Business + Economy – The Conversation

The threat of space terrorism is no longer science fiction, but we’re ill-prepared to combat it

2025-11-04T17:39:37Z

As satellite technology surges ahead and space becomes increasingly accessible to private and state actors alike, the new and unsettling threat of space terrorism looms above Earth’s atmosphere.

Once the domain of science fiction, the idea of terrorist activity in outer space is now a growing concern among experts.

The democratisation of space has not only opened the door to innovation but also to vulnerability. The current legal frameworks may not be equipped to respond.

Over the past decade, the proliferation of commercial space ventures and the reduced costs of developing satellite technology have dramatically lowered the barriers to entry for “spacefaring”.

This shift has empowered not only governments but also private corporations and, alarmingly, non-state actors.

Groups and individuals once considered insignificant in the realm of space security are now capable of launching cyber attacks on satellites and ground stations.

In March 2022, Network Battalion (NB65), a group affiliated with Anonymous, allegedly hacked the Russian civilian space agency Roscosmos in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The group claimed control over several satellites, prompting Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin to declare that disabling another country’s satellites could be considered a “casus belli” – a cause for war.

While causing minimal damage, the incident underscores a broader trend: the increasing capability of non-state actors to disrupt space infrastructure. It also raises urgent questions about accountability, jurisdiction and the adequacy of international law.

Legal vacuum in the cosmos

International space law, anchored by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, was crafted in an era when only a handful of states had access to orbit.

The treaty emphasises peaceful exploration and cooperation, stating that activities in space must align with the UN Charter and promote international peace. However, it lacks explicit provisions addressing terrorism or the actions of non-state entities.

Article VI of the treaty does hold states responsible for national activities in space, whether conducted by government agencies or private entities. But it fails to define “non-governmental entities” or outline mechanisms for enforcement.

This ambiguity leaves a gaping hole in the legal architecture, especially as private companies increasingly take on roles once reserved for national space agencies.

The Liability Convention of 1972 offers some recourse for damage caused by space object. But it too focuses on state actors and does not contemplate ideologically motivated attacks by rogue groups or individuals.

One of the most pressing challenges in addressing space terrorism is the lack of a coherent definition.

Traditional definitions of terrorism emphasise the intent to coerce a state into action or inaction through violence. But how does this translate to the orbital realm?

Some experts propose defining space terrorism as ideologically motivated destruction targeting the space industry. Their definition captures the economic dimension but omits the national security aspects unique to space.

Without a comprehensive definition, acts ranging from cyber intrusions to physical attacks on satellites risk being misclassified or overlooked entirely.

Historical precedents and emerging threats

Though under-reported, space terrorism is not a new phenomenon. In 1999, the UK’s Skynet military satellite was allegedly targeted by hackers demanding ransom.

While the Ministry of Defence remained tight-lipped, reports suggested communication channels were compromised, hinting at a sophisticated breach of national security.

More recently, Russia has been accused of persistently jamming UK satellites. This tactic disrupts communications and poses serious risks to both civilian and military operations.

These incidents have intensified concern that satellite attacks – whether through hacking, jamming or physical destruction – will become more frequent and sophisticated in the coming years.

As space systems become more integrated with Earth-based infrastructure, supporting everything from telecommunications to navigation, the stakes grow exponentially. Experts warn the next decade could see a surge in ideologically motivated attacks on satellites, with devastating consequences for global security and commerce.

The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) has only recently begun to address space security threats. But without a dedicated legal framework, efforts remain fragmented.

One avenue would be to develop transparency and confidence-building measures to cultivate trust and cooperation among state and non-state actors. But data-sharing agreements remain difficult to negotiate due to national security concerns.

Future research must explore how UNOOSA can support states in crafting domestic laws that address space terrorism. This includes defining what constitutes an act of terrorism in space, establishing protocols for incident reporting and determining liability for attacks on commercial and civilian infrastructure.

Space terrorism is no longer a theoretical concern. It is a tangible threat with real-world implications. As the line between state and non-state actors blurs, and as private companies take on greater roles in space exploration, the need for a robust, adaptable legal framework becomes critical.

The question is no longer whether space terrorism occurs, but how the international community responds when it does. Without clear rules, accountability mechanisms and cooperative strategies, humanity risks turning the final frontier into the next battlefield.

Anna Marie Brennan is a Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellow.

Tax rises and benefit cuts are on the horizon as Reeves prepares the UK for a bad-news budget

2025-11-04T13:31:15Z

The UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has made it clear that taxes will go up, and more cuts to welfare spending are on the horizon. The moves will be deeply unpopular and controversial – but in an extraordinary press conference ahead of the UK budget on November 26, Reeves made it clear that she believes both will be necessary.

In a highly unusual move, the chancellor used the press conference to set out her priorities for balancing the books while growing the economy. Notably, she did not mention the pledge in Labour’s manifesto not to raise taxes on working people or increase national insurance, VAT or income tax.

Instead, she said her focus was on lowering the burden of excessive government borrowing and debt, improving public services and tackling the cost of living.

Reeves gave particular importance to sticking with her “iron-clad” fiscal rules. These, she argued, were essential for showing she is being responsible with the nation’s finances and preventing a further rise in the cost of borrowing (the interest the government pays on its debt).

At more than £100 billion per year, this already makes up 10% of all government spending. The government’s spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), projects the total to rise to £111 billion by the next financial year.

She also emphasised the importance of measures to boost UK productivity. Productivity forecasts are expected to be downgraded by the OBR, heaping yet more pressure on the chancellor’s budget choices. Reeves questioned whether the forecast would accurately predict the future – but has accepted that she will have to work within the OBR’s constraints in this year’s budget.

The chancellor is right that there is a pressing need to boost productivity. But it is by no means certain that planned investment in things like housing, nuclear power and a third runway at Heathrow will yield big gains, at least in the near term.

At the same time, she made it clear that to meet her budget target there will need to be cuts to public spending. Some cuts will come from more “efficiency” savings by government departments (that perennial option that all chancellors reach for).

But they will also come from tackling the UK’s rapidly rising welfare budget, focusing on the large number of young people who are not in education, employment or training but depend on state benefits (so-called “Neets”).

Any cuts to the welfare budget, as well as a failure to abolish the two-child benefit limit (although she is under pressure from colleagues to bite the bullet and axe it), will cause dismay within the parliamentary Labour party as well as many party activists.

Reeves is determined to bring down the UK’s rapidly rising welfare bill. AndrewMcKenna/Shutterstock

As ever, the budget choices will be political as well as economic. Both the Conservatives and Reform UK will accuse Labour of breaking its manifesto promises. They will also claim Labour is undermining any chance of growth by raising taxes by a larger amount than any UK government has done in the last 50 years.

At the same time, it will become even more difficult for Labour to manage its large but fractious parliamentary majority. Earlier this year, backbenchers forced the government to restore the winter fuel payment for some pensioners and abandon plans to cut personal independence payments for disabled claimants.

Local government elections, as well as elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, are looming next May. Reeves risks further alienating Labour’s grassroot supporters and pushing them towards smaller left-wing parties such as the Greens. They already seem to be pulling ahead of Labour among younger voters.

The stakes could not be higher. A bad result could even lead to questions about the future of both the chancellor and the prime minister Keir Starmer.

Finally, the chancellor’s goal to cut the cost of living for working people does not seem particularly ambitious. Her suggested approach involves cutting energy costs by investing more in electricity generation, and reducing the cost of food by changing the business rates system to help small businesses.

Even if effective, these changes will take some time to work through and may not be enough to convince voters that Labour is on their side – particularly if inflation is not brought under control.

Reeves’ appeal to the public to back her long-term approach to sorting out the British economy may be admirable. But the political risks to her personally – and Labour more broadly – remain considerable.

The Conversation and LSE’s International Inequalities Institute have teamed up for a special online event on Tuesday, November 18 from 5pm-6.30pm. Join experts from the worlds of business, taxation and government policy as they discuss the difficult choices facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves in her budget. Sign up for free here

Steve Schifferes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

ASIO boss warns of ‘realistic possibility’ foreign government could attempt to kill a dissident in Australia

2025-11-04T09:40:51Z

The Australia Security Intelligence Organisation believes there is a “realistic possibility” a foreign government will try to assassinate a “perceived dissident” in Australia, ASIO’s boss Mike Burgess has revealed.

Delivering the 2025 Lowy lecture on Tuesday, Burgess said: “This threat is real.

"We believe there are at least three nations willing and capable of conducting lethal targeting here. It is entirely possible the regimes would try to hide their involvement by hiring criminal cut outs, as Iran did when directing its arson attacks.”

He stressed he was talking about an “attempt to assassinate”.

“ASIO and our law enforcement partners are acutely alive to this threat and are working around the clock, using all our powers, to protect Australia and Australians,” he said.

Burgess said Australia had never faced simultaneously and at scale so many different threats.

There are multiple, cascading and intersecting threats to our social cohesion, fuelled by three distinct but connected cohorts:

the aggrieved,

the opportunistic, and

the cunning.

He said many Australians were feeling dispossessed, disaffected, and disenfranchised, with spikes in polarisation and intolerance.

Many of the foundations underpinning our security, prosperity and democracy were being tested.

Social cohesion was eroding, there was declining trust in our institutions and truth was being undermined by misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories.

“Similar trends are playing out across the Western world.

"Angry, alienated individuals are embracing anti-authority ideologies and conspiracy theories; engaging in uncivil debate and unpeaceful protest.

"Many of the aggrieved do not necessarily espouse violent views, but may still see violence as a legitimate way to effect political or societal change.”

Burgess said extremist organisations were skilled at exploiting fissures in cohesion and harvesting grievances.

“The way nationalist and racist violent extremists attempted to leverage the so-called March for Australia rallies is a case in point.

"The biggest neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Network – or White Australia as it is rebranding itself – identified the demonstrations as a vehicle to raise its profile.

"It strategically and opportunistically exploited the organisers’ complaints about immigration and the cost of living,” Burgess said.

“Even if the organisation does not engage in terrorism, I remain deeply concerned by its hateful, divisive rhetoric and increasingly violent propaganda, and the growing likelihood these things will prompt spontaneous violence, particularly in response to perceived provocation,” he said.

“While nationalist and racist violent extremists make up the significant majority of our investigations into ideologically motivated extremism, events in the Middle East triggered a troubling increase in anarchist and revolutionary extremism, which is also straining cohesion.

"Since October 2023, we’ve seen more provocative protests and a notable uptick in intentionally disruptive and damaging tactics by anti-Israel activists, including multiple acts of arson, vandalism and violent protest against defence companies accused of supplying weapon components.”

Burgess said of the three cohorts he was canvassing, “the cunning is the most concerning”.

“Aggrieved individuals clawing at our social fabric is one thing. Extremist groups opportunistically undermining it is another.

"But cunning nation states deliberately trying to set the fabric alight and fan the flames is something else again in terms of threat.

"Regimes are operating in a security ‘grey zone – using non-traditional tools to interfere in decision-making, promote discord, amplify distrust and spread false narratives in Western democracies.

"Authoritarian regimes demonstrate a chilling willingness to exploit fault lines in countries they consider hostile.”

He highlighted ASIO’s identifying the Iranian regime being behind some of the anti-semitic attacks in Australia

Burgess said that in our region ASIO was tracking the spread of a strain of extremist propaganda.

“While the material purports to be from a transnational terrorist group, ASIO and our international partners suspect it is fake, and is actually being created and disseminated by a hostile nation state.

"The propaganda glorifies violent extremism and advocates attacks on specific targets, presumably to encourage violence, alarm communities, incite sectarianism and destabilise regional governments.”

He said ASIO had recently uncovered links between pro-Russian influences in Australia and an offshore media organisation that almost certainly received directions from Russian intelligence.

“The Australians publish and push extreme online narratives justifying the invasion of Ukraine and condemning Australia’s support for Kiev.

"Deliberately hiding their connection to Moscow – and the likely instruction from Moscow – the propagandists try to hijack and inflame legitimate debate. They use social media to spread vitriolic, polarising commentary on anti-immigration protests and pro-Palestinian marches.

"ASIO’s investigation is ongoing,” Burgess said.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Jamie Morton joins The Conversation New Zealand as Deputy Editor

2025-11-04T03:07:24Z

Former New Zealand Herald journalist Jamie Morton has joined The Conversation New Zealand as Deputy Editor.

Jamie comes to The Conversation with 20 years of experience in newsrooms, including 14 years at The New Zealand Herald, where he covered science, technology, climate change and the environment.

During his time at the Herald, Jamie reported from disaster zones, global climate summits, national parks and Antarctica. He helped lead the newspaper’s coverage of major events such as the COVID pandemic, the Whakaari/White Island tragedy, the 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake, the 2011 MV Rena disaster and 2023’s Cyclone Gabrielle.

Jamie’s journalism has been recognised with numerous awards and nominations, including being named science reporter of the year four times. Along with his reporting, Jamie has contributed to books and reporting desk guides on climate change and has helped judge national and international awards for science communication and climate journalism.

After leaving the Herald in April 2025, Jamie produced policy briefs, special reports and science and climate-focused articles for NGOs, public agencies, corporate clients and universities. He also helped launch a new editorial partnership between the University of Auckland and Newsroom, exploring various sustainability issues.

“At a time when misinformation and polarisation pose increasingly serious challenges,” says Jamie, “clear, evidence-based journalism and analysis couldn’t be more important.”

Having Jamie join The Conversation New Zealand means we – and more importantly, you, our readers – will enjoy the benefits of his exceptional journalistic skills and experience. His strong background in news and current affairs, and his close contacts in the academic research world, are the perfect fit for The Conversation.

Jamie began his role last week and can be contacted at jamie.morton@theconversation.com.

A deadly European hornet has reached NZ – we can all help stop its spread

2025-11-03T22:24:04Z

An Asian hornet (right) hunting honeybees as they emerge from the hive. Jean-Bernard Nadeau/Science Photo Library, CC BY-NC-ND

The discovery of yellow-legged hornet nests in Auckland is frightening.

There have been five confirmed detections to date. Two of these were small nests, more than a kilometer apart, which suggests there are likely more in the region.

Why should we worry? This hornet is a serious concern for all New Zealanders. Yellow-legged hornets are aggressive predators and can become highly abundant. They threaten people’s health, biodiversity and especially honey bees.

The yellow-legged hornet (Vespa velutina) was accidentally introduced into France in 2004. It then spread rapidly, at around 100 kilometres per year, and was established across France by 2017.

This nest is in France, where hornets are now established. Michiel Vaartjes/Alamy, CC BY-ND

The hornet is now well established in Spain, Portugal, Germany and other European countries. It was first detected in the UK in 2016, and its predicted range extends as far north as Scotland. Their success in Europe suggests they could thrive across much of New Zealand.

In some European areas, densities of up to 13 nests per square kilometre have been recorded, with mature nests housing several thousands of workers. Some even reach up to 13,000 individuals.

Risk to people and pollinators

People can die from hornet stings. Yellow-legged hornets will aggressively defend their nests and have been known to attack people even from hundreds of metres away.

In parts of Europe, they are now considered one of the most common causes of analphylaxis, with multiple stings potentially leading to multi-organ failure. There have also been reports of eye injuries, particularly when well-meaning people attempt to destroy nests. Hornets can spray venom into eyes through the visors of beekeeping suits.

Their diet includes a significant proportion of honey bees. One European study found that 40% of their prey were honey bees, 30% flies and the remainder included other wasps and pollinators. In some high-pressure regions of Europe, beekeepers have reported losses of up to 80% of their hives once yellow-legged hornets became established.

More typical hive losses cluster around 30%. European beekeepers have resorted to desperate control measures – some even stand outside their hives with badminton rackets, swatting the hornets as they hover near the hive entrance.

When preying on honey bees, hornets hover outside hive entrances, waiting for tired bees to return from their foraging trips. The hornet snatches the bee mid-flight, kills it, and carries its body back to its nest as food. If bees sense the hornets, they may stop foraging altogether, staying inside the hive – a behaviour known as “foraging paralysis”.

Yellow-legged hornets feeds on bees and other insects. Bonzami Emmanuelle/Alamy, CC BY-NC-ND

The yellow-legged hornet poses a serious threat to both native and introduced pollinators, and to pollination itself.

Beekeepers in the UK are intensely worried, with reports of record numbers of nests this year, with infestations as far north as Yorkshire. One nest can consume around 11 kilograms of insects in a single season.

Quick action is key to eradication

New Zealand is uniquely vulnerable to wasp and hornet invasions. Unlike the UK and Europe, our biodiversity did not evolve alongside social hornets or wasps. Our native insects have no co-evolved or natural defences.

Add to that our warm, temperate climate, and it’s no surprise we already have some of the world’s highest wasp nest densities and hold the world record for the largest individual wasp nest, at 3.7 metres long. Hornets would likely become widespread and highly damaging if they established here.

If there is any chance of eradication, we must pursue it now.

Invasive hornets and social wasps are hard to eradicate, but it has been done before. In the United States, a programme to eliminate the giant Asian hornet (Vespa mandarinia) appears to have succeeded.

