Sunday’s Newspoll is being keenly awaited by federal Liberals as leadership aspirant Angus Taylor contemplates the timing of a challenge to Sussan Ley.
With talks to try to get the federal Coalition together looking near collapse, Taylor danced around the leadership issue in a Sydney radio interview on Friday.
Some Liberal sources say whether there is a challenge as early as next week – the second week in the House of Representatives’ sitting fortnight – will likely depend on the polling and the outcome of the faltering negotiations with the Nationals.
Other sources discount the prospect because senators will be caught up in Senate estimates committees.
Quizzed on Sydney radio on Friday, Taylor said: “Of course I’ve been having discussions with colleagues about the future of the party.
“Look, there’s one thing we’re hearing from our supporters, the people who voted for us at the last election, the people we wanted to have vote for us at the last election and didn’t. It is a clear message from them: we must do beetter.”
If there is no imminent agreement on reunifying the Coalition, Ley is set to announce an all-Liberal frontbench, probably on Sunday.
Ley has demanded the three Nationals frontbenchers who defied shadow cabinet solidarity over the government’s anti-hate legislation should be off any combined frontbench for six months. The Nationals have now countered by suggesting all former Nationals shadow ministers should served a brief suspension. This is unacceptable to Ley.
The Liberal leader is in a no-win situation. She is under immense pressure to mend the Coalition. On the other hand some Liberals who support her leadership believe the two parties should stay apart. Also, some Liberals are eyeing the expanded opportunities for posts that a Liberal-only shadow ministry presents.
Ley’s determination to hold her hard line in the negotiations with the Nationals was undermined this week when former prime minister John Howard urged her to compromise.
Howard said both sides needed to “stop the nit-picking over minutiae”.
“Both sides have to […] concentrate on reforming the Coalition which is the political imperative that transcends all else,” he told The Australian.
“There’s no point in debating what has happened in the last two weeks and the priority must be the reforming of the Coalition.”
Previously Howard had been supportive of Ley’s tough position on the defectors.
The crisis around Ley’s leadership is playing out publicly in slow motion, with her supporters and her opponents in the party agreeing that it will inevitably come to a head, with only the precise timing still up in the air.
If he won the leadership, Taylor would likely quickly reunite the Coalition.
It had been originally thought Taylor did not want to challenge Ley until the budget session. But a fast-moving and chaotic situation, including the collapse of the Coalition, has changed things.
Last week the other leadership aspirant, Andrew Hastie, announced he would not run for the leadership, leaving the field to Taylor.
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.
Australia is battling its biggest rise in whooping cough cases in 35 years.
During 2024 and 2025 Australia recorded 82,513 whooping cough cases – the highest number since monitoring began in 1991.
Also known as pertussis or the “100-day cough”, whooping cough is a potentially fatal respiratory illness which causes severe coughing episodes.
It spreads from one person to another and is particularly deadly among infants.
So why the surge? And how can you protect yourself and your loved ones?
What is whooping cough?
Whooping cough is a respiratory infection caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis.
Transmission occurs through close contact with infected people such as via coughing and sneezing.
Early symptoms include runny nose or sore throat. This is called the “catarrhal phase” and can look similar to a common cold.
A persistent cough comes next, and typically lasts between six and ten weeks.
This leads to intense bouts of coughing, with babies and children often making high-pitched “whoop” sounds when they breath in. This is where the term “whooping cough” comes from.
Whooping cough can be very severe in newborn babies and infants. About one in 125 babies with whooping cough aged below six months dies from pneumonia or brain damage.
Household contacts and carers often pass the illness onto infants, with parents the source of infection in more than 50% of cases. Infants can also pick up an infection from siblings and health-care workers.
Complications in older children and adults include interrupted sleep and pneumonia, a lung infection which can require hospitalisation. Patients can even sustain rib fractures from coughing so hard.
Antibiotics, when given early, can stop disease progression.
However after the cough is established, which is when most people realise they are infected, antibiotics have little effect on the disease’s progression.
But, there’s a vaccine for it?
Yes. The whooping cough vaccine is given as a combination vaccine with diphtheria and tetanus.
In Australia, this vaccine is part of routine infant and childhood immunisation schedules. A booster dose is also given to Year 7 students.
Pregnant women are advised to vaccinate every pregnancy to boost the production and transfer of antibodies to their unborn baby. This also helps protect infants who are too young to be immunised.
A 2025 study from Denmark found vaccination during pregnancy to be 72% effective against laboratory confirmed whooping cough.
Although infants are most vulnerable to whooping cough, it can cause infection across all ages and put a large strain on the health-care system, especially for adults aged over 50.
To protect themselves and limit spread of the disease, adults should get vaccinated every ten years.
Australia’s national vaccine regulator checks the safety of whooping cough vaccines each year. Ongoing monitoring over many years shows these vaccines are safe and continue to protect people of all ages.
But low immunisation rates among children and adolescents remain a concern, with new data showing Australia’s 2024-25 childhood immunisation rate was the lowest in a decade.
Only about one-fifth of adults 50 years and older are up to date with the whooping cough vaccine. This means they have had a booster within the last ten years.
Why are there so many cases right now?
Whooping cough is a challenging disease to control because immunity, acquired through immunisation or natural infection, wanes over time. This gives rise to whooping cough epidemics every two to three years.
Whooping cough is most commonly diagnosed using PCR testing of a throat swab. This usually involves visiting a GP to get the swab sent to a lab, and then waiting for the results. This method has been routinely used since the early 2000s.
In 2024, 57,257 whooping cough cases were detected in Australia. This included a case where a child with an antibiotic-resistant infection required intensive care support.
This represents the highest notification rate since records began in 1991. And it reflects a true increase in the prevalence, as well as awareness and testing, of whooping cough.
The 2024 surge in cases was likely due, at least in part, to COVID public health restrictions which disrupted the usual epidemic cycle.
During this time, many children didn’t get the normal immune “boost” after being vaccinated and exposed to the bacteria. This left them more vulnerable to infection, particularly when authorities lifted social distancing restrictions.
Whooping cough was also widespread in 2025 with 25,256 cases reported that year. All age groups were affected, but notification rates were highest among school-aged and preschool-aged children.
Unfortunately, whooping cough isn’t going away anytime soon. However, timely vaccination across all ages is vital to curb its spread and protect vulnerable populations.
Archana Koirala has done research with funding from the Australian Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, and NSW health. She is the chair of the Vaccination Special Interest Group and a committee member of the Australia and New Zealand Paediatric Infectious Diseases Network of the Australasian Society of Infectious DIseases.
ER Report: Here is a summary of significant articles published on EveningReport.nz on February 6, 2026.
Lessons from Bondi Junction attack show what we really need from schizophrenia care Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Hickie, Co-Director, Health and Policy, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney Joel Cauchi’s psychiatrist failed to see the early warning signs of his relapse into psychosis and should be investigated by the Queensland health ombudsman, New South Wales coroner Teresa O’Sullivan has concluded. Cauchi, who
With international law at a ‘breaking point’, a tiny country goes after Myanmar’s junta on its own Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Palmer, Lecturer in International Law, Griffith University Just four months ago, Timor-Leste formally became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN). This week, the tiny country took an unprecedented step: its judicial authorities appointed a prosecutor to examine the Myanmar military’s responsibility for
What our teeth reveal about the growing gap between rich and poor Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eve Vincent, Associate Professor, Anthropology, Macquarie University Pavel Danilyuk/Pexels, CC BY Teeth are one of the most visible markers of poverty: structural circumstances that are individually borne. In an essay for Aeon, US journalist Sarah Smarsh calls them “poor teeth”. She writes: Often, bad teeth are blamed
Bunnings’ backyard pods won’t fix the housing crisis, but they signal a shift Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ehsan Noroozinejad, Senior Researcher and Sustainable Future Lead, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University Bunnings, The Conversation Australia is in a deep housing crisis. The latest National Housing Supply and Affordability Council analysis shows the country is likely to fall more than a quarter-of-a-million homes short
Climate change a priority for NZ’s iwi leaders at Waitangi By Layla Bailey-McDowell, RNZ Māori news journalist Climate change has been a key focus for iwi leaders gathering at Waitangi this week, as coastal communities across New Zealand’s North Island recover from recent severe weather events. The National Iwi Chairs Forum, representing more than 70 iwi, has been meeting to set priorities for the year
Why comparisons between AI and human intelligence miss the point Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celeste Rodriguez Louro, Associate Professor, Chair of Linguistics and Director of Language Lab, The University of Western Australia Aelitta / Getty Images Claims that artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of surpassing human intelligence have become commonplace. According to some commentators, rapid advances in large language
The Voice campaign entrenched immature politics. We must do better for First Nations people Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Scott, Department of Pro Vice Chancellor (Society), UNSW Sydney; Indigenous Knowledge The defeat of the Voice referendum was not simply a political loss. It was a political and cultural failure. It exposed, yet again, the profound immaturity of Australia’s political life when it comes to First
Green Party celebrates decision to decline ‘dead end’ Taranaki seabed mining RNZ Pacific The Green Party is celebrating the decision to decline plans to mine the Taranaki seabed. In a draft decision on Thursday, the fast-track approvals panel declined Trans-Tasman Resources’ (TTR) bid to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight. The panel found there would be
If Australia and Indonesia agreed to end new thermal coal mines, it could drive the green transition. Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Symons, Director of Research and Innovation, School of International Studies, Macquarie University In the 1960s, major oil-producing nations formed a cartel to drive up the price of oil. It worked. For decades, nations in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have agreed to manage
No diagnoses and no gap fees for physios and speechies. What else do we know about Thriving Kids? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney Kindel Media/Pexels Thriving Kids is back in the spotlight, after the states and territories agreed last week to match the federal government’s A$2 billion dollar investment. The new national program is targeted at children aged 0-8 with developmental delay
WHO membership doesn’t threaten NZ’s sovereignty – walking away from it would Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Petousis-Harris, Associate Professor in Vaccinology, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images When NZ First leader Winston Peters responded to the recent US withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO) by questioning whether New Zealand should continue funding it, he employed a familiar narrative.
Can a bird be an illegal immigrant? How the White Australia era influenced attitudes to the bulbul Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Farley, Assistant Lecturer, History, The University of Melbourne The Conversation, CC BY-NC-SA In early January, authorities from South Australia’s Department of Primary Industries took to the streets of Adelaide on the hunt for a suspicious individual. This individual had been spotted several times in the preceding
Is federal government spending really to blame for higher inflation? It’s not clear cut Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Bartos, Professor of Economics, University of Canberra There has been a spate of articles and commentary in recent days calling on the Australian government to reduce spending. Those calling for government cuts – mostly long-time advocates of smaller government – claim this would lower inflation, and
Taxi Driver at 50: Martin Scorsese’s film remains a troubling reflection of our times Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney IMDB Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver turns 50 this month. Nominated for four Oscars and winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Festival, Scorsese’s searing, hallucinatory portrait of urban alienation is widely regarded as
Speeches, celebrations and heckling – what happened at Waitangi By Russell Palmer, RNZ News political reporter New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon faced sustained heckling and had to fend off questions about a revived Treaty Principles Bill as he returned to Waitangi this year. ACT leader David Seymour predictably attracted his own jeers, and NZ First’s Winston Peters focused on a return serve. The
Grattan on Friday: Jim Chalmers’ ticker is about to be tested as he tacks towards the May budget Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The next few months may be the most crucial Jim Chalmers has faced as treasurer, at least for judgements about his ability to drive change. They could tell us whether Chalmers really is as committed to serious economic reform as
With a shortage of aged-care beds, discharging patients stranded in hospital is harder than it sounds Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Swerissen, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, La Trobe University David Sacks/Getty Images The Australian government has finalised a A$220 billion hospital funding deal with the states and territories. A key part of the negotiation was $2 billion designed to help hospitals move more than 3,000 patients
Committee to Protect Journalists: The First Amendment is in peril Sweeping cuts by one of most iconic investigative newspapers in the United States, The Washington Post, now owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, apply to about one-third of the newsroom, with sport and international coverage largely gutted. Another major blow to media freedom in the US that came after the following CPJ editorial was published.
