miller, Nathaniel has always loved music. Growing upon country, he taught himself to play guitar by ear and knows first-hand the transformative power music has on children, families and communities.

What began as a bit of musical fun for school children two years ago, Nathaniel’s music program has now evolved into a life-changing program teaching students to play different instruments alongside song writing, singing and performance in English, Dalabon and Rembarrnga language, guided by local elders.

In a community that struggles with high teacher turnover, low student attendance and lack of resources, Nathaniel has created a safe and inclusive space where children feel comfortable enough to express themselves, reconnect with their culture, and find pride in their heritage. “It’s about more than just playing instruments,” he says. “It’s about keeping our culture alive, and it’s about building confidence in our young people.”

The impact of Nathaniel’s work is clear. One parent said, “I never thought I’d hear my son sing in our language, but now he’s teaching the words to others. We’re so proud.” For Nathaniel, seeing students stand on stage and sing in front of their community is a powerful reminder of the importance of music in healing and growth.


Susan Sukkar
Petersham Public School, Lewisham, Gadigal and Wangal Country, NSW

For over 20 years, Susan Sukkar has been a cornerstone of music education at Petersham Public School and beyond. As the driving force behind the Festival of Instrumental Music, held annually at the Sydney Opera House, Susan has given thousands of students the opportunity to perform in one of the world’s most iconic venues. Her dedication to the craft of teaching music has inspired generations of children to embrace the joy of performance.

Susan’s approach is rooted in inclusivity. She works with every child from kindergarten to Year6, crafting programs that not only teach musical skills but also build self-confidence, teamwork, and emotional resilience. “Music isn’t just something we do – it’s who we are,” Susan says. “For many of my students, stepping onto that stage is a life-changing moment. It’s about proving to themselves that they are capable of greatness.”

One of the most touching aspects of Susan’s work is the way she brings together families and communities. Her annual Performing Arts extravaganza sees parents, grandparents, and students collaborating in a shared celebration of music. A student once said, “Mrs. Sukkar believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, and because of her, I want to keep playing music for the rest of my life.”
 

Casey Allen
PLC Sydney, Croydon, Gadigal and Wangal Country, NSW

Casey has been a classroom music teacher at Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Sydney for two decades. In 2017, her role expanded to include a Head of Faculty (Classroom) position which included a co-ordinating role for choirs at the school.

In a fast-paced, highly academic and progressive school, her vision has always been to ensure the school delivers an inclusive program that caters for musicians of varying abilities, interests and experiences.

Casey believes it is vital for young girls to understand the importance of music in society and see a place for themselves in creative industries, saying: “Music connects us in ways that words cannot. It brings joy, fosters creativity, and gives our students the courage to express themselves fully. Seeing students discover a lifelong love for music is one of the greatest rewards of teaching.”

The ARIA Music Teacher Award has become one of the ARIA Awards’ most cherished categories, recognising the importance of music education and the teachers inspiring the next generation of musicians.

ARIA CEO, Annabelle Herd, said: “Every year, the ARIA Music Teacher Award allows us to celebrate the incredible individuals who are changing lives through the power of music. The 2024 nominees are a testament to the diversity and impact of music education across Australia. From fostering inclusivity in high-performing academic environments to reviving Indigenous languages through song, these educators have gone above and beyond to ensure that music is accessible, meaningful, and transformative for all their students. It’s an honour to recognize their passion, dedication, and unwavering commitment to nurturing the next generation of musicians and music lovers.”

The Song Room CEO, Alice Gerlach, said: “Working in communities across the country, we witness how vital music education is in giving young people a chance to experience success and to find a sense of belonging. This year’s ARIA Music Teacher nominees exemplify the wonderful traits of innovation, inclusion and excellence that all great educators strive towards. Congratulations to them all.”

Previous winners of the ARIA Music Teacher Award include; Sue Lowry (2023, Southport Special Previous winners of the ARIA Music Teacher Award include; Sue Lowry (2023, Southport Special School, Southport, Yugambeh Territory, QLD),Matt Orchard (2022, Apollo Bay P-12 College, Apollo Bay, Gaduband Territory,VIC), Zoe Barry (2021, Fitzroy Sacred Heart School, Fitzroy, WurundjeriCountry, VIC), Sarah Donnelley (2020, Wilcannia Central School, Wilcannia, Barkindji Country, NSW), Antonio Chiappetta (2019, St Andrews College, Sydney, Eora Nation, NSW), Scott Maxwell (2018, Grant High School, Mount Gambier(Berrin), Bunganditj, SA) and Renee McCarthy (2017, Woodcroft College, Adelaide, Kaurna Country, SA).


Votes are also now open for:
  • Song of the Year
  • Best Video
  • Best Australian Live Act
  • Most Popular International Artist


World Teachers' Day

World Teachers’ Day in NSW is an opportunity to recognise primary, secondary and early childhood teachers. Learn when World Teachers' Day is celebrated in NSW this year.

About World Teachers' Day
World Teachers' Day celebrates quality teaching and inspirational teachers.

There are over 170,000 primary, secondary and early childhood teachers working in NSW. The event is an opportunity to recognise all teachers.

World Teachers' Day is celebrated every year on 5 October. As this date is within the school holidays, NSW celebrates on the last Friday of October.

This year, World Teachers' Day will be celebrated in NSW on Friday 25 October 2024, alongside our annual HALT Recognition Ceremony.

NSW Teaching Gems – celebrate your teachers 
The wisdom and expertise of teachers shines brightly in our NSW schools, communities, homes, and vibrant workforce.

Tell us who lights up your school community by adding a NSW teaching gem this #WTD2024. A gem is a teacher or educator who is important to you.

Access the NSW teaching gems map and let your teachers know you care by pinning a gem to the map in their honour.

Bilgola Plateau Probus Club Celebrates Their 2nd Birthday

From the moment you stepped into the Newport Bowling club on Friday 4th October, there was a buzz in the air. From the blue and yellow garlands and balloons to the members dressed in the Probus colours of blue and yellow filing in; all was chatter and excitement. All bursting with pride that their club had come so far in 2 years. Distinguished guests included Bruce Larkin from the club’s sponsor Upper Northern Beaches Rotary, Carmen Meehan and Sonia Powell from Sophie Scamps office. 

Members were treated to a special complimentary morning tea. Prizes were given out for the best dressed male and female; lucky door prizes and volunteer of the year. A complex trivia quiz was also held. Members taking the trouble to dress up, all added to the general fun and atmosphere of the morning and provided lively discussions during morning tea.


A section of the 78 strong birthday crowd


L to R: Sonia, Carmen, President Mike, Vice President Di and Bruce Lakin

Report: Mike Musgrave, President BPPC

Retirement villages should be recognised as a financial product

The ABC’s 7.30 program aired an investigative report on September 30 highlighting concerns from retirement village residents and their families about financial exploitation within the retirement living sector. 

The report revealed hidden exit fees, refurbishment costs, and opaque contracts, drawing criticism from residents and experts. 

Independent Federal MP Rebekha Sharkie, an ongoing and vocal advocate for reform in the retirement living sector, reiterated her calls for tighter regulations. She compared the financial practices of some retirement village operators to elder abuse, describing the situation as heavily skewed in favour of corporate profits.

Ms Sharkie continues pressuring retirement villages to be recognised as a financial product, bringing them under stricter financial regulation.

Daniel Gannon, Executive Director of the Retirement Living Council (RLC), the peak body representing the industry, expressed disappointment in the portrayal of retirement villages. 

Mr. Gannon emphasised that retirement village homes should be viewed as a lifestyle choice, not investment properties. He also stressed that the sector operates under strict state and territory legislation, with some communities also governed by the federal Aged Care Act.

The ABC’s reports, ''Retirement villages accused of gouging older Australians in 'corporatised elder abuse' -'' by Adele Ferguson, Ben Butler and Chris Gillett of ABC Investigations, and October 7 follow-up, ''Retirement villages put on notice after being accused of gouging older Australians in 'corporatised elder abuse' -'' by Adele Ferguson, Ben Butler and Chris Gillett from ABC Investigations, may be accessed via the links above.

The NSW Department of Fair Trading has a dedicated list of webpages relating to Retirement Villages here: www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/housing-and-property/retirement-villages

Changes in early 2021
New retirement village laws started in 2021. They include:
  • enabling residents to receive exit entitlement money before their unit sells (if the sale has been ‘unreasonably delayed’)
  • providing an option for residents to fund their move into aged care by accessing part of their estimated exit entitlement money
  • ensuring residents no longer have to pay ongoing charges for general services 42 days after they leave the retirement village (commences on 1 July 2021 onwards).

The new laws:
  • apply only to registered interest holders with a long-term registered lease that gives them at least 50% of any capital gain.
  • not apply to:
  • unregistered interest holders
  • registered interest holders who own a lot in a strata or community scheme village or own shares in a company title or trust village that gives them their resident right.
A resident can check their retirement village contract to confirm which arrangement they have.

The following webpage outlines the key changes under the Retirement Villages Amendment Act 2020. At: https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/about-fair-trading/legislation-and-publications/changes-to-legislation/changes-to-retirement-village-laws

"Pittwater at Place" - Craig Burton

Film by Pittwater Pathways
Craig Burton speaking at Incidental Architecture Studio, Mona Vale, 12 September, 2024 - a warts and all commentary on the history of Pittwater architecture.

Almost $18 million for world-first Australian research project for heart attack protection

October 6 2024
The Australian Government is investing almost $18 million in a world-first Australian research project that will trial a drug discovered by Australian researchers that protects the heart during a heart attack.
 
In a major breakthrough, researchers from the University of Queensland discovered a peptide, known as Hi1a, that protects the heart during a heart attack and improves donor heart viability.
 
The drug is inspired by a molecule discovered in the venom of an Australian funnel-web spider and has the potential to save thousands of lives each year and improve the quality of life for heart attack survivors.
 
The Albanese Government is providing $17.86 million in funding over five years to a team led by Professor Glenn King at the University of Queensland for the project, known as The Heart Rehab Clinical Trials: Therapeutics to Protect the Human Heart project.
 
The project will involve clinical trials with a miniaturised version of Hi1a to develop the first-ever drugs for heart attack and heart transplantation. Researchers will work to bring in the new treatment within 10 years.
 
