In April, the United Kingdom passed landmark laws that aim to create a “smokefree generation”. This means anyone born on or after January 1 2009 can never legally be sold tobacco products.

The law is a triumph for public health. And it puts the financial interests of the tobacco industry in the rear window.

Compare this to what happened on May 4, at a Senate inquiry into the illegal tobacco crisis in Australia. Tobacco giant Philip Morris Limited was not only invited to give evidence, but was permitted to do so behind closed doors without any public scrutiny.

Neither the original nor the revised speakers list mentions Philip Morris even appearing at the committee hearing.

Philip Morris was also permitted to give evidence behind closed doors to a New South Wales state parliament inquiry into the illegal tobacco trade in late February.

Having these sessions behind closed doors means Philip Morris could lobby privately for policies that would directly benefit the company, such as cutting tobacco taxes. It also allows Philip Morris to raise matters beyond what was included in its public submission.

Because Philip Morris’s testimonies were given behind closed doors, the media and the public have been unable to gauge the expertise of the witnesses who appeared. Nor can other witnesses and experts interrogate the evidence and policy advice the company presented to committee members.

Participating in regulatory review processes such as parliamentary inquiries isn’t the only way the tobacco industry tries to influence political decision-making. Tobacco companies deploy a number of strategies and interference techniques.

Here are the three most powerful tactics they use in Australia.

1. Political donations

The National Party is the last major Australian political party to accept tobacco industry political donations and membership fees. In 2024-25, the Nationals received A$137,500 from Philip Morris and $88,000 from British American Tobacco.

Labor stopped accepting donations from the tobacco industry in 2004 and the Liberal Party followed in 2013. The Greens have never accepted tobacco industry donations.

Australia has strong laws banning any sort of commercial sponsorship by tobacco and e-cigarette companies. But an exemption is granted for gifts, reimbursements and donations to politicians and political parties during election periods.

National peak health bodies have called for a universal, mandatory end to tobacco industry political donations. This is needed to protect public health from these vested interests.

2. Revolving door of lobbyists

The “revolving door” is when employees and elected representatives move back and forth and between positions in government and industry.

This lobbying tactic aims to gain and share insider knowledge of the policymaking process, develop ties and relationships with influential people, and establish quid pro quo contributions to industry. This could include pushing for policies such as reduced tobacco taxes and liberalised vaping regulations.

A research paper we co-authored found tobacco companies strategically use the revolving door to influence public health policy in Australia.

Almost half (48%) of internal tobacco company lobbyists and 55% of third-party lobbyists working on behalf of tobacco companies had held positions in the Australian government before or after working for the tobacco industry.

Many of these people moved into lobbying positions within one year of working in public office. This is despite the cooling-off periods outlined in the Lobbying Code of Conduct. These require a minimum of 12 months for senior public service and parliamentary employees, and 18 months for ministers and parliamentary secretaries, before taking up lobbying roles.

A 2024 parliamentary inquiry on lobbyist access to Australian Parliament House acknowledged the need for greater transparency. It recommended some improvements to processes and disclosures.

However, it did not endorse other significant recommendations that would have limited tobacco industry influence, such as not allowing former ministers and their staff to lobby their colleagues for the benefit of harmful industries.

3. Consultants and third-party organisations

A key tobacco industry tactic for resisting tobacco control is to recruit supposedly independent experts who are critical of tobacco control measures.

This practice can be extended to engaging seemingly neutral third parties, or creating new front groups or supposed advocacy groups, to push tobacco industry arguments and agendas.

In Australia, Philip Morris was exposed for funding a front group for vape retailers. It spent millions on external lobbyists to undermine vaping policy reforms ahead of a 2020 Senate inquiry.

British American Tobacco also subsequently set up and financed Responsible Vaping Australia – an astroturf campaign. This is where an industry-funded organisation is created to appear to represent the common concerns of everyday citizens. This particular campaign included paid social media advertisements that linked to a petition to allow retailers to sell nicotine vaping products.

Australian consultants linked to the commercial nicotine industry have advised on illicit tobacco solutions and policies both here and internationally.

Protecting public health

Australia is a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This includes a provision, known as Article 5.3, that requires public officials to protect public health policies “from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry”.

Despite this requirement, Australia’s political processes remain acutely vulnerable to tobacco industry interference and influence.

All Australian governments need to commit to full transparency and accountability when engaging with the tobacco industry. Offering secret meetings to nameless individuals, under the guise of tobacco company employee safety and protection, is unethical.

This kind of secrecy is also disrespectful to the 24,000 Australians killed every year by the products this industry sells.

Becky Freeman, Professor in Public Health, University of Sydney and Christina Watts, Research Fellow in Public Health, University of Sydney

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

In the lead-up to the federal budget, there’s much focus on what the government will do to address cost-of-living pressures for households amid rising inflation and interest rates.

Research shows where those cost-of-living stresses are greatest. It’s not the vast bulk of middle-income Australia, but working-age welfare recipients.