Why did it take 9 days to declare the Perth bombing attempt a terrorist attack? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Levi West, Research Fellow, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University Tim Clifford/Instagram Nine days after it happened, police have declared an alleged attempted bombing at an Invasion Day rally in Perth an act of terrorism. A 31-year-old man is accused of throwing a homemade fragment
A new comet was just discovered. Will it be visible in broad daylight? Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland The Great Comet of 1680 over Rotterdam. Lieve Verschuier/Rotterdam Museum A newly discovered comet has astronomers excited, with the potential to be a spectacular sight in early April. C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was spotted by a team of four amateur
Joel Cauchi’s psychiatrist failed to see the early warning signs of his relapse into psychosis and should be investigated by the Queensland health ombudsman, New South Wales coroner Teresa O’Sullivan has concluded.
Cauchi, who had a recurrent form of schizophrenia, was un-medicated and homeless when he killed six people and injured ten others at the Westfield shopping centre in Bondi Junction in 2024.
In the 837-page coronial inquest report, released yesterday, O’Sullivan outlined how Cauchi’s psychiatrist weaned him off his medication and discharged him to his GP in 2020. He lost touch with family in Queensland and was sleeping rough in Sydney at the time of the attack.
The care provided was “one of the factors that led to this tragic outcome,” O’Sullivan said.
The tragedy has again exposed a system that doesn’t reach out to those who are most unwell.
The coronial report makes several recommendations to improve the care of people with schizophrenia, encourage the use of medication and boost housing and social supports for people with severe mental illness.
How can schizophrenia affect thoughts and behaviour?
Severe, untreated schizophrenia can rob a person of their capacity to understand their normal environment, form rational thoughts or stop antisocial or violent behaviours. This is known as psychosis.
People with schizophrenia may receive false information, through auditory or visual hallucinations or misinterpretations of social cues, and may develop complex, paranoid but wrong explanations (known as delusions) of ordinary events.
A person with acute schizophrenia is often terrified: afraid of the harm that some threatening entity is about to do them. Sometimes they lash out against people they perceive to be driving those threats.
How is schizophrenia managed?
The symptoms of acute schizophrenia can usually be treated with medications. These reduce hallucinations and delusions, agitation and the risks to the person or others that arise from these experiences.
But there is often a price to pay in terms of side-effects. These medications can cause sedation, weight gain, sexual dysfunction and emotional numbing.
Many people are keen to stop the medicines as soon as they regain reasonable control over their life.
Why family and support is crucial
Seeing a loved one experience recurrent episodes of psychosis can be traumatic for family and carers. They are the ones at greatest risk from the unpredictable or threatening behaviours that may accompany the illness.
Over time, a person with un-managed schizophrenia can become disconnected from, family, housing and social supports. Homelessness and social isolation can quickly follow.
As these connections are lost, they may experience a recurrence of their psychotic state. Stopping medical care accelerates this process.
Once a person with schizophrenia is out of home, and out of their local community, the chances that our private or public mental health services will maintain contact is very low.
The worst outcome
The tragedy here is that Cauchi was effectively treated while engaged with Queensland’s public mental health services and, at that time, posed no threat.
But when he stopped treatment, with the assistance of his psychiatrist, he quickly relapsed.
His family raised concerns about his deteriorating mental state but this information was not validated or acted on.
In a psychotic state, Cauchi abandoned his family and health care supports. He moved interstate and became homeless.
NSW health authorities were not looking for him. No one had an agenda to reconnect him to care or provide continuity of support. The result was catastrophic.
Housing is intricately linked
This is not an isolated story. Thousands of people with mental illness, often young men, are living transient lives in cars, temporary accommodation or on couches. They are disconnected from family, housing and services. They are largely invisible to our mental health system.
Rough sleeping has surged to record levels in Australia, and the system set up to house and support the most vulnerable people is in crisis.
While Australia has repeatedly acknowledged that proactive, home-based care is optimal, investment has remained limited and inconsistent. Australia’s mental health spending is predominantly directed towards hospital inpatient and emergency services, not in the community.
the NSW government establish and support short- and long-term accommodation for people with severe mental illness, with accessible, ongoing mental health care
renewed investment in outreach psychiatric services capable of engaging people who are severely unwell, including those without housing
clinical bodies develop up-to-date guidelines for psychiatrists who “de-prescribe” anti-psychotic medications for patients with schizophrenia
indefinite monitoring of patients who choose to stop treatment
better guidance for clinicians and families on how to recognise the early warning signs of a relapse and what to do next.
Effective community-based care for people with severe mental illness also relies on better service coordination. It requires clinical services delivered by states, housing and social support that are largely funded federally, and implementation tailored to local and regional needs.
We have a new hospital funding agreement between the Commonwealth and states. We now we need a similar commitment to mental health care between state, Commonwealth and local services to improve the care for people with severe mental illness and prevent further tragedy.
Australians understand mental illness better now than previous generations. They expect this part of our health system to function like any other medical care, which should be affordable, accessible and effective.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Ian Hickie is a Professor of Psychiatry and the Co-Director of Health and Policy, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney. He has led major public health and health service development in Australia, particularly focusing on early intervention for young people with depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviours and complex mood disorders. He is active in the development through codesign, implementation and continuous evaluation of new health information and personal monitoring technologies to drive highly-personalised and measurement-based care. He holds a 3.2% equity share in Innowell Pty Ltd that is focused on digital transformation of mental health services.
Sebastian Rosenberg 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.
Just four months ago, Timor-Leste formally became a member of the Association of Southeast Asian States (ASEAN).
This week, the tiny country took an unprecedented step: its judicial authorities appointed a prosecutor to examine the Myanmar military’s responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It’s believed to be the first time an ASEAN state has taken such an action against another member.
The case resulted from the persistence of a victims’ group, the Chin Human Rights Organisation, in pursuing justice for the Chin people, a minority group in Myanmar. In submitting the complaint, the head of the organisation expressed solidarity with Timor-Leste’s own historic efforts to secure justice and independence.
Timor-Leste authorities will now assess whether to bring charges against Myanmar’s military leaders, including junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Any prosecutions would be on the basis of “universal jurisdiction”. This is a legal principle that allows domestic courts to hear cases alleging international crimes, regardless of where the crimes occurred, or the nationality of the victims or perpetrators.
Limitations of international courts
This week, a major study of 23 conflicts around the globe said the international legal system designed to protect civilians is at a “breaking point”. Observers are also asking whether the United Nations has any future at all.
It has long been clear that international courts have limited efficacy in prosecuting cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
However, proponents of the court say it has been unfairly maligned and targeted, including by the Trump administration, which imposed sanctions on it last year.
Both the ICC and ICJ have investigations underway on Myanmar, but they deal with crimes allegedly committed against the Rohingya minority group before the coup. The ICC case covers incidents committed partly in Bangladesh.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor asked the court’s judges to issue an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlang in November 2024. More than a year later, a decision has yet to be made.
Challenges for domestic courts
In this environment, universal jurisdiction could play a more important role. The United Nations has implicitly recognised this by establishing investigative mechanisms for Syria and Myanmar that gather evidence for future prosecutions in domestic, regional or international courts.
Many states have laws that allow them to prosecute international crimes like torture, genocide or war crimes. What is lacking are resources to fund investigations and transparent criteria or guidelines for how to undertake them.
There are other challenges once cases are underway, too. For one, domestic courts have limited reach. Arrests are difficult, as high-level officials can rely on diplomatic immunity or just avoid the countries where they believe they could face prosecution or extradition.
Prosecuting even lower-level or mid-level perpetrators can be politically awkward. Cases can be expensive and practically difficult, especially when witnesses and evidence are mostly overseas.
And if trials go ahead, victims can still find justice elusive, even if the cases have broader strategic or symbolic aims.
Still, there have been successes. Nearly 10 years ago, the former president of Chad, Hissène Habré, was convicted of international crimes in Senegal. The case was tried using universal jurisdiction, driven by civil society networks.
More countries need to step up
This latest initiative in Timor-Leste comes after victim groups have tried many different countries to seek justice for the people of Myanmar. This includes Argentina, where arrest warrants were issued for Myanmar’s leaders, Turkey, and Germany.
In the Asia-Pacific, lawyers have also attempted to bring cases in Indonesia and the Philippines.
While European countries are increasingly using universal jurisdiction to prosecute crimes, other countries have been less keen to take these cases on. For instance, some suggest Canada and Australia could do more to investigate war crimes cases, even though they both have the laws in place to do so.
This just leaves the heavy lifting of prosecutions to others, possibly in courts with more limited resources.
With atrocities continuing to be committed around the world, it’s become more vital than ever for governments to not just back international justice with strong words, but show a real commitment to investigating them at home.
Associate Professor Emma Palmer is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Australian Discovery Early Career Award (project number DE250100597) funded by the Australian Government. The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council. She is also affiliated with the Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars.
Teeth are one of the most visible markers of poverty: structural circumstances that are individually borne.
In an essay for Aeon, US journalist Sarah Smarsh calls them “poor teeth”. She writes:
Often, bad teeth are blamed solely on the habits and choices of their owners, and for the poor therein lies an undue shaming […] Poor teeth […] beget not just shame but more poorness: people with bad teeth have a harder time getting jobs and other opportunities.
In the age of “whitened, straightened, veneered smiles”, the distance between ruined poor teeth and healthy, wealthy teeth is growing.
In 1970s Australia, when Medicare’s predecessor was designed, dental care was left out. Since 2014, the Child Dental Benefits Schedule has enabled children up to 17 years of age to access free dental care at most private clinics if they’re eligible for Medicare and part of a family that receives certain Australian Government payments.
“Dental into Medicare” was a key Greens policy in the 2025 federal election campaign. While this commitment to expanded coverage has stimulated public attention to the question of teeth and poverty in recent years, Grattan Institute researchers stated in late 2024 that “more than two million Australians avoid dental care because of the cost” and that “more than four in ten adults usually wait more than a year before seeing a dental professional”.
Peter Breadon, the institute’s health program director, argues that Australia’s public dental system is “underfunded” and “overwhelmed”.
In July 2025, the ABC reported that around a third of Australians are eligible for free or low-cost public dental services.
These services receive some Commonwealth funding but are provided by state and territory governments. The ABC obtained data showing that while average wait time varies across states and territories, in some cases people have waited years to access dental care.
