March 1 - 31, 2025: Issue 640

Our Youth page is for young people aged 13+ - if you are younger than this we have news for you in the Children's pageNews items and articles run at the top of this page. Information, local resources, events and local organisations, sports groups etc. are at the base of this page. All Previous pages for you are listed in Past Features

Winner of the 2025 NAWIC NSW Executive Women’s Leadership Scholarship: Nicole Waterman, Engineer

March 6, 2025

The National Association of Women in Construction NSW (NAWIC NSW) has awarded a prestigious government sponsored $30,000 scholarship for women in property and construction to Engineer Nicole Waterman, Project Leader at Laing O’Rourke.

This NSW Women’s Week, the Minns Government is recommitting to gender equality and boosting women’s empowerment and advancement.

In particular, the government is focussed on increasing opportunities in the construction industry, proudly funding the 2025 NAWIC NSW Executive Women’s Leadership Scholarship.

The game-changing scholarship was created to recognise women who have made a significant impact on the construction industry and demonstrate potential as future leaders. It provides funding for executive level further education to equip senior women in the construction sector with the leadership skills to drive industry change.

The scholarship was awarded to Ms Waterman at the NAWIC NSW International Women’s Day lunch on Thursday 6 March 2025. 

As a talented engineer who has led teams of up to 250 people, Ms Waterman has contributed to the delivery of multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects and championed women in the industry through mentoring and advocacy.

Ms Waterman is currently leading the TAP3 Footbridge Project at St Marys NSW, was Delivery Partner Lead on the $2 billion Western Tunnelling Package and played a key role in the Central Station upgrade for Sydney Metro.  

The scholarship will provide her career a boost, enabling her to enrol in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Global Executive Academy in the United States. 

Previous scholarship recipients include 2023 winner Talia Keyes, General Manager for Design with Scentre Group and 2024 winner Jua Cilliers, Head of the School of Built Environment at UTS. 

To find out more about the Women in Construction program visit the Women in Construction webpage and the NAWIC NSW Scholarships webpage.

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

“This scholarship is one of many NSW Government-led initiatives aimed at attracting and retaining women in the construction industry across NSW. Our objective is to cultivate a workforce that is both diverse and representative of the entire community.

“Congratulations to Nicole Waterman on securing this wonderful opportunity to enhance her skills and advance her career. The Minns Labor Government is delighted to support the professional growth of women like her.”

Minister for Women Jodie Harrison said:

“Congratulations to Nicole Waterman for being an inspiring leader.

“The NSW Government is committed to bringing about change in the construction industry by removing barriers and creating opportunities for women to succeed.

“It has the potential to change the career trajectory of the recipient and reflects the Minns Labor Government’s commitment to attracting and retaining women in construction.”

Infrastructure NSW Chief Executive, Tom Gellibrand said:

"We are thrilled to announce Nicole Waterman as the recipient of this year’s NAWIC NSW Executive Women’s Leadership Scholarship.

“Nicole’s dedication to the construction industry and her leadership in advocating for women in STEM make her an outstanding choice. This scholarship will further empower her to drive positive change and inspire future leaders in the industry.

“The NSW Government Women in Construction Program is proud to support this initiative and remains committed to promoting diversity and inclusion within the construction sector.”

NAWIC NSW Co-President, Taleah Stofka said:

“Nicole stood out for her strategic thinking, collaborative leadership and passion for the construction industry. She is a leader with deep technical expertise and site-based experience, a gift for communication, and an ability to inspire teams at scale. 

“The judges look for industry role models – leaders with a clear vision and commitment to giving back. Nicole is exactly that.

“This year’s scholarship saw a record-breaking number of applications, thanks to an expanded reach through our partnership with the NSW Government Women in Construction Program.”

Nicole is also a passionate advocate for increasing the participation of women in the engineering sector across all levels of responsibility and regularly presents at high schools to encourage girls to work in Construction and Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) careers. She is an Engineers Australia Sydney Division Committee member.

Nicole holds Bachelor’s Degrees in Architecture and Civil Engineering from the University of Newcastle and a Masters of Business Administration from La Trobe University. Nicole is a Fellow of Engineers Australia and a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland.

Photo of Nicole supplied

 

CSIRO science ship has students sailing into future careers

CAPSTAN class of 2025 alongside RV Investigator in Hobart prior to departure. Image: CSIRO-Matt Marrison.

March 6, 2025

University students from almost every state and territory will gain invaluable at sea training – and potentially make some deep sea discoveries along the way over the next week.

Thirty university students and trainers from across Australia will get the training experience of a lifetime when they take to the seas for a circumnavigation of Tasmania aboard CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator.

The 10-day voyage is part of an innovative tertiary sea training program called CAPSTAN, the Collaborative Australian Postgraduate Sea-Training Alliance Network, which is being delivered in partnership with Australia's national science agency, marine science industries, universities and government.

The CAPSTAN program addresses a gap in how marine science education is delivered in Australia and will expose marine science students from 16 Australian universities to life and work onboard CSIRO's advanced ocean research vessel.

It offers a national approach to applied teaching and learning excellence in marine science and wider science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

CAPSTAN Director, Dr Pier van der Merwe from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), said the sea-going experience was invaluable for developing Australia's next generation of marine experts.

"Nothing compares with hands-on learning. For future marine scientists, this is where the action happens – where theory is put into practice and where concepts sink in because students can observe the ecosystem with their own eyes," Dr van der Merwe said.

"They can feel cold wind on their face and relate that to sea surface temperature data streaming into the ship, or experience the sun rise over the horizon and watch photosynthetically active radiation sensors detect that.

"Being at sea is where it all makes sense for marine science students."

The voyage will immerse students in the full suite of marine science operations, from atmospheric and oceanographic studies to surveys of deep-sea ecosystems and marine life.

Students will be involved in seafloor mapping and sediment sampling, and will also participate in the search for a historic shipwreck off the northwest coast of Tasmania.

Students will assist in a search for the wreck of the Empress of China, lost off NW Tasmania on 31 December 1888. Image: State Library of South Australia.

CAPSTAN Voyage Manager, Dr Ben Arthur from CSIRO, said students will get experience with RV Investigator’s multidisciplinary science systems, equipment and operations over the course of the voyage.

"CAPSTAN offers an incredible learning opportunity for students, and they’ll be involved in a wide range of operations to collect data and samples to support real-world research projects that address real-world challenges," Dr Arthur said.

"The training program is designed to be like the multidisciplinary research we deliver during each of our science voyages so that students get a wide exposure to science operations at sea.

"They'll get a bit of everything and even receive training in some traditional maritime skills such as knot tying."

The Deep Towed Camera, one of the scientific instruments students will deploy during the voyage. Image: Museums Victoria-Robert French.

CAPSTAN students' background studies range from biological and chemical oceanography to geoscience and engineering.

Women make up two thirds of students on the voyage.

CAPSTAN student, Kim Schwindke, said she was excited to have the chance to learn from and work alongside the other students, trainers, technicians and crew.

"With everyone on the voyage coming from such diverse backgrounds, and with the extensive experience from those onboard, it feels like a huge opportunity to bring together different disciplines and perspectives, and build relationships and shared knowledge," Ms Schwindke said.

"It really feels like that will be so powerful in shaping the future of our oceans."

The voyage is the first in the CAPSTAN program following the completion of a pilot program during 2017 to 2020.

Two more CAPSTAN training voyages are planned in the upcoming voyage schedules of RV Investigator, and the program lays the foundation for the further development of a national integrated training approach.

"We hope that students will 'seas the opportunity’ that CAPSTAN offers, and we look forward to seeing them leading research projects on RV Investigator and other research vessels in the years ahead," Dr Arthur said.

The CAPSTAN voyage departed Hobart on Saturday 8 March, will complete a circumnavigation of Tasmania over 10 days, and then finish back in Hobart on Monday 17 March.

The CAPSTAN program is a maritime education and training initiative of Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, the University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and the Australian and New Zealand International Scientific Drilling Consortium (ANZIC).

RV Investigator is part of the Marine National Facility, national collaborative research infrastructure funded by the Australian Government and operated by CSIRO on behalf of the nation.

CAPSTAN partners CSIRO and the Australian and New Zealand International Scientific Drilling Consortium (ANZIC) receive funding for this activity from the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Dr Georgia Nester – Voyage Chief Scientist said; 

"The CAPSTAN program is a rare and invaluable opportunity to mentor and train the next generation of marine scientists in an immersive research environment aboard RV Investigator.

"It goes beyond learning techniques—students are fully immersed in marine science, from designing research questions to working with advanced scientific equipment and analysis tools.

"This experience fosters collaboration, critical thinking and real-world problem-solving, equipping participants with the skills needed for a career at sea.

"As Chief Scientist, I'm excited to share my expertise in environmental DNA (eDNA) and deep-sea research while learning from the diverse perspectives of students and fellow researchers."

Dr Sarah Kachovich – Program Manager, Australian and New Zealand International Scientific Drilling Consortium (ANZIC) stated, 

"CAPSTAN is a rare and exciting opportunity that opens doors for participants, and we're proud to support it.

"This hands-on training gives students the skills and confidence to tackle vital research - not just for Australia, but on a global scale, preparing them to join and lead major scientific projects.

"It's equipping our scientists to explore not just our oceans, but the Earth beneath the oceans, to answer critical questions about our planet and our future."

Ms Toni Moate – Director, CSIRO Marine National Facility, said,

"The Marine National Facility not only enables incredible research to be conducted on board RV Investigator year-round, it inspires and supports training the next generation of marine researchers and technicians through programs like CAPSTAN.

"By bringing students on board, we broaden their horizons and provide them with hands-on experience which we hope is going to fuel their ongoing discovery.

"We're proud to be able to support this initiative and help cultivate the next generation of ocean stewards."

CAPSTAN offers an unrivalled training experience onboard RV Investigator for students and trainers. Image: CSIRO-Ben Arthur.

 

A Day in the Life: Marine Area Command - NSW Police Force

 

History this Issue: the Prospector Powder Hulk at Towler’s Bay

The Royal Australian Navy was not formed until 1911. Prior to then it was the Royal Navy (Britain) that found and then established Europeans in Australia. Vessels of the Royal Navy made frequent trips to the new colonies. In 1859, the Australia Squadron was formed as a separate squadron and remained in Australia until 1913. In 1865 the Colonial Naval Brigade or New South Wales Naval Artillery Volunteers was formed. Each of the six Australian colonies operated their own colonial naval force prior to Federation; these amalgamated in 1901 as the Commonwealth Naval Forces. The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was established in 1911, and in 1913 the fleet steamed through Sydney Heads for the first time.

The major ports in the colony of New South Wales were Newcastle, Wollongong and Sydney. Other minor ports, such as Pittwater, were located on the north and the south coasts of the colony but were not defended by fixed fortifications or naval vessels although these did visit. Our Sydney area was divided into two districts for defence purposes, Port Jackson and Botany. The major functions of the naval forces in these two districts were the manning of some of the ordnance mounted at the forts, operation of the Examination Service and manning of the second class and auxiliary vessels. As the colony developed The Marine Board, Ordnance Stores and associated Maritime Industries were formed. These all worked together when required. Naval personnel who were unallocated were used as part of the colony’s reserve. When fully mobilised the naval forces of the colony were under the command of the General Officer Commanding the NSW Military Forces.

The local Vessels for Defence Purposes (NSW) of this era were: Thetis 327 tons, 10 knots, 168 tons coal, 7 days endurance; Ajax 373 tons, 11 knots, 228 tons coal, 9 1/2 days endurance; Hector 99 tons, 8 knots, 72 tons coal, 3 days endurance; Little Nell 84 tons, 93/4 knots, 18 tons coal, 18 hours endurance; Charybdis 109 tons, 8 knots, 102 tons coal, 4 days endurance; Ceres 154 tons, 10 knots, 96 tons coal, 4 days endurance; Juno 487 tons, 9 knots, 90 tons coal, 3 days endurance; Nemesis 15 tons, 11 knots, 12 tons coal; Orestes 194 tons, 11 knots, 96 tons coal, 4 days endurance; Gladys 9 tons, 11 knots; Carrington 10 tons, 9 knots; Mabel 7 tons, 8 knots; Premier 15 tons, 8 knots; Kate 15 tons, 11 knots; Ena 18 tons, 91/2 knots; Sol 7 tons, 8 knots; Ganymede 9 knots, 10 tons coal, 2 days endurance. (1)

Defences of Port Jackson [cartographic material] : supplement to the "Sydney Mail", July, 1877. MAP RM 1400. courtesy National Library of Australia.

In 1826 the first proposals for establishing a Gunpowder Magazine at Goat Island were discussed. Prior to this gunpowder was stored at Fort Philip (current site of the Sydney Observatory) and in an Ordnance Store (also known as the Commissariat Stores) at the west side of Circular Quay. A floating magazine was also employed at this time. On 31 December 1832 the Sydney Gazette stated:

"His Excellency the Governor, in company with the Master Attendant, and several other gentlemen, proceeded on Friday last to Goat Island, for the purpose of fixing on a proper spot to erect a powder magazine, the floating one being too small to contain one half the powder now in this Colony."

Powder Magazines were also known as Powder Hulks. A hulk is a ship that is afloat, but incapable of going to sea. The term most often refers to an old ship that has had its rigging or internal equipment removed, retaining only its float ability. A powder hulk was a hulk used to store gunpowder. These hulks were floating warehouses which could be moved as needed to simplify the transfer of gunpowder to warships. Their location, away from land, also reduced the possible damage or danger to people from an explosion.

Left: Circular Quay, circa 1875. Image No.: a2229010h, Courtesy State Library of NSW

In August 1836 an Act to ensure the Government's Officers of Ordnance oversaw private or merchants stocks of gunpowder was tabled. By January 1838 this notice appeared:

The whole of the powder has been landed into the magazine at Goat Island, from the powder hulk lately moored off the North Shore. This vessel will, we believe, be fitted up to receive the diving apparatus, shortly expected from England for the Engineer Department. Ship News. (1838, January 13). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2549492

A new Act to oversee the storage of all gunpowder ensured a safer environment in a pre-Crimean war nervous colony of Sydney;

No. XLVII. An Act for the Establishment of the Colonial Gunpowder Magazine lately erected on Goat Island. [28th December, 1852.]
WHEREAS the Gunpowder belonging to private individuals at Sydney has hitherto been stored in a Magazine belonging to Her Majesty's Imperial Government and under the charge of the Ordnance Storekeeper at Sydney by the consent of Her Majesty's Imperial Government and under the authority and subject to the provisions contained in an Act of the Governor and Legislative Council of New South Wales passed in the seventh year of the reign of the late King William the Fourth intituled " An Act for better regulating the keeping and carriage of Gunpowder" and subject to the provisions contained in a certain other Act of the said Governor and Council passed in the fifth year of the reign of Her present Majesty intituled " An Act to amend an Act intituled ' An Act for better regulating the keeping and carriage of Gunpowder' " And whereas Her Majesty's Government has required that such Gunpowder should be no longer kept in the said Gunpowder Magazine but has consented that a Magazine for the storage of Gunpowder belonging to the Colonial Government and to private individuals in the said Colony should be erected by the Colonial Government on the Island belonging to the Board of Ordnance known as Goat Island in the Harbour of Port Jackson to be under the control of the Governor for the time being of the said Colony but to be in charge of Her Majesty's Ordnance Store­keeper for the time being at Sydney And whereas a Colonial Gunpowder Magazine has been erected accordingly on the said Island at the expense of the Colonial Government And whereas it is expedient that such new Magazine should be established by law as the Magazine for storing Colonial Gunpowder and that proper officers should be appointed for that purpose and that all payments for the storage of Gunpowder therein should be required to be made to the said Colonial Government Be it therefore enacted by His Excellency the Governor of New South Wales with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council thereof as follows :—
1. Such new Powder Magazine shall be under the control of the Governor for the time being of the Colony but in charge of Her Majesty's Ordnance Storekeeper at Sydney and proper and efficient officers and servants shall and may be provided and appointed by the
said Governor for the care and management of the said Magazine and the Powder therein under the general superintendence and charge of such Ordnance Storekeeper and the said Ordnance Storekeeper shall possess and exercise in respect of and in relation to such Colonial Magazine and of and to the storage of Gunpowder therein the same powers as were conferred upon him by the said recited Acts or cither of them.
2. All Gunpowder belonging to private individuals now stored in Her Majesty's Magazine at Goat Island shall be removed to and deposited in the said Colonial Magazine to be therein kept at and subject to the rents by the first of the said recited Acts imposed or such other rents as may from time to time be fixed and imposed but previous to such removal the packages and barrels containing such Gunpowder shall be examined and wherever such packages are found to be insecure the Gunpowder therein shall be removed at the expense of the owner thereof into secure and proper packages as provided by the said first recited Act in respect of Powder on its original removal from the ship or vessel in which the same may have been imported.
 Retrieved from; http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/sessionalview/sessional/act/1852-47a.pdf

An explosion of nitro-glycerine in Bridge street, Sydney in 1866, caused Henry Parkes to state a safer solution to such events must be found. The beginnings of storing powder or any explosives further from populated areas, already discussed, became more so. The full report presented later in March 1886 can be read here: EXPLOSION IN BRIDGE-STREET. (1866, March 23). Empire(Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60594202

An old photograph found and published in 1932 gives a clearer picture:

BRIDGE-STREET IN '66. A Terrific Explosion. 

(BY J. ARNOLD CROCKETT.)
Bridge-street, city, presented a shell-shattered appearance soon after 6.30 p.m. on March4, 1866. Fortunately it was a Sunday evening, otherwise the terrific nitro-glycerine explosion which totally destroyed No. 17, the premises of Mollson and Black, ship brokers, would have resulted in fatal consequences. As it was, every pane of glass between Pitt and George streets was smashed; even the windows at the Mint (Macquarie-street) were shattered, while portion of a chair was hurled as far as Church Hill. Telegraph posts were torn down; dust and smoke ascended to a height of 150ft; the roadway was strewn with lead gutterings and large beams. A strong wind carried some of the firm's papers to St. Philip's Church. The explosion was heard at Miller's Point by a man who described it as resembling "a salvo from a man-o'-war." Opposite the scene of the disaster was a fruiterer's shop; the window was stove in, and the frightened proprietor took a fit. Few were aware of the dangerous properties of nitro-glycerine. The explosive was practically unknown in Australia. As the Melbourne "Argus" said: 
Probably not one in 20, even among educated people in the colonies, had ever heard of nitro-glycerine until the recent explosion Informed them that a liquid of that name Is an article of commerce, and that It possesses ten times the explosive power of gunpowder.