It’s against this backdrop that the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee recently handed its 2026 report to government. It’s the fourth report in a row to recommend a substantial increase to JobSeeker: the payment that around 900,000 mostly unemployed, working-age Australians receive.

As everyday essentials get more expensive, this is the cohort that requires the most urgent attention in next week’s budget.

$272 extra per fortnight

The JobSeeker payment is the social security payment that is paid to working-age people, many of whom are unemployed. Some recipients are employed (likely on a part-time or casual basis) and some are not in the labour force.

The payment is heavily means-tested with a tight income test, an assets test and a liquid assets test, ensuring people eat away at their savings before receiving it.

While on the payment, recipients are often subject to “mutual obligations” requiring them to look for work and undertake training or other related activities.

In each of its last four reports, the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has given the government the same recommendation. It suggests the payment be increased from its current rate of around $808.70 per fortnight to around 90% of the age pension – around $1,080.80. This would be a lift of around $272 per fortnight.

In 2023, the government did increase the payment by $40 a fortnight, which followed a slightly more generous increase by the former Morrison government of $50 per fortnight.

The payment is adjusted for inflation every six months. With strong inflation recently, these substantial increases have been largely cancelled out by cost of living increases. They don’t raise the payment in “real” (after inflation) terms.

No ‘real’ relief

The committee’s reports have considered a range of evidence to show that the payment is too low.

The primary concern is that living standards, wages and many other welfare payments have increased since the early 1990s by substantially more, as they match up to an economy that has grown substantially in “real” terms. JobSeeker recipients have missed out on the living standards growth of the Australian economy.

JobSeeker recipients also have much higher rates of financial stress than the rest of the population – around six times that of non-welfare recipients and ten times that of age pensioners.

The committee also heard from people who survive on the payment. These people have struggled financially, physically and mentally, linking some of these issues to the low rate of payment.

A short-term payment?

As the JobSeeker payment has become relatively less generous over time, the committee’s research also found it to be less fit for purpose.

The length of time people spend on the payment is increasing. This is likely because recipients are increasingly “partial capacity to work” recipients – those deemed by the government to have a limited capacity to work due to illness or physical disability.

In theory, JobSeeker is supposed to be a short-term payment. The payment is frugal by design, with the goal of incentivising people to work. Given it’s short-term, the payment doesn’t have to be as high as ongoing support payments, such as the age pension.

However, the structure of the payment has changed. In the 2024-25 financial year, around 30% of recipients were on the payment for five or more years. In 2012-13, this figure was around 20%.

An increasing share of recipients are unable to work full-time hours. The share of people only working part-time roughly doubled to 40% between 2012 and 2024.

This all calls into question the assumption that JobSeeker recipients have (or should have) short spells on the payment before quickly finding employment and shifting off the payment.

These are the options

It’s important that welfare payments, particularly for working-age people, are designed to ensure a strong incentive to find work. But these payments should also be decent enough to get by.

The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has made it quite clear that is not the case at the moment. It hasn’t been for several decades.

In designing cost-of-living relief for Australian households, the clearest need is for greater assistance to working-age welfare recipients.

While politically popular, recent attempts at cost-of-living relief, such as petrol excise cuts or energy rebates, are largely directed at people who would get by regardless and have little need for such assistance. These programs also work against the direction of monetary policy from the Reserve Bank.

Increasing the JobSeeker payment to the suggested 90% rate would cost around $6 billion per year. This is a permanent cost to the budget.

But the committee’s report provides a number of alternatives that cost roughly half this over the forward estimates (2026-29 financial years).

The first approach is to gradually increase the rate each year until it reaches 90% of the age pension by 2029.

A second approach would be to vary JobSeeker according to how many hours a person had a “partial capacity to work”, with more support for those who can work less.

These approaches don’t provide the ideal level of support, but would still provide substantially better immediate support to those most in need on the payment.

To date, the response from the Albanese government to the cost of living crisis has been mostly spread widely rather than targeted towards those most in need. Tuesday’s budget is an opportunity to fix a major problem with the welfare system for the most disadvantaged that has been well documented for decades.

Ben Phillips, Associate Professor, POLIS@ANU Centre for Social Policy Research, Australian National University

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

There’s a growing awareness policy works best when shaped by the people and communities who have lived through the issues it aims to address.

If we don’t listen to and learn from those who have experienced issues such as homelessness, family violence, distress or trauma, we risk building systems that misunderstand the harm and the hope within those realities.

Across social and public sectors, new roles are being created for people with what is often called “lived expertise”.

These are people whose personal experience informs work to improve policy, practice and research. They are advising government departments, helping to design services, informing inquiries and guiding community initiatives.

But while lived experience is often invited into the room, we still know little about what it is like to work from that experience across distinct issue areas – and about the emotional toll, risks and challenges of trying to make change inside systems that actively resist it.

To explore this further, we spoke with ten lived experience leaders as part of our research, released today.