Heart attacks are the leading cause of death globally. Each year, more than 55,000 Australians will have a heart attack, and around 7,000 will die from one.
 
Heart attacks are also the primary cause of heart failure, which has a significant impact on survival and quality of life.
 
The $17.86 million in funding is provided through the Medical Research Future Fund’s Frontier Health and Medical Research (Frontiers) grant opportunity.

The Frontiers grant supports ‘moonshots’ – ambitious, exploratory and groundbreaking research to solve some of our most challenging medical problems.
 
Health Minister, the Hon Mark Butler MP said: 
“This research is a world-first and could only have come from our world-class Australian researchers. Based on a molecule in the venom of an Australian funnel-web spider, this could save thousands of lives.
 
“Heart attacks and cardiovascular disease are our biggest killers. These world-first trials will give hope to thousands of Australians who suffer from a heart attack and heart failure."
 
“I’m proud the Albanese Government is supporting Australian researchers to take this ‘moonshot’. It has the potential to save lives and improve quality of life – not only for Australians, but right around the world.”
 
Professor Glenn King stated:
 
“This investment will fast-track development of the world’s first cardioprotective drug, which was inspired by a molecule discovered in the venom of an Australian funnel-web spider.
 
“This drug has the potential to not only save thousands of lives each year, but also to drastically improve the quality-of-life for heart attack survivors by minimising the injury to their heart.
 
“This investment from the Government will support a truly Australian innovation and ensure that all of the clinical and economic benefits flow back to Australia.”

Seniors’ champ Wayne turns grey into gold

October 2024
The contribution older Australians make to their communities was celebrated at a function in Brisbane marking International Day of Older Persons.

A former firefighter, now living on the Gold Coast, is the inaugural Everald Compton Community Champion Medallist. 

Wayne Sticher introduced the global Cycling Without Age charity to the Gold Coast in 2020 by securing the funding and resources that allow people who are less mobile and independent to enjoy the outdoors and meet others by riding in specially adapted trishaws pedalled by volunteers. 



In presenting the medal, National Seniors Australia co-founder, Everald Compton, said, “Today, on International Day of Older Persons, we can all vow to collectively help change negative attitudes about older Australians, by acknowledging them as community builders who have the wisdom and ability to turn grey into gold throughout Australia in the manner so ably demonstrated by Wayne.” 

Mr Sticher said he was deeply honoured and proud to be recognised for the work he does and deeply loves. 

“To be nominated is an honour in itself and to receive the medal in its inaugural year for a program which enriches my life and provides such fulfilment is beyond my wildest dreams,” he said. 

“I am inspired by the amazing volunteers I work with and equally amazing passengers we meet, including those living in residential care facilities. To see them ‘out and about’ on the trishaw, smiling and waving at passers-by, hugging our volunteers, and hearing them say it’s the most fun they’ve had in a long time is just magic. 

“It goes to show, we shouldn't underestimate our ability to add value through kindness. It does not have the constraints of age, gender, education, or any other barrier. Adding value can be as simple as a smile or a friendly gesture.” 

The Everald Compton Community Champion Medal
The medal is a distinguished accolade acknowledging the unsung heroes among older Australians. 

It honours the founder of National Seniors, and active community champion, Everald Compton, while also celebrating everyday champions who are "turning grey into gold" with grassroot experiences and selfless contributions that make a significant difference in their communities.  

Nominations for the award came from all over Australia, including Norfolk Island – from volunteers with sporting clubs, hospitals, and church groups to those who assist people living with dementia, loneliness, and loss.  

The finalists, and ultimately the winner, were decided by an eminent panel of judges, which included former Queensland Governor, The Hon. Paul de Jersey, social advocate Kathryn Greiner and Federal Member for Mayo Rebekha Sharkie MP.

The finalists were: Barbara (Barb) Baker, a medical professional from Tasmania; Denise Delaney, an Active for Life volunteer from South Australia; Irene Birks, a counsellor and volunteer from New South Wales; John Jacobsen, a marine rescue volunteer from Queensland; Rhonda Weston, a community leader from Queensland; and Mr Sticher.

Addressing the award ceremony, National Seniors’ CEO, Chris Grice, congratulated and thanked the nominees for their entrepreneurial community action. 

“They have not only connected people in need to services; they’ve established services for people in need.” 

He said too often, older Australians – despite their experience – are portrayed as problems instead of solutions. 

“The ageing population is seen as an impending cost as opposed to a potential opportunity,” he noted. 

However, older people, as demonstrated by the finalists, are seizing the opportunity an older population offers. 

“They’ve not only run important programs; they’ve raised the funds to get these programs running.  

“They’re the busy people others go to when they need to get things done; they’re the friendly people whose doors and arms are always open; the people who put others first, and their own needs last.  

“They do what they do ‘quietly’, ‘without fuss’, or without fanfare – some while caring for loved ones in poor health, or battling their own,” Mr Grice said. 

Are you over 75? Here’s what you need to know about vitamin D

OPPO Find X5 Pro/Unsplash
Elina HypponenUniversity of South Australia and Joshua SutherlandUniversity of South Australia

Vitamin D is essential for bone health, immune function and overall wellbeing. And it becomes even more crucial as we age.

New guidelines from the international Endocrine Society recommend people aged 75 and over should consider taking vitamin D supplements.

But why is vitamin D so important for older adults? And how much should they take?

Young people get most vitamin D from the sun

In Australia, it is possible for most people under 75 to get enough vitamin D from the sun throughout the year. For those who live in the top half of Australia – and for all of us during summer – we only need to have skin exposed to the sun for a few minutes on most days.

The body can only produce a certain amount of vitamin D at a time. So staying in the sun any longer than needed is not going to help increase your vitamin D levels, while it will increase your risk of skin cancer.

But it’s difficult for people aged over 75 to get enough vitamin D from a few minutes of sunshine, so the Endocrine Society recommends people get 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D a day from food or supplements.

Why you need more as you age

This is higher than the recommendation for younger adults, reflecting the increased needs and reduced ability of older bodies to produce and absorb vitamin D.

Overall, older adults also tend to have less exposure to sunlight, which is the primary source of natural vitamin D production. Older adults may spend more time indoors and wear more clothing when outdoors.

As we age, our skin also becomes less efficient at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight.

The kidneys and the liver, which help convert vitamin D into its active form, also lose some of their efficiency with age. This makes it harder for the body to maintain adequate levels of the vitamin.

All of this combined means older adults need more vitamin D.

Deficiency is common in older adults

Despite their higher needs for vitamin D, people over 75 may not get enough of it.

Studies have shown one in five older adults in Australia have vitamin D deficiency.

In higher-latitude parts of the world, such as the United Kingdom, almost half don’t reach sufficient levels.

This increased risk of deficiency is partly due to lifestyle factors, such as spending less time outdoors and insufficient dietary intakes of vitamin D.

It’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone. Oily fish, eggs and some mushrooms are good sources of vitamin D, but few other foods contain much of the vitamin. While foods can be fortified with the vitamin D (margarine, some milk and cereals), these may not be readily available or be consumed in sufficient amounts to make a difference.

In some countries such as the United States, most of the dietary vitamin D comes from fortified products. However, in Australia, dietary intakes of vitamin D are typically very low because only a few foods are fortified with it.

Why vitamin D is so important as we age

Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, which is essential for maintaining bone density and strength. As we age, our bones become more fragile, increasing the risk of fractures and conditions like osteoporosis.

Keeping bones healthy is crucial. Studies have shown older people hospitalised with hip fractures are 3.5 times more likely to die in the next 12 months compared to people who aren’t injured.

Older woman sits with a friend
People over 75 often have less exposure to sunlight. Aila Images/Shutterstock

Vitamin D may also help lower the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more serious in this age group.

There is also emerging evidence for other potential benefits, including better brain health. However, this requires more research.

According to the society’s systematic review, which summarises evidence from randomised controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in humans, there is moderate evidence to suggest vitamin D supplementation can lower the risk of premature death.

The society estimates supplements can prevent six deaths per 1,000 people. When considering the uncertainty in the available evidence, the actual number could range from as many as 11 fewer deaths to no benefit at all.

Should we get our vitamin D levels tested?

The Endocrine Society’s guidelines suggest routine blood tests to measure vitamin D levels are not necessary for most healthy people over 75.

There is no clear evidence that regular testing provides significant benefits, unless the person has a specific medical condition that affects vitamin D metabolism, such as kidney disease or certain bone disorders.

Routine testing can also be expensive and inconvenient.

In most cases, the recommended approach to over-75s is to consider a daily supplement, without the need for testing.

You can also try to boost your vitamin D by adding fortified foods to your diet, which might lower the dose you need from supplementation.

Even if you’re getting a few minutes of sunlight a day, a daily vitamin D is still recommended.The Conversation

Elina Hypponen, Professor of Nutritional and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia and Joshua Sutherland, PhD Candidate - Nutrition and Genetic Epidemiology, University of South Australia

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

The dangers of voice cloning and how to combat it

David Herraez Calzada/Shutterstock
Leo S.F. LinCharles Sturt UniversityDuane AslettCharles Sturt UniversityGeberew Tulu MekonnenCharles Sturt University, and Mladen ZecevicCharles Sturt University

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought both benefits and risk.

One concerning trend is the misuse of voice cloning. In seconds, scammers can clone a voice and trick people into thinking a friend or a family member urgently needs money.

News outlets, including CNN, warn these types of scams have the potential to impact millions of people.

As technology makes it easier for criminals to invade our personal spaces, staying cautious about its use is more important than ever.

What is voice cloning?

The rise of AI has created possibilities for image, text, voice generation and machine learning.

While AI offers many benefits, it also provides fraudsters new methods to exploit individuals for money.

You may have heard of “deepfakes,” where AI is used to create fake images, videos and even audio, often involving celebrities or politicians.

Voice cloning, a type of deepfake technology, creates a digital replica of a person’s voice by capturing their speech patterns, accent and breathing from brief audio samples.

Once the speech pattern is captured, an AI voice generator can convert text input into highly realistic speech resembling the targeted person’s voice.

With advancing technology, voice cloning can be accomplished with just a three-second audio sample.

While a simple phrase like “hello, is anyone there?” can lead to a voice cloning scam, a longer conversation helps scammers capture more vocal details. It is therefore best to keep calls brief until you are sure of the caller’s identity.