Thousands thronged the street. Intense interest was taken In the disaster. The "Herald" devoted a whole column to the incident-and they were columns in those days-small type few paragraphs, no centre titles, and none of the modern lay-out as we know it to-day.
An official inquiry was held. In a letter to the commissioners Henry Parkes (afterwards Sir Henry) said:
The character of the late catastrophe is so novel, and presents so many possibilities, and even probable dangers to life and property, that the Government hopes that the eminent scientific acquirements Included in the composition of your board will be employed to discover the true nature of the fatal agencies that are supposed to have caused it, and the best means of effectively affording security to society against the occurrence of similar calamities.

Alas for the "scientific acquirements" of the board's personnel, which included the genial Inspector-General of Police (Captain J.McLerie)  Far from being "eminent" it knew very little about nitro-glycerine, in fact, it was difficult to find anyone in Sydney who knew anything at all about this "new" explosive.

AN INTERESTING PHOTOGRAPH.
Of unusual interest is the splendid photograph that appears on this page. It is an exclusive print, and shows the site of the present business quarters of Burns, Philp, and Co., Ltd., of Tylors (Australia), Ltd., Smith and Lane, and Gibbs Bright and Co. Scottish House occupies portion of the site where the disaster took place, while the Exchange Hotel, though reconstructed, still remains where it did in 1866. 
BRIDGE-STREET IN '66. (1932, July 16). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16903565

By December 1882 the floating magazines Pride of England and Behring together with the guardship Alacrity, had been established in what is now called Powder Hulk Bay, Seaforth, Middle Harbour. from A Night on the Powderhulks. George Champion OAM and Shelagh Champion OAM. May 2003.

The influx of prospectors looking for gold from 1860, an occupation which employed dynamite, as much as a prevalent and well founded threat from nations Britain was at war with sending vessels to the Pacific to annexe colonies, increased the need for armaments and their storage.

The Prospector was a Barque, 235 tons, her length was 123 ft and like many barques of this period which were commonly used as freighters, she had three masts. Built Scotland at Peterhead, 1863; reg. Newcastle, 5/1878, she was hit by a mud punt while moored at Newcastle wharf on May 2nd, 1884, near AA Company’s wharf, and her days of carrying everything and everyone to and fro from places as varied as the United States, Hong Kong and regular trips between Fiji and Otago, New Zealand, were over. At the time of her sinking she was carrying coal to Sydney from Newcastle. This photo below, although a barque 25 feet shorter then the Prospector, gives some indication of a cruder version of a Powder Hulk;

'Barque "Aladdin" - Launched as the Gun Brig "Mutine", H.M. Royal Navy, 1816. Sold out of the Service in 1842 and purchased by Mr. Charles Seal of Hobart Town in 1846. Remained in commission as a whaler until 1885 when she was purchased by the Tasmanian Government for use as a powder hulk. She was broken up at Hobart in 1902. Dimensions - Length - 98ft. Breadth - 23.4ft. Depth - 18.6ft.' Image 602986, courtesy State Library of Tasmania.

SINKING OF THE BARQUE PROSPECTOR. By TELEGRAPH., NEWCASTLE, FRIDAY.
This morning, about 7 o'clock, the Government steamer Ajax was coming down the blind channel of the harbour with a loaded mud punt in tow. As they neared the barque Prospector, lying at No. 2 staith, the punt did not answer the helm and ran into the barque, striking her about the fore rigging and sinking her in less than five minutes. She was nearly full of small coal for Sydney. She belongs to Mr. Mitchell, M.L.A., of Sydney; the water is now six feet up her foremast, and the tide is rising. The Marine Board inquiry is not yet commenced.
LATER.
The ketch Ada and the barque Prospector remain in the same positions at high tide this afternoon. The Prospector’s deckhouse was submerged nearly two foot. If the disaster had occurred 20 minutes earlier this morning the gang of coal-trimmers working below at that time must have been drowned, as she went down so suddenly.
 SINKING OF THE BARQUE PROSPECTOR. (1884, May 3). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 12. Retrieved from 
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13570825

A NEW MEMBER FOR NEWTOWN. MR. JOSEPH MITCHELL, M.L.A.
(See portrait on page 498.) A week or two ago we gave a portrait and biography of Mr. Joseph Abbott, who had been elected one of the three members for Newtown in the Legislative Assembly of New South Wales. This week we publish the portrait of Mr. Joseph Mitchell, who has just been returned for Newtown in the place of Mr. W J. Foster, resigned. Mr. Mitchell was born in Cheshire (England) in 1840, and educated in Mason's Academy, in his native place, and arrived in Sydney in 1862. He was appointed inspector in the construction branch of the railway service on the southern line, and the main line of railway from Mittagong to Marulan was constructed under his supervision. He remained in this position for four years, and then took to contracting, which business he also followed for four years. During the last seventeen years, however, he has devoted his attention to the coal trade and shipping, his output having averaged about 3000 tons per week for a great part of this time. Mr. Mitchell is of an inquiring mind, and fond of travel, and has visited Spain, Italy, Russia, Turkey, and the United States of America. Some six or seven years ago he took a trip to China and Japan, and was much interested in what he saw in those countries; his observations leading him to the conviction that any large in-flux of the people of those countries into Australia would have very serious consequences for the white races. In 1883 Mr. Mitchell defeated Mr. Henry Copeland (who had accepted a portfolio as Minister of Works) and he represented Newtown in the Assembly for nearly three years, or until the Parliament was dissolved. He has always been a consistent free trader, and is always out-spoken, able, and willing to express an intelligent opinion on all public matters.
 A NEW MEMBER FOR NEWTOWN. (1888, March 10).Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 13. Retrieved from 
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71095218

RAISING OF THE BARQUE PROSPECTOR. [BY TELEGRAPH, (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) NEWCASTLE, WEDNESDAY. The delay; in raising the barque Prospector was caused by a leak having been sprang through the deck beams, and the decks having sunk from 9 to l8 inches, some of the beams having been broken across. This opened the duck seams, and the water poured through. A large centri-fugal pump having been procured from. Sydney, operations were re-commenced on Tuesday night, at 11 o'clock, and at half-past 3 this morning till the water was got out. She was then left till high-water, at 10am. to-day, when she was taken in tow by the Drone and Adeline, and beached at Stockton, an anchor having been previously laid out for her there. Great credit is due to the divers, Messrs. Nicol, Beason, and Jones, for the manner in which they have executed all the works entrusted to them, including the placing of the props, and all other work under water. Owing to the flood in the river muddying the water the work had to be done in total darkness , in fact, literally speaking, at times they could hardly see their hands before their face. Mr. Hickson is about to call for tenders for the purchase of the barque as she now lies. RAISING OF THE MARQUE PROSPECTOR. (1884, July 10).The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 10. Retrieved May 3, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13569306

THE question of the safe storage of dynamite and nitro-glycerine is still engaging the attention of the Colonial Treasurer. As he stated some days ago would be done, the barque Prospector, which became the property of the Government through a collision which caused the vessel to sink in the harbour of Newcastle, has been repaired, with the view of turning her into a dynamite hulk, and yesterday the vessel arrived in Sydney from Newcastle, and was towed to the Government dock at Cockatoo Island, where her docks will be caulked. When that has been done the explosives will be placed on board, and the vessel, with her stores, will be taken round to Broken Bay. In addition to this precaution, Mr. Dibbs intends to introduce into the legislative Assembly a bill to repeal the schedule of the present Gunpowder and Explosives Act, which fixes certain rates or charges for the lighterage end storage of explosives, and to substitute in lieu of this schedule a scale of charges to be fixed by the Governor and the Executive Council. Its object in this is to obtain the power to impose charges which will have the effect of materially reducing the importations of dynamite and other dangerous explosives. At present the charges imposed under the Act are not only too small to be any check upon the importations, but they ere not sufficient, by a very large sum, to meet the annual cost of maintaining the magazines. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1884, October 1). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28370167

Ordnance and Barrack Department: Fitting up hulk "Prospector" as a Dynamite Magazine—further sum ... ... ... £630 10 2. from: No. XXVII. An Act to appropriate and apply out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund of New South Wales certain Sums to make good the Supplies granted for the Service of the Year 1880 and for the Year 1885 and previous Years. [25th October, 1886.] Retrieved from http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/sessionalview/sessional/act/1886-32a.pdf

Mr. GARRARD asked, without notice, when the hulk Prospector, now loading with dynamite at Goat Island, would be removed to a safe distance from the metropolis.
Mr. DIBBS said that the loading was nearly completed, and the hulk would probably be removed within 48 hours. PARLIAMENT OF NEW SOUTH WALES. (1884, November 26).The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13587033

WE learn that the hulk Prospector, with 6500 packages of dynamite and nitro-glycerinewill be towed away early this morning to a safe spot that has been selected in Broken Bay, where she will be stationed, with her dangerous cargo, out of harm's way. A proclamation will be issued defining the precincts of the vessel, which will be declared a magazine under the provisions of the Gunpowder and Explosives Consolidation Act. It will be remembered that Mr. Dibbs, in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday afternoon, said those dangerous explosives should be removed within 48 hours, and from the above it will be seen that his promise will be fulfilled. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1884, November 28). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13584424

THE hulk Prospector, which has some 6500 packages of dynamite, &c on board, was towed to Broken Bay yesterday. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1884, November 29). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 13. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13573752

Above Right: The Thetis, Sydney's temporary pilot steamer from 1871 until 1877, Courtesy State Records New South Wales [4481_a026_000478]

BROKEN BAY-.Arrival  November 28, Thetis (s.), with powder hulk in tow(FROM BOARD AT TELEGRAPH OFFICE.). (1884, November 29). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 12. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13573739Putting those in Pittwater at a similar risk of being blown to bits didn't seem to come into account for a few more years yet. A proclamation was promptly published;

A Proclamation by His Excellency the Governor appeared in a supplement to the Government’s Gazette published yesterday, declaring and appointing the vessel Prospector to be a floating magazine for, the storage of explosives. The position of the vessel is thus defined:-"The said vessel shall be moored in the waters of the port of Broken Bay; that is to say, in a bight or bay on the western  Shore of Pittwater, known as Towler or Morning Bay, in about six fathoms of water, and about 375 yards from land north, south, and west of the said bay; and that the precincts thereof shall be as follows, viz., a distance of 20 yards from any part of the vessel : And I do hereby proclaim that the same shall be, on and after the date hereof, the precincts of the said floating magazine; "Any person entering such precincts without authority, and refusing to withdraw after being directed so to do by the Ordnance Storekeeper or other person under his authority, may be either forcibly removed or taken into custody for the purpose of being brought before the nearest Court of Petty Sessions, and will be liable to a penalty not exceeding £20. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1884, December 16). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28365581

In 1885, some 200,000 people of a total Sydney population of 300,000 turned out to farewell a contingent of volunteers departing to support Britain's imperial war in the Sudan. Soon afterwards, Britain moved troops urgently to protect India's north-west frontier 'against the designs of the "Unspeakable Russian Bear"' in Afghanistan.  With 'Russophobia' rampant again, rumours circulated in Sydney that a Russian fleet intent of invading the colony was on its way. Under the blunt heading 'War', the Town and Country Journal explained that '[Russia's] tactics, it is believed, includes sending a flood of privateers, backed by a squadron, to loot the colonies'.
Dean Boyce, 'Defending colonial Sydney', Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, From HERE

Left: Circular Quay, Sydney, on March 3rd, 1885. Farewell the volunteers bound for Suakim in the Sudan, Charles Bayliss photo

By April all Sydney newspapers were filled with alarming reports and calls for action to defend the colony;

ARE WE READY? By SIR GALAHAD
The rumored approach of a Russian fleet, having for its object the invasion of Australia, is evidence of a danger that we have never yet had to contemplate. During the century of our life as a British country, no powder has been burned in anger in Australasian seas, and the rude shock of war's alarms is as unknown to Australians as though the millennium had arrived. But we are likely to be rudely awakened from this paradisaical condition, and before we are a month older may possibly hear the unwelcome roar of Russian cannon along our coast. As a matter of course, the capitals of the various colonies will be attacked first, and Sydney being so near the coast, will probably be selected as the initial point of attack. Melbourne is well protected by the Cerberus and her torpedo boats, while Adelaide has her new gunboat, the Protector. Hobart can well defend herself by torpedos ,the approach by river affording peculiar facilities for this mode of defence. " Fremantle, it is asserted, will be guarded by the Nelson, and in this case Sydney, having the most need of naval protection, will be left .absolutely defenceless. For, although the harbor of Port Jackson is probably amply defended with its double line of batteries and Bunkon torpedos, yet on the coastal side, save at the South Head and La Perouse, not a solitary gun could be brought to bear against a Hoot. Consequently a hostile fleet could lay to at its leisure, and bombard Sydney from tho safe shelter of Bondi or Maroubra bays, holding the city to ransom, or destroying it, as suited the sovereign will of its commander. Or again, a force could be landed at Coogee under cover of the ships, and seizing the water works, starve the city into submission. Under the circumstances, it is absolutely necessary that gunboats of a type suitable to deep-sea warfare should be obtained.

Right; Sailors of the HMS Nelson, Sydney Harbour c1885, Robert Hunt. Image No:  811060042 courtesy Macleay Museum. Below HMS Nelson on Sydney Harbour.

The Nelson alone would not be sufficient as, even if she could, hold a force at bay, there would be nothing to, prevent part of the fleet menacing Newcastle, the only other vulnerable city upon our coast: We can fairly request the British Government to grant this protection, having shown our patriotism in giving England help unasked. But to he of any value- it must be sent quickly, and therefore the news that the Australian squadron is to be strengthened is welcome indeed. The fact must be stared in the face that Sydney, to an ironclad squadron, even of no great strength, but armed with weapons of modern type, is absolutely defenceless. The old wooden hulks that were probably formidable in Nelson's time would be knocked into matchwood, without the power absolutely of striking an effective blow in return. On land our forces might do something in the way of defence, but on the briny we are literally at sea. Let us hope that England will, in her might, send us ships, otherwise a dread calamity may befall this fair city of Sydney. The ground for the camp at South Head has been picked, and is near the barracks there. The difference between camping in tho past and now will be that upon the arrival of the forces on their field they, will have to pitch their own tents, and will receive a good lesson in that important duty by so doing.
It is asserted that the Government proposes to organise a militia force of all males in the colony in the event of war breaking out between Britain and Russia. This would, of course, necessitate the calling together of Parliament again, to obtain the requisite authority. Consequent no doubt upon the alarming telegrams which have appeared, and have described the strained relations between Britain and Russia, events are happening which show that for some reason or another, the New South Wales Government shares "in the apprehensions that"' a hostile' attack might at any moment be rendered possible.. It was said that his Excellency the Governor had received a dispatch stating that war would be declared within 24 hours, but on this matter of course Ministers, when questioned, were silent. But on Monday a lengthy Cabinet Council was held which may, in fact, be called, and was by one Minister described as a " council of war," at which the question of making immediate arrangements for the defence of Sydney, Newcastle, and Botany, were under consideration. 

Ministers availed themselves of the presence and advice of General Scratchley, Captain Auckland, naval adviser to the Government, Lieutenant Arnold, torpedo instructor, Lieutenant Artley, torpedo officer of H.M.S. Nelson, permitted to come to Sydney for a few days .by Commodore Tryon, Colonel Roberts, Captain Hixson, E.N., and Captain P. B." Walker, of the local torpedo corps. A course of action was determined upon, and the necessary steps for carrying out the recommendations of the naval and military authorities commenced at once. All else that can be now effected will be completed within 10, days. The channels at all ports accessible to an enemy will be protected by torpedoes, and a complete torpedo defence for Sydney, Newcastle, and Botany will be completed within a few days. The wooden hulks now at Broken Bay and Middle Harbor are under orders to be towed to a place of safety at any moment . ARE WE READY?. (1885, April 4). Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71025921

THE DEFENCE OF THE COLONY. The Government are in possession of no other intelligence with regard to the probability of war than that derived from Reuter, which is to the effect that the Czar had left St. Petersburg for Moscow, and that war is inevitable. No such intimation has been received by the Government either from the Agent-General or the Imperial Government. The arrangements for the defences may be said to be now completed, all guns are in position, and the necessary steps have been taken to have all available forces under arms within 2 hours of the receipt of news that war has been declared. The dynamite ship has been removed from Pittwater, and the powder hulk is now being taken from Middle Harbour. Both vessels will be placed in safe and secluded spots. THE DEFENCE OF THE COLONY. (1885, April 29). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13587510

By the end of 1885 the powder hulk was taken back to Pittwater and tenders to ferry explosives to and from the Prospector were advertised from 1886;

TOWAGE of LIGHTERS to and from the PUBLIC MAGAZINES of FOWLER or 'TOWLER BAY, PITT-WATER (HAWKESBURY RIVER), and PORT JACKSON. 

NOTICE is hereby given that TENDERS will be received at this Office until noon of FRIDAY, the 20th instant, from persons willing to supply a Steamer (duly certificated by the Marine Board for sea-going purposes) capable of towing Lighters to and from the Port of Sydney and the Floating Magazine Station at Fowler or Towler Bay, Pittwater (Hawkesbury River), for a period of three calendar months from date of acceptance of contract, with the right reserved to the Government to renew for a further period of three calendar months, on conditions to be obtained at this Office. Each Tender must be accompanied by a marked cheque of £20, and in the case of the accepted tender this amount will be held as a guarantee for tho faithful performance of the service. Tenders to be addressed to the Under Secretary for Finance and Trade, and endorsed " Tender for Towage of Lighters." Advertising. (1886, February 24). The Sydney Morning Herald(NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13612312

TENDERS ACCEPTED.-J. H. Amora. Towage of lighters to and from the public magazines at Fowler or Towler Bay, Pittwater (Hawkesbury River) and Port Jackson at 5 (pounds) 15s per trip, and 7s 6d per. Extra for detention; Government Gazette. (1886, March 20). Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 8. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71074715

Captain Joseph Horatio Amora (1843-1904) was first Commodore and a founding member of the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club (formed 1872). He worked for a while as a ferry Captain for Charles Jeanneret , was manager of a fleet of steamers plying a trade between Sydney and Gosford and later was an acting Consul in Sydney for both the Netherlands and Chilean consulates within months of each other. The vessel he is recorded as captain of is the Albatross. The Albatross was a wooden steamship owned by Charles Jeanneret and built in 1883 by Ephriam Ward at Balmain. Of 84 tons, she was 83.6 x 9.6 x 4.8 feet in dimension and driven by 35hp steam engine manufactured by Shanks & Co. Albatross was frequently touted as the fast boat in the Sydney - Gosford trade. The Albatross was sold to Queensland.