Deep commitment

The lived experience leaders we spoke with work alongside a range of communities – for example, First Nations peoples, incarcerated women and girls, those experiencing mental distress, young people, people from LGBTIQA+ communities and those impacted by family violence.

Our research revealed that these lived experience leaders are deeply committed to structural change. They carry hard-won knowledge and a strong determination to ensure others have better experiences.

One told us:

I came in with the motivation that there were so many people that this had happened to, and I wanted to change it.

Another said:

I don’t feel accountable to dominant systems […] What I feel accountable to feels greater than me – accountable to my ancestors and to those who come after me.

Influencing from the inside and outside

These leaders work across, between and beyond institutions – sometimes from the inside to influence change, other times building power outside them.

As one leader said:

I believe we need to build power ourselves and then the system will come to us for the answers, rather than us trying to fit into their structures and processes.

Moving between these spaces is not easy.

Another leader said:

We hold one shield that’s fending off the system and another shield that’s fending off the organisations we have to work with, and then another that’s defending victim-survivors. Then we don’t have anything left to protect ourselves.

Leaders are often drawing on collective experience, not just their own, and feel deep accountability to others, particularly those who share experiences of injustice and harm.

As one said:

I am accountable to the people at the end or the bottom – to service users and the people who have the most to lose.

Their approach intentionally challenges dominant hierarchies. They lead alongside others, guided by the quality of relationships they build – and by care, accountability and connection. One person told us:

I would never speak about women and girls in cages if I’m not being held accountable by the women and girls in cages […] Otherwise, you’re operating from a position of “power over” – and that’s not true leadership.

Hazards, harms and hope

Lived experience leadership can also carry risks. Many leaders spoke about being invited to contribute or “have a seat at the table” without being genuinely heard, or seeing action taken from their insights.

Participation often feels like a compliance exercise. Tokenism, they said, is still common. One person told us:

Something we don’t talk about enough is the price we pay for sharing our lived and living experience.

Another said:

We choose to do it because we genuinely care about people we’ve never met – because we want people to live, because we want the systems that continue to fail them to change.

The toll that takes – the exhaustion, the trauma that’s constantly brought up, the feelings of not being valued or considered – and yet still choosing to fight each day for the right reasons, is more than anyone could ever possibly imagine.

And yet, many leaders also spoke about hope. One person told us:

I do have some sort of hope most days […] This is love for, and belief in, our community. My hope is kept alive through contact with and service to my community.

Where to from here?

Our research shows lived experience leadership holds real potential to address the complex problems traditional approaches struggle to solve.

But this potential can only be fully realised when institutions recognise their own capacity to cause harm and begin to share power with those most affected.

Real progress means more than inviting lived experience into rooms or at tables – it means taking responsibility, acting on what’s heard and being changed by it.

As one leader urged:

Sometimes we have to demand the impossible […] Let those with institutional power worry about how they’re going to hold us back […] Most of the time, you sit at the table because collaboration is essential – but sometimes, you do have to flip it.

Lived experience leadership isn’t about earning a seat at someone else’s table.

It’s about questioning who built the table in the first place – and creating new spaces where power, decision-making and design are genuinely shared.

Morgan Cataldo, Visiting Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University; Kelsey Dole, Visiting Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University; Perrie Ballantyne, Visiting Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University; Robyn Martin, Associate Dean, Social Work and Human Services, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, and Suzi Hayes, Associate Lecturer, Social Work and Human Services, 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.

A national centre to detect and disrupt the threat of online violent extremism and terrorism is to be set up by the federal government, with next week’s budget providing $74 million over two years for it.

The Counter Terrorism Online Centre will be led jointly by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. They will work with local and international law enforcement authorities. The initiative reflects the mounting concern about how young people can be manipulated online by those engaged in terrorism.

Last week the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion released its interim report. After reviewing classified information, it observed that despite an overall increase in funding for the national intelligence community, “the proportion of funding allocated to counter-terrorism significantly declined across the NIC over the period from 2020 to 2025”.

However, the interim report has left some important questions hanging. These include:

• In view of the raising of the terrorism threat in August 2024, did ASIO seek additional funding from the government for counter terrorism before either the budget update in late 2024 or the 2025 budget? If not, why not?

• did ASIO reprioritise its own spending to give greater attention to counter terrorism after the raising of the threat level? If not, why not?

The royal commission is expected to address these questions when ASIO gives evidence before it, and in its final report. In the meantime, what information it has in relation to them remains secret.

This week has seen Jewish witnesses appear before the commission telling of their experiences, often horrific, of antisemitism in Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said that at the new centre, specialist counter-terrorism investigators and intelligence analysts would monitor high-risk online spaces, assess threats and coordinate disruption of extremist content and activity, including by covert online engagement.

Burke said that often gaming platforms were used to target and recruit people. Private chat groups acted as echo chambers.

The radicalisation of young people online shows in the numbers.