Voice cloning has valuable applications in entertainment and health care – enabling remote voice work for artists (even posthumously) and assisting people with speech disabilities.

However, it raises serious privacy and security concerns, underscoring the need for safeguards.

How it’s being exploited by criminals

Cybercriminals exploit voice cloning technology to impersonate celebrities, authorities or ordinary people for fraud.

They create urgency, gain the victim’s trust and request money via gift cards, wire transfers or cryptocurrency.

The process begins by collecting audio samples from sources like YouTube and TikTok.

Next, the technology analyses the audio to generate new recordings.

Once the voice is cloned, it can be used in deceptive communications, often accompanied by spoofing Caller ID to appear trustworthy.

Many voice cloning scam cases have made headlines.

For example, criminals cloned the voice of a company director in the United Arab Emirates to orchestrate a $A51 million heist.

businessman in Mumbai fell victim to a voice cloning scam involving a fake call from the Indian Embassy in Dubai.

In Australia recently, scammers employed a voice clone of Queensland Premier Steven Miles to attempt to trick people to invest in Bitcoin.

Teenagers and children are also targeted. In a kidnapping scam in the United States, a teenager’s voice was cloned and her parents manipulated into complying with demands.

It only takes a few seconds of audio for AI to clone someone’s voice.

How widespread is it?

Recent research shows 28% of adults in the United Kingdom faced voice cloning scams last year, with 46% unaware of the existence of this type of scam.

It highlights a significant knowledge gap, leaving millions at risk of fraud.

In 2022, almost 240,000 Australians reported being victims of voice cloning scams, leading to a financial loss of $A568 million.

How people and organisations can safeguard against it

The risks posed by voice cloning require a multidisciplinary response.

People and organisations can implement several measures to safeguard against the misuse of voice cloning technology.

First, public awareness campaigns and education can help protect people and organisations and mitigate these types of fraud.

Public-private collaboration can provide clear information and consent options for voice cloning.

Second, people and organisations should look to use biometric security with liveness detection, which is new technology that can recognise and verify a live voice as opposed to a fake. And organisations using voice recognition should consider adopting multi-factor authentication.

Third, enhancing investigative capability against voice cloning is another crucial measure for law enforcement.

Finally, accurate and updated regulations for countries are needed for managing associated risks.

Australian law enforcement recognises the potential benefits of AI.

Yet, concerns about the “dark side” of this technology have prompted calls for research into the criminal use of “artificial intelligence for victim targeting.”

There are also calls for possible intervention strategies that law enforcement could use to combat this problem.

Such efforts should connect with the overall National Plan to Combat Cybercrime, which focuses on proactive, reactive and restorative strategies.

That national plan stipulates a duty of care for service providers, reflected in the Australian government’s new legislation to safeguard the public and small businesses.

The legislation aims for new obligations to prevent, detect, report and disrupt scams.

This will apply to regulated organisations such as telcos, banks and digital platform providers. The goal is to protect customers by preventing, detecting, reporting, and disrupting cyber scams involving deception.

Reducing the risk

As cybercrime costs the Australian economy an estimated A$42 billion, public awareness and strong safeguards are essential.

Countries like Australia are recognising the growing risk. The effectiveness of measures against voice cloning and other frauds depends on their adaptability, cost, feasibility and regulatory compliance.

All stakeholders — government, citizens, and law enforcement — must stay vigilant and raise public awareness to reduce the risk of victimisation.The Conversation

Leo S.F. Lin, Senior Lecturer in Policing Studies, Charles Sturt UniversityDuane Aslett, Senior Lecturer in Policing Studies, Charles Sturt UniversityGeberew Tulu Mekonnen, Lecturer, School of Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University, and Mladen Zecevic, Lecturer at the School of Policing Studies, Charles Sturt University

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

How to archive your photos in the digital age

What’s the right choice for storing your photos? Wasim AhmadCC BY
Wasim AhmadQuinnipiac University

Taking photographs used to be a careful, conscious act. Photos were selective, frozen moments in time carefully archived in albums and frames. Now, taking a photograph is almost as effortless and common as breathing – it’s something that people do all the time in the age of smartphone cameras with seemingly endless digital film.

But the downside to capturing every moment is that it creates a mountain of those moments to save for the future. Those photos can be easily lost if they’re not archived properly. All it can take is one accidental dip in the toilet for your phone, and all that data is lost forever.

So what’s a practical backup strategy for the average person? Here are a few ways to make sure memories are never lost:

Cloud storage

The simplest way to archive your photos is cloud storage. For Apple users, there’s iCloud, which starts at US$0.99 per month for 50 gigabytes all the way to $59.99 per month for 12 terabytes with various tiers in between. With an average iPhone photo clocking in at 3 megabytes, that’s a little over 16,000 photos for the cheap plan and 4 million or so for the largest plan. Google’s Google One cloud storage is most cost effective for yearly plans, with 2TB going for $99.99 per year and 5TB going for $249.99 per year.

The actual amount you can store in that space does vary greatly with how a file is shot. Video has larger file sizes than photos. HEIF files, a newer format on Apple phones, compresses files into smaller packages, but long-term compatibility is unknown since the format hasn’t been in use for as long as the standard JPG file, which has been around since 1992.

a screenshot showing a row of overlapping icons
Storing your photos in a cloud service like iCloud is probably the easiest method. Chris Messina/FlickrCC BY-NC

While cloud services from big providers generally provide the easiest way for most average folks to back up their photos, and operate with little to no intervention via apps that are already on the phone constantly uploading every photo taken, there are risks involved.

Big companies often change their policies about how photos are saved. For instance, depending on what phone and when it was bought, Google’s cloud storage may have saved photos in a “storage saver” format that lowers the quality of images by sizing them down or compressing them differently. This affects your ability to make high-quality prints or view the photos on high-resolution screens down the road. Unless someone is astute enough to notice small text here and there that mentions it, most users won’t even realize it’s happening.

And what happens to cloud services when things go badly wrong? Users of photo backup service Digital Railroad found out the hard way. In 2008, the company abruptly shut down and gave its users 24 hours to download everything before the servers were shut down. Photographers rushed for the exits, trying to grab their photos on the way out, only to strain the servers to the point where few were able to recover anything at all. If this was the only way photos were backed up, it’s a lost cause.

So while the cloud is easy, costs can add up and terms of service can change at a moment’s notice. What are some ways for photographers to control their own fate?

Hard drives and network-attached storage

Manually taking photos off a phone may take some extra time, but the approach offers peace of mind that cloud services can’t necessarily match.

Almost all phones can plug into a computer’s USB port and use the built-in photos app on both Windows or MacOS to download photos to a computer. Apple users can use a method called AirDrop to send photos wirelessly to other Apple devices as well, including laptop and desktop computers.

Now loading photos onto a local hard drive built into the machine can fill it up quickly, but there is a cost-effective way to get around that – namely, external hard drives. Theses are storage devices that you can plug into your computer as needed. They can be of the older and less expensive type with spinning platters or more modern solid-state drives that can survive a drop and greater temperature changes than the older drives can.

These are different than flash drives, more commonly known as thumb drives because of their small size, that are designed as temporary storage to shuffle photos from one place to another.

It’s easy to buy more than one hard drive to have duplicate backups in case of failure or catastrophe, but the downside is that there’s no easy access from the internet to your photos, and backup is generally a process that users must remember to do.

Network-attached storage is one way to solve the cloud storage problem while retaining the ability to access photos from the internet. These are essentially hard drives – sometimes multiple hard drives linked together for even greater or faster storage – that are connected to a router that allows for access to the internet through specialized software.

While not as easy as most third-party cloud storage services, once it’s set up, a network-attached storage unit is a flexible way to store your photos safely and accessibly. There are even companies that specialize in fireproof and waterproof units for extra insurance in case of disaster.

Printing photos

If cloud storage and hard drives seem too complicated, there’s always the old-fashioned approach of printing. There’s still something magical about seeing a photo on a wall or in an album, and thankfully there are ways to print professional-quality archival prints without having to go to a drugstore.

a photograph of an airplane in the output tray of a small desktop printer
Desktop photo printers are a way to bring those digital photos into the physical world, ready for organizing in photo albums. Leksey/Wikimedia

The easiest and most cost-efficient types of printers are dedicated 4x6 printers using a technology similar to professional labs called dye-sublimation. These yield high-quality, waterproof prints that cost about the same as what one would pay for drugstore developing. HP makes its popular Sprocket line of printers, though those require a phone and an app to print from, which makes plugging in a memory card from a professional camera out of the question. However, Canon’s Selphy lineup includes many models with screens and a card slot to make that possible.

The rabbit hole goes very deep, and there are many professional printers that can print even larger sizes. Canon and Epson dominate this space, marketing a range of pigment- and dye-based printers that can emphasize archival needs or color saturation, respectively.

Another option is ordering a photo book, which, as the name suggests, is a physical bound book of your photos. However, photo books are probably more appropriate for memorializing an event – trip, wedding, project – than general archiving, given the typical costs and number of photos involved.

There’s little reason to not make some sort of backups of photos in 2024, whether that’s on printed media, hard drives or in the cloud. The important thing is not which method to use, but to do it at all.The Conversation

Wasim Ahmad, Assistant Teaching Professor of Journalism, Quinnipiac University

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

Cambodia: journalist arrest signals false dawn for democracy as the country slides into authoritarianism

Sabina LawreniukUniversity of Nottingham

Mech Dara, an award-winning Cambodian journalist and one of the kingdom’s last remaining independent media voices, was arrested on Monday, September 30. He has been detained over a social media post for “incitement to disturb social security”, and faces up to two years in jail.

The news of Dara’s arrest has saddened and disturbed many within Cambodia and elsewhere. But it will have shocked few. Dara’s courageous journalism has made him a persistent thorn in the side of Cambodia’s ruling class.

No stranger to harassment and intimidation by Cambodia’s increasingly repressive state apparatus, Dara had told me when we last met that he was considering applying for political asylum abroad. Life had become impossible in Cambodia.

From humble beginnings, Dara built his reputation on a dogged commitment to justice, whose work includes exposing human rights abuse, illegal logging, land grabs and labour struggles in his homeland. These are rife in a notoriously corrupt state that ranks 141 out of 142 countries worldwide on the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index.