The following announcements appeared in the Government Gazette issued yesterday afternoon -Appointments.-Mr. Joseph Horatio Amora is to be recognised as Acting Consul for the Netherlands at Sydney. GOVERNMENT GAZETTE. (1892, June 11). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 10. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13863917

The fast and favourite steamers ALBATROSS, DEFIANCE, and PROMISE leave daily (Sunday excepted) from King-street Wharf) at 8.30 a.m. and 1,30 p.m., No. 4 Jetty, 9 a.m. and 2p.m.; and from Gosford at 8.30 a.m. and 2 p.m., arriving in Sydney at 12.30 and 5 p.m.; at reduced fares-single, 8s; return, 4s Cd. . Goods at equally reduced rates, having an established agency at Gosford, shippers can be assured of safe delivery and care of goods shipped by-this line. Steward and stewardess accompany these steamers.  J. H. AMORA, Manager. Advertising. (1886, March 27). The Sydney Morning Herald(NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28360771

Among the excursions proposed for the Easter holidays is one now being promoted by Captain R. R. Armstrong. Particulars are advertised this morning. The steamer Albatross, with Captain Amora in charge, has been chartered for the purpose, and it is proposed to form a party of from 20 to 80 gentlemen to visit Lord Howe Island, where there is abundance of shooting, fishing, and other sport. The trip will occupy 10 days, and the arrangements will allow a stay of five or six days on the island. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1886, April 16). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13643222

SHIPPING. ARRIVAL. May 18 - ALBATROSS. Government steamer, Captain J H Amora from Broken Bay 15th instant. SHIPPING. (1886, May 19). The Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4495392

Right: SS Defiance: Launched, 1881, a Rock Davis of Blackwall, NSW built ship. Her Gross weight was 64 tons, Dimensions: 82.80 x 16.20 x 6.80 (feet) Defiance was originally one of the fleet of Joubert ferries that ran on the Parramatta River  & Hunters Hill routes. Earlier in her career she appears on the Sydney to Gosford route along with Promise, Genista , Gosford and Charlotte Fenwick.

TOWAGE OF LIGHTERS TO AND FROM THE PUBLIC MAGAZINES AT BROKEN BAY AND PORT JACKSON.
NOTICE is hereby given that TENDERS will be received at this Office until Noon of TUESDAY', the 13th instant, from persons willing to supply a steamer (duly certificated by the Marine Board for sea going purposes capable of towing Lighters to and from the Port of Sydney and the Floating Magazine Station at Pittwater, Broken Bay, for a period of three calendar months from date of acceptance of contract, with the right reserved to the Government to renew for a further period of three calendar months, on conditions to be obtained at this office. Each Tender must be accompanied by a marked cheque of £20, and in the case of the accepted tender this amount will be held as a guarantee for the faithful performance of the service. Tenders to be addressed to tho Under-Secretary of Finance and Trade, and endorsed " Tender for Towage of Lighters." P. A. JENNINGS. The Treasury, New South Wales, 8th July. 1886.
 Advertising. (1886, July 10). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved from 
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13636181

In 1887 a report was prepared for the N.S.W.'s Government by Major-General Schaw on the Defence of the state and Pittwater was included:

THE DEFENCES OF NEW SOUTH  WALES - REPORT BY MAJOR-GENERAL SCHAW.
DEFECTIVE ORGANISATION. ARMING OF SYDNEY AND RE-ORGANISATION OF THE FORCES REQUIRED. .
The report of Major-General Schaw, who was appointed by the Government some months ago to inspect the defences of New South Wales, and to consider what further measures are necessary for security against any probable attacks to which the colony may be liable, was laid on the table of the Legislative Assembly by the Premier yesterday afternoon.  Sir Henry Parkes, in presenting the document to Parliament, mentioned that certain passages were omitted...
Broken Bay and Hawkesbury River.
" A hostile fleet, finding the defences at Port Jackson and Botany Bay too strong for them, might be induced to enter Broken Bay with the view of landing troops there. There is ample and safe anchorage for a large number of ships in this harbour, but the distance from Sydney is about 21 miles (or 12 miles from the head of the Pittwater Creek to Manly). This creek, however, is not navigable for large vessels, having a bar at the entrance, and the country between Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury River and Sydney is rocky, precipitous, and covered with scrub and forest, and quite impracticable for the march of troops, except on the two roads leading from the head of Pittwater to Manly Beach, and to the spit ferry over the Middle Harbour, or by the railway from the site of the bridge now under construction at "Dangar Island to Sydney. These lines of approach are so difficult and so easily defended that with the most ordinary precautions any small body of troops attempting to leach Sydney by these routes could be stopped and defeated with" ease. A large expedition would, in course of time, be able perhaps to force its way to Sydney; but the undertaking would be most arduous and prolonged, and its ultimate success would be most doubtful... To construct defences which would prevent an enemy’s warships from entering Broken Bay or landing troops there would be very expensive both in guns, mines, fortifications, and garrisons, for the waters are wide and deep. Such strong defences are, however, at present unnecessary, and all that I could now recommend would be to "construct a battery on Long Island over the tunnel leading to the bridge to the west of Dangar Island, and to station in wartime two gunboats and two torpedo-boats in these waters. The battery might be armed with two or three 80-pounders, as may be found best when the site is surveyed. The navigation here is so difficult that no large ships can manoeuvre freely, and these guns, with the gunboats and torpedo boats, should prevent any minor attack or a landing at the railway station or at Peat's Ferry above it. If a landing were effected at the head of Pittwater an enemy might pursue two routes, one along the beach to Brighton (Avalon), a point which infantry might also reach in fine weather by a landing on the ocean beach there, but which only leads to the Spit Ferry, where he would be stopped, or he might follow the road which leads into the Hornsby-North Willoughby-road, about 4 miles east of the former place. This road is very difficult, and offers numerous points of advantage where such an advance might easily be stopped by a very small force. In view, however, of the disadvantages before alluded to, connected with a landing being permitted, it might be advisable in wartime to extemporise a battery for two position guns and two machine guns at Rockhead, by Coasters' Retreat in Pittwater, to assist the gunboats in preventing any landing party from passing up Pittwater a battery in this retired position would not have to contend with the heavier guns carried by ships. These precautions, aided by a good system of outposts, with a strong reserve near Hornsby, should secure Sydney from any land attack on the north side. Although I have suggested two batteries to assist in the defence of these waters, I do not consider them as of first importance. The difficulties of an advance  from Broken Bay on Sydney are so great that no small force would attempt it ; and, as before stated, time must certainly be afforded for preparation in case a larger expedition were meditated, under such circum-stances the roads from Pittwater and from Peat's Ferry, as well as the railway, could be fortified so strongly that the task imposed on an enemy to force his way by these lines would be excessively onerous. The complete defence of this harbour against a strong attack could not be effected by a smaller armament than about the following :-49-in. howitzers, 38-in. B.L. guns, 4 C-in. ditto, 2 6-pr. Q.F., 4 rifle-calibre guns." These with submarine mines and Works would cost about £100,000, and would require a garrison of about 150 artillerymen and ... with naval accessories to man guard-boats. Such expenditure is clearly not needed at present....
THE DEFENCES OF NEW SOUTH WALES. (1887, December 2). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from 
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13676270

The perceived threat, despite German battleships visiting Victoria during this same period and beginning to carry mail, saw a Royal Navy force requested from Britain and a new ship arrive in Sydney soon after as answer:

H.M.S. Calliope, which has been expected for several days past, moored to the Nelson's buoy in Farm Cove yesterday forenoon. She has come direct from Hong-kong under steam alone, a distance of about 6000 miles, which is a good indication of what she can do in the shape of cruising. She is quite a new ship, now on her first commission, has the latest description of ordnance, and is the most powerful offensive vessel in these waters. She left England in February last to join the China squadron, but on September 13 a cable message was received from the Admiralty ordering her to proceed to Sydney forthwith. A full description of the Calliope appears in another column. NEWS OF THE DAY. (1887, November 16). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 9. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13677518

Despite the Government of the day refusing to divulge where the defence of the colony, her armaments and powder hulks were, everyone seemed to know where the powder hulk at Pittwater was;

On the Towler's Bay side there are several residents who pull across the water to the wharf at Church Point and meet the steamer from Sydney or the coach from Manly, as the case may be. The dynamite powder hulk is moored in Towler's Bay, with residences on shore for the officers in charge. 

Mr. Robert Robinson has his residence of Raamah at the same place. Mr. Robinson informs me that he can grow to perfection such tropical fruits as bananas, guavas, ginger, mangoes, pineapples, Brazilian cherries, &c. This fact will demonstrate that there can belittle or no frost in this locality. 

Other residents of this side of the bay are Mr. F. Chave, Woodlands, who has a very nice orchard, mostly summer fruit ; Mr. E. C. Johnstone, who has a nice residence and orchard; Mr. A. Steffani is another prominent resident, while the residence of the firm of Flood and Oatley occupies a lovely peninsula in the quiet waters of the bay. Mr. Geo. Brown has a residence and an orchard in the neighbourhood, and there is also a small church and cemetery at Church Point. Manly to Broken Bay. (1893, November 11). Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907), p. 19. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71191632

With a growing number of people in Pittwater, who shipped a lot of food into Sydney, as well as a focus to attract visitors, excursionists and holiday makers to the area, the powder hulk, and the distance between it and Sydney, began to shift a consensus to get rid of the Prospector:

Those merchants who deal in dynamite consider that they have just cause of complaint against the existing arrangements for the safe storage of that article at present dynamite is stored in hulk under the Government’s supervision in Broken Bay. Those desirous of replenishing their private magazines can only do so on two days of the week-on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Occasionally it so happens that owing to the heavy seas running along the coast it is found impossible to got supplies on those days, and vexatious delays result. As a case in point, it may be stated that dynamite was ordered for a certain Thursday about a fortnight or three weeks ago. Owing to the rough weather the order was not attended to, but it was promised without fail on the following Tuesday, which also turned out to be a boisterous day, so that it was only on the next Tuesday that the supplies arrived, leaving about 12 day s consecutive without there being any possibility of fulfilling customers' orders. Last Thursday was another of the frequent rough days, and supplies have been promised on Tuesday , but as the vessel has to go down on the day before, and as Monday is a holiday, merchants do not expect the fulfilment of the promise. Licensed private magazines are only allowed to carry small quantities under heavy penalties, so that these delays are often serious to mine-owners and those engaged in excavating operations, who naturally blame merchants for the delay. It has been suggested that the dynamite should be stored in Middle Harbour with the powder, or as there seems to be an objection to the two articles being stored together on the same hulk, another could be obtained and the delay thus obviatal. The storage of 3d per week per 30lb case is also deemed excessive. IMPORT MARKET. (1895, October 5). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 11. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14019636

Sir Griffiths said that a deputation had waited upon the Minister for Justice, in the absence of the Premier, and had asked that the dynamite hulk in Broken Bay should be removed to a site nearer to the Hawkesbury, but still to be kept in the bay.  The reply which had subsequently been received from the department was that it was not desirable to remove the hulk from the bay. This was not considered to be an answer to the request of the deputation. THE DISTRIBUTION OF EXPLOSIVES. (1896, July 30). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 7. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14060576

STORAGE OF EXPLOSIVES.—Mr. Dugald Thomson, M.L.A., introduced a deputation to the Premier yesterday, which asked for an amendment of the regulations relating to the storage of explosives.  It was pointed out by Mr. Griffith (Dalgety and Co.) with regard to "high explosives," dynamite  cartridges used in mining, &c., that the hulk in which these articles were stored was in Broken Bay, near Newport, which meant a long journey  by sea. It was proposed that the hulk should be moved to Middle Harbour. 

Mr. Lyne at once said that he saw no objection to this being done, and the members of the deputation expressed themselves as being satisfied with the arrangement. It was further pointed out to the Premier that in Melbourne the charge for the storage of dynamite was one penny per case per week, whilst in Sydney, it was 3d per case per week. In South Australia and Queensland the charge was 1½d per case. Mr. Lyne said that the receipts of this department last year did not equal the expenditure by £1185. He promised, however, that he would look into the matter, with the view of seeing if any reduction in the charge could be made.  The Sydney Morning Herald. (1900, January 19). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14233506

The Hon. Dugald Thomson won the New South Wales Legislative Assembly seat of Warringah in 1894. homson was a supporter of federation and won the House of Representatives seat of North Sydney at the 1901 election and held it to his retirement prior to the 1910 election. He was always a firm supporter of people in Pittwater and fought to build wharves on the estuary, much needed in a maritime focused almost roadless community, and was well known for addressing any issue on Maritime needs in parliament.

With the shifting of the Powder hulk from Pittwater to Middle Harbour (now called 'Powder Hulk Bay') the few acres of Ordnance Reserve at Towlers was sold to the newly formed Kuringgai Trust.

References:

1. COLONIAL DEFENCE 1855 - 1900. Retrieved from http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ausnavy/colonial_navy_defence.htm

Naval Historical Society of Australia: http://www.navyhistory.org.au/

The Naval Officers Club of Australia: http://www.navalofficer.com.au/home-2/

George Champion OAM and Shelagh Champion OAM. A Night on the PowderhulksMay 2003.

Dean Boyce, 'Defending colonial Sydney', Dictionary of Sydney, 2008, From HERE


Above - Powder Hulks at Middle Harbour (circa 1880-1890-1900) - Image No.: c071800017, from William J Macpherson Photographs, courtesy State Library of NSW

Visit: The Riddles of The Spit and Church Point: Sailors, Rowers, Builders and The Macphersons Of Wharriewood: The William Joseph Macpherson Albums


 The Powder Hulks, Middle Harbour.


Above: Some months ago the city was scared by the statement that powder enough was stowed in the magazines at Goat and Spectacle islands to reduce all our houses to ruins, and dynamite enough to make powder of the ruins. Ministers were importuned about the business, but they said it had always been so and it always would be so, or, at least they implied so much by their studied inaction. We' hurt

grown almost accustomed to the consciousness as well as the presence, of danger before it was' decided that some of the powder should be shifted. Many localities were spoken of, and at last one was chosen far up Middle Harbour, quite away from town -away also from the ordinary tracks of tourists. Yachts beat up sometimes and cruise about the old hulks, and with good wind venture even a little farther up the narrowing estuary ; but other life there is none. A little farther up that ' Artisans' College ' which is now amusing the Court and filling the daily pipers might be found; a little lower, some of the loveliest homes our harbour foreshore knows ; but immediately around the hulks nothing hut rocks and water and trees. An explosion could only wreck beauty, and beauty would rise again, we know. The powder is safer down there and the old hulks complete rather than mar the picture. | POWDER HULKS, MIDDLE HARBOUR. The Powder Hulks, Middle Harbour. (1883, June 16). The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), p. 1120. Retrieved fromhttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162079372 

Millers Point, Sydney: ca. 1875-1885; Kent Street (foreground) including Captain Cook Hotel & Thomas Huntley butcher (corner of Miller's Road) ; Looking toward Simmons Point, Ballast Point & Long Nose Point (from left) ; Goat Island (right). Image No.: a089921, courtesy State Library of NSW.

Prospector Ordnance Magazine and Powder Hulk threads collected by A J Guesdon, 2013. 

Opportunities:

2025 Game Changer Challenge

Entries for the Game Changer Challenge 2025 are now open. Learn more about this year's challenge and enter your school now.

Find out more at: education.nsw.gov.au/schooling/schooling-initiatives/game-changer-challenge/about-the-game-changer-challenge

What is the Game Changer Challenge?

The Game Changer Challenge is the NSW Department of Education’s award-winning design thinking competition.

Open to public schools across the state the challenge centres on discovering solutions for a real-world, wicked problem by applying classroom learning.

Game Changer Challenge 2025

Entries for the Game Changer Challenge are now open. Enter your details in the form using your @education.nsw.gov.au login.

What is a wicked problem?

A wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that’s difficult or impossible to solve, normally because of its complex and interconnected nature.

Wicked problems push us to think outside the box, fostering innovation and creativity. The process of addressing these challenges can lead to breakthroughs in technology, policy and social norms.

Many wicked problems are related to environmental sustainability. By addressing this as a big issue, we can develop more sustainable living practices and build communities that are more resilient to changes and challenges.

Engaging with wicked problems empowers individuals and communities to take action and make a difference. It encourages young people to play an active role in their community and future.

The 2025 wicked problem: Ensure sustainable futures for all.

The 2025 priority areas are: Planet, People, Places.

Inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal No. 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

The United Nations defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Sustainability is about balance. It’s about protecting our Planet, empowering our People, and caring for the Places we live, learn, and grow.

This year, teams will explore innovative ways to create a more sustainable future by tackling real-world challenges. Whether it’s rethinking how we empower people, use resources, reducing waste, or building more sustainable communities, this is your opportunity to make a lasting impact.

What is design thinking?

Design thinking is a human-centred process to solving complex problems. Empathy and collaboration are at the heart of design thinking.

The five-step process starts by encouraging problem solvers to walk in the shoes of those experiencing the 'problem' to gain a deeper insight into the challenges and issues they face (empathy).

This knowledge is then used to develop a clear problem statement (define), work on solutions (ideate), turn these solutions into tangible products (prototype) and then see whether the solution will work (test).

Design thinking is not a linear process. With each stage you make new discoveries that require you to rethink and redefine what you have already done.

Design thinking brings our head, heart and hands together to find innovative solutions to complex problems.

This process can be used over and over again, for small or complex problems.

A guide to Game Changer Challenge 2025

What's new in 2025

The 2025 Game Changer Challenge is bigger, bolder, and more impactful than ever before, with a new program design that will involve more students and extend the challenge’s reach across the state. All teams who register and work through Stage 1: Research will progress to Stage 2: Design, ensuring more students get more design experience.

This year, teams will produce a design portfolio that will track their design journeys from beginning to end, with a video pitch being submitted at the end of Stage 2 to be judged by industry experts. 20 teams will progress to the grand final.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Enter your school

Enter your details and receive the Game Changer Challenge 2025 resources. Access the form using your @education.nsw.gov.au login. Resources are available from Term 1, Week 6.

Step 2: Build your team

Teams consist of 5 students and 1 teacher per team. Supervising teachers can be from any subject area. The primary category is for students from Years 3 to 6, the secondary category is for students from Years 7 to 11.

Schools can have more than one team, providing each student team member is different. One teacher can oversee multiple teams.

Step 3: All teams work through the Stage 1 handbook and prepare your design portfolio

Access the teacher handbook on our GCC2025 Teacher Hub and guide your team through the first stages of the challenge.

The handbook guides you and your team through:

  • The Wicked Problem
  • GCC framework and principles
  • GCC 2025 schedule
  • Design portfolio submission process

All teams must prepare an online design portfolio after working through the playbooks to progress to Stage 2.