Under legislation that took effect in early 2024, covering prohibited hate symbols and other measures, 27 people have been charged with violent extremist material offences. Of these, 15 were aged 17 or under.

Burke said: “More young Australians are being radicalised online, and it happens fast.

"We already have centres dedicated to protecting children and combatting cyber crime; establishing a centre for online violence extremism and terrorism is the next logical step in a fast-moving threat environment.

"The capability we’ve always had to monitor extremists in the meeting room now extends to the chat room,” he said in a statement.

“Everyone needs to be alert to potential threats from terrorist and extremist organisations online and I urge anyone who sees something that raises concerns to contact the National Security Hotline”.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

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

The Chinese-owned firm that operates the Port of Darwin isn’t happy about the federal government’s push to return it to an Australian owner. Now, the situation is escalating, with the stage set for an international legal showdown.

The Albanese government has been in talks with Landbridge Group, whose parent company is headquartered in Shandong province, China, to return the port to an Australian owner, following an election promise.

But in late April, Ye Cheng, the Chinese billionaire who founded Landbridge, initiated proceedings against Australia at a World Bank tribunal, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. The government has said it will defend the claim.

This case may take years to resolve. But it’s not the only example of a Chinese company taking on a national government, claiming to be unfairly excluded based on national security or other concerns.

Right now, many of these cases are still pending. But these rulings could have major financial implications if they provide a route for Chinese firms to demand compensation from governments for any losses caused by political decisions.

How we got here

Back in 2015, Landbridge secured a 99-year lease to operate the port from the Northern Territory government, in a deal worth A$506 million.

The decision was not opposed at the time by the Turnbull federal government, although US President Barack Obama raised concerns, with US marines on rotation through the port.

Other groups also raised concerns about leasing the strategically important port to a Chinese firm. In the lead-up to the last federal election, both Labor and the Coalition committed to returning the port to an Australian owner if elected.

In a statement on the new proceedings, Landbridge said the move to return the port to an Australian owner was “discriminatory”. The company said it was “inconsistent with Australia’s obligations” under a major bilateral trade pact, the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

In a statement, the federal minister for transport and infrastructure, Catherine King, said the government was “disappointed” by the decision to lodge a case. King said the government has been in “good faith discussions” to reach a “mutually acceptable deal” with Landbridge, and intended to continue these discussions.

An international investment umpire

The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes was established in 1966.

Headquartered in Washington, this body exists to settle disputes between international investors and nation-states under bilateral investment treaties. This includes the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement at the centre of this case.

The centre provides an independent arbitration panel for each dispute, not including the two countries involved.

The panel ultimately decides whether there has been unfair treatment. If so, it rules on whether a government’s proposed action should be halted or reversed, or if a company deserves compensation.

Pending cases

Since 2021, 11 cases have been brought by Chinese companies against different governments around the world. Eight of these are pending.

Many of these cases centre on purely economic claims of being treated unfairly. For example, in one case, a Chinese-owned lithium company is seeking compensation following the Mexican government’s decision to nationalise its lithium mining industry and expropriate the company’s planned mine in Mexico.

But others, like the Landbridge case, centre on claims a government has overreached by excluding a company based on national security concerns.

One of the most high-profile is a case launched by Huawei against the Swedish government in 2022. This came after Sweden banned Huawei and ZTE (another Chinese telecom company) from participating in the country’s 5G rollout, citing national security concerns.

Huawei is seeking compensation of US$569 million (about A$790 million) for the market losses it claims will result from this exclusion.

If the tribunal finds in favour of Huawei in this case, it could lead to further actions launched against countries (including Australia) where Huawei was banned. It could also impact other Chinese companies that have lost markets due to national security concerns.

The question of fairness

In its statement on the new proceedings, Landbridge said it had won the lease through a “fair, open and competitive process”.

It said the government’s own reviews did not find a national security risk.

Landbridge is likely to argue this means the government’s decision to exclude them is arbitrary. They are also likely to argue a forced sale would bring a lower price, and the government therefore owes the company compensation.

Compensation, if awarded, can include not just the current value of the port lease but also potential future earnings that have been forfeited due to a forced sale.

The rules-based order

The increase in Chinese companies using panels like the World Bank’s to resolve their disputes demonstrates their commitment to this international institution that was established with US and Australian support to enforce the rules-based international trading system.

These disputes may not prevent governments from making decisions based on national security. But they may cause them to think twice about the financial implications of those decisions.

Colin Hawes, Associate professor of law, University of Technology Sydney

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

Words escape you. Your skin tingles. You are overwhelmed by how small and insignificant you really are, bursting with a feeling that is hard to define. This is awe.

Awe is a complex emotional state we experience when the enormity of what we see or feel transcends what we understand. It can be positive or negative.

Astronauts report this feeling when confronted with the vastness of space and Earth’s puny place within it. This experience – sometimes known as the “overview effect” – can change forever how people who’ve seen Earth from afar think about life here.