Most recently, however, Dara’s investigations have focused on uncovering abuse in Cambodia’s cyberscam industry. Dara’s reporting, which in 2023 earned him a “Hero” commendation by the US State Department, revealed how the industry often involves cyberscam compounds staffed by victims of human trafficking.

His investigations have disclosed how these people are compelled under the threat of physical torture and financial extortion to perform acts of deception and fraud on targets across China, the US, Europe and beyond, through fake romances or cryptocurrency schemes.

The UN estimates that at least 100,000 people have been tricked into participating in this criminal industry, which is now said to be worth more than US$12 billion (£9.1 billion) per year in Cambodia.

Dara has turned to identifying the political and business elites in Cambodia whose complicity enables the criminal syndicates who run the compounds to flourish with impunity.

Some of his best-known work linked the LYP Group, which is owned by prominent Cambodian businessman and state senator, Ly Yong Phat, to the operation of scam compounds in Cambodia’s Koh Kong province. Ly Yong Phat continues to deny any involvement.

The timing of Dara’s arrest may be no coincidence. He was detained 18 days after the US treasury department sanctioned Ly Yong Phat for his role in serious human rights abuse related to the treatment of trafficked workers.

Dara’s arrest is believed by some to be an act of retaliation intended to send a chilling message to those who challenge the vested interests of Cambodia’s incumbent kleptocracy: be silent or you will be silenced.

It continues a pattern of the Cambodian oligarchy’s waging of “lawfare” against members of civil society, using the court system to intimidate and muzzle critics. It is the surest sign yet that Cambodia’s new prime minister, Hun Manet, intends to follow his predecessor’s pathway into intensifying authoritarianism.

The son rises

Cambodia’s self-proclaimed “strongman” leader, Hun Sen, stepped down as prime minster in August 2023 after nearly 40 years in power. He chose Manet, his oldest son, as his successor.

A dynastic succession does not typically indicate a democratic transfer of power. Yet hopes were raised that Manet might reverse the increasingly authoritarian trajectory of his father’s rule.

Where Hun Sen came of age fighting on the frontlines of Cambodia’s civil war, Hun Manet has had a more worldly upbringing. He was educated in the US and UK, and obtained a PhD in economics from the University of Bristol.

Hun Manet stood at a podium as he delivers a speech.
Cambodian prime minister, Hun Manet, who succeeded his father Hun Sen in 2023. Sa sola / Shutterstock

Some observers believed that the softly spoken and sharp-suited Manet might possess a more liberal worldview than that of his father, ushering a new era of renewed democracy.

Hun Sen’s reign in Cambodia was characterised by an increasing reliance on what researcher Neil Loughlin terms the “politics of coercion” to cement his hold on power. The Hun family are at the centre of a network of tightly entwined business and state elites that exert a stranglehold over Cambodia’s politics and economy.

This kleptocratic coalition is accused of asset-stripping the kingdom of its once-abundant natural resources, enriching themselves at the cost of impoverishing the many. As a result, popular dissent has grown.

To quell any threat to its longevity, the ruling Cambodian People’s party (CPP) has led a concerted crackdown on freedoms of association, assembly and expression. Over the past decade, this has included the shuttering of almost all independent news outlets, the dissolution of the opposition Cambodian National Rescue party, and the detention of its leader, Kem Sokha, under house arrest.

As the architect of the Paris Peace Accords that brokered the end to Cambodia’s civil war, the old guard of the party has sought to legitimise its heavyhanded approach by stressing the continued need to preserve order and stability to prevent descent into further unrest.

A false dawn

Manet has been keen to present himself as part of a new guard, ready to reengage with major powers such as the US and EU. Both the US and EU had cooled relations with Cambodia following the democratic deficits unleashed during Hun Sen’s premiership.

Yet the cyberscam story and its growing repercussions have embarrassed Cambodia on the international stage. By apparently censoring Mech Dara for uncovering the scandal, rather than seeking to control party elements responsible for the cyberscam scourge, Manet appears to be showing where his true loyalties and sentiments lie.

Dara is but one of a long line of dissenters charged with “incitement” by the CPP-controlled courts. With its explicit reference to the conjured threat of renewed social chaos, it harks to the CPP’s past as custodian of order and stability.

The heavyhanded nature of the arrest itself, where Dara was apprehended by a convoy of six military vehicles while on vacation with his family, is also straight out of the CPP’s historic playbook. Persecution not by stealth but by flourish, it sends a wider message to civil society to deter any would-be imitators.

More crucially, it signals a forceful intent to preserve the power, plunder and impunity of Cambodia’s elites, and a commitment to the continued silencing of dissenting voices who threaten their supremacy.The Conversation

Sabina Lawreniuk, Principal Research Fellow, University of Nottingham

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

An unbroken night’s sleep is a myth. Here’s what good sleep looks like

Bricolage/Shutterstock
Amy ReynoldsFlinders UniversityClaire DunbarFlinders UniversityGorica MicicFlinders UniversityHannah ScottFlinders University, and Nicole LovatoFlinders University

What do you imagine a good night’s sleep to be?

Often when people come into our sleep clinic seeking treatment, they share ideas about healthy sleep.

Many think when their head hits the pillow, they should fall into a deep and restorative sleep, and emerge after about eight hours feeling refreshed. They’re in good company – many Australians hold the same belief.

In reality, healthy sleep is cyclic across the night, as you move in and out of the different stages of sleep, often waking up several times. Some people remember one or more of these awakenings, others do not. Let’s consider what a healthy night’s sleep looks like.

Sleep cycles are a roller-coaster

As an adult, our sleep moves through different cycles and brief awakenings during the night. Sleep cycles last roughly 90 minutes each.

We typically start the night with lighter sleep, before moving into deeper sleep stages, and rising again into rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the stage of sleep often linked to vivid dreaming.

If sleeping well, we get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, with REM sleep more common in the second half of the night.

An older man sleeps peacefully in bed.
Deepest sleep usually happens during the first half of the night. Verin/Shutterstock

Adults usually move through five or six sleep cycles in a night, and it is entirely normal to wake up briefly at the end of each one. That means we might be waking up five times during the night. This can increase with older age and still be healthy. If you’re not remembering these awakenings that’s OK – they can be quite brief.

What does getting a ‘good’ sleep actually mean?

You’ll often hear that adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night. But good sleep is about more than the number of hours – it’s also about the quality.

For most people, sleeping well means being able to fall asleep soon after getting into bed (within around 30 minutes), sleeping without waking up for long periods, and waking feeling rested and ready for the day.

You shouldn’t be feeling excessively sleepy during the day, especially if you’re regularly getting at least seven hours of refreshing sleep a night (this is a rough rule of thumb).

But are you noticing you’re feeling physically tired, needing to nap regularly and still not feeling refreshed? It may be worthwhile touching base with your general practitioner, as there a range of possible reasons.

Common issues

Sleep disorders are common. Up to 25% of adults have insomnia, a sleep disorder where it may be hard to fall or stay asleep, or you may wake earlier in the morning than you’d like.

Rates of common sleep disorders such as insomnia and sleep apnoea – where your breathing can partially or completely stop many times during the night – also increase with age, affecting 20% of early adults and 40% of people in middle age. There are effective treatments, so asking for help is important.

Beyond sleep disorders, our sleep can also be disrupted by chronic health conditions – such as pain – and by certain medications.

There can also be other reasons we’re not sleeping well. Some of us are woken by children, pets or traffic noise during the night. These “forced awakenings” mean we may find it harder to get up in the morning, take longer to leave bed and feel less satisfied with our sleep. For some people, night awakenings may have no clear cause.

A good way to tell if these awakenings are a problem for you is by thinking about how they affect you. When they cause feelings of frustration or worry, or are impacting how we feel and function during the day, it might be a sign to seek some help.

Weary woman leans against a pole in an empty train carriage.
If waking up in the night is interfering with your normal day-to-day activities, it may indicate a problem. BearFotos/Shutterstock

We also may struggle to get up in the morning. This could be for a range of reasons, including not sleeping long enough, going to bed or waking up at irregular times – or even your own internal clock, which can influence the time your body prefers to sleep.

If you’re regularly struggling to get up for work or family needs, it can be an indication you may need to seek help. Some of these factors can be explored with a sleep psychologist if they are causing concern.

Can my smart watch help?

It is important to remember sleep-tracking devices can vary in accuracy for looking at the different sleep stages. While they can give a rough estimate, they are not a perfect measure.

In-laboratory polysomnography, or PSG, is the best standard measure to examine your sleep stages. A PSG examines breathing, oxygen saturation, brain waves and heart rate during sleep.

Rather than closely examining nightly data (including sleep stages) from a sleep tracker, it may be more helpful to look at the patterns of your sleep (bed and wake times) over time.

Understanding your sleep patterns may help identify and adjust behaviours that negatively impact your sleep, such as your bedtime routine and sleeping environment.

And if you find viewing your sleep data is making you feel worried about your sleep, this may not be useful for you. Most importantly, if you are concerned it is important to discuss it with your GP who can refer you to the appropriate specialist sleep health provider.The Conversation

Amy Reynolds, Associate Professor in Clinical Sleep Health, Flinders UniversityClaire Dunbar, Research Associate, Sleep Health, Flinders UniversityGorica Micic, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Clinical Psychologist, Flinders UniversityHannah Scott, Research Fellow in Sleep Health, Flinders University, and Nicole Lovato, Associate Professor, Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, Flinders University

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

Australian ‘MemoryAid’ project awarded share of $2.9 million as finalists in UK’s prestigious Longitude Prize on Dementia

October 9 2024
The ‘MemoryAid’ device, developed by a team from Western Sydney University and Deakin University, is among the five innovative technology solutions announced today as global finalists in the Longitude Prize on Dementia.

As the only Australian technology solution to advance through to the finals, the multidisciplinary research team have been awarded over $580,000 AUD to develop their digital solution for use by people living with dementia.

Project lead Associate Professor Celia Harris from Western Sydney University’s MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development said that MemoryAid is a home assistance device resembling a traditional telephone, allowing people living with dementia to maintain their independence for as long as possible.