Closer to home, German wasps were successfully eradicated from the Chatham Islands. And Spain at least temporarily celebrated the eradication of the yellow-legged hornet from the island of Mallorca – although populations have since been rediscovered.

The key to success in any eradication programme is acting early, while populations are still small and localised.

Citizen science has played a vital role in early detection and eradication efforts for many invasive species, including these hornets. We have to find the hornet nests to destroy them and it is crucial to do so early in the year, before new queens and males are produced in autumn.

Public trapping and reporting of sightings have already proved invaluable overseas. We need people engaged and watching for these hornets now. Traps have been designed specifically for yellow-legged hornets in Europe, and the Ministry of Primary Industries would be wise to implement them here.

But homemade traps made from plastic drink bottles, cut in half with the top inverted, can work, too. The hornets are attracted to a range of foods in spring, including protein such as fish or meat, and even beer.

If any country can catch this hornet early, it’s New Zealand. Our tradition of public vigilance and commitment to protecting our unique biodiversity would be of major benefit now.

You can report any suspected sightings either online at report.mpi.govt.nz or by calling the exotic pest and disease hotline on 0800 809 966.

Phil Lester does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

‘How should I cast my soul?’ Patti Smith’s intimate new memoir is a quest for her true self

2025-11-03T19:09:17Z

Steven Sebring/Bloomsbury

Patti Smith’s new memoir, Bread of Angels, arrives on a significant date. On November 4, 1946, Smith’s artistic soulmate and first true love, the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, was born. Forty-eight years later, on the same day, her “king among men”, beloved husband and fellow musician, Fred “Sonic” Smith, died of a heart attack.

It seems entirely fitting that this most intimate, comprehensive book – a decade in the making – should be published on such a hallowed day, almost 50 years exactly since her debut album, Horses, was released.

“The hourglass overturns,” she writes in the opening pages, shattering the illusion of time. “Each grain a word that erupts into a thousand more, the first and last moments of every living thing.”

Like her poetry, Smith’s life writing is profound and illuminating. The award-winning Just Kids (a reader-voted New York Times best book of the 21st century) details her extraordinary relationship with Mapplethorpe, as the two establish their artistic careers in New York during the 1970s. M Train and Year of the Monkey offer insights into her spiritual outlook and creative process as she contemplates the passing of time while travelling the world. Devotion explores the business of writing as a call to action that keeps her from being subsumed by the work of others.

Bread of Angels folds all of this together, weaving reverie, dreams, visions and images into an autobiographical tale of deep love, unbearable loss, fortitude and artistic practice. Inevitably, some of the details appear in Smith’s previous works, but here she spins them anew, casting a more intimate light, achieving a greater sense of completion.

Loosely arranged around the recurring motif of the “rebel hump”, ultimately this book is the story of Smith’s quest for her true self. It follows her on a journey of individuation, through one painful growth period after another, as she strives to disguise the “miniature Quasimodo” that lurks, metaphorically, inside her body.

Over the decades, Smith edges her way around her “unbecoming” hump, harnessing her innate curiosity and powerful imagination into a foundation of unshakeable self-belief and self-possession. An inimitable force, she develops a level of conviction that borders on hubris yet rests on humility, as she takes her cues from the spirit world.

Naturally reflective, with a questioning mind, Smith continually wonders who she is and who she is becoming. At the same time, she resists self-doubt and refuses compromise. “I always felt like myself,” she writes. “And there were times when I didn’t identify with anybody.”

Her physical image develops accordingly. Now almost 79, with her wild grey hair, soulful, smiling eyes and an arresting gaze, Smith possesses the hard-won beauty of wisdom. She is a younger woman on the cover of her new book: alluring and ethereal, her introspective expression contrasting with a gesture of supplication.

The photograph, taken by Mapplethorpe for her 1979 album, Wave, was intended to capture the essence of Dancing Barefoot, her love song for Fred – and to bid her fans farewell on the eve of her retirement.

Like the book it now adorns, the image radiates both intimacy and mystery, and carries the shiver of a spell.

Patti Smith performing Dancing Barefoot, her love song for her husband Fred, in 1979.

Quivering with meaning

Beginning with her childhood, Bread of Angels recalls Smith’s life through significant events and personal experiences that quiver with meaning. It spans her impoverished upbringing in Philadelphia and her pivotal role as a post-punk revolutionary in New York, to family life in Michigan with Fred – and finally her return, through grief, to writing, travel and performance.

Throughout, Smith navigates the world by symbols and synchronicity, finding sacred patterns and purpose where others might see only luck or coincidence. At seven, a dangerous bout of scarlet fever is a “mystical illness” to be conquered so she can atone for stealing from a friend who dies of lupus. At ten, a broken foot is a reminder to keep a clear head. During a growth spurt, she finds affinity with the local weed trees. “You are my bamboo, I would whisper, the princesses of the train yard.”

Smith was born in Chicago, with bronchial distress, on December 30, 1946: to Beverly, a widowed waitress, and her second husband, Grant, a returning soldier weakened by malaria. A sickly but spirited girl, she grew up in condemned housing with three younger siblings.

Talkative and curious, Smith led her brother and sisters in elaborate games, throwing herself into boisterous play, fending off the local bullies, finding solace in quiet pockets of nature with the precious books that fed her inner world.

Entranced by her favourite fairy tales, she would toss her pocket money into the overgrown garden of an abandoned cottage in the hope it would transform into gold, and once spent the morning communing with a snapping “king” turtle instead of going to school. A social studies project initiated her interest in Buddhism. She felt the presence of spirits in the fields around her home and believed in the magical properties of material objects.

Reluctant to lose her sense of wonder, she resolved to stay connected to these more visionary realms as she grew older, like “a singular traveler in search of the garden of childhood’s hour”.

On a family outing to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 13-year-old Smith came across the work of Picasso and vowed to dedicate herself to the transformative power of art. Adolescence brought poetry and music in the shape of Oscar Wilde, Mexican artist Diego Rivera, French poet Arthur Rimbaud and Bob Dylan.

But at 19, while training to be a schoolteacher, Smith was prematurely wrenched into adulthood through pregnancy. Faced with little choice for her child, she arranged an adoption and underwent a lonely and difficult birth. Physically and emotionally scarred, dismissed from college, she packed a suitcase, turned her back on her family, and boarded a bus for New York: heartbroken, but intent on keeping her promise to Picasso. The year was 1967.

Just Kids

In the city, Smith met Mapplethorpe. The pair became key players in New York’s vibrant community of visionaries and creatives, while embarking on an intense relationship. Eventually, his attraction to men split them up, but the pair remained deeply bound to each other within the socially and culturally progressive arts movements of the late 60s and early 70s.

Just Kids offers a poignant close-up of this period, chronicling the details of the couple’s formative years together. The new book focuses more on Smith’s spiritual evolution and changing identity within her social milieu during this time. As her musical and artistic circles expanded, she drew on a widening range of influences while staying true to herself, all the while, asking: “how should I cast my soul?”

New York’s burgeoning underground music scene provided the answer. In 1971, Smith began performing her poetry, accompanied by guitarist Lenny Kaye. Before long, she gathered her band and transmuted into a rock’n’roll revolutionary, claiming her territory with thrilling live shows. In 1975, her groundbreaking debut album, Horses, was released to critical acclaim.

With its improvisational direction and Mapplethorpe’s iconic cover photograph, Horses embodied freedom and defiance. Opening with a reworking of Van Morrison’s Gloria, a sexual song clearly intended to be sung by a man, the record confronted the limitations of duality, refused the constraints of convention and issued an explosive challenge to the establishment. Smith was launched as the high priestess of punk and set off on the road with her band, entrancing audiences across America with her bewitching stage presence.

“I had new dark glasses, charms sweet angels stitched on my sleeve,” writes Smith of her new incarnation. “The hyena was showing her wet teeth […] We were touring Horses, riding straight into the future.”

Life-changing love

Four months after the release of Horses, at a party before her show in Detroit, Smith had a momentary but fateful encounter with former MC5 guitarist, Fred “Sonic” Smith. Touring commitments dictated the initial pace of their relationship, but Smith knew this tall, brooding man with the pale blue eyes would alter the course of her life.

After recording her second album, Radio Ethiopia, another turning point occurred in January 1977: supporting roots rock musician Bob Seger in Florida, Smith tumbled from a dangerously high stage and sustained serious injuries. Left with fractures to her skull and spine, she was forced into a lengthy rehabilitation but chose to find divine meaning and creative direction in her accident. Encouraged by Lenny Kaye, she spent her recovery writing poems for what would become her first published volume, Babel.

During this time, her love for Fred deepened. But as she grew stronger, she began to grapple with her need to write in solitude, and the opposing impulse to get back on the road.

In 1979, two more albums later (Easter and Wave, each containing songs either inspired by or co-written with Fred), Smith finally departed from rock'n'roll – after the theft of a tour truck in Chicago.

Exhausted by constant travel between New York and Fred in Detroit, she was no longer writing, drawing or journaling. She interpreted the robbery as an opportunity, and conducted a psychological and emotional audit. “I threw open the carpet of my life,” she writes. “It was time to hold myself accountable trusting there was no harsher judge nor jury.”

In a typically symbolic gesture, towards the end of what proved to be her final show in September, she invited the crowd to swarm the stage, encouraging her fans to replace her by occupying their own central positions instead.

And so, aged 32, Smith arrived at her next point of departure, or her “second declaration of existence”, as she calls it. A few months after her final show, during the leap year of 1980, she and Fred were married in a small, private ceremony at the Mariners’ Church in Detroit, at the time of a full moon, on March 1.

Patti Smith performing with love of her life, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith.

A life of quiet romance

Away from the spotlight, Smith lived a life of quiet romance in St Clair Shores, near Detroit, with her husband. Beyond the confines of time, tied to nobody but each other, the couple fell into their own rhythms, creating a home in a little Belgian-style house, complete with a turret. Here, with her low table, a Moroccan silk cushion and a Persian cup for her mint tea, she found a way to be “entirely myself”, writing and ruminating in the room she called “my vagabondia”.

The couple’s occasionally lonely existence was obscure and authentic. It required Smith to grow into a better version of herself, both as a person and a writer. All the while, her mind and imagination continued to dance, nourishing her internal world while she performed her domestic tasks and renovated a boat with Fred.

In time, the couple had two children, Jackson, born in 1982 and Jesse, born in 1987, and the days took on a different shape. With a family to support, Smith and Fred needed to generate an income. Together, they wrote and recorded Dream of Life (released in 1988) and planned a follow-up album with the working title, Going West.

In March 1989, Mapplethorpe succumbed to complications from HIV in a Boston hospital. Utterly bereft, Smith channelled her grief into The Coral Sea, a loving tribute of prose poetry to the man she refers to as her “artist in life”.

The following year, Fred fell ill. After a few difficult months of sickness, he was admitted to the hospital where his children were born. Aged 46, he died from a heart attack on what would have been Mapplethorpe’s 43rd birthday, November 4, 1994.

Loss and renewed purpose

Smith briefly refers to Fred as a “troubled man” whose health was damaged by drugs in his late teens and twenties. “I was never to penetrate the true nature of those troubles,” she writes, adding “his decline was the tragedy of my life, and it profits no one to outline the private battles of a very private man.”

Heartbroken, she lay her personal king and protector to rest in the church where they married, wearing the expensive black gown she wore when they met. At the memorial service, she sang What a Wonderful World, after hearing it on the car radio on her way there. She didn’t particularly like the song, but Fred had always deemed it hers because of her optimistic nature. Now, it seemed he was insisting she perform it just for him.

By Christmas, Smith had regained enough energy to buy presents for her children, but on her return from the toyshop, she suffered another blow. She came home to the news that her brother Todd had died from a stroke.

Smith was broken by this third, devastating bereavement. She stopped writing, retreated into a state of emptiness, and waited for a sign from Fred. In February 1995, while the snow was falling and her children were asleep, she received a phone call from REM’s singer, Michael Stipe who told her how sorry he was about her husband. Knowing she was alone, he offered to be her Valentine, a kindness which touched her deeply.

Very slowly, with the support of friends, Smith began another journey towards yet another new life back in New York. It was not an easy return. The city had changed beyond recognition since she left, and she was set adrift, wandering through the streets in tears. One day, wearing Fred’s leather jacket, she bumped into photographer Annie Leibovitz. who whisked the grief-stricken, disoriented singer away to her studio. There, they shot what would eventually be the cover photograph for Gone Again, the album first mapped out with Fred as Going West.

Slowly, Smith began to find renewed purpose in the present, and the courage to face her future.

Recognising the rebel hump

The closing chapters of this shimmering memoir pay homage to Smith’s parents, Grant and Beverly, as she recovers long-held secrets regarding her genetic identity and searches for her first, adopted daughter. These interlocking, profoundly moving stories offer the author a certain resolution as she pieces her personal puzzle together, working from the future back into the past.

Shifting, recalibrating, ultimately settling, by tracing “the blood of my mosaic” she is left with a new understanding of herself – and her parents – and is able to locate herself more firmly within the world.

In the concluding pages, from a hotel room in Nice, fittingly overlooking the Bay of Angels, she returns to the motif of the rebel hump as she muses on the ways in which she has changed and not changed over the years.

She imagines a young girl plucking a mirror from the grass. A girl who leaps with joy and lands with delicate certainty – who now accepts the rebel hump, finally recognising its value in a conscious, and loving, act of integration.

Liz Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Does fasting dull your mental edge? We crunched the data for the best advice

2025-11-03T19:09:05Z

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Ever worried that skipping breakfast might leave you foggy at work? Or that intermittent fasting would make you irritable, distracted and less productive?

Snack food ads warn us that “you’re not you when you’re hungry”, reinforcing a common belief that eating is essential to keep our brains sharp.

This message is deeply woven into our culture. We’re told constant fuelling is the secret to staying alert and efficient.

Yet time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting have become hugely popular wellness practices over the past decade. Millions do it for long-term benefits, from weight management to improved metabolic health.

This raises a pressing question: can we reap the health rewards of fasting without sacrificing our mental edge? To find out, we conducted the most comprehensive review to date of how fasting affects cognitive performance.

Why fast in the first place?

Fasting isn’t just a trendy diet hack. It taps into a biological system honed over millennia to help humans cope with scarcity.

When we eat regularly, the brain runs mostly on glucose, stored in the body as glycogen. But after about 12 hours without food, those glycogen stores dwindle.

At that point, the body performs a clever metabolic switch: it begins breaking down fat into ketone bodies (for example, acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate), which provide an alternative fuel source.

This metabolic flexibility, once crucial for our ancestors’ survival, is now being linked to a host of health benefits.

Some of the most promising effects of fasting come from the way it reshapes processes inside the body. For instance, fasting activates autophagy, a kind of cellular “cleanup crew” that clears away damaged components and recycles them, a process thought to support healthier ageing.

It also improves insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to manage blood sugar more effectively and lowering the risk of conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

Beyond that, the metabolic shifts triggered by fasting appear to offer broader protection, helping reduce the likelihood of developing chronic diseases often associated with overeating.

What the data showed

These physiological benefits have made fasting attractive. But many hesitate to adopt it out of fear their mental performance will plummet without a steady supply of food.

To address this, we conducted a meta-analysis, a “study of studies”, looking at all the available experimental research that compared people’s cognitive performance when they were fasting versus when they were fed.

Our search identified 63 scientific articles, representing 71 independent studies, with a combined sample of 3,484 participants tested on 222 different measures of cognition. The research spanned nearly seven decades, from 1958 to 2025.

After pooling the data, our conclusion was clear: there was no meaningful difference in cognitive performance between fasted and satiated healthy adults.

People performed just as well on cognitive tests measuring attention, memory and executive function whether they had eaten recently or not.

When fasting does matter

Our analysis did reveal three important factors that can change how fasting affects your mind.

First, age is key. Adults showed no measurable decline in mental performance when fasting. But children and adolescents did worse on tests when they skipped meals.

Their developing brains seem more sensitive to fluctuations in energy supply. This reinforces longstanding advice: kids should go to school with a proper breakfast to support learning.

Timing also seems to make a difference. We found longer fasts were associated with a smaller performance gap between fasted and fed states. This might be due to the metabolic switch to ketones, which can restore a steady supply of energy to the brain as glucose runs out.

Performance in fasted individuals tended to be worse when tests were conducted later in the day, suggesting fasting might amplify the natural dips in our circadian rhythms.

The type of test also mattered. When cognitive tasks involved neutral symbols or shapes, fasting participants performed just as well, or sometimes even slightly better.

But when tasks included food-related cues, fasted participants slipped. Hunger doesn’t create universal brain fog, but it does make us more easily distracted when food is on our minds.

What this means for you

For most healthy adults, the findings offer reassurance: you can explore intermittent fasting or other fasting protocols without worrying that your mental sharpness will vanish.

That said, fasting isn’t a one-size-fits-all practice. Caution is warranted with children and teens, whose brains are still developing and who appear to need regular meals to perform at their best.