But you don’t have to travel to the moon and back to experience awe. Beautiful art, a walk in nature or dancing in a crowd can give you this overwhelming, transcendent feeling.

Neuroscience suggests experiences of awe can be good for your mental health – when they’re positive. So, when is awe good for us? And what exactly is going on in the brain?

Awe can be both positive and negative

Positive awe is what probably comes to mind when most people think of awe. If you’ve ever been moved by something immense and beautiful – such as a majestic mountain or sunset – you’ve likely experienced this sense of calm and wonder.

However, psychologists sometimes describe awe as an experience at the boundary of pleasure and fear. Both pleasure and fear can result in similar bodily arousal – racing heartbeat, goosebumps and chills – but the way we interpret this as an emotion will depend on the context. It can be the same when we experience something vast and overwhelming.

Negative awe may occur when we feel threatened or a lack of control, such as during an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Imagine standing in front of a tsunami and seeing it come towards you. You may feel powerless and filled with dread, while also overcome with a sense of insignificance in the face of nature’s majesty and power. This is the complexity of awe.

Trying to make sense of the unexpected

Our brains are constantly making predictions and integrating our experiences into what we already know.

We tend to “filter out” sensory signals that match our expectations, to instead focus on being ready to respond to information that is surprising.

New information is processed by parts of the brain that help to fit it within our pre-existing understanding of the world, knowledge frameworks known as schemata (or schemas).

According to schema theory, we either assimilate this new information into an existing schema, or have to change the schema to fit the new knowledge.

Not all new experiences will evoke awe. It occurs when we experience both the inability to assimilate an experience into current knowledge and a sense of vastness.

For example, you might have a schema for “waterfall” – a mental framework of what you expect (rocks, water, beautiful). But confronted by the roar of Victoria Falls, its size and velocity, the way the sun hits the spray, you experience awe; it’s unlike any waterfall you have ever seen and is beyond your expectations.

What happens in the brain when we experience awe?

When we feel awe, activity decreases in the brain regions associated with internal or self-referential processing. This network is what drives our memory and understanding of our place in the world.

When activity in these regions decreases, there is a shift away from yourself towards processing external information. This may explain why you tend to “feel small” when you experience awe.

But positive and negative awe may have different effects on our nervous system.

Negative awe is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, which drives our “fight or flight” response.

Positive awe, however, is associated with increased parasympathetic activity. This reduces heart rate and arousal, which is why we may feel calmer.

How awe can be good for us

If you’re someone who seeks out experiences bigger than yourself – hiking for breathtaking views, enjoying meditation, art or losing yourself in the roar of a crowd – you probably already know awe can make you feel fantastic.

Now, research is exploring why. Emerging evidence suggests awe may be good for mental health and wellbeing in five ways:

1. improving your nervous system’s ability to relax
2. diminishing self-focus
3. making us more likely to help other people
4. connecting us to others
5. increasing sense of meaning.

More work needs to be done before we can say whether awe results in long-lasting benefits. But purposefully seeking awe may help you feel less stressed, more satisfied and happier.

Finding awe in the everyday

What evokes awe will likely be different for different people. But we know some things are more likely to induce this complex feeling, such as experiences of art, music and natural environments that move us.

Many people also find awe in collective experiences, especially those involving shared music or movement, or religious rituals. These help us transcend ourselves and become part of something bigger. Contemplating inspiring and complex “big” intellectual ideas by learning something new may also have this effect.

So, can you actively cultivate awe? One way to start is by taking “awe walks”. These involve walking with the intention of noticing beauty, vastness and wonder. Connecting with your own sense of spirituality – even if you are not religious – can also evoke awe.

In many cases, the vast and overwhelming experience of awe can start with simple acts of noticing.

Nikki-Anne Wilson, Lecturer, School of Psychology, UNSW Sydney; Neuroscience Research Australia

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

You are “coming down with something”. Maybe you have a scratchy throat and body aches. You have an old, combination flu/COVID rapid antigen test in the cupboard.

Should you use it to see if you have the flu? Will it detect the “super-K” flu you’ve heard about? Or is it worth seeing a doctor for a test instead?

Here’s what to know about testing for flu at home.

Remind me, how do we test for flu?

There are two main ways to test for flu.

The reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction test is known as RT-PCR or, more commonly, just PCR. This is what your GP orders after taking a swab of your nose and back of the throat. This test detects viral genetic material.

But rapid antigen tests or RATs are the type you do at home. These detect particular viral proteins (antigens) in your saliva or nasal secretions.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration lists RATs currently approved in Australia to detect respiratory viruses.

You can check your test against the list. This includes tests that detect various combinations of influenza (types A and B), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus (listed as ADV) and COVID.

Which test is best?

Both types of tests have their pros and cons. So here are some things to consider.

Speed

RATs are quick and you can do them at home. Once the sample is in the device, you will generally have your result in 15–20 minutes. You won’t need to make and attend a GP appointment. An at-home test means you are also not inflicting your germs on the GP, staff or other patients in the waiting room.