The familiar-looking device offers a screen for video calls and makes video-calling loved ones as intuitive as picking up a ringing phone. The device can also display personalised reminders of daily activities, and the phone connects users to a reassuring voice-recording of their choice that shares prompts on daily activities and displays images of items in that person’s house.

“In developing MemoryAid, we aimed to empower people living with dementia to do things they love that bring meaning. We wanted to build a technology that is a tool for people with dementia to use themselves, to do the things they value the most and to stay connected to their loved ones,” said Associate Professor Celia Harris

“Recognition from the Longitude Prize is a testament to the power of co-design, allowing us a platform to share the voices of people with dementia and their families regarding what they want and need technology to do for them. It’s given us an imperative to work as hard as we can to get MemoryAid out into the world so that people can benefit from it.”
r Simon Parker, Head of Major Projects at Deakin University’s Applied AI Institute said MemoryAid aims to have transformative impact for people living with dementia by actively enabling and supporting living at home independently for longer.

“The complexity in MemoryAid is invisible to the user, where the system is working hard to make it as easy as possible for people with dementia to achieve the things that are most important to them.”

Designing in consultation with people living with dementia, carers, and their families had highlighted that good technological solutions need adjustable prompts for changes in cognition, including fluctuating ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’, and for changes in support needs over time.

A former psychologist, Bobby Redman, was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2016 and is now an advocate for people living with dementia.

Bobby, who is part of the MemoryAid Advisory Panel said personalisation is very important as different people have different needs.

“Some of us living with dementia have memory issues, and others have other issues such as the ones I deal with, which is poor sequencing. This means that I may do things at the wrong time, in the wrong order, or could miss out steps in an activity or task.  So, even though I use technology, and I live independently, I still need prompts,” said Bobby.

“Having your own voice on there, or a recognisable voice, is really useful. Sometimes, things like Siri or Alexa or Hey Google have a voice we don’t recognise, so we don’t necessarily respond.

“I like recordings in my own voice because I don’t feel as if I’m being told what to do. I’m not very good at doing as I’m told. If people are used to responding to their carer’s voice, then it’s good to use that carer’s voice.”

For 10 years, Bill Blair was the sole carer for his mum with dementia. As a member of the MemoryAid Advisory Panel, Bill said that MemoryAid provides both the person living with dementia and the carer with ongoing support for the future, to be able to handle a transition of stages with flexibility and adaptability.

“I would have loved for this to have been around when I first started looking after my mum, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing. I know what carers go through and I think they need this kind of support, it also helps with social connection for the person living with dementia,” said Bill.

The Longitude Prize on Dementia rewards the creation of new assistive technologies that use AI to transform how people live with dementia after a diagnosis so that they can maintain their independence for as long as possible.

Based on a 300-year history of funding international scientific discovery and finding solutions to intractable problems, the Longitude Prize on Dementia is an $8.5 million AUD prize funded by Alzheimer’s Society and Innovate UK and delivered by Challenge Works.

The five finalists, including the MemoryAid team, will share $2.9 million AUD to develop their solutions in pursuit of First Prize of over $1.9 million AUD, which will be awarded in early 2026 following a judging process with the international Judging Panel and Lived Experience Advisory Panel.

For more information on the finalists and prize, please visit https://dementia.longitudeprize.org/.

Get Online Week with AvPals: October 15

Avpals is all about demonstrating how to get online safely and confidently. And when better to showcase what the internet has to offer the older generation, than during the world’s annual Get Online Week! Our trainers will share their favourite apps and online resources. Since the only ‘dumb’ question is quite literally the one you don’t ask, we will endeavour to answer all the questions you DO ask. Get Online Week exists to help you improve your digital skills by learning something new, so we guarantee you will definitely get to know about an app or even an aspect of the internet you didn’t know about before. 

We invite you to join us for our start-of-term FREE session (which includes afternoon tea and information about the Term 4 program) on Tuesday 15 October 2024.

Venue: Newport Community Centre. 11-13 The Boulevarde, Newport. Entrance is opposite the tennis courts. 

Number of aged care homes falling short on minutes of care targets deeply concerning

Revelations that 6 out of 10 aged care homes are still falling short on their mandatory minutes of direct care and registered nurse targets are deeply concerning, COTA Australia says.

Data from the April – June 2024 quarter, released October 3, shows that despite increased funding, many aged care homes – including those in metropolitan areas where workforce issues are not as acute as they are in regional and rural areas – are still failing to meet their direct care targets.

Chief Executive of COTA Australia – the leading advocacy organisation for older people – Patricia Sparrow said aged care facilities have an urgent responsibility to improve the level of care being provided.

“Increasing the mandatory minutes of care provided to aged care residents was a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Aged Care and a substantial piece of reform introduced by the Federal Government last year. The fact that too many older people are still not getting the mandated minutes of care is a real concern,” Ms Sparrow said.

“Australians have a right to expect that if they or a loved one goes into aged care they’ll be given the attention and quality care they need and deserve.

“Basic direct care isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s crucial and the absolute minimum we should expect for older Australians in aged care.

Ms Sparrow said it was especially concerning that compliance rates in for-profit aged care homes are significantly lower than those run by not-for-profit providers. 

Only 23% of ‘for profit’ providers met both their RN and total care minutes in the quarter to 30 June 2024.

“We shouldn’t have a situation where aged care homes are making profits off government funding while falling short of their mandatory care targets.

“This data shows that far too many older people are going without the basic, mandated level of care they deserve. It’s good to see the Federal Government making moves to address this. We welcome the release of provider and service level information so that older people and their families can see how their individual home is performing.

“COTA looks forward to being part of further discussions about how to increase the number of older Australians getting access to the minutes of care, and quality of care, they deserve and regulatory action being taken where providers are failing to meet the requirements.”

From October 1, it is expected that aged care providers increase their care minutes to an average of 215 minutes per resident, per day, including at least 44 minutes of care provided by a registered nurse.


New cheaper medicines for autoimmune conditions, cancer, arthritis and heart disease

October 8, 2024
Australians with types of vasculitis, leukaemia, heart disease, ulcerative colitis and arthritis now have access to new and expanded cheaper medicines under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
 
Avacopan (Tavneos®) will be listed for the first time to treat Australians with certain types of rare autoimmune diseases that cause inflammation of blood vessels.
 
Severe active granulomatosis with polyangiitis and microscopic polyangiitis can lead to organ damage or failure, including of the lungs and kidneys.
 
Tavneos works by blocking a protein receptor in the immune system to help reduce inflammation in the blood vessels and improve symptoms.
 
This listing is expected to benefit around 360 patients each year. Without subsidy, they might pay around $71,000 per course of treatment.
 
Australians diagnosed with a common form of lymphoma will soon have access to a first-of-its kind treatment combination that will allow them to take daily tablets at home for 15 months and then go ‘treatment-free’ while in remission.
 
Ibrutinib (Imbruvica®) will be listed for use in combination with venetoclax (Venclexta®) for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).
 
Approximately 2,400 Australians are diagnosed with CLL each year.
 
Imbruvica works by blocking certain proteins, helping to kill and reduce the number of cancer cells and slow the spread of the cancer.
 
In 2023, around 900 patients accessed a comparable treatment through the PBS.
 
Without subsidy, patients might pay around $190,000 per course of treatment.
 
Icosapent ethyl (Vazkepa®) will be listed for the first time for patients with heart disease and high blood fat.
 
One in six Australians live with cardiovascular disease (CVD), including atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, at some point in their lives.
 
CVD is a major cause of death in Australia. On average, around one person dies every 12 minutes from CVD in Australia.
 
Around one in three people who have had a heart attack or stroke will go on to have another major cardiovascular event in the next 7 years.
 
Vazkepa works to help prevent serious cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke and death from heart disease. It is the first reimbursed treatment to reduce the risk of a second heart attack or stroke for people with high triglycerides
 
This listing is expected to benefit around 10,400 patients each year. Without subsidy, they might pay around $1,800 per year of treatment.
 
Etrasimod (Velsipity®) will be listed for the first time to treat patients with ulcerative colitis, a condition which causes inflammation or ulcers on the lining of bowel.
 
Velsipity works by attaching to lymphocytes, types of white blood cells involved in inflammation, and stops them from traveling to the intestine to help reduce inflammation in the bowel.
 
In 2023, over 1,700 patients accessed a comparable treatment through the PBS. Without subsidy, patients might pay around $18,000 per year of treatment.
 
Bimekizumab (Bimzelx®) will also be expanded to include the treatment of a range of inflammatory arthritis conditions.
 
In 2023, over 3,000 patients accessed comparable treatments through the PBS for these conditions. Without subsidy, patients might pay around $22,000 per year of treatment.
 
A new high-dose eye injection will be PBS listed on 1 October for two common sight-stealing diseases – wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular oedema (DMO).
 
The PBS listing of Eylea (aflibercept) 8mg will mean that Australians with wet AMD and DMO will be able to have their disease controlled with fewer injections (ie. dosing intervals extended from 2 months to up to 4 months). Essentially that means that patients may require just three injections per year after the initial loading doses.
 
The potential benefits of receiving fewer injections (extended treatment intervals) are significant – reduced out of pocket costs, time and travel for ophthalmologist appointments; improved quality of life (and less frequent treatment anxiety); and easing of systems constraints, allowing doctors to treat more patients.
 
Eye injections are one of the most common medical procedures in Australia. As the population ages and diabetes becomes more prevalent, the demand for sight-saving therapies is on the rise.
 
Last year, around 60,000 people accessed Eylea for these conditions through the PBS.
 
This new listing could reduce the frequency and number of injections patients need in a year and may help reduce the burden of access to treatment.
 
Without the PBS subsidy, patients might pay more than $4,000 a year for treatment. 
 
The PBS listings of these medicines means eligible patients will pay a maximum of $31.60 per script, or just $7.70 with a concession card.
 
Since July 2022, the Australian Government has approved extra funding for 251 new and amended listings on the PBS.
 
Australian Health Minister, the Hon. Mark Butler MP said:
 
“The Albanese Government is listing new medications on the PBS, fulfilling our commitment to deliver cheaper, faster access to life-changing treatment for thousands of Australians.
 
“These listings are treating conditions that have a devastating impact on the health and wellbeing of patients, and that are life-threatening in some cases.
 
“Now, instead of paying thousands of dollars out of pocket, Australians will be able to afford these latest treatments for a maximum of $31.60 per script or just $7.70 if they have a concession card.
 