Step 4: Submit a design portfolio

Design portfolio due Thursday 29 May 2025 (Term 2, Week 5).

Step 5: All teams work through the design sprint livestream and prepare their video pitch

All teams who have submitted a design portfolio in Stage 1 will gain access to the design sprint livestream in Term 3, Week 4.

Teams will ideate, refine, and start building their solution. This year the design sprint will be an on-demand video where all teams will have 2 weeks to design a solution and produce a video pitch. Teams will continue to track their design thinking journeys in their design portfolio to using the Stage 2 templates provided. These design portfolios and video pitches will be judged by a panel of industry partners and NSW Department of Education staff.

Step 6: Grand final

20 teams participate in the grand final event hosted at the department's Parramatta office in Term 4, Week 5.

At the grand final teams create and finalise their prototype and present their solutions to judges and industry partners at the Ideas Expo.

Find out more, along with links to forms etc., at: education.nsw.gov.au/schooling/schooling-initiatives/game-changer-challenge/about-the-game-changer-challenge

Contact us

Do you have a specific question or need more detail about this year’s challenge? Send an email to GCC@det.nsw.edu.au

Learner drivers benefit as more resources become available online  

As the Driver Knowledge Test online heads toward 200,000 users in its first 12 months, many learner drivers are set to get behind the wheel for the first time. To help supervising drivers prepare and teach safe driving, Transport for NSW has launched a new free online resource. 

The Supervising Learner Drivers online learning resource is now available online and provides better access to parents, guardians and other full licensed drivers wishing to supervise learner drivers to help them supervise and teach learner drivers about safe driving before taking the driving test. 

Transport for NSW, in conjunction with local councils, has been delivering free face-to-face workshops ‘Helping Learner Drivers Become Safer Drivers’ across the state for over two decades to support supervising drivers. 

Executive Director Road Safety Regulation at Transport for NSW, Duncan Lucas, said now offering the learning resource online as well is a natural step towards more accessible road safety education, after the successful launch of the Driver Knowledge Test online last year.   

“Learning to drive is a big milestone and the role of supervising learner drivers often falls on parents, guardians and other full licensed relatives.  

“We want to support supervising drivers in understanding their responsibilities and to be able to provide safe and constructive feedback when they take their son, daughter, friend, or relative on the road to complete their logbook hour requirements,” Mr Lucas said.  

The online resource features five modules that cover a range of topics including what is involved in being a supervising driver, issues facing young drivers, how the NSW Graduated Licensing Scheme works, the importance of learner driver experience, lesson planning, dealing with stress, how to develop safe solo driving, where to go for more information and how to share the roads safely with heavy vehicles, motorcycles, bicycle riders and pedestrians.    

“For people in regional areas or those juggling work and other commitments, attending in-person workshops can be challenging,” Mr Lucas said. 

“With the learning resource now available online, supervising drivers will have a flexible and convenient option to ensure they can access critical road safety information and training from the comfort of their homes without having to travel long distances or sacrifice work hours. 

“I encourage all parents, carers and supervisors who are helping novice drivers complete their 120 driving hours to also access the new Supervising Learner Drivers online resource, for practical tips on how to stay safe and get the most out of driving practice.  

“I also encourage young learner drivers under 25 years to complete structured driving lessons under the ‘3 for 1’ scheme and enrol in the Safer Drivers Course to increase their knowledge and implementation of safe driving, with the bonus of getting additional supervised hours credited to their log book,” Mr Lucas said. 

Learners who complete a structured driving lesson with a licensed driving instructor can credit triple the time of their lesson to their log book under the ‘3 for 1’ scheme. Learners with 50 hours in their log book (excluding 3 for 1 bonus hours) who complete the Safer Drivers Course can credit an additional 20 hours to their log book.  

The resource can be completed any time at the supervising driver’s convenience and is available on the Centre for Road Safety website www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/young-drivers/supervising-learner-drivers

NSW History Awards 2025: Submissions are now open

The Awards acknowledge the contribution of historical research to our culture and communities, and to society at large.

All works must have been first published, broadcast or screened and made publicly and commercially available between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025.

A total of $85,000 in prize money will be awarded across six categories.

Administered by the State Library, in association with Create NSW, the NSW History Awards will offer prizes in six categories this year:
  • Australian History Prize ($15,000)
  • General History Prize ($15,000)
  • New South Wales Community and Regional History Prize ($15,000)
  • Young People’s History Prize ($15,000)
  • Digital History Prize ($15,000)
  • The Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize ($10,000)
A discounted early-bird entry fee is available until Thursday 13 March at 5pm!

All entries close at on Thursday 3 April at 5pm. Find more information via the link below. 


History Week 2025 Theme and Event Registrations

Announcing the History Council of NSW's theme for History Week 2025: Water Stories!
And...HCNSW are very excited to announce Event Registrations are now open for History Week, earlier than ever before!

From the caring for water practices of First Nations people to non-Indigenous transformations of creeks and rivers, and the building of dams, there is an abundance of histories of water waiting to be ‘tapped’ and told.

Members are invited to stage online or in-person events. Your event will form part of the HCNSW’s media campaign and be promoted in the History Week 2025 Program Event Calendar on our website.
Registrations for History Week events are now open via the link below

For all History Week inquiries, please contact programs@historycouncilnsw.org.au

A little bit more about Water Stories:
Water is fundamental to life. It also underpins our histories. From floods to droughts, from oceans to creeks, rivers and wetlands, our pasts are bound up with the ebbs and flows of water.

History Week 2025 will engage with stories of how water was cherished, contained, diverted, contaminated, looked after and shared, or withheld.

The theme invites History Council members to dive into their water stories.
  • 🛥️ What happens to communities when water is absent or when it is destructive? How did people in the past use water to travel and trade?
  • 🌊 How do waterways connect, or disconnect, communities?
  • 🐠 How important is water in cultures of sport, fishing, and play as well as the economy?

NSW Training Awards: 2025 entries are now open

The Awards honour and reward the achievements of students, teachers, training organisations and employers.

Get recognised and share your vocational success for the NSW Training Awards 70th anniversary. Don't delay, enter today.

  • Individual Awards entries close 14 March 2025 
  • Organisation Award entries close 2 May 2025

To find out more and nominate, please visit; https://education.nsw.gov.au/skills-nsw/nsw-training-awards

Racing for a Cause: Manly Inflatable Boat Race 2025

Member for Manly, James Griffin has called on the community to get behind one of the Northern Beaches’ most outrageously fun charity events, the 2025 Manly Inflatable Boat Race.

Awarded ‘Community Event of the Year’ at the 2016 Australia Day Awards in Manly, the Manly Inflatable Boat Race is once again gearing up to take over Manly & Shelly Beach on Sunday 30 March this year, with waves of colour, chaos, and community spirit.


Since its inception, the Manly Inflatable Boat Race has raised over $300,000 for charity. The event will see competitors paddle from Shelly Beach to raise funds for the Manly Adolescent and Young Adult Hospice (AYAH) Australia’s first dedicated young adult’s hospice, and cancer research charity Tour de Cure. 

“The Manly Inflatable Boat Race is an epic event and one which showcases the very best of Manly. I encourage everyone to get involved and make a splash for a fantastic cause,” Mr Griffin said.

With over 500 participants and thousands of spectators expected, the 2025 edition promises to be as wild as ever. Registration and float pumping will take place from 7:30am at South Steyne, near Manly Surf Club, with the actual race being held at Shelly Beach at 10:00am.

Founder and organiser Denver Bevan expressed his own excitement for the event. “The Manly Inflatable Boat Race is a highlight on the Sydney calendar because it’s just so much fun! Race-goers love the thrill of paddling through the waves in crazy, colourful inflatables, and the spectators get a front-row seat to all the mayhem. It’s a fantastic day at the beach for all ages,” Mr Bevan said.

Service Manager at AYAH Tayia Yates welcomed the support, saying the funds raised on the day would make a profound difference. 

“Supporting the Manly Inflatable Boat Race is an opportunity to contribute to a vital cause, offering respite and care to those who need it most. We encourage everyone to participate in this unique community event to help raise funds towards the AYAH and assist us in creating a lasting impact on the families and young individuals in our care.” Ms Yates said

The concept of the Manly Inflatable Boat Race is simple:
  • Pick your wackiest fancy dress costume (the crazier, the better!)
  • Bring your inflatable of choice - anything from rubber duckies to pink flamingos, sea monsters, or pool ponies!
  • Join in the 1km paddle adventure from Shelly Beach, around the Manly Life Savers buoys, and back to shore.
  • Rules? There are none! First to the finish line wins!
In a generous showing of support, 4 Pines Brewing Co have been announced as the major sponsor of this year’s event, with General Manager Adam Dearing declaring that he was ‘stoked to come on board as a major sponsor this year to help bring this fabulous charity event back to life after Covid.” The Boathouse Shelly Beach, Budgy Smuggler and OnlineProjects have also thrown their support behind the Race as key event partners. 

To purchase tickets and for any further inquiries, please visit the Manly Inflatable Boat Race website at manlyinflatableboatrace.com.au

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: Challenge

Word of the Week remains a keynote in 2025, simply to throw some disruption in amongst the 'yeah-nah' mix. 

Noun

1. a call to someone to participate in a competitive situation or fight to decide who is superior in terms of ability or strength. 2. a call to prove or justify something. 3. Medicine; the administration of an immunogenic or infectious agent to an animal or person, in order to study the resulting immune response or measure the efficacy of a vaccine.

Verb

1. invite (someone) to engage in a contest. 2. dispute the truth or validity of. 

From: Middle English (in the senses ‘accusation’ and ‘accuse’): from Old French chalenge (noun), chalenger (verb), from Latin calumnia ‘calumny’, calumniari ‘calumniate’.

Noun: early 14c., chalenge, "something one can be accused of, a fault, blemish;" mid-14c., "false accusation, malicious charge; accusation of wrong-doing," also "act of laying claim" (to something), from Anglo-French chalenge, Old French chalonge "calumny, slander; demand, opposition," in legal use, "accusation, claim, dispute," from Anglo-French chalengier, Old French chalongier "to accuse, to dispute". The accusatory connotations faded 17c. The meanings "an objection" in law, etc.; "a calling to fight" are from mid-15c. The sense of "difficult task" is established as a meaning by 1954.

Verb: c. 1200, "to rebuke," from Old French chalongier "complain, protest; haggle, quibble," from Vulgar Latin calumniare "to accuse falsely," from Latin calumniari "to accuse falsely, misrepresent, slander," from calumnia "trickery" (see calumny). From late 13c. as "to object to, take exception to;" c. 1300 as "to accuse," especially "to accuse falsely," also "to call to account;" late 14c. as "to call to fight." Also used in Middle English with a sense of "claim, take to oneself." 

Calumny: noun: calumny; plural noun: calumnies  1. the making of false and defamatory statements about someone in order to damage their reputation; slander. 2. a false and slanderous statement. Verb (formal) verb: calumny; 3rd person present: calumnies; past tense: calumnied; past participle: calumnied; gerund or present participle: calumnying1. slander (someone). Origin; late Middle English: from Latin calumnia.

Compare Calamity

Noun: calamity; plural noun: calamities. 1. an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.

Origin: late Middle English (in the sense ‘disaster and distress’): from Old French calamite, from Latin calamitas.

Calamity Jane

Martha Jane Canary (May 1, 1852 – August 1, 1903), better known as Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman, sharpshooter, and storyteller. In addition to many exploits, she was known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. 

James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement in many famous gunfights. He earned a great deal of notoriety in his own time, much of it bolstered by the many outlandish and often fabricated tales he told about himself. Some contemporaneous reports of his exploits are known to be fictitious, but they remain the basis of much of his fame and reputation.

Late in her life, she appeared in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. She is said to have exhibited compassion to others, especially to the sick and needy. This facet of her character contrasted with her daredevil ways and helped to make her a noted frontier figure. She was also known for her habit of wearing men's attire.

William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917), known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous and well-known figures of the American Old West, Cody started his legend at the young age of 23. Shortly thereafter he started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Europe. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in modern-day Mississauga, Ontario, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill started working at the age of 11, after his father's death, and became a rider for the Pony Express at age 15. During the American Civil War, he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars. While he was initially awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for his actions in the Indian Wars, he was among 910 recipients to have the award rescinded in 1917. Congress reinstated the medals for Cody and four other civilian scouts in 1989.

Much of the information about the early years of Calamity Jane's life comes from an autobiographical booklet that she dictated in 1896, written for publicity purposes. It was intended to help attract audiences to a tour she was about to begin, in which she appeared in dime museums around the United States. Some of the information in the pamphlet is exaggerated or even completely inaccurate.

Calamity Jane was born on May 1, 1852, as Martha Jane Canary (or Cannary) in Princeton, within Mercer County, Missouri. Her parents were listed in the 1860 census as living about 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Princeton in Ravanna. Her father Robert Wilson Canary had a gambling problem, and little is known about her mother Charlotte M. Canary. Jane was the eldest of six children, with two brothers and three sisters.

In 1865, the family moved by wagon train from Missouri to Virginia City, Montana. In 1866, Charlotte died of pneumonia along the way, in Blackfoot, Montana. After arriving in Virginia City in the spring of 1866, Robert took his six children to Salt Lake City, Utah. They arrived in the summer, and Robert supposedly started farming on 40 acres (16 ha) of land. The family had been in Salt Lake City for only a year when he died in 1867. At age 14, Martha Jane took charge of her five younger siblings, loaded their wagon, and took the family to Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory, where they arrived in May 1868. From there, they travelled on the Union Pacific Railroad to Piedmont, Wyoming.

In Piedmont, Jane took whatever jobs she could find to provide for her large family. She worked as a dishwasher, cook, waitress, dance hall girl, nurse, and ox team driver. Finally, in 1874, she claimed she found work as a scout at Fort Russell. During this time, she also reportedly began her occasional employment as a prostitute at the Fort Laramie Three-Mile Hog Ranch. She moved to a rougher, mostly outdoor and adventurous life on the Great Plains.

Her Nickname

Jane was involved in several campaigns in the long-running military conflicts with Native Americans. Her claim was that:

It was during this campaign [in 1872–73] that I was christened Calamity Jane. It was on Goose Creek, Wyoming where the town of Sheridan is now located. Capt. Egan was in command of the Post. We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded. When on returning to the Post we were ambushed about a mile and a half from our destination. When fired upon, Capt. Egan was shot. I was riding in advance and on hearing the firing turned in my saddle and saw the Captain reeling in his saddle as though about to fall. I turned my horse and galloped back with all haste to his side and got there in time to catch him as he was falling. I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort. Capt. Egan, on recovering, laughingly said: "I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains." I have borne that name up to the present time.

"Captain Jack" Crawford served under Generals Wesley Merritt and George Crook. According to the Montana Anaconda Standard of April 19, 1904, he stated that Calamity Jane "never saw service in any capacity under either General Crook or General Miles. She never saw a lynching and never was in an Indian fight. She was simply a notorious character, dissolute and devilish, but possessed a generous streak which made her popular."

Cabinet photograph captioned in the negative, Calamity Jane, Gen. Crook's Scout. An early view of Calamity Jane wearing buckskins, with an ivory-gripped Colt Single Action Army revolver tucked in her hand-tooled holster, holding a Sharps rifle.  File:Calamity Jane by CE Finn, c1880s-crop.jpg: imprint of C.E. Finn, Livingston, Mont. derivative work: Innisfree987 - This file was derived from: Calamity Jane by CE Finn, c1880s-crop.jpg: 

A popular belief is that she instead acquired the nickname as a result of her warnings to men that to offend her was to "court calamity". It is possible that "Jane" was not part of her name until the nickname was coined for her. It is certain, however, that she was known by that nickname by 1876, because the arrival of the Hickok wagon train was reported in Deadwood's newspaper, the Black Hills Pioneer, on July 15, 1876, with the headline: "Calamity Jane has arrived!"

Another account in her autobiographical pamphlet is that her detachment was ordered to the Big Horn River under General Crook in 1875. She swam the Platte River and travelled 90 miles (140 km) at top speed while wet and cold in order to deliver important dispatches. She became ill afterwards and spent a few weeks recuperating. She then rode to Fort Laramie in Wyoming and joined a wagon train headed north in July 1876. The second part of her story is verified. She was at Fort Laramie in July 1876, and she did join a wagon train that included Wild Bill Hickok. That was where she first met Hickok, contrary to her later claims, and that was how she happened to come to Deadwood. - From Wikipedia

What can you do if you’ve started uni and you don’t like it?

Neon Wang/Unsplash
Catherine Stephen, University of Wollongong; Brandon W. Smith, University of Wollongong, and Christopher Patterson, University of Wollongong

More than 260,000 students across Australia are going to university for the first time.

Some come to university to pursue a passion, others to discover one, and some aren’t quite sure why they’re here. Whatever their reason, it can take time to adjust and feel comfortable at uni, and some students decide studying is not for them. In their first year, around 14% of Australian students will choose to leave.

What do you do if you get to uni and it isn’t quite what you expect?

Expectations versus reality

The transition from high school to university can be a big adjustment, especially for Year 12 students who are used to structured learning and clear guidance. Suddenly, you’re managing a new timetable, deadlines, and navigating new places and possibly new subjects on your own.

While university social clubs and campus activities can help you settle in, your first year at university can be a lonely time. You are away from familiar school friends and in classes full of people you don’t know.

Mature-aged students (anyone over 21) face their own challenges when life experience does not always translate to confidence in academic skills.

Juggling study, work and personal commitments isn’t easy. Fitting university in around other life pressures can feel overwhelming.

Student walking on university campus
University is often more independent than high school, which can be a big change for students. Neon Wang/Unsplash

Seek out support

Each university will have slightly different offerings around student support.

If you are finding the academic work difficult, ask if there are academic writing supports or library research supports available.

If you are worried about your funds, ask about financial counselling.

Also seek out on-campus mental health or counselling supports if you you are feeling particularly stressed about your situation.

Can you change your degree or subjects?

If you’re not enjoying yourself, try to work out exactly what it is you don’t like: is it university itself? Is it your course? Or just a particular subject?

If your current degree isn’t working, you could consider switching degrees or the mix of subjects you are studying. Switching to another degree or discipline may come with credit for prior study. Remember, no learning is ever wasted, and many skills are transferable. You can talk to your university admissions team to see what’s possible.

Or perhaps part-time study would be a better option for you. This is very common among uni students. Only 40% complete their degree within four years.

Universities often allow up to ten years for a bachelors’ degree, so you have time to rethink and adjust. Chat with an academic advisor or student services to understand your options.

If university isn’t working at all, remember there are many other options post-school. This includes vocational education and training courses (some of which are free) that provide practical skills, geared towards a job. It is OK to change your mind.