Similarly, if your job requires peak alertness late in the day, or if you’re frequently exposed to tempting food cues, fasting might feel harder to sustain.

And of course, for certain groups, such as those with medical conditions or special dietary needs, fasting may not be advisable without professional guidance.

Ultimately, fasting is best seen as a personal tool rather than a universal prescription. And its benefits and challenges will look different from person to person.

David Moreau does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Don’t dismiss kids’ sadness or anger. How to minimise family conflict over the social media ban

2025-11-03T19:08:40Z

Cottonbro Studio/ Pexels

In just over a month Australia’s social media ban will begin.

From December 10, those under 16 will only be able to see publicly available content on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube. They will not be able to have their own accounts.

For example, they could look up Taylor Swift’s latest music video on YouTube, but they would not be able to post their own content.

There are no penalties for children who access an account on an age-restricted platform, or for their parents. Platforms face fines of up to A$49.5 million if they don’t take reasonable steps to implement the ban.

While the changes have been welcomed by some safety experts and parent advocates, eSafety acknowledges, “many parents and carers are worried about how under 16s will react to no longer having access to social media accounts”.

If you have a child or teen who loves social media, how can you help approach this change, while minimising conflict in your family?

Social media is already a source of conflict

My research shows young people’s social and digital media use is already a major source of conflict for families.

A lot of the tension comes from parents not understanding the important role digital media plays in young people’s lives, and young people reacting to “unfair” restrictions imposed by parents.

So conflict around screen time rules and parents’ social media restrictions is common. Young people can put a lot of pressure on their parents for devices or access to certain platforms to fit in with their peers (“but all my friends have it”).

One of the federal government’s rationales for the social media ban is to help parents manage this situation – because people are already finding it hard.

So, potentially, some families may find relief in being able to say “this is just what the government says, this is the law”.

Uncertainty ahead

But we still don’t really know what’s going to happen come December 10. Some of the criticism of the ban has been that young people will find a way around it, such as by using a VPN (which can mask location and identity). Experts are also concerned about the reliability and privacy implications of age verification technology,

Meanwhile, some parents may also help their children circumvent the restrictions.

If a lot of parents in a friendship group are helping their children get around the ban, this could in turn create pressures on other parents and lead to conflict or resentment in families.

Parents need to remember there is no blanket right or wrong answer. All families and kids are different and its important to make decisions based on your family values and your child’s maturity.

Acknowledge it’s hard

Either way, if young people are used to social media and suddenly it’s gone, they might be really sad, annoyed or angry. And parents will have to manage the fall out.

We know young people can forge important connections with others over social media. It’s not just mindless scrolling, it’s a significant way to interact with peers. This is especially important for marginalised young people.

So young people will need to find other ways to connect – and parents should help their kids maintain their social connections.

It’s also important parents are not dismissive and acknowledge this may be a difficult time and transition.

Young people tend to respond much better to rules and regulations when they are given a clear rationale and a clear reason.

For example,

I know it’s hard. It’s out of my hands, this is a decision made by the government. We may not like it, but this is the way it is. Can I help you find another way to connect with your friends or participate in these communities?

You may also want to note how time away from social media, where young people may be doomscrolling or exposed to cyberbullying, can be healthy.

Don’t assume kids are now ‘safe’

One risk of the ban is parents will now think kids are “safe” online. We know children are likely to find other spaces online – and if they don’t, their friends will. And the ban only covers certain platforms.

Parents needs to keep talking to their children about what they see and do online

Parents also need to keep providing opportunities for children to develop critical digital literacy skills – this means they can assess what they are reading and seeing and not just taking it on face value. Children also need help to navigate social relationships online as they grow up.

This means children under 16 need ongoing opportunities to explore online spaces with support and guidance. This doesn’t necessarily mean parents monitor everything their children do online. But they should show an interest in their children’s activities, and be available to help navigate any risks and tricky situations.

Catherine Page Jeffery receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Congress has been dodging responsibility for tariffs for decades – now the Supreme Court will decide how far presidents can go alone

2025-11-03T18:38:13Z

On Nov. 5, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear one of the most consequential trade cases in decades. The justices will decide whether a president can rely on a Cold War–era emergency law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose sweeping import duties on a vast share of what the United States buys from abroad.

At stake is more than the scope of presidential power. The case highlights a deeper question of accountability: Who should decide what Americans pay for imported goods – the president acting alone, unelected judges reading emergency laws broadly, or the elected representatives who must face voters when prices rise?

When tariffs end up in court, it’s usually because Congress has failed to act. Over the past few decades, lawmakers have ceded much of their trade authority to presidents eager to move quickly – and the courts have been left to clean up the mess. Each new lawsuit makes it seem as though judges are running the economy when, in fact, they’re being pulled into policy questions they’re neither trained nor elected to answer.

As an economist, not a lawyer, I view this as more than a constitutional curiosity. It’s about how the world’s largest economy makes decisions that ripple through global markets, factory floors and family budgets. A duty on steel may help a mill in Ohio while raising bridge-construction and car-buying costs everywhere else. A tariff on electronics might nudge assembly onshore yet squeeze hospital and school budgets that depend on those devices.

These are choices about distribution – who gains, who pays, and for how long – that demand analysis, transparency and, above all, democratic ownership.

How did the US get here?

Congress didn’t exactly lose its tariff power; it gave it away.

The Constitution assigns “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” to Congress, not the White House. Historically, Congress set tariff lines in law – consider the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. The pivot began with the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934, which let presidents adjust rates within limits via executive agreements. In the 1960s and ’70s, Congress passed laws expanding the president’s authority over trade, granting new powers to restrict or adjust imports without a separate congressional vote if certain conditions are met.

In my view, two key incentives drove the drift: blame avoidance and gridlock. Tariffs are redistributive by design: They benefit some sectors and regions while imposing costs on others. Casting a vote that helps steelworkers in one state but raises prices for builders in another is politically risky. Delegating to the White House allowed lawmakers to sidestep the fallout when prices rise or when jobs shift.

And as polarization intensified, the bargaining that once produced workable compromises became increasingly complex. Broad emergency statutes and open-ended delegations became the path of least resistance – fast, unilateral and insulated from negotiation. Over time, exceptions became the norm, and courts were tasked with resolving the gray areas.

That’s a poor way to run economic policy.

Judges interpret statutes and precedent; they don’t run general equilibrium models, forecast inflation paths or map supply chain rerouting. Evidence in court is confined to a single case file. Remedies are blunt: They are either to uphold, strike down or send back. Tariff design, by contrast, is about calibration: how high, how long, which sectors, which exclusions, what off-ramps, what triggers for renewal or repeal.

When lawsuits substitute for legislation, countries drift into policy by injunction. Companies see rules whipsaw; projects are delayed or shelved; households experience price swings that feel arbitrary; trading partners retaliate against policies they see as improvisational.

A matter of accountability

Accountability sits at the center of the problem. Most judges aren’t elected; lawmakers are. Lifetime tenure protects judicial independence – good for rights, bad for setting taxes. No one can vote out a court when tariffs push up the price of a school Chromebook or a contractor’s rebar.

Members of Congress, by contrast, must explain themselves. They can hold hearings, commission impact analyses, hear from unions and small businesses, and then defend the trade-offs. If tariffs save jobs in one town but raise prices nationwide, voters know exactly whom to reward or punish. That democratic link is why the Constitution places “Duties and Imposts” in the hands of Congress.

None of this means paralysis when it comes to trade policy. The United States has done this before – via trade-promotion and fast-track authorities that set clear goals and required renewal votes – while the EU and Japan have paired swift action with built-in legislative oversight.

Congress can be nimble without being reckless. Best practices for tariffs include setting clear targets using accessible language, having independent analysts conduct reviews before and after a tariff is put in place, and having diplomacy baked into a broader trade-security strategy that reports retaliation risks.

The challenge facing the court

In my view, the Supreme Court’s role here is both modest and vital: to enforce the statute and the constitutional line.

If a general emergency law doesn’t clearly authorize sweeping, long-duration tariffs, it’s not activism to say so plainly. It’s boundary-keeping that returns the pen to Congress. What I think the court should avoid is appearing to write the tariff code from the bench. That swaps democratic ownership for judicial improvisation and guarantees more litigation as a strategy.

In theory, a more public, accountable system would also free everyone to focus on what they do best. That means economists measuring who gains and who pays, lawmakers weighing trade-offs and answering to voters, and courts enforcing the rules – not designing the policy.

Bedassa Tadesse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

All government shutdowns disrupt science − in 2025, the consequences extend far beyond a lapse in funding

2025-11-03T13:13:00Z

The government shutdown will continue until Congress can pass a bill reopening it. Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. science always suffers during government shutdowns. Funding lapses send government scientists home without pay. Federal agencies suspend new grant opportunities, place expert review panels on hold, and stop collecting and analyzing critical public datasets that tell us about the economy, the environment and public health.

In 2025, the stakes are higher than in past shutdowns.

This shutdown arrives at a time of massive upheaval to American science and innovation driven by President Donald Trump’s ongoing attempts to extend executive power and assert political control of scientific institutions.

With the shutdown entering its fifth week, and with no end in sight, the Trump administration’s rapid and contentious changes to federal research policy are rewriting the social contract between the U.S. government and research universities – where the government provides funding and autonomy in exchange for the promise of downstream public benefits.

As a physicist and policy scholar, I both study and have a vested interest in the state of U.S. science funding as a recipient of federal grants. I write about the history and governance of American science policy, including the nation’s investments in research and development.

In the context of broader policy reforms to federal grantmaking, student and high-skilled immigration, and scientific integrity, this shutdown has both known and unknown consequences for the future of U.S. science.

Funding freezes, data gaps and unpaid workers

Over the past two decades, the story of government shutdowns has become all too familiar. Shutdowns occur when Congress fails to pass an appropriations bill before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, and, paraphrasing Article 1, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution, the government can no longer spend money.

This funding gap affects all but essential government operations, such as the work of postal workers, air traffic controllers and satellite operators. Nonessential employees, including tens of thousands of government scientists, are barred from working and stop receiving paychecks.

With scientists and program officers at home, activities at the nearly two dozen federal agencies participating in research and development, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, come to a halt. New grant opportunities and review panels are postponed or canceled, researchers at government laboratories stop collecting and analyzing data, and university projects reliant on federal funding are put at risk.

Extended shutdowns accelerate the damage. They leave bigger gaps in government data, throw federal employees into debt or lead them to dip into their savings, and force academic institutions to lay off staff paid through government grants and contracts.

Funding, public services and the rule of law

Even for shutdowns lasting a few days, it can take science agencies months to catch up on the backlog of paperwork, paychecks and peer review panels before they return to regular operations.

This year, the government faces mounting challenges to overcome once the shutdown ends: Trump and the director of the White House budget office, Russell Vought, are using the shutdown as an opportunity to “shutter the bureaucracy” and pressure universities to bend to the administration’s ideological positions on topics such as campus speech, gender identity and admission standards.

As the budget standoff nears the record for the longest shutdown ever, agency furloughs, reductions in force, canceled grants and jeopardized infrastructure projects document the devastating and immediate damage to the government’s ability to serve the public.

President Donald Trump alongside Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

However, the full impact of the shutdown and the Trump administration’s broader assaults on science to U.S. international competitiveness, economic security and electoral politics could take years to materialize.

In parallel, the dramatic drop in international student enrollment, the financial squeeze facing research institutions, and research security measures to curb foreign interference spell an uncertain future for American higher education.

With neither the White House nor Congress showing signs of reaching a budget deal, Trump continues to test the limits of executive authority, reinterpreting the law – or simply ignoring it.

Earlier in October, Trump redirected unspent research funding to pay furloughed service members before they missed their Oct. 15 paycheck. Changing appropriated funds directly challenges the power vested in Congress – not the president – to control federal spending.

The White House’s promise to fire an additional 10,000 civil servants during the shutdown, its threat to withhold back pay from furloughed workers and its push to end any programs with lapsed funding “not consistent with the President’s priorities” similarly move to broaden presidential power.

Here, the damage to science could snowball. If Trump and Vought chip enough authority away from Congress by making funding decisions or shuttering statutory agencies, the next three years will see an untold amount of impounded, rescinded or repurposed research funds.

The government shutdown has emptied many laboratories staffed by federal scientists. Combined with other actions by the Trump administration, more scientists could continue to lose funding. Monty Rakusen/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Science, democracy and global competition

While technology has long served as a core pillar of national and economic security, science has only recently reemerged as a key driver of greater geopolitical and cultural change.

China’s extraordinary rise in science over the past three decades and its arrival as the United States’ chief technological competitor has upended conventional wisdom that innovation can thrive only in liberal democracies.

The White House’s efforts to centralize federal grantmaking, restrict free speech, erase public data and expand surveillance mirror China’s successful playbook for building scientific capacity while suppressing dissent.

As the shape of the Trump administration’s vision for American science has come into focus, what remains unclear is whether, after the shutdown, it can outcompete China by following its lead.

Kenneth Evans receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the American Institute of Physics, and the Clinton Foundation. He is affiliated with Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

COP30: NZ’s lack of climate ambition undermines global goals and free-trade agreements

2025-11-03T01:20:57Z

Climate change minister Simon Watts. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

As nations prepare to gather in Brazil next week for this year’s United Nations climate summit COP30, only a third have so far submitted the required update on their emissions-reduction commitments, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

China, the world’s largest emitter, and major fossil fuel exporters such as Iran, Russia and Australia, are among states that have updated their NDCs, but they have been criticised for lack of ambition.

Likewise, New Zealand, which announced in February it would commit to reducing emissions by 51–55% below 2005 levels by 2035. This amounts to only 1–5% above the country’s previous NDC of a 50% cut by 2030 and has been described as “underwhelming”.

This comes as UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres warned that humanity has failed to keep warming at 1.5°C and must change course urgently towards deeper and faster emissions cuts.

The Paris Agreement requires states to pledge successively more ambitious NDCs. Technically, New Zealand’s NDC represents a progression, albeit the smallest possible one.

It was criticised as insufficiently aligned with the Paris Agreement’s purpose to hold global average temperature rise well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to keep it at 1.5°C.

Lack of climate ambition

Several domestic climate-related legal and policy changes are sending a message that New Zealand’s coalition government isn’t treating climate change as a high priority.

The Fast-track Approvals Act, which came into force at the end of 2024, has accelerated permits to explore and develop New Zealand’s petroleum and mineral resources (including metallurgical coal used in steel production), facilitating new fossil fuel use at home and abroad.

In August this year, the government passed the Crown Minerals Amendment Act 2025 to overturn a ban on offshore oil and gas exploration which had been in place since 2018. It also pledged NZ$200 million to co-invest in the development of new gas fields.

In October, the government lowered targets for methane emissions. This will require an amendment to the country’s flagship climate legislation, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019.

The previous target was to cut methane emissions from livestock by 25–47% below 2017 levels, but the government has reduced this to 14–24% and ruled out a methane tax on agricultural emissions. This is contrary to the Climate Change Commission’s recommendation to raise the target to 35–47%.

New Zealand’s transport emissions continue to rise but the government axed a clean investment fund. And recently, it softened mandatory climate reporting requirements and lifted the threshold for how big a company needs to be before it has to report on its efforts to cut emissions.

There are some welcome developments, including the government’s NZ$46 million investment in a climate finance initiative in partnership with the United Kingdom.

The Transforming Island Development through Electrification and Sustainability (TIDES) fund will finance renewable energy projects in six Pacific Island countries – Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands – that currently rely on imported energy. This will strengthen the Pacific region’s renewable energy options and reduce reliance on polluting and expensive diesel imports.

Also positive are government plans to double renewable energy by 2050 and to install 10,000 electric vehicle charging stations by 2030, although critics point out little progress has been made towards the latter.

But perhaps the clearest signal of the government’s move away from climate-conscious leadership is the decision in June this year to quit the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA). Established at COP26 in 2021, BOGA is an international coalition of states working to accelerate the managed phase-out of oil and gas production and support a just transition to clean energy.

Trade and climate commitments

Many of these moves have been defended as necessary to deliver on the government’s priority to build a stronger and more productive economy.

The government sees trade as crucial to this. It has heralded the free-trade agreement between the European Union and New Zealand as a successful catalyst for boosted trade, supporting 8% growth in two-way trade and reaching a record $21.6 billion of annual trade in goods and services since it came into force in May 2024.

But the EU-NZ free-trade agreement should also act as a reminder that international trade must go hand in hand with responsible action on climate change. The agreement commits both parties to:

effectively implement the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement, including commitments with regard to nationally determined contributions and … to refrain from any action or omission that materially defeats the object and purpose of the Paris Agreement.

It also requires parties to:

promote the mutual supportiveness of trade and climate policies and measures, thereby contributing to the transition to a low greenhouse gas emission, resource-efficient and circular economy and to climate-resilient development.

The central aim of the Paris Agreement is to strengthen the global response to climate change by limiting global temperature rise. Government actions that loosen emissions targets and facilitate and invest in new fossil fuel use are contrary to this aim.