“Not only are these listings good for patients hip pocket, they’re also good for their health.”

Is owning a dog good for your health?

Pogodina Natalia/Shutterstock
Tania SignalCQUniversity Australia

Australia loves dogs. We have one of the highest rates of pet ownership in the world, and one in two households has at least one dog.

But are they good for our health?

Mental health is the second-most common reason cited for getting a dog, after companionship. And many of us say we “feel healthier” for having a dog – and let them sleep in our bedroom.

Here’s what it means for our physical and mental health to share our homes (and doonas) with our canine companions.

Are there physical health benefits to having a dog?

Having a dog is linked to lower risk of death over the long term. In 2019, a systematic review gathered evidence published over 70 years, involving nearly four million individual medical cases. It found people who owned a dog had a 24% lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who did not own a dog.

A golden retriever pants on the grass next to a ball.
Having a dog may help lower your blood pressure through more physical activity. Barnabas Davoti/Pexels

Dog ownership was linked to increased physical activity. This lowered blood pressure and helped reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease.

The review found for those with previous heart-related medical issues (such as heart attack), living with a dog reduced their subsequent risk of dying by 35%, compared to people with the same history but no dog.

Another recent UK study found adult dog owners were almost four times as likely to meet daily physical activity targets as non-owners. Children in households with a dog were also more active and engaged in more unstructured play, compared to children whose family didn’t have a dog.

Exposure to dirt and microbes carried in from outdoors may also strengthen immune systems and lead to less use of antibiotics in young children who grow up with dogs.

Health risks

However, dogs can also pose risks to our physical health. One of the most common health issues for pet owners is allergies.

Dogs’ saliva, urine and dander (the skin cells they shed) can trigger allergic reactions resulting in a range of symptoms, from itchy eyes and runny nose to breathing difficulties.

A recent meta-analysis pooled data from nearly two million children. Findings suggested early exposure to dogs may increase the risk of developing asthma (although not quite as much as having a cat does). The child’s age, how much contact they have with the dog and their individual risk all play a part.

Slips, trips and falls are another risk – more people fall over due to dogs than cats.

Having a dog can also expose you to bites and scratches which may become infected and pose a risk for those with compromised immune systems. And they can introduce zoonotic diseases into your home, including ring worm and Campylobacter, a disease that causes diarrhoea.

For those sharing the bed there is an elevated the risk of allergies and picking up ringworm. It may result in lost sleep, as dogs move around at night.

On the other hand some owners report feeling more secure while co-sleeping with their dogs, with the emotional benefit outweighing the possibility of sleep disturbance or waking up with flea bites.

Proper veterinary care and hygiene practices are essential to minimise these risks.

A dog peers out from under a doona while a man sleeps.
Many of us don’t just share a home with a dog – we let them sleep in our beds. Claudia Mañas/Unsplash

What about mental health?

Many people know the benefits of having a dog are not only physical.

As companions, dogs can provide significant emotional support helping to alleviate symptoms of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. Their presence may offer comfort and a sense of purpose to individuals facing mental health challenges.

Loneliness is a significant and growing public health issue in Australia.

In the dog park and your neighbourhood, dogs can make it easier to strike up conversations with strangers and make new friends. These social interactions can help build a sense of community belonging and reduce feelings of social isolation.

For older adults, dog walking can be a valuable loneliness intervention that encourages social interaction with neighbours, while also combating declining physical activity.

However, if you’re experiencing chronic loneliness, it may be hard to engage with other people during walks. An Australian study found simply getting a dog was linked to decreased loneliness. People reported an improved mood – possibly due to the benefits of strengthening bonds with their dog.

Three dogs on leash sniff each other.
Walking a dog can make it easier to talk to people in your neighbourhood. KPegg/Shutterstock

What are the drawbacks?

While dogs can bring immense joy and numerous health benefits, there are also downsides and challenges. The responsibility of caring for a dog, especially one with behavioural issues or health problems, can be overwhelming and create financial stress.

Dogs have shorter lifespans than humans, and the loss of a beloved companion can lead to depression or exacerbate existing mental health conditions.

Lifestyle compatibility and housing conditions also play a significant role in whether having a dog is a good fit.

The so-called pet effect suggests that pets, often dogs, improve human physical and mental health in all situations and for all people. The reality is more nuanced. For some, having a pet may be more stressful than beneficial.

Importantly, the animals that share our homes are not just “tools” for human health. Owners and dogs can mutually benefit when the welfare and wellbeing of both are maintained.The Conversation

Tania Signal, Professor of Psychology, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity Australia

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

The woman who revolutionised the fantasy genre is finally getting her due

Hugo Award-winner Arthur C. Clarke called Judy-Lynn del Rey the ‘most brilliant editor I ever encountered.’ Artwork by Adriano Botega. Courtesy of Inspiration Films, LLC.
Dennis Wilson WiseUniversity of Arizona

Think of your favorite fantasy or science fiction novel. You’ll know the author and title, of course. But can you think of its editor or publisher?

In publishing, the people who work behind the scenes rarely get their due. But on Oct. 1, 2024, at least, one industry pioneer got the limelight. On that day, PBS aired “Judy-Lynn del Rey: The Galaxy Gal,” the first episode of its new documentary series “Renegades,” which highlights little-known historical figures with disabilities.

A woman with dwarfism, Judy-Lynn del Rey was best known for founding Del Rey Books, a science fiction and fantasy imprint that turned fantasy in particular into a major publishing category.

As a scholar of fantasy literature, I had the good fortune to serve as research consultant for the PBS project. Due to time constraints, however, the episode could tell only half of del Rey’s story, passing over how she affected science fiction and fantasy themselves.

Judy-Lynn del Rey, you see, had very clear notions on what kind of stories people wanted to buy. For some critics, she also committed the unforgivable sin of being right.

The Mama of ‘Star Wars’

Over the course of her career, del Rey earned a reputation as a superstar editor among her authors. Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” called her the “most brilliant editor I ever encountered,” and Philip K. Dick said she was the “greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins,” the legendary editor of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

She got her start, though, working as an editorial assistant – in truth, a “gofer” – for the most lauded science fiction magazine of the 1960s, Galaxy. There she learned the basics of publishing and rose rapidly through the editorial ranks until Ballantine Books lured her away in 1973.

Soon thereafter, Ballantine was acquired by publishing giant Random House, which then named del Rey senior editor. Yet her first big move was a risky one – cutting ties with Ballantine author John Norman, whose highly popular “Gor” novels were widely panned for their misogyny.

Book cover featuring man wearing black mask and black helmet.
Del Rey’s acquisition of the rights to ‘Star Wars’ was a boon for Ballantine. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Nonetheless, del Rey’s mission was to develop a strong backlist of science fiction novels that could hook new generations of younger readers, not to mention adults. One early success was her “Star Trek Log” series, a sequence of 10 novels based on episodes of “Star Trek: The Animated Series.”

But del Rey landed an even bigger success by snagging the novelization rights to a science fiction film that, at the time, few Hollywood executives believed would do well: “Star Wars.”

This savvy gamble led to years of lucrative tie-in products for Ballantine such as calendars, art books, sketchbooks, the Star Wars Intergalactic Passport and, of course, more novels set in the Star Wars universe – so many different tie-ins, in fact, that del Rey dubbed herself the “Mama of Star Wars.”

Afterward, she became someone who, as reporter Jennifer Crighton put it, radiated “with the shameless glee of one of the Rebel forces, an upstart who won.”

A big player in big fiction

Del Rey’s tendencies as an editor were sometimes criticized – often by competitors who could not match her line’s success – for focusing too much on Ballantine’s bottom line. But she also chose to work within the publishing landscape as it actually existed in the 1970s, rather than the one she only wished existed.

In his book “Big Fiction,” publishing industry scholar Dan Sinykin calls this period the “Conglomerate Era,” a time when publishing houses – usually small and family run – were being consolidated into larger corporations.

One benefit of this shift, however, was greater corporate investment in the industry, which boosted print runs, marketing budgets, author advances and salaries for personnel.

Ballantine’s parent company, Random House, was also known as an industry leader in free speech, thanks to the efforts of legendary CEOs Bennett Cerf and Robert L. Bernstein.

Accordingly, Random House gave their publishing divisions, including Ballantine, immense creative autonomy.

And when del Rey was finally given her own imprint in 1977, she took her biggest risk of all: fantasy.

The Del Rey era

In prior decades, fantasy had a reputation for being unsellable – unless, of course, your name was J.R.R. Tolkien, or you wrote Conan-style barbarian fiction. Whereas the top science fiction magazines often had distinguished runs, fantasy magazines often folded due to lack of sales.

Book cover featuring a young woman riding a horse.
The popular film version of ‘The Princess Bride’ was aided by del Rey’s earlier advocacy for reissuing the novel. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database

In 1975, though, del Rey hired her husband, Lester del Rey, to develop a fantasy line, and when Del Rey Books launched two years later, it landed major successes with bestsellers such as Terry Brooks’ “The Sword of Shannara” and Stephen R. Donaldson’s “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.” Yet even though Lester edited the fantasy authors, Judy-Lynn oversaw the imprint and the marketing.

One lesser-known example of her prowess is “The Princess Bride.”

Today, most people know the 1987 film, but the movie originated as a much earlier novel by William Goldman. The original 1973 edition, however, sold poorly. It might have faded into obscurity had del Rey not been determined to revive Ballantine’s backlist.

She reissued “The Princess Bride” in 1977 with a dazzling, gate-folded die-cut cover and a new promotional campaign, without which the novel – and the film – might never have found its later success.

Accolades accumulate

Thanks to these efforts, Del Rey Books dominated genre publishing, producing more bestselling titles through 1990 than every other science fiction and fantasy publisher combined. Yet despite complaints that the imprint prioritized commercial success over literary merit, Del Rey authors earned their fair share of literary accolades.

The prestigious Locus Poll Award for best science fiction novel went to Del Rey authors Julian May and Isaac Asimov in 1982 and 1983. Other Locus awardees include Patricia A. McKillip, Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Barbara Hambly.