Key dates to know

Timing is important. You need to be aware of the “census date” for your particular uni. This is the deadline when your fees are locked in.

Before then, you can drop courses without financial or academic penalties.

Think of the time before the census date as a “try-before-you-buy” period. While dates vary between universities, the first few weeks give you a chance to experience course content and decide if it’s the right fit for you.

Remember you are going through a big change – so go easy on yourself. And speak to academic, career, and wellbeing supports at your university if you think you need to make a change.The Conversation

Catherine Stephen, Lecturer, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong; Brandon W. Smith, Associate Lecturer, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong, and Christopher Patterson, Associate Professor, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong

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

Sick of pie charts for your uni, school or work projects? Here are 5 other options

Master1305/Shutterstock
Nicole White, Queensland University of Technology

Whether it’s for a work meeting or a class assignment, presenting data to others is a common task on our to-do list.

We use data to make decisions on our health, finances and the world we live in, yet finding the best ways to communicate data without boring your audience can be daunting.

However, there are some tried and true techniques to getting your message across effectively.

First, you need to boost your data literacy – which includes learning about the different kind of charts and how to use them.

What is data literacy?

Data literacy is the ability to “plot” and present complex data in a way that’s easy to digest. There is even a branch of statistics focusing on the best way to present data.

It’s one of the most desired skills in the workplace, yet a 2020 survey found only one in five employees across nine different countries (including Australia) believe they are data literate.

With seemingly countless options available, choosing the right chart is challenging, and the wrong choice can influence how data is interpreted.

Passing on the humble pie

Pie charts are often the first pick when it comes to presenting data with different categories, such as age group or blood type. These categories are represented as slices, with the size of each slice proportional to the amount of data.



Doughnut charts, a close relative of the pie chart, work the same way but are shown with a hole in the middle.



As delicious as they sound, these charts should be consumed in moderation.

Pie charts present data in a circular pattern, making it difficult to make comparisons when there are many groups, or when groups are similar in size. They can also misrepresent data entirely, especially when data add up to over 100%.

Here are some alternatives to pie charts that sound just as tasty, but are easier to digest.

Bar charts

Bar charts summarise data across different categories, but present them next to each other. This makes it easier to compare several categories at once.

Here is an example from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing the different generations from the last census.



Waffle charts

Waffle charts are a good option for data organised by categories.

They present data in a grid, with each unit representing a fixed number. This is useful for presenting both large and small percentages that are difficult to compare side-by-side.



We can clearly see most people eat meat from the figure.

However, a bar chart would make comparing less common diets difficult. With a waffle chart, we can see 4% of people surveyed are vegan, while 2% are pescetarian.

Histograms

Data often represent different measurements, such as height and weight, or time taken to write an article.

Histograms also present data with bars but, unlike bar charts, are used for data collected as numbers, or numerical data.

This chart type is used to show how a set of numbers are spread out, and can be useful in seeing which numbers occur more often than others.

It’s tempting to simplify data by fitting them into categories, but this can sometimes hide interesting facts.

The example below shows the body mass index (BMI) of a group of people as a bar chart.



It’s easy to lose information when trying to simplify BMI into categories, especially among people who may be obese.

Each category in the bar chart could easily be misunderstood as representing BMI as similar ranges. However, if we look at the histogram, BMI for obese people can be as high as 70.



A doctor using this data would need to take into account that someone with a BMI of 60 may need a different treatment method compared to someone with a BMI of 30.

Line charts and scatterplots

Other chart types for numerical data, such as line charts and scatterplots, allow us to explore how different measurements are related to one another.

Line charts are used to visualise trends over time, such as stock prices and weekly flu cases.



In contrast, scatterplots show how two different measurements collected on the same subject are related.

While scatterplots summarise trends, they sometimes show unusual results that would go unnoticed if measurements were charted separately.

For example, the figure below compares life expectancy and health expenditure in different countries.



If we’re only looking at health expenditure, people from the United States would appear healthier as the US spends the most money on health care per person.

Presenting this information along with life expectancy tells a different story.

Keep it simple and avoid ‘chart junk’

It is always tempting to add more information.

“Chart junk” refers to extra information such as excess labels, 3D effects or even different types of data in the same chart.


A chart filled with junk like 3D modeling and multiple data.
Example of a chart filled with ‘junk’. ResearchGate, CC BY

This makes them more difficult to read and can distort the data, and is usually a sign your data is too complicated. You’re better off using multiple charts to tell the full story.

As Coco Chanel once said, “simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance”.

Keep these words in mind and choose a chart that keeps it simple without compromising style, content and detail.The Conversation

Nicole White, Associate Professor of Statistics, Queensland University of Technology

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

The female explorers who braved the wilderness but were overlooked by the history books

Ferryland lighthouse near Labrador in the Canadian Arctic, an area mapped by Mina Hubbard in 1905. Nagel Photography
Sarah Lonsdale, City St George's, University of London

In the summer of 1905, a young Canadian widow, Mina Hubbard, set out on an expedition to map the northeastern corner of Labrador, from Lake Melville up to Ungava Bay, an inlet of the Arctic Ocean. It was an unusual challenge for a former nurse who had left school at 16.

Her husband, Leonidas Hubbard, had died in this same harsh environment two years earlier. Mina, 35, intended to complete his work.

Although she faced physical dangers on the 600-mile journey – starvation, bears, freezing rivers and rapids – her greatest antagonists were the reporters and editors of the male-dominated outdoors press of early 20th-century north America.

The popular Outing magazine, for whom Leonidas Hubbard had written, was the most excoriating. Its editor, Caspar Whitney, thundered in an editorial that “the widow” should not be in the wilderness, let alone speak about it.

The wild was no place for a white woman, especially one accompanied by First Nation (Native American) guides. This was not long after she had given an interview to another paper.

Mina Hubbard black and white photo of woman striding towards camera
Mina Hubbard in northern Labrador.

Other newspapers described her as a grief-stricken hysteric. This was the only explanation they could find for her decision to go on such a long and arduous journey. When she was 300 miles into her expedition, having found the source of the Naskaupi River, the New York Times reported on its front page that she had given up, beaten back by hardship and privations.

old newspaper cutting woman explorer gives up
New York Times. CC BY-NC-ND

Instead the paper claimed that a man, an explorer called Dillon Wallace who was also in northern Labrador, was “pushing forward beyond any white man’s previous track”. In fact, Hubbard had neither given up, nor had Wallace caught up with her. She would reach Ungava Bay several weeks before his party. But it fitted the dominant narrative of the time: that the wilderness was no place for a woman.

I explore the idea of what the wild is, and of its being a gendered space, in my new book, Wildly Different: How Five Women Reclaimed Nature in a Man’s World. From ancient myths such as Ulysses or Gilgamesh, to the present where research shows that women face harassment and othering even on remote Antarctic bases, the wild has for centuries been a site of heroic male adventuring and rugged exploration.

Studies show that even in modern hunting societies, while women tend forest plots and hunt small game near the village or camp, it is the men who go away, often for many days, to hunt for big game and status.

Myths from across the world have told listeners and readers that women who stray beyond the city wall, village paling or encampment are either supernatural, monsters, or have been banished for perceived sins against society.

In the Greek myth of Polyphonte, the young girl who refuses to follow the correct gender role to become a wife and mother, and wants instead to hunt in the forest, is treated to a terrible punishment from the gods. She is tricked into falling in love with a bear-turned-man and gives birth to two bestial children. She and her sons are then transformed into flesh-eating birds.

In a more recent echo of the media coverage of Mina Hubbard’s journey, in Kenya in the 1980s and 1990s, the environmental activist Wangari Maathai was attacked and belittled. She even had a curse put on her for planting trees in forests earmarked for development by the country’s then president, Daniel arap Moi, and for challenging Moi’s plans to build a skyscraper in one of Nairobi’s last green spaces.

At the height of Maathai’s confrontation with President Moi, the Daily Nation newspaper repeated criticism of both Maathai and her Green Belt Movement organisation. Headlines included: “MPs condemn Prof Maathai” and “MPs want Maathai movement banned”. Her crime? Wanting to slow disastrous desertification and soil erosion, and to empower rural women by planting 30 million trees.

When British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves was killed in the Himalayas in 1995, reporting focused on her being a mother and wife. Historical newspaper records I found during my research roundly accused her of abandoning her primary role of caring for her children.

The Sunday Times called her “A mother obsessed”, while the Independent led with the headline, “Dangerous ambition of a woman on the peaks”. The Daily Telegraph headline read, “A wife driven to high challenges”. Readers’ letters were even more critical, branding her as selfish and irresponsible.

A novelty nail file

Women who have received neutral or positive coverage for their work have tended to have novelty value, or had accomplished a feat so extraordinary that their being a woman was part of the narrative.

woman collects 42,000 insects - old newspaper clipping
CC BY-SA

The entomologist Evelyn Cheesman spent decades collecting insects on Pacific islands, from the Galapagos to New Guinea. Her work led to support for a biological dividing line between different ecosystems in the New Hebrides to be named Cheesman’s Line, and her contribution to science was a great novelty for the newspaper press.

Her months-long, arduous expedition to Papua New Guinea in the early 1930s earned her the headline in the now defunct UK News Chronicle, “Woman collects 42,000 insects”.

After Cheesman published her memoir in 1957, detailing four decades of exploration, the headline in the newspaper Reynolds News announced: “Woman trapped in giant spider’s web”. The sub-head simply statesd, “saved by her nail file”.

More broadly, my research disappointingly concludes that over 100 years on, women explorers and scientific fieldworkers are still represented as unusual or out of place in the wild. These media narratives are dangerous as they feed into social attitudes that put women at risk and cause them to change their behaviour outdoors by avoiding isolated places, especially beyond daylight hours, for example.

Studies show that women (and black and hispanic) hikers in the US are more afraid of being attacked by men than by bears or other wild animals. Women’s outdoor groups, and campaigners such as Woman with Altitude and the Tough Girl podcast are working hard to counter this narrative, encouraging women to enjoy the beauties and discoveries still to be made in the world’s most rugged and remote places.


Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 40,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.The Conversation


Sarah Lonsdale, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City St George's, University of London

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

Why you should revisit the classics, even if you were turned off them at school

Johanna Harris, Australian Catholic University

Throughout my school years I had an exuberant, elderly piano teacher, Miss Hazel. She was one of five daughters (like me) and, like many young women of her generation, had never married her sweetheart because he did not return from the war.

Her unabashed gusto for life and infectious, positive outlook left an indelible impression upon me. So too did the memorable fact that Miss Hazel read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice from beginning to end once every year.

As a younger girl I wondered about the ways Pride and Prejudice could be so important to a woman in her eighties that she would want to read it annually. Was it to do with Austen’s depiction of a family with five daughters, or to relive an endearing love story?

Since those years I have seen, more through lived experience than through academic study, just how deeply meaningful the reading of classic books, like Pride and Prejudice, can be.

Cover of Pride and Prejudice
Penguin

I no longer simply read this book for Elizabeth Bennett’s love story, but for the finely crafted replication Austen gives us of human character, with all its flaws. Hers are imaginary yet imaginably real situations, all depicted with humour and a sensitively calibrated dose of sympathy for even the most unlikeable literary figures.

The clergyman Mr Collins, Elizabeth’s distant cousin and her rejected suitor, was always repellent for his obsequiousness but I see more readily now his self-serving nature cloaked in altruism. The haughty snobbery of Darcy’s aristocratic aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, hints at a deeper layer of sadness and fragility only rereading can illuminate.

Box-ticking and speed

When we’re at school or university we may read for speed. I remember managing my reading of Ann Radcliffe’s 432-page gothic romance The Romance of the Forest to work out how many pages per hour I would need to read across a weekend in order to finish the novel before my university tutorial. (It was an ungodly ratio and I don’t recall much of the novel.)

Cover of The Romance of the Forest
Goodreads

Or we may read for the tick-box exercise of writing for assessment requirements: accumulating knowledge of a novel’s original metaphors, descriptions that best capture a prescribed theme (“belonging” or “identity”), or of poetry by which we can demonstrate a grasp of innovative metre.

But how and why do we reread classic books, when we are not constrained by class plans or prescribed exam themes. And why should we?

‘Like a graft to a tree’

Rebecca Mead’s The Road to Middlemarch offers a compelling exploration of one writer’s five-yearly revisitation of George Eliot’s masterpiece, Middlemarch.

Mead first read the novel at school, and Eliot’s subtitle to the novel, “A Study of Provincial Life”, captured precisely what Mead was trying to escape at that time: provinciality.

Eliot’s central character, Dorothea Brooke, captivated Mead as an unconventional intellectual heroine yearning for a life of meaning and significance. Mead marked out important moments with a fluorescent pen, such as when the intellectual and spiritual inadequacies of Dorothea’s husband, Casaubon, dawn upon her. Mead writes, quoting Eliot:

‘Now when she looked steadily at her husband’s failure, still more at his possible consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became tenderness […]’ These seemed like things worth holding on to. The book was reading me, as I was reading it.

Cover of Middlemarch
Penguin

This idea of books “reading us” can sound like an odd animism. But books can prompt us to reflect on our own lives, too. Eliot makes Middlemarch almost compulsory to reread later in life: the idealism of youth captures the young reader, while the novel’s humour becomes more sympathetic as we age. To reread a novel like Middlemarch is to trace the ways we too have experienced idealism turn to illusion, or have seen the restless pursuit of change turn to a retrospective gratitude and a recognition of grace.

Our ability to acknowledge new depths of meaning in our own lives and to recognise within ourselves a subtler sympathy for the lives of others can be articulated almost as precisely as lived experience itself. As Mead says, “There are books that grow with the reader as the reader grows, like a graft to a tree.”

Feeling for Lear

The same can be said of Shakespeare. As young readers, we won’t necessarily capture the full vision King Lear offers us of the tragicomic paradoxes sometimes presented by old age. The play depicts the loss of power and control over one’s life and decision-making, the tender fragility of family relationships when the care of aged parents is suddenly an urgent question and the madness that can prevail when an inheritance is at stake.

Cover of King Lear
Penguin

Some of these things might abstractly be understood when taught to us in the classroom, but they are far more powerfully seen when revisited after we have lived a little more of that imaginably real life ourselves.

As students we might have squirmed with discomfort at the literal blinding of Lear’s loyal subject the Earl of Gloucester (the horror of witnessing a visceral, grotesque injury).

But as we age it is the tragedy of moral blindness that lingers, making the final scene so extraordinarily moving: “Do you see this? Look on her. Look, her lips. Look there, look there,” Lear pleads, as if to say that Cordelia, lifeless in his arms, still breathes.

Does he really see her lips quiver? Does he really believe she lives? Is this some consolation with which he dies or is it delusion? Lear’s heart is broken. So is mine.

Each time I revisit this final scene, the grief of Lear as a father is profoundly felt, but my heart is broken even more so by his continuing blindness; his vision (what he thinks he sees) is desperate, untrue, and ultimately meaningless.

Sites of discovery

When we read we inhabit imaginary worlds and each time the reading can be different. Philip Davis, a professor of literature and psychology has written,

Rereading is important in checking and refreshing that sense of meaning, as the reader goes back and re-enters the precise language once again.

Davis points to an idea advanced by the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, of the reader’s collection of special, memorable fragments, which serve as metaphors for the reader’s self-utterances, developed over time. These are “nascent sites for thinking and re-centring”.

This is a similar idea to the novelist and journalist Italo Calvino’s description in Why Read the Classics? of the way classic books “imprint themselves on our imagination as unforgettable” and “hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual’s or the collective unconscious.”

Works of imaginative literature are not manuals for life, though they might along the way gift us with some wisdom; they are sites of discovery and rediscovery.

The classic works we are introduced to at school may establish such sites for thinking about ourselves and others, but it is in rereading them as we grow older that we can better see the ways we have grown as imaginative, moral beings.The Conversation

Johanna Harris, Associate Professor, Literature, Western Civilisation Program, Australian Catholic University

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

Democracy’s bad eggs: corruption, pork-barrelling and abuses of power

Yee-Fui Ng, Monash University

The question of how best to eliminate corruption has exercised the minds of philosophers as much as the practical drafters of legislation from Ancient Greek and Roman times.

Within the political sphere, the notion of “corruption” has fluctuated between broad and narrow conceptions.

The broad conception relates to the decay of institutions or of the stature of the individuals who comprise them. On the other hand, the narrow conception focuses on the abuse of public office for private gain.

There is also “grey corruption” – which involves questionable behaviour involving a breach of integrity standards that does not necessarily amount to criminal conduct.

This could include where a person has undue influence over a politician, such as by essentially buying that power through making large donations or hiring expensive lobbyists, particularly where it causes public officials to behave in corrupt ways.

However the notion is defined, it is clear the fight against corruption is one of the basic tasks of a liberal democracy, perhaps even of an effectively functioning civil society.

Corruption control is a pressing issue worldwide: the United Nations estimated the economic cost of corruption at 5% of global domestic product or $3.6 trillion annually.

Australia has had a number of major corruption scandals throughout its history. Corruption was rife in the colonial era, where wealthy landholders sought to influence parliamentarians with monetary bribes.

This has been followed by several major corruption scandals, such as the Fitzgerald inquiry, which revealed widespread police corruption involving illegal gambling and prostitution.

What are anti-corruption commissions?

Anti-corruption commissions are arguably the most significant tool developed in liberal democracies to fight corruption in recent times.

The first anti-corruption commission in Australia, the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), was established in New South Wales in 1988 by then premier Nick Greiner.

Infamously, a few years later, Greiner became the first premier to resign due to an ICAC investigation.

Over the next few decades, all states and territories have set up their own anti-corruption or integrity commissions.

In 2023, the Commonwealth followed suit with the introduction of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), a promise made by Anthony Albanese in the lead-up to the 2022 election after considerable pressure from the public and from within parliament.

As a result, Australia now has a comprehensive network of broad-based public sector anti-corruption agencies covering all levels of government – a significant development nationally and internationally.

Anti-corruption commissions are tasked with investigating serious and systemic corrupt conduct in government. This includes not just members of the House and Senate, but their staff and public servants.

In performing their functions, these commissions have strong coercive powers, equivalent to the powers of a royal commission. This includes the power to compel documents and witnesses.

Some anti-corruption commissions such as the NACC and NSW’s ICAC have the power to conduct public hearings if they believe it’s in the public interest. This increases transparency in government. But concerns have been expressed about reputational damage for those subject to investigations.

Anti-corruption commissions also have corruption prevention functions. They are tasked with educating the public about the detrimental effects of corruption on public administration.

Reports of anti-corruption commissions are often attended by significant media publicity, leading to public awareness of corruption in government.