Left untreated, dental emergencies can result in hospital visits. Or worse.
The United Kingdom’s intensely conditional welfare system imposes a strict “work capability assessment” in a bid to limit access to disability benefits, as does Australia’s through a similar assessment tool.
A recent book memorialising the victims of the UK system includes details of a 57-year-old man found dead in his flat. His relatives discovered the lid of a shoebox in his cupboard holding two large molars and a pair of pliers.
Many Australian children aged up to 17 can access free dental care if they’re eligible for Medicare – but that isn’t true for adults. Pixabay/Pexels, CC BY
Published in 2014, Linda Tirado’sHand to Mouth documents her experiences of being poor, working low-wage, unstable jobs and raising her two children with her husband, who shares her precarious position in the US labour market.
In a voice that is direct, sassy, frustrated and funny, Tirado writes about the sex lives of poor people, the costly burdens of poverty (such as late payment fees), her coping mechanisms, the enjoyment she derives from smoking – and about teeth.
The book’s title has a clever double meaning: it’s about how fragile day-by-day existence is but also speaks to the shame surrounding poor teeth, which a hand shielding the mouth attempts to hide.
Tirado’s book began life as a post on an online forum she was reading to unwind after a “particularly gruelling shift” at one of her two jobs. Someone posted the question: “Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive?” Tirado’s extended response went viral; eventually, she was approached to write a book.
The late Barbara Ehrenreich supplied a short, generous foreword. She declared herself “waiting for this book” since the publication of her 2001 classic, Nickel and Dimed.
Ehrenreich contrasted her “brief attempt” to subsist on low-wage service and retail jobs with Tirado’s authentic dispatches from impoverished America, lending weight to the valorisation of experiential accounts of poverty over journalistic or scholarly perspectives.
Increasingly, people in poverty have challenged the presumption of academics and community sector advocates to mediate their perspectives, using digital platforms, social media accounts and publishing ventures to communicate their direct experiences, embedded knowledges and political demands directly to audiences. The persistent ethical dilemmas anthropologists and journalists must wrestle with, in terms of representing others’ lives, have become more heightened still.
Ehrenreich declared herself an outsider to the topic of contemporary poverty, Tirado the “real thing”. She concluded in her foreword, “But let me get out of the way now. She can tell this story better than I can.”
NewSouth Books
This is also the premise of the 2024 Australian collection Povo.
The storytellers in this book found their voices in workshops run across Western Sydney by Sweatshop Literacy Movement, and they write from direct experience.
Teeth are central to one especially compelling contribution.
“Plot twist!”, Victor Guan Yi Zhou’s story, revolves around the narrator’s tooth
gems, which he takes every opportunity to flash.
Got them at a salon… right after Mum and Dad kicked me out. Four of them. Two on the top canines. Two on each incisor. Crystal Swarovski. $150 all up. Each gem will help me manifest my dreams.
In the lead-up to the 2023 Budget, I attended a protest at Albanese’s electoral office. I went in solidarity: the protest was organised by the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union.
Speakers addressing the protest were on JobSeeker and the Disability Support Pension. They described their struggles to exist on miserly income support payments and shared their frustration about the hope Albanese’s election seemed at first to represent – hope that was by then fading.
Despite some marginal improvements to the JobSeeker payment over the past few years, Australia’s payment levels still remain below the poverty line.
At this protest, I met a JobSeeker recipient who was probably in her late fifties or early sixties. Fraser-era hostility to “dole bludgers” in Australia revolved around a masculine image of workshy youth. Today, researchers describe a JobSeeker recipient as “likely to be older, to be a woman and importantly to have […] a chronic illness or disabilities”.
I chatted with this woman about the two days a week she spends kneeling in the bush, tugging out weeds to fulfil her “mutual obligations”, the signature measure of the conditional welfare state.
I liked her hand-painted sign, “welfare not warefare”, and took a photo.
In the picture, her mouth is clamped tight. I admit I had noticed her chipped teeth.
Eve Vincent 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.
Climate change has been a key focus for iwi leaders gathering at Waitangi this week, as coastal communities across New Zealand’s North Island recover from recent severe weather events.
The National Iwi Chairs Forum, representing more than 70 iwi, has been meeting to set priorities for the year ahead, with leaders pointing to the increasing frequency and severity of weather events as a growing concern.
Taane Aruka Te Aho, one of the rangatahi leaders of Te Kāhu Pōkere — the group that travelled to Brazil for COP30 last year — told RNZ that recent weather events across the motu have become a repeating pattern.
“The data shows us that these climate catastrophes are going to keep coming, more frequent, more severe. We’ve seen that in Te Tai Tokerau, in Tauranga Moana, in Te Araroa,” he said.
The National Iwi Chairs Forum, representing more than 70 iwi, have been meeting at Waitangi this week to set priorities for the year ahead. Image: National Iwi Chairs Forum/RNZ
On behalf of Te Pou Take Āhuarangi, the climate change arm of the National Iwi Chairs Forum, Te Kāhu Pōkere attended the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in November 2025.
They were the first iwi-mandated rangatahi Māori delegation to attend a global COP.
At this year’s forum, the rōpū is presenting its findings and what can be taken back to hapū, iwi and hapori.
‘Key learnings’ “One of the key learnings for me was the importance of data sovereignty and data strategies harnessing environmental data to help us in our climate-based decision-making,” Te Aho said.
In the wake of flooding and storms in the north and east of the country, dozens of marae again opened their doors to displaced whānau, providing shelter, kai and serving as Civil Defence hubs.
“It’s paramount that we acknowledge our whānau, but also fund our whānau to keep resourcing, because they are the ones opening up their doors,” he said.
“To ensure not only our mokopuna are thriving, but to ensure our people of today can go back to work, that they’re looked after. Pākeke mai, rangatahi mai, kaumātua mai, kei konei te iwi Māori ki te tautoko i a rātou.”
Ōakura Community Hall . . . devastated by a slip that smashed through the rear wall and filled the hall with mud, trees and debris on 18 January 2026 . . . The hall was only reroofed and renovated about 18 months ago. Image: Peter de Graaf/RNZ
Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said at the time, the fund “ensures marae are not left carrying the costs of that mahi”.
‘Building resilience’ “Allowing them to replenish what was used, recover from the immediate response, and continue to build their resilience for future events.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also praised the response from marae.
“Marae have been exceptional in the way they have stepped up to help their communities, providing shelter, food and care to people in need,” he said.
Rahui Papa (right) says emergency centres at marae have been just “absolutely wonderful” following recent severe weather events across the coastal North Island. Image: National Iwi Chairs Forum/RNZ
Pou Tangata chairperson Rahui Papa welcomed government support for marae but said long-term planning was needed.
“Back in Cyclone Gabriel, they talked about a 100-year weather event. It’s come up three or four times within the last few years,” he said.
“And I’m picking that, with my weather crystal ball . . . it’s going to happen time and time again.
“So comprehensive responses have to be employed. Emergency centres at marae have been just absolutely wonderful. I take my hat off to those communities and those marae that have worked together to really find a way to look after the community.”
Climate change key issue Ngāti Hine chairperson Pita Tipene said climate change was one of the key issues being coordinated at a national level.
“There’s no point in planning for something next week and next month if we’re consigning our planet to the changes that are upon us,” he said.
“We only have to look at the devastation around Te Tai Tokerau, let alone Tauranga Moana and Tai Rāwhiti.”
Te Kāhu Pokere outside Parliament. Image: Pou Take Āhuarangi/RNZ
Tipene also acknowledged the contribution of Te Kāhu Pōkere.
“The young people who went to COP in Brazil and presented back to us said the solutions are in place and led by people. Their messages were very, very clear and the energy and the focus that they bring to those efforts is significant,” he said.
“The National Iwi Chairs Forum comes together because we know we have much more strength together than we are alone. And so coordinating our efforts into areas that will improve the circumstances of our people or protect and enhance the environments of our people, that’s our overall priority.”
Forum members also unanimously backed a legal challenge by Hauraki iwi Ngāti Manuhiri, which is taking the government to the High Court over amendments to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act. The changes, made last year, raised the threshold for iwi seeking customary marine title.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ehsan Noroozinejad, Senior Researcher and Sustainable Future Lead, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University
The latest National Housing Supply and Affordability Council analysis shows the country is likely to fall more than a quarter-of-a-million homes short of the federal government’s target to build 1.2 million homes by 2029. Its data shows only around 938,000 dwellings are expected to be built in the five-year period, leaving a shortfall of about 262,000.
Another economic estimate suggests demand exceeds supply by 200,000 to 300,000 homes, pushing prices and rents higher as Australians compete for a limited stock of houses.
This gap between demand and supply is why many voices in policy and industry argue traditional ways of building houses are too slow and too expensive.
As Bunnings, Australia’s biggest hardware retailer starts selling tiny homes, it feels like a turning point.
But are backyard pods the answer to a national housing crisis?
Prefab and modular homes in Australia
In response to slow and costly traditional building, many in industry and government have pointed to modern solutions such as modular, prefab or even 3D-printed homes as a key part of the solution.
The idea is to make components or whole sections of homes in dedicated facilities and then assemble them quickly on site.
Recent government analysis shows some of these factory-based homes can be built up to 50% faster than conventional construction, helping speed housing delivery.
The market for prefab and modular buildings is growing in Australia and globally.
Bunnings has recently started selling flat-pack backyard pods that have captured attention.
The pods, small modular units costing from about $26,000, can be assembled in days.
At first glance, this looks like an affordable housing innovation. But the reality is more nuanced.
These pods are fundamentally temporary. Their size, layout and fit-out reflect short-term or secondary use rather than long-term residential living.
Beside this, many pods avoid full planning or building approval in some locations, which is a strong signal they are being treated, legally, as ancillary structures.
They are most useful as offices, studios, guest rooms or extra space but unlikely to be suitable as permanent homes for families.
While the price is eye-catching, it does not include site preparation, ground works, connections for power and water, or any compliance costs, all of which can add substantially to the final price.
Buyers would also need somewhere to put the pod – either owning land, or being able to use someone else’s.
Permits and approvals may be required depending on the location and intended use, further complicating the picture.
Bunnings has not said it is entering the housing market to help solve the national crisis. But its decision to partner with prefab manufacturers comes as major lenders and builders are embracing factory-built housing as part of broader affordability responses, and as analysts note growing consumer interest in faster, lower-cost housing options amid soaring property prices.
Why scale matters
The key to reducing housing costs through industrialised construction is scale.
When production levels are small, factories cannot spread fixed costs over many units.
This results in high prices, even if units can be completed quickly.
In countries where factory-built housing works at scale, companies build the same homes repeatedly. That allows workers to get faster and factories to spread the cost of specialised equipment across many homes. They also have strong supply chains for components and labour.
By comparison, Australia’s sector is still small and most manufacturers produce only a handful of units each year.
Without big volumes and steady demand, off-site building can’t unlock real cost reductions.
That said, Bunnings’ entry is noteworthy.
It shows mainstream retail channels see a business opportunity in modular building products. It may help raise public awareness of alternative construction methods in everyday Australian life.
What are the long-term fixes?
The housing challenge will not be solved by pods.