Barry Hughart’s “Bridge of Birds” was one of two winners for the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and won the Mythopoeic Society Award in 1986. Even more impressively, Del Rey ran away with the Science Fiction Book Club Award during that prize’s first nine years of existence, winning seven of them. The imprint’s titles also won three consecutive August Derleth Fantasy Awards – now called the British Fantasy Award – from 1977 through 1979.

Yet despite these accolades, Del Rey’s reputation continued to suffer from its own commercial success. Notably, Judy-Lynn del Rey was never nominated for a Hugo Award for best professional editor. When she died in 1986, the Hugo committee belatedly tried granting her a posthumous award, but her husband, Lester, refused to accept it, saying that it came too late.

Although the current narrative continues to be that Del Rey Books published mainly formulaic mass-market fiction in its science fiction and fantasy lines, the time may be ripe to celebrate the foresight and iconoclasm of a publisher who expanded speculative fiction beyond the borders of a small genre fandom.The Conversation

Dennis Wilson Wise, Professor of Practice in English Literature, University of Arizona

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

The extraordinary life of Alfred Nobel

Jonas F. LudvigssonKarolinska Institutet

The Nobel prizes may be one of the most famous and prestigious awards in the world – but who was the man behind them? As I explain in my lectures about Alfred Nobel, the inventor and entrepreneur has left a lasting legacy with the annual prizes he established in 1901 for physicschemistryphysiology or medicineliterature and peace (the Nobel prize for economic sciences was established much later, in 1968).

But life wasn’t always so illustrious for Alfred Nobel.

According to Ingrid Carlberg’s biography of Nobel, he had a tough childhood in Stockholm. Not only was he poor but the boy who would become an esteemed scientist – holding 355 patents in his lifetime – was placed in a class for children with learning difficulties at school. Innovation may have run in the Nobel blood, however. Alfred’s father, Immanuel, was also an inventor, albeit less successful than his son would become.

Among Immanuel’s early creations was a backpack made from foul-smelling rubber that could also serve as a floating device for soldiers who needed to cross a river – and as a pillow on which to sit comfortably. But Immanuel’s inventions racked up huge debts and he fled from his creditors to Saint Petersburg in Russia – a place that would play an important role in his son Alfred’s later life.

Things improved for Alfred when the Nobel family moved to Russia, where he began working on developing explosives.

Explosive interests

Unfortunately, in Russia, Immanuel faced bankruptcy once again and returned to Sweden. Alfred and his father, alongside the Nobel family’s youngest son Emil, experimented with nitroglycerin in Stockholm.

The findings of these experiments made momentous contributions to industrialisation and medicine. However, there were many tragic events before Alfred found a way to make nitroglycerin safer to use by inventing dynamite in 1867.

In 1864, for example, Alfred’s younger brother Emil was killed in a nitroglycerin explosion at the family laboratory near Stockholm – after which the manufacture of nitroglycerin was banned in the city.

But this family tragedy didn’t distract Alfred from his goal. He continued to manufacture explosives – now at an industrial scale – at a factory in Vinterviken, Sweden. That factory was destroyed several times in accidents caused by the instability of nitroglycerin – killing numerous workers.

Although Nobel’s factory was undoubtedly a dangerous place to work, it also helped uncover the benefits of nitroglycerin as a cardiac drug.

Factory workers experienced changes to their health from exposure to nitroglycerin. The chemical has substantial physiological effects as a vasodilator that relaxes blood vessels to increase blood flow and oxygen to the heart.

In 1998, The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 1998 was awarded jointly to Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad “for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system”. This may have surprised Alfred Nobel, who reportedly refused to take nitroglycerin when doctors prescribed it for his angina attacks.

From Nobel’s work followed the prizes in chemistry and physics, but more surprising – given Nobel’s significant contribution to the development of weapons of warfare – is the peace prize.

One of Nobel’s closest friends was pacifist Bertha von Suttner, who wrote the bestselling anti-war novel Lay Down Your ArmsIt is believed that she wanted Alfred Nobel to donate his money to the peace movement, but Alfred chose to fund a prize instead. In 1905, von Suttner became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel peace prize and the second female Nobel laureate, after Marie Curie.

Courting controversy

Several aspects of the prizes were highly controversial.

That women could receive the prizes was seen as a folly, not to mention that the Nobel peace prize would be delivered by a committee in Norway. But to Alfred, Oslo must have been seen as a natural place for one of the prizes. At the time of Alfred’s death, Sweden and Norway were in a union, and Alfred spent a lot of time hanging out with friends at the Swedish-Norwegian Association in Paris.

Swedes were upset that the prizes could be awarded to anyone, and were not limited to Swedish citizens. In the 19th century, most prizes were national, but Alfred must have been an internationalist. He spent his childhood in Sweden, his formative years in Russia, most of his later life in France and had a vacation home in San Remo, Italy. The authorities in San Remo continue to send flowers to decorate the annual Nobel prize award ceremony and banquet in Stockholm each year.

However, the fiercest attack against the Nobel prizes did not come from Swedish nationalists, but from Nobel’s own family who was disowned of their inheritance after Alfred’s death. The family noticed that there were several wills – and they received less and less money with each will – until the final version, which left the largest amount to the prizes.

One cannot overestimate the importance of Alfred Nobel’s assistant and will executor, Ragnar Sohlman, who lobbied intensely for the prizes.

In the end, courts from France and Sweden came to fight it out. This was when the Swedes may have made their master stroke, suggesting that the will should be settled by a small court in Karlskoga, a minor city in the middle of Sweden where Alfred had his home at the end of his life – and where, most importantly, Alfred kept his horses.

Ultimately, it was decided that where a man has his horses is also where he belongs. And so the small court of Karlskoga, Sweden, was selected to interpret Alfred Nobel’s will, and the Nobel Prizes were born.The Conversation

Jonas F. Ludvigsson, Professor, Dept of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet

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

Six ways to holiday like an old-school travel journalist – without using the internet

The Travelling Companions by Augustus Leopold Egg (1862). Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Masood KhodadadiUniversity of the West of Scotland

We all want to get the most out of our holidays, which is why we so often turn to online “top things to see” lists, or TikTok recommendations of a destination’s best sights and eateries.

But as useful as these strategies can be, using the internet to plan every detail of your travel omits the essence of discovery – the very thing that made pre-internet travel journalism so thrilling to read.

These six tips explain how you can explore a new place like an old-school travel journalist or an explorer from a bygone era. They’ll enable you to look up from your phone, and discover your destination with intuition and curiosity.


No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

Read more from Quarter Life:


1. Discard the itinerary and trust your gut

Portrait of a woman sat at a writing desk.
Freya Madeline Stark by Herbert Arnould Olivier (1923). National Portrait Gallery

Before smartphones, travel journalists such as Freya Stark and Bruce Chatwin depended on serendipity. They didn’t have TripAdvisor or Google Maps to guide them. Rather, they listened to their instincts and locals’ advice about how to shape their journey.

A famous example is Chatwin walking through Patagonia after conversations with locals advised him of his next stop.

Try this on your next adventure: walk without a plan. Follow your instincts towards any of the local cafes, quiet parks, or bustling markets. And if all else fails and you are not quite sure where to start, just stop and ask someone near you what it is that they love about the area. Many times, people’s stories will take you to places you would never have found online.

2. Use analogue maps and guides

Before GPS, maps weren’t just functional – they were part of the adventure. Travel writers like Jan Morris and Paul Theroux (father of documentary presenter, Louis) wrote about how their unfolding maps forced them to interact with the landscape in a tactile way.

Pick up a local map in a bookshop or visitor centre and unfold it in a cafe. Mark where you have been and circle the areas you are curious about.

In their early editions, guidebooks like The Rough Guide and Lonely Planet didn’t give a thorough list, but instead pushed cultural immersion travel, which is concerned with authentic activities. Think local traditions, history, language and customs of the place you’re visiting. Cultural immersion travel involves mingling with the residents to get an in-depth feel of how they live.

Although carrying a printed guidebook seems vintage, this act plunges you back to the time when the discovery of hidden corners of a city was about turning pages, not scrolling.

painting of tourists reading from a book and talking to a local man who is pointing into the distance
Chatting with locals is a great way to discover gems in a new place. English Tourists in Campagna by Carl Spitzweg (1845). Alte Nationalgalerie

3. Speak to local people

Pre-smartphone travellers had one irreplaceable resource at their disposal – people. On his long walks across Europe, for example, travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor relied on the people he met for insight into local customs, history and hidden gems.

Do exactly the same thing. Go to a typical bar, a bazaar, a local event, or attend a course on the language or the cooking of the place. Engage a bartender, shop owner, or street vendor in a chat. These tips will steer you off the beaten path of algorithms.

4. Immerse yourself in slow travel

Travel journalists of the past were in no hurry. Rather than zipping from one attraction to the next, they stayed put for long enough to pull back the layers of a place. Writer Rebecca West’s trek through the Balkans (which she described in her 1941 book, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon) took months. Her long stays in villages allowed her to really get to know the place and its complexities.

You should slow down on your next trip, too. Stay on in a small town or neighbourhood a little longer than you planned to. Stroll its streets and soak in the rhythms of daily life.

5. Read travel literature

The writers of travel history books, be it Robert Byron’s travels among the architecture and culture of Persia, or Isabella Bird entering unknown 19th-century Japan, articulate how their predecessors perceived the lands they visited.

Read books written by local authors to get deeper into the cultural context of the place you’re visiting. You’ll find their reflections on their hometown or region often give you a more insightful, nuanced perspective than any modern day “top ten” list could.

6. Research the history of every place you visit

Writers like Colin Thubron included historical and cultural details to make their travel stories richer and more meaningful.

Whether you find yourself at a local museum, reading up on the past of a place, or simply walking its streets with an eye for historical markers, learning the background of where you are can infuse your visit with added meaning.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.The Conversation


Masood Khodadadi, Reader (Associate Professor) in Tourism, Culture and Society, University of the West of Scotland

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

How to recognise burnout – and what to do if you’re affected

PeopleImages.com - Yuri A/Shutterstock
Michael KochBrunel University London and Sarah ParkUniversity of Leicester

Emily, a finance manager, has been working 60-hour weeks for several months to meet deadlines. She starts feeling constantly exhausted, both physically and mentally. Work that she once found engaging now seems overwhelming, and she’s easily irritated with her colleagues. Despite putting in more hours, her productivity declines. Eventually, she starts calling in sick frequently and considers quitting her job, feeling like she just can’t keep going any more.