A PCR test takes longer. First you have to wait for a GP appointment. Then, you may have to wait several days for the results.

Cost

The cost of both tests can differ. A combination flu/COVID RAT can cost a few dollars, less per test if you buy in packs of five or more.

You would not usually be charged for a PCR test in Australia. However, if your doctor does not bulk bill, you will have to pay an out-of-pocket fee for the medical appointment itself.

Accuracy and the super-K variant

PCR tests are more accurate than RATs, and can detect a viral infection when your viral load (the amount of virus present) is much lower that what a RAT can detect. This is because the PCR process copies a section of the viral genome many times to make it more easily detectable.

So a negative RAT is no guarantee you don’t have the flu. If your symptoms continue and you are concerned, a PCR will provide a more accurate answer.

But can RATs detect new variants of the flu virus? Fortunately, RATs detect “highly conserved” proteins. These are proteins that tend to be stable between different variants. A new variant should not interfere with the sensitivity of the RAT – its ability to correctly detect the flu.

So it’s likely that a flu RAT can detect the new H3N2 subclade K influenza variant, dubbed “super-K”, although no data have been published on this yet.

What if I’m at high risk?

People 65 or older, young children, pregnant women, and people taking immunosuppressive medications (such as, transplant recipients, or those having chemotherapy for cancer) are at greater risk of having more serious illness if they catch the flu.

In these higher-stakes situations, it might be better to see a GP as they can prescribe anti-flu drugs as a precaution.

These drugs may reduce the severity and duration of illness, and the risk of complications and hospitalisation associated with the flu.

If you decide to see your GP, let the surgery know you have symptoms. You may need to do an online consultation or wear a mask in the waiting room.

Are old RATs OK?

Before using a RAT that has been sitting in your cupboard, ensure it is within its use-by date and has been stored appropriately. If you have refrigerated the test, leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes before using, otherwise it won’t work properly.

I’ve written previously about other do’s and don’ts of using RATs, including how to avoid sampling snot and how best to dispose of the test.

To detect flu it’s best to test within three to four days of symptoms starting. At this point the viral load will be highest and the test will be most accurate.

In a nutshell

If you have symptoms of a respiratory illness, and you want to see what you have, using a RAT is a good idea. That’s as long as the test has not expired, has been stored correctly and you are not in a high-risk group.

If it’s likely flu could be more serious for you (or someone you may be in contact with), a GP appointment may allow you to access anti-viral medications to reduce your risk of severe illness, and a PCR test would offer a more accurate diagnosis.

Thea van de Mortel, Professor Emerita, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

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

You’re standing in a supermarket aisle, weighing up whether to buy a microwave meal or a bunch of fresh carrots.

We all know making healthy eating choices can be tough. That’s especially true if you are hungry, or have a hungry household to feed.

There are so many reasons for this, and many are outside our control. But one you might not be aware of is a psychological concept known as “decision fatigue”.

So what exactly is decision fatigue? And could it help or hinder your healthy eating goals?

What is decision fatigue?

Decision fatigue, also known as choice overload, describes what happens when we make many effortful decisions over time.

Whenever you make a decision, you use a small amount of mental energy. As that energy runs low, you tend to make worse decisions.

This means you’re more likely to act without thinking, or simply choose what is easy or familiar. You might also find it harder to plan ahead and resist certain impulses.

This means you might be more likely to grab a takeaway instead of the ingredients to make a meal, or default to familiar comfort foods instead of making intentional, healthy choices.

How might it affect my eating habits?

The average person makes hundreds of food decisions each day.

You may think you’re just choosing a meal. But that one decision involves making many layered choices about what and how much you eat, as well as where, when and how you eat it.

You may make these choices subconsciously or automatically. But they each require to you weigh up various factors, such as taste, costs, time, expectations and more.

When decision fatigue sets in, you’re less likely to make thoughtful, health-focused choices. Instead, you may gravitate towards options that require less effort and offer quick rewards. You may also become more influenced by outside cues. An example of this is advertising that promotes convenient but high-calorie options such as fast food, snacks or indulgent treats.

Having too much information can make these decisions even harder. Nutrition advice often assesses the value of foods by how much protein, fat, fibre or vitamins they contain. This way of thinking, sometimes called nutritionism, can make food choices more complex. Instead of choosing food as food, we try to calculate and juggle many numbers at once.

Not the only factor

Several other factors may affect your food choices.

One is stress. One study from 2022 showed parents who experience high levels of both stress and decision fatigue found it more difficult to stick to positive food-related behaviours, such as making meals from scratch or eating together as a family.

Another is tiredness. One 2017 study showed time of day affected meal choices. It found between mealtimes, and especially in the afternoon, people were more likely to choose the simpler default food choice than one that required more consideration. This suggests having lower blood sugar and less mental energy meant people made less considered decisions.

How can I reduce my decision fatigue?

Here are four tips.