Consequently, such actions risk undermining the EU-NZ free-trade agreement and other agreements crucial to delivering on the government’s promise of economic growth.

As New Zealand’s representatives head to Brazil, they should have this trade-climate connection firmly in mind. Climate-attuned policies at home alongside stronger international commitments, including an ambitiously revised NDC, are necessary for limiting destructive climate change. They also make good economic sense.

Nathan Cooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Tony Abbott’s history of Australia wants us to be proud of men like him

2025-11-03T00:10:08Z

Former prime minister (and journalist) Tony Abbott has published a political history of Australia. Across 18 well-written chapters, he narrates the nation’s trajectory, starting with the establishment of a penal colony in 1788 and ending with the failed Voice referendum of 2023. Abbott’s aim is to restore national pride by showing that our past was “far more good than bad”.

Review: Australia: A History – Tony Abbott (Harper Collins)

This “balance sheet” approach was first introduced to Australia by historian Geoffrey Blainey in 1993, sparking the “history wars”. Argument focused on the impact of colonisation on Indigenous Australians and especially the scale of frontier warfare. Abbott’s perspective also feeds into the continuing culture war about Britain’s imperial past and polarised views about how to remember the Empire. As historian Stuart Ward recently noted, such debate is as old as imperialism itself.

Abbott begins with a rebuke to professional historians:

This is the book that never should have been needed. Until quite recently it was taken for granted that Australia was a country that all its citizens could take pride in, even the Aboriginal people, for whom the 1967 referendum marked full, if belated, acceptance into the Australian community.

His lifelong passion for history, he explains, was sparked by the Ladybird books, specifically the “adventures from history” series he read as a child. These narrated “great things done […] by great men and women”. He too tells his story in part through “key individuals”.

For Abbott, Australia has been a project characterised by “a consistent high-mindedness, a largeness of spirit or liberality” from its political leaders.

But Abbott’s Australia is narrowly conceived, excluding the perspectives of non-British cultures, women, and especially First Nations people. Abbott wants us to be proud of the achievements of men like him.

The Ladybird history of Australia?

Much of his account offers a very readable synthesis of mainstream historical research, and he acknowledges his research team, Andrew Kemp, Alex McDermott, Paddy O'Leary and Dom O’Leary, supported by the Institute of Public Affairs.

The first third of the book covers the 19th century, from “1788 and all that”, to the achievement of federation. But a series of omissions allows him to tell a story of linear progress from an “ancient” past to modernity, as signalled by the book’s tagline: “How an ancient land became a great democracy”.

Most glaring is his cartoonish depiction of First Nations culture, whose history he states is “now largely lost”, evident only through archaeological traces and colonial records. Citing anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner, Abbott characterises Aboriginality as “timeless”, reducing traditional life to a “tough existence”. He quotes from Robert Hughes’ 1986 blockbuster The Fatal Shore, which described “a ceaseless grubbing and chasing for subsistence foods”. This was a derogatory description, even for its time.

Abbott ignores the last half-century of scholarship, which has explored the richness and dynamism of First Nations life across the continent. He dismisses the survival of Indigenous traditions and knowledge into the present. In this way, First Nations cultures are relegated to a static primitivism, which has no place in a modern nation state.

He pays far more attention to British history, arguing that by the 1780s Britain had “become the world’s leading power and most enlightened country”. This is the first of many such claims to be “the best”. Again:

The Britain of the 1780s was […] at the forefront of the liberal enlightenment, of the development of private property rights, the growth of markets and the beginning of the anti-slavery crusade.

Yet praise for the anti-slavery movement is not matched by acknowledgement of Britain’s status as the world’s leading slave-trading nation during the years of its “enlightenment”. British slavery was only abolished in 1833 and thus was entangled with Australian colonisation for more than 50 years.

Such selectivity allows him to paint a rosy picture of the convict system. He adopts conservative historian John Hirst’s argument, focusing on the era of Governor Macquarie in Sydney, that convicts enjoyed relative freedom in colonial society. Hirst suggested that the independence granted to many convicts after emancipation was the foundation of democratic institutions and an egalitarian Australian ethos.

Abbott’s insistence that “convicts were not slaves”, and that “Sydney could hardly have been less like a slave colony” is sharply contradicted by contemporary evidence for the system’s brutality and heartbreak.

For example, as Bermuda-born Chief Justice of New South Wales Francis Forbes explained in 1825, Australian convicts were not proto-citizens. As a “West Indian” himself, he thought their assigned masters regarded them “precisely in the same way as a planter in the West Indies regards his slaves”.

Indeed, Macquarie and his first wife Jane, the daughter of a wealthy Antiguan slave-owner, bought “two young, smart slave Boys” as household servants while stationed in Bombay in 1795 and they came with his household to Sydney.

Thus Abbott argues for a “comparatively benign experience” for convicts sent to New South Wales. This is indeed the Ladybird view of history, omitting any darkness or complexity.

Abbott’s denial echoes former prime minister Scott Morrison’s June 2020 comments that “there was no slavery” in Australia’s history, which prompted heated responses from First Nations leaders.

The Australian Wars

Abbott and his research team have moved on from the “history wars” debate about frontier violence, acknowledging this now well-established history. However, Abbott’s account of colonialism remains a partial story.

Evidence for the rigorously researched Colonial Frontier Massacre Map, which records around 11,257 Aboriginal deaths between 1788 and 1930, is termed “guesstimates” by Abbott. Conflict, he writes, was a result of pastoral expansion and “the survival of the fittest”. But he challenges a view of “the expansion of settlement as only a series of ‘frontier wars’”.

Instead, Abbott suggests that conflict was tempered by the “indispensable” role of Aboriginal labour and local knowledge in the settling of Australia. Settlers’ children were cared for by “Aboriginal tribes”. Frontier warfare is construed as scattered episodes of “conflict” or “massacre”, rather than integral to the system of colonisation.

Later in his book, Abbott claims gun reform after the Port Arthur Massacre was relatively easy to accomplish because we lack an “entrenched gun culture”, due to “our relatively peaceful settlement”. Another new book shows otherwise.

The Australian Wars, following director and editor Rachel Perkins’ successful SBS documentary series, presents extensive research. The book’s editors, Perkins, Stephen Gapps, Mina Murray and Henry Reynolds, demonstrate that Indigenous nations resisted occupation of their lands “territory by territory”, as the frontier moved across the continent.

As Perkins explains, these were Australian Wars because combatants fought for “a way of life and sovereignty of a whole continent”.

Abbott’s is a Sydney-centric origin story, which also excludes the centuries-old regional engagement across the continent’s north. This is dismissed in a sentence as “a bit of canoe traffic around northern Queensland and some trepang trading with Indonesian fishermen”.

Western Australian readers will be surprised to hear that their state was also an offshoot of the convict system. Misleadingly, Abbott suggests Sydney emancipist Solomon Levey initiated the Swan River colony by providing the necessary capital. In fact, the drivers of western colonisation included imperial rivalry, trade and a desire for new products. Levey was just one of numerous private investors who saw a profit to be made from the continent’s first free colony. Freedom from the convict taint was a key selling point.

Abbott is on surer ground as he moves into the 20th century. He devotes the book’s middle third to the new nation’s “bold experiment” of democratic institutions, participation in two world wars and the Great Depression. In focusing on federal leadership and summarising the key events of Australian politics, Abbott and his team are at their best. The final third of the book spans the post-war “liberal revival” of the 1940s and 1950s to the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

As a political history, perhaps it is not surprising there are few if any “great women” in Abbott’s account. Nor that the impact of his “great men’s” policies upon others generally remains unexamined. Thus the idealistic, rights-informed vision for Aboriginal assimilation devised by Paul Hasluck, Menzies’ Minister for Territories, is fairly set out. Yet the impact of child removal upon Aboriginal families is downplayed.

There is no mention of the Stolen Generations, nor the landmark 1997 Bringing Them Home report – just an index entry for “Aboriginal Australians, removal of children from”.

Abbott’s bias toward his own side of politics is also to be expected. The 1975 Dismissal of Gough Whitlam by governor general Sir John Kerr, for example, is portrayed as the sensible democratic solution to political deadlock. Alternative views of this event are omitted, for example Jenny Hocking’s analysis of more than 200 palace letters between Kerr and the queen, revealing his prior consultation with the monarchy before he sacked Whitlam.

Linking past and present

As we approach the present, Abbott abandons his measured tone, celebrating the glory days of the Hawke–Howard era. The final chapter, titled “Drifting Backwards”, offers a counterweight to the boosterish tone of the rest of the book. Here, Abbott switches from history to lament the “cultural confusion” of our present moment.

Howard, he suggests, might be our “best-ever PM”, despite initiatives which later became “problematic”. These included a ban on introducing civil nuclear power, establishing renewable energy targets, environmental legislation “that gave green busy-bodies legal standing” and a commitment to “acknowledging Indigenous people in the Constitution”. Abbott’s own achievements were to stop the boats, repeal carbon and mining taxes, and “the biggest federal infrastructure spend in history”.

Abbott’s choice to end with the Voice referendum is significant. In his words, this was “the rejection of the proposed entrenchment in our nation’s Constitution of a new body chosen by Indigenous people only and comprising Indigenous people only but with a significant say over the government of all of us”.

Abbott’s characterisation is wrong. The October 2023 referendum asked voters to approve an alteration to the Australian constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people by creating a “Voice” able to make representations to parliament on matters relating to First Nations peoples. While its final form was undecided, this body would have offered advice only.

For Abbott, this would have given First Nations people “a status and a say beyond that of everyone else”. Its rejection was a triumph for an “essentially colourblind” society.

But we do not live in an equal, “colourblind” society. Many inequalities in the present are the outcome of the structural nature of colonial violence, the Stolen Generations and Indigenous pain. Abbott’s partial history precludes recognition of these links.

In 1998, historian Mark McKenna noted in his parliamentary report, Different Perspectives on Black Armband History, there was broad agreement regarding “content” from both sides. Disagreement focused on “emphasis”. He suggested that, “As a people, we are trying to come to terms with the fact that ‘Australian’ history is no longer written purely from the perspective of the majority.”

Similarly, multiculturalism expert Andrew Jakubowicz argues democratic societies work on the basis of how much trust there is between people. Commenting on the two recent reports to the government by its envoys to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia, he noted that different communities need to recognise and respect “the sort of pain that the others have”.

In this sense, Abbott’s history of Australia returns us to the polarised “black armband” 1990s and the refusal to recognise others’ experience.

Abbott never spells out exactly why we should feel national pride. I assume on one level he sees it as the basis for unity. Nor does he question whether “pride” is necessarily an outcome of being “the best” or having a “good” history.

But when I talk to my students about the idea that we should judge our history as either “good” or “bad”, they are quick to challenge this approach. They see historical processes such as imperialism as complex, with diverse outcomes and perspectives.

For some of us, confronting our unequal past is no cause for shame or pessimism. On the contrary, truth telling and recognition of diverse views seem necessary for a united future.

Jane Lydon receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

‘Wog’ humour, tense US politics and real-world monsters: what to watch in November

2025-11-02T18:59:41Z

Netflix, 10play

As the year begins to wind down, and the days grow longer, our critics have a fresh slate of films and series to keep you glued to your screen.

This month’s streaming picks include a 90s “filmic time capsule”, some tense US political drama (refreshingly set in a non-Trumpian America), and the harrowing real-life story of child sex abuse at a Jewish school in Melbourne. There’s also some sharp, tender animation from the creator of Bojack Horseman.

Whether you’re chasing comfort, catharsis or a good cliffhanger, November’s streaming picks are sure to delight.

Surviving Malka Leifer

Stan

Surviving Malka Leifer, directed by Adam Kamien, centres the survivors of Leifer’s abuse. Sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper reveal their trauma and claim their power through this film.

The sisters are interviewed alone and together and we see their video diaries. While the sisters recount their abuse, we are often taken into a constructed dollhouse, classroom and courtroom where the sisters are represented as tiny dolls. A spider moves about these constructed rooms – it appears enormous relative to the dolls.

Alongside Freya Berkhout’s haunting original music and the raw accounts of the documentary subjects, these devices heighten the sense of risk and vulnerability in the film. As we follow the chronology of the sisters’ campaign to bring Leifer to Australia, we become ever more engaged in their rising panic about whether she will face justice.

We learn about the sisters’ psychological torment, to the point of suicidality and hospitalisation. The delay in justice is central to the film’s narrative. The sisters’ trauma was compounded over their many years of campaigning and waiting.

Surviving Malka Leifer tells several important stories. We see how the perceived interests of an insular religious community are prioritised over the victims of sexual abuse. We see how legal processes, especially when protracted, re-traumatise victims and maintain their vulnerability as abusers pose counter-narratives before courts.

We also see three women who have persisted through unimaginable trauma in their campaign for justice. Their courage is breathtaking.

– Amy Maguire

The Diplomat, season three

Netflix

Season three of The Diplomat is back, with romance and comedy wrapped up in high politics. Star of the show, Keri Russell, is the United States ambassador in London and a possible candidate for the vice presidency. Instead she ends up as second lady, maintaining a trans-Atlantic marriage with her vice-president husband, the infuriating Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell).

The program is infused with nostalgia for a pre-Trumpian world, symbolised by the ascension of President Grace Penn (Allison Janney) who, like her First Gentleman Todd Penn (Bradley Whitford), also starred in West Wing (1999-2006). That series, with its thoughtful and liberal president, represented a vision of politics which has now largely vanished in the US.

Meanwhile there is growing tension between the US and Britain, whose prime minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear) is a thug without charm. This tension dates back to an attack on a British naval vessel, in which the US was apparently involved. But if the exact reasons for it seem murky, it’s because the show moves at such a fast pace – and we are carried along as it features increasingly improbable romantic entanglements.

The Penn White House remains more attractive than its real-life counterpart. And President Penn doesn’t seem interested in demolishing part of the building.

– Dennis Altman

The Celebrity Traitors UK

ThreeNow (New Zealand) and 10 Play (Australia)

The British didn’t do The Traitors first, but they definitely do it the best. The reality show pits traitors against faithful in a social deduction game built on bluffs, double bluffs, “murders” and banishments – with a stack of money awaiting the winners.

The latest season, technically a spin-off, stars UK celebrities – and it’s really bloody good. As usual, there’s dramatic footage of the Scottish Highlands, the looming Adross castle, many extremely camp cutaways, some outrageous and well-produced outdoor missions, and host Claudia Winkleman stalking around in impeccable knitwear, whispering threats and encouragements in equal measure.

The winnings (apart from bragging rights) go to charity. Kudos to the casting director; this season’s lineup features national treasures such as Sir Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross (dubbed the “big dogs” early on), as well as sporting stars, actors, singers, comedians, presenters and Gen Z celebs. They’re all thrown into scenarios that cut through carefully curated personas.

The season particularly excels at juxtaposing the gothic with absurdity. Where else would beloved actress Celia Imrie be caught out loudly stress-farting before a particularly gross challenge? It also plays with preexisting friendships and professional relationships in a sly fashion, as the cast struggle to play as strategically as “civilian” casts usually do.

You might tear your hair out at some people’s ability (or lack of) to figure out the show’s deceptions, but it all makes for impeccable viewing for old fans and newbies alike.

– Erin Harrington

Son of a Donkey

Netflix

Son of A Donkey, from the comedy duo Superwog (brothers Theodore and Nathan Saidden), tells the epic tale of Theo, his best friend Johnny, and Theo’s unnamed parents as Theo attempts to buy back his impounded car and to resolve his daddy issues once and for all.

Superwog are part of the third wave of wog humour. Here, their skewering of the vagaries of modern life leans more to the carnival of Pizza (2000–07) than the cosmopolitan ethos of Acropolis Now (1989–92). But the juxtaposition of classical music against some of the show’s more ridiculous scenes serves as a sly wink to its audience.

Its satire of an Epstein-esque sex island, conspiracy theorists, Jordan Peterson and the manosphere is at once ludicrous and needle-sharp. Even as they sink into a misogynist rabbit-hole, Johnny’s grandma is there to remind them who really is the boss in the ethnic family.

The main challenge for the Saidden brothers is to move from the disconnected episodic approach of Superwog to a cohesive narrative arc for Son of A Donkey. In this, they largely succeed, progressing the overarching story incrementally across the six episodes even as each has their own micro-misadventure.

Ultimately – despite flying shoes and rancid food – wog blood is thicker than water.

– Jess Carniel

Monster: The Ed Gein Story

Netflix

The Ed Gein Story is the third season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series, Monster, an examination of violent killers at the centre of some of America’s most shocking crimes. This latest instalment follows the life and crimes of one of the most culturally impactful serial killers of the 20th century – a man who inspired the films Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Perhaps most surprising, then, given Gein’s reputation, is the sensitivity and empathy shown to him in Murphy’s portrayal. In Monster, Gein is abused, downtrodden, soft-spoken, lonely and easily confused. His killings are (largely) unplanned – the result of bursts of anger. His desecration and mutilation of corpses is suggested to be a simultaneous function of his desire to bring his much-missed mother back to life, and to experiment with his own gender identity.