Emily is a victim of burnout. For 2024, World Mental Health Day is focused on workplace health, with the aim of helping people like Emily recognise when work is affecting their wellbeing, so that they can take steps to address it.

Burnout happens when the demands of a job are high for a long time, and are not offset by sufficient mental and physical resources. In this situation, people are no longer able to recover from their demanding job. Their energy is gradually drained, resulting in a state of mental exhaustion, a cynical and negative attitude towards their work, as well as a declining performance.

In other words, people affected by burnout are neither able nor willing to fully function in their job. Burnout can occur in any job, but is most likely in workplaces where demands are high and resources low. It is a widespread phenomenon.

report by the charity Mental Health UK asserts that the country is on the verge of becoming a burnt-out nation, with 91% of the working adults surveyed reporting high or extreme levels of pressure and stress at some point in the past year.

According to the same report, 20% of workers in the UK even took time off work due to poor mental health caused by stress last year.

stressed woman working in a factory with hi-vis and hard hat.
You don’t have to work in a desk job to be at risk of burnout. ultramansk/Shutterstock

Research has consistently shown that the primary causes of burnout are excessive and prolonged job demands. This includes, for example, high workloads, job insecurity, role ambiguity, conflict, stress or stressful events, and work pressure.

Burnout has severe consequences, most of all for people affected by it. Burnout impacts people differently, but even mild cases – which could linger for several years – can lead to a multitude of negative health outcomes. This includes work-related anxiety and depression, increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes, insomnia, headaches and perhaps most alarmingly, increased mortality.

People with mild cases of burnout are also at risk of developing more severe burnout that will keep them off work sick for long periods.

Burnout is also worrying for organisations as it has a negative impact on creativity, leads to higher employee turnover, increased absenteeism and poor job performance.

The symptoms of burnout differ from one person to another, and sometimes people might not even fully realise they’re burnt out until they are no longer just tired but too exhausted to function.

People who experience burnout are drained of energy and may be overwhelmed even by small tasks. They distance themselves from their work, struggle with self doubt and develop cynical, negative attitudes regarding their job or the people they work for.

When looking for symptoms of burnout, it might help to ask yourself questions like: Do you mostly talk about your work in a negative way? Do you tend to think less about your work and do your job almost mechanically? Do you sometimes feel sickened by your work tasks? Are there days when you feel tired before you arrive at work? Do you often feel emotionally drained during your work? Do you usually feel worn out and weary after your work?

Burnout recovery and prevention needs to help minimise the job demands which cause exhaustion and disengagement. For example, reducing workload and work pressure, and establishing clear boundaries between life and work can help to reduce stressful job demands.

Job resources can also help to mitigate the impact of job demands. This includes things like job control, having a variety of tasks, social support, performance feedback, opportunities for professional development and the quality of a worker’s relationship with their supervisor.

When people have an abundance of these resources, the link between the demands of the job and burnout is greatly reduced because they help workers to cope better.

Recovery is possible

Opportunities for recovery from work-related stress are an especially important job resource in this context. Recovery means that employees have non-work time where they can relax and detach themselves from work. This may include leisure activities that allow people to simply experience pleasure without competitive pressures.

Research has also shown that job crafting is an effective burnout intervention. Job crafting means that employees make small adjustments to both their job demands and resources. Employees can decrease their job demands by taking steps to minimise the emotionally, mentally or physically demanding job aspects or by reducing their workload.

For example, this might involve looking for a calmer place to work. They can also increase job resources by engaging in professional development, gaining more autonomy at work and by asking others for support, feedback and advice. Over time, engaging in job crafting will lead to lower burnout.

Organisations also need to play their part to reduce burnout. A range of intervention strategies such as stress management training, mindfulness-based approaches or policies that allow employees to disconnect from work outside of normal working hours are useful tools for combating burnout in an organisation.The Conversation

Michael Koch, Reader in Human Resource Management & Organisational Behaviour, Brunel University London and Sarah Park, Professor in International Business, University of Leicester

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

How 19th-century French novelist Balzac mastered the multiverse long before Marvel

Harsh TrivediUniversity of Sheffield

The multiverse has become an essential part of pop culture. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) brought this shared universe style of storytelling to global prominence with Iron Man (2008), where a post-credit scene hinted at a larger interconnected universe.

Over time, this expanded into a cinematic multiverse, particularly with the 2016 film Doctor Strange. Films like Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (2022) introduced audiences to parallel universes where different versions of the same character coexist. The multiverse has also been embraced by other films, like Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), which won multiple Academy Awards and Stree 2, which became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time in September 2024.

This style of storytelling has deep literary roots. I believe the first person to master the fictional multiverse was the 19th-century French novelist, Honoré de Balzac, in his monumental work La Comédie Humaine (The Human Comedy, 1829-1847).

In the 1920s, German physicist Werner Heisenberg challenged Newtonian physics, positing that particles can simultaneously occupy multiple states – he called this the Uncertainty Principle. Later, in the 1950s, American physicist Hugh Everett proposed the Many Worlds Interpretation, suggesting that all possible outcomes of a quantum event occur, each in a separate parallel universe.

While this theory was developed in physics, the term “multiverse” was introduced into literature by British science fiction writer Michael Moorcock. In The Eternal Champion (1970), he envisioned characters existing in parallel worlds with multiple avatars.

Painting of Balzac with a moustache, wearing a dressing gown.
Honoré de Balzac, by Louis Boulanger (1836). Wikimedia.CC BY-SA

However, Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine, written over a century earlier, already contained the seeds of multiverse storytelling. Comprising nearly 100 novels and short stories, it features thousands of characters who reappear across different works, creating a shared universe that allows for complex narrative interconnections.

Balzac’s innovation was not merely in these recurring characters, but in the thematic and conceptual unity he established across his fictional universe.

This cohesion is built through his “typology” of characters. Balzac’s “types” are characters who embody universal traits while retaining their individual personalities – making them instantly recognisable across different stories.

In his preface to Une Ténébreuse Affaire (An Historical Mystery, 1841), Balzac defends his use of types: “A type … is a character who summarises in himself certain characteristic traits of all those who more or less resemble him; he is the model of the genre.”

Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács expanded on this idea, stating that Balzac’s types represent a synthesis of the individual and the universal. These characters are universal enough to represent broader societal forces, while remaining distinct individuals within their own narratives.

The moment Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man saves the love interest of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, MJ.

This balance between the universal and individual is a cornerstone of multiverse storytelling. For instance, the climax of Spider-Man: No Way Home highlights the interplay between the universal and individual aspects of characters, as seen when three versions of Spider-Man (Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland) from parallel universes unite. Garfield’s Spider-Man finds redemption by saving MJ (Holland’s Spider-Man’s love interest), a moment that mirrors his own tragic loss of Gwen – emphasising both their shared trauma and divergent fates.

In much the same way, Balzac’s recurring characters evolve across La Comédie Humaine, reflecting different facets of their personalities and situations. Although not planned as a shared universe from the beginning – Balzac retrofitted earlier works to fit this framework – the coherence of his fictional world is remarkable.

Mobilising the multiverse

The French philosopher Alain wrote that Balzac’s literary universe can sometimes feel like a “crossroads where characters from La Comédie Humaine meet, greet each other, and pass”. This creates a sense of disjointedness, due to its lack of strict chronological order, allowing readers to enter Balzac’s universe from any of the nearly 100 novels or short stories.

Balzac addressed these concerns in his prefaces. He engaged in a meta-discourse similar to the post-credit scenes in modern Marvel films, where future plot-lines and character arcs are hinted at.

Balzac’s use of prefaces as a space to preempt criticism and engage with his readers anticipates the dialogue between creators and fans in the MCU. Just as Marvel balances creative vision with fan demands, Balzac used his prefaces to address concerns from his readers about the trajectories of beloved characters.

One of many such instances occurs in the preface to Pierrette (1840), where Balzac reveals that Maxime de Trailles, a notorious bachelor who ruins many women’s lives in La Comédie Humaine, is finally getting married. Despite criticisms from readers who wanted De Trailles to meet a tragic and painful end, Balzac defends his decision, humorously remarking: “What do you want me to do? That devil Maxime is in good health.”

Both Balzac and Marvel deal with the challenge of catering to a wide and diverse audience. The multiverse model, however, offers a solution to the limitations of a shared universe. While Balzac struggled with the impossibility of creating a completely coherent world – La Comédie Humaine was unfinished at his death – the multiverse allows modern creators to explore multiple realities and satisfy diverse audience expectations without making irreversible narrative choices.

In 2019, Marvel faced a backlash to the film Captain Marvel from conservative fans, for casting a female actor in a lead role – and then, in 2022, another backlash for casting a Muslim Pakistani actress as Ms. Marvel. Rather than directly addressing the criticism, which could have alienated both conservative and liberal audiences, Marvel used the multiverse to cater to a wide range of expectations.

Across the Spider-Verse (2023) is a prime example. This animated film features over 600 versions of Spider-Man, from the “traditional” white Spider-Man to black, Indian and even animal versions of the character (notably Peter “Porker”, the Spider-Pig). In doing so, Marvel catered to diverse global markets without committing to a single interpretation.

Balzac’s La Comédie Humaine laid the groundwork for modern multiverse storytelling. This approach allowed him to explore different dimensions of his characters across various stories. His visionary storytelling anticipated the fluidity and complexity found in today’s shared cinematic universes, demonstrating his enduring influence on narrative structures.


Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.The Conversation


Harsh Trivedi, Associate Teacher, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sheffield

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

The Terminator at 40: James Cameron’s dark vision is more relevant than ever

Nathan AbramsBangor University

When director James Cameron’s The Terminator hit cinemas in 1984, it forever altered the landscape of science fiction.

Released 40 years ago, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic future where an artificial intelligence (AI) defence network, Skynet, has turned against humanity. It triggers a nuclear holocaust and creates a dystopian world where machines hunt down the last remnants of human life.

Desperate to avoid defeat by the human resistance, Skynet sends a Terminator back in time. This lifelike android is almost indistinguishable from a person, but superior in strength, agility and intelligence. Its mission – eliminate Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of the future human resistance leader. The Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is relentless in its pursuit and a near unstoppable force.

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