What is needed is much larger investment into these alternative methods of construction, from both state and federal governments, aligned with international partnerships that bring technology, expertise and industrial scale.
Countries that have succeeded in using factory-built homes at scale have done so through coordinated policy support, strong industrial strategies, workforce training and investment in manufacturing facilities.
Some also combine this with land reform, faster approvals and direct procurement of homes for public needs.
A way forward
Bunnings’ backyard pods may be an interesting new product line.
They can provide extra space and appeal to certain buyers but they are not a long-term housing solution for most Australians.
Bunnings is riding the shift toward factory-built housing but the real shift is bigger: Australia needs to build high-quality homes at scale, not just sell small pods.
Australia needs a dramatic expansion of factory-based building capacity, supported by policy, investment and a clear pathway from small prototypes to large-volume, high-quality homes for communities in need.
Dr Ehsan Noroozinejad has received competitive funding from both national and international organisations. His most recent funding, focused on integrated housing and climate policy, was awarded by the Australian Public Policy Institute (APPI). He is also a member of Standards Australia and ISO committees on prefabricated buildings.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celeste Rodriguez Louro, Associate Professor, Chair of Linguistics and Director of Language Lab, The University of Western Australia
Claims that artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of surpassing human intelligence have become commonplace. According to some commentators, rapid advances in large language models signal an imminent tipping point – often framed as “superintelligence” – that will fundamentally reshape society.
But comparing AI to individual intelligence misses something essential about what human intelligence is. Our intelligence doesn’t operate primarily at the level of isolated individuals. It is social, embodied and collective. Once this is taken seriously, the claim that AI is set to surpass human intelligence becomes far less convincing.
These claims rest on a particular comparison: AI systems are measured against individual human cognitive performance. Can a machine write an essay, pass an exam, diagnose disease, or compose music as well as a person? On these narrow benchmarks, AI appears impressive.
Yet this framing mirrors the limitations of traditional intelligence testing itself: cultural bias, and a reward for familiarity and practice. The rise of AI should therefore prompt more thought about what we mean by intelligence, pushing us to move beyond narrow cognitive metrics, and even beyond popular expansions such as emotional intelligence, toward richer, more contextual definitions.
Intelligence is not individual brilliance
Human cognitive achievements are often attributed to exceptional individuals, but this is misleading. Research in cognitive science and anthropology shows that even our most advanced ideas emerge from collective processes: shared language, cultural transmission, cooperation and cumulative learning across generations.
No scientist, engineer or artist works alone. Scientific discovery depends on shared methods, peer review and institutions. Language itself – arguably humanity’s most powerful cognitive technology – is a collective achievement, refined and modified over thousands of years through social interaction.
Studies of “collective intelligence” consistently show that groups can outperform even their most capable members when diversity of perspectives, communication and coordination are present. This collective capacity is not an optional add-on to human intelligence; it is its foundation.
AI systems, by contrast, do not cooperate, negotiate meaning, form social bonds or engage in shared moral reasoning. They process information in isolation, responding to prompts without awareness, intention or accountability.
Embodiment and social understanding matter
Human intelligence is also embodied. Our thinking is shaped by physical experience, emotion and social interaction. Developmental psychology shows that learning begins in infancy through touch, movement, imitation and shared attention with others. These embodied experiences ground abstract reasoning later in life.
AI lacks this grounding. Language models learn statistical patterns from text, not meaning from lived experience. They do not understand concepts in the way humans do; they approximate linguistic responses based on correlations in data.
This limitation becomes clear in social and ethical contexts. Humans navigate norms, values and emotional cues through interaction and shared cultural understandings we are socialised into. Machines do not.
A narrow slice of humanity
Proponents of AI progress often point to the vast amounts of data used to train modern systems. Yet this data represents a remarkably narrow slice of humanity.
Around 80% of online content is produced in just ten languages. Although more than 7,000 languages are spoken worldwide, only a few hundred are consistently represented on the internet – and far fewer in high-quality, machine-readable form.
This matters because language carries culture, values and ways of thinking. Training AI on a largely homogenised data set means embedding the perspectives, assumptions and biases of a relatively small portion of the world’s population.
Human intelligence, by contrast, is defined by diversity. Eight billion people, living in different environments and social systems, contribute to a shared but plural cognitive landscape.
AI does not have access to this richness, nor can it generate it independently. The data on which it is trained stems from a highly biased sample, representing only a percentage of world knowledge.
The limits of scaling
Another issue rarely addressed in claims about “superhuman” AI is data scarcity. Large models improve by ingesting more high-quality data, but this is a finite resource. Researchers have already warned that models are approaching the limits of available human-generated text suitable for training.
One proposed solution is to train AI on data generated by other AI systems. But this risks creating a feedback loop in which errors, biases and simplifications are amplified rather than corrected. Instead of learning from the world, models learn from distorted reflections of themselves.
This is not a path to deeper understanding. It is closer to an echo chamber.
Useful tools, not superior minds
None of this is to deny that AI systems are powerful tools. They can increase efficiency, assist research, support decision-making and expand access to information. Used carefully and with oversight, they can be socially beneficial.
But usefulness is not the same as intelligence in the human sense. AI remains narrow, derivative and dependent on human input, evaluation and correction. It does not form intentions, participate in collective reasoning or contribute to the cultural processes that make human intelligence what it is.
The rapid progress of AI has generated excitement – and, in some quarters, exaggerated expectations. The danger is not that machines will out-think us tomorrow, but that inflated narratives distract from real issues: bias, governance, labour impacts and the responsible integration of these tools into society.
A category error
Comparing AI to human intelligence as though they are competing on the same terms is ultimately a category error. Humans are not isolated information processors. We are social beings whose intelligence emerges from cooperation, diversity and shared meaning.
Until machines can participate in that collective, embodied and ethical dimension of cognition – and there is no evidence they can – the idea that AI will surpass human intelligence remains more hype than insight.
Celeste Rodriguez Louro receives funding from Google.
Jennifer Rodger 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.
In a draft decision on Thursday, the fast-track approvals panel declined Trans-Tasman Resources’ (TTR) bid to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.
The panel found there would be a credible risk of harm to Māui dolphins, kororā/little penguin and fairy prion.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said it was a huge win for the environment and the community.
“We’re absolutely delighted to see the proposal not backed. Even the government’s own panel have come out and said seabed mining has little regional or national benefit and that it would only benefit destructive corporations.
“It’s an incredible win for the environment, but massive props to the local campaigns, local community people, iwi, NGOs, researchers, scientists, fishers, just regular, ordinary people who care, who have said the same thing for many years and have fought hard and long.”
TTR have until February 19 to comment on the decision.
Putting profit before people Davidson said the mining company would be putting profit before people and the environment if they tried to appeal it.
“How silly would they look. The message is already very clear. This is destructive, overrides local community voices and Te Tiriti, and it’s harmful and dangerous to our environment, which people actually care about.
“They have no support.”
She said the draft decision set a precedent and sent a message to the government that seabed mining was a “dumb idea”.
“Stop putting forward your stupid ideas.”
Davidson said if the government was relying on seabed mining as a way to grow the economy, they were “at a dead end”.
“It’s short-sighted, it’s stupid and it will not work.”
Trans-Tasman Resources said it would now consider its next options.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The defeat of the Voice referendum was not simply a political loss. It was a political and cultural failure. It exposed, yet again, the profound immaturity of Australia’s political life when it comes to First Nations people. It’s an immaturity that’s shared, in different ways, by governments, by sections of the Australian public and by parts of the Indigenous body politic itself.
For more than a century, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have said the same thing in different ways: we need political voice. Not symbolism. Not better programs designed for us by others. Not endless reviews that gather dust.
We need a recognised, authoritative place within Australia’s democratic system where our voices can be heard, argued over, refined and carried forward. That was the core insight of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
The referendum failed. But what followed has been worse. Rather than a period of reflection, listening and recalibration, we have seen a rapid return to the habits that produced failure in the first place: coercion, denial, performative outrage and a retreat into slogans.
The politics of denial
Nowhere is this clearer than in the annual ritual that follows Australia Day.
Every January, Australia re-enacts the same argument. On one side, barely veiled racism and contempt toward Aboriginal people who ask for a respectful acknowledgement of the violence and dispossession that began on 26 January 1788.
On the other, calls for sovereignty and treaty that are often detached from any serious engagement with history, constitutional reality or political strategy.
Australia Day has become a symbol not of unity, but of political immaturity. Governments insist on a one-size-fits-all celebration in a country that is culturally, historically and politically diverse.
Aboriginal leaders are expected to absorb the pain quietly, while local councils are threatened if they make any changes to celebrations.
Unity also cannot be achieved through symbolic gestures alone. Changing the date, by itself, will not empower our people. Without constitutional reform – without structures that allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect us – we are left arguing over symbols while the underlying power imbalance remains untouched.
That is the tragedy of the post-referendum moment. The failure of the Voice has not produced humility or learning. It has produced entrenchment.
A failed political culture
Non-Indigenous Australia continues to demand unanimity from Aboriginal people — a standard applied to no other group in the country. Disagreement among First Nations people is treated as evidence of illegitimacy rather than as a normal feature of democratic life.
At the same time, parts of Indigenous politics have absorbed the worst habits of the dominant culture. Calls for sovereignty and Treaty are made without articulating what these concepts mean in practice, how they would be achieved, or how they would materially improve the lives of our children.
Culture is invoked rhetorically but not practised — elders ignored, process dismissed, deliberation replaced by performance.
The Regional Dialogues that produced the Uluru Statement were powerful precisely because they involved the crucial work of listening, patience and collaboration. For the first time in more than a decade, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had the time, resources and authority to debate our political future on our own terms.
People disagreed — strongly — but they did so within a shared commitment to process.
The Voice was meant to formalise that space for debate. Its loss has returned us to political fragmentation.
Victoria and the long work of maturity
Against this bleak national picture, Victoria offers a partial — but important — counter example.
Victoria’s treaty and truth-telling processes did not emerge overnight. They followed years of groundwork: community consultation, institutional development, and sustained political commitment. The First Peoples’ Assembly was not imposed; it was built, slowly and imperfectly, through engagement and consent.
This process has not been easy. There are disagreements within Indigenous communities and tensions with government.
But that is precisely the point. Political maturity is not the absence of conflict; it is the capacity to work through conflict without tearing institutions down at the first sign of strain.
Victoria has created political space where Aboriginal people can argue among ourselves, negotiate with government, and begin to develop a more stable relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous authority. It’s not a model that can simply be copied nationally. But it demonstrates what is possible when process is taken seriously.
Nationally, we have done the opposite. We rushed a referendum without adequate civic education, without genuine engagement of non-Indigenous Australians, and without listening to Aboriginal leadership when concerns were raised about timing and design.
So, what now?
The temptation after defeat is to retreat into anger, into denial, into purity politics. That temptation must be resisted.
The Voice is still needed. The underlying problem has not changed. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people remain locked out of meaningful participation in the decisions that shape our lives. Governments continue to manage symptoms rather than address structural causes. Closing the Gap reports record failure with increasing precision, but with diminishing impact.
We need to rebuild political space. That will take time. It will require discipline, humility and a willingness to stay in difficult conversations. It will require non-Indigenous Australians to accept that listening is not weakness, and Indigenous leaders to accept responsibility for process, not just protest.