Why are anti-corruption commissions needed?

It has become well accepted that effective anti-corruption institutions play an important role as institutions supporting constitutional democracy.

The state anti-corruption bodies have brought to light many indiscretions by politicians that would have otherwise remained hidden.

Without these commissions, corruption in the public sector can take root without us knowing about it. An anti-corruption agency is a powerful deterrent against improper behaviour.

Yet anti-corruption commissions tend to be unpopular within governments because they scrutinise government action. This means the a commission may expose improper conduct or corruption within their ranks.

It is common for governments hostile to anti-corruption commissions to attack them, including by reducing their powers or funding.

This is despite their integral role in our democracy. Alongside other oversight bodies such as the ombudsman (who investigates maladministration within government) and auditor-general (who performs audits of government expenditure), anti-corruption commissions form part of an intricate, interlocking integrity framework that monitors executive action.

Who watches the watchdogs?

A big question is about how we ensure anti-corruption commissions do not overstep their bounds. Given their broad coercive powers, how do we hold them to account?

From their inception, concerns have been expressed about the potential for anti-corruption bodies to infringe on civil liberties, and the possibility they may exceed or abuse their powers.

In Australia, anti-corruption commissions are subject to a strong system of accountability through parliaments and the courts. They report to dedicated parliamentary committees who scrutinise their actions and decisions. Complaints against anti-corruption commissions can be made to a dedicated inspectorate – an independent statutory officer who oversees their actions.

Anti-corruption commissions are also subject to judicial review by the courts to ensure they don’t exceed their legal boundaries. Court scrutiny occurs when a person investigated by an anti-corruption commission takes their grievance to court.

To be effective, anti-corruption commissions require strong powers and institutional independence. But this needs to be balanced with accountability and the protection of individual rights.

What is pork barrelling and what are some recent examples?

Pork barrelling involves governments channelling public funds to seats they hold or seats they would like to win from an opponent, as a way of winning voters’ favour. This means the money is used for political purposes, rather than proper allocation according to merit.

We have been inundated with pork barrelling scandals in recent years. This includes the car park rorts scandal, where 77% of the commuter car park sites selected were in electorates held by the then Coalition government, rather than in areas of real need with congestion issues.

This followed close on the heels of the “sports rorts” scandal. Minister Bridget McKenzie resigned from cabinet following allegations she had intervened in the sport grants program to benefit the Coalition government while in a position of conflict of interest.

My research has shown that pork barrelling is an intractable problem across multiple governments over many decades. It takes different forms based on electoral systems.

Australia has a single member electorate parliamentary system, which makes it more susceptible to pork barrelling than multi-member electorates such as Norway or Spain. The belief is that politicians who “bring home the bacon” for their constituents are electorally rewarded for doing so.

This means there are incentives for the central cabinet to strategically apportion benefits to marginal electorates to increase prospects of electoral success. There is also an incentive to bias the apportionment of funds towards the party in power.

In short, rorts scandals keep happening because governments believe that channelling money to marginal and government electorates will win them elections.

Potentially the NACC could investigate rorts scandals, but only where it amounts to serious or systemic corrupt conduct.

How do we fix the grants system?

At the federal level, we have sophisticated financial management legislation that provides a framework for grant rules. The Commonwealth grant rules provide a detailed set of guidelines that ministers and government officials must follow on grant application and selection processes.

However, there are significant loopholes in the rules. For example, the “car park rorts” scandal is not covered by these rules because it involves money being channelled through the states.

Also, there are no sanctions for breaching the rules. So ministers and government officials can break the rules without any repercussions.

To fix the system, we need to reform the rules about grants allocation and close the loopholes. We also need to impose punishment for breaching the rules.

It is imperative our grants administration system be reformed to ensure that taxpayer funds are protected from governmental abuse. If the ministerial discretion available in grants processes is improperly used, this can give rise to political favouritism and corruption.

How corrupt is Australia compared to other countries?

There is a public perception that a small elite is reaping large benefits in Australian society in terms of political influence and its flow-on dividends.

In Australia, the “game of mates” is flourishing. There’s now a revolving door in politics with many politicians, advisers and senior government officials leaving the public sector to become well-paid lobbyists.

Add to that the appointments of political “mates” to commissions, tribunals and cushy ambassadorships and the blatant misuse of parliamentary entitlements such as helicopter trips on taxpayer funds.

Political parties are also accepting millions of dollars in donations from lobbyists and others interested in influencing policy outcomes.

All of this adds to the perception that the system is rigged - and not in favour of the person on the street.

Australia has fallen steadily in Transparency International’s global corruption index, from 8th place in 2012 to 14th in 2024. But even so, Australia is the 14th-least corrupt country in the world, which is still a respectable ranking.

More alarming is the fact that one in 30 Australian public servants said in a survey last year they had seen a colleague acting in a corrupt manner.

The types of corruption witnessed included cronyism or nepotism (favourable treatment of friends or family members without proper regard to merit). Fraud, forgery, embezzlement and conflicts of interest were also reported.

In the 1980s, there were incidences of large-scale corruption that rocked the country, culminating in the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland and the WA Inc Royal Commission in Western Australia. These scandals led to the resignations and imprisonments of various former ministers and officials.

Although we have not sunk to such depths since then, state anti-corruption commissions, such as the NSW ICAC, have uncovered various instances of corruption in recent years. The NSW ICAC’s inquiries have led to the resignations of several politicians, as well as the conviction of former Labor MP Eric Obeid.

Another classic case of corruption exposed by the ICAC led to the downfall of former Newcastle lord mayor, Jeff McCloy. McCloy famously bragged that politicians treated him like a “walking ATM” and admitted to giving two MPs envelopes of cash amounting to $10,000.

In Victoria, the Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission’s (IBAC) revealed that a lobbyist funnelled suitcases of cash totalling more than $100,000 from a property developer to a councillor, under the guise of sham transactions.

These explosive scandals involving corrupt conduct by public officials have eroded public trust in politicians. But the exposure of these scandals by anti-corruption commissions have an important deterrent and educative effect on public officials and the broader public.

Our faith in government has been eroded by a lack of transparency and the perception that those in power are enjoying unfair benefits. The active investigations by robust institutions such as anti-corruption commissions will act as checks and balances on governmental power - and are key to a vibrant democracy.


This is an edited extract from How Australian Democracy Works, a new book from leading authors at The Conversation on all aspects of our political system and its history, out March 4.The Conversation

Yee-Fui Ng, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Monash University

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

‘High agency’: what the science says about the latest tech buzzword

Caspar David Friedrich / The Conversation, CC BY-SA
Katharine H. Greenaway, The University of Melbourne

In 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal crossed the Alps against the advice of his men, who claimed it was impossible. “Aut inveniam viam, aut faciam,” Hannibal is said to have replied: “I shall either find a way, or make one.”

Though apocryphal, Hannibal’s bold statement captures a trait much sought in the tech industry today: “high agency”. This means being able to positively influence yourself or the world around you.

Psychologists use a range of other terms to refer to this kind of trait — including perceived control, mastery, and efficacy. All of them boil down to being able to achieve the things you want, when you want.

Recognising agency

In the business world, the term high agency is used in much the same way as “disruptor”, “game-changer” and “self-starter” were before it. As you might expect from those comparisons, high agency is a catch-all phrase for people who see and take opportunities where others see roadblocks.

More than this, high agency describes a person who creates their own opportunities where there appear to be none.

High agency is beneficial in more than the professional sphere, however.

Research shows that feeling able to achieve important goals is a building block for motivation in most domains of life, including education, health and political action. This is because people who feel “in control” set higher goals, are more committed those goals, and exert greater effort to achieve those goals than people who feel “out of control”.

Agency differs by demographic, including factors such as age. Some research suggests people feel more in control of their life circumstances and outcomes in middle age than in old age.

Socioeconomic factors such as education, income and work history also play a role. Put simply, people who are “better off” feel more agentic.

Mental health seems to be both an outcome and a predictor of high agency. People who are less depressed feel more in control of their lives, and those who feel more in control are less depressed.

Rethinking agency

The concept of “high agency” is an amalgamation of, or an umbrella term for, a range of traits that psychologists have studied for decades. Related concepts include the prized “growth mindset” (the belief that one’s talents are developable rather than innate), “proactivity” (acting in advance of, rather than reacting to, situations), and the somewhat controversial “grit” (perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals). Note, however, that some argue grit is just a rebranded version of the personality trait “conscientiousness”.

High agency, as the tech world sees it, appears to borrow from all these concepts, wrapped up in one convenient package. Agentic people are those who see possibility where others see barriers, take action rather than wait to be told what to do, and aren’t afraid to go after what they want.

These traits are also stereotypically associated with particular people in society: members of advantaged majority groups, such as men, those with high socioeconomic status, and white people.

In many ways, high-agency behaviour is an act of privilege. It involves trusting that others will react well to your efforts to try a new approach or disrupt the status quo.

The reality is that the way other people respond will depend at least in part on factors outside our control. This may be particularly true for less privileged people, who tend to see less opportunity to exert choice and influence the world due to the very real structural barriers they face. This means acting “high agency” may be a risk for some people: actions that see one person praised as a “game changer” could easily see another labelled a “troublemaker”.

Taken to an extreme, high agency could read as “alpha” – the kind of person who takes charge and is a natural leader. Alpha is a gendered term, most commonly applied with a suffix such as male, bro or dude.

The already male-dominated tech industry should be wary of baking gendered traits into personnel selection procedures. If high agency is understood to mean a certain type of person rather than just a type of personality, it could be a problem for equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Realising agency

Given the rising value of high agency in professional settings – not to mention its personal emotional and motivational benefits – you might wonder how people can become more agentic.

Many proponents of high agency emphasise its value for looking at the world in a different way. So too it might be valuable to look at high agency in a different way: not what makes an individual agentic, but what are the conditions that allow agency to thrive.

Research shows that certain types of environments set people up for success. Environments that allow people to thrive are those that meet three basic psychological needs.

The first is the need for autonomy: the ability to freely choose what we do and when we do it. The second is the need for competence: the feeling of being capable of performing desired actions. Finally, there is the need for relatedness: the feeling of being connected to others.

These needs can be fostered by the work environment. (Google famously adopts similar motivational workplace practices.) People can also adapt themselves by “job crafting” to help create the conditions conducive to success.

While high agency may seem like an innate personality trait, emerging research suggests the people around us may be a powerful source of personal agency. People who are better able to influence their own outcomes are often those who can turn to, or recruit, others to help them achieve those outcomes.

Paradoxically, this means that “high agency” might not (just) be a quality of you personally, but a quality of the people around you.The Conversation

Katharine H. Greenaway, Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne

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

Bill Gates’ origin story describes a life of privilege, exposing the DNA of some of the tech industry’s problems

Dana McKay, RMIT University

Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft, is one of the world’s richest men. He is also a highly controversial figure.

On one hand, he contributes to social, medical and environmental causes through his foundation, making grants worth more than US$77 billion ($A123 billion) from its inception to the end of 2023. On the other, he has confirmed associations with Jeffrey Epstein and was the subject of spurious COVID conspiracy theories.

Even Gates’ Microsoft days were controversial. Under his leadership, Microsoft became the first tech giant, but Gates has been repeatedly described as ruthless, both personally and professionally.


Review: Source Code, My Beginnings – Bill Gates (Penguin)


He was accused by his late long-term friend and business partner Paul Allen, of canvassing ways to dilute Allen’s shares in Microsoft when the latter was undergoing treatment for lymphoma. Gates reportedly apologised to Allen, and they repaired their relationship, and were on good terms by the time Allen died.

Still, as a leader, his style has been characterised by some who worked with him in the 1980s and 1990s as bullying. (Gates’ spokesperson has denied he mistreated employees.)

Childhood

In Source Code, Gates sets out to tell his own story, and the story of the birth of the tech industry.

His parents were the children of hardworking strugglers. His father, Bill Senior, was educated as a lawyer on the GI bill; his mother, Mary, was, according to Gates, an innovative and engaged homemaker, who later shattered glass ceilings.

Born in 1955 Gates describes himself as the kind of kid his mother had to warn his preschool teachers about. He responded to not knowing how to fit in with other kids by becoming a class clown, and was pushed by his mother to relate to other adults.

Cover of Source Code

He was introduced to mathematics by his maternal grandmother, a Christian Scientist and a card sharp. She played assiduously with her grandchildren. She did not believe in losing to them deliberately. Through cards, Gates learned two key lessons: that you can learn the mathematics of a problem, and that practising a skill will hone it.

His relationship with his father was loving and respectful, but his relationship with his mother was more fraught. She encouraged him, but he resented her expectation that he live up to social mores so much that peace had to be brokered by a family therapist.

The privilege of private school

Gates was sent to a private school for boys, and his stories about Lakeside School in Seattle are probably the most engaging segment of the book. It was at Lakeside that he learned to apply himself academically, after his class-clown act failed to impress. There, he also met Allen, who would become co-founder of Microsoft, and got his hands on his first computer.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, computer time was charged by the minute. Gates used lucky connections and his entreprenurial spirit to get a job coding, so he could do more of what he loved. This was how he clocked up 500 hours coding before he left high school, a mean feat even by today’s standards.

Gates describes a degree of freedom almost unimaginable in today’s regimented education system. He had access to the computer lab at all hours and was able to take an entire semester off to code.

He continued his elite education at Harvard. Eventually, he chose to major in applied mathematics, partly because it gave him some of the same freedom he had been accustomed to. He soon realised he was not the best at pure mathematics, as he had anticipated.

Gates again got early access to computers at Harvard. He used this access to build his first microprocessor software (“Micro-Soft”), with Allen, which he and Allen sold to a company called MITS in 1975.

He was sanctioned by Harvard for this project. Their computers were not supposed to be for commercial use. He was also bringing non-students into the lab.

At this point, aged 19, he decided to take a semester off to focus on his business.

But they stole my software!

In 1975 Gates went to work with MITS, the company that built the first desktop computer, where he expanded his software.

The first version of this software was literally stolen at a trade fair, reducing Microsoft’s profits and creating a rift between Gates and many of the hobbyists who were using this software

Gates believed that software should be paid for; many of the hobbyists believed software should be free and open source.

Gates describes the head of MITS, Ed Roberts, as loud and somewhat mercurial, an irony that is not lost as we read Gates’ letters to his friends and business partners, in whom he is frequently disappointed.

Eventually, the relationship with MITS broke down. MITS failed to meet the terms of its contract to promote and license Gates’s software.

The end of this contract left Gates free to sell his software to a range of companies, including Apple and Texas Instruments. A legal judgement confirmed MITS had not fulfilled its contract to Microsoft, and that Microsoft had full ownership of its software and the right to sell it. This judgement is probably the foundation of the for-profit software industry.

In early adulthood, Gates already showed little respect for other people and social norms. He describes subscribing to the ideology of the lone genius, being arrested for speeding (where the famous mugshot of him comes from), and even joyriding on parked bulldozers.

This section of the book is probably the least readable. It presents a limited account of an exciting time in computing. Steven Levy’s Hackers is a great alternative account.

The DNA of computer programs

The “source code” is the DNA of the computer programs we use. Gates’ book sets out the source code of Microsoft, as a company, and in many ways, of the tech industry as a business.

Gates created not just Microsoft, but arguably an entire industry: selling software. His book describes the unique set of personal characteristics that made him the right person for this (single minded focus, which Gates attributes to likely autism, and a willingness to ignore all other considerations to get the job done).

It also describes a lucky set of circumstances. Gates benefited from a legal education at his father’s knee, a family history of entrepreneurship, and early access to computers.

The book ends in the late 1970s just as this combination of circumstances is about to bear fruit and a full four years before the launch of Microsoft’s first operating system. It does not cover Microsoft’s heyday, nor Gates’ substantial philanthropic activities later in life.

It isn’t clear why Gates has written this book now. If it is to rehabilitate his image, he makes a poor job of it. He describes a life of consistent privilege and only acknowledges this privilege at the end of the book, which rings hollow.

He displays a profound belief that he has been right in his interactions with others, going so far as to describe his relationship with Steve Jobs at Apple as “sometimes rivalrous, sometimes friendly”, even though Apple famously sued Microsoft over the rights to the windows style of user interface we are all used to today.

There is little acknowledgement in the book even of the regrets he has expressed elsewhere, for example over his treatment of Paul Allen. There is little to dilute the impression that Gates was ruthless, though perhaps a later memoir may document changes later in life.

A male-dominated industry

While Gates’ focus and drive were clearly fundamental to the growth of the tech industry, this book also exposes the DNA of some of the tech industry’s problems.

He describes his father as a feminist, but his mother’s social expectations were a source of irritation to him, and he barely mentions his two sisters. He got his first access to computers at an elite boys’ school – a school where, notably, his best friend protested the integration of the sister school for fear it would reduce academic standards.

This school, and later Harvard (then another male bastion), were the source of all early Microsoft employees, sowing the seeds of today’s male-dominated industry, with all its attendant problems.

Gates’ attitude to property underpins Microsoft’s aggressive business practices. He was clearly prepared to borrow what isn’t his (bulldozers, computer lab time), but he is incensed by the theft of his intellectual property. This attitude is evident in the long history of Microsoft litigation.

The company has been repeatedly prosecuted for antitrust behaviour and sued for copyright infringement. Conversely, it aggressively pursued those it believes to be infringing, including, famously, a 17-year-old entrepreneur, who was probably not unlike Gates himself.

Gates doesn’t draw these connections. He is largely uncritical of his own path, only occasionally admitting he treated someone poorly.

Ultimately, his book is a useful insight into the source code of the tech industry, but not always in the ways Gates likely anticipates.The Conversation

Dana McKay, Associate Dean, Interaction, Technology and Information, RMIT University

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

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has been taken to court over 11 threatened species. Here’s why

Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo. Imogen Warren/Shutterstock
Euan Ritchie, Deakin University

What do the Australian lungfish, ghost bat, sandhill dunnart and southern and central greater gliders have in common? They’re all threatened species that need a formal “recovery plan” – but do not have one.

Today, environmental group the Wilderness Society launched a case in the Federal Court against Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, arguing she and successive environment ministers have failed to meet their legal obligations to create threatened species recovery plans.

Other species forming the basis of the case are Baudin’s cockatoo, the Australian grayling, Carnaby’s black cockatoo, red goshawk, forest red-tailed black cockatoo and the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.

Many other species and ecological communities also don’t have recovery plans. If successful, the case would set a precedent compelling future environment ministers to meet their legal obligations and improve Australia’s dire conservation record. This is a significant moment for conservation in Australia – testing how accountable environment ministers are in preventing species extinctions.

Why do recovery plans matter?