Murphy’s depiction is not limited to a reenactment of Gein’s crimes. It also looks at his influence on popular culture, via other serial killers who emulate his actions, as well as big-screen adaptations by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock.

But ultimately, as Monster would have it, it is we who are responsible for Gein’s celebrity. As Gein himself tells the viewer: “you’re the one who can’t look away”.

– Jessica Gildersleeve

Mother and Son, season two

ABC iView

Season two of Mother and Son, a beautiful remake of the original 1980s–90s Australian sitcom, is just as strong as the first. And luckily, viewers don’t need to have seen the original show in order to enjoy it. The latest season features significant character development, as well as some delightful gender and genre gear shifts that make for cutting-edge situational comedy.

There is not one weak link in the ensemble cast. Denise Scott, who plays the mother, Maggie, and Matt Okine, who plays her son Arthur, are one of the best pairings in recent comedy history. They are supported the most by Angela Nica Sullen, the “golden child” Robbie, and the lovely alternative parent/adult child pairing of Tony and Maya, played respectively by Ferdinand Hoang and Catherine Van-Davies.

The tension between comedy and accessibility – especially the looming “D word” (dementia) for Maggie, and Arthur’s social isolation – makes the story arc of each episode and the overall season quite compelling.

This season is a collection of dark, funny and thoughtful moments. And the stunning cameos from Jean Kittson and Virginia Gray are wonderful easter eggs for those with a deeper knowledge of Australian comedy.

– Liz Giuffre

House of Dynamite

Netflix

It’s Dr. Strangelove meets Rashomon in Kathryn Bigelow’s House of Dynamite. The film has blasted onto Netflix with 22.1 million views in the first three days.

It details the 39-minute countdown until a nuclear missile hits America’s mainland. The Pentagon has taken issue with the film over its claim that America’s missile defence system isn’t perfect, whereas screenwriter Noah Oppenheim stands by his research for the film. Oppenheim is, however, “glad” the Pentagon watched it – “or is watching and is paying attention to it, because this is exactly the conversation we want to have”.

The ensemble cast is stacked with Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos, Tracy Letts, Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Greta Lee, Kaitlyn Dever and Jared Harris all having great moments in the tense drama.

House of Dynamite has a Rashomon-style narrative, where the countdown is told three times over with new perspectives each time. In the first segment, Rebecca Ferguson holds a tense conference call where we hear the voices of Greta Lee and Idris Elba, and see Jared Harris and Gabriel Basso via a screen. In later segments, we see this countdown from their perspectives.

Some may find the handheld camera distracting, and the ending frustrating, but the film is nonetheless intense, with Bigelow never letting up the pressure. With its apolitical, hard-working staffers, it feels very at odds with the contemporary political climate. This seems a deliberate choice from Bigelow.

In the moment, several players realise that while they know they need to focus on their jobs, they have loved ones in the target city. Do they stop what they are doing and tell them they only have minutes left to live?

– Stuart Richards

Disclosure

Netflix

There is almost an unwritten rule that every great 1990s thriller must have Michael Douglas playing the scandal-prone leading man. Douglas doesn’t disappoint in Disclosure (1994). He pays Tom Sanders, a middle manager at the DigiCom computer company who is falsely accused of sexual harassment. Demi Moore is also at the height of her star power here playing Meredith Johnson, the young, predatory career woman who lies and cheats her way to the top.

However, it’s Donald Sutherland who really steals the show as Bob Garvin, the power-hungry director who gets a sadistic thrill from playing favourites among the staff, and promoting his sexy, surrogate “daughter” Meredith above more senior and meritorious colleagues.

There are many guilty pleasures in this 90s filmic time capsule. First, there is the nostalgic amusement of watching clunky, outdated technologies (answering machines! CD-ROMS!) being presented as contemporary or even cutting-edge. The film also features a deliciously melodramatic soundtrack and other neo-noir elements. The first image we have of Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore), for example, is a close shot of her black, killer high heels. When the camera pans up to her blood red lips and defiant stare, we are reminded of the old sexist stereotype of the manipulative “vamp”.

Like many other erotic thrillers of the 1990s (think Fatal Attraction) Disclosure offers the politically-conservative reaction against female power that feminist Susan Faludi famously described as the “backlash”. The film is certainly dated in its sexual politics. On the other hand, its subplot about economic recession, redundancies, ruined careers, competition and corruption remain relevant and very entertaining.

– Susan Hopkins

Long Story Short, season one

Netflix

Long Story Short is a quirky adult animation that oozes charm and heartfelt realness. The series centres on podcast scriptwriter and playlist creator, Avi Schwooper, a character based somewhat on the lived experiences of creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the mind behind BoJack Horseman (2014–2020).

In this first season, Long Story Short explores Avi’s everyday existence in California, negotiating his complex attachments to his parents, siblings, ex-wife, daughter, and his Jewish faith.

Episodes jump between various decades and generations up to the 2020s and routinely grapple with the absurd. Episode 6 (“Wolves”) satirises the public education system in the US via a bizarre lockdown situation, which occurs when wolves start roaming the halls of the middle school Avi’s daughter, Hannah, attends.

Episode 3 (“There’s a Mattress in There”) also stands out as affecting. It focuses on Avi’s neurodivergent brother, Yoshi, on a quest to prove himself equal to his siblings, only to be undone by unscrupulous capitalists.

Visually speaking, the series has a groovy colour palette reminiscent of vintage storybooks, and a distinctive hand-drawn aesthetic. Each figure is both exaggerated yet realistic in a way that avoids slipping into caricature thanks to the influence of designer and supervising producer Lisa Hanawalt.

There are some strong, resonant themes around family, memory, selfhood and generational continuity. It is funny, yet achingly sad – a bit like life, really.

– Phoebe Hart

Amy Maguire receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jess Carniel received funding from the Army History Unit for her research into wog history.

Dennis Altman, Erin Harrington, Jessica Gildersleeve, Liz Giuffre, Phoebe Hart, Stuart Richards, and Susan Hopkins do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A stage adaptation of Dying: A Memoir asks the big questions about death – but ends up strangely unmoving

2025-10-31T03:12:58Z

Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

What makes a good death? Quietly surrounded by friends and family or going out in a flash of blazing glory (whatever that means)?

Would you like to know when you’re going to die?

Will knowing when you die help you to appreciate all the small finalities – the last time you drive a car, the last touch of grass on your fingertips, the last time you feel your partner’s breath on your cheek, a final kiss on the lips?

Or do these small closures matter at all when looking backwards is a distraction from “the great unknown” that lies ahead?

Do you deserve the right to choose when you die?

Author Cory Taylor was confronted with these questions when diagnosed with melanoma after a biopsy of a mole on the back of her right leg. She was just about to turn 50.

Death in modern Western society exists in a peculiar limbo – simultaneously sanitised and sensationalised. We’ve outsourced dying to hospitals, nursing homes and palliative care units, creating physical and emotional distance that leaves too many people unprepared for when loss arrives.

In her 2016 book Dying: A Memoir, published just months before her death, Taylor writes:

For this is one of the most lamentable consequences of our reluctance to talk about death. We have lost our common rituals and our common language for dying, and must either improvise, or fall back on traditions about which we feel deeply ambivalent.

Taylor exposes the cost of our cultural avoidance: by refusing to engage meaningfully with mortality, Western society has left individuals to face death’s deepest questions in isolation.

Playwright Benjamin Law brings Dying: A Memoir to the stage in a one-woman show starring Genevieve Morris, directed by Jean Tong for Melbourne Theatre Company.

Immediate intimacy

Morris gives a commanding performance. She brings a formidable presence to her portrayal of Taylor and fluidly inhabits a range of characters in Taylor’s world: doctors, siblings and acquaintances connected to Exit International, a support and advocacy group for voluntary euthanasia.

Tong’s direction creates immediate intimacy with the audience. Morris begins out of character, gently acknowledging the difficulty of discussing death while honouring Taylor, before the performance proper begins. This connection with her audience is strengthened across the show.

Set and costume design (James Lew), lighting design (Rachel Lee) and sound design (Darius Kedros) all function to support Morris’ delivery, its constant movement and fluidity.

James Lew’s set design features red theatre chairs which are rearranged into various configurations. Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

Red theatre chairs on wheels form the main set piece, which Morris rearranges into various configurations. The surrounding black walls feature small reveals and cracks of light that reflect thematic shifts.

The sound design anchors each scene with precision: the hum of a doctor’s waiting room, the noise and clatter of a restaurant, the clinical quiet of a psychologist’s office. Mostly understated, it punctuates key moments with purposeful intensity, working to mark emotional shifts.

Oppressive lighting pervades the production, its unrelenting bleakness mirroring the subject matter too literally. The lack of variation or contrast flattens what could be a more visually complex exploration of its themes.

Evading the emotionally complex

Law’s persistent examination of the end of Taylor’s life within his adaptation reveals an evasion of the book’s more emotionally complex and spiritually challenging entanglements.

Taylor’s memoir spans three interconnected acts; Law’s adaptation fixates primarily on the first, circling questions about euthanasia and the right to a “good death” in ways that lean into and recapitulate parts of popular debate.

Acts two and three of Taylor’s memoir overflow with childhood recollections – vivid, nostalgic landscapes painted through thick descriptive prose and family memory. These sections reflect closely the relationship with her mother and father, giving rise to questions of: where do we come from? What is home? How are we formed and by who?

Taylor’s memoir spans three interconnected acts; Law’s adaptation fixates primarily on the first. Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company

This complex and poetic examination of life is excised from Law’s play. But, for his part, he manages to embed his signature biting wit while telling Taylor’s story.

On the frustrations of managing one’s final affairs, and specifically password retrieval, Morris turns to the audience and flatly delivers the line: “If cancer doesn’t kill me, two factor authentication will.”

The situation with an over-enthusiastic therapist is described as a “government-subsidized hostage situation”.

These moments of searing humour help make the story feel fresh and grounded.

However, Law chooses didacticism to end the play as Morris steps out of character again. The choice drains the production of Taylor’s sharp intelligence and emotional depth, leaving the audience instructed rather than stirred. Despite a chorus of sniffles amongst the audience, the ending is strangely unmoving.

It avoids the mess and the grit that fascinates Taylor in composing her memoir. She quotes T.S. Eliot:

In my beginning is my end
Old fires to ash, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf

The kind of raw and unflinching acceptance of death’s physical reality that inspired Taylor is upended in favour of what is, sadly, a little too sterile and neat.

Dying: A Memoir is at Melbourne Theatre Company until November 29.

Jonathan Graffam-O’Meara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Spiders inspired biologists to create artificial webs to capture airborne DNA for biodiversity monitoring

2025-10-31T01:03:05Z

Getty Images

The global crisis of diminishing biological diversity is challenging our current ability to monitor changes in ecosystems.

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, has become a popular method. It involves taking a sample from the environment and extracting the DNA to document the species that are (or were recently) present.

Just like matching barcodes to an item’s price at the supermarket, eDNA data are matched to a corresponding identification record in a reference database.

But most eDNA sampling takes place in water, passing litres of liquid through a filter that retains DNA fragments for analysis. This method works very well for freshwater and marine species, but less so on land.

Enter airborne DNA, or airDNA, an emerging method not yet optimised for widespread commercial applications but with great promise for capturing signals of land-based biodiversity.

Researchers have been exploring the question of whether natural spiderwebs could be used to collect DNA, but our research takes this a step further.

Artificial spiderwebs are as good as natural spiderwebs at capturing DNA from the air. Authors provided, CC BY-ND

Inspired by a bit of Halloween decoration, we designed artificial spiderwebs to see if they are as good as the real thing in capturing airborne DNA. Our data show artificial spiderwebs performed similarly to real spiderwebs in detecting land-dwelling species.

History of DNA capture

eDNA has been used to monitor changes in biodiversity, detect new species and evaluate the success of restoration or eradication projects. It is easy to use, cheap and non-invasive, and is now being deployed by citizen scientists, community groups and mana whenua.

But species living mostly on land – mammals, birds, bats, reptiles, insects – are less well detected by this method.

One of the first studies to showcase the potential of methods to analyse airborne DNA vacuumed air at a zoological park in Huntingdonshire (United Kingdom). It picked up DNA from 17 of the resident land species, including black and white lemurs, howler monkeys, sloths and tigers, as well as their food items and other mammals and birds.

This stimulated further research, including into the use of cheaper, passive methods of airDNA collection that rely on the settling of air onto inert biofilters. A recent study explored whether natural spiderwebs might provide a new way to capture traces of vertebrate DNA from the environment.

This work sparked excitement among researchers, who immediately saw the potential of spiderwebs to provide aerosol DNA alongside DNA derived from the spiders themselves and their recent prey.

We shared the general excitement of our colleagues but couldn’t help but wonder about the potential negative impacts of this methods’ widespread use on spiders. Spiders are already on the receiving end of bad press, but they have important roles in the ecosystem as nature’s pest and disease control agents. They eat about 800 million tonnes of insects annually across the globe.

Using natural webs is also less robust, as their size and shape, and how long and where they are deployed, are left to chance.

How do artificial webs perform?

In comparison to water eDNA methods, both types of spiderwebs in our research revealed a distinct signature of terrestrial communities. But they were also good biofilters for capturing fungi, possibly by trapping floating fungal spores.

The ecosystem picture drawn from both types of webs compared to water eDNA also shows these methods are likely complementary, capturing a more complete catalogue of species in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.

This is great news: artificial spiderwebs are easy and cheap to construct and provide better control over location, frequency and duration of DNA collection – all at a reduced cost to nature.

Where to from here? Further refinements are on the way. Outstanding questions include how many artificial spiderwebs we need to sufficiently capture biodiversity, whether these webs will perform better or worse in windy or wet conditions, and whether other materials besides Halloween decorations could provide an even better artificial web.

As we continue to explore such questions, perhaps nature’s weavers will provide further inspiration that helps us fashion even better biomechanic solutions for measuring biodiversity.

Ang McGaughran has received funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand, from the MBIE Smart Ideas funding programme, and from Genomics Aotearoa.

Manpreet K Dhami receives funding from the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (Smart Ideas, Endeavour, SSIF, Envirolink), the Royal Society of New Zealand (Marsden, Mana Tuanuku Research Leader Fellowship, Catalyst), National Science Challenge BioHeritage and Genomics Aotearoa.

Friday essay: Jon Faine on why our social cohesion should not be taken for granted

2025-10-30T19:10:13Z

Social cohesion is in decline. This has become a common refrain, along with despair about a crisis in our democracy. Yet amid the platitudes and wishful thinking about reversing that trend, there is a glaring absence of strategy or urgency.

At different stages of our history, social cohesion has meant different things. It is an elastic term. Today, it is built on values of inclusion, harmony, respect, equality, fairness and, particularly, multiculturalism. But it has not always been thus.

There was a time not so long ago when maintaining the White Australia policy was claimed to be essential to maintain social cohesion. What was then widely accepted as Australia’s “natural” order was threatened by anyone with dark skin or Asian heritage.

Today it is the reverse: the threat to social cohesion comes from neo-Nazis targeting Asians, First Nations and other dark-skinned people. So let us not be oblivious to how value-laden the term is.

Australia has seen racism since Captain Cook stepped ashore. We would be naive to think it will not continue to show its ugly side.

When white settlers first arrived, whether in chains or not, hostility to Indigenous people was unexceptional: they were regarded as savages and dismissed as a dying race. When free settlers started to arrive, the English colonists made life tough for the Scots, who were fleeing the clearance of the Highlands by absentee landlords. Then the English and Scots together were unhappy about the arrival of large numbers of Irish – survivors of the potato famine.

Then they all banded together against Chinese gold miners. Then the same happened to every other wave of migrants or refugees – persecuted Lutherans, Jews from displaced persons camps after the Holocaust, then the Italians, Greeks, Turks, Vietnamese, Lebanese, and so on, through to today’s punching bag, people from Africa.

We cannot wish racism away. But neither should we shrug, accept it, and minimise the instances and impact of it

A healthy scepticism

While calling for urgency, and avoiding complacency, let us maintain a healthy scepticism about some of the wilder predictions of the imminent collapse of our political and social fabric.

Confident assertions of democratic disenchantment, of democracy being replaced in the wealthy West with some form of authoritarianism or dictatorship seem hysterical.

There is a bookshelf full of recent government reviews, departmental reports, commissions of inquiry, anxious submissions, newspaper opinion pieces and occasionally rabid radio and television commentary bemoaning a decline in social cohesion.

Covid and years of disruption have stressed our community economically, politically and socially. Globalisation and the uneven distribution of wealth, in particular inter-generational inequality, are stubborn challenges that governments struggle to solve.

The barbaric Hamas attacks on Israel two years ago, the resultant Gaza war, the appalling number of civilian casualties and displacement of the Palestinian people have triggered huge and persistent protests that have stress-tested communities here and around the world. May the fragile peace agreement be sustained.

These are not just economic and political challenges, but emotionally complex trials for many of us. They require deep understanding, and a willingness and capacity to balance competing interests and rights.