It will require a political maturity that’s long alluded us. Growing up is the only way to meaningfully improve the lives of First Nations people.
Geoff Scott is the CEO of youth community organisation Just Reinvest. Geoff’s previous positions include: CEO of the Darkinjung Local Aboriginal Land Council; CEO of the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples; CEO of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council; Director General NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs; and Deputy CEO Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. Geoff was the Executive Officer to the Referendum Council during the Regional Dialogues and Constitutional Convention and was a key leader throughout the Uluru Dialogue process. He maintains an affiliation with UNSW Sydney.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Symons, Director of Research and Innovation, School of International Studies, Macquarie University
In the 1960s, major oil-producing nations formed a cartel to drive up the price of oil. It worked. For decades, nations in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) have agreed to manage supply and raise prices.
Economists have long recognised cartel market power can bring accidental environmental benefits. By driving up prices, demand for polluting products drops. One recent analysis found OPEC’s actions had avoided 67 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions between 1971 and 2021 – equivalent to around three years of global oil consumption.
There’s no OPEC for thermal coal. However, Australia and Indonesia together account for around two thirds of seaborne thermal coal exports. If these two nations began acting in tandem to end the approval of new mines, falling future supply would gradually increase prices.
Our recent research points out that a formal treaty to phase out new thermal coal mine approvals would not only bring climate benefits, but could also benefit national budgets, state royalties and regional jobs.
What we’re proposing blends climate action and self-interest. If restricting coal supply boosted prices, producer states would benefit from increased royalties. Owners and workers at existing mines would benefit from stabilising prices. Finally, the green energy transition would be protected from being undermined by a race to consume ultra-cheap coal.
In the 1970s, OPEC’s engineering of higher oil prices drove a shift to more fuel-efficient cars and triggered intense interest in alternative energy sources such as solar. In our time, solar, wind and energy storage have come of age. A treaty to end new coal mines would make the shift even more appealing.
Soaring oil prices during the 1970s drove a shift to fuel efficient cars and accelerated research in new energy sources such as solar. U.S National Archives
What would this look like?
If Australia, Indonesia and others formed a new “Organisation for Coal Transition”, the environmental motivation wouldn’t be the only difference with OPEC. For a start, a much high share of oil is traded internationally than coal, as more countries have their own coal supplies.
But major coal importers such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan now depend on seaborne coal. These nations are committed to accelerating climate action overall and have shown signs of structural demand decline already. Stronger coal prices would spur on the change.
The limited number of major coal exporters also creates potential for cooperation. In 2024, Indonesia controlled almost half of global exports, while Australia’s share was nearly 20%. Projections. If South Africa and Colombia joined a treaty alongside Australia and Indonesia, they would together account for 80% of seaborne exports.
What’s more, a thermal coal export treaty would not be easy to undermine. It takes years to get new mines producing, and deepwater ports able to take coal carriers are limited.
Coal importers could reinforce this treaty, pledging to buy from treaty members alone. Japan and South Korea (which account for 20% of global coal imports) are both seeking a predictable energy transition. These countries have shown willingness to pay a green premium and are investors in existing mines.
New South Wales and Queensland state governments still benefit significantly through royalties and regional jobs. Australia’s coal exports, mine expansion approvals and new applications show little sign of slowing.
This is an increasingly risky strategy. With profit margins falling from recent highs and shifting demand in key markets, the thermal coal industry risks a chaotic future for mining towns.
While policymakers are beginning to focus on transition challenges for a small number of coal mines slated to close, they have largely avoided active intervention. After the NSW Productivity Commission and Net Zero Commission recommended limiting new coal mine approvals, Premier Chris Minns described the idea as “irresponsible”.
A ban backed by industry?
For operators of existing mines, agreeing to limit expansion opportunities is a challenging proposition. But the longer-term benefits would be much clearer if it was coordinated with international competitors and supported by buyers.
The coal export sector is showing signs of shifting to a buyers’ market, as long-term demand plateaus and then declines. This puts exporters such as Australia, Colombia, Indonesia and South Africa at a clear disadvantage.
We’ve already seen the fallout of coal’s market-driven decline in the United States’ Appalachian region Repeating the same mistake would undermine regional communities.
If, however, the shift was well managed, it would be a crucial step towards a coordinated just transition.
Japanese, Chinese, South Korean, Indian and Singaporean firms hold major stakes in Australian and Indonesian coal projects. These investors would benefit if existing assets are safeguarded from oversupply. These same investors would likely rally against more forceful interventions to close existing mines or raise mining taxes.
Climate action for pragmatists
Thermal coal is still mined in almost 60 countries. But only 11 have new mines seeking approval. At the same time, key international importers such as China, India, the European Union, Japan and South Korea are actively aiming to cut coal imports. A no-new-mines treaty would meet countries where they are.
What we are proposing is a pragmatic way to advance climate action. Rather than shuttering existing mines and risking blowback, the treaty and its cartel logic would align Australia’s economic self-interest and its climate goals.
At the United Nations climate talks last year, federal Minister for Climate and Energy Chris Bowen supported efforts to map a fossil fuel phase-out. To date, there’s no clarity on how Australia, a fossil fuel export giant, could do that.
Firmly closing the door to new mines alongside other exporters could offer a way to do this while giving policymakers agency.
The approach we’re proposing wouldn’t end coal use. But it would solve several problems at a stroke – and take a big step forward in the energy transition.
Jonathan Symons is an ordinary member of WePlanet NGO.
Chris Wright is the Principal Analyst at CarbonBridge, a small consulting group aiming to bridge critical decarbonisation challenges. He has been involved in work around the UN climate negotiations for over a decade.
Thriving Kids is back in the spotlight, after the states and territories agreed last week to match the federal government’s A$2 billion dollar investment.
The new national program is targeted at children aged 0-8 with developmental delay and/or autism with low to moderate support needs. Under the proposal, many children currently supported through the NDIS would instead access assistance through this new “foundational supports” program.
But Thriving Kids has been clouded by uncertainty since its surprise announcement last August.
Nearly 500 submissions to a senate inquiry showed many families, advocates and service providers are anxious about the lack of clarity and fear kids could miss out on essential support.
On Tuesday, the government released a report that finally provides more detail.
This is welcome news. But important questions remain about how Thriving Kids will be rolled out, who for, and how the government will measure whether it’s working.
The new detail we have about Thriving Kids
In last week’s deal, the Commonwealth agreed to a delay, pushing back the start date to October.
Changes to NDIS access will not take effect until January 2028, allowing more time for service transition, workforce development and quality assurance.
The long-awaited report from the Thriving Kids Advisory Group has also set out guiding principles and key design features.
Thriving Kids will deliver a mix of universal supports – such as advice and skill-building for families – and targeted supports, “delivered where children live, learn and play”.
Precisely how these will be rolled out depends on each state and territory’s approach and will vary, building on existing services.
Targeted supports could involve group or one-on-one sessions with a specialist to work on particular skills (such as language or social interaction) and take place online or at home, school or childcare, depending on what the child and family needs.
There will be multiple pathways to get onto the program, such as referral from teachers, early childhood educators, and GPs. There will also be formal intake mechanisms but these are up to the states and territories to design.
Significantly, children will not need a formal diagnosis to receive support, removing a process that can be time-consuming, costly and inequitable.
Some children will likely still need a functional analysis of their support needs to access allied health professionals, such as occupational therapists, speech pathologists and physiotherapists.
Butler also indicated these targeted allied health supports would not involve gap fees – an issue that had raised concerns about access and equity.
Thriving Kids will include greater supports for parents. These aim to build self-advocacy skills, help them support their child’s development and navigate complex service systems.
The report also commits to evaluating the program. This means making sure public investment leads to meaningful improvements in children’s lives.
Importantly, children with significant and permanent disability will remain eligible for the NDIS, including those with developmental delay or autism.
What we still don’t know
Despite the additional information released this week, there are outstanding questions.
On Tuesday, Butler commented that “there was a life before the NDIS”, indicating a return to state-run service models for children.
Under Thriving Kids, families will not receive individualised budgets as they did under the NDIS, to purchase supports. Instead, children will access services commissioned and delivered by states and territories.
But this prospect may concern families who recall limited choice, long waiting lists and uneven quality prior to the establishment of the NDIS.
The report does not yet explain how Thriving Kids will avoid replicating these problems, particularly in areas where services are thin on the ground.
It does identify workplace development as critical, and there will be a focus on building disability capability across health services, early childhood education and care, and schools.
However, research consistently shows that workforce capability depends on more than individual skills. So training – while necessary – will not be enough by itself.
School leadership, staffing levels, time, resources and families’ capacity to navigate complex systems all shape whether inclusive practices are possible in practice.
Without addressing these factors, there is a risk responsibility will be shifted onto front-line workers without the conditions they need to succeed. These challenges are likely to be particularly acute in regional and rural areas.
What would make Thriving Kids successful?
In late 2025, we helped convene a policy forum involving 35 stakeholders from across education, health, early childhood and disability sectors to consider what would enable Thriving Kids to succeed.
This forum agreed that Thriving Kids must be holistic and universal, meaning it’s properly embedded wherever children live, play and learn. From the GP office to their school and beyond, there should be as few barriers to entry as possible.
It should be locally led, free of charge and neuro-affirming. This means there is recognition and support for the diverse ways people’s brains function – and this is valued as a strength, not a deficit.
Beyond these principles – which are shared by the Thriving Kids Advisory Group – success will depend on several practical commitments, ensuring:
families, advocates and workers are involved in its design
those working with children with disability are well-resourced and have the right skills, abilities and supports
Thriving Kids and the NDIS work together, rather than operating as separate systems
there are clear pathways for children to transition between services within Thriving Kids and, at age 9, into other supports or the NDIS, and
funding is sustained to prevent geographic inequities.
Supports must be delivered in genuinely inclusive, mainstream settings. Otherwise, routinely withdrawing children from the places they live, play and learn for therapy risks reinforcing their exclusion, rather than participation.
The report’s guiding principles are encouraging. But whether Thriving Kids delivers meaningful change will hinge on the detail of its implementation.
Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC, MRFF and Australian governments.
Molly Saunders 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.
In early January, authorities from South Australia’s Department of Primary Industries took to the streets of Adelaide on the hunt for a suspicious individual.
This individual had been spotted several times in the preceding weeks: they had red cheeks, brown wings and a black crest. It was a red-whiskered bulbul — a non-native bird, often seen around Sydney and Wollongong but not normally present in SA. Most Australians have likely never heard of a red-whiskered bulbul, much less seen one. But these birds have been living here since the First World War.
A spokesperson for the state explained why one little bird was causing such a fuss:
the red-whiskered bulbul is a high-risk pest bird that can damage SA’s vineyards and orchards by eating soft fruit, flower buds and insects, potentially reducing yields or causing crop failure
Is this bulbul really a harbinger of catastrophe for SA’s fruitgrowers? As a historian who researches introduced species in Australia, I suspect there is more at stake here than a few grapes and cherries.
Australia is a country forged through suspicion and fear of outsiders – a theme still prevalent in politics today. The bulbul first arrived here in the heyday of the White Australia Policy, and at the time, its Asian origin influenced the way Australians reacted to it. Could this history still influence attitudes towards it today?