Have healthy foods on hand

When we’re low on mental or physical energy, we usually turn to what’s easy or familiar. That’s why it’s important to have healthy food options within reach. Thankfully, this doesn’t need to be complicated. It could look like pre-cutting fruit or having some healthy frozen meals in the freezer. And research suggests removing unhealthy foods – for example from the pantry or fridge – can be just as helpful when you’re trying to make healthier food choices.

Plan your meals

Planning meals could help too. This may involve setting some weekend time aside to decide what meals you’ll cook and eat. That’s instead of making last-minute decisions at the supermarket or on the drive home. Meal kits and batch cooking, which both reduce the number of food-related decisions you have to make, may also reduce decision fatigue.

Reframe your eating choices

How you frame choices may also improve your eating habits. For example, you may be more likely to “eat a colourful meal” rather than simply telling yourself to “eat more vegetables”.

Outsource some of the decision-making

If you’re looking for healthy, tasty recipes, you don’t need to re-invent the wheel. You can find a wealth of free ideas on the Eat for Health, Heart Foundation and National Nutrition Foundation websites. And if making food decisions feels overwhelming, Accredited Practicing Dietitians and Registered Nutritionists can help you turn complex nutrition advice into manageable steps.

The bottom line

We often think eating should be simple and intuitive, but blame ourselves when it doesn’t feel that way. However, the concept of decision fatigue shows healthy eating is not just about willpower. It’s also about noticing when you’re tired, stressed or time-poor, and taking practical steps to make healthy foods the easiest option.

Emma Beckett, Senior Lecturer, Nutrition and Food Science, Australian Catholic University

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

Between 2011 and 2021, the number of professional artists, writers, musicians and performers living in Greater Sydney shrank by 17% – even as overall employment increased by 20%.

This didn’t happen anywhere else in Australia. On the contrary, most of the other capital cities had growth of artists above the rate of employment.

Among Sydney’s policy makers and art sector, there’s an entrenched belief the decline is specific to the inner city, with increasingly diverse artistic communities migrating out to the western suburbs.

But the data consistently shows the opposite: the artist population fell in all areas of Sydney, becoming less diverse, both racially and economically. And a new survey suggests things are probably getting worse.

Exploring the data

I first saw this trend in 2021, analysing data from that year’s census. I wasn’t surprised. Working in the cultural strategy team at the City of Sydney we’d already seen the drop in the 2016 census. Our own research showed a 28% decline in creative spaces – studios, rehearsal rooms, small galleries and venues.

Still, so many people insisted Western Sydney’s creative community was growing that I tried cutting the data in different ways. I always came up with the same results.

As the census only allows you to list one profession, and most artists have day jobs, I also checked the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ participation in select cultural activities data. That shows both “participation” and “paid participation” across a variety of art forms.

But the trend was the same: an overall decline across Greater Sydney, not an outward migration. Proportionally, more artists now lived in the inner city.

Western Sydney’s artists did show greater signs of cultural diversity, but it was relative. You can see this better if you look for “homogeneity” rather than “diversity”.

In the census, there’s an over-representation of artists who list their ancestry as either “British” or “Australian”, excluding those who identify as Indigenous. In 2021, this Anglo-Australian demographic made up 43% of Greater Sydney’s population, but for artists it was 63%. In Western Sydney, it was 37% of the whole population, and 59% of artists.

That means Anglo-Australian artists were over-represented by about 20% in Greater Sydney, and 22% in Western Sydney. Although the portion of Anglo-Australians declined across both areas between 2011 and 2021, the rates of over-representation remained consistent.

Measuring incomes

I also worked through a range of income stats, which produced another surprise: professional artists were uniformly over-represented in higher income households, across all regions.

It seems counter intuitive. David Throsby and Katya Petetskaya’s 2025 report for Creative Australia found artist incomes were “notoriously unstable and uncertain”, well below the average income.

But they also found “one quarter of artists depend on the support of a partner or family member”. Other research supports this finding, with artists more likely to be in a marriage or de facto relationship than the rest of the working population.

This is probably what we see within the household income data: below average personal income is offset by higher family or partner income. This support has probably grown more important as living costs have increased.

Surveying artists on housing and income

In 2025, to understand how household income, ancestry and geographic location impacted on creative practice, my colleagues and I released our own survey.

Of the 300 professional artists who responded, 57% were considering leaving Greater Sydney, and 80% had colleagues who had already left. You could see why. Housing costs were, on average, around 40% of income. We used an existing formula to estimate workspace costs: artists were paying three times more than they could afford for studios and rehearsal rooms.

After factoring in housing, workspace, tax and the expenses of art practice, the average professional artist was living on somewhere between A$7,816 and $10,640 per year. That’s not viable in a place like Sydney.

We also included questions on annual income. Compared to Throsby and Petetskaya, we found artists earned less from their art, and were more reliant on other income sources. Only around 20% of professional artists had received funding from state or local governments, and only 13% from federal sources.