Threatened species recovery plans lay out very clearly why species or ecological communities are in trouble and the actions necessary to save them. Once a plan is in place, it can directly benefit the species by tackling threats and safeguarding habitat.

Proposals such as a new farm, suburb or mining project can be assessed by the environment minister and rejected if they are inconsistent with recovery plans and place threatened species at increased risk of extinction. Recovery plans have helped dozens of species come back from the brink.

Under Australia’s national environmental laws, the environment minister must decide whether a recovery plan is required for a species or ecological community listed as threatened.

If a plan is ordered, it must typically be created within three years. But a 2022 Auditor-General’s report found just 2% of plans met this timeframe.

Recovery is possible, but plans are vital

Successive governments have failed to keep up with creating and implementing recovery plans in a timely manner. The perennial and chronic lack of funding for conservation means there’s little capacity to do the vital but time-consuming work of planning and recovery.

As a result, the federal government has increasingly shifted to offering conservation advices in place of recovery plans. Conservation advices can be produced and updated faster than recovery plans. This is useful if, say, a new threat emerges and needs a rapid response.

But there’s a key legal difference. When the environment minister is considering a project such as land clearing for new farmland or a mine, they need only consider any conservation advice in place. When a recovery plan is in place, the minister is legally obliged not to approve actions which are contrary to its objectives and would make the plight of a species or ecological community worse.

A conservation advice can be thought of more like a fact sheet without the same legal weight or accountability that recovery plans have.

In March 2022, the Morrison government scrapped recovery plans for 176 threatened species and habitats, despite thousands of submissions arguing against this.

After the Albanese government took power in May 2022, it pledged to end “wilful neglect” of the environment and to introduce stronger environmental laws. Sadly, this commitment has not been honoured.

ghost bats roosting
The range of northern Australia’s ghost bats has shrunk significantly. Ken Griffiths/Shutterstock

Why do we need recovery plans?

Australia’s species protection record is unenviable. Since European colonisation, more than 100 species have been driven to extinction and more than 2,000 species and ecological communities are listed at risk of suffering the same fate.

For a species to be considered threatened, its population has to have shrunk or meet other criteria putting it at risk of extinction. The severity of the decline and hence its extinction risk will determine how it’s categorised, from vulnerable through to critically endangered. Recovery plans lay out the research required to actually recover these species, meaning helping their populations to grow out of the danger zone.

A key role for these plans is to coordinate planning and action between relevant interest groups and agencies. This is especially important for species found across state and territory borders, such as the southern greater glider and the migratory swift parrot. The greater glider should have had a recovery plan in place since 2016, but does not.

Are individual plans still worthwhile?

Faced with so many species in need of protection and limited funding, prominent figures including former Environment Minister Peter Garrett have argued we should focus our efforts on protecting ecosystems rather than single species to make the best use of scarce funds.

But there is a deeper issue. Australia is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. It has the capacity to greatly increase conservation spending without impoverishing humans, and should do so for the benefit of the economy, culture and our health and wellbeing.

That’s not to say ecosystem protection isn’t worthwhile. After all, ecosystems are made up of species and their interactions with each other and their environment. You cannot have healthy species without healthy ecosystems and vice versa.

But if we focus only on protecting large expanses of wetland, forest and grasslands, we risk overlooking a key issue. Two species in the same ecosystem can be very differently affected by a specific threat (predation by foxes, for instance). Some species can even have conflicting management needs. For some species, invasive species are the biggest threat, while climate change and intensified fire regimes threaten others the most.

small furry marsupial dunnart.
The sandhill dunnart is one of 11 species listed in the court case. Kristian Bell/Shutterstock

Extinction is a choice

As Australia’s natural world continues to deteriorate, climate change deepens and worsening wildlife woes abound, these issues will no doubt be front of mind for many in the upcoming federal election.

It can be easy to see these trends as inevitable. But they are not – the collapse of nature is a choice. We have what we need for success, including traditional, ecological and conservation knowledge. What’s sorely needed is political will.

There were once fewer than 50 northern hairy-nosed wombats alive. Today, that number exceeds 400. When supported, conservation can succeed.

Almost all Australians want their government to do more to save our species. Let us hope whoever forms the next government takes up that challenge – even if it takes court cases to prompt action.The Conversation

Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University

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

‘I can’t be friends with the machine’: what audio artists working in games think of AI

Visual Generation/Shutterstock
Sam Whiting, RMIT University

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the union for voice actors and creatives, recently circulated a video of voice actor Thomas G. Burt describing the impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) on his livelihood.

Voice actors have been hit hard by GenAI, particularly those working in the video game sector. Many are contract workers without ongoing employment, and for some game companies already feeling the squeeze, supplementing voice-acting work with GenAI is just too tempting.

Audio work – whether music, sound design or voice acting – already lacks strong protections. Recent research from my colleagues and I on the use of GenAI and automation in producing music for Australian video games reveals a messy picture.

Facing the crunch

A need for greater productivity, increased turnarounds, and budget restraints in the Australian games sector is incentivising the accelerated uptake of automation.

The games sector is already susceptible to “crunch”, or unpaid overtime, to reach a deadline. This crunch demands faster workflows, increasing automation and the adoption of GenAI throughout the sector.

The Australian games industry is also experiencing a period of significant contraction, with many workers facing layoffs. This has constrained resources and increased the prevalence of crunch, which may increase reliance on automation at the expense of re-skilling the workforce.

One participant told us:

the fear that I have going forward for a lot of creative forms is I feel like this is going to be the fast fashion of art and of text.

Mixed emotions and fair compensation

Workers in the Australian games industry have mixed feelings about the impact of GenAI, ranging from hopeful to scared.

Audio workers are generally more pessimistic than non-audio games professionals. Many see GenAI as extractive and potentially exploitative. When asked how they see the future of the sector, one participant responded:

I would say negative, and the general feeling being probably fear and anxiety, specifically around job security.

Others noted it will increase productivity and efficiency:

[when] synthesisers started being made, people were like, ‘oh, it’s going to replace musicians. It’s going to take jobs away’. And maybe it did, but like, it also opened up this whole other world of possibilities for people to be creative.

A vintage keyboard.
There were once fears about what synthesisers would mean for musicians’ livelihoods. Peter Albrektsen/Shutterstock

Regardless, most participants expressed concerns about whether a GenAI model was ethically trained and whether licensing can be properly remunerated, concerns echoed by the union.

Those we spoke with believed the authors of any material used to train AI data-sets should be fairly compensated and/or credited.

An “opt-in” licensing model has been proposed by unions as a compromise. This states a creators’ data should only be used for training GenAI under an opt-in basis, and the use of content to train generative AI models should be subject to consent and compensation.

Taboos, confusion and loss of community

Some audio professionals interested in working with GenAI do not feel like they can speak openly about the subject, as it is seen as taboo:

There’s like this feeling of dread and despair, just completely swirling around our entire creative field of people. And it doesn’t need to be like that. We just need to have the right discussions, and we can’t have the right discussions if everyone’s hair is on fire.

The technology is clearly divisive, despite perceived benefits.

Several participants expressed concerns the prevalence of GenAI may reduce collaboration across the sector. They feared this could result in an erosion of professional community, as well as potential loss of institutional knowledge and specific creative skills:

I really like working with people […] And handing that over to a machine, like, I can’t be friends with the machine […] I want to work with someone who’s going to come in and completely shake up the way, you know, our project works.

The Australian games sector is reliant on a highly networked but often precarious set of workers, who move between projects based on need and demand for certain skills.

The ability to replace such skills with automation may lead to siloing and a deterioration of greater professional collaboration.

But there are benefits to be had

Many workers in the games audio sector see automation as helpful in terms of administration, ideation, workshopping, programming and as an educational tool:

In terms of automation, I see it as, like, utilities. For example, being a developer, I write scripts. So, if I’m doing something and it’s gonna take me a long time, I’ll automate it by writing a script.

These systems also have helpful applications for neurodivergent professionals and workers who may struggle with time management or other attention-related issues.

Over half of participants said AI and automation allows more time for creativity, as workers can automate the more tedious elements of their workflow:

I suffer like anyone else from writer’s block […] If you can give me a piece of software that is trained off me, that I could say, ‘I need something that’s in my house style, make me something’, and a piece of software could spit back at me a piece of music that sounds like me that I could go, ‘oh, that’s exactly it’, I would do it. That would save me an incalculable amount of time.

Many professionals who would prefer not to use AI said they would consider using it in the face of time or budget constraints. Others stated GenAI allows teams and individuals to deliver more work than they would without it:

Especially with deadlines always being as short as they are, I think a lot of automation can help to focus on the more creative and decision-based aspects.

Many workers within the digital audio space are already working hard to create ethical alternatives to AI theft.

Although GenAI may be here to stay, a balance between the efficiencies provided should not come at the cost of creative professions.The Conversation

Sam Whiting, Vice-Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow, RMIT University

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

Who is Sean Baker, the indie filmmaker behind Oscar sweeper Anora?

Duncan Caillard, Auckland University of Technology

Director Sean Baker has made history by becoming the first person to win four Academy Awards in the same night for the same film – Anora – taking home prizes for original screenplay, film editing, directing and best picture.

Anora centres on Ani (Mikey Madison), a Brooklyn sex worker entangled with Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the immature son of a Russian oligarch. After Ivan disappears, Ani searches through New York with his handler Toros (Karren Karagulian) to find him.

Baker’s Oscars sweep capped off a string of wins over the past year, but surprised many pundits who expected three-and-a-half hour epic The Brutalist to take home the top prize.

He’s made the 97th Academy Awards one for the history books. So who is Sean Baker?

An indie film lifer

Baker has been a fixture of the international film festival circuit for more than a decade. His films are carefully researched character studies, often focused on sex workers, immigrants and low-income communities.

Baker maintains creative control by working with ultra-low budgets, often serving as writer, director and editor simultaneously. He often casts new or non-professional actors and prefers to shoot on location with natural light.

His breakout film Tangerine (2015) followed two transgender African American sex workers in Los Angeles. Tangerine grapples with the complicated lives of its characters but also celebrates their humour and friendships. The film was a technical milestone: shot entirely on the iPhone 5S by cinematographer Radium Cheung. The total estimated budget was just US$100,000.

Baker’s next film, The Florida Project (2017), was a portrait of low-income children living in cheap motels near Walt Disney World. The film playfully frames its characters’ difficult childhoods as colourful and ecstatic, drawing an outstanding performance from six-year-old star Brooklynn Prince in her first film appearance.

Red Rocket (2021) centred on a retired porn star returning to his Texas home town, but struggled at the box office amid the COVID pandemic.

Baker’s film budgets have increased gradually over time, but have still remained very small by Hollywood standards. The Florida Project was produced on a measly budget of US$2 million, while Anora cost just US$6 million. For context, the production of last year’s best picture winner Oppenheimer (2023) cost Universal Pictures about US$100 million (before marketing costs).

The high price of creative freedom

Anora premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, where it won the coveted Palme d'Or.

The Palme d'Or is widely considered the most prestigious award in international art cinema – and has launched previous Oscar winners such as Parasite (2019), The Zone of Interest (2023) and Anatomy of a Fall (2023). These awards play an important role in marketing and financing films outside the studio system.

The realities of independent filmmaking are harsher than the glittering appearance of awards season. Independent filmmakers are often precariously employed and earn modest incomes from their work.

In a speech delivered at the Director’s Guild of America Awards earlier this month, Baker laid out the financial difficulties associated with working as an indie director:

It’s just simply not enough to get by on in today’s world, especially if one is is trying to support a family. I personally do not have children, but I know for a fact that if I did, I would not be able to make the movies that I make.

Fellow nominee Brady Corbet, who made The Brutalist with about US$10 million, faced similar challenges, saying in an interview with Vanity Fair that he had made nothing from his two previous films.

Little films on the big screen

Anora has arrived during a time of great upheaval in Hollywood. Studios and streaming giants are adjusting their business models to maximise profits.

Meanwhile, the industry is still recovering from strikes in 2023 by the Writers Guild of America and The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, which shut down productions for months.

Hollywood has often turned to independent filmmakers in such moments of crisis. In the 1970s, independent filmmakers such as John Cassavetes, Roger Corman, George Lucas and David Lynch disrupted an industry that was stagnating after its Golden Age.

Today, distributors such as Neon (which distributed Anora) and A24 specialise in marketing independent films through careful awards campaigns and viral marketing strategies.

Baker’s win underscores the role of independent films — less constrained by commercial expectations — in shaping the industry’s future. By taking greater creative risks, his style of intimate filmmaking is a breath of fresh air in Hollywood’s stuffy, franchise-driven business model.The Conversation

Duncan Caillard, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Communication Studies, Auckland University of Technology

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

‘Ghosts of the radio universe’: astronomers have discovered a slew of faint circular objects

Some of the objects captured by ASKAP. Author provided
Miroslav Filipovic, Western Sydney University; Andrew Hopkins, Macquarie University; Luke Barnes, Western Sydney University, and Nicholas Tothill, Western Sydney University

Radio astronomers see what the naked eye can’t. As we study the sky with telescopes that record radio signals rather than light, we end up seeing a lot of circles.

The newest generation of radio telescopes – including the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and MeerKAT, a telescope in South Africa – is revealing incredibly faint cosmic objects, never before seen.

In astronomy, surface brightness is a measure that tells us how easily visible an object is. The extraordinary sensitivity of MeerKAT and ASKAP is now revealing a new “low surface brightness universe” to radio astronomers. It’s comprised of radio sources so faint they have never been seen before, each with their own unique physical properties.

Many of the ASKAP results presented here were obtained with one of its major observing programs called EMU (Evolutionary Map of the Universe). EMU is mapping the entire southern sky with an unprecedented sensitivity and will deliver the most detailed map of the southern hemisphere sky to date – a spectacular new radio atlas that will be used for decades to come.

EMU’s all-hemisphere coverage paired with ASKAP’s exceptional sensitivity, especially within the Milky Way, is what’s yielded so many recent discoveries.

Here’s what they’re teaching us.

Unstable stars

Kyklos (left) and WR16 (r). Author provided

The ghostly ring Kýklos (from the Greek κύκλος, circle or ring) and the object WR16 both show the environment of rare and unusual celestial objects known as Wolf-Rayet stars.

When big stars are close to running out of fuel, they become unstable as they enter one of the last stages of the stellar life cycle, becoming a Wolf-Rayet star. They begin surging and pulsing, shedding their outer layers which can form bright nebulous structures around the star.

In these objects, a previous outflow of material has cleared the space around the star, allowing the current outburst to expand symmetrically in all directions. This sphere of stellar detritus shows itself as a circle.

Exploded stars

Left to right clocwise: the supernova remnants Stingray 1, Perun, Ancora and Unicycle. Author provided

Stingray 1, Perun, Ancora and Unicycle are supernova remnants. When a big star finally runs out of fuel, it can no longer hold back the crush of gravity. The matter falling inwards causes one final explosion, and the remains of these violent star deaths are known as supernovas.

Their expanding shockwaves sweep up material into an expanding sphere, forming beautiful circular features.

The supernova remnant will be deformed by its environment over time. If one side of the explosion slams into an interstellar cloud, we’ll see a squashed shape. So, a near-perfect circle in a messy universe is a special find.

Teleios – named from the Greek Τελεɩοσ (“perfect”) for its near-perfectly circular shape – is shown below. This unique object has never been seen in any wavelength, including visible light, demonstrating ASKAP’s incredible ability to discover new objects.

The shape indicates Teleios has remained relatively untouched by its environment. This presents us with an opportunity to make inferences about the initial supernova explosion, providing rare insight into one of the most energetic events in the universe.

ASKAP EMU radio image of the Teleios supernova remnant. Author provided

At the other extreme, we can take an object and discover something entirely new about it. The Diprotodon supernova remnant is shown below.

This remnant is one of the largest objects in the sky, appearing approximately six times larger than the Moon. Hence the name: the animal Diprotodon, one of Australia’s most famous megafauna, a giant wombat that lived about 25,000 years ago.

ASKAP’s sensitivity has uncovered the object’s full extent. This discovery led to further analysis, uncovering more of the history and the physics behind this object. The messy internal structure can be seen as different parts of the expanding shell slam into a busy interstellar environment.

ASKAP radio image of Diprotodon, a supernova remnant. Green circle shows the previous measured size, and the yellow circle shows the new ASKAP measured size. Earth’s Moon size is shown in the top right for scale, and Diprotodon’s namesake is shown in the top left. Author provided

A cosmic mirror

Lagotis is another object that can show how new telescope data can reclassify previously discovered objects. The reflection nebula VdB-80 has been seen before, within the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. The light we see was emitted by nearby stars, and then reflected off a nearby cloud of gas and dust.

Lagotis, with its cloud of ionised hydrogen or HII region seen on the right. Author provided

However, with newly available ASKAP EMU data, we were able to discover an associated cloud of ionised hydrogen (known as an HII region, pronounced “aitch two”), where stellar energy has caused the gaseous matter to lose its electrons.

This HII region is seen to coexist with the reflection nebula, sharing the same stellar centre, and is created from the star pushing into a molecular cloud. This movement is akin to burrowing, so the object earned the name Lagotis after Macrotis lagotis, the Australian greater bilby.

Outside the galaxy

ASKAP and MeerKAT are also illuminating objects from outside our Milky Way galaxy – for example, “radio ring” galaxies. When we use visible light to look at the stars in this galaxy, we see a rather plain disk.

But in radio light, we see a ring. Why is there a hole in the middle? Perhaps the combined force of many exploding supernovas has pushed all the radio-emitting clouds out of the centre. We’re not sure – we’re looking for more examples to test our ideas.

Finally, LMC-ORC is an Odd Radio Circle (ORC), a prominent new class of objects with unfamiliar origins. Only being visible in radio light, they are perhaps the most mysterious of all.

A radio ring galaxy (left) and LMC-ORC (r). Author provided

The next generation

MeerKAT and ASKAP are revealing incredible insights into the low surface brightness universe. However, they are precursors for the Square Kilometre Array, an international collaborative endeavour that will increase the abilities of radio astronomers and reveal even more unique features of the universe.

The low-surface brightness universe presents many mysteries. These discoveries push our understanding further. Currently, the EMU survey using ASKAP is only 25% complete.

As more of this survey becomes available, we will discover many more unique and exciting objects, both new to astrophysics and extensions on previously known objects.


Acknowledgements: Aaron Bradley and Zachary Smeaton, Masters Research Students at Western Sydney University, made valuable contributions to this article.The Conversation

Miroslav Filipovic, Professor, Western Sydney University; Andrew Hopkins, Professor of Astronomy, Macquarie University; Luke Barnes, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Western Sydney University, and Nicholas Tothill, Associate professor, Western Sydney University

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

Digital Luddites are rising. They want to democratise tech, not destroy it

Raffaele F Ciriello, University of Sydney; Rick Sullivan, University of Sydney, and Vitali Mindel, Virginia Tech

Have you ever been called a Luddite? We have – usually as an insult, rooted in a popular misconception that Luddites are anti-progress fanatics.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The original 19th century Luddites weren’t against technology. Rather, they resisted its oppressive use.