Sadly, nuance is often lost in this age of performative politics. Bumper-sticker slogans replace meaningful debate, resulting in rapidly growing polarisation.

We have had episodic polarisation before – the Vietnam War era in particular, and the division in 1951 when Robert Menzies tried to outlaw communism.

But Australia has been, and continues to be, remarkably resilient. We score highly on every measure of livability, accountability, democratic functionality and multiculturalism. Our social fabric, while far from perfect, ought to be recognised for what has been achieved. It should not be underappreciated.

Overdue maintenance

The fragile machinery of democracy needs some long overdue maintenance, some lubrication to keep the social compact moving. Social cohesion needs a makeover.

Opponents of multiculturalism gleefully pounce on any sign of stress or tension, any evidence at all of wrongdoing by “ethnics”, to claim that migration and multiculturalism are failed projects to be abandoned, consigned to history.

It is absurd to claim that multiculturalism as a policy is failing. Just look around any town or city in Australia today – any school, creative or cultural organisation, sporting code or contest or public or private sector workplace – and the reality of a remarkably cohesive Australia is on show.

But that narrative of negativity about the supposed failings of multiculturalism could become self-fulfilling. Some of the criticism is designed to trigger a loss of confidence. The more we wallow in pessimism, the more likely it will infect the public square.

The worst attacks on our social fabric have been shown to be orchestrated, contrived – deliberately staged – to unsettle and stress test our society. Russian intelligence interests have been proven to have interfered with free elections throughout the European Union, in former Soviet satellite states, their neighbours and even, notoriously, in the United States.

Iranian intelligence agencies hired petty criminals to commit the fire bombing of a synagogue in Melbourne and to also stage multiple antisemitic attacks in Sydney. The same happened in France, Canada and elsewhere.

Cyber-attacks traced to North Korea, China’s proxy, have targeted many nations and businesses, across the globe. Leading intelligence agencies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Australia caution that we are in an undeclared war.

Sir David Omand, former UK security and counter-terrorism chief, writing in The Economist warned that strengthening

social cohesion in the face of extremist violence is not only a noble aspiration but a security imperative. If communities feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods, if children have to hide in synagogues or mosques in terror, if worshippers are murdered at prayer, the social contract is seen to fracture. The very possibility of living together in mutual respect is called into question.

These bad actors – corrupt autocrats and dictators – want to undermine the Western democratic project for several concurrent reasons. They aim to weaken the West economically, strategically and culturally. They want to preserve their own privilege and massive wealth, and they also want to suppress internal activism for democratic reform.

The democracy vandals amplify contrived troubles in the wealthy West to assure their own citizens agitating for democratic change that, in the West, we live in fear and chaos. I recommend Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run The World by Anne Applebaum.

Much of our democratic backsliding is thus not a coincidence. It is not home grown, nor is it evidence of widespread grassroots rebellion. It is manipulated and orchestrated.

Neo-Nazis marching down Melbourne streets in the early hours of the morning and then attacking a First Nations camp are undoubtedly getting some outside tutelage. A few fringe cosplay fascists have popped up from time to time for years, but their sudden visibility and growth suggests to me that they are getting external funding and support.

The fascists who organised last year’s riots in the UK were not working in isolation. The inquiry after the riots established many details. Police were attacked, buildings and vehicles were burned, graves desecrated, a hotel where asylum seekers were being housed was torched with people inside. Ugly mobs churned through multiple cities at the same time. 1,280 people were arrested and 796 were charged. Of the 94 rioters arrested in connection with the hotel riot, 80 had prior convictions and 20% were under 18, recruited and targeted through social media.

Their self-appointed leader, with the stage name “Tommy Robinson”, is a serial offender called Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He has a rap sheet of violent assault, fraud, using a fake passport and contempt of court. Despite that, he is supported by Elon Musk, the richest person in the world.

Tommy Robinson and his supporters are wholesale peddlers of conspiracy theories on social media. They have exploited the dropping of guard rails by the tech barons – who did so at the behest of no less a figure than the president of the US, no stranger to inciting a riot himself.

We know that social media thrives on conflict and polarisation. Conspiracy theories and misinformation are weaponised to achieve political and commercial ends. Amplifying outrage is a tactic, a strategy, and it means that small numbers of supporters appear to be a bigger threat to our social cohesion than they actually are.

Decisions by social media platforms to reduce moderation have increased their capacity to promote the extremism of both the left and right. The extremists need each other – violence at one extreme justifies violence at the other.

Balance and fact-checking are no match for mis- and disinformation. It is an ancient adage in journalism that “a lie has gone around the world before the truth gets out of bed”. Online hate speech inciting racism is largely unregulated. Resolving how to do so and to make the AI revolution serve humanity, and not just the tech titans, is the battle that will define our times.

The platform operators, who have amassed the greatest fortunes in the history of capitalism, laughably say they cannot afford to monitor or regulate their own products to make them safe.

Imagine if Ford or General Motors said they can’t be expected to be responsible for making cars safe, but instead it is individual drivers who should be responsible for vehicle safety. Or if food suppliers said they had no role in preventing poisoning, instead it is up to consumers to be wary of what they buy and eat.

Unarguably, those who have been enriched beyond even their wildest dreams by the new tech simply must be forced to make their platforms safe.

Less talk, more action

But I am wandering from my topic. Having cautioned against all this doom and gloom, and having described a scenario that is almost dystopian, there is still cause for optimism. Why? Because social cohesion is kryptonite to bad actors. We are resilient and will continue to be so.

Adjust the frame to see it through an economic lens. A federal government inquiry in 2024, Strengthening Australian Democracy, described social cohesion as a national asset. So why do we spend so little effort – and money – in protecting it?

Capital needs trust – trust in the rule of law, democratic elections and domestic harmony. French economist Thomas Piketty – who writes books many of us buy but hardly anyone reads – has earned global recognition for explaining this, and also explaining how the strongest economies are the most equal, how democracy and social cohesion are bolstered by lower inequality.

We laud those who invest in economic or engineering infrastructure, or who punt billions on new technology, or an innovative business model. But we do not do nearly enough to protect what underpins it all – social cohesion.

Instead of more hand wringing, what should we do about it? Less talk, more action. Here are some fundamentals.

If you want respect, you also must give respect. If you expect someone to listen to you, you have to listen to them.

It is easy to hate someone if you never meet them. It is difficult to maintain prejudice against people once you break bread.

The best way to fight an idea is with better ideas, not censorship. The best way to win an argument is with a better argument, not to cancel someone.

It is as futile to merely dictate that “social cohesion must improve”, as it is to demand that people stop committing crimes, or lose weight. It is a fraud on the populace to present the challenge as being simple. It requires nuance, funding and, more than anything else, leadership, not platitudes and sound bites.

To restore the public square and the capacity to respectfully disagree – to steer people away from the extremes – it is vital to avoid hollowing out of the centre.

Some practical suggestions

Here are a few practical suggestions, achievable and sustainable.

Banish the use of “tolerance” from the lingo of multiculturalism. I don’t want anyone to say they tolerate me. It’s like saying, through gritted teeth, “I’ll hold my nose and somehow manage to put up with you” – a kind of backhander. More significantly, it betrays an attitude of cultural superiority: “My mob will tolerate you, on our terms.” Instead, can we be respectful and inclusive.

We also need to be honest that the politics of multiculturalism has often become a contest between ethnic power blocs over who gets a dollop of taxpayer money shovelled their way – often to buttress ethnic votes in marginal electorates. Social cohesion is not improved by cynical power brokers treating ethnicity as a branch-stacking weapon against their factional enemies and political opponents.

Next, stop fragmenting the battle against racism. In 2024, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese appointed both an antisemitism and an Islamophobia envoy. It backfired. Elevating those two hatreds above all others is counterproductive and increases division instead of bringing everyone closer together. Instead, simply give the existing bodies like the Australian Human Rights Commission the funds to better perform what is already their job – the urgent task of tackling entrenched racism.

April 2024 saw the release of a federal government Multiculturalism Framework Review, with 29 recommendations. It sank without trace, even though we have the most diverse parliament in our history. Almost nobody outside of the multicultural elite took any notice whatsoever. I suspect the government was quietly pleased.

What we need is a social cohesion strategy, adopted by national, state and local governments, working together to re-imagine what we can be. Such a strategy will invest in strengthening engagement, countering isolation and breaking down barriers to inter-communal activities wherever they are. It should be seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of our daily life, for city and rural communities, inner and outer suburbs, not just the already multicultural active.

Instead of talking about the need for greater cohesion, we need to do things that are more cohesive in their essence. This is no less important than a housing strategy, a “red tape” strategy, a health strategy, or any other area of civic life.

Research commissioned by the Australian Bicentennial Authority nearly 40 years ago found that of all the indicators measuring strength in a democracy, the strongest democracies globally also have the highest number of choirs. A choir is the very embodiment of cooperation between disparate individuals. If you do not work together, it sounds something like the Collingwood cheer squad.

I am not suggesting compulsory choir attendance, but it is instructive. Small grants can subsidise community music festivals, food festivals, grassroots sport, street parties, school events ranging from fetes to excursions. Governments should offer underwriting of insurance and other compliance costs that have become insurmountable barriers. State government insurers should underwrite the risks to save small community groups huge costs and bureaucracy.

Volunteers need tax concessions as incentives, to offset the actual cost of volunteering. Transport, uniforms, training are all barriers that lead to a decline in participation.

We must better use school and church infrastructure after hours as active community hubs, integrated with community houses and men’s sheds, among others. Tax exempt and government assisted private schools and religious institutions must open their gates to the wider community. We who contribute to their funding are shut out of their sometimes extravagant facilities. This is their social licence at work.

Even small and easy programs like first-aid training, English language classes for those newly arrived, homework clubs where retirees assist struggling students with their learning, RUOK days, new parent groups offering support at such a stressful time – so many good initiatives, more common in small country towns, have withered in our suburbs.

Tellingly, this is already happening overseas. In the US, grassroots community organisations are mobilising as a countermeasure to the crisis in their democracy.

A poll in 2021 found that only 20% of young Japanese agree that society can be changed by their own actions. Voter turnout for under 20s in the last election was 10% lower than the overall voter turnout. Similar disconnection was seen in the UK.

Polling on campuses in the US reveals a growing belief that it is ok to use violence to stop someone expressing an opinion you do not agree with. It is beyond polarisation when disagreement is equated with evil. When everything is performative, pushed to extremes, threats and then violence can be normalised.

We do not need to reinvent the wheel. Look at Irish citizen assemblies, and how citizens in Portugal, Finland and Taiwan are localising again, decentralising and innovating in the ways their political class engage with their citizens.

Local government, once a vital organ for community building, is now struggling with rate caps and cost blowouts. It is always easier for them to cut community programs, rather than chop direct service delivery of child care, meals for the elderly or disability services.

Progressives should also swallow hard and embrace patriotism. Not a jingoistic version, but an authentic pride in our contemporary national project. There is no contradiction between patriotism and diversity. We must deprive the ultra nationalist proto-fascists of their claim to a monopoly on a love of country.

Some of those most passionately protective of the modern project of contemporary Australia are the newly arrived. Anyone who has been to a citizenship ceremony will know how profoundly emotional a day it is. To let the ultra-nationalist racist right characterise the people we used to call “new Australians” as aliens is to surrender the terms of the argument. It denies the reality of daily life and entrenches a “them” and “us” duality that is an absolute fiction.

Forging a shared identity that celebrates diversity is the only reality for contemporary Australia. We are one, but we are many. This is not new, but progressives must lose the cringe, the embarrassment about patriotism.

In a Gallup Poll in 1958, just 4% of Americans approved of mixed-race marriages. The figure today is over 90%. Attitudes can change, but sometimes it takes longer than we want. We can improve our social cohesion, with strong leadership and a clear vision based on shared values.

Change does not just happen automatically; progress is not inevitable. It happens because we make it happen. We all have a part to play.

This is an edited version of a keynote speech given at the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute Social Cohesion Summit In October.

Jon Faine is a member of the Board of Museums Victoria which includes Melbourne Immigration Museum in its portfolio. Being a director of Museums Victoria is a voluntary position, appointed by the state government.

How a ‘sewer socialism’ revival could see Zohran Mamdani become New York’s next mayor

2025-10-28T18:02:41Z

Andres Kudacki/Getty Images

Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani looks increasingly like the one to beat at next week’s election. But he is up against more than the usual political challenges.

US President Donald Trump has referred to him as “my little communist” and called his nomination “a rebellion”. More recently there have been calls for Mamdani’s citizenship to be investigated.

Born in Uganda, and the first Muslim nominee for mayor of the biggest city in the US, the 34-year-old Mamdani is an obvious target. But it is his stance as a democratic socialist that has really invited the old-school “red-baiting”, aimed at discrediting him by invoking Cold War anxieties.

In fact, Mamdani’s approach to democratic socialism is less about an abstract political ideology than it is about practical solutions. As he has put it:

We want to showcase our ideals, not by lecturing people about how correct we are, but rather by delivering and letting that delivery be the argument itself.

Because of this, he has also been described as an heir to the historical tradition of “sewer socialism”, a brand of left-wing thinking that favoured incremental, practical reform over revolutionary rhetoric.

Delivering tangible results

Despite the long history of anticommunism in the United States, Milwaukee in Wisconsin was the nation’s socialist capital for decades.

A succession of socialist mayors focused on delivering basic services to the people of the city. Socialist candidates dominated city politics there for 50 years, from 1910 to 1960. It was the most successful political achievement for socialism in US history, largely because it appealed to the mainly German immigrant population.

The term “sewer socialist” was actually first used derisively by Morris Hillquit, national chairman of the Socialist Party, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of New York several times.

At the 1932 party convention in Milwaukee, Hillquit was almost replaced as leader by local mayor Daniel Hoan. Mayor from 1916 to 1940, Hoan was justifiably proud of the city-owned sewer system. But he also established one of the first public bus systems in America, and built the country’s first public housing project.

This repeated success in city politics – despite the national opposition to socialism and Hillquitt’s “sewer socialist” slight – was built on delivering tangible results to the voters.

And it’s that approach that is seeing sewer socialism making a comeback in city politics today, as urban dwellers face an affordability crisis and declining quality of life.

Mamdani is not the only millennial socialist candidate running for mayor.

In Seattle, over on the US west coast, 43-year-old Katie Wilson is a strong contender in a tight race with the incumbent mayor, 67-year-old Bruce Harell. Wilson is the founder of the local Transit Riders Union and has expanded her progressive activism to social housing, public safety and homelessness.

She doesn’t see the socialist label as a major issue on the campaign:

I’m a socialist. I’m fine being called a democratic socialist […] We’re in a moment where most people don’t care that much. People are not that hung up on labels and want to see results on issues that affect their daily lives.

Beautiful, contradictory, unfinished

Like Wilson, Mamdani lacks the experience of his opponent, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (67).

Cuomo played on this in the final debate of the campaign, telling the young challenger, “the issue is your lack of experience”.

Mamdani replied that his opponents “speak only in the past because that is all they know”.

Perhaps inevitably, some are saying Mamdani’s ability to connect with voters not only promises to deliver an improved quality of city life, but may also make him a viable presidential candidate who could “save” the Democratic Party in 2028.

Speaking on the 4th of July, Mamdani said: “America is beautiful, contradictory, unfinished, I am proud of our country even as we constantly strive to make it better.”

Vice President JD Vance responded the next day: “There is no gratitude here […] We should demand that our people, whether first or tenth generation Americans, have gratitude for this country.”

Intended as an insult, Vance also accurately described Mamdani’s surprise win in the primary: “Last week, a 33-year-old communist running an insurgent campaign beat a multi-million-dollar establishment machine…”.

But it might have been Fiorello La Guardia, mayor of New York during the Depression, who best described how such a turnaround could have happened: “There is no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage.”

In other words, basic municipal services don’t depend on party politics. And if neither major party cares enough about those essential quality of life issues to actually deliver, maybe a younger “sewer socialist” will be the one to pick up the trash.

Garritt C. Van Dyk has received funding from the Getty Research Institute.

New discovery reveals chimpanzees in Uganda use flying insects to tend their wounds

2025-10-27T14:29:31Z

Animals respond to injury in many ways. So far, evidence for animals tending wounds with biologically active materials is rare. Yet, a recent study of an orangutan treating a wound with a medicinal plant provides a promising lead.

Chimpanzees, for example, are known to lick their wounds and sometimes press leaves onto them, but these behaviours are still only partly understood. We still do not know how often these actions occur, whether they are deliberate, or how inventive chimpanzees can be when responding to wounds.

Recent field observations in Uganda, east Africa, are now revealing intriguing insights into how these animals cope with wounds.

As a primatologist, I am fascinated by the cognitive and social lives of chimpanzees, and by what sickness-related behaviours can reveal about the evolutionary origins of care and empathy in people. Chimpanzees are among our closest living relatives, and we can learn so much about ourselves through understanding them.