The red-whiskered bulbul’s natural range includes much of India, southern China and Southeast Asia. But humans have brought it to places as far apart as Mauritius, Hawaii and Australia. Nafis Ameen/Creative Commons, CC BY-SA
First bulbuls were likely escapees
The red-whiskered bulbul’s “natural range” — where it lived before humans transported it elsewhere — includes much of India, southern China and Southeast Asia. But humans have brought it to places as far apart as Mauritius, Hawaii and Florida, as well as Australia.
Many of the birds Australians see every day have been introduced since the beginning of colonisation. This is true of domesticated birds such as chickens and pigeons, brought here on the First Fleet in 1788. In the 19th century, “acclimatisers” — naturalists who made it their mission to move species of animal and plant across the globe — successfully introduced several species of wild bird, such as blackbirds and common (or “Indian”) mynas.
Bulbul populations appeared almost simultaneously in both Sydney and Melbourne in the late 1910s. The bulbul was a popular pet at the time, and it’s probable these populations arose from aviary escapees. (This seems to be how the bird became established in the wild in other regions such as Florida.)
At first, the bird prompted not much more than curiosity. Some warned its penchant for fruit would lead it to becoming a pest; others praised it for eating troublesome insects such as aphids.
A.H. Chisholm, ‘Ways of the Wild’, Daily Telegraph (Sydney), 16 December, 1922, 13, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245786530. CC BY-ND
Bulbul scrutinised in era of xenophobia
The bulbul arrived during the zenith of the White Australia Policy, and its Asian origin meant it received extra scrutiny. As early as 1922, commentators wrote about the bird under headlines like “Another Asiatic Menace”, “Asiatic Settler” and “Immigrant Bird”. A 1926 headline in the Melbourne Herald was even more explicit: “Mr. Bulbul: Asiatic Bird That Has Beaten the Migration Laws”. Farmers and gardeners wrote to newspapers to complain of bulbuls eating their fruit, calling the birds “undesirables” and “foreigners in feathers”.
Some people thought these responses were prejudiced, and said so. One correspondent of Sydney’s Evening Newscalled on readers to give “the bul-bul a fair go”. There was no denying that the bird was charming and had a beautiful song, even if it did eat fruit and flowers. Some commentators argued the bulbul had become “naturalised” – that it had earned a right to belong in Australia, regardless of origin.
There is something hopeful in all this. Even at a time of intense and wide-ranging racism and xenophobia, an Asian bird could still “become Australian”.
But these voices were always a minority. As the species was never protected by law, orchardists and gardeners encouraged each other to shoot and trap bulbuls whenever possible. By 1935, an employee of the Sydney Botanic Gardens was shooting up to six bulbuls a day.
Much ado about nothing?
Today, bulbuls still thrive around Greater Sydney, their range stretching north to Newcastle and south to Nowra. But Melburnians rarely see them, according to publicly accessible data on the Birdata and Ebird platforms. Perhaps they have been muscled out by growing numbers of aggressive and adaptable native birds such as noisy miners and pied currawongs.
Like the recent visitor to Adelaide, bulbuls have been spotted occasionally in SA since the 1940s, but decades can pass without a single bulbul being seen in the state. Whether or not bulbuls someday form a viable population in SA remains to be seen. But if they did, would it really be so bad?
We know that some non-native birds, like starlings, cause immense problems for farmers and do compete with native birds for nesting sites. However, there is very little peer-reviewed research on the red-whiskered bulbul in Australia. In 2014, ecologist Matthew Mo wrote there was no evidence that competition between bulbuls and native birds is “ecologically significant”. Even the evidence for its impact on fruit crops and role in spreading weeds remains scant. At best, we have a deficiency of research. At worst, we’re getting worked up about a relatively harmless bird, just because it’s not native.
White Australians of the interwar period let their xenophobic attitudes towards Asian humans distort their view of an Asian bird. I’m not arguing those worried about the bulbul today are doing so because they are personally racist. But today’s anxieties about the bulbul do seem acute, given the lack of any hard evidence. After all, native birds can do enormous damage to fruit crops, too.
In many cases, we’re right to be concerned about the ecological and agricultural impacts of non-native wildlife — I’m not here to defend rabbits, brumbies or feral cats. But that doesn’t mean every introduced species is a catastrophe waiting to happen. The story of the bulbul in Australia should give us pause. During more than a century on this continent it has been, at worst, a minor nuisance. When the intensity of our emotions does not match the evidence, we need to ask ourselves why.
Simon Farley 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.
Peters was not speaking in his capacity as foreign minister, but describing the WHO as an organisation full of “unelected globalist bureaucrats” nonetheless plays into fears that New Zealand’s membership is a risk to national sovereignty.
The rhetoric mirrors wider international narratives that frame global health cooperation as a threat to national interests.
But such fears are misplaced.
The WHO is a global advisory body and cannot override New Zealand law. No WHO instrument has any legal force in New Zealand unless it passes through a domestic implementation process like any other international treaty.
In practice, that means decisions are made in Wellington, through Cabinet and Parliament – not in Geneva.
The most recent amendments to the WHO’s international health regulations explicitly preserve national decision-making flexibility. The pandemic agreement, adopted by the World Health Assembly last year, does the same.
Even during the COVID pandemic, WHO guidance remained advisory. Countries deviated constantly. New Zealand adopted measures stricter than WHO baselines in its elimination strategy by choice. Sovereignty was not lost in 2020. It was exercised.
Why the WHO is easy to attack
Part of the problem for the WHO is not that it is too powerful, but that it is oddly invisible.
As the scientific journal Nature recently noted, the WHO struggles to succinctly explain what it does, not because it does little, but because it does everything only a global public health authority can do. It is the sole body mandated to coordinate international public health action across borders, systems and income levels.
For low-income countries, the WHO is a lifeline providing access to affordable medicines and vaccines, quality and safety standards, laboratory capacity and expertise during disease outbreaks.
For high-income countries like New Zealand, the benefit is less visible but no less real. We rely on the WHO to limit the international spread of infectious diseases before they reach our borders through surveillance, data sharing and coordination that no single country can run alone.
The WHO’s signature achievement was the eradication of smallpox in 1980. It is often invoked nostalgically, as if it were a relic of a more cooperative era. In reality, that success defined the WHO’s modern role, shifting from time-limited eradication campaigns to permanent global surveillance and coordination.
During the COVID pandemic, the WHO provided early alerts, technical guidance and global intelligence, but it did not dictate New Zealand’s response. New Zealand’s elimination strategy was only possible because global information flowed early.
In recent years, the organisation has also strengthened its scientific backbone by embedding evidence review more deeply in decision making, including through its chief scientist’s office. This development rarely features in political attacks on the WHO, which tend to portray it as ideological rather than technical.
The irony is that the WHO is most effective when it is least visible. When surveillance works, outbreaks are smaller. When standards hold, medicines are safe. When coordination succeeds, crises are quieter.
That makes the WHO easy to caricature and to dismantle rhetorically.
What New Zealand gets from the WHO
Lost in this debate is a more important question. What would New Zealand lose by stepping back?
The WHO also sets international reference standards for vaccines, blood products and diagnostics that small regulators rely on to function efficiently and safely. Without that shared scientific baseline, New Zealand would have to either duplicate global work at extraordinary cost or accept greater uncertainty in regulatory decisions.
Then there is the Pacific. New Zealand’s role as a regional partner is amplified, not diluted, through the WHO.
During recent health emergencies in the Pacific, the WHO provided the coordination framework that allowed New Zealand and Australia to act quickly, coherently and legitimately.
Walking away would not make New Zealand more independent, but rather less effective at detecting, preparing for and responding to health threats.
The current resurgence of WHO hostility is not happening in isolation. It closely tracks developments in the United States, where public health institutions have become ideological targets.
In Aotearoa New Zealand, sovereignty has always been exercised through negotiated authority and collective responsibility, not isolation. Sovereignty is not the ability to opt out of reality. It is the ability to choose how you engage with it.
Information sharing, early warning and coordination are not signs of weakness. They are tools that allow national governments to act decisively in their own interests. In practice, sovereignty has never meant standing alone.
New Zealand’s COVID response was successful not because it ignored the WHO, but because it used global intelligence and then made its own choices – sometimes stricter, sometimes different – based on local conditions and values. That is a model to be defended, not caricatured.
Helen Petousis-Harris has recieved funding from GSK for expert advice. Her organisation receives research grants from industry. She is a member of the Aotearoa New Zealand National Immunisation Technical Advisory Group (NITAG). Helen does not work for, consult for, or receive funding from the World Health Organization. She is a former Chair of the WHO Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety (GACVS) and has provided unpaid expert input to vaccine research initiatives, including work related to gonorrhoea vaccines.
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver turns 50 this month. Nominated for four Oscars and winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Festival, Scorsese’s searing, hallucinatory portrait of urban alienation is widely regarded as one of the most important American films of all time.
It is also unquestionably one of the most troubling.
Taxi Driver channels the anger, paranoia and alienation of an American decade shaped by economic decline, imperialist violence and political scandal. Set in the dilapidated squalor of a rapidly deindustrialising New York, the film proffers a forlorn portrait of a society coming apart at the seams.
At its heart sits a deeply unsettling vision of masculinity, bound up in racism and misogyny.
Travis Bickle (portrayed with unnerving intensity by Robert De Niro) was the creation of screenwriter Paul Schrader, who drew heavily on his own experiences of isolation and emotional crisis. Schrader also looked to literature for inspiration, citing Fyodor Dostoevsky’s misanthropic Underground Man as a formative influence.
In placing the European existential hero in an American context, said Schrader:
you find that he becomes more ignorant, ignorant of the nature of his problem. Travis’ problem is the same as the existential hero’s, that is, should I exist? But Travis doesn’t understand that this is his problem, so he focuses it elsewhere: and I think that is a mark of the immaturity and the youngness of our country.
Schrader also drew on contemporary events, including the attempted assassination of right-wing politician George Wallace by Arthur Bremer. The result was a character who crystallised the violent confusions of the era.
Like Bremer, Travis keeps a diary. We see him writing in it at various points in the film and we hear excerpts from it in voiceover:
All the animals come out at night. Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain’ll come and wash all this scum off the streets.
Travis, a decidedly unreliable narrator who claims to have served in Vietnam, takes a job as a taxi driver because he has trouble sleeping. Working almost exclusively at night and wound impossibly tight, he rides through the city in a state of heightened unease.
One morning, after clocking off from a long shift, he notices a young woman through the window of a midtown Manhattan office. This is Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), an ambitious campaign worker employed by a presidential hopeful Charles Palentine (Leonard Harris).
Betsy quickly becomes the object of Travis’s fixation. He begins loitering in his cab outside her workplace, watching her from a distance. Eventually, he somehow persuades her to go on a date with him. It does not go well.
Socially inept, Travis’ idea of a good time is a trip to a Times Square porno theatre. He appears genuinely baffled when Betsy decides she has had enough and storms out, cutting off all contact with him. This only deepens Travis’ indignation and culminates in an angry confrontation at Betsy’s office, where he berates her in front of her coworkers.