Their rebellion was violently suppressed. But their core critique lives on: technology should benefit all of humanity, not a privileged few.

Today, as Silicon Valley billionaires and United States president Donald Trump turbocharge corporate control of public digital infrastructure, this critique rings truer than ever.

In response, we are a seeing a growing surge of attempts to wrest back control of technology for democratic ends. This is a kind of “digital Luddism” which echoes past struggles against high-tech injustice.

The original Luddites

The Luddites were 19th century English textile workers who destroyed machinery threatening their craft and livelihoods. Historians call their tactics “collective bargaining by riot”. They were fighting against technologies that centralised power and stripped workers of dignity.

Luddite resistance was part of broader struggles for labour rights and socioeconomic justice.

For example, in 18th century France, silk weavers similarly revolted against mechanisation that devalued their craft.

Earlier, England’s Diggers and Levellers resisted the privatisation of communal lands. This foreshadowed today’s battles over corporate control of digital infrastructure.

The Luddites faced severe punishment, including imprisonment and even execution. Despite this, their legacy endures. Today, dismissing critics of Big Tech as “Luddites” repeats the mistake of conflating resistance to exploitation with fear of progress.

An engraving of a person wearing a black hat and blue polkadot gown, leading a group of people in an armed struggle.
The Luddite resistance in the 19th century was part of broader struggles for labour rights and socioeconomic justice. Working Class Movement Library catalogue

In the most extreme scenario, unchecked corporate power allied with monstrous government polices can lead to atrocities. In Nazi Germany, for example, Dehomag, a former subsidiary of computer giant IBM, provided data systems to the Nazis to track victims. Chemical company IG Farben also supplied Zyklon B gas for extermination camps. Many other companies profited from forced labour and funded the regime. This shows how complicity can make oppression more efficient.

Today, digital technologies are deepening inequality, eroding democracy, undermining privacy, and concentrating power.

Digital technologies are also fuelling surveillance capitalism, the displacement of human workers by AI algorithms and the growth of monopolistic platforms.

Platforms and AI systems governed by “broligarchs” such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are also shaping politics, culture, and beliefs globally.

Digital Luddism, also known as neo-Luddism, tackles these issues through three strategies: resistance, removal and replacement.

Resistance: blocking harmful systems

Technology is not inevitable — it’s a choice. Sustained collective action can counter corporate dominance and align tech with democratic values.

In 2018, more than 3,000 Google workers protested the company’s military AI contract, forcing it to adopt ethical guidelines. However, in February this year, Google expanded defence deals, showing how resistance must be sustained.

Three years later, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed the harmful algorithms at the heart of the social media platform.

Then, in 2024, Amazon and Google staff also staged walkouts over a US$1.2 billion AI contract linked to Israeli military operations.

Creative industries are also fighting back. For example, in 2023 screenwriters and actors in Hollywood protested against AI replacing their roles. Similarly, Australia’s “right to disconnect” law reflects Luddite principles of reclaiming autonomy.

Non-profit organisations such as the Algorithmic Justice League and the Electronic Frontier Foundation empower digital rights advocates to take back control over digital spaces by exposing AI bias and through legal litigation.

Digital Luddism doesn’t reject innovation. It demands technology serve stakeholders, not shareholders.

Removal: dismantling entrenched power

Some systems are beyond reform, requiring direct intervention. Removal involves political action and legal regulation. It also involves public pressure to break monopolies or impose penalties on unethical corporations.

For example, the TraffickingHub petition has garnered more than two million signatories to hold adult website PornHub accountable for unethical or unlawful content. This has led financial institutions, such as Visa and Mastercard, to cut ties to the website. For more than 20 years, hacker collective Anonymous has carried out cyber-attacks on authoritarian regimes, extremists and corporations.

Digital Luddites can also lend a hand to the long arm of the law.

The European Union’s 2023 Digital Markets Act broke Apple’s app store monopoly. This sparked a surge in small EU developers.

Big Tech has also repeatedly faced huge fines and antitrust lawsuits. However, breaking up or nationalising these corporations remains rhetoric for now.

Replacement: building ethical alternatives

Proprietary corporate systems have long been challenged by free, open-source alternatives.

But digital Luddism isn’t just about using different tools. It’s about systemic change towards sustainable, transparent and user-controlled infrastructure.

After Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, decentralised alternatives that let users control content flourished. For example, Bluesky grew from 1 million to more than 27 million users in one year.

The Australian government is also responding to a broader public demand for platform independence. For example, it has introduced policies aimed at enhancing people’s data rights. Its Digital Transformation Agency is also advocating for improved open data standards.

Open-source AI projects such as China’s DeepSeek and HuggingFace’s Deep Research now rival corporate models, proving open tech is a force to reckon with.

The original Luddites smashed machines. But the global nature of today’s digital infrastructure makes physical sabotage impractical. That’s why digital Luddism isn’t about smashing screens. Instead, it’s about smashing oppressive systems.The Conversation

Raffaele F Ciriello, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, University of Sydney; Rick Sullivan, PhD candidate, University of Sydney, and Vitali Mindel, Assistant professor in Business Information Technology, Virginia Tech

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

The world at your finger tips: Online

With current advice to stay at home and self-isolate, when you come in out of the garden, have had your fill of watching movies and want to explore something new, there's a whole world of books you can download, films you can watch and art galleries you can stroll through - all from at home and via the internet. This week a few suggestions of some of the resources available for you to explore and enjoy. For those who have a passion for Art - this month's Artist of the Month is the Online Australian Art Galleries and State Libraries where you can see great works of art from all over the world  and here - both older works and contemporary works.

Also remember the Project Gutenberg Australia - link here- has heaps of great books, not just focused on Australian subjects but fiction works by popular authors as well. Well worth a look at.

Short Stories for Teenagers you can read for free online

StoryStar is an online resource where you can access and read short stories for teenagers

About

Storystar is a totally FREE short stories site featuring some of the best short stories online, written by/for kids, teens, and adults of all ages around the world, where short story writers are the stars, and everyone is free to shine! Storystar is dedicated to providing a free place where everyone can share their stories. Stories can entertain us, enlighten us, and change us. Our lives are full of stories; stories of joy and sorrow, triumph and tragedy, success and failure. The stories of our lives matter. Share them. Sharing stories with each other can bring us closer together and help us get to know one another better. Please invite your friends and family to visit Storystar to read, rate and share all the short stories that have been published here, and to tell their stories too.

StoryStar headquarters are located on the central Oregon coast.

NFSA - National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

The doors may be temporarily closed but when it comes to the NFSA, we are always open online. We have content for Kids, Animal Lovers, Music fans, Film buffs & lots more.

You can explore what’s available online at the NFSA, see more in the link below.

https://bit.ly/2U8ORjH


NLA Ebooks - Free To Download

The National Library of Australia provides access to thousands of ebooks through its website, catalogue and eResources service. These include our own publications and digitised historical books from our collections as well as subscriptions to collections such as Chinese eResources, Early English Books Online and Ebsco ebooks.

What are ebooks?
Ebooks are books published in an electronic format. They can be read by using a personal computer or an ebook reader.

This guide will help you find and view different types of ebooks in the National Library collections.

Peruse the NLA's online ebooks, ready to download - HERE

The Internet Archive and Digital Library

The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge." It provides free public access to collections of digitised materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies, videos, moving images, and millions of public-domain books. There's lots of Australian materials amongst the millions of works on offer.

Visit:  https://archive.org/


Avalon Youth Hub: More Meditation Spots

Due to popular demand our meditation evenings have EXPANDED. Two sessions will now be run every Wednesday evening at the Hub. Both sessions will be facilitated by Merryn at Soul Safaris.

6-7pm - 12 - 15 year olds welcome
7-8pm - 16 - 25 year olds welcome

No experience needed. Learn and develop your mindfulness and practice meditation in a group setting.

For all enquires, message us via facebook or email help@avalonyouthhub.org.au

BIG THANKS The Burdekin Association for funding these sessions!

Green Team Beach Cleans 

Hosted by The Green Team
It has been estimated that we will have more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050...These beach cleans are aimed at reducing the vast amounts of plastic from entering our oceans before they harm marine life. 

Anyone and everyone is welcome! If you would like to come along, please bring a bucket, gloves and hat. Kids of all ages are also welcome! 

We will meet in front of the surf club. 
Hope to see you there!

The Green Team is a Youth-run, volunteer-based environment initiative from Avalon, Sydney. Keeping our area green and clean.

 The Project Gutenberg Library of Australiana

Australian writers, works about Australia and works which may be of interest to Australians.This Australiana page boasts many ebooks by Australian writers, or books about Australia. There is a diverse range; from the journals of the land and sea explorers; to the early accounts of white settlement in Australia; to the fiction of 'Banjo' Paterson, Henry Lawson and many other Australian writers.

The list of titles form part of the huge collection of ebooks freely downloadable from Project Gutenberg Australia. Follow the links to read more about the authors and titles and to read and/or download the ebooks. 

Profile: Ingleside Riders Group

Ingleside Riders Group Inc. (IRG) is a not for profit incorporated association and is run solely by volunteers. It was formed in 2003 and provides a facility known as “Ingleside Equestrian Park” which is approximately 9 acres of land between Wattle St and McLean St, Ingleside. IRG has a licence agreement with the Minister of Education to use this land. This facility is very valuable as it is the only designated area solely for equestrian use in the Pittwater District.  IRG promotes equal rights and the respect of one another and our list of rules that all members must sign reflect this.

Cyberbullying

Research shows that one in five Australian children aged 8 to 17 has been the target of cyberbullying in the past year. The Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner can help you make a complaint, find someone to talk to and provide advice and strategies for dealing with these issues.

Make a Complaint 

The Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015 gives the power to provide assistance in relation to serious cyberbullying material. That is, material that is directed at a particular child with the intention to seriously embarrass, harass, threaten or humiliate.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION 

Before you make a complaint you need to have:

  • copies of the cyberbullying material to upload (eg screenshots or photos)
  • reported the material to the social media service (if possible) at least 48 hours ago
  • at hand as much information as possible about where the material is located
  • 15-20 minutes to complete the form

Visit: esafety.gov.au/complaints-and-reporting/cyberbullying

Our mission

The Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner is Australia's leader in online safety. The Office is committed to helping young people have safe, positive experiences online and encouraging behavioural change, where a generation of Australian children act responsibly online—just as they would offline.

We provide online safety education for Australian children and young people, a complaints service for young Australians who experience serious cyberbullying, and address illegal online content through the Online Content Scheme.

Our goal is to empower all Australians to explore the online world—safely.

Visit: esafety.gov.au/about-the-office 

The Green Team

Profile
This Youth-run, volunteer-based environment initiative has been attracting high praise from the founders of Living Ocean as much as other local environment groups recently. 
Creating Beach Cleans events, starting their own, sustainability days - ‘action speaks louder than words’ ethos is at the core of this group. 

National Training Complaints Hotline – 13 38 73

The National Training Complaints Hotline is accessible on 13 38 73 (Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm nationally) or via email at skilling@education.gov.au.

Sync Your Breathing with this - to help you Relax

Send In Your Stuff

Pittwater Online News is not only For and About you, it is also BY you.  
We will not publish swearing or the gossip about others. BUT: If you have a poem, story or something you want to see addressed, let us know or send to: pittwateronlinenews@live.com.au

All Are Welcome, All Belong!

Youth Source: Northern Sydney Region

A directory of services and resources relevant to young people and those who work, play and live alongside them.

The YouthSource directory has listings from the following types of service providers: Aboriginal, Accommodation, Alcohol & Other Drugs, Community Service, Counselling, Disability, Education & Training, Emergency Information, Employment, Financial, Gambling,  General Health & Wellbeing, Government Agency, Hospital & GP, Legal & Justice, Library, Mental Health, Multicultural, Nutrition & Eating Disorders, Parenting, Relationships, Sexual Health, University, Youth Centre

Driver Knowledge Test (DKT) Practice run Online

Did you know you can do a practice run of the DKT online on the RMS site? - check out the base of this page, and the rest on the webpage, it's loaded with information for you!

The DKT Practice test is designed to help you become familiar with the test, and decide if you’re ready to attempt the test for real.  Experienced drivers can also take the practice test to check their knowledge of the road rules. Unlike the real test, the practice DKT allows you to finish all 45 questions, regardless of how many you get wrong. At the end of the practice test, you’ll be advised whether you passed or failed.

Fined Out: Practical guide for people having problems with fines

Legal Aid NSW has just published an updated version of its 'Fined Out' booklet, produced in collaboration with Inner City Legal Centre and Redfern Legal Centre.

Fined Out is a practical guide to the NSW fines system. It provides information about how to deal with fines and contact information for services that can help people with their fines.

A fine is a financial penalty for breaking the law. The Fines Act 1996 (NSW) and Regulations sets out the rules about fines.

The 5th edition of 'Fined Out' includes information on the different types of fines and chapters on the various options to deal with fines at different stages of the fine lifecycle, including court options and pathways to seek a review, a 50% reduction, a write-off, plan, or a Work and Development Order (WDO).

The resource features links to self-help legal tools for people with NSW fines, traffic offence fines and court attendance notices (CANs) and also explains the role of Revenue NSW in administering and enforcing fines.

Other sections of the booklet include information specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, young people and driving offences, as well as a series of template letters to assist people to self-advocate.

Hard copies will soon be available to be ordered online through the Publications tab on the Legal Aid NSW website.

Hard copies will also be made available in all public and prison libraries throughout NSW.

Read the resource online, or download the PDF.

Apprenticeships and traineeships info

Are you going to leave school this year?
Looking for an apprenticeship or traineeship to get you started?
This website, Training Services NSW, has stacks of info for you;

It lists the group training organisations (GTOs) that are currently registered in NSW under the Apprenticeship and Traineeship Act 2001. These GTOs have been audited by independent auditors and are compliant with the National Standards for Group Training Organisations.

If you are interested in using the services of a registered GTO, please contact any of the organisations listed here: https://www.training.nsw.gov.au/gto/contacts.html

There are also some great websites, like 1300apprentice, which list what kind of apprenticeships and traineeships they can guide you to securing as well as listing work available right now.

Profile Bayview Yacht Racing Association (BYRA)
1842 Pittwater Rd, Bayview
Website: www.byra.org.au

BYRA has a passion for sharing the great waters of Pittwater and a love of sailing with everyone aged 8 to 80 or over!

 headspace Brookvale

headspace Brookvale provides services to young people aged 12-25. If you are a young person looking for health advice, support and/or information,headspace Brookvale can help you with:

• Mental health • Physical/sexual health • Alcohol and other drug services • Education and employment services

If you ever feel that you are:

• Alone and confused • Down, depressed or anxious • Worried about your use of alcohol and/or other drugs • Not coping at home, school or work • Being bullied, hurt or harassed • Wanting to hurt yourself • Concerned about your sexual health • Struggling with housing or accommodation • Having relationship problems • Finding it hard to get a job

Or if you just need someone to talk to… headspace Brookvale can help! The best part is our service is free, confidential and youth friendly.

headspace Brookvale is open from Monday to Friday 9:00am-5:30pm so if you want to talk or make an appointment give us a call on (02) 9937 6500. If you're not feeling up to contacting us yourself, feel free to ask your family, friend, teacher, doctor or someone close to you to make a referral on your behalf.

When you first come to headspace Brookvale you will be greeted by one of our friendly staff. You will then talk with a member of our headspace Brookvale Youth Access Team. The headspace Brookvale Youth Access Team consists of three workers, who will work with you around whatever problems you are facing. Depending on what's happening for you, you may meet with your Youth Access Worker a number of times or you may be referred on to a more appropriate service provider.

A number of service providers are operating out of headspace Brookvale including Psychologists, Drug & Alcohol Workers, Sexual Health Workers, Employment Services and more! If we can't find a service operating withinheadspace Brookvale that best suits you, the Youth Access Team can also refer you to other services in the Sydney area.

eheadspace provides online and telephone support for young people aged 12-25. It is a confidential, free, secure space where you can chat, email or talk on the phone to qualified youth mental health professionals.

Click here to go to eheadspace

For urgent mental health assistance or if you are in a crisis please call the Northern Sydney 24 hour Mental Health Access Line on 1800 011 511

Need Help Right NOW??

kids help line: 1800 55 1800 - www.kidshelpline.com.au

lifeline australia - 13 11 14 - www.lifeline.org.au

headspace Brookvale is located at Level 2 Brookvale House, 1A Cross Street Brookvale NSW 2100 (Old Medical Centre at Warringah Mall). We are nearby Brookvale Westfield's bus stop on Pittwater road, and have plenty of parking under the building opposite Bunnings. More at: www.headspace.org.au/headspace-centres/headspace-brookvale

Profile: Avalon Soccer Club
Avalon Soccer Club is an amateur club situated at the northern end of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. As a club we pride ourselves on our friendly, family club environment. The club is comprised of over a thousand players aged from 5 to 70 who enjoy playing the beautiful game at a variety of levels and is entirely run by a group of dedicated volunteers. 
Profile: Pittwater Baseball Club

Their Mission: Share a community spirit through the joy of our children engaging in baseball.

Year 13

Year13 is an online resource for post school options that specialises in providing information and services on Apprenticeships, Gap Year Programs, Job Vacancies, Studying, Money Advice, Internships and the fun of life after school. Partnering with leading companies across Australia Year13 helps facilitate positive choices for young Australians when finishing school.

NCYLC is a community legal centre dedicated to providing advice to children and young people. NCYLC has developed a Cyber Project called Lawmail, which allows young people to easily access free legal advice from anywhere in Australia, at any time.

NCYLC was set up to ensure children’s rights are not marginalised or ignored. NCYLC helps children across Australia with their problems, including abuse and neglect. The AGD, UNSW, KWM, Telstra and ASIC collaborate by providing financial, in-kind and/or pro bono volunteer resources to NCYLC to operate Lawmail and/or Lawstuff.

Kids Helpline

If you’re aged 5-25 the Kids Helpline provides free and confidential online and phone counselling 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 1800 55 1800. You can chat with us about anything… What’s going on at home, stuff with friends. Something at school or feeling sad, angry or worried. You don’t have to tell us your name if you don’t want to.

You can Webchat, email or phone. Always remember - Everyone deserves to be safe and happy. You’re important and we are here to help you. Visit: https://kidshelpline.com.au/kids/