In our research based in Kibale National Park, Uganda, chimpanzees have been seen applying insects to their own open wounds on five occasions, and in one case to another individual.

Behaviours like insect application show that chimpanzees are not passive when wounded. They experiment with their environment, sometimes alone and occasionally with others. While we should not jump too quickly to call this “medicine”, it does show that they are capable of responding to wounds in inventive and sometimes cooperative ways.

Each new insight adds reveals more about chimpanzees, offering glimpses into the shared evolutionary roots of our own responses to injury and caregiving instincts.

First catch your insect

We saw the insect applications by chance while observing and recording their behaviour in the forest, but paid special attention to chimpanzees with open wounds.

Insect application by subadult Damien.

In all observed cases, the sequence of actions seemed deliberate. A chimpanzee caught an unidentified flying insect, immobilised it between lips or fingers, and pressed it directly onto an open wound. The same insect was sometimes reapplied several times, occasionally after being held briefly in the mouth, before being discarded. Other chimpanzees occasionally watched the process closely, seemingly with curiosity.

Most often the behaviour was directed at the chimpanzee’s own open wound. However, in one rare instance, an adolescent female applied an insect to her brother’s wound. A study on the same community has shown that chimpanzees also dab the wounds of unrelated members with leaves, prompting the question of whether insect application of these chimpanzees, too, might extend beyond family members. Acts of care, whether directed towards family or others, can reveal the early foundations of empathy and cooperation.

The observed sequence closely resembles the insect applications seen in Central chimpanzees in Gabon, Africa. The similarity suggests that insect application may represent a more widespread behaviour performed by chimpanzee than previously recognised.

The finding from Kibale National Park broadens our view of how chimpanzees respond to wounds. Rather than leaving wounds unattended, they sometimes act in ways that appear deliberate and targeted.

Chimpanzee first aid?

The obvious question is what function this behaviour might serve. We know that chimpanzees deliberately use plants in ways that can improve their health: swallowing rough leaves that help expel intestinal parasites or chewing bitter shoots with possible anti-parasitic effects.

Insects, however, are a different matter. Pressing insects onto wounds has not yet been shown to speed up healing or reduce infection. Many insects do produce antimicrobial or anti-inflammatory substances, so the possibility is there, but scientific testing is still needed.

For now, what we can say is that the behaviour appears to be targeted, patterned and deliberate. The single case of an insect being applied to another individual is especially intriguing. Chimpanzees are highly social animals, but active helping is relatively rare. Alongside well-known behaviours such as grooming, food sharing, and support in fights, applying an insect to a sibling’s wound hints at another form of care, one that goes beyond maintaining relationships to possibly improving the other’s physical condition.

Big questions

This behaviour leaves us with some big questions. If insect application proves medicative, it could explain why chimpanzees do it. This in turn raises the question of how the behaviour arises in the first place: do chimpanzees learn it by observing others, or does it emerge more spontaneously? From there arises the question of selectivity – are they choosing particular flying insects, and if so, do others in the group learn to select the same ones?

In human traditional medicine (entomotherapy), flying insects such as honeybees and blowflies are valued for their antimicrobial or anti-inflammatory effects. Whether the insects applied by chimpanzees provide similar benefits is still to be investigated.

Finally, if chimpanzees are indeed applying insects with medicinal value and sometimes placing them on the wounds of others, this could represent active helping and even prosocial behaviour. (The term is used to describe behaviours that benefit others rather than the individual performing them.)

Watching chimpanzees in Kibale National Park immobilise a flying insect and gently press it onto an open wound reminds us how much there is still to learn about their abilities. It also adds to the growing evidence that the roots of care and healing behaviours extend much further back in evolutionary time.

If insect applications prove to be medicinal, this adds to the importance of safeguarding chimpanzees and their habitats. In turn, these habitats protect the insects that can contribute to chimpanzee well-being.

Kayla Kolff received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), project number 274877981 (GRK-2185/1: DFG Research Training Group Situated Cognition).

A rushed new maths curriculum doesn’t add up. The right answer is more time

2025-10-26T23:25:03Z

Getty Images

If the recent news of a new mathematics and statistics curriculum for years 0–10 felt familiar, that’s because it was.

In term four last year, the Ministry of Education released a previous new maths (and English) curriculum for Years 0–8, to be implemented from term one this year.

Schools must use the latest new curriculum from term one next year. This will be the third curriculum for primary and intermediate schools in less than three years.

Despite claims that the most recent curriculum is only an “update”, the changes are bigger than teachers might have expected.

The new curriculum is more difficult and more full. There is now a longer list of maths procedures and vocabulary to be memorised at each year of school.

For example, year 3 children should learn there are 366 days in a leap year and that leap years happen every four years. Year 5 students should know what acute, obtuse and reflex angles are.

Some concepts have been moved into earlier years. Year 6 children will learn calculations with rational numbers (such as “75% is 24, find the whole amount”), whereas previously this would have been taught at year 8. (If you’re wondering, the whole amount is 32.)

Cubes and cube roots have been moved a year earlier. A lot of statistics, a traditional area of strength for New Zealand in international tests, has been stripped out.

Much of the “effective maths teaching” material about clearly explaining concepts and planning for challenging problem solving has been removed. Also gone are the “teaching considerations” that helped guide teachers on appropriate ways to teach the content.

The maths children should learn was previously broken up into what they needed to “understand, know and do” – the UKD model. But this has changed to “knowledge” and “practices”.

In short, there are new things to teach, things to teach in different years, and the whole curriculum is harder and structured differently. It is effectively a new curriculum.

Not just a document

Most teachers now have about eight school weeks to plan for the changes, alongside teaching, planning, marking, reporting, pastoral support and extracurricular activities.

For busy schools heading into the end of the school year, the timeline is unrealistic, some say a “nightmare”.

For secondary teachers, who will be making changes in years 9 and 10, this is the first major curriculum change since 2007.

Primary and intermediate teachers, who have worked hard this year getting up to speed with a new curriculum that will soon expire, might legitimately ask why they bothered.

A curriculum change is a big deal in a school, something that normally happens once in a decade or more. A curriculum is not just a document, it is used every day for planning, teaching and assessment. Any change requires more lead time than this.

When England launched a new National Curriculum in 2013, teachers had it 12 months ahead of implementation. Singapore, a country whose education system Education Minister Erica Stanford paints as exemplary, gave teachers two years to prepare for the secondary maths curriculum change in 2020.

Expecting teachers to prepare for major curriculum changes in eight weeks is not only unnecessarily rushed and stressful – it is also a risk to children’s learning.

Time to slow down

Term one next year also marks the implementation of the new “student monitoring, assessment and reporting tool” (SMART) which teachers have not yet seen.

Children in Years 3–10 will take maths tests twice a year and will be described as emerging, developing, consolidating, proficient or exceeding. Children in the top three categories (during the year) or top two categories (at the end of year) are “on track”.

For the rest, the curriculum says “teachers will need to adjust classroom practice, develop individualised responses, or trigger additional learning support”.

The original curriculum rewrite shifted the goalposts – only 22% of year 8 students would be at the “expectation” level, compared with 42% previously – and this curriculum shifts those goalposts further.

The inevitably poorer results from testing against a more challenging curriculum risk damaging children’s self confidence, disappointing parents and placing blame on teachers.

Test results may improve in later years, compared to those produced in the first year of assessment against a harder curriculum that will take time to embed. But that will not necessarily be evidence the change was justified.

Pausing this latest curriculum change for at least 12 months would give time for adequate consultation and preparation. That would be more consistent with the change processes of education systems internationally.

According to a recent report from the Education Review Office, teachers have mostly demonstrated professionalism in their conscientious adoption of the previous curriculum.

In our view, the most recent changes will severely test that goodwill.

David Pomeroy receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI).

Lisa Darragh receives funding from the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative, and has previously received funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Fast start Marsden grant.

NZ’s first marine reserve is turning 50 – the lessons from its recovery are invaluable

2025-10-26T18:28:30Z

Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA

New Zealand’s first legislated marine reserve, established 50 years ago around Te Hāwere-a-Maki/Goat Island north of Auckland, was also among the very first in the world.

During the decades since then, marine scientists have been monitoring changes and tracking significant transformations in the ecosystem – from bare rocky reefs to thriving kelp forests.

Officially known as the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve, the 556 hectares of protected waters and seabed became New Zealand’s first no-take zone in 1975.

Back then, very little grew on the shallow rocky reefs. It took almost three decades for kelp forests to reestablish following the slow recovery of crayfish and snapper stocks.

These predators play an essential role in keeping marine reef ecosystems healthy because they eat kina (sea urchins) which otherwise increase in numbers and mow down kelp forests.

Once crayfish and snapper were able to mature and grow, the kelp forests returned. Their recovery in turn provided a nursery for juvenile fish and many species came back.

We now see parrotfish, black angelfish, blue maomao, red moki, silver drummers, leatherjackets, octopus and several species of stingrays. Bottlenose dolphins and orca pass through occasionally.

Red moki are among the fish now seen in the marine reserve. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA

The reserve features a far higher density of fish and other marine life than outside its boundaries. But despite the protection, fish are not as plentiful within the reserve now as they were in the late 1970s.

The ongoing changes within the protected area are helping us to understand the impact of commercial and recreational fishing.

Pressures from fisheries

In 1964, a decade before the marine reserve was established, the Leigh marine laboratory opened on the cliffs above it. Its first director, Bill Ballantine, was concerned that fish stocks were dwindling and marine ecosystems declining in the Hauraki Gulf and became a key force in pushing for the marine reserve to be set up.

But since 1975, Auckland’s population has exploded and recreational and commercial fishing pressures outside the marine reserve have increased markedly.

While crayfish numbers and sizes began to recover when the marine reserve was established, they have dropped again over the past ten years. And fish stocks in the reserve remain far below the levels that would have been present before commercial fishing began to intensify rapidly in the area during the 1950s.

We think this is because the reserve is too small and continues to be affected by the rise in commercial and recreational fishing in the Hauraki Gulf.

Large snapper and crayfish sometimes move out of the reserve and are caught. The outside areas aren’t replenishing the reserve because they are heavily fished.

Reef surveys are part of the ongoing research in the marine reserve. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA

Recent research shows people can speed up kelp restoration in some places by removing kina, but large snapper and crayfish are still needed to maintain the balance long-term.

Another key discovery has been that the reserve’s many mature snapper produce about ten times more juvenile snapper than in unprotected areas of the same size.

About 11% of young snapper found up to 40 kilometres away from the reserve are offspring of snapper that live in the reserve. This “spillover effect” means the reserve is actually enhancing fisheries in the Hauraki Gulf.

Safeguarding the ocean

The Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Act, which comes into force this month, makes the Goat Island marine reserve about four times larger, extending the offshore boundary from 800 metres to three kilometres and significantly increasing the diversity of habitats protected.

The marine reserve has demonstrated the value of safeguarding patches of sea, but it has also shown that reserves need to be larger to better protect key species such as crayfish and snapper from fishing pressures.

It is also important to protect different types of habitat, in particular the soft-sediment seafloor ecosystems that comprise the bulk of the Hauraki Gulf. These ecosystems are high in biodiversity, support important fisheries, sequester carbon and process nutrients that maintain productivity. But they are vulnerable to seafloor disturbance.

An eagle ray rests on a sandy patch among the reef. These habitats now get more protection. Tegan Evans/Gemma Cunnington, CC BY-SA

As the impacts of climate change worsen, the historical records and understanding we have drawn from this marine reserve now act as an important baseline.

We know that restoring kelp forests in the reserve and elsewhere has made the area more resilient to climate change, while also contributing to carbon sequestration.

Unprotected areas outside the marine reserve are dominated by kina barrens because of a lack of predators such as snapper and caryfish. Paul Caiger, CC BY-SA

If kelp forests were restored in the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, the plants would be worth about NZ$7.9 million in carbon credits, if they were valued in the same way as land-based forests.

About 350,000 people visit the reserve annually, mostly to snorkel, dive or take a glass-bottom boat trip to explore the abundance of life beneath the waves. A lot more places could look like this marine reserve if we managed our oceans better.

Conrad Pilditch receives funding from the Department of Conservation, MBIE, regional councils and PROs. He is affiliated with the Mussel Reef Restoration Trust, Whangateau Catchment Collective and New Zealand Marine Sciences Society.

Simon Francis Thrush receives funding from MBIE, philanthropy and ERC. He is affiliated with the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Whangateau Harbour Care Group.

Historical images made with AI recycle colonial stereotypes and bias – new research

2025-10-23T22:54:03Z

Generative AI has revolutionised how we make and consume images. Tools such as Midjourney, DALL-E and Sora can now conjure anything, from realistic photos to oil-like paintings – all from a short text prompt.

These images circulate through social media in ways that make their artificial origins difficult to discern. But the ease of producing and sharing AI imagery also comes with serious social risks.

Studies show that by drawing on training data scraped from online and other digital sources, generative AI models routinely mirror sexist and racist stereotypes – portraying pilots as men, for example, or criminals as people of colour.

My soon-to-be-published new research finds generative AI also carries a colonial bias.

When prompted to visualise Aotearoa New Zealand’s past, Sora privileges the European settler viewpoint: pre-colonial landscapes are rendered as empty wilderness, Captain Cook appears as a calm civiliser, and Māori are cast as timeless, peripheral figures.

As generative AI tools become increasingly influential in how we communicate, such depictions matter. They naturalise myths of benevolent colonisation and undermine Māori claims to political sovereignty, redress and cultural revitalisation.

‘Sora, what did the past look like?’

To explore how AI imagines the past, OpenAI’s text-to-image model Sora was prompted to create visual scenes from Aotearoa New Zealand’s history, from the 1700s to the 1860s.

The prompts were deliberately left open-ended – a common approach in critical AI research – to reveal the model’s default visual assumptions rather than prescribe what should appear.

Because generative AI systems operate on probabilities, predicting the most likely combination of visual elements based on their training data, the results were remarkably consistent: the same prompts produced near-identical images, again and again.

Two examples help illustrate the kinds of visual patterns that kept recurring.

Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘New Zealand in the 1700s’.

In Sora’s vision of “New Zealand in the 1700s”, a steep forested valley is bathed in golden light, with Māori figures arranged as ornamental details. There are no food plantations or pā fortifications, only wilderness awaiting European discovery.

This aesthetic draws directly on the Romantic landscape tradition of 19th-century colonial painting, such as the work of John Gully, which framed the land as pristine and unclaimed (so-called terra nullius) to justify colonisation.

Sora-generated image from the prompt ‘a Māori in the 1860s’.

When asked to portray “a Māori in the 1860s”, Sora defaults to a sepia-toned studio portrait: a dignified man in a cloak, posed against a neutral backdrop.

The resemblance to cartes de visite photographs of the late 19th century is striking. Such portraits were typically staged by European photographers, who provided props to produce an image of the “authentic native”.

It’s revealing that Sora instinctively reaches for this format, even though the 1860s were defined by armed and political resistance by Māori communities, as colonial forces sought to impose British authority and confiscate land.

Recycling old sources

Visual imagery has always played a central role in legitimising colonisation. In recent decades, however, this colonial visual regime has been steadily challenged.

As part of the Māori rights movement and a broader historical reckoning, statues have been removed, museum exhibitions revised, and representations of Māori in visual media have shifted.

Yet the old imagery has not disappeared. It survives in digital archives and online museum collections, often de-contextualised and lacking critical interpretation.

And while the precise sources of generative AI training data are unknown, it is highly likely these archives and collections form part of what systems such as Sora learn from.

Generative AI tools effectively recycle those sources, thereby reproducing the very conventions that once served the project of empire.

But imagery that portrays colonisation as peaceful and consensual can blunt the perceived urgency of Māori claims to political sovereignty and redress through institutions such as the Waitangi Tribunal, as well as calls for cultural revitalisation.

By rendering Māori of the past as passive, timeless figures, these AI-generated visions obscure the continuity of the Māori self-determination movement for tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake.

An AI-generated social media post visualising history from a Māori perspective. Facebook

AI literacy is the key

Across the world, researchers and communities are working to decolonise AI, developing ethical frameworks that embed Indigenous data sovereignty and collective consent.

Yet visual generative AI presents distinct challenges, because it deals not only in data but also in images that shape how people see history and identity. Technical fixes can help, but they each have their limitations.

Extending datasets to include Māori-curated archives or images of resistance might diversify what the model learns – but only if done under principles of Indigenous data and visual sovereignty.

Addressing the bias in algorithms could, in theory, balance what Sora shows when prompted about colonial rule. But defining “fair” representation is a political question, not just a technical one.

Filters might block the most biased outputs, but they can also erase uncomfortable truths, such as depictions of colonial violence.

Perhaps the most promising solution lies in AI literacy. We need to understand how these systems think, what data they draw on, and how to prompt them effectively.

Approached critically and creatively – as some social media users are already doing – AI can move beyond recycling colonial tropes to become a medium for re-seeing the past through Indigenous and other perspectives.