The sample size was too small to be certain, but it looked like the people who did get funding were concentrated in inner city locations, and came from the narrower racial and household income cohort.

The changing face of the artist

Living and housing costs have an obvious impact on who gets to make art, or at least who gets to do so professionally. As those costs have eclipsed even the most generous funding programs, Australian arts policy is probably losing its impact and pooling resources within demographics who are economically better insulated.

This explains the homogeneity I observed among higher income, inner city households, which skew towards Australian and British ancestry. Artists haven’t migrated outward to places with cheaper rent. They’re coming from demographic clusters where rent isn’t so much of an issue.

None of this is specific to Sydney. The city has been ahead of the bell curve on housing and living costs for a long time but is no longer unique. In the lead-up to the 2026 census, people are already assuring me artists have moved to Melbourne, or Brisbane or Hobart. You could make that case out of the 2021 census data, but those figures are five years old.

Housing and living costs have gone up across Australia, and cultural policy is surprisingly uniform across state lines. When the next batch of data comes out, it may well show the trend has spread beyond Sydney.

Ianto Ware, Honorary Associate, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney

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

The ABC has revealed a major cybersecurity flaw in Bluetooth-enabled police tasers and body-worn cameras that means officers can be tracked.

The exposé shows how anyone can use simple software tools to detect the presence of a police officer carrying one of these pieces of equipment. Not only can you detect their presence, but it is possible to track their location over time – representing a potential threat, especially to those operating covertly.

But if police equipment can be tracked via Bluetooth, what about your phone, watch and headphones which use the same technology? Can they also be used to track you using simple software tools?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is a bit more complicated.

How does Bluetooth work?

Bluetooth is a short-range wireless communication technology that enables devices such as phones and speakers to connect with each other.

To effectively communicate, Bluetooth devices have a unique address – a bit like a phone number. These addresses are represented as 0s and 1s in their digital form. But they are typically viewed in hexadecimal, using the digits 0–9 and letters A–F (for example “00:25:DF:68:5D:1F”).

Each device has a distinct address. But these addresses are distributed to manufacturers in blocks, in a similar way that our phone numbers are grouped by geography.

As such, it’s possible to identify a Bluetooth device’s manufacturer by monitoring and detecting the signals being broadcast (sometimes called sniffing). This sniffing is usually over a short distance, but can be undertaken over longer distances with the right equipment.

A Bluetooth device address typically includes two parts: the manufacturer’s code and a unique device code. Once you know the manufacturer’s code you can easily identify devices they make by simply listening for their Bluetooth traffic.

How are police being tracked?

Police officers across Australia are issued with tasers and body-worn cameras manufactured by Axon, a US-based weapons and technology company.

These devices use Bluetooth as part of their operation. But a flaw allows anyone within a few hundred metres to be able to detect the presence of Axon technology. By listening to Bluetooth communications and filtering for the known manufacturer’s code, anyone can “detect” an officer carrying the Axon products. With enough monitoring stations, you can track officers across a geographical area.

At first glance it may seem odd that Bluetooth should feature on a taser. But there is a genuine benefit.

According to Axon, sensors integrated in the Axon product range can generate alerts over Bluetooth. For example, removing a gun from a holster or enabling a taser can alert nearby body-worn cameras to start recording.

While the general public has only just learned of the vulnerabilities in Axon’s equipment, police and some in academic and tech circles have known about them for longer. The ABC reports, for example, that Victoria Police were notified in 2024.

A Facebook page and a couple of GitHub repositories where code and files are stored and publicly available (for example PoliceDetector and JudCrandall) have been active for some time, with computer code available since September 2023.

While Axon indicates that devices can have firmware upgrades, it’s not clear if this extends to Bluetooth functionality. As a highly integrated device, the Bluetooth functionality may be hard-coded into the technology and may not be upgradeable.

So it’s possible the only solution would be to replace the devices or find some mechanism to disable the Bluetooth functionality – something that may reduce safety and accountability.

So, can any Bluetooth device be tracked?

In principle, yes.

Any device that emits a radio-frequency signal (such as WiFi, Bluetooth or 5G) can be detected with appropriate hardware. Unique identifiers are used for many kinds of wireless communication.

If you build up a list of these identifiers, you have the ability to track devices. And if you can link devices to people, you can track people.

If you are using wireless communications you can certainly be detected. But most modern devices such as iPhones have privacy modes that create random addresses. This ensures that most devices aren’t trackable in the same way the Axon devices are.

It is, however, possible that less sophisticated devices (such as the cheap earbuds you bought online) will not support random addressing.

While this means they are likely trackable, walking around with a mobile phone continuously transmitting and receiving is already ensuring you are very visible.

Unless you go completely offline, you can’t completely eliminate the risk of being tracked. If you are worried about being tracked, one step you can take is turning off WiFi and Bluetooth when not in use.

But remember there are many other ways we can be surveilled in our modern lives.

Paul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan University

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