Travis starts to spiral, confessing to a fellow cabbie that he’s got “some bad ideas” in his head. He settles on a plan of action. His diary entries become even more ominous.
He starts working out obsessively, loads up on guns and plots the public assassination of Betsy’s boss. Political violence becomes a way of giving shape to his discontent, transforming indignation into a pipe dream of historical consequence. He practices shooting in front of the mirror in his dingy apartment.
De Niro’s improvised line, “You talkin’ to me”, became (to borrow from film scholar Amy Taubin) “arguably the most quoted scene in movie history”.
When his plan to murder Palantine collapses, Travis redirects his attention to Iris, a 12-year-old sex worker played by Jodie Foster. He decides he must “help” her get away from her pimp, believing himself morally just. Carnage ensues – so ferocious that it initially led to the film being refused a commercial rating.
It ends on a bleakly ironic, ambiguous note.
A dark afterlife
Taxi Driver dividedcritics but proved an immediate hit with viewers.
Its disquieting power did not diminish with time; if anything, the film’s afterlife has been almost as troublesome as the work itself.
In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. – who had become obsessed with the film – attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan in an effort to impress Jodie Foster. This incident shook Scorsese, who briefly considered giving up filmmaking altogether.
Travis Bickle has been repeatedly elevated to the status of anti-hero. The character has cast a long cultural shadow, most obviously in Todd Phillips’s Joker (2019).
A 2025 documentary series reflecting on Scorsese’s career returns to this question of legacy. Director Rebecca Williams puts it to Schrader that she gets the impression that “there are a lot of Travis Bickles, especially right now.” Schrader’s reply is blunt:
They’re all talking to each other on the internet. When I first wrote about him, he was talking to nobody. He really was, at that point, the Underground Man. Now he’s the Internet Man.
It is a sobering thought.
Alexander Howard 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.
There has been a spate of articles and commentary in recent days calling on the Australian government to reduce spending.
Those calling for government cuts – mostly long-time advocates of smaller government – claim this would lower inflation, and as a consequence reduce interest rates.
So, what’s actually going on with government spending?
Federal government spending has fluctuated between 23% and 27% of the economy (gross domestic product or GDP) since the mid-1970s. The exception was a spike during the COVID pandemic. Its current level is not particularly unusual.
Straight talking from the RBA
The latest Reserve Bank forecasts estimate that “public demand” (spending by all governments, federal, state and local) expanded by 2.2% during the course of 2025. This was less than the growth in consumer spending (3.1%), home building (5.5%) and business investment (2.5%).
Nor has increased government spending on services led to a wage explosion in the public sector, which was a significant contributor to inflation in the 1970s.
Both public and private sector wages have been growing around an average of 3.5% in recent years.
Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank governor, does not try to direct the government on fiscal policy. Likewise, the government does not tell her what to do with interest rates.
The RBA prides itself on independence. Bullock is an independent agent and a direct speaker. If she thought government spending was the main force driving up inflation, she would say so.
Asked directly at her press conference this week, she instead cited other factors driving the pick-up in inflation:
supply constraints in some sectors
private demand being stronger than forecast
greater-than-expected resilience in the global economy
and easier financial conditions.
Under questioning in parliament, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has also said government spending has not contributed to the latest rate rise decision.
How do we want our taxes to be spent?
An increase in government spending without a matching increase in taxes would, in theory, fuel higher inflation. However, it would depend on the type and location of the spending.
Spending on foreign aid in other countries (or for that matter on US submarine shipyards) pushes up domestic demand by workers and companies in those locations – not in Australia.
It is entirely reasonable for the community to decide it wants a greater share of its resources to be spent collectively. It may want better health and child care or support for the disabled, for example. This is not inflationary if funded from taxes, as the taxes reduce other areas of demand.
The government budget has moved back into deficit this financial year, after two years in surplus. But the current position, and projections over the next decade, are for relatively small deficits by historical standards.
The projected deficits are also lower than in many comparable countries.
There is no correlation between high government spending and high inflation. Nordic countries with much larger governments than Australia, such as Norway and Sweden, have inflation rates of 3.2% and 0.3%, respectively. Turkey, with some of the lowest government spending and debt among advanced countries, has an inflation rate persistently higher than 30%.
Where government spending can lift prices
It could be argued that it would be better for Australia to return to budget balance more quickly. This would make us better placed to respond to a future recession.
But the current fiscal settings are not the primary cause of the uptick in inflation.
They are, at best, a contributor in some areas of the economy. For example, infrastructure spending during COVID caused prices to rise in construction, more generally.
Other things being equal, cutting government spending, while leaving taxes unchanged, could in theory help reduce inflation. It is incumbent on those arguing for this to specify precisely what they would cut.
To make a difference to inflation, cuts would need to be large, targeting areas where spending is growing the fastest, such as health, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, defence and natural disasters.
Trimming at the margins — for example, cutting public service budgets — would not help much. In any case, the federal government has reportedly already asked public service department heads to suggest where 5% could be cut.
In health, costs are rising mainly due to advances in medical technology, which then leads to government spending. This pressure is hard for government to push back on. Voters tend to prefer a longer and healthier life over helping the government reduce inflation.
Another way government can help inflation is on the supply side, by improving productivity. That is a long, hard journey, but one that offers more promise in the long term.
John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist with the Australian Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Stephen Bartos 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.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon faced sustained heckling and had to fend off questions about a revived Treaty Principles Bill as he returned to Waitangi this year.
ACT leader David Seymour predictably attracted his own jeers, and NZ First’s Winston Peters focused on a return serve.
The opposition was not spared criticism either yesterday, with Labour accused of backstabbing, and Te Pāti Māori given a stern word to sort out their internal problems and finish the work it started at Parliament.
But Luxon was clearly the one attracting the most ire.
Even before MPs walked onto the upper Treaty Grounds, a group of 40 or so protesters led by activist Wikatana Popata gathered as he made a rousing speech beneath the flagstaff — calling the coalition “the enemy”.
“These fellas are accountable to America, they’re here on behalf of America e tātou mā. Don’t you see what my uncle Shane [Jones] is doing?” he said.
“My uncle Shane, he’s giving the okay to all the oil drilling and the mining because those are American companies e tātou mā. So wake up.
‘Not scared of arrests’ “We’re not quite sure who our enemy is, well let me remind us: those people that are about to walk in, that’s our enemy . . . we’re not scared of your arrests, we’re not scared of your jail cells or your prisons.
“We’ve been imprisoned . .. we kōrero Māori to our tamariki at home, we practise our tikanga Māori at home, so you will never imprison us.”
The group performed a haka in protest against the politicians’ presence amid the more formal haka welcoming them to the marae. A small scuffle broke out as security stopped some of the protesters — who were shouting “kupapa”, or “traitor” — from advancing closer.
Speaking from the pae in te reo Māori on behalf of the haukāinga, Te Mutunga Rameka paid tribute to retiring Labour MP Peeni Henare and challenged Māori MPs working for the government, asking “where is your kotahitanga, where is your unity?”.
The next speaker, Eru Kapa-Kingi, acknowledged the protesters outside — saying he had challenged from outside in the past and now he was challenging from within the marae.
“Why do we continue to welcome the spider to our house,” he asked.
“This government has stabbed us in the front, but others stabbed us in the back,” he said, referring to Labour.
“Sort yourself out,” was his message to them, and to Te Pāti Māori, which in November ousted two of its MPs.
His criticism of Labour highlighted the departure of Henare, who he said had been — like his mother — silenced by his party.
Henare soon rose to his feet, saying according to custom those named on the marae were entitled to speak — and he spoke of humility.
“We must be very humble, extremely humble. And so that’s why I stand humbly before you . . . Parliament kept me safe over the years.
“We have reached a point in time where I have completed my work. And so I ask everyone to turn their thoughts to what was said this morning: the hopes, aspirations, and desires of our people.”
Henare and his soon-to-be-former boss, Labour leader Chris Hipkins, have both batted away speculation about other reasons behind his departure — not least from NZ First deputy Shane Jones.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins . . . faces the media following the formalities of Waitangi 2026. Image: Mark Papalii/RNZ
Hipkins himself acknowledged Henare in his speech, saying “our hearts are heavy today. We know we are returning you to your whānau in the North, but you are still part of our whānau. And we know where to find you”.
‘Lot of rubbish’ He later told reporters Kapa-Kingi was talking “a lot of rubbish”, that the last Labour government did more for Māori than many others, and Labour had already admitted it got the Foreshore and Seabed legislation wrong.
Seymour was up next and spoke of liberal democratic values; dismissing complaints of colonisation as a “myopic drone”; and saying the defeat of the Treaty Principles Bill was a pyrrhic victory because — he believed — it would return and become law in future.
Deputy Prime Minister and ACT leader David Seymour at Waitangi yesterday. . . defended his comments on colonisation. Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii
Defending his comments on colonisation later, he said it had been more good than bad, as “even the poorest people in New Zealand today live like Kings and Queens compared with most places in most times in history”.
Conch shells and complaints about growing sick during Seymour’s speech clearly fired up the next speaker, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters — who said he did not come to be insulted or speak about politics.
“There’s some young pup out there shouting who doesn’t know what day it is,” he said, calling for a return to the interests of “one people, one nation”.
As the shouting started, Peters repeated his line there would come a time where they wanted to speak to him long before he wanted to speak to them.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson then rose to speak from the mahau, echoing the words of the late veteran campaigner Titewhai Harawira, urging the Crown to honour the Treaty, “it is not hard”.
Green co-leaders Chlöe Swarbrick (centre) and Marama Davidson (in white) sit alongside ACT’s deputy leader Brooke van Velden . . . urging the Crown to honour the Treaty – “it is not hard”. Images: Mark Papalii/RNZ
Green candidates The party announced during the events yesterday it would be standing candidates in three Māori seats, including list MP Huhana Lyndon, lawyer Tania Waikato, and former Te Pāti Māori candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth — and Davidson staked out her party’s claim to those seats.
“When the giants, the rangatira of our Green Party — before the Pāti Māori was even formed — were the only party in the 2004 Foreshore hīkoi to meet the people, the masses, to uphold Te Tiriti,” she said.
With the government trampling treaty and environment while corporations benefited, she said giving land back was core.
While her speech was welcomed with applause, the government’s hecklers soon turned up the noise for the Prime Minister.
After skipping last year’s pōwhiri amid tensions over the Treaty Principles Bill, Luxon began by saying it was a tremendous privilege to be back, someone already shouting “we’ve had enough”.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at Waitangi . . . “It speaks so highly of us that we can come together at times like this.” Image: RNZ/Mark Papalii
He spoke about the the meaning of the Treaty as he saw it, and the importance of discussing and debating rather than turning on one another.
“It speaks so highly of us that we can come together at times like this, but it is also relevant on Waitangi Day as we think about how we’ve grappled and wrestled with other challenging issues as well,” he said.
Shouts and jeers Shouts and jeers could be heard throughout, but he ploughed on undeterred.
“. . . I think we have the Treaty to thank for that, because that has enabled us to engage much better with each other and we should take immense pride in that.”
One person could be heard yelling “treason” as Luxon spoke. He later said it was “typical of what we expect at Waitangi . . . I enjoyed it”.
Asked if his government was honouring the Treaty, he said “yes”.
“We take it very seriously. It’s our obligation to honour the Treaty, but we work it out by actually making sure we are lifting educational outcomes for Māori kids, we work it out by making sure we are lifting health outcomes, we work it out by making sure we’re making a much more safer community.”
The Prime Minister has reiterated his stance several times in the lead-up to Thursday’s pōwhiri, and did so again: “David can have his own take on that but I’m just telling you, it ain’t happening,” he said.
Referendum ‘divisive’ Ahead of the 2023 election, he had said redefining the Treaty’s principles was not his party’s policy and they did not support it, that a referendum — as the bill proposed — would be “divisive and unhelpful”, and a referendum would not be on the coalition table.
He was asked, given that, how ironclad his guarantee could be with an election campaign still to come and governing arrangements yet to be confirmed.
“We’ve been there and we killed it, so we’re done,” he said, clearly hoping for finality on the matter.
Te Tai Tokerau kaumātua and veteran broadcaster Waihoroi Shortland bookended the speeches.
Beginning with a Winston Churchill quote — that democracy is a bad form of government but the others are worse — Shortland said it was easy to remark on how divisive Māori were “when you all live in the most divisive house in the country”.
He called for Henare to be allowed to leave politics with dignity, but extended no such luxury for Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi.
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi . . . “It’s alright to have problems. But we must experience those problems in our own house.” Image: Mark Papalii/RNZ
“Rawiri, I cannot allow you to come away. Your work is not done. It is crushing to see and to hear what the House does kia koutou, kia tātou, ki te Māori — but we sent you there nevertheless, and that work is not done. Find a way.”
‘Feel the pain’ Waititi had spoken earlier, thanking Eru Kapa-Kingi for what he had said.
“I can hear the anger and I can feel the pain. And the courage to stand before the people and say what you had to say,” he said.
He said the party wanted to meet with Ngāpuhi but had been “scattered” when invited to a hui in November, and indicated an eagerness to meet.
“We are still eager to gather with you but we must make the proper arrangements before we can,” he said.
“It’s alright to have problems. But we must experience those problems in our own house. If those problems go outside, the horse will bolt.”
He said the current government was “nibbling like a sandfly” at the Treaty, and there was “only one enemy before us, and it is not ourselves”.
But that fell short of what Mariameno Kapa-Kingi had hoped for, telling reporters she initially thought an apology was coming.
She said she was disappointed Waititi did not fully address their stoush in his speeches, and she was committed to standing in Te Tai Tokerau — presumably, regardless of her party affiliation.
“I’m not going anywhere until our people tell me otherwise. I’ve got much to do.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The next few months may be the most crucial Jim Chalmers has faced as treasurer, at least for judgements about his ability to drive change.
They could tell us whether Chalmers really is as committed to serious economic reform as he claims, and how much influence he has to take Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with him on a journey that might involve spending political capital.
As the education year gears up, think of it as Chalmers preparing for his first personal assignment of Labor’s second term.
The background to Chalmers’ test is economically grim, but the political context provides wide-open opportunities.
Last week’s inflation hike (to 3.8% in the year to December), and this week’s interest rate rise (to 3.85%) brought a jolt of economic reality.
Pre-election, things felt more positive. Inflation had been artificially held down through the energy rebates. Real wages had been creeping up. Labor had more handouts on the way. All that (as well as an inept opposition) helped the government glide through the election to its massive majority.
But now the immediate future has darkened for many households. Inflation is forecast to remain high. Interest rates are widely expected to rise further. Real wages are not expected to grow until mid-next year.
Is this the time for ambitious reform, which often comes with short-term pain and losers? But then there is that old question: if not now, when?
The May 12 budget will be the first of this parliamentary term, in theory the best time for hard decisions. The government has not only a huge lower house majority but a fairly pliant Senate, where it can get tough measures through with the support of either the Greens (if they’re attractive to the left) or the conservatives (on the right flank). The opposition is a shambles and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, so its attacks will have little impact.
Economists would mostly agree reform needs to include significant cuts to, and containment of, spending. Chalmers is very sensitive to the argument Labor’s high spending is contributing to inflationary pressures, but he knows action has to be taken to improve the fiscal situation. The government this week announced an extensive sell-off of defence assets to produce some modest revenue that it says will go into the defence budget.
Chalmers flags the budget will contain savings. To get the budget into better shape these need to be substantial, without smoke and mirrors. One should be suspicious if once again the government lauds cuts to consultants, which have been a go-to bucket for past savings.
Yet here is the dilemma. While many economic observers believe the budget has to be put in a better position, the public wants more and more from government, in services, benefits and other spending. Attempts to curb the growth of programs can come with a lot of blowback, as did the efforts to bring NDIS spending growth to manageable proportions.
So, the first test for Chalmers will be whether he can achieve adequate structural savings.
Pre-budget messaging is often Delphic, but Chalmers is sending some signals, in addition to the one on savings.
First, he believes he has a strong mandate from last year’s economic reform roundtable to embark on tax reform.
Second, he is focused on finding ways of tackling intergenerational inequity, particularly in relation to housing.
One way of pursuing intergenerational equity broadly would be to commit to a medium-term fiscal strategy of balancing the budget over the economic cycle. This avoids loading debt onto future generations.
In terms of specifics, speculation is running hot that the capital gains discount could be reviewed. This discount means people are taxed on only 50% of the capital gain from the sale of assets held for more than a year. The debate is particularly centred on housing properties, given the affordability crisis.
While saying the government’s attention is on boosting supply, Chalmers has carefully not ruled out trimming this tax break. If the government went down this path, which would tilt the advantage away from investors, it would have to decide whether to confine the change to housing, rather than including other assets. It seems more likely it would.
Changing the capital gains discount would make only a limited difference to housing affordability. It would be emblematic rather than dramatic.
The other main tax option affecting housing would be to limit negative gearing in some way (such as by capping the number of properties an investor could negatively gear). Given his past promises, this would be highly problematic for Albanese.
Very much in the too-hard basket is a non-tax reform: shaking up industrial relations in the construction sector, where productivity has been going backwards in recent years. This is particularly needed in non-housing construction, but benefits would flow on to housing. If Chalmers could persuade his colleagues to take some measures here he’d be a miracle-worker, but this would have Labor’s union base up in arms.
Circling back to tax, a far-reaching reform that would help younger people (though not directly related to housing) would be to bring in tax indexation. But governments are loath to go down this road because they want to keep control of when to give tax cuts, and how to frame them.
Before, during and after the economic roundtable, Chalmers highlighted, as a reform priority, reducing excessive regulation. His reading text at the time was Abundance by left-leaning authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, who (counterintuitively for those on the left) set out a deregulatory agenda.
At the end of the roundtable, Chalmers listed actions that had been endorsed, including to finalise the long-stalled reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The government landed the EPBC changes late last year. It also announced an AI plan, which was on the meeting’s agenda. But the new road user charge remains in negotiations and many other measures discussed at the summit are still in progress. Come budget time, Chalmers will be aiming to have more of his homework from the roundtable completed.
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.
A key part of the negotiation was $2 billion designed to help hospitals move more than 3,000 patients stranded in hospital waiting for discharge to a more appropriate aged-care facility.
However this wasn’t included in the final agreement. Instead, the states will need to dip into their overall funding allocation to pay for any changes.
Being stuck in hospital is not good for older people or their families. Stranded older people are at risk of getting an infection in hospital. Their families are under pressure to find and agree to long-term support.
It’s also bad for hospitals, which end up allocating scarce resources to patients who could be much more efficiently looked after in a residential care facility or with home support.
This results in unhappy patients and families, much higher health-care costs, and longer waits for others who need hospital care.
So how did we get into this situation? And what might happen next?
Why are patients stranded?
Most older people waiting for discharge need a pathway to rehabilitation and ongoing support. That includes transition care to facilities such as rehabilitation centres or units and ongoing support at home, or residential care.
About 60% of older patients discharged from hospital through transition care go home; the remainder need residential care.
Discharge is more likely to be delayed when this transition care is unavailable or poorly planned, and there is a shortage of home and residential care.
The broader problem is the disconnect between the Commonwealth-run aged care and disability programs and the state and territory-run public hospital system.
Rising demand and long waits
Demand for aged care is increasing dramatically as more people reach older age. The proportion of population aged 65 and over has increased from 14.7% to 17.3% over the past decade and it is projected to increase to 19.3% over the next.
At any one time, about one-quarter of those aged 65 and over use either home care or residential care.
But the supply of support at home and residential care has not kept up with growing demand. Despite the introduction of a new aged care system in November last year, unacceptably long waiting times for aged care support at home and residential care persist.
In 2024-25, the average waiting time for a home care package for eligible older people was a staggering 245 days, double what it was a year earlier.
The wait for residential care was little better. On average older people eligible for residential care waited for 162 days.
Shifting costs to patients
The Commonwealth is determined to reign in the cost of its long-term care programs for older people and people with disabilities.
Government has been unwilling to consider levies, taxes and insurance models to underwrite the costs of aged care.
Instead, it has introduced a user-pays model. So at the same time as waiting times have increased, out-of-pocket costs have risen.
With the new aged care model introduced last November, for residential care:
the maximum cost of buying or renting a place has increased by nearly 40%
the lifetime cap on out-of-pocket costs has increased by about 60%
part-pensioners and self funded retirees must now pay a new “hotelling” contribution
providers are increasingly charging optional extra service fees.
For the new Support at Home program, all new users, including full pensioners, will now pay mandatory out-of-pocket contributions for everyday services such as cleaning, laundry and gardening, and independent living support including showering and toileting.
Effectively, the Commonwealth funds and regulates aged care from Canberra, and lets the local market of providers and consumers sort out the price of services and where they are provided. The Commonwealth has no direct involvement in their planning or management.
The result is a postcode lottery of fragmented home and residential care providers. These are difficult to navigate and have little connection to hospital services.
About a quarter of the 700 residential care providers report they are breaking even or making a loss. Their return-on-investment isn’t sufficient to encourage enough capital investment to address the shortfall of 10,000 aged care beds per year.
Meanwhile, cost pressures are driving increasingly larger “big box” corporatised institutional facilities to maximise their profits.
Without either a low-cost capital investment fund from the government or higher returns on investment, providers will be unwilling to take the risk of investing in new beds to meet the shortfall.
The Commonwealth is betting that increased charges for residential aged care users will improve the return on investment and encourage new building.
Home-care providers are also feeling squeezed
Similarly, around 25% of support at home providers report breaking even or losing money and putting up their hourly rates to make ends meet.
For the increasing number of self-funded retirees, these costs are high and may discourage them from using home care when they need it.
What might happen next?
It’s unclear the new user-pays model will deliver the necessary uplift in return on investment to increase the supply of aged care services in the near future.
If it doesn’t, some of the hospital agreement funding will need to be used to increase the supply of residential and home care.
Western Australia is already taking action to encourage more investment in residential care. Whether others do so remains to be seen.
The states may also invest funds in their own transition care, hospital-in-the home and rehabilitation facilities to ease pressure on hospitals.
Hal Swerissen has received government funding and grants to investigate and provide advice on health and aged care services. He is currently the Deputy Chair of the Bendigo Kangan Institute and a director of the Victorian TAFE Association.
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