Olli Hellmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

NZ may be on the cusp of another measles outbreak – what happened in 2019 should be a warning

2025-10-23T19:10:30Z

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The recent confirmation of new measles cases unconnected to international travel suggests the highly contagious disease has likely started spreading through communities, according to Health New Zealand.

This is a stark reminder of the pending danger of a larger measles outbreak. To prevent transmission once the measles virus has been introduced, a population immunity of around 95%, evenly distributed throughout communities, is necessary.

New Zealand does not have this level of vaccination coverage and the main way to prevent an outbreak now is to focus on increasing the immunity of children and on closing the “immunity gap” in the population.

While New Zealand has used the measles vaccine since 1969, a national immunisation register was only introduced in 2005. Without a national register to provide the historical immunisation record, estimates are that only around 80% of people born in the 1980s and 1990s are protected against measles.

Although vaccination rates of children have at times reached more than 90% since the introduction of the register, the total has never reached the required 95%. Immunisation coverage has consistently remained lower among Māori children and more recently also Pacific children.

This graph shows that annual immunisation rates for two-year-olds have dropped for Māori and, more recently, for Pacific children, compared to Asian and NZ European (NZE) children. Author provided, CC BY-SA

To stem further spread, we must build on the lessons from New Zealand’s last major measles outbreak in 2019.

That year, Auckland experienced a large and serious measles outbreak – the largest since 1997 – affecting babies, young children and adults. There were more than 2,000 cases and about 35% required hospital care, despite the fact most people who contracted measles were previously fit and healthy.

About a third of people under 30 who contracted measles required hospital care during the 2019 outbreak in Auckland. Author provided, CC BY-SA

Some of the serious and lasting complications included encephalitis (brain inflammation), pregnant women losing babies, and children needing lengthy life-saving intensive care.

While acute measles can be severe, our subsequent research shows that measles infection is associated with a long-term increased risk of other infections.

We found that people who had measles in the 2019 outbreak had more hospital admissions not related to measles and more antibiotic prescriptions in the four years following the outbreak, compared to healthy controls.

While the effect was more pronounced for people whose measles infection was severe and needed hospital care, we also saw a lasting effect for those with milder infections.

The severity of this outbreak could have been prevented if more people had been protected with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Immunisation coverage is lacking

Immunisation coverage for the MMR vaccine (given at 12 and 15 months of age) shows New Zealand’s vaccination rates are not enough to prevent an outbreak in children under five.

Data from June 2025 shows only 82% of two-year-olds are fully immunised with two doses of the vaccine. This leaves at least one in five unprotected.

Babies under one year of age are not protected because the first MMR dose is only given at 12 months. This is particularly worrying as young babies have very high rates of hospitalisation and complications from measles. In the 2019 outbreak, there were more than 250 cases in babies and more than half of them were hospitalised.

Data also show the burden of the 2019 outbreak was not equitable and these inequities persist in immunisation coverage today. Gaps in coverage create pools of susceptible individuals, rife for measles to take hold and spread.

What is also clear from the recent measles cases is that our history of inadequate measles vaccination has left young adults vulnerable to infection.

This happens at an age when they are able to travel overseas, with the unintentional consequences of bringing measles home to their whānau (family), including unimmunised pēpi (babies).

This would be particularly concerning if a measles outbreak were to take hold before the summer holidays. Even a few cases in New Zealand could make us the source of outbreaks for other Pacific nations.

In late 2019, measles imported from New Zealand resulted in 5,700 cases in Samoa, including 1,800 hospitalisations and 83 deaths from measles (87% of these deaths were children under five).

Awareness and prevention

Anyone under 50 years of age who is experiencing a fever, rash, cough and runny nose should think measles, particularly if they returned from travel in the past three weeks, are unimmunised or a contact of a recent case. They should call HealthLine (0800 611 116) for advice before visiting a GP or hospital, unless severely unwell.

If in doubt vaccinate. The health-sector response to the 2019 outbreak recommended GPs continue to actively recall unvaccinated children after checking the national immunisation register.

For anyone unsure if they have had two doses of the measles vaccine, it is safe to get a dose according to the Immunisation Advisory Centre if they are not immune-compromised or pregnant. MMR vaccines are free and available from GPs, pharmacies and community health providers. Vaccinators are listed on Book My Vaccine.

Measles infection is scary but vaccination can be scary for people, too. The World Health Organization recommends listening with empathy and acknowledging how people who are hesitant are feeling.

It also suggests asking open-ended questions to help understand concerns and sharing evidence-based information from trusted sources, including Health New Zealand or the Immunisation Advisory Centre. It can help to share your own motivations for getting vaccinated and what helped you to overcome concerns.

With a stretched health system and long-term consequences for individuals following measles infection, prevention is essential.

Anna Howe receives funding from the Health Research Council and Arthritis NZ. She has been involved in research funded by GSK and was the first KPS Research Fellow. She has previously worked for the Immunisation Advisory Centre as their research and policy analyst.

Emma Best receives funding from the Health Research Council and Starship Foundation for measles-related research.

Rachel Webb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Pro-cycling crashes can be bad, but evidence suggests slower bikes aren’t the answer

2025-10-22T23:46:34Z

Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty Images

It might seem counter-intuitive in a sport built around speed, but the world governing body for competitive cycling wants to slow elite riders down.

Worried about high-speed crashes during pro-racing events, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has proposed a cap on the gear size riders can use. The idea is to lower the possible top speed bikes can achieve.

The risks are real, too. At the recent Tour Down Under Men’s Classic in Australia, a high-speed multi-rider crash on the final corner sent bikes into the barriers and into the crowd, badly injuring a spectator.

In August this year, champion British rider Chris Froome crashed while training in France, suffering a collapsed lung, broken ribs and a spinal fracture.

But would restricting gear size prevent these kinds of high-speed crashes? Certainly, not everyone thinks so.

Earlier this month, a Belgian court paused the rule change after teams and a major cycle component maker argued the safety case was not proven. While slower bikes might sound safer, they argue, the evidence tells a different story.

What the evidence tells us

The proposed rule would limit the largest gear size to 54 teeth on the front chainring and 11 on the rear sprocket. The idea is simple: lower the top gear to reduce top speed and, in theory, cut risk.

But while speed clearly matters when it comes to crashes, it is only one part of how they happen in a tightly packed peloton (the main pack of riders in a road race).

Our recent review of 18 studies of race speed and crash risk found two clear patterns:

higher speed makes injuries worse once a crash occurs
but the link between speed and the chance of crashing is weaker and depends on context.

Injury rates in the UCI WorldTour have climbed even though average race speeds have been steady. So, something else is at work.

We also examined the proposed gear cap itself. Based on our analysis, we argue any rule change should be evidence-based rather than simply a reaction to pressure after high-profile incidents.

Understanding why crashes occur is central to this. Essentially, they are about people and space, and happen for a number of reasons:

when riders fight for position as they enter a narrowing corner
when sprint “trains” (riders in the same team lining up for aerodynamic efficiency) cross wheels
or when road “furniture” appears too late to be avoided.

In this year’s Paris–Nice race, for example, Mattias Skjelmose struck a traffic island at speed and abandoned the race. Reports described it as a poorly marked obstacle.

Course design, peloton density and inconsistent rule enforcement often play a bigger role than a few extra kilometres per hour.

Olympic champion Tom Pidcock demonstrates a high-speed descent on the Rossfeld Panoramastrasse in Germany.

Why a gear limit won’t help much

On hill descents, where many serious injuries occur, riders freewheel in a tucked body position. Gravity and aerodynamics set the speed – gearing does not.

When riders are actually pedalling in a sprint, a 54×11 gear at high “cadence” (around 110–120 revolutions per minute) gives a speed of roughly 65 kilometres per hour (km/h). The very fastest finishes in elite men’s races reach about 75 km/h – the absolute peak speed.

A cap on gearing would trim roughly 5–10 km/h from the top-end, bringing the fastest sprints down to around 65–70 km/h. But most sprint pileups start below those speeds and are triggered by contact or line changes.

Lowering everyone’s top speed could even bunch the field more tightly and raise the risk of contact. The pro-cycling world already knows what helps:

smarter course design that removes blind corners and tight bottlenecks
standard barriers and better planning for road furniture
consistent enforcement of dangerous riding and sprint deviations
open incident data so researchers can calculate risk-to-speed ratios and target hazards.

These steps match what other high-speed sports have done to reduce injuries. Motor sports redesign the environment rather than just limit speed, with NASCAR and IndyCar having adopted energy-absorbing barriers to cut wall-impact forces.

And alpine skiing manages risk with course design, as well as nets and airbag protection to control speed and crash severity.

Similar approaches to safety are used in aviation, mining and healthcare. The aim is to focus on the environment and behaviour, measure exposure, fix the hotspots and share what works to keep improving safety.

Dylan Mordaunt is a physician and health economist who has cycled competitively and recreationally for almost 40 years.

A tiny fossil suggests bowerbirds once lived in ancient New Zealand – new research

2025-10-22T19:11:04Z

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Most of our knowledge of New Zealand’s prehistoric bird diversity comes from long-lost species with bones large enough to be studied by eye. But many bird bones are so tiny we can barely see their features without a microscope.

Some 14 to 19 million years ago, in the Miocene epoch, the remains of thousands of birds were preserved in and around the vast Lake Manuherikia, located in present-day Central Otago.

We know a lot about some of the lake’s larger birds such as ducks. But we have less information on smaller birds such as the highly diverse passerines, which include songbirds. Modern species in this group include the tūī and tauhou/silvereyes.

The minute bones of passerines are difficult to find in the field, and only come to light after many hours of painstaking sorting under a microscope. But technologies such as micro-CT scanning are now helping to reveal their secrets.

Our new research adds a quirky new passerine to the fossil record of Aotearoa and shows just how unique its ancient biodiversity was. The new species appears to be in the bowerbird family of songbirds, which are not native in New Zealand today.

Made famous by Sir David Attenborough’s nature documentaries, bowerbirds are best known for their elaborate courtship behaviour and the males’ efforts to decorate bowers with coloured fruit or leaves to attract a mate. These showy males are often brightly coloured, while females are more drab – and very choosy about their mates.

Courtship of the bowerbirds.

Until now, bowerbirds and their fossil relatives have only been found in Australia and New Guinea.

The St Bathans bowerbird

Among all the tiny bones found in the St Bathans fossil site, a curious foot bone stood out. When we compared digital models of the fossil to a great number of other passerines, it bore all the hallmarks of a bowerbird; but this one was much smaller and more slender than living bowerbirds.

An artist’s impression of the bowerbird that may have once lived in New Zealand. Sasha Votyakova/Te Papa, CC BY-SA

It’s name is Aevipertidus gracilis – the gracile one from a lost age.

The size of Aevipertidus gracilis would make it the smallest known bowerbird. Most living bowerbirds are chunky, weighing anywhere from 62 to 265 grams and spending time both on the ground and in the forest canopy.

New Zealand’s bowerbird weighed around 33 grams, similar to a korimako/bellbird but with longer feet.

Our analysis suggests the St Bathans bowerbird foot was most similar in shape to a group known to construct walk-through avenue bowers, such as the brightly coloured flame bowerbird.

We can only speculate about its plumage and behaviour, but Aevipertidus gracilis may also have performed elaborate displays to attract a mate.

The St Bathans bowerbird joins other New Zealand passerines with an ancient history – including huia, kōkako, piopio and mohua – whose ancestors flew across the ocean to Zealandia millions of years ago.

The St Bathans bowerbird lived far from its relatives in warm Australia and New Guinea. If it was a fruit eater, it may have been poorly equipped for temperatures that began dropping dramatically around 14 million years ago and caused a reduction in plant diversity. Ultimately, it may have become a victim of climate change.

Conservation palaeobiology

Fossils like the St Bathans bowerbird as well as genetic research are revealing New Zealand’s story of bird evolution, with extinctions and repeated colonisations across geological time.

For example, prehistoric shelducks colonised ancient Zealandia, only for them to go extinct. Around two million years ago, ancestors of the pūtangitangi/paradise shelduck recolonised New Zealand.

The same is true for the ancient passerine relatives of magpies, which went extinct after the Miocene. But unlike the native shelducks, modern makipai/Australian magpies were introduced by Europeans in the 1860s.

Some researchers suggest these long-extinct species muddy the concept of what is native or introduced in New Zealand, using magpies as an example.

Even though ancient magpie relatives once lived in Zealandia, it doesn’t mean their living cousins belong in the modern ecosystem. This thinking could undermine conservation management and lead to ecosystems being more degraded by invasive species.

The St Bathans wonderland existed in a Zealandia before the Southern Alps rose to create the South Island’s backbone. Lake Manuherikia was home to many plants and animals, including crocodilians and tortoises, making it very different from what is there today. It doesn’t make sense to consider these ancient animals as native in modern Aotearoa.

New discoveries like the St Bathans bowerbird provide wonderful insights into New Zealand’s biological heritage. Let’s celebrate these discoveries as clues to the past and not use them to undermine the ongoing fight to protect the country’s special living plants and animals.

We thank the coauthors on our paper, Daniel Field and Alex Brown, Sasha Votyakova for the artist’s reconstruction, the landowners at St Bathans for access to their land, Jean-Claude Stahl for preparation of the fossil photos, and numerous fieldworkers who helped with our excavations.

Elizabeth Steell received funding from Girton College and Newnham College, University of Cambridge, UK.

Alan Tennyson received funding from the Te Papa Collection Development Fund and the Australian Research Council.

Nic Rawlence receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund.

Pascale Lubbe receives funding from Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund

Mega-strike: where is the ‘ethical line’ in public health and are doctors really crossing it?

2025-10-21T17:46:25Z

Minister of Health Simeon Brown. Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

Health Minister Simeon Brown’s claim that this week’s industrial action by doctors “crosses an ethical line” misunderstands doctors’ ethical responsibilities.

Doctors and nurses, together with teachers, are among tens of thousands expected to take part in a multi-sector “mega-strike” on Thursday.

Striking is an option of last resort. In healthcare, it causes disruption and inconvenience for patients, whānau and the health system – but it is ethically justified.

Arguably, it is ethically required when poor working conditions associated with staff shortages, inadequate infrastructure and underfunding threaten the wellbeing of patients and the long-term sustainability of public health services.

The impact of these conditions on retention and recruitment of doctors in New Zealand is well documented. A 2022 survey shows almost 11% of doctors planned to leave New Zealand permanently, up from less than 5% in 2017. Only 62% planned to continue working in the public healthcare system in 2022, compared to 83% in 2017.

The real ethical issue is successive governments’ failure to address these conditions and their impact on patient care.

Duty of care

The minister’s comments imply that striking doctors are failing to meet their ethical obligations to provide care.

These are the same doctors who, alongside nurses, carers and allied health professionals, kept New Zealand’s health system functioning during the COVID pandemic in the face of heightened personal risk, often inadequate protections and substantial additional burdens.

While the duty of care is of primary ethical importance, codes of ethics also recognise doctors’ duties to all patients, and responsibilities to advocate for adequate resourcing in the health system. These duties may justify compromising care to individual patients under the circumstances in which industrial action is considered.

As was well recognised during the COVID pandemic, governments have reciprocal duties to healthcare workers, including to provide safe and well resourced working environments.

The health minister seems to imply doctors are striking solely for individual gain. But like all healthcare workers, doctors take seriously their obligations to provide high-quality care in the public health system.

They are striking because their ability to meet these obligations is routinely compromised by working conditions that contribute to burnout and moral injury – the impact of having to work under circumstances that violate core moral values.

A key goal of the industrial action is to demand better conditions for clinical care, such as safe staffing levels, that will benefit patients and staff and improve the health system for everyone.

The right to strike

The minister may be concerned that strike action goes against doctors’ obligation to “do no harm”, or to put their patients’ interests first. These are important ethical commitments. But, like many ethical commitments, they are not absolute and must be balanced against other values and interests.

The potential risks of surgery, for example, are balanced against the patient’s likelihood of a long-term health gain. While doctors must provide life-preserving care during strike action, and minimise potential harms, some disruptions and inconveniences are ethically justified in light of the public interest in a safe, high-quality health service.

Doctors can argue they are striking out of concern that unless their claims are addressed even greater harms will result.

When healthcare workers are underpaid, undervalued and overworked, it is challenging to recruit and retain staff, undermining efforts to provide high-quality care.

As a party to the code of good faith in the Employment Relations Act 2000, Health New Zealand – and ultimately the minister of health – are required to commit to “develop, maintain and provide high-quality public health services”.

We should also be concerned about societal harms resulting from preventing doctors or other healthcare workers from taking industrial action in the future.

The right to strike is an important entitlement of workers to protect their social and economic interests. It is recognised internationally (in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) and protected under New Zealand’s employment law.

Preventing doctors from striking would violate this right. It would also risk the safety and wellbeing of patients by removing the capacity of doctors to demand better conditions in our hospitals.

Thursday’s strike action by doctors, alongside teachers, nurses and other health professionals, is ethically justified in defense of high-quality public services for everyone.

Elizabeth Fenton is the chair of the National Ethics Advisory Committee, but is writing in her role as